I 


£  r  n 


A. 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW; 

OR, 

A  HISTORY  OF  THE  WORKING  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
GOVERNMENT  FOR  THIRTY  YEARS, 

FROM  1820   TO   1850. 

CHIEFLY   TAKEN 

FROM  THE  CONGRESS  DEBATES,  THE  PRIVATE  PAPERS  OF  GENERAL  JACKSON, 

AND  THE  SPEECHES  OF  EX-SENATOR  BENTON,  WITH  HIS 

ACTUAL  VIEW  OF  MEN  AND  AFFAIRS  : 


WITH 

I    I 

HISTORICAL  NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS,  AND  SOME  NOTICES  OF  EMINENT 
*  DECEASED  COTEMPORARIES. 

!• 


BT  A  SENATOR  OF  THIRTY  YEARS. 

IN    TWO    VOLUMES. 

VOL.  II. 

RSITY  OF 

[  v 

NEW    YORK: 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

846  AND  848  BROADWAY. 
LONDON:    16  LITTLE    BEIT  A  IN. 

1856. 


Entered  according  to  act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1856,  by 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York. 


• 
• 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  II. 


HAP.  PAGE 

I.    Inauguration  of  Mr.  Van  Buren  .  7 

II.    Financial  and  Monetary  Crisis— General  Sus 

pension  of  Specie  Payments  by  the  Banks  9 

III.    Preparation  for  tlie   Distress    and   Suspen 

sion 11 

IV     Progress  of  the  Distress,  and  Preliminaries 

for  the  Suspension 16 

V.     Actual  Suspension  of  the  Blanks— Propaga 

tion  of  the  Alarm 20 

VI.  Transmigration  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  from  a  Federal  to  a  State  Institu- 
tion          23 

VII.  Effects  of  the  Suspension— General  Derange- 

ment of  Business— Suppression  and  Eidi- 
cule  of  the  Specie  Currency — Submission 
of  the  People— Call  of  Congfess       .        .  26 

VIII.  Extra  Session— Message,  and  Eecommenda- 

tions 28 

Attacks  on  the  Message— Treasury  Notes  32 
Eetention  of  the  Fourth  Deposit  Instalment         36 
Independent  Treasury  and  Hard  Money  Pay- 
ments                 .  39 

Attempted  Eesumption  of  Specie  Payments  42 
Bankrupt  Act  against  Banks  ....  43 
Bankrupt    Act    for    Banks  —  Mr.  Benton's 

Speech 45 

Divorce  of  Bank  and  State— Mr.  Benton's 

Speech 56 

.First  Eegular  Session  under  Mr.  Van  Bu- 

ren's  Administration — His  Message         .  65 
Pennsylvania  Bank  of  the  United  States- 
Its  Use  of  the  Defunct  Notes  of  the  ex- 
pired Institution 67  s 

XVIII.    Florida  Indian  War— Its  Origin  and   Con- 
duct  70 

XIX.    Florida  Indian  War— Historical  Speech  of 

Mr.  Benton 72 

XX.    Eesumption  of  Specie  Payments  by  the  New 

York  Banks 83 

XXI.    presumption  of  Specie  Payments— -Historical 

Notices— Mr.  Benton's  Speech— Extracts         85 


CHAP.  PAGE 

XXII.    Mr.  Clay's  Eesolution  in  Favor  of  Eesum- 
ing  Banks,  and  Mr.  Benton's  Eemarks 

upon  it 91 

XXIII.    Eesumption  by  the  Pennsylvania  United 
States  Bank ;  and  others  which  followed 

her  lead 94 

■/XXIV.  Proposed  Annexation  of  Texas — Mr.  Pres- 
ton's Motion  and  Speech— Extracts  .  94 
XXV.  Debate  between  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Cal- 
houn, Personal  and  Political,  and  lead- 
ing to  Expositions '  and  Vindications  of 
Public  Conduct  which  belong  to  His 

tory 97 

XXVI.    Debate   between  Mr.  Clay  and   Mr.  Cal- 
houn—Mr.  Clay's  Speech— Extracts        .      101 
XXVII.     Debate  between  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Calhoun 

— Mr.  Calhoun's  Speech— Extracts      .  103 

XXVIII.    Debate  between  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Calhoun 

— Eejoinders  by  each         ....      112 
XXIX.    Independent    Treasury,    or,    Divorce    of 
Bank  and  State— Passed  in  the  Senate 
—  Lost  in  the    House    of    representa- 
tives       . 124 

XXX.  Public  Lands— Graduation  of  Price— Pre- 
emption System— Taxation  when  Sold  .  125 
XXXI.  Specie  Basis  for  Banks— One-third  of  the 
Amount  of  Liabilities  the  Lowest  Safe 
Proportion — Speech  of  Mr.  Benton  on 
the  Eecharter  of  the  District  Banks    .  128 

_  XXXII.  The  North  and  the  South— Comparative 
Prosperity  —  Southern  Discontent — Its 

True  Cause 130 

XXXIII.  Progress  of  the  Slavery  Agitation— Mr.  Cal- 
houn's Approval  of  the  Missouri  Compro- 
mise         134 

XXXIV.    Death  of  Commodore  Eodgers,  and  Notice 

of  his  Life  and  Character  ....      144 

XXXV.    Anti-duelling  Act 148 

XXXVI.  Slavery  Agitation  in  the  House  of  Eepre- 
sentatives,  and  Eetiring  of  Southern 
Members  from  the  Hall  .  150 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  II. 


4 


CHAP.  *  PAGE 

*  XXXVII.    Abolitionists  Classified  by  Mr.  Clay*-Ul- 

tras    Denounced  —  Slavery    Agitators 

North  and  South  Equally  denounced 

as  Dangerous  to  the  Union     .        .        .      154 

XXXVIII.    Bank  of  the  United  States— Resignation 

of  Mr.  Biddle — Final  Suspension      .  157 

XXXIX.    First  Session    Twenty-sixth  Congress — 
Members — Organization — Political  Map 

of  the  House 158 

XL.    First  Session  of  the  Twenty-sixth  Con 

gress— President's  Message       .        .  162 

XLI.    Divorce  of  Bank  and  State — Divorce  de 

creed .      164 

XLII.    Florida    Armed    Occupation    Bill— Mr. 

Benton's  Speech — Extracts 
XLIII.    Assumption  of  the  State  Debts 
XLIV     Assumption  of  the  State  Debts— Mr.  Ben' 

ton's  Speech — Extracts 
XLV.    Death  of  General  Samuel  Smith,  of  Mary 
land ;  and  Notice  of  his  Life  and  Char 

acter         

XLVI.  Salt— the  Universality  of  its  Supply- 
Mystery  and  Indispensability  of  its  Use 
— Tyranny  and  Impiety  of  its  Taxation 
— Speech  of  Mr.  Beaton— Extracts  . 

XLVII.    Pairing  off 

XL VIII.    Tax  on  Bank  Notes— Mr.  Benton's  Speech 

— Extracts 

XLIX.    Liberation  of  Slaves  belonging  to  Ameri- 
can Citizens  in  British  Colonial  Ports  . 
L.    Besignation  of  Senator    Hugh   Lawson 
White  of  Tennessee— His  Death— Some 
Notice  of  his  Life  and  Character 
LI.    Death  of  Ex-Senator  Hayne  of  South  Car- 
olina— Notice  of  his  Life  and  Character 
LII.    Abolition  of  Specific  Duties  by  the  Com- 
promise Act  of  1833 — Its  Error,  and 
Loss  to  the  Eevenue,  shown  by  Expe- 
rience        189 

LIIL    Refined   Sugar  and   Rum  Drawbacks — 

their  Abuse   under   the   Compromise 

Act  of  1833— Mr.  Benton's  Speech    .  190 

LIV.    Fishing  Bounties  and  Allowances,  and 

their  Abuse — Mr.  Benton's    Speech — 

Extracts 194 

LV.    Expenditures  of  the  Government        .  198 
LVI.    Expenses  of  the  Government,  Compara- 
tive and   Progressive,  and   Separated 
from  Extraordinaries      ....      200 
LV1I.    Death  of  Mr.  Justice  Barbour  of  the  Su- 
preme Court,  and  Appointment  of  Pe- 
ter V.  Daniel,  Esq.,  in  his  place        .  202 
LVIII.    Presidential  Election         ....      208 
LIX.    Conclusion  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  Adminis- 
tration          k^..207 

LX    Inauguration  of  President  Harrison — His 

Cabinet— Call  of  Congress— and  Death       209 
LXI.    Accession  of  the  Vice-President  to  the 

Presidency 211 

LXIL    Twenty-seventh  Congress— First  Session 
— List  of  Members,  and  Organization  of 

the  House 213 

LXIII.    First  Message  of  Mr.  Tyler  to  Congress, 

and  Mr.  Clay's  Programme  of  Business     215 
\     LXIV.    Repeal  of  the  Independent  Treasury  Act      219 
LXV.    Repeal  of  the  Independent  Treasury  Act 

—Mr.  Benton's  Speech  .       .       .220 


LXVI. 

LXVII. 

\JLXVIII. 

LXIX 

LXX. 


LXXI. 

171 

LXXII. 

172 

LXXIII. 

LXXIV. 

LXXV. 

176 

178 

LXXVI. 

179 

LXXVI1. 

182 

LXXV  III. 

184 

LXXIX. 

186 

LXXX. 

LXXXI. 

LXXXII. 


LXXXI11 


LXXX1V 
LXXXV. 


LXXXVI. 
LXXXVII. 

LXXXVIII. 

LXXXIX. 

XC. 


XCI. 


XCII. 
XCIII. 


XCIV. 


The  Bankrupt  Act— What  it  was— and 

how  it  was  Passed  .       .        .        . 
Bankrupt  Bill— Mr.  Benton's  Speech — 
Extracts 

Distribution  of  the  Public  Land  Reve- 
nue, and  Assumption  of  the  State 
Debts       .        .        . 

Institution  of  the  Hour  Rule  in  Debate 
in  the  House  of  Representatives — Its 
Attempt,  and  Repulse  in  the  Senate 

Bill  for  the  Relief  of  Mrs.  Harrison, 
Widow  of  the  late  President  of  the 
United  States 

Mrs.  Harrison's  Bill— Speech  of  Mr. 
Benton — Extracts    .... 

Abuse  of  the  Naval  Pension  System — 
Vain  attempt  to  Correct  it 

Home  Squadron,  and  Aid  to  Private 
Steam  Lines 

Recharter  of  the  District  Banks — Mr. 
Benton's  Speech— Extracts 

Revolt  in  Canada — Border  Sympathy — 
Firmness  of  Mr.  Van  Buren— Public 
Peace  Endangered — and  Preserved — 
Case  of  McLeod       .... 

Destruction  of  the  Caroline. — Arrest  and 
Trial  of  McLeod  —  Mr.  Benton's 
Speech — Extracts        .... 

Refusal  of  the  House  to  allow  Recess 
Committees 

Reduction  of  the  Expense  of  Foreign 
Missions  by  reducing  the  Number     . 

Infringement  of  the  Tariff  Compromise 
Act  of  1833— Correction  of  Abuses  in 
Drawbacks       .        .        .        . 

National  Bank— First  Bill      . 

Second  Fiscal  Agent — Bill  Presented— 
Passed — Disapproved  by  the  Presi- 
dent   •    . 

Secret  History  of  the  Second  Bill  for  a 
Fiscal  Agent,  called  Fiscal  Corpora- 
tion— Its  Origin  with  Mr.  Tyler — Its 
Progress  through  Congress  under  his 
Lead — Its  Rejection  under  his  Veto 

The  Veto  Message  hissed  in  the  Senate 
Galleries 

Resignation  of  Mr.  Tyler's  Cabinet   . 

Repudiation  of  Mr.  Tyler  by  the  Whig 
Party  —  their  Manifesto  —  Counter 
Manifesto  by  Mr.  Caleb  Cushing 

The  Danish  Sound  Dues    . 

Last  Notice  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States    

End  and  Results  of  the  Extra  Session 

First  Annual  Message  of  President  Tyler 

Third  Plan  for  a  Fiscal  Agent,  called 
Exchequer  Board  —  Mr.  Benton's 
Speech  against  it — Extracts  . 

The  Third  Fiscal  Agent,  entitled  a 
Board  of  Exchequer        .    .        .  '     . 

Attempted  Repeal  of  the  Bankrupt  Act 

Death  of  Lewis  Williams,  of  North 
Carolina,  and  Notice  of  his  Life  and 
Character 

The  Civil  List  Expenses— the  Contin- 
gent Expenses  of  Congress— and  the 
Revenue  Collection  Expense 


240 


247 


257 


265 


271 


273 


291 


304 


307 
817 


331 


342 


358 


357 


372 
373 


376 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  IL 


chap. 

xcv. 

XCVI. 
XCVII. 

XCVIII. 
XCIX. 

c. 

CL 

CII. 

cm. 

CIV. 

cv. 

CVL 

OVII. 

CVIIL 

CIX. 

CX. 

CXI. 
X  CXII. 


J: 


CXIII. 
CXIV. 

cxv. 


CXVL 
CXVII. 

CXVIII. 
CXIX. 

cxx. 

CXXI. 
CXXII. 
CXXIII. 


exxv. 

CXXYI. 


CXXVII. 
CXXVIII. 


CXXIX. 

exxx. 


CXXXI. 


CXXXII. 


CXXXIII. 


OXXXIV. 

,  exxxv. 


CXXXYI. 


CXXXVII. 


>: 


Resignation  and  Valedictory  of  Mr.  Clay    .      898 

Military  Department— Progress  of  its  Ex- 
pense        404 

Paper  Money  Payments  —  Attempted  by 
the  Federal  Government— Resisted— Mr. 
Benton's  Speech 406 

Case  of  the  American  Brig  Creole  with 
Slaves  for  New  Orleans,  carried  by  Mu- 
tiny into  Nassau,  and  the  Slaves  Lib- 
erated       409 

Distress  of  the  Treasury— Three  Tariff  Bills, 
and  Two  Vetoes— End  of  the  Compro- 
mise Act      413 

Mr.  Tyler  and  the  Whig  Party— Confirmed 
Separation 417 

Lord  Ashburton's  Mission,  and  the  British 
Treaty 420 

British  Treaty  — The  Pretermitted  Sub- 
jects—Mr. Benton's  Speech— Extracts  426 

British  Treaty  —  Northeastern  Boundary 
Article  —  Mr.  Benton's  Speech  —  Ex- 
tracts     438 

British  Treaty— Northwestern  Boundary- 
Mr.  Benton's  Speech— Extracts    .        .  441 

British  Treaty  —  Extradition  Article  —  Mr. 
Benton's  Speech^Extract         .        .        .      444 

British  Treaty— African  Squadron  for  the 
Suppression  of  the  Slave  Trade  — Mr.  <s>CXXXVIII 

Benton's  Speech — Extract     .        .        .  449 

Expense  of  "the  Navy — Waste  of  Money- 
Necessity  of  a  Naval  Peace  Establish- 
ment, and  of  a  Naval  Policy      .        .        .      452 

Expenses  of  the  Navy — Mr.  Benton's  Speech 
—Extracts       ..*...  456 

Message  of  the  President  at  the  Opening 
of  the  Regular  Session  of  1842-8       .        .      460 

Repeal  of  the  Bankrupt  Act— Mr.  Benton's 
Speech — Extracts 463 

Military  Academy  and  Army  Expenses       .      466 

Emigration  to  the  Columbia  River,  and 
Foundation  of  its  Settlement  by  Ameri- 
can Citizens  —  Fremont's  First  Expedi- 
tion   468 

Lieutenant  Fr6mont's  First  Expedition — 
Speech,  and  Motion  of  Senator  Linn        .      478 

Oregon  Colonization  Act  —  Mr.  Benton's 
Speech 479 

Navy  Pay  and  Expenses— Proposed  Reduc- 
tion—Speech of  Mr.  Meriwether,  of  Geor- 
gia—Extracts       482 

Eulogy  on  Senator  Linn — Speeches  of  Mr. 
Benton  and  Mr.  Crittenden  .        .        .  485 

The  Coast  Survey — Attempt  to  diminish 
its  Expense,  and  to  expedite  its  Comple- 
tion by  restoring  the  Work  to  Naval  and 
Military  Officers 487 

Death  of  Commodore  Porter,  and  Notice  of 
his  Life  and  Character .        ...  491 

Refunding  of  General  Jackson's  Fine  .      409 

Repeal  of  the  Bankrupt  Act  — Attack  of 
Mr.  Cushing  on  Mr.  Clay— Its  Rebuke  503 

Naval  Expenditures  and  Administration — 
Attempts  at  Reform— Abortive    .        .  507 

Chinese  Mission  —  Mr.  Cushing's  Appoint- 
ment and  Negotiation        ....      510 
The  Alleged  Mutiny,  and  the  Executions 
(as  they  were  called)  on  Board  the  United 
States  man-of-war,  Somers    .       .       .  522 


CHAP. 

CXXIV. 


PAGR 


CXXXIX. 


CXL. 


CXLI. 


CXLII. 


CXLIII. 


CXL1V. 
CXLV. 


CXLVI. 

CXLVII. 
^  CXLVIII. 

CXLIX. 


CL. 
CLI. 


CLII. 


CLIII. 


CLIV. 
CLV. 


Retirement  of  Mr.  Webster  from  Mr. 
Tyler's  Cabinet 

Death  of  William  II.  Crawford  . 

First  Session  of  the  Twenty-eighth 
Congress— List  of  Members— Organi- 
zation of  the  House  of  Representatives 

Mr.  Tyler's  Second  Annual  Message 

Explosion  of  the  Great  Gun  on  Board 
the  Princeton  man-of-war — the  Killed 
and  Wounded 

Reconstruction  of  Mr.  Tyler's  Cabinet  . 

Death  of  Senator  Porter,  of  Louisiana — 
Eulogium  of  Mr.  Benton 

Naval  Academy,  and  Naval  Policy  of 
the  United  States         .... 

The  Home  Squadron— Its  Inutility  and 
Expense 

Professor  Morse — His  Electro-Magnetic 
Telegraph 578 

Fremont's  Second  Expedition        .       .      579 

Texas  Annexation — Secret  Origin — Bold 
Intrigue  for  the  Presidency      . 

Democratic  Convention  for  the  Nomi- 
nation of  Presidential  Candidates 

Presidential — Democratic  National  Con- 
vention—  Mr.  Calhoun's  Refusal  to 
Submit  his  Name  to  it — His  Reasons 

Annexation  of  Texas— Secret  Negotia- 
tion—Presidential Intrigue— Schemes 
of  Speculation  and  Disunion  . 

Texas  Annexation  Treaty — First  Speech 
of  Mr.  Benton  against  it — Extracts     . 

Texas  or  Disunion — Southern  Conven- 
tion— Mr.  Benton's  Speech — Extracts 

Texas  or  Disunion  —  Violent  Demon- 
strations in  the  South — Southern  Con- 
vention proposed      .... 

Rejection  of  the  Annexation  Treaty- 
Proposal  of  Mr.  Benton's  Plan    . 

Oregon  Territory — Conventions  of  1818 
and  1828  —  Joint  Occupation  —  At- 
tempted Notice  to  Terminate  it     . 

Presidential  Election       .... 

Amendment  of  the  Constitution— Elec- 
tion of  President  and  Vice-President 
—Mr.  Benton's  Plan 

The  President  and  the  Senate— Want 
of  Concord— Numerous  Rejections  of 
Nominations 

Mr.  Tyler's  Last  Message  to  Congress 

Legislative  Admission  of  Texas  into  the 
Union  as  a  State       .... 

The  War  with  Mexico  —  Its  Cause — 
Charged  on  the  Conduct  of  Mr.  Cal- 
houn— Mr.  Benton's  Speech 

Mr.  Polk's  Inaugural  Address — Cabinet 

Mr.  Blair  and  the  Globe  superseded  as 
the  Administration  Organ— Mr.  T.  Rit- 
chie and  the  Daily  Union  substituted 

Twenty-ninth  Congress— List  of  Mem- 
bers—First Session— Organization  of 
the  House 

Mr.  Polk's  First  Annual  Message  to 
Congress 657 

Death  of  John  Forsyth       ...  659 

Admission  of  Florida  and  Iowa      .        .      660 
Negotiations    com- 


562 


563 
565 


567 


571 


575 


581 


591 


599 


600 


613 


616 


624 


626 


629 


632 


649 


650 


655 


j     CLVI./  Oregon    Treaty 

V    menced,  and  broken  off 


\ 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  II. 


CLXXXL 


Vclxxxii. 


*  CLXXXIIL 


CLXXXIV. 


CLXXXV. 
CLXXXVL 


CLXXXVII. 


CHAP.  PAGB      CHAP. 

CLVIL    Oregon  Question— Notice  to  abrogate  the  CLXXVIIL 

Article  in  the  Treaty  for  a  Joint  Occn-  CLXXIX 

pation — The    President   denounced  in  CLXXX. 

the  Senate  for  a  supposed  Leaning  to 
the  Line  of  Forty -nine  ....  662 
,  CLVIII.  Oregon  Territorial  Government — Boun- 
daries and  History  of. the  Country — 
Frazer's  River — Treaty  of  Utrecht — Mr. 
Benton's  Speech— Extracts        .       .  667 

^  (  CLIX.  jOregon  Joint  Occupation — Notice  author- 
ized for  terminating  it— British  Govern- 
ment offers  the  Line  of  49— Quandary  of 
the  Administration  —  Device  —  Senate 
Consulted— Treaty  made  and  Ratified  6T3 
CLX.  Meeting  of  the  Second  Session  of  the  29th 
Congress— President's  Message— Vigo- 
rous Prosecution  of  the  War  Recom- 
mended— Lieutenant-general   proposed 

,•  to  be  created 67T 

*S^CLXL    War  with  Mexico— The  War  Declared, 
and  an  Intrigue  for  Peace  commenced 

Xthe  same  Day 679 
j  CLXIL    Bloodless  Conquest  of  New  Mexico — How 
it  was  Done — Subsequent  Bloody  In- 
/                      surrection,  and  its  Cause     .        .        .  682 

/xCLXIII.    Mexican  War — Doniphan's  Expedition — 
Mr.  Benton's  Salutatory  Address,   St. 

Louis,  Missouri 684  JkLXXXVIII. 

„X  CLXIV.    Fremont's  Third  Expedition,  and  Acqui-  JJ^CLXXXIX. 

sition  of  California       ....  688 

CLXV.    Pause  in  the  War — Sedentary  Tactics — 

"Masterly  Inactivity"        ...  693 

^  CLXVL    The  Wilmot  Proviso— Or,  Prohibition  of 
Slavery  in  the  Territories — Its  Inutility 
and  Mischief     ......      694 

^— ^CCLXVIL  Mr.  Calhoun's  Slavery  Resolutions,  and 
Denial  of  the  Right  of  Congress  to  Pro- 
hibit Slavery  in  a  Territory  .  .  696 
— VCLXYIII.  The  Slavery  Agitation— Disunion— Key 
to  Mr.  Calhoun's  Policy— Forcing  the 
Issue— Mode  of  Forcing  it  698 
CLXIX    Death  of  Silas  Wright,  Ex-Senator  and 

Ex-Governor  of  New  York        .       .  700 

CLXX.    Thirtieth  Congress— First  Session— List  of 

Members— President's  Message      .        .      702 
CLXXL    Death  of  Senator  Barrow — Mr.  Benton's 

.  Eulogium 706 

CLXXII.    Death  of  Mr.  Adams 707 

^CLXXIIL    Downfall  of  Santa  Anna— New  Govern- 
ment in  Mexico — Peace  Negotiations — 

Treaty  of  Peace 709 

CLXXIV.  Oregon  Territorial  Government  —  Anti- 
Slavery  Ordinance  of  1787  applied  to 
Oregon  Territory — Missouri  Compro- 
mise Line  of  1820,  and  the  Texas  An- 
nexation  Renewal  of  it  in  1845,  affirmed  711 
— iK  CLXXV.  Mr.  Calhoun's  New  Dogma  on  Territorial 
»  Slavery — Self-extension  of  the  Slavery 

Part  of  the  Constitution  to  Territories        713 
CLXXVX    Court-martial  of  Lieutenant-colonel  Fre- 
mont      715 

CLXXVIL  Fremont's  Fourth  Expedition,  and  Great 
Disaster  in  the  Snows  at  tho  Head  of 
the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte — Subsequent 
Discovery  of  the  Pass  he  sought     .       .     719  CO. 


cxc. 

CXCI. 
j*/f  CXCIL 

CXCIII. 
CXCIV. 

yi    cxcv. 

CXCVI. 

CXCVIL 
CXCVIIL 

OXCIX. 


Presidential  Election        ...  722  ,• 

Last  Message  of  Mr.  Polk     .       .        .724* 

Financial  Working  of  the  Government 
under  the  Hard  Money  System  726 

Coast  Survey — Belongs  to  the  Navy — 
Converted  into  a  Separate  Depart- 
ment—Expense and  Interminabili- 
ty— Should  be  done  by  the  Navy, 
as  in  Great  Britain — Mr.  Benton's 
Speech— Extract  ....  726 

Proposed  Extension  of  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  to  the  Ter- 
ritories, with  a  View  to  make  it  car- 
ry Slavery  into  California,  Utah  and 
New  Mexico 729 

Progress  of  the  Slavery  Agitation — 
Meeting  of  Members  from  the  Slave 
States — Inflammatory  Address  to 
the  Southern  States      .        .       .  733 

Inauguration  of  President  Taylor — 
His  Cabinet       .        .        .        .       .737 

Death  of  Ex-President  Polk    .       .  787 

Thirty-first  Congress— First  Session- 
List  of  Members— Organization  of 
the  House 738 

First  and  only  Annual  Message  of 
President  Taylor  ....  740 

Mr.  Clay's  Plan  of  Compromise  .       .      742 

Extension  of  the  Missouri  Compro-  / 

mise  Line  to  the  Pacific  Ocean —         -^ 
Mr.  Davis,  of  Mississippi,  and  Mr. 
Clay— The  Wilmot  Proviso         .  748 

Mr.  Calhoun's  Last  Speech— Dissolu- 
tion of  the  Union  proclaimed  un- 
less the  Constitution  was  amended, 
and  a  Dual  Executive  appointed —  * 

one  President  from  the  Slave  States 
and  one  from  the  Free  States         .      744 

Death  of  Mr.  Calhoun — His  Eulogium 
by  Senator  Butler        .        .        .  747 

Mr.  Clay's  Plan  of  Slavery  Compro- 
mise— Mr.  Benton's  Speech  Against 
it— Extracts       .....      749 

Death  of  President  Taylor       .       .  765 

Inauguration  and  Cabinet  of  Mr.  Fill- 
more   767 

Rejection  of  Mr.  Clay's  Plan  of  Com- 
promis3 768 

The  Admission  of  the  State  of  Cali- 
fornia—Protest of  Southern  Sena- 
tors—Remarks upon  it  by  Mr.  Een- 
ton 769 

Fugitive  Slaves ;  Ordinance  of  1787— 
The  Constitution— Act  of  179£— Act 
of  1850    ......  773 

Disunion  Movements— Southern  Press 
at  Washington— Southern  Conven- 
tion at  Nashville— Southern  Con- 
gress called  for  by  South  Carolina 
and  Mississippi  .....      7S0 

The  Supreme  Court  — Its  Judges, 
Clerk,  Attorney-Generals,  Report- 
ers and  Marshals  during  the  Period 
treated  of  in  this  Volume    .        .  787 

Conclusion 787 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


■  <i^i>  i- 


ADMINISTRATION  OF  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN 


CHAPTER    I. 

INAUGURATION  OF  ME.  VAN  BUREN. 

March  the  4th  of  this  year,  Mr.  Van  Buren 
was  inaugurated  President  of  the  United  States 
with  the  usual  formalities,  and  conformed  to  the 
usage  of  his  predecessors  in  delivering  a  public 
address  on  the  occasion :  a  declaration  of  gen- 
eral principles,  and  an  indication  of  the  general 
course  of  the  administration,  were  the  tenor  of 
his  discourse:  and  the  doctrines  of  the  demo- 
cratic school,  as  understood  at  the  original  for- 
mation of  parties,  were  those  professed.  Close 
observance  of  the  federal  constitution  as  written 
— no  latitudinarian  constructions  permitted,  or 
doubtful  powers  assumed — faithful  adherence  to 
all  its  compromises — economy  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  government — peace,  friendship 
and  fair  dealing  with  all  foreign  nations — en- 
tangling alliances  with  none:  such  was  his 
political  chart :  and  with  the  expression  of  his 
belief  that  a  perseverance  in  this  line  of  foreign 
policy,  with  an  increased  strength,  tried  valor 
of  the  people,  and  exhaustless  resources  of  the 
country,  would  entitle  us  to  the  good  will  of 
nations,  protect  our  national  respectability,  and 
secure  us  from  designed  aggression  from  foreign 
powers.  His  expressions  and  views  on  this  head 
deserve  to  be  commemorated,  and  to  be  con- 
sidered by  all  those  into  whose  hands  the  man- 
agement of  the  public  affairs  may  go ;  and  are, 
therefore,  here  given  in  his  own  words : 

"  Our  course  of  foreign  policy  has  been  so  uni- 
form and  intelligible,  as  to  constitute  a  rule  of 


executive  conduct  which  leaves  little  to  my  dis- 
cretion, unless,  indeed,  I  were  willing  to  run  coun- 
ter to  the  lights  of  experience,  and  the  known 
opinions  of  my  constituents.  We  sedulously 
cultivate  the  friendship  of  all  nations,  as  the  con- 
dition most  compatible  with  our  welfare,  and 
the  principles  of  our  government.  We  decline 
alliances,  as  adverse  to  our  peace.  We  desire 
commercial  relations  on  equal  terms,  being  ever 
willing  to  give  a  fair  equivalent  for  advantages 
received.  We  endeavor  to  conduct  our  inter- 
course with  openness  and  sincerity;  promptly 
avowing  our  objects,  and  seeking  to  establish 
that  mutual  frankness  which  is  as  beneficial  in 
the  dealings  of  nations  as  of  men.  We  have  no 
disposition,  and  we  disclaim  all  right,  to  meddle 
in  disputes,  whether  internal  or  foreign,  that 
may  molest  other  countries ;  regarding  them,  in 
their  actual  state,  as  social  communities,  and  pre- 
serving a  strict  neutrality  in  all  their  contro- 
versies. Well  knowing  the  tried  valor  of  our 
people,  and  our  exhaustless  resources,  we 
neither  anticipate  nor  fear  any  designed  aggres- 
sion ;  and,  in  the  consciousness  of  our  own  just 
conduct,  we  feel  a  security  that  we  shall  never 
be  called  upon  to  exert  our  determination,  never 
to  permit  an  invasion  of  our  rights,  without 
punishment  or  redress." 

These  are  sound  and  encouraging  viewsj 
and  in  adherence  to  them,  promise  to  the  United 
States  a  career  of  peace  and  prosperity  compar- 
atively, free  from  the  succession  of  wars  which 
have  loaded  so  many  nations  with  debt  and 
taxes,  filled  them  with  so  many  pensioners  and 
paupers,  created  so  much  necessity  for  perma- 
nent fleets  and  armies ;  and  placed  one  half  the 
population  in  the  predicament  of  living  upon  the 
labor  of  the  other.  The  stand  which  the  United 
States  had  acquired  among  nations  by  the  vindi- 
I  cation  of  her  rights  against  the  greatest  powers 


8 


•  •  ■ .   - 
* .  •  •  •  • .    * 

*         .       ..-  •  * 

j  .  • .*. 

-  .  •    . .     •  *  \ 


T"HIRTY  TEARS'  VIEW. 


— and  the  manner  in  which  all  unredressed  ag- 
gressions, and  all  previous  outstanding  injuries, 
even  of  the  oldest  date,  had  been  settled  up  and 
compensated  under  the  administration  of  Presi- 
dent Jackson — authorized  this  language  from 
Mr.  Van  Buren ;  and  the  subsequent  conduct  of 
nations  has  justified  it.  Designed  aggression, 
within  many  years,  has  come  from  no  great 
power  ^casual  disagreements  and  accidental  in- 
juries admit  of  arrangement:  weak  neighbors 
can  find  no  benefit  to  themselves  in  wanton  ag- 
gression, or  refusal  of  redress  for  accidental 
wrong :  isolation  (a  continent,  as  it  were,  to  our- 
selves) is  security  against  attack  j  and  our  rail- 
ways would  accumulate  rapid  destruction  upon 
any  invader.  These  advantages,  and  strict  ad- 
herence to  the  rule,  to  ask  only  what  is  right, 
and  submit  to  nothing  wrong,  will  leave  us  (we 
have  reason  to  believe)  free  from  hostile  col- 
lision with  foreign  powers,  free  from  the  neces- 
sity of  keeping  up  war  establishments  of  army 
and  navy  in  time  of  peace,  with  our  great  re- 
sources left  in  the  pockets  of  the  people  (always 
the  safest  and  cheapest  national  treasuries),  to 
come  forth  when  public  exigencies  require  them, 
and  ourselves  at  liberty  to  pursue  an  unexampled 
career  of  national  and  individual  prosperity. 

One  single  subject  of  recently  revived  occur- 
rence in  our  domestic  concerns,  and  of  portentous 
apparition,  admitted  a  departure  from  the  gene- 
ralities of  an  inaugural  address,  and  exacted  from 
the  new  President  the  notice  of  a  special  decla- 
ration :  it  was  the  subject  of  slavery — an  alarm- 
ing subject  of  agitation  near  twenty  years  before 
— quieted  by  the  Missouri  compromise — re- 
suscitated in  1835,  as  shown  in  previous  chap- 
ters of  this  View;  and  apparently  taking  its 
place  as  a  permanent  and  most  pestiferous  ele- 
ment in  our  presidential  elections  and  federal 
legislation.  It  had  largely  mixed  with  the  pres- 
idential election  of  the  preceding  year :  it  was 
expected  to  mix  with  ensuing  federal  legislation : 
and  its  evil  effect  upon  the  harmony  and  stability 
of  the  Union  justified  the  new  President  in  mak- 
ing a  special  declaration  in  relation  to  it,  and 
even  in  declaring  beforehand  the  cases  of  slavery 
legislation  in  which  he  would  apply  the  qualified 
negative  with  which  the  constitution  invested 
him  over  the  acts  of  Congress.  Under  this  sense 
of  duty  and  propriety  the  inaugural  address 
presented  this  passage : 
"The  last,  perhaps  the  greatest,  of  the  promi- 


nent sources  of  discord  and  disaster  supposed  to 
lurk  in  our  political  condition,  was  the  institu- 
tion of  domestic  slavery.     Our  forefathers  were 
deeply  impressed  with  the  delicacy  of  this  sub- 
ject, and  they  treated  it  with  a  forbearance  so 
evidently  wise,  that,  in  spite  of  every  sinister 
foreboding,  it  never,  until  the  present  period, 
disturbed  the  tranquillity  of  our  common  coun- 
try.    Such  a  result  is  sufficient  evidence  of  the 
justice"  and  the  patriotism  of  their  course ;  it  is 
evidence  not  to  be  mistaken,  that  an  adherence 
to  it  can  prevent  all  embarrassment  from  this, 
as  well  as  from  every  other  anticipated  cause  of 
difficulty  or  danger.     Have  not  recent  events 
made  it  obvious  to  the  slightest  reflection,  that 
the  least  deviation  from  this  spirit  of  forbearance 
is  injurious  to  every  interest,  that  of  humanity 
included  ?     Amidst  the  violence  of  excited  pas- 
sions, this  generous  and  fraternal  feeling  has 
been  sometimes  disregarded ;  and,  standing  as  I 
now  do  before  my  countrymen  in  this  high  place 
of  honor  and  of  trust,  I  cannot  refrain  from 
anxiously  invoking  my  fellow-citizens  never  to 
be  deaf  to  its  dictates.     Perceiving,  before  my 
election,  the  deep  interest  this  subject  was  be- 
ginning to  excite,  I  believed  it  a  solemn  duty 
fully  to  make  known  my  sentiments  in  regard 
to  it ;  and  now,  when  every  motive  for  misrep- 
resentations have  passed  away,  I  trust  that  they 
will  be  candidly  weighed  and  understood.     At 
least,  they  will  be  my  standard  of  conduct  in 
the  path  before  me.    I  then  declared  that,  if  the 
desire  of  those  of  my  countrymen  who  were  fa- 
vorable to  my  election  was  gratified,    '  I  must 
go  into  the  presidental  chair  the  inflexible  and 
uncompromising  opponent  of  every  attempt,  on 
the  part  of  Congress,  to  abolish  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  against  the  wishes  of  the 
slaveholding  States ;  and  also  with  a  determina- 
tion equally  decided  to  resist  the  slightest  inter- 
ference with  it  in  the  States  where  it  exists.5  I 
submitted  also  to  my  fellow-citizens,  with  ful- 
ness and  frankness,  the  reasons  which  led  me  to 
this  determination.     The  result  authorizes  me 
to  believe  that  they  have  been  approved,  and 
are  confided  in,  by  a  majority  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  including  those  whom  they 
most  immediately  affect.    It  now  only  remains 
to  add,  that  no  bill  conflicting  with  these  views 
can   ever  receive  my  constitutional  sanction. 
These  opinions  have  been  adopted  in  the  firm 
belief  that  they  are  in  accordance  with  the 
spirit  that  actuated  the  venerated  fathers  of  the 
republic,  and  that  succeeding  experience  has 
proved  them  to  be  humane,  patriotic,  expedient, 
honorable  and  just.    If  the  agitation  of  this  sub- 
ject was  intended  to  reach  the  stability  of  our 
institutions,  enough  has  occurred  to  show  that 
it  has  signally  failed ;  and  that  in  this,  as  in 
every  other  instance,  the  apprehensions  of  the 
timid  and  the  hopes  of  the  wicked  for  the  de- 
struction of  our  government,  are  again  destined 
to  be  disappointed." 

The  determination  here  declared  to  yield  the 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


presidential  sanction  to  no  bill  which  proposed 
to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States ;  or  to 
abolish  it  in  the  District  of  Columbia  while  it 
existed  in  the  adjacent  States,  met  the  evil  as  it 
then  presented  itself — a  fear  on  the  part  of  some 
of  the  Southern  States  that  their  rights  of  prop- 
erty were  to  be  endangered  by  federal  legisla- 
tion :  and  against  which  danger  the  veto  power 
was  now  pledged  to  be  opposed.  There  was  no 
other  form  at  that  time  in  which  slavery  agita- 
tion could  manifest  itself,  or  place  on  which  it 
could  find  a  point  to  operate — the  ordinance  of 
1787,  and  the  compromise  of  1820,  having  closed 
up  the  Territories  against  it.  Danger  to  slave 
property  in  the  States,  either  by  direct  action, 
or  indirectly  through  the  District  of  Columbia, 
were  the  only  points  of  expressed  apprehension ; 
and  at  these  there  was  not  the  slightest  ground 
for  fear.  No  one  in  Congress  dreamed  of  inter- 
fering with  slavery  in  the  States,  and  the  abor- 
tion of  all  the  attempts  made  to  abolish  it  in  the 
District,  showed  the  groundlessness  of  that  fear. 
The  pledged  veto  was  not  a  necessity,  but  a  pro- 
priety;— not  necessary,  but  prudential; — not 
called  for  by  anything  in  congress,  but  outside 
of  it.  In  that  point  of  view  it  was  wise  and 
prudent.  It  took  from  agitation  its  point  of  sup- 
port— its  means  of  acting  on  the  fears  and  sus- 
picions of  the  timid  and  credulous :  and  it  gave 
to  the  country  a  season  of  repose  and  quiet  from 
this  disturbing  question  until  a  new  point  of 
agitation  could  be  discovered  and  seized. 

The  cabinet  remained  nearly  as  under  the  pre- 
vious administration :  Mr.  Forsyth,  Secretary  of 
State;  Mr.  Woodbury,  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury; Mr.  Poinsett,  Secretary  at  War;  Mr. 
Mahlon  Dickerson,  Secretary  of  the  Navy ;  Mr. 
Amos  Kendall,  Postmaster  General ;  and  Ben- 
jamin F.  Butler,  Esq.  Attorney  General.  Of  all 
these  Mr.  Poinsett  was  the  only  new  appoint- 
ment. On  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
John  Catron,  Esq.  of  Tennessee,  and  John 
McKinley,  Esq.  of  Alabama,  were  appointed 
Justices;  William  Smith,  formerly  senator  in 
Congress  from  South  Carolina,  having  declined 
the  appointment  which  was  filled  by  Mr. 
McKinley.  Mr.  Butler  soon  resigning  his  place 
of  Attorney  General,  Henry  D.  Gilpin,  Esq.  of 
Pennsylvania  (after  a  temporary  appointment 
of  Felix  Grundy,  Esq.  of  Tennessee),  became 
the  Attorney  General  during  the  remainder  of 
the  administration. 


nJLv 
ri^V)i( 


CHAPTER    II. 

FINANCIAL  AND  MONETARY  CRISIS:  GENERAL 
SUSPENSION  OF  SPECIE  PAYMENTS  BY  THE 
BANKS. 

The  nascent  administration  of  the 
dent  was  destined  to  be  saluted  by  a  rfl^Miock, 
and  at  the  point  most  critical  to  governments 
as  well  as  to  individuals — that  of  deranged 
finances  and  broken-up  treasury ;  and  against 
the  dangers  of  which  I  had  in  vain  endeavored 
to  warn  our  friends.  A  general  suspension  of 
the  banks,  a  depreciated  currency,  and  the  in- 
solvency of  the  federal  treasury,  were  at  hand. 
Visible  signs,  and  some  confidential  information, 
portended  to  me  this  approaching  calamity,  and 
my  speeches  in  the  Senate  were  burthened  with 
its  vaticination.  Two  parties,  inimical  to  the 
administration,  were  at  work  to  accomplish  it — 
politicians  and  banks  ;  and  well  able  to  -succeed, 
because  the  government  money  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  banks,  and  the  federal  legislation 
in  the  hands  of  the  politicians  ;  and  both  inter- 
ested in  the  overthrow  of  the  party  in  power ; — 
and  the  overthrow  of  the  finances  the  obvious 
means  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  object. 
The  public  moneys  had  been  withdrawn  from 
the  custody  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  : 
the  want  of  an  independent,  or  national  treas- 
ury, of  necessity,  placed  them  in  the  custody  of 
the  local  banks :  and  the  specie  order  of  Presi- 
dent Jackson  having  been  rescinded  by  the  Act 
of  Congress,  the  notes  of  all  these  banks,  and 
of  all  others  in  the  country,  amounting  to 
nearly  a  thousand,  became  receivable  in  pay- 
ment of  public  dues.  The  deposit  banks  be- 
came filled  up  with  the  notes  of  these  multitu- 
dinous institutions,  constituting  that  surplus, 
the  distribution  of  which  had  become  an  en- 
grossing care  with  Congress,  and  ended  with 
effecting  the  object  under  the  guise  of  a  de- 
posit with  the  States.  Irecalled  the  recollec- 
tion of  the  times  of  1818-19,  when  the  treasury 
reports  of  one  year  showed  a  superfluity  of 
revenue  for  which  there  was  no  want,  and  of 
the  next  a  deficit  which  required  to  be  relieved 
by  a  loan  ;  and  argued  that  we  must  now  have 
the  same  result  from  the  bloat  in  the  paper 
system  which  we  then  had.  I  demanded — 
"  Are  we  not  at  this  moment,  and  from  the 


10 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


same  cause,  realizing  the  first  part — the  illusive 
and  treacherous  part — of  this  picture  ?  and  must 
not  the  other,  the  sad  and  real  sequel,  speedily 
follow  ?  The  day  of  revulsion  must  come,  and 
its  efFects  must  be  more  or  less  disastrous  ;  but 
come  it  must.  The  present  bloat  in  the  paper 
systen^cannot  continue:  violent  contraction 
must^Biow  enormous  expansion :  a  scene  of 
distrel^Hpd  suffering  must  ensue — to  come  of 
itself  ouxof  the  present  state  of  things,  without 
being  stimulated  and  helped  on  by  our  unwise 
legislation." 

Of  the  act  which  rescinded  the  specie  order, 
and  made  the  notes  of  the  local  banks  receiva- 
ble in  payment  of  all  federal  dues,  I  said  : 

"  This  bill  is  to  be  an  era  in  our  legislation 
and  in  our  political  history.    It  is  to  be  a  point 
on  which  the  view  of  the  future  age  is  to  be 
thrown  back,  and  from  which  future  conse- 
quences will  be  traced.    I  separate  myself  from 
it :  I  wash  my  hands  of  it :  I  oppose  it.    I  am 
one  of  those  who  promised  gold — not  paper. 
I  promised  the  currency  of  the  constitution,  not 
the  currency  of  corporations.     I  did  not  join  in 
putting  down  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  to 
put  up  a  wilderness  of  local  banks.     I  did  not 
join  in  putting  down  the  paper  currency  of  a 
national  bank,  to  put  up  a  national  paper  cur- 
rency of  a  thousand  local  banks.     I  did  not 
strike  Caesar  to  make  Antony  master  of  Rome." 
The  condition  of  our  deposit  banks  was  des- 
perate— wholly  inadequate  to  the  slightest  pres- 
sure on  their  vaults  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
business,  much  less  that  of  meeting  the  daily 
government  drafts  and  the  approaching  deposit 
of  near  forty  millions  with  the  States.     The 
necessity  of  keeping  one-third  of  specie  on  hand 
for  its  immediate  liabilities,  was  enforced  from 
the  example  and  rule  of  the  Bank  of  England, 
while  many  of  our  deposit  banks  could  show 
but  the   one-twentieth,  the  one-thirtieth,  the 
one-fortieth,  and  even  the  one-fiftieth  of  specie 
in  hand  for  immediate  liabilities  in  circulation 
and  deposits.     The  sworn  evidence  of  a  late 
Governor  of  the  Bank  of  England  (Mr.  Horsely 
Palmer),  before  a  parliamentary  committee,  was 
read,  in  which  he  testified  that  the  average  pro- 
portion of  coin  and  bullion  which  the  bank 
deems  it  prudent  to  keep  on  hand,  was  at  the 
rate  of  the  third  of  the  total  amount  of  all  her 
liabilities — including  deposits  as  well  as  issues. 
And  this  was  the  proportion  which  that  bank 


deemed  it  prudent  to  keep — that  bank  which 
was  the  largest  in  the  world,  situated  in  the 
moneyed  metropolis  of  Europe,  with  its  list  of 
debtors  within  the  circuit  of  London,  supported 
by  the  richest  merchants    in  the  world,  and 
backed  by  the  British  government,  which  stood 
her  security  for  fourteen  millions  sterling,  and 
ready  with  her  supply  of  exchequer  bills  (the 
interest  to  be  raised  to  insure  sales),  at  any 
moment  of  emergency.     Tested  by  the  rule  of 
the  Bank  of  England,  and  our  deposit  banks 
were  in  the  jaws  of  destruction ;  and  this  so 
evident  to  me,  that  I  was  amazed  that  others 
did  not  see  it — those  of  our  friends  who  voted 
with  the  opponents  of  the  administration  in  re- 
scinding the  specie  order,  and  in  making  the 
deposit  with  the  States.     The  latter  had  begun 
to  take  effect,  at  the  rate  of  about  ten  millions 
to  the  quarter,  on  the  first  day  of  January  pre- 
ceding Mr.  Van  Buren's  inauguration :  a  second 
ten  millions  were  to  be  called  for  on  the  first  of 
April :  and  like  sums  on  the  first  days  of  the 
two  remaining  quarters.    It  was  utterly  impos- 
sible for  the  banks  to  stand  these  drafts ;  and, 
having  failed  in  all  attempts  to  wake  up  our 
friends,  who  were  then  in  the  majority,  to  a 
sense  of  the  danger  which  was  impending,  and 
to  arrest  their  ruinous  voting  with  the  oppo- 
sition members  (which  most  of  them  did),  I 
determined  to  address  myself  to  the  President 
elect,  under  the  belief  that,  although  he  would 
not  be  able  to  avert  the  blow,  he  might  do 
much  to  soften  its  force  and  avert  its  conse- 
quences, when  it  did  come.    It  was  in   the 
month  of  February,  while  Mr.  Van  Buren  was 
still  President  of  the  Senate,  that  I  invited  him 
into  a  committee  room  for  that  purpose,  and 
stated  to  him  my  opinion  that  we  were  on  the 
eve  of  an  explosion  of  the  paper  system  and  of 
a  general  suspension  of  the  banks — intending 
to  follow  up  that  expression  of  opinion  with  the 
exposition  of  my  reasons  for  thinking  so  :  but 
the  interview  came  to  a  sudden  and  unexpected 
termination.     Hardly  had  I  expressed  my  be- 
lief of  this  impending  catastrophe,  than  he  spoke 
up,  and  said,  "  Your  friends  think  you  a  little 
exalted  in  the  head  on  that  subject."     I  said  no 
more.    I  was  miffed.     We  left  the  room  to- 
gether, talking  on  different  matters,  and  I  say- 
ing to  myself,  "  You  will  soon  feel  the  thunder- 
bolt:1   But  I  have  since  felt  that  I  was  too 
hasty,  and  that  I  ought  to  have  carried  out  my 


ANNO  1837.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


11 


intention  of  making  a  full  exposition  of  the 
moneyed  affairs  of  the  country.  His  habitual 
courtesy,  from  which  the  expression  quoted  was 
a  most  rare  departure,  and  his  real  regard  for 
me,  both  personal  and  political  (for  at  that 
time  he  was  pressing  me  to  become  a  member 
of  his  cabinet),  would  have  insured  me  a  full 
hearing,  if  I  had  shown  a  disposition  to  go  on ; 
and  his  clear  intellect  would  have  seized  and 
appreciated  the  strong  facts  and  just  inferences 
which  would  have  been  presented  to  him.  But 
I  stopped  short,  as  if  I  had  nothing  more  to  say, 
from  that  feeling  of  self-respect  which  silences 
a  man  of  some  pride  when  he  sees  that  what  he 
says  is  not  valued.  I  have  regretted  my  hasti- 
ness ever  since.  It  was  of  the  utmost  moment 
that  the  new  President  should  have  his  eyes 
opened  to  the  dangers  of  the  treasury,  and  my 
services  on  the  Committee  of  Finance  had  given 
me  opportunities  of  knowledge  which  he  did 
not  possess.  Forewarned  is  forearmed ;  and 
never  was  there  a  case  in  which  the  maxim 
more  impressively  applied.  He  could  not  have 
prevented  the  suspension:  the  repeal  of  the 
specie  circular  and  the  deposit  with  the  States 
(both  measures  carried  by  the  help  of  votes 
from  professing  friends),  had  put  that  measure 
into  the  hands  of  those  who  would  be  sure  to 
use  it :  but  he  could  have  provided  against  it, 
and  prepared  for  it,  and  lessened  the  force  of 
the  blow  when  it  did  come.  He  might  have 
quickened  the  vigilance  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury — might  have  demanded  additional  se- 
curities from  the  deposit  banks — and  might 
have  drawn  from  them  the  moneys  called  for  by 
appropriation  acts.  There  was  a  sum  of  about 
five  millions  which  might  have  been  saved  with 
a  stroke  of  the  pen,  being  the  aggregate  of  sums 
drawn  from  the  treasury  by  the  numerous  dis- 
bursing officers,  and  left  in  the  banks  in  their 
own  names  for  daily  current  payments  :  an  or- 
der to  these  officers  would  have  saved  these 
five  millions,  and  prevented  the  disgrace  and 
damage  of  a  stoppage  in  the  daily  payments,  and 
the  spectacle  of  a  government  waking  up  in  the 
morning  without  a  dollar  to  pay  the  day-laborer 
with,  while  placing  on  its  statute  book  a  law 
for  the  distribution  of  forty  millions  of  surplus. 
Measures  like  these,  and  others  which  a  pru- 
dent vigilance  would  have  suggested,  might  have 
enabled  the  government  to  continue  its  pay- 
ments without  an  extra  session  of  Congress, 


and  without  the  mortification  of  capitulating 
to  the  broken  banks,  by  accepting  and  paying 
out  their  depreciated  notes  as  the  currency  of 
the  federal  treasury. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PKEPARATION  FOE  THE  DISTRESS  AND  SUSPEN- 
SION. 

In  the  autumn  of  the  preceding  year,  shortly 
before  the  meeting  of  Congress,  Mr.  Biddle,  pre- 
sident of  the  Pennsylvania  Bank  of  the  United 
States  (for  that  was  the  ridiculous  title  it  as- 
sumed after  its  resurrection  under  a  Pennsylvania 
charter),  issued  one  of  those  characteristic  letters 
which  were  habitually  promulgated  whenever  a 
new  lead  was  to  be  given  out,  and  a  new  scent 
emitted  for  the  followers  of  the  bank  to  run 
upon.  A  new  distress,  as  the  pretext  for  a  new 
catastrophe,  was  now  the  object.  A  picture  of 
ruin  was  presented,  alarm  given  out,  every  thing 
going  to  destruction;  and  the  federal  govern- 
ment the  cause  of  the  whole,  and  the  national 
recharter  of  the  defunct  bank  the  sovereign 
remedy.  The  following  is  an  extract  from  that 
letter. 

"  The  Bank  of  the  United  States  has  not  ceased 
to  exist  more  than  seven  months,  and  already 
the  whole  currency  and  exchanges  are  running 
into  inextricable  confusion,  and  the  industry  of 
the  country  is  burdened  with  extravagant 
charges  on  all  the  commercial  intercourse  of  the 
Union.  And  now,  when  these  banks  have  been 
created  by  the  Executive,  and  urged  into  these 
excesses,  instead  of  gentle  and  gradual  remedies, 
a  fierce  crusade  is  raised  against  them,  the  funds 
are  harshly  and  suddenly  taken  from  them,  and 
they  are  forced  to  extraordinary  means  of  de- 
fence against  the  very  power  which  brought 
them  into  being.  They  received,  and  were  ex- 
pected to  receive,  in  payment  for  the  govern- 
ment, the  notes  of  each  other  and  the  notes  of 
other  banks,  and  the  facility  with  which  they 
did  so  was  a  ground  of  special  commendation  by 
the  government;  and  now  that  government 
has  let  loose  upon  them  a  demand  for  specie  to 
the  whole  amount  of  these  notes.  I  go  further. 
There  is  an  outcry  abroad,  raised  by  faction, 
and  echoed  by  folly,  against  the  banks  of  the 
United  States.  Until  it  was  disturbed  by  the 
government,  the  banking  system  of  the  United 
States  was  at  least  as  good  as  that  of  any  other 
commercial  country.  What  was  desired  for  its 
perfection  was  precisely  what  I  have  so  long 


12 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


striven  to  accomplish — to  widen  the  metallic 
basis  of  the  currency  by  a  greater  infusion  of 
coin  into  the  smaller  channels  of  circulation. 
This  was  in  a  gradual  and  judicious  train  of  ac- 
complishment. But  this  miserable  foolery  about 
an  exclusively  metallic  currency,  is  quite  as 
absurd  as  to  discard  the  steamboats,  and  go 
back  to  poling  up  the  Mississippi." 

The  lead  thus  given  out  was  sedulously  fol- 
lowed during  the  winter,  both  in  Congress  and 
out  of  it,  and  at  the  end  of  the  session  had 
reached  an  immense  demonstration  in  New 
York,  in  the  preparations  made  to  receive  Mr. 
Webster,  and  to  hear  a  speech  from  him,  on  his 
return  from  Washington.  He  arrived  in  New 
York  on  the  15th  of  March,  and  the  papers  of 
the  city  give  this  glowing  account  of  his  recep- 
tion: 

"In  conformity  with  public  announcement, 
yesterday,  at  about  half  past  3  o'clock,  the  Honor- 
able Daniel  Webster  arrived  in  this  city  in  the 
steamboat  Swan  from  Philadelphia.  The  intense 
desire  on  the  part  of  the  citizens  to  give  a  grate- 
ful reception  to  this  great  advocate  of  the  consti- 
tution, set  the  whole  city  in  motion  towards  the 
point  of  debarkation,  for  nearly  an  hour  before 
the  arrival  of  the  distinguished  visitor.  At  the 
moment  when  the  steamboat  reached  the  pier, 
the  assemblage  had  attained  that  degree  of 
density  and  anxiety  to  witness  the  landing,  that 
it  was  feared  serious  consequences  would  result. 
At  half  past  3  o'clock  Mr.  Webster,  accompanied 
by  Philip  Hone  and  David  B.  Ogden,  landed 
from  the  boat  amidst  the  deafening  cheers  and 
plaudits  of  the  multitude,  thrice  repeated,  and 
took  his  seat  in  an  open  barouche  provided  for 
the  occasion.  The  procession,  consisting  of 
several  hundred  citizens  upon  horseback,  a  large 
train  of  carriages  and  citizens,  formed  upon  State 
street,  and  after  receiving  their  distinguished 
guest,  proceeded  with  great  order  up  Broadway 
to  the  apartments  arranged  for  his  reception  at 
the  American  Hotel.  The  scene  presented  the 
most  gratifying  spectacle.  Hundreds  of  citizens 
who  had  been  opposed  to  Mr.  Webster  in  poli- 
tics, now  that  he  appeared  as  a  private  individ- 
ual, came  forth  to  demonstrate  their  respect  for 
his  private  worth  and  to  express  their  approba- 
tion of  his  personal  character;  and  thousands 
more  who  appreciated  his  principles  and  political 
integrity,  crowded  around  to  convince  him  of 
their  personal  attachment,  and  give  evidence  of 
their  approval  of  his  public  acts.  The  wharves, 
the  shipping,  the  housetops  and  windows,  and 
the  streets  through  which  the  procession  passed, 
were  thronged  with  citizens  of  every  occupation 
and  degree,  and  loud  and  continued  cheers 
greeted  the  great  statesman  at  every  point. 
There  was  not  a  greater  number  at  the  recep- 
tion of  General  Jackson  in  this  city,  with  the 
exception  of  the  military,  nor  a  greater  degree 


of  enthusiasm  manifested  upon  that  occasion, 
than  the  arrival  upon  our  shores  of  Daniel  Web- 
ster. At  6  o'clock  in  the  evening,  the  anxious 
multitude  began  to  move  towards  Niblo's  saloon, 
where  Mr.  Webster  was  to  be  addressed  by  the 
committee  of  citizens  delegated  for  that  purpose, 
and  to  which  it  was  expected  he  would  reply. 
A  large  body  of  officers  were  upon  the  ground 
to  keep  the  assemblage  within  bounds,  and  at  a 
quarter  past  six  the  doors  were  opened,  when 
the  saloon,  garden,  and  avenues  leading  thereto 
were  instantly  crowded  to  overflowing. 

The  meeting  was  called  to  order  by  Alderman 
Clark,  who  proposed  for  president,  David  B. 
Ogden,  which  upon  being  put  to  vote  was  unani- 
mously adopted.  The  following  gentlemen  were 
then  elected  vice-presidents,  viz :  Robert  C.  Cor- 
nell, Jonathan  Goodhue,  Joseph  Tucker,  Na- 
thaniel Weed;  and  Joseph  Hoxie  and  G.  S. 
Robins,  secretaries. 

Mr.  W.  began  his  remarks  at  a  quarter  before 
seven  o'clock,  p.  m.  and  concluded  them  at  a 
quarter  past  nine.  When  he  entered  the  saloon, 
he  was  received  with  the  most  deafening  cheers. 
The  hall  rang  with  the  loud  plaudits  of  the 
crowd,  and  every  hat  was  waving.  So  great 
was  the  crowd  in  the  galleries,  and  such  was  the 
apprehension  that  the  apparently  weak  wooden 
columns  which  supported  would  give  way,  that 
Mr.  W.  was  twice  interrupted  with  the  appalling 
cry  "the  galleries  are  falling,"  when  only  a 
window  was  broken,  or  a  stove-pipe  shaken. 
The  length  of  the  address  (two  and  a  half  hours), 
none  too  long,  however,  for  the  audience  would 
with  pleasure  have  tarried  two  hours  longer, 
compels  us  to  give  at  present  only  the  heads  of 
a  speech  which  we  would  otherwise  now  report 
in  detail." 

Certainly  Mr.  Webster  was  worthy  of  all 
honors  in  the  great  city  of  New  York ;  but  hav- 
ing been  accustomed  to  pass  through  that  city 
several  times  in  every  year  during  the  preceding 
quarter  of  a  century,  and  to  make  frequent  so- 
journs there,  and  to  speak  thereafter,  and  in  all 
the  characters  of  politician,  social  guest,  and 
member  of  the  bar, — it  is  certain  that  neither  his 
person  nor  his  speaking  could  be  such  a  novelty 
and  rarity  as  to  call  out  upon  his  arrival  so  large 
a  meeting  as  is  here  described,  invest  it  with  so 
much  form,  fire  it  with  so  much  enthusiasm, 
fill  it  with  so  much  expectation,  unless  there 
had  been  some  large  object  in  view — some  great 
effect  to  be  produced — some  consequence  to  re- 
sult :  and  of  all  which  this  imposing  demonstra- 
tion was  at  once  the  sign  and  the  initiative.  No 
holiday  occasion,  no  complimentary  notice,  no 
feeling  of  personal  regard,  could  have  called 
forth  an  assemblage  so  vast,  and  inspired  it  with 
such  deep  and  anxious  emotions.    It. required  a 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


13 


public  object,  a  general  interest,  a  pervading 
concern,  and  a  serious  apprehension  of  some  un- 
certain and  fearful  future,  to  call  out  and  organize 
such  a  mass — not  of  the  young,  the  ardent,  the 
heedless — but  of  the  age,  the  character,  the 
talent,  the  fortune,  the  gravity  of  the  most 
populous  and  opulent  city  of  the  Union.  It  was 
as  if  the  population  of  a  great  city,  in  terror  of 
some  great  impending  unknown  calamity,  had 
come  forth  to  get  consolation  and  counsel  from 
a  wise  man — to  ask  him  what  was  to  happen  ? 
and  what  they  were  to  do  ?  And  so  in  fact  it 
was,  as  fully  disclosed  in  the  address  with  which 
the  orator  was  saluted,  and  in  the  speech  of  two 
hours  and  a  half  which  he  made  in  response  to 
it.  The  address  was  a  deprecation  of  calamities ; 
the  speech  was  responsive  to  the  address — ad- 
mitted every  thing  that  could  be  feared — and 
charged  the  whole  upon  the  mal-administration 
of  the  federal  government.  A  picture  of  uni- 
versal distress  was  portrayed,  and  worse  com- 
ing; and  the  remedy  for  the  whole  the  same 
which  had  been  presented  in  Mr.  Biddle's  letter 
— the  recharter  of  the  national  bank.  The  speech 
was  a  manifesto  against  the  Jackson  administra- 
tion, and  a  protest  against  its  continuation  in 
the  person  of  his  successor,  and  an  invocation  to 
a  general  combination  against  it.  All  the  banks 
were  sought  to  be  united,  and  made  to  stand 
together  upon  a  sense  of  common  danger — 
the  administration  their  enemy,  the  national 
bank  their  protection.  Every  industrial  pursuit 
was  pictured  as  crippled  and  damaged  by  bad 
government.  Material  injury  to  private  interests 
were  still  more  vehemently  charged  than  polit- 
ical injuries  to  the  body  politic.  In  the  deplor- 
able picture  which  it  presented  of  the  condition 
of  every  industrial  pursuit,  and  especially  in  the 
"war"  upon  the  banks  and  the  currency,  it 
seemed  to  be  a  justificatory  pleading  in  advance 
for  tt  general  shutting  up  of  their  doors,  and  the 
shutting  up  of  the  federal  treasury  at  the  same 
time.  In  this  sense,  and  on  this  point,  the 
speech  contained  this  ominous  sentence,  more 
candid  than  discreet,  taken  in  connection  with 
what  was  to  happen : 

"  Remember,  gentlemen,  in  the  midst  of  this 
deafening  din  against  all  banks,  that  if  it  shall 
create  such  a  panic,  or  such  alarm,  as  shall  shut 
up  the  banks,  it  will  shut  up  the  treasury  of  the 
United  States  also." 

The  whole  tenor  of  the  speech  was  calculated 
to  produce  discontent,  create  distress,  and  excite 


alarm — discontent  and  distress  for  present  suf- 
ferings— alarm  for  the  greater,  which  were  to 
come.     This  is  a  sample : 

"  Gentlemen,  I  would  not  willingly  be  a  pro- 
phet of  ill.  I  most  devoutly  wish  to  see  a  better 
state  of  things ;  and  I  believe  the  repeal  of  the 
treasury  order  would  tend  very  much  to  bring 
about  that  better  state  of  things.  And  I  am  of 
opinion,  gentlemen,  that  the  order  will  be  re- 
pealed. I  think  it  must  be  repealed.  I  think 
the  east,  west,  north  and  south,  will  demand  its 
repeal.  But,  gentlemen,  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  say, 
that  if  I  should  be  disappointed  in  this  expecta- 
tion, I  see  no  immediate  relief  to  the  distresses 
of  the  community.  I  greatly  fear,  even,  that 
the  worst  is  not  yet.  I  look  for  severer  dis- 
tresses ;  for  extreme  difficulties  in  exchange ;  for 
far  greater  inconveniences  in  remittance,  and  for 
a  sudden  fall  in  prices.  Our  condition  is  one  not 
to  be  tampered  with,  and  the  repeal  of  the  treas- 
ury order  being  something  which  government 
can  do,  and  which  will  do  good,  the  public  voice 
is  right  in  demanding  that  repeal.  It  is  true,  if 
repealed  now,  the  relief  will  come  late.  Never- 
theless its  repeal  or  abrogation  is  a  thing  to  be 
insisted  on,  and  pursued  till  it  shall  be  accom- 
plished." 

The  speech  concluded  with  an  earnest  ex- 
hortation to  the  citizens  of  New  York  to  do 
something,  without  saying  what,  but  which  with 
my  misgivings  and  presentiments,  the  whole 
tenor  of  the  speech  and  the  circumstances  which 
attended  it — delivered  in  the  moneyed  metropolis 
of  the  Union,  at  a  time  when  there  was  no 
political  canvass  depending,  and  the  ominous 
omission  to  name  what  was  required  to  be  done 
— appeared  to  me  to  be  an  invitation  to  the 
New  York  banks  to  close  their  doors !  which 
being  done  by  them  would  be  an  example  fol- 
lowed throughout  the  Union,  and  produce  the 
consummation  of  a  universal  suspension.  The 
following  is  that  conclusion : 

"  Whigs  of  New  York  !  Patriotic  citizens  of 
this  great  metropolis  ! — Lovers  of  constitutional 
liberty,  bound  by  interest  and  affection  to  the 
institutions  of  your  country,  Americans  in  heart 
and  in  principle !  You  are  ready,  I  am  sure,  to 
fulfil  all  the  duties  imposed  upon  you  by  your 
situation,  and  demanded  of  you  by  your  coun- 
try. You  have  a  central  position ;  your  city  is 
the  point  from  which  intelligence  emanates,  and 
spreads  in  all  directions  over  the  whole  land. 
Every  hour  carries  reports  of  your  sentiments 
and  opinions  to  the  verge  of  the  Union.  You 
cannot  escape  the  responsibility  which  circum- 
stances have  thrown  upon  you.  You  must  live 
and  act  on  a  broad  and  conspicuous  theatre, 
either  for  good  or  for  evil,  to  your  country.  You 
cannot  shrink  away  from  public  duties;   you 


14 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


cannot  obscure  yourselves,  nor  bury  your  talent. 
In  the  common  welfare,  in  the  common  pros- 
perity, in  the  common  glory  of  Americans,  you 
have  a  stake,  of  value  not  to  be  calculated.  You 
have  an  interest  in  the  preservation  of  the  Union, 
of  the  constitution,  and  of  the  true  principles  of 
the  government,  which  no  man  can  estimate. 
You  act  for  yourselves,  and  for  the  generations 
that  are  to  come  after  you ;  and  those  who,  ages 
hence,  shall  bear  your  names,  and  partake  your 
blood,  will  feel  in  their  political  and  social  con- 
dition, the  consequences  of  the  manner  in  which 
you  discharge  your  political  duties." 

The  appeal  for  action  in  this  paragraph  is 
vehement.  It  takes  every  form  of  violent  desire 
which  is  known  to  the  art  of  entreaty.  Suppli- 
cation, solicitation,  remonstrance,  importunity, 
prayer,  menace !  until  rising  to  the  dignity  of  a 
debt  due  from  a  moneyed  metropolis  to  an  ex- 
pectant community,  he  demanded  payment  as 
matter  of  right !  and  enforced  the  demand  as  an 
obligation  of  necessity,  as  well  as  of  duty,  and 
from  which  such  a  community  could  not  escape, 
if  it  would.  The  nature  of  the  action  which  was 
so  vehemently  desired,  could  not  be  mistaken. 
I  hold  it  a  fair  interpretation  of  this  appeal  that 
it  was  an  exhortation  to  the  business  population 
of  the  commercial  metropolis  of  the  Union  to 
take  the  initiative  in  suspending  specie  payments, 
and  a  justificatory  manifesto  for  doing  so ;  and 
that  the  speech  itself  was  the  first  step  in  the 
grand  performance :  and  so  it  seemed  to  be  un- 
derstood. It  was  received  with  unbounded  ap- 
plause, lauded  to  the  skies,  cheered  to  the  echo, 
carefully  and  elaborately  prepared  for  publica- 
tion,— published  and  republished  in  newspaper 
and  pamphlet  form ;  and  universally  circulated. 
This  was  in  the  first  month  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's 
presidency,  and  it  will  be  seen  what  the  second 
one  brought  forth. 

The  specie  circular— that  treasury  order  of 
President  Jackson,  which  saved  the  public  lands 
from  being  converted  into  broken  bank  paper — 
was  the  subject  of  repeated  denunciatory  refer- 
ence— very  erroneous,  as  the  event  has  proved, 
in  its  estimate  of  the  measure ;  but  quite  cor- 
rect in  its  history,  and  amusing  in  its  reference 
to  some  of  the  friends  of  the  administration  who 
undertook  to  act  a  part  for  and  against  the  re- 
scission of  the  order  at  the  same  time. 

"  Mr.  Webster  then  came  to  the  treasury  cir- 
cular, and  related  the  history  of  the  late  legisla- 
tion upon  it.  '  A  member  of  Congress,'  said 
he,  '  prepared  this  very  treasury  order  in  1836, 
but  the  only  vote  he  got  for  it  was  his  own — he 


stood  'solitary'  and  'alone'  (a  laugh);  and 
yet  eleven  days  after  Congress  had  adjourned— 
only  six  months  after  the  President  in  his 
annual  message  had  congratulated  the  people 
upon  the  prosperous  sales  of  the  public  lands, — 
this  order  came  out  in  known  and  direct  opposi- 
tion to  the  wishes  of  nine-tenths  of  the  members 
of  Congress.' " 

This  is  good  history  from  a  close  witness  of 
what  he  relates.  The  member  referred  to  as 
having  prepared  the  treasury  order,  and  offered 
it  in  the  shape  of  a  bill  in  the  Senate,  and  get- 
ting no  vote  for  it  but  his  own, — who  stood  soli- 
tary and  alone  on  that  occasion,  as  well  as  on 
some  others— was  no  other  than  the  writer  of 
this  View;  and  he  has  lived  to  see  about  as 
much  unanimity  in  favor  of  that  measure  since 
as  there  was  against  it  then.  Nine-tenths  of  the 
members  of  Congress  were  then  against  it,  but 
from  very  different  motives— some  because  they 
were  deeply  engaged  in  land  speculations,  and 
borrowed  paper  from  the  banks  for  the  purpose ; 
some  because  they  were  in  the  interest  of  the 
banks,  and  wished  to  give  their  paper  credit  and 
circulation  ;  others  because  they  were  sincere 
believers  in  the  pap'er  system ;  others  because 
they  were  opposed  to  the  President,  and  be- 
lieved him  to  be  in  favor  of  the  measure ;  others 
again  from  mere  timidity  of  temperament,  and 
constitutional  inability  to  act  strongly.  And 
these  various  descriptions  embraced  friends  as 
well  as  foes  to  the  administration.  Mr.  Webster 
says  the  order  was  issued  eleven  days  after  that 
Congress  adjourned  which  had  so  unanimously 
rejected  it.  That  is  true.  We  only  waited  for 
Congress  to  be  gone  to  issue  the  order.  Mr. 
Benton  was  in  the  room  of  the  private  secre- 
tary (Mr.  Donelson),  hard  by  the  council  cham- 
ber, while  the  cabinet  sat  in  council  upon  this 
measure.  They  were  mostly  against  it.  Gen- 
eral Jackson  ordered  it,  and  directed  the  private 
Secretary  to  bring  him  a  draft  of  the  order  to 
be  issued.  He  came  to  Mr.  Benton  to  draw  it 
— who  did  so :  and  being  altered  a  little,  it  was 
given  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  be  pro- 
mulgated. Then  Mr.  Benton  asked  for  his  draft, 
that  he  might  destroy  it.  The  private  secretary 
said  no  —  that  the  time  might  come  when  it 
should  be  known  who  was  at  the  bottom  of  that 
Treasury  order:  and  that  be  would  keep  it.  It 
was  issued  on  the  strong  will  and  clear  head  of 
President  Jackson,  and  saved  many  ten  millions 
to  the  public  treasury.  Bales  of  bank  notes  were 
on  the  road  to  be  converted  into  public  lands 


ANNO  1837.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


15 


which  this  order  overtook,  and  sent  back,  to 
depreciate  in  the  vaults  of  the  banks  instead  of 
the  coffers  of  the  treasury.  To  repeal  the  order 
by  law  was  the  effort  as  soon  as  Congress  met, 
and  direct  legislation  to  that  effect  was  proposed 
by  Mr.  Ewing,  of  Ohio,  but  superseded  by  a  cir- 
cumlocutory bill  from  Mr.  Walker  and  Mr. 
Rives,  which  the  President  treated  as  a  nullity 
for  want  of  intelligibility:  and  of  which  Mr. 
Webster  gave  this  account : 

"  If  he  himself  had  had  power,  he  would  have 
voted  for  Mr.  Ewing's  proposition  to  repeal  the 
order,  in  terms  which  Mr.  Butler  and  the  late 
President  could  not  have  misunderstood;  but 
power  was  so  strong,  and  members  of  Congress 
had  now  become  so  delicate  about  giving  offence 
to  it,  that  it  would  not  do,  for  the  world,  to 
repeal  the  obnoxious  circular,  plainly  and  forth- 
with ;  but  the  ingenuity  of  the  friends  of  the 
administration  must  dodge  around  it,  and  over 
it — and  now  Mr.  Butler  had  the  unkindness  to 
tell  them  that  their  views  neither  he,  lawyer  as 
he  is,  nor  the  President,  could  possibly  under- 
stand (a  laugh),  and  that,  as  it  could  not  be 
understood,  the  President  had  pocketed  it — and 
left  it  upon  the  archives  of  state,  no  doubt  to 
be  studied  there.  Mr.  W.  would  call  attention 
to  the  remarkable  fact,  that  though  the  Senate 
acted  upon  this  currency  bill  in  season,  yet  it 
was  put  off,  and  put  off — so  that,  by  no  action 
upon  it  before  the  ten  days  allowed  the  Presi- 
dent by  the  constitution,  the  power  over  it  was 
completely  in  his  will,  even  though  the  whole 
nation  and  every  member  of  Congress  wished 
for  its  repeal.  Mr.  W.,  however,  believed  that 
such  was  the  pressure  of  public  opinion  upon  the 
new  President,  that  it  must  soon  be  repealed." 

This  amphibology  of  the  bill,  and  delay  in 
passing  it,  and  this  dodging  around  and  over, 
was  occasioned  by  what  Mr.  Webster  calls  the 
delicacy  of  some  members  who  had  the  difficult 
part  to  play,  of  going  with  the  enemies  of  the 
administration  without  going  against  the  ad- 
ministration. A  chapter  in  the  first  volume  of 
this  View  gives  the  history  of  this  work ;  and 
the  last  sentence  in  the  passage  quoted  from 
Mr.  Webster's  speech  gives  the  key  to  the 
views  in  which  the  speech  originated,  and  to 
the  proceedings  by  which  it  was  accompanied 
and  followed.  "  It  is  believed  that  such  is  the 
pressure  of  public  opinion  upon  the  new  Pres- 
ident that  it  must  soon  be  repealed?'' 

In  another  part  of  his  speech,  Mr.  Webster 
shows  that  the  repealing  bill  was  put  by  the 
whigs  into  the  hands  of  certain  friends  of  the 
administration,  to  be  by  them  seasoned  into  a 
palatable  dish  ;  and  that  they  gained  no  favor 


with  the  "  bold  man "  who  despised  flinching, 
and  loved  decision,  even  in  a  foe.     Thus : 

"  At  the  commencement  of  the  last  session, 
as  you  know,  gentlemen,  a  resolution  was 
brought  forward  in  the  Senate  for  annulling 
and  abrogating  this  order,  by  Mr.  Ewing,  a  gen- 
tleman of  much  intelligence,  of  sound  principles, 
of  vigorous  and  energetic  character,  whose  loss 
from  the  service  of  the  country,  I  regard  as  a 
public  misfortune.  The  whig  members  all  sup- 
ported this  resolution,  and  all  the  members,  I 
believe,  with  the  exception  of  some  five  or  six, 
were  very  anxious,  in  some  way,  to  get  rid  of 
the  treasury  order.  But  Mr.  Ewing's  resolu- 
tion was  too  direct.  It  was  deemed  a  pointed 
and  ungracious  attack  on  executive  policy. 
Therefore,  it  must  be  softened,  modified,  quali- 
fied, made  to  sound  less  harsh  to  the  ears  of 
men  in  power,  and  to  assume  a  plausible,  pol- 
ished, inoffensive  character.  It  was  accordingly 
put  into  the  plastic  hands  of  the  friends  of  the 
executive,  to  be  moulded  and  fashioned,  so  that 
it  might  have  the  effect  of  ridding  the  country 
of  the  obnoxious  order,  and  yet  not  appear  to 
question  executive  infallibility.  All  this  did 
not  answer.  The  late  President  is  not  a  man 
to  be  satisfied  with  soft  words  ;  and  he  saw  in 
the  measure,  even  as  it  passed  the  two  houses, 
a  substantial  repeal  of  the  order.  He  is  a  man 
of  boldness  and  decision  ;  and  he  respects  bold- 
ness and  decision  in  others.  If  you  are  his 
friend,  he  expects  no  flinching ;  and  if  you  are 
his  adversary,  he  respects  you  none  the  less,  for 
carrying  your  opposition  to  the  full  limits  of 
honorable  warfare." 

Mr.  Webster  must  have  been  greatly  dissat- 
isfied with  his  democratic  allies,  when  he  could 
thus,  in  a  public  speech,  before  such  an  audi- 
ence, and  within  one  short  month  after  they 
had  been  co-operating  with  him,  hold  them  up 
as  equally  unmeritable  in  the  eyes  of  both 
parties. 

History  deems  it  essential  to  present  this 
New  York  speech  of  Mr.  Webster  as  part  of  a 
great  movement,  without  a  knowledge  of  which 
the  view  would  be  imperfect.  It  was  the  first 
formal  public  step  which  was  to  inaugurate  the 
new  distress,  and  organize  the  proceedings  for 
shutting  up  the  banks,  and  with  them,  the  fed- 
eral treasury,  with  a  view  to  coerce  the  govern- 
mentanto  submission  to  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  and  its  confederate  politicians.  Mr.  Van 
Buren  was  a  man  of  great  suavity  and  gentle- 
ness of  deportment,  and,  to  those  who  associated 
the  idea  of  violence  with  firmness,  might  be 
supposed  deficient  in  that  quality.  An  experi- 
ment upon  his  nerves  was  resolved  on — a  pres- 
sure of  public  opinion,  in  the  language  of  Mr 


16 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Webster,  under  which  his  gentle  temperament 
was  expected  to  yield. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

PEOGEESS  OF  THE  DISTEESS,  AND  PEEL1M- 
INAEIES  FOB  THE  SUSPENSION. 

The  speech  of  Mr.  Webster — his  appeal  for 
action — was  soon  followed  by  its  appointed  con- 
sequence— an  immense  meeting  in  the  city  of 
New  York.  The  speech  did  not  produce  the- 
meeting,  any  more  than  the  meeting  produced 
the  speech.  Both  were  in  the  programme,  and 
performed  as  prescribed,  in  their  respective 
places — the  speech  first,  the  meeting  afterwards ; 
and  the  latter  justified  by  the  former.  It  was 
an  immense  assemblage,  composed  of  the  elite 
of  what  was  foremost  in  the  city  for  property, 
talent,  respectability ;  and  took  for  its  business 
the  consideration  of  the  times  :  the  distress  of 
the  times,  and  the  nature  of  the  remedy.  The 
imposing  form  of  a  meeting,  solemn  as  well  as 
numerous  and  respectable,  was  gone  through  : 
speeches  made,  resolutions  adopted :  order  and 
emphasis  given  to  the  proceedings.  A  presi- 
dent, ten  vice-presidents,  two  secretaries,  seven 
orators  (Mr.  Webster  not  among  them :  he 
had  performed  his  part,  and  made  his  exit), 
officiated  in  the  ceremonies ;  and  thousands  of 
citizens  constituted  the  accumulated  mass. 
The  spirit  and  proceedings  of  the  meeting  were 
concentrated  in  a  series  of  resolves,  each  stronger 
than  the  other,  and  each  more  welcome  than 
the  former ;  and  all  progressive,  from  facts  and 
principles  declared,  to  duties  and  performances 
recommended.  The  first  resolve  declared  the 
existence  of  the  distress,  and  made  the  picture 
gloomy  enough.    It  was  in  these  words  : 

"  Whereas,  the  great  commercial  interests  of 
our  city  have  nearly  reached  a  point  of  general 
ruin — our  merchants  driven  from  a  state  of 
prosperity  to  that  of  unprecedented  difficulty 
and  bankruptcy — the  business,  activity  and 
energy,  which  have  heretofore  made  us  the 
polar  star  of  the  new  world,  is  daily  sinking, 
and  taking  from  us  the  fruits  of  years  of  indus- 
try— reducing  the  aged  among  us,  who  but  yes- 
terday were  sufficiently  in  affluence,  to  a  state 
of  comparative  want ;  and  blighting  the  pros- 
pects, and  blasting  the  hopes  of  the  young 
throughout  our  once  prosperous  land :  we  deem 
it  our  duty  to  express  to  the  country  our  situa- 
tion and  desires,  while  yet  there  is  time  to  re- 
trace error,  and  secure  those  rights  and  perpet- 


uate those  principles  which  were  bequeathed  us 
by  our  fathers,  and  which  we  are  bound  to  make 
every  honorable  effort  to  maintain." 

After  the  fact  of  the  distress,  thus  established 
by  a  resolve,  came  the  cause ;  and  this  was  the 
condensation  of  Mr.  Webster's  speech,  collect- 
ing into  a  point  what  had  been  oratorically  dif- 
fused over  a  wide  surface.  What  was  itself  a 
condensation  cannot  be  further  abridged,  and 
must  be  given  in  its  own  words  : 

"That  the  wide-spread  disaster  which  has 
overtaken  the  commercial  interests  of  the  coun- 
try, and  which  threatens  to  produce  general 
bankruptcy,  may  be  in  a  great  measure  ascribed 
to  the  interference  of  the  general  government 
with  the  commercial  and  business  operations 
of  the  country  ;  its  intermeddling  with  the  cur- 
rency ;  its  destruction  of  the  national  bank; 
its  attempt  to  substitute  a  metallic  for  a  credit 
currency;  and,  finally,  to  the  issuing  by  the 
President  of  the  United  States  of  the  treasury 
order,  known  as  the  "  specie  circular." 

The  next  resolve  foreshadowed  the  conse- 
quences which  follow  from  governmental  perse- 
verance in  such  calamitous  measures — general 
bankruptcy  to  the  dealing  classes,  starvation  to 
the  laboring  classes,  public  convulsions,  and 
danger  to  our  political  institutions ;  with  an  ad- 
monition to  the  new  President  of  what  might 
happen  to  himself,  if  he  persevered  in  the  "  ex- 
periments" of  a  predecessor  whose  tyranny 
and  oppression  had  made  him  the  scourge  of  his 
country.     But  let  the  resolve  speak  for  itself: 

"That  while  we  would  do  nothing  which 
might  for  a  moment  compromit  our  respect  for 
the  laws,  we  feel  it  incumbent  upon  us  to  re- 
mind the  executive  of  the  nation,  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  country,  as  of  late  administered, 
has  become  the  oppressor  of  the  people,  instead 
of  affording  them  protection — that  his  persever- 
ance in  the  experiment  of  his  predecessor  (after 
the  public  voice,  in  every  way  in  which  that 
voice  could  be  expressed,  has  clearly  denounced 
it  as  ruinous  to  the  best  interests  of  the  coun- 
try) has  already  caused  the  ruin  of  thousands 
of  merchants,  thrown  tens  of  thousands  of  me- 
chanics and  laborers  out  of  employment,  depre- 
ciated the  value  of  our  great  staple  millions  of 
dollars,  destroyed  the  internal  exchanges,  and 
prostrated  the  energies  and  blighted  the  pros- 
pects of  the  industrious  and  enterprising  por- 
tion of  our  people ;  and  must,  if  persevered  in, 
not  only  produce  starvation  among  the  labor- 
ing classes,  but  inevitably  lead  to  disturbances 
which  may  endanger  the  stability  of  our  insti- 
tutions themselves." 

This  word  "  experiment "  had  become  a  sta- 
ple phrase  in  all  the  distress  oratory  and  litera- 


* 


ANNO  183Y.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


17 


ture  of  the  day,  sometimes  heightened  by  the 
prefix  of  "  quack"  and  was  applied  to  all  the 
efforts  of  the  administration  to  return  the  fed- 
eral government  to  the  hard  money  currency, 
which  was  the  currency  of  the  constitution  and 
the  currency  of  all  countries ;  and  which  efforts 
were  now  treated  as  novelties  and  dangerous 
innovations.  Universal  was  the  use  of  the 
phrase  by  one  of  the  political  parties  some 
twenty  years  ago :  dead  silent  are  their  tongues 
upon  it  now!  Twenty  years  of  successful 
working  of  the  government  under  the  hard 
money  system  has  put  an  end  to  the  repetition 
of  a  phrase  which  has  suffered  the  fate  of  all 
catch-words  of  party,  and  became  more  dis- 
tasteful to  its  old  employers  than  it  ever  was 
to  their  adversaries.  It  has  not  been  heard 
since  the  federal  government  got  divorced  from 
bank  and  paper  money !  since  gold  and  silver 
has  become  the  sole  currency  of  the  federal  gov- 
ernment! since,  in  fact,  the  memorable  epoch 
when  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  (former 
sovereign"  remedy  for  all  the  ills  the  body  poli- 
tic was  heir  to)  has  become  a  defunct  authority, 
and  an  "  obsolete  idea." 

The  next  resolve  proposed  a  $rect  movement 
upon  the  President — nothing  less  than  a  com- 
mittee of  fifty  to  wait  upon  him,  and  "  remon- 
strate" with  him  upon  what  was  called  the 
ruinous  measures  of  the  government. 

"  That  a  committee  of  not  less  than  fifty  be 
appointed  to  repair  to  Washington,  and  remon- 
strate with  the  Executive  against  the  continu- 
ance of  "  the  specie  circular;"  and  in  behalf  of 
this  meeting  and  in  the  name  of  the  merchants 
of  New  York,  and  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  urge  its  immediate  repeal." 

This  formidable  committee,  limited  to  a  min- 
imum of  fifty,  open  to  a  maximum  of  any 
amount,  besides  this  "remonstrance"  against 
the  specie  circular,  were  also  instructed  to  pe- 
tition the  President  to  forbear  the  collection  of 
merchants'  bonds  by  suit ;  and  also  to  call  an 
extra  session  of  Congress.  The  first  of  these 
measures  was  to  stop  the  collection  of  the  ac- 
cruing revenues:  the  second,  to  obtain  from 
Congress  that  submission  to  the  bank  power 
which  could  not  be  obtained  from  the  Presi- 
dent. Formidable  as  were  the  arrangements 
for  acting  on  the  President,  provision  was  dis- 
creetly made  for  a  possible  failure,  and  for  the 
prosecution  of  other  measures.  With  this  view, 
Vol.  II.— 2 


the  committee  of  fifty,  after  their  return  from 
Washington,  were  directed  to  call  another  gen- 
eral meeting  of  the  citizens  of  New  York,  and 
to  report  to  them  the  results  of  their  mission. 
A  concluding  resolution  invited  the  co-opera- 
tion of  the  other  great  cities  in  these  proceed- 
ings, and  seemed  to  look  to  an  imposing  demon- 
stration of  physical  force,  and  strong  determina- 
tion, as  a  means  of  acting  on  the  mind,  or  will 
of  the  President ;  and  thus  controlling  the  free 
action  of  the  constitutional  authorities.  This 
resolve  was  specially  addressed  to  the  merchants 
of  Philadelphia,  Boston  and  Baltimore,  and  gen- 
erally addressed  to  all  other  commercial  cities, 
and  earnestly  prayed  their  assistance  in  saving 
the  whole  country  from  ruin. 

"That  merchants  of  Philadelphia,  Boston, 
Baltimore,  and  the  commercial  cities  of  the 
Union,  be  respectfully  requested  to  unite  with 
us  in  our  remonstrance  and  petition,  and  to  use 
their  exertions,  in  connection  with  us,  to  induce 
the  Executive  of  the  nation  to  listen  to  the  voice 
of  the  people,  and  to  recede  from  a  measure 
under  the  evils  of  which  we  are  now  laboring, 
and  which  threatens  to  involve  the  whole 
country  in  ruin." 

The  language  and  import  of  all  these  resolves 
and  proceedings  were  sufficiently  strong,  and 
indicated  a  feeling  but  little  short  of  violence 
towards  the  government ;  but,  according  to  the 
newspapers  of  the  city,  they  were  subdued  and 
moderate — tame  and  spiritless,  in  comparison 
to  the  feeling  which  animated  the  great  meet- 
ing. A  leading  paper  thus  characterized  that 
feeling : 

"  The  meeting  was  a  remarkable  one  for  the 
vast  numbers  assembled — the  entire  decorum 
of  the  proceedings — and  especially  for  the  deep, 
though  subdued  and  restrained,  excitement 
which  evidently  pervaded  the  mighty  mass. 
It  was  a  spectacle  that  could  not  be  looked 
upon  without  emotion, — that  of  many  thousand 
men  trembling,  as  it  were,  on  the  brink  of 
ruin,  owing  to  the  measures,  as  they  verily  be- 
lieve, of  their  own  government,  which  should 
be  their  friend,  instead  of  their  oppressor— and 
yet  meeting  with  deliberation  and  calmness,  lis- 
tening to  a  narrative  of  their  wrongs,  and  the 
causes  thereof,  adopting  such  resolutions  as 
were  deemed  judicious  j  and  then  quietly  sepa- 
rating, to  abide  the  result  of  their  firm  but  re- 
spectful remonstrances.  But  it  is  proper  and 
fit  to  say  that  this  moderation  must  not  be  mis- 
taken for  pusillanimity,  nor  be  trifled  with,  as 
though  it  could  not  by  any  aggravation  of 
wrong  be  moved  from  its  propriety.    No  man 


18 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


accustomed,  from  the  expression  of  the  counte- 
nance, to  translate  the  emotions  of  the  heart, 
could  have  looked  upon  the  faces  and  the  bear- 
ing of  the  multitude  assembled  last  evening,  and 
not  have  felt  that  there  were  fires  smouldering 
there,  which  a  single  spark  might  cause  to  burst 
into  flame." 

Smouldering  fires  which  a  single  spark  might 
light  into  a  flame !  Possibly  that  spark  might 
have  been  the  opposing  voice  of  some  citizen, 
who  thought  the  meeting  mistaken,  both  in  the 
fact  of  the  ruin  of  the  country  and  the  attribu- 
tion of  that  ruin  to  the  specie  circular.  No 
such  voice  was  lifted — no  such  spark  applied, 
and  the  proposition  to  march  10,000  men  to 
Washington  to  demand  a  redress  of  grievances 
was  not  sanctioned.  The  committee  of  fifty 
was  deemed  sufficient,  as  they  certainly  were, 
for  every  purpose  of  peaceful  communication. 
They  were  eminently  respectable  citizens,  any 
two,  or  any  one  of  which,  or  even  a  mail  trans- 
mission of  their  petition,  would  have  com- 
manded for  it  a  most  respectful  attention. 
The  grand  committee  arrived  at  Washington — 
asked  an  audience  of  the  President — received 
it ;  but  with  the  precaution  (to  avoid  mistakes) 
that  written  communications  should  alone  be 
used.  The  committee  therefore  presented  their 
demands  in  writing,  and  a  paragraph  from  it 
will  show  the  degree  to  which  the  feeling  of  the 
city  had  allowed  itself  to  be  worked  up. 

"  We  do  not  tell  a  fictitious  tale  of  woe ;  we 
have  no  selfish  or  partisan  views  to  sustain, 
when  we  assure  you  that  the  noble  city  which 
we  represent,  lies  prostrate  in  despair,  its  credit 
blighted,  its  industry  paralyzed,  and  without  a 
hope  beaming  through  the  darkness  of  the 
future,  unless  the  government  of  our  country 
can  be  induced  to  relinquish  the  measures  to 
which  we  attribute  our  distress.  We  fully 
appreciate  the  respect  which  is  due  to  our  chief 
magistrate,  and  disclaim  every  intention  incon- 
sistent with  that  feeling ;  but  we  speak  in  be- 
half of  a  community  which  trembles  upon  the 
brink  of  ruin,  which  deems  itself  an  adequate 
judge  of  all  questions  connected  with  the  trade 
and  currency  of  the  country,  and  believes  that 
the  policy  adopted  by  the  recent  administra- 
tion, and  sustained  by  the  present,  is  founded 
in  error,  and  threatens  the  destruction  of  every 
department  of  industry.  Under  a  deep  impres- 
sion of  the  propriety  of  confining  our  declara- 
tions within  moderate  limits,  we  affirm  that  the 
value  of  our  real  estate  has,  within  the  last  six 
months,  depreciated  more  than  forty  millions  : 
that  within  the  last  two  months,  there  have 
been  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  failures 


of  houses  engaged  in  extensive  business :  that 
within  the  same  period,  a  decline  of  twenty 
millions  of  dollars  has  occurred  in  our  local 
stocks,  including  those  railroad  and  canal  in- 
corporations, which,  though  chartered  in  other 
States,  depend  chiefly  upon  New  York  for  their 
sale :  that  the  immense  amount  of  merchandise 
in  our  warehouses  has  within  the  same  period 
fallen  in  value  at  least  thirty  per  cent. ;  that 
within  a  few  weeks,  not  less  than  twenty  thou- 
sand individuals,  depending  on  their  daily  labor 
for  their  daily  bread,  have  been  discharged  by 
their  employers,  because  the  means  of  retaining 
them  were  exhausted — and  that  a  complete 
blight  has  fallen  upon  a  community  heretofore 
so  *  active,  enterprising  and  prosperous.  The 
error  of  our  rulers  has  produced  a  wider  deso- 
lation than  the  pestilence  which  depopulated 
our  streets,  or  the  conflagration,  which  laid 
them  in  ashes.  We  believe  that  it  is  unjust  to 
attribute  these  evils  to  any  excessive  develop- 
ment of  mercantile  enterprise,  and  that  they 
really  flow  from  that  unwise  system  which 
aimed  at  the  substitution  of  a  metallic  for  a 
paper  currency — the  system  which  gave  the 
first  shock  to  the  fabric  of  our  commercial 
prosperity  by  removing  the  public  deposits 
from  the  United  States  bank,  which  weakened 
every  part  of  the  edifice  by  the  destruction  of 
that  useful  and  efficient  institution,  and  now 
threatens  to  crumble  it  into  a  mass  of  ruins 
under  the  operations  of  the  specie  circular, 
which  withdrew  the  gold  and  silver  of  the 
country  from  the  channels  in  which  it  could  be 
profitably  employed.  We  assert  that  the  ex- 
periment has  had  a  fair — a  liberal  trial,  and  that 
disappointment  and  mischief  are  visible  in  all 
its  results — that  the  promise  of  a  regulated 
currency  and  equalized  exchanges  has  been 
broken,  the  currency  totally  disordered,  and  in- 
ternal exchanges  almost  entirely  discontinued. 
We,  therefore,  make  our  earnest  appeal  to  the 
Executive,  and  ask  whether  it  is  not  time  to  in- 
terpose the  paternal  authority  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  abandon  the  policy  which  is  beggar-  I 
ing  the  people." 

The  address  was  read  to  the  President.  He 
heard  it  with  entire  composure — made  no  sort 
of  remark  upon  it — treated  the  gentlemen  with 
exquisite  politeness — and  promised  them  a 
written  answer  the  next  day.  This  was  the 
third  of  May :  on  the  fourth  the  answer  was 
delivered.  It  was  an  answer  worthy  of  a  Pres- 
ident— a  calm,  quiet,  decent,  peremptory  refusal 
to  comply  with  a  single  one  of  their  demands  ! 
with  a  brief  reason,  avoiding  all  controversy,  and 
foreclosing  all  further  application,  by  a  clean  re- 
fusal in  each  case.  The  committee  had  nothing 
to  do  but  to  return,  and  report :  and  they  did 
so.    There  had  been  a  mistake  committed  in 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


19 


the  estimate  of  the  man.  Mr.  Van  Buren  vin- 
dicated equally  the  rights  of  the  chief  magis- 
trate, and  his  own  personal  decorum ;  and  left 
the  committee  without  any  thing  to  complain  of, 
although  unsuccessful  in  all  their  objects.  He 
also  had  another  opportunity  of  vindicating  his 
personal  and  official  decorum  in  another  visit 
which  he  received  about  the  same  time.  Mr. 
Biddle  called  to  see  the  President — apparently 
a  call  of  respect  on  the  chief  magistrate — about 
the  same  time,  but  evidently  with  the  design  to 
be  consulted,  and  to  appear  as  the  great  restorer 
of  the  currency.  Mr.  Van  Buren  received  the 
visit  according  to  its  apparent  intent,  with  en- 
tire civility,  and  without  a  word  on  public 
affairs.  Believing  Mr.  Biddle  to  be  at  the  bottom 
of  the  suspension,  he  could  not  treat  him  with 
the  confidence  and  respect  which  a  consultation 
would  imply.  He  (Mr.  Biddle)  felt  the  slight, 
and  caused  this  notice  to  be  put  in  the  papers  : 

"  Being  on  other  business  at  Washington,  Mr. 
Biddle  took  occasion  to  call  on  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  to  pay  his  respects  to  him 
in  that  character,  and  especially,  to  afford  the 
President  an  opportunity,  if  he  chose  to  em- 
brace it,  to  speak  of  the  present  state  of  things, 
and  to  confer,  if  he  saw  fit,  witft  the  head  of  the 
largest  banking  institution  in  the  country — and 
that  the  institution  in  which  such  general  ap- 
plication has  been  made  for  relief.  During  the 
interview,  however,  the  President  remained  pro- 
foundly silent  upon  the  great  and  interesting 
topics  of  the  day ;  and  as  Mr.  Biddle  did  not 
think  it  his  business  to  introduce  them,  not  a 
word  in  relation  to  them  was  said." 

Returning  to  New  York,  the  committee  con- 
voked another  general  meeting  of  the  citizens, 
as  required  to  do  at  the  time  of  their  appoint- 
ment ;  and  made  their  report  to  it,  recommend- 
ing further  forbearance,  and  further  reliance  on 
the  ballot  box,  although  (as  they  said)  history 
recorded  many  popular  insurrections  where  the 
provocation  was  less.  A  passage  from  this  report 
will  show  its  spirit,  and  to  what  excess  a  commu- 
nity may  be  excited  about  nothing,  by  the  mu- 
tual inflammation  of  each  other's  passions  and 
complaints,  combined  with  a  power  to  act  upon 
the  business  and  interests  of  the  people. 

"  From  this  correspondence  it  is  obvious,  fel- 
low-citizens, that  we  must  abandon  all  hope 
that  either  the  justice  of  our  claims  or  the  se- 
verity of  our  sufferings  will  induce  the  Execu- 
tive to  abandon  or  relax  the  policy  which  has 
produced  such  desolating  effects — and  it  remains 


for  us  to  consider  what  more  is  to  be  done  in 
this  awful  crisis  of  our  affairs.  Our  first  duty 
under  losses  and  distresses  which  we  have  en- 
dured, is  to  cherish  with  religious  care  the 
blessings  which  we  yet  enjoy,  and  which  can  be 
protected  only  by  a  strict  observance  of  the 
laws  upon  which  society  depends  for  security 
and  happiness.  We  do  not  disguise  our  opinion 
that  the  pages  of  history  record,  and  the  opin- 
ions of  mankind  justify,  numerous  instances  of 
popular  insurrection,  the  provocation  to  which 
was  less  severe  than  the  evils  of  which  we  com- 
plain. But  in  these  cases,  the  outraged  and 
oppressed  had  no  other  means  of  redress.  Our 
case  is  different.  If  we  can  succeed  in  an  effort 
to  bring  public  opinion  into  sympathy  with  the 
views  which  we  entertain,  the  Executive  will 
abandon  the  policy  which  oppresses,  instead  of 
protecting  the  people.  Do  not  despair  because 
the  time  at  which  the  ballot  box  can  exercise 
its  healing  influence  appears  so  remote — the  sa- 
gacity of  the  practical  politician  will  perceive 
the  change  in  public  sentiment  before  you  are 
aware  of  its  approach.  But  the  effort  to  pro- 
duce this  change  must  be  vigorous  and  untir- 
ing." 

The  meeting  adopted  corresponding  resolu- 
tions. Despairing  of  acting  on  the  President, 
the  move  was  to  act  upon  the  people — to  rouse 
and  combine  them  against  an  administration 
which  was  destroying  their  industry,  and  to  re- 
move from  power  (at  the  elections)  those  who 
were  destroying  the  industry  of  the  country. 
Thus: 

"  Resolved,  That  the  interests  of  the  capital- 
ists, merchants,  manufacturers,  mechanics  and  in- 
dustrious classes,  are  dependent  upon  each  other, 
and  any  measures  of  the  government  which 
prostrate  the  active  business  men  of  the  com- 
munity, will  also  deprive  honest  industry  of  its 
reward ;  and  we  call  upon  all  our  fellow-citizens 
to  unite  with  us  in  removing  from  power  those 
who  persist  in  a  system  that  is  destroying  the 
prosperity  of  our  country." 

Another  resolve  summed  up  the  list  of  griev- 
ances of  which  they  complained,  and  enumerat- 
ed the  causes  of  the  pervading  ruin  which  had 
been  brought  upon  the  country.     Thus : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  chief  causes  of  the  ex- 
isting distress  are  the  defeat  of  Mr.  Clay's  land 
bill,  the  removal  of  the  public  deposits,  the  re- 
fusal to  re-charter  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  issuing  of  the  specie  circular. 
The  land  bill  was  passed  by  the  people's  repre- 
sentatives, and  vetoed  by  the  President — the  bill 
rechartering  the  bank  was  passed  by  the  peo- 
ple's representatives,  and  vetoed  by  the  Presi- 
dent. The  people's  representatives  declared  by 
a  solemn  resolution,  that  the  public  deposits 


20 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


were  safe  in  the  United  States  Bank ;  within  a 
few  weeks  thereafter,  the  President  removed  the 
public  deposits.  The  people's  representatives 
passed  a  bill  rescinding  the  specie  circular  :  the 
President  destroyed  it  by  omitting  to  return  it 
within  the  limited  period ;  and  in  the  answer  to 
our  addresses,  President  Van  Buren  declares 
that  the  specie  circular  was  issued  by  his  pre- 
decessor, omitting  all  notice  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  who  is  amenable  directly  to  Con- 
gress, and  charged  by  the  act  creating  his  de- 
partment with  the  superintendence  of  the  finan- 
ces, and  who  signed  the  order." 

These  two  resolves  deserve  to  be  noted.  They 
were  not  empty  or  impotent  menace.  They 
were  for  action,  and  became  what  they  were  in- 
tended for.  The  moneyed  corporations,  united 
with  a  political  party,  were  in  the  field  as  a  po- 
litical power,  to  govern  the  elections,  and  to 
govern  them,  by  the  only  means  known  to  a 
moneyed  power — by  operating  on  the  interests 
of  men,  seducing  some,  alarming  and  distressing 
the  masses.  They  are  the  key  to  the  manner  of 
conducting  the  presidential  election,  and  which 
will  be  spoken  of  in  the  proper  place  The 
union  of  Church  and  State  has  been  generally 
condemned :  the  union  of  Bank  and  State  is  far 
more  condemnable.  Here  the  union  was  not 
with  the  State,  but  with  a  political  party,  nearly 
as  strong  as  the  party  in  possession  of  the 
government,  and  exemplified  the  evils  of  the 
meretricious  connection  between  money  and 
politics  ;  and  nothing  but  this  union  could  have 
produced  the  state  of  things  which  so  long 
afflicted  the  country,  and  from  which  it  has 
been  relieved,  not  by  the  cessation  of  their  im- 
puted causes,  but  by  their  perpetuation.  It  is 
now  near  twenty  years  since  this  great  meeting 
was  held  in  New  York.  The  ruinous  measures 
complained  of  have  not  been  revoked,  but  be- 
come permanent.  They  have  been  in  full  force, 
and  made  stronger,  for  near  twenty  years.  The 
universal  and  black  destruction  which  was  to  en- 
sue their  briefest  continuance,  has  been  substi- 
tuted by  the  most  solid,  brilliant,  pervading,  and 
abiding  prosperity  that  any  people  ever  beheld. 
Thanks  to  the  divorce  of  Bank  and  State.  But 
the  consummation  was  not  yet.  Strong  in  her 
name,  and  old  recollections,  and  in  her  political 
connections — dominant  over  other  banks — brib- 
ing with  one  hand,  scourging  with  the  other — a 
long  retinue  of  debtors  and  retainers — desperate 
in  her  condition — impotent  for  good,  powerful 
for  evil— confederated  with  restless  politicians, 


and  wickedly,  corruptly,  and  revengefully  ruled: 
the  Great  Red  Harlot,  profaning  the  name  of  a 
National  Bank,  was  still  to  continue  a  while 
longer  its  career  of  abominations — maintaining 
dubious  contest  with  the  government  which 
created  it,  upon  whose  name  and  revenues  it 
had  gained  the  wealth  and  power  of  which  it 
was  still  the  shade,  and  whose  destruction  it 
plotted  because  it  could  not  rule  it.  Posterity 
should  know  these  things,  that  by  avoiding  bank 
connections,  their  governments  may  avoid  the 
evils  that  we  have  suffered ;  and,  by  seeing  the 
excitements  of  1837,  they  may  save  themselves 
from  ever  becoming  the  victims  of  such  delusion. 


CHAPTER    V. 

ACTUAL  SUSPENSION  OF  THE  BANKS :  PROPAGA- 
TION OF  THE  ALAEM. 

None  of  the  public  meetings,  and  there  were 
many  following  the  leading  one  in  New  York, 
recommended  in  terms  a  suspension  of  specie 
payments  by  the  banks.  All  avoided,  by  con- 
cert or  instinct,  the  naming  of  that  high 
measure ;  but  it  was  in  the  list,  and  at  the  head 
of  the  list,  of  the  measures  to  be  adopted  ;  and 
every  thing  said  or  done  was  with  a  view  to  that 
crowning  event ;  and  to  prepare  the  way  for  it 
before  it  came ;  and  to  plead  its  subsequent  justi- 
fication by  showing  its  previous  necessity.  It 
was  in  the  programme,  and  bound  to  come  in  its 
appointed  time ;  and  did — and  that  within  a  few 
days  after  the  last  great  meeting  in  New  York. 
It  took  place  quietly  and  generally,  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  10th  of  May,  altogether,  and  with  a 
concert  and  punctuality  of  action,  and  with  a 
military  and  police  preparation,  which  an- 
nounced arrangement  and  determination;  such 
as  attend  revolts  and  insurrections  in  other 
countries.  The  preceding  night  all  the  banks 
of  the  city,  three  excepted,  met  by  their  officers, 
and  adopted  resolutions  to  close  their  doors  in 
the  morning :  and  gave  out  notice  to  that  effect. 
At  the  same  time  three  regiments  of  volunteers, 
and  a  squadron  of  horse,  were  placed  on  duty  in 
the  principal  parts  of  the  city ;  and  the  entire 
police  force,  largely  reinforced  with  special  con- 
stables, was  on  foot.  This  was  to  suppress  the 
discontent  of  those  who  might  be  too  much 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


21 


dissatisfied  at  being  repulsed  when  they  came  to 
ask  for  the  amount  of  a  deposit,  or  the  contents 
of  a  bank  note.  It  was  a  humiliating  spectacle, 
but  an  effectual  precaution.  The  people  remained 
quiet.  At  twelve  o'clock  a  large  mercantile  meet- 
ing took  place.  Resolutions  were  adopted  by  it  to 
sustain  the  suspension,  and  the  newspaper  press 
was  profuse  and  energetic  in  its  support.  The 
measure  was  consummated :  the  suspension  was 
complete  :  it  was  triumphant  in  that  city  whose 
example,  in  such  a  case,  was  law  to  the  rest  of 
the  Union.  But,  let  due  discrimination  be  made. 
Though  all  the  banks  joined  in  the  act,  all  were 
not  equally  culpable;  and  some,  in  fact,  not 
culpable  at  all,  but  victims  of  the  criminality,  or 
misfortunes  of  others.  It  was  the  effect  of  ne- 
cessity with  the  deposit  banks,  exhausted  by 
vain  efforts  to  meet  the  quarterly  deliveries  of 
the  forty  millions  to  be  deposited  with  the 
States;  and  pressed  on  all  sides  because  they 
were  government  banks,  and  because  the  pro- 
gramme required  them  to  stop  first.  It  was  an 
act  of  self-defence  in  others  which  were  too  weak 
to  stand  alone,  and  which  followed  with  reluc- 
tance an  example  which  they  could  not  resist. 
With  others  it  was  an  act  o£  policy,  and  of 
criminal  contrivance,  as  the  means  of  carrying  a 
real  distress  into  the  ranks  of  the  people,  and 
exciting  them  against  the  political  party  to 
whose  acts  the  distress  was  attributed.  But  the 
prime  mover,  and  master  manager  of  the  sus- 
pension, was  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
then  rotten  to  the  core  and  tottering  to  its  fall, 
but  strong  enough  to  carry  others  with  it,  and 
seeking  to  hide  its  own  downfall  in  the  crash  of 
a  general  catastrophe.  Having  contrived  the 
suspension,  it  wished  to  appear  as  opposing  it, 
and  as  having  been  dragged  down  by  others  ;  and. 
accordingly  took  the  attitude  of  a  victim.  But 
the  impudence  and  emptiness  of  that  pretension 
was  soon  exposed  by  the  difficulty  which  other 
banks  had  in  forcing  her  to  resume  ;  and  by  the 
facility  with  which  she  fell  back,  "  solitary  and 
alone,"  into  the  state  of  permanent  insolvency 
from  which  the  other  banks  had  momentarily 
galvanized  her.  But  the  occasion  was  too  good 
to  be  lost  for  one  of  those  complacent  epistles, 
models  of  quiet  impudence  and  cool  mendacity, 
with  which  Mr.  Biddle  was  accustomed  to  regale 
the  public  in  seasons  of  moneyed  distress.  It  was 
impossible  to  forego  such  an  opportunity ;  and, 
accordingly,  three  days  after  the  New  York  sus- 


pension, and  two  days  after  his  own,  he  held 
forth  in  a  strain  of  which  the  following  is  a 
sample : 

"  All  the  deposit  banks  of  the  government  of 
the  United  States  in  the  city  of  New  York  sus- 
pended specie  payments  this  week — the  deposit 
banks  elsewhere  have  followed  their  example; 
which  was  of  course  adopted  by  the  State  banks 
not  connected  with  the  government.  I  say  of 
course,  because  it  is  certain  that  when  the  gov- 
ernment banks  cease  to  pay  specie,  all  the  other 
banks  must  cease,  and  for  this  clear  reason.  The 
great  creditor  in  the  United  States  is  the  govern- 
ment. It  receives  for  duties  the  notes  of  the 
various  banks,  which  are  placed  for  collection  in 
certain  government  banks,  and  are  paid  to  those 
government  banks  in  specie  if  requested.  From 
the  moment  that  the  deposit  banks  of  New 
York,  failed  to  comply  with  their  engagements, 
it  was  manifest  that  all  the  other  deposit  banks 
must  do  the  same,  that  there  must  be  a  universal 
suspension  throughout  the  country,  and  that  the 
treasury  itself  in  the  midst  of  its  nominal  abun- 
dance must  be  practically  bankrupt." 

This  was  all  true.  The  stoppage  of  the  de- 
posit banks  was  the  stoppage  of  the  Treasur}r. 
Non-payment  by  the  government,  was  an  excuse 
for  non-payment  by  others.  Bankruptcy  was 
the  legal  condition  of  non-payment;  and  that 
condition  was  the  fate  of  the  government  as  well 
as  of  others ;  and  all  this  was  perfectly  known 
before  by  those  who  contrived,  and  those  who 
resisted  the  deposit  with  the  States  and  the  use 
of  paper  money  by  the  federal  government. 
These  two  measures  made  the  suspension  and 
the  bankruptcy ;  and  all  this  was  so  obvious  to 
the  writer  of  this  View  that  he  proclaimed  it 
incessantly  in  his  speeches,  and  was  amazed  at 
the  conduct  of  those  professing  friends  of  the 
administration  who  voted  with  the  opposition 
on  these  measures,  and  by  their  votes  insured  the 
bankruptcy  of  the  government  which  they  pro- 
fessed to  support.  Mr.  Biddle  was  right.  The 
deposit  banks  were  gone ;  the  federal  treasury 
was  bankrupt ;  and  those  two  events  were  two 
steps  on  the  road  which  was  to  lead  to  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States ! 
and  Mr.  Biddle  stood  ready  with  his  bank  to 
travel  that  road.  The  next  paragraph  displayed 
this  readiness. 

'*'  In  the  midst  of  these  disorders  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  occupies  a  peculiar  posi- 
tion, and  has  special  duties.  Had  it  consulted 
merely  its  own  strength  it  would  have  contin- 
ued   its  payments  without  reserve.      But  in 


22 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


such  a  state  of  things  the  first  considera- 
tion is  how  to  escape  from  it — how  to  provide 
at  the  earliest  practicable  moment  to  change  a 
condition  which  should  not  be  tolerated  beyond 
the  necessity  which  commanded  it.  The  old 
associations,  the  extensive  connections,  the 
established  credit,  the  large  capital  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  rendered  it  the 
natural  rallying  point  of  the  country  for  the 
resumption  of  specie  payments.  It  seemed 
wiser,  therefore,  not  to  waste  its  strength  in  a 
struggle  which  might  be  doubtful  while  the  Exe- 
cutive persevered  in  its  present  policy,  but  to 
husband  all  its  resources  so  as  to  profit  by  the 
first  favorable  moment  to  take  the  lead  in  the 
early  resumption  of  specie  payments.  Accord- 
ingly the  Bank  of  the  United  States  assumes 
that  position.  From  this  moment  its  efforts 
will  be  to  keep  itself  strong,  and  to  make  itself 
stronger;  always  prepared  and  always  anxious 
to  assist  in  recalling  the  currency  and  the  ex- 
changes of  the  country  to  the  point  from  which 
they  have  fallen.  It  will  co-operate  cordially 
and  zealously  with  the  government,  with  the 
government  banks,  with  all  the  other  banks,  and 
with  any  other  influences  which  can  aid  in  that 
object." 

This  was  a  bold  face  for  an  eviscerated  insti- 
tution to  assume — one  which  was  then  nothing 
but  the  empty  skin  of  an  immolated  victim — 
the  contriver  of  the  suspension  to  cover  its  own 
rottenness,  and  the  architect  of  distress  and 
ruin  that  out  of  the  public  calamity  it  might  get 
again  into  existence  and  replenish  its  coffers  out 
of  the  revenues  and  credit  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment. "  Would  have  continued  specie  payments, 
if  it  had  only  consulted  its  own  strength  " — 
"only  suspended  from  a  sense  of  duty  and 
patriotism  " — "  will  take  the  lead  in  resuming  " 
— "  assumes  the  position  of  restorer  of  the  cur- 
rency " — "  presents  itself  as  the  rallying  point 
of  the  country  in  the  resumption  of  specie  pay- 
ments " — "  even  promises  to  co-operate  with  the 
government :  "  such  were  the  impudent  profes- 
sions at  the  very  moment  that  this  restorer  of 
currency,  and  rallying  point  of  resumption,  was 
plotting  a  continuance  of  the  distress  and  sus- 
pension until  it  could  get  hold  of  the  federal 
moneys  to  recover  upon ;  and  without  which  it 
never  could  recover. 

Indissolubly  connected  with  this  bank  suspen- 
sion, and  throwing  a  broad  light  upon  its  history, 
(if  further  light  were  wanted,)  was  Mr.  Web- 
ster's tour  to  the  West,  and  the  speeches  which 
he  made  in  the  course  of  it.  The  tour  extended 
to  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and  the  speeches 
took  for  their  burden  the  distress  and  the  sus- 


pension, excusing  and  justifying  the  banks, 
throwing  all  blame  upon  the  government,  and 
looking  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  for 
the  sole  remedy.  It  was  at  AVheeling  that  he 
opened  the  series  of  speeches  which  he  delivered 
in  his  tour,  it  being  at  that  place  that  he  was  over- 
taken by  the  news  of  the  suspension,  and  which 
furnished  him  with  the  text  for  his  discourse. 

"  Recent  evils  have  not  at  all  surprised  me,  ex- 
cept that  they  have  come  sooner  and  faster  than 
I  had  anticipated.  But,  though  not  surprised, 
I  am  afflicted ;  I  feel  any  thing  but  pleasure  in 
this  early  fulfilment  of  my  own  predictions. 
Much  injury  is  done  which  the  wisest  future 
counsels  can  never  repair,  and  much  more  that 
can  never  be  remedied  but  by  such  counsels  and 
by  the  lapse  of  time.  From  1832  to  the  present 
moment  I  have  foreseen  this  result.  I  may 
safely  say  I  have  foreseen  it,  because  I  have 
presented  and  proclaimed  its  approach  in 
every  important  discussion  and  debate,  in  the 
public  body  of  which  I  am  a  member.  We 
learn  to-day  that  most  of  the  eastern  banks 
have  stopped  payment  ;  deposit  banks  as 
well  as  others.  The  experiment  has  exploded. 
That  bubble,  which  so  many  of  us  have  all 
along  regarded  as  the  offspring  of  conceit,  pre- 
sumption and  political  quaekery,  has  burst.  A 
general  suspension  of  payment  must  be  the  re- 
sult ;  a  result  which  has  come,  even  sooner  than 
was  predicted.  Where  is  now  that  better  cur- 
rency that  was  promised  1  Where  is  that  spe- 
cie circulation '?  Where  are  those  rupees  of  gold 
and  silver,  which  were  to  fill  the  treasury  of  the 
government  as  well  as  the  pockets  of  the  peo- 
ple ?  Has  the  government  a  single  hard  dollar? 
Has  the  treasury  any  thing  in  the  world  but 
credit  and  deposits  in  banks  that  have  already 
suspended  payment  ?  How  are  public  creditors 
now  to  be  paid  in  specie  ?  How  are  the  depo- 
sits, which  the  law  requires  to  be  made  with  the 
states  on  the  1st  of  July,  now  to  be  made." 

This  was  the  first  speech  that  Mr.  Webster 
delivered  after  the  great  one  before  the  suspen- 
sion in  New  York,  and  may  be  considered  the 
epilogue  after  the  performance  as  the  former 
was  the  prologue  before  it.  It  is  a  speech  of 
exultation,  with  bitter  taunts  to  the  government. 
In  one  respect  his  information  was  different  from 
mine.  He  said  the  suspension  came  sooner  than 
was  expected  :  my  information  was  that  it  came 
later,  a  month  later ;  and  that  he  himself  was 
the  cause  of  the  delay.  My  information  was 
that  it  was  to  take  place  in  the  first  month  of 
Mr.  Van  Buren's  administration,  and  that  the 
speech  which  was  to  precede  it  was  to  be  delivered 
early  in  March,  immediately  after  the  adjourn- 


ANNO  1887.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


23 


ment  of  Congress  :  but  it  was  not  delivered  till 
the  middle  of  that  month,  nor  got  ready  for 
pamphlet  publication  until  the  middle  of  April ; 
which  delay  occasioned  a  corresponding  post- 
ponement in  all  the  subsequent  proceedings. 
The  complete  shutting  up  of  the  treasury — the 
loss  of  its  moneys — the  substitution  of  broken 
bank  paper  for  hard  money — the  impossibility 
of  paying  a  dollar  to  a  creditor  :  these  were  the 
points  of  his  complacent  declamation :  and  hav- 
ing made  these  points  strong  enough  and  clear 
enough,  he  came  to  the  remedy,  and  fell  upon 
the  same  one,  in  almost  the  same  words,  that 
Mr.  Biddle  was  using  at  the  same  time,  four 
hundred  miles  distant,  in  Philadelphia:  and 
that  without  the  aid  of  the  electric  telegraph, 
not  then  in  use.  The  recourse  to  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States  was  that  remedy  !  that  bank 
strong  enough  to  hold  out,  (unhappily  the  news 
of  its  suspending  arrived  while  he  was  speak- 
ing :)  patriotic  enough  to  do  so  !  but  under  no 
obligation  to  do  better  than  the  doposit  banks  ! 
and  justifiable  in  following  their  example.  Hear 
him: 

"  The  United  States  Bank,  now  a  mere  state 
institution,  with  no  public  deposits,  no  aid  from 
government,  but,  on  the  contrary,  long  an  object 
of  bitter  persecution  by  it,  was  at  our  latest 
advices  still  firm.  But  can  we  expect  of  that 
Bank  to  make  sacrifices  to  continue  specie  pay- 
ment ?  If  it  continue  to  do  so,  now  the  depo- 
sit banks  have  stopped,  the  government  will 
draw  from  it  its  last  dollar,  if  it  can  do  so,  in 
order  to  keep  up  a  pretence  of  making  its  own 
payments  in  specie.  I  shall  be  glad  if  this  in- 
stitution find  it  prudent  and  proper  to  hold  out ; 
but  as  it  owes  no  more  duty  to  the  government 
than  any  other  bank,  and,  of  course,  much  less 
than  the  deposit  banks,  I  cannot  see  any  ground 
for  demanding  from  it  efforts  and  sacrifices  to 
favor  the  government,  which  those  holding  the 
public  money,  and  owing  duty  to  the  govern- 
ment, are  unwilling  or  unable  to  make  ;  nor  do 
I  see  how  the  New  England  banks  can  stand 
alone  in  the  general  crush." 

The  suspension  was  now  complete ;  and  it  was 
evident,  and  as  good  as  admitted  by  those  who 
had  made  it,  that  it  was  the  effect  of  contrivance 
on  the  part  of  politicians,  and  the  so-called 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  for  the  purpose  of 
restoring  themselves  to  power.  The  whole 
process  was  now  clear  to  the  vision  of  those 
who  could  see  nothing  while  it  was  going  on. 
Even  those  of  the  democratic  party  whose  votes 
had  helped  to  do  the  mischief,  could  now  see 


that  the  attempt  to  deposit  forty  millions  with 
the  States  was  destruction  to  the  deposit  banks ; 
— that  the  repeal  of  the  specie  circular  was  to 
fill  the  treasury  with  paper  money,  to  be  found 
useless  when  wanted  ; — that  distress  was  pur- 
posely created  in  order  to  throw  the  blame  of  it 
upon  the  party  in  power ; — that  the  promptitude 
with  which  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  had 
been  brought  forward  as  a  remedy  for  the  distress, 
showed  that  it  had  been  held  in  reserve  for  that 
purpose  ; — and  the  delight  with  which  the  whig 
party  saluted  the  general  calamity,  showed  that 
they  considered  it  their  own  passport  to  power. 
All  this  became  visible,  after  the  mischief  was 
over,  to  those  who  could  see  nothing  of  it  before 
it  was  done. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

TRANSMIGRATION  OF  THE  BANK  OF  THE  UNI- 
TED STATES  FEOM  A  FEDERAL  TO  A  STATE  IN- 
STITUTION. 

This  institution  having  again  appeared  on  the 
public  theatre,  politically  and  financially,  and 
with  power  to  influence  national  legislation,  and 
to  control  moneyed  corporations,  and  with  art 
and  skill  enough  to  deceive  astute  merchants 
and  trained  politicians, — (for  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  such  men  would  have  committed 
themselves  in  her  favor  if  they  had  known  her 
condition,) — it  becomes  necessary  to  trace  her 
history  since  the  expiration  of  her  charter,  and 
learn  by  what  means  she  continued  an  exist- 
ence, apparently  without  change,  after  having 
undergone  the  process  which,  in  law  and  in 
reason,  is  the  death  of  a  corporation.  It  is  a 
marvellous  history,  opening  a  new  chapter  in 
the  necrology  of  corporations,  very  curious  to 
study,  and  involving  in  its  solution,  besides  the 
biological  mystery,  the  exposure  of  a  legal 
fraud  and  juggle,  a  legislative  smuggle,  and  a 
corrupt  enactment.  The  charter  of  the  corpo- 
ration had  expired  upon  its  own  limitation  in 
the  year  1836  :  it  was  entitled  to  two  years  to 
wind  up  its  affairs,  engaging  in  no  new  busi- 
ness :  but  was  seen  to  go  on  after  the  expira- 
tion, as  if  still  in  full  life,  and  without  the 
change  of  an  attribute  or  feature.  The  expla- 
nation is  this : 

On  the   19th  day  of  January,  in  the  year 


24 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


1836,  a  bill  was  reported  in  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives of  the  General  Assembly  of  Penn- 
sylvania, entitled,  "  An  act  to  repeal  the  State 
tax,  and  to  continue  the  improvement  of  the 
State  by  railroads  and  canals  ;  and  for  other 
purposes."  It  came  from  the  standing  com- 
mittee on  '''■Inland  navigation  and  internal 
improvement  /"  and  was,  in  fact,  a  bill  to  re- 
peal a  tax  and  make  roads  and  canals,  but 
which,  under  the  vague  and  usually  unimpor- 
tant generality  of  " other  purposes"  contained 
the  entire  draught  of  a  charter  for  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States — adopting  it  as  a  Pennsylvania 
State  bank.  The  introduction  of  the  bill,  with 
this  addendum,  colossal  tail  to  it,  was  a  surprise 
upon  the  House.  No  petition  had  asked  for  such 
a  bank  :  no  motion  had  been  made  in  relation  to 
it :  no  inquiry  had  been  sent  to  any  committee : 
no  notice  of  any  kind  had  heralded  its  approach : 
no  resolve  authorized  its  report :  the  unimpor- 
tant clause  of  "  other  purposes"  hung  on  at  the 
end  of  the  title,  could  excite  no  suspicion  of  the 
enormous  measures  which  lurked  under  its  un- 
pretentious phraseology.  Its  advent  was  an 
apparition :  its  entrance  an  intrusion.  Some 
members  looked  at  each  other  in  amazement. 
But  it  was  soon  evident  that  it  was  the  minor- 
ity only  that  was  mystified — that  a  majority 
of  the  elected  members  in  the  House,  and  a 
cluster  of  exotics  in  the  lobbies,  perfectly  un- 
derstood the  intrusive  movement : — in  brief,  it 
had  been  smuggled  into  the  House,  and  a  power 
was  present  to  protect  it  there.  This  was  the 
first  intimation  that  had  reached  the  General 
Assembly,  the.  people  of  Pennsylvania,  or  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  that  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States  was  transmigrating !  chang- 
ing itself  from  a  national  to  a  local  institution — 
from  a  federal  to  a  State  charter — from  an  im- 
perial to  a  provincial  institution — retaining  all 
the  while  its  body  and  essence,  its  nature  and 
attributes,  its  name  and  local  habitation.  It 
was  a  new  species  of  metempsychosis,  hereto- 
fore confined  to  souls  separated  from  bodies, 
but  now  appearing  in  a  body  that  never  had  a 
soul :  for  that,  according  to  Sir  Edward  Coke, 
is  the  psychological  condition  of  a  corporation — 
and,  above  all,  of  a  moneyed  corporation. 

The  mystified  members  demanded  explana- 
tions ;  and  it  was  a  case  in  which  explanations 
could  not  be  denied.  Mr.  Biddle,  in  a  public 
letter  to  an  eminent  citizen,  on  whose  name  he 


had  been  accustomed  to  hang  such  productions, 
(Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,)  attributed  the  pro- 
cedure, so  far  as  he  had  moved  in  it,  to  a 
" formal  application  on  the  part  of  the  legis- 
lature to  know  from  him  on  what  terms  the 
expiring  bank  would  receive  a  charter  from 
it ; "  and  gave  up  the  names  of  two  members 
who  had  conveyed  the  application.  The  legis- 
lature had  no  knowledge  of  the  proceeding. 
The  two  members  whose  names  had  been 
vouched  disavowed  the  legislative  application, 
but  admitted  that,  in  compliance  with  sugges- 
tions, they  had  written  a  letter  to  Mr.  Biddle  in 
their  own  names,  making  the  inquiry ;  but  with- 
out the  sanction  of  the  legislature,  or  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  committees  of  which  they  were 
members.  They  did  not  explain  the  reason 
which  induced  them  to  take  the  initiative  in  so 
important  business ;  and  the  belief  took  root 
that  their  good  nature  had  yielded  to  an  impor- 
tunity from  an  invisible  source,  and  that  they 
had  consented  to  give  a  private  and  bungling 
commencement  to  what  must  have  a  beginning, 
and  which  could  not  find  it  in  any  open  or  par- 
liamentary form.  It  was  truly  a  case  in  which 
the  first  step  cost  the  difficulty.  How  to  begin 
was  the  puzzle,  and  so  to  begin  as  to  conceal 
the  beginning,  was  the  desideratum.  The  finger 
of  the  bank  must  not  be  seen  in  it,  yet,  without 
the  touch  of  that  finger,  the  movement  could 
not  begin.  Without  something  from  the  Bank 
— without  some  request  or  application  from  it, 
it  would  have  been  gratuitous  and  impertinent, 
and  might  have  been  insulting  and  offensive,  to 
have  offered  it  a  State  charter.  To  apply 
openly  for  a  charter  was  to  incur  a  publicity 
which  would  be  the  defeat  of  the  whole  move- 
ment. The  answer  of  Mr.  Biddle  to  the  two 
members,  dexterously  treating  their  private  let- 
ter, obtained  by  solicitation,  as  a  formal  legis- 
lative application,  surmounted  the  difficulty! 
and  got  the  Bank  before  the  legislature,  where 
there  were  friends  enough  secretly  prepared  for 
the  purpose  to  pass  it  through.  The  terms  had 
been  arranged  with  Mr.  Biddle  beforehand,  so 
that  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  but  to  vote. 
The  principal  item  in  these  terms  was  the  stip- 
ulation to  pay  the  State  the  sum  of  $1,300,000, 
to  be  expended  in  works  of  internal  improve- 
ments ;  and  it  was  upon  this  slender  connection 
with  the  subject  that  the  whole  charter  referred 
itself  to  the  committee  of  "  Inland  navigation 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


25 


and  internal  improvement ;" — to  take  its  place 
as  a  proviso  to  a  bill  entitled,  "  To  repeal  the 
State  tax,  and  to  continue  the  improvements 
of  the  State  by  rail)  oads  and  canals  ;" — and 
to  be  no  further  indicated  in  the  title  to  that 
act  than  what  could  be  found  under  the  adden- 
dum of  that  vague  and  flexible  generality, 
"  other  purposes .;"  usually  added  to  point  atten- 
tion to  something  not  worth  a  specification. 

Having  mastered  the  first  step — the  one  of 
greatest  difficulty,  if  there  is  truth  in  the  prov- 
erb,— the  remainder  of  the  proceeding  was  easy 
and  rapid,  the  bill,  with  its  proviso,  being  re- 
ported, read  a  first,  second,  and  third  time, 
passed  the  House — sent  to  the  Senate ;  read  a 
first,  second,  and  third  time  there,  and  passed — 
sent  to  the  Governor  and  approved,  and  made 
a  law  of  the  land :  and  all  in  as  little  time  as  it 
usually  requires  to  make  an  act  for  changing 
the  name  of  a  man  or  a  county.  To  add  to  its 
titles  to  infamy,  the  repeal  of  the  State  tax 
which  it  assumed  to  make,  took  the  air  of  a 
bamboozle,  the  tax  being  a  temporary  imposi- 
tion, and  to  expire  within  a  few  days  upon  its 
own  limitation.  The  distribution  of  the  bonus 
took  the  aspect  of  a  bribe  to  the"  people,  being 
piddled  out  in  driblets  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
counties :  and,  to  stain  the  bill  with  the  last 
suspicion,  a  strong  lobby  force  from  Philadel- 
phia hung  over  its  progress,  and  cheered  it  along 
with  the  affection  and  solicitude  of  parents  for 
their  offspring.  Every  circumstance  of  its 
enactment  announced  corruption — bribery  in 
the  members  who  passed  the  act,  and  an  at- 
tempt to  bribe  the  people  by  distributing  the 
bonus  among  them  :  and  the  outburst  of  indig- 
nation throughout  the  State  was  vehement  and 
universal.  People  met  in  masses  to  condemn 
the  act,  demand  its  repeal,  to  denounce  the 
members  who  voted  for  it,  and  to  call  for  inves- 
tigation into  the  manner  in  which  it  passed. 
Of  course,  the  legislature  which  passed  it  was 
in  no  haste  to  respond  to  these  demands ;  but 
their  successors  were  different.  An  election 
intervened;  great  changes  of  members  took 
place ;  two-thirds  of  the  new  legislature  de- 
manded investigation,  and  resolved  to  have  it. 
A  committee  was  appointed,  with  the  usual 
ample  powers,  and  sat  the  usual  length  of  time, 
and  worked  with  the  usual  indefatigability,  and 
made  the  usual  voluminous  report ;  and  with 
the  usual  "  lame  and  impotent  conclusion."    A 


mass  of  pregnant  circumstances  were  collected, 
covering  the  whole  case  with  black  suspicion : 
but  direct  bribery  was  proved  upon  no  one. 
Probably,  the  case  of  the  Yazoo  fraud  is  to  be 
the  last,  as  it  was  the  first,  in  which  a  succeed- 
ing general  assembly  has  fully  and  unqualifiedly 
condemned  its  predecessor  for  corruption. 

The  charter  thus  obtained  was  accepted : 
and,  without  the  change  of  form  or  substance 
in  any  particular,  the  old  bank  moved  on  as  if 
nothing  had  happened — as  if  the  Congress  char- 
ter was  still  in  force — as  if  a  corporate  institu- 
tion and  all  its  affairs  could  be  shifted  by  stat- 
ute from  one  foundation  to  another ; — as  if  a 
transmigration  of  corporate  existence  could  be 
operated  by  legislative  enactment,  and  the  debt- 
ors, creditors,  depositors,  and  stockholders  in 
one  bank  changed,  transformed,  and  constituted 
into  debtors,  creditors,  depositors  and  stock- 
holders in  another.  The  illegality  of  the  whole 
proceeding  was  as  flagrant  as  it  was  corrupt — 
as  scandalous  as  it  was  notorious — and  could 
only  find  its  motive  in  the  consciousness  of  a 
condition  in  which  detection  adds  infamy  to 
ruin ;  and  in  which  no  infamy,  to  be  incurred, 
can  exceed  that  from  which  escape  is  sought. 
And  yet  it  was  this  broken  and  rotten  institu- 
tion— this  criminal  committing  crimes  to  escape 
from  the  detection  of  crimes — this  "  counter- 
feit presentment"  of  a  defunct  corporation — this 
addendum  to  a  Pennsylvania  railroad — this 
whited  sepulchre  filled  with  dead  men's  bones, 
thus  bribed  and  smuggled  through  a  local  legis- 
lature— that  was  still  able  to  set  up  for  a  power 
and  a  benefactor  !  still  able  to  influence  federal 
legislation — control  other  banks — deceive  mer- 
chants and  statesmen — excite  a  popular  current 
in  its  favor — assume  a  guardianship  over  the 
public  affairs,  and  actually  dominate  for  months 
longer  in  the  legislation  and  the  business  of  the 
country.  It  is  for  the  part  she  acted — the 
dominating  part — in  contriving  the  financial 
distress  and  the  general  suspension  of  the 
banks  in  1837 — the  last  one  which  has  afflicted 
our  country, — that  renders  necessary  and  pro- 
per this  notice  of  her  corrupt  transit  through 
the  General  Assembly  of  the  State  of  Pennsyl- 


26 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTEE     VII. 

EFFECTS  OF  THE  SUSPENSION:  GENERAL  DE- 
RANGEMENT OF  BUSINESS:  SUPPRESSION  AND 
RIDICULE  OF  THE  SPECIE  CURRENCY:  SUB- 
MISSION OF  THE  PEOPLE:    CALL  OF  CONGRESS. 

A  great  disturbance  of  course  took  place  in 
the  business  of  the  country,  from  the  stoppage 
of  the  banks.  Their  agreement  to  receive  each 
others'  notes  made  these  notes  the  sole  currency 
of  the  country.  It  was  a  miserable  substitute 
for  gold  and  silver,  falling  far  below  these 
metals  when  measured  against  them,  and  very 
unequal  to  each  other  in  different  parts  of  the 
country.  Those  of  the  interior,  and  of  the 
west,  being  unfit  for  payments  in  the  great 
commercial  Atlantic  cities,  were  far  below  the 
standard  of  the  notes  of  those  cities,  and  suf- 
fered a  heavy  loss  from  difference  of  exchange, 
as  it  was  called  (although  it  was  only  the  differ- 
ence of  depreciation,)  in  all  remittances  to  those 
cities : — to  which  points  the  great  payments 
tended.  All  this  difference  was  considered  a 
loss,  and  charged  upon  the  mismanagement  of 
the  public  affairs  by  the  administration,  although 
the  clear  effect  of  geographical  position.  Specie 
disappeared  as  a  currency,  being  systematically 
suppressed.  It  became  an  article  of  merchan- 
dise, bought  and  sold  like  any  other  marketable 
commodity ;  and  especially  bought  in  quantities 
for  exportation.  Even  metallic  change  disap- 
peared, down  to  the  lowest  subdivision  of  the 
dollar.  Its  place  was  supplied  by  every  con- 
ceivable variety  of  individual  and  corporation 
tickets — issued  by  some  from  a  feeling  of  neces- 
sity ;  by  others,  as  a  means  of  small  gains ;  by 
many,  politically,  as  a  means  of  exciting  odium 
against  the  administration  for  having  destroyed 
[  the  currency.  Fictitious  and  burlesque  notes 
were  issued  with  caricatures  and  grotesque  pic- 
tures and  devices,  and  reproachful  sentences, 
entitled  the  "  better  currency  : "  and  exhibited 
every  where  to  excite  contempt.  They  were 
sent  in  derision  to  all  the  friends  of  the  specie 
circular,  especially  to  him  who  had  the  credit 
(not  untruly)  of  having  been  its  prime  mover — 
most  of  them  plentifully  sprinkled  over  with 
taunting  expressions  to  give  them  a  personal 
application :  such  as — "  This  is  what  you  have 
brought  the  country  to :"  "  the  end  of  the  ex- 


periment : "  "  the  gold  humbug  exploded  :"  "  is 
this  what  was  promised  us  ?  "  "  behold  the  ef- 
fects of  tampering  with  the  currency."  The 
presidential  mansion  was  infested,  and  almost 
polluted  with  these  missives,  usually  made  the 
cover  of  some  vulgar  taunt.  Even  gold  and 
silver  could  not  escape  the  attempted  degrada- 
tion— copper,  brass,  tin,  iron  pieces  being  struck 
in  imitation  of  gold  and  silver  coins — made  ridi- 
culous by  figures  and  devices,  usually  the  whole 
hog,  and  inscribed  with  taunting  and  reproach- 
ful expressions.  Immense  sums  were  expended 
in  these  derisory  manufactures,  extensively 
carried  on,  and  universally  distributed  5  and  re- 
duced to  a  system  as  a  branch  of  party  warfare, 
and  intended  to  act  on  the  thoughtless  and 
ignorant  through  appeals  to  their  eyes  and 
passions.  Nor  were  such  means  alone  resorted 
to  to  inflame  the  multitude  against  the  adminis- 
tration. The  opposition  press  teemed  with  in- 
flammatory publications.  The  President  and  his 
friends  were  held  up  as  great  state  criminals, 
ruthlessly  destroying  the  property  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  meriting  punishment — even  death. 
Nor  did  these  publications  appear  in  thought- 
less or  obscure  papers  only,  but  in  some  of  the 
most  weighty  and  iufluential  of  the  bank  party. 
Take,  for  example,  this  paragraph  from  a  lead- 
ing paper  in  the  city  of  New  York : 

"  We  would  put  it  directly  to  each  and  all  of 
our  readers,  whether  it  becomes  this  great  peo- 
ple, quietly  and  tamely  to  submit  to  any  and 
every  degree  of  lawless  oppression  which  their 
rulers  may  inflict,  merely  because  resistance 
may  involve  us  in  trouble  and  expose  those  who 
resist,  to  censure  ?  We  are  very  certain  their 
reply  will  be,  '  No,  but  at  what  point  is  "resist- 
ance to  commence  ?" — is  not  the  evil  of  resist- 
ance greater  "  than  the  evil  of  submission  ?" ' 
We  answer  promptly,  that  resistance  on  the 
part  of  a  free  people,  if  they  would  preserve 
their  freedom,  should  always  commence  when- 
ever it  is  made  plain  and  palpable  that  there 
has  been  a  deliberate  violation  of  their  rights  ; 
and  whatever  temporary  evils  may  result  from 
such  resistance,  it  can  never  be  so  great  or  so 
dangerous  to  our  institutions,  as  a  blind  sub- 
mission to  a  most  manifest  act  of  oppression 
and  tyranny.  And  now,  we  would  ask  of  all — 
what  shadow  of  right,  what  plea  of  expe- 
diency, what  constitutional  or  legal  justification 
can  Martin  Van  Buren  offer  to  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  for  having  brought  upon  them 
all  their  present  difficulties  by  a  continuance  of 
the  specie  circular,  after  two-thirds  of  their 
representatives  had  declared  their  solemn  con- 
victions that  it  was  injurious  to  the  country 


ANNO  1837.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


27 


and  should  be  repealed  ?  Most  assuredly,  none, 
and  we  unhesitatingly  say,  that  it  is  a  more 
high-handed  measure  of  tyranny  than  that 
which  cost  Charles  the  1st  his  crown  and  his 
head — more  illegal  and  unconstitutional  than 
the  act  of  the  British  ministry  which  caused  the 
patriots  of  the  revolution  to  destroy  the  tea  in 
the  harbor  of  Boston — and  one  which  calls  more 
loudly  for  resistance  than  any  act  of  Great 
Britain  which  led  to  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence." 

Taken  by  surprise  in  the  deprivation  of  its 
revenues, — specie  denied  it  by  the  banks  which 
held  its  gold  and  silver, — the  federal  government 
could  only  do  as  others  did,  and  pay  out  de- 
preciated paper.     Had  the  event  been  foreseen 
by  the  government,  it  might  have  been  provided 
against,  and  much  specie  saved.   It  was  now  too 
late  to  enter  into  a  contest  with  the  banks,  they 
in  possession  of  the  money,  and  the  suspension 
organized  and  established.  They  would  only  ren- 
der their  own  notes :  the  government  could  only 
pay  in  that  which  it  received.  Depreciated  paper 
was  their  only  medium  of  payment ;  and  every 
such  payment  (only  received  from  a  feeling  of 
duresse)  brought  resentment,  reproach,  indigna- 
tion, loss  of  popularity  to  the  administration ; 
and  loud  calls  for  the  re-establishment  of  the 
National  Bank,  whose  notes  had  always  been 
equal  to  specie,  and  were  then  contrived  to  be 
kept  far  above  the  level  of  those  of  other  sus- 
pended banks.      Thus  the  administration  found 
itself,  in   the  second  month   of  its   existence, 
struggling  with  that  most  critical  of  all  govern- 
ment embarrassments — deranged  finances,  and 
depreciated  currency ;  and  its  funds  dropping 
off  every  day.     Defections  were  incessant,  and 
by  masses,  and  sometimes  by  whole  States :  and 
all  on  account  of  these  vile  payments  in  de- 
preciated paper.     Take  a  single  example.     The 
State  of  Tennessee  had  sent  numerous  volunteers 
to  the  Florida  Indian  war.     There  were  several 
thousands  of  them,  and  came  from  thirty  differ- 
ent counties,  requiring  payments  to  be  made 
through  a  large  part  of  the  State,  and  to  some 
member  of  almost  every  family  in  it.     The  pay- 
master, Col.  Adam  Duncan  Steuart,  had  treas- 
ury drafts  on  the  Nashville  deposit  banks  for 
the  money  to  make  the  payments.     They  de- 
livered their  own  notes,  and  these  far  below  par 
— even  twenty  per  cent,  below  those  of  the  so- 
called  Bank  of  the  United  States,  which  the 
policy  of  the  suspension  required  to  be  kept  in 


strong  contrast  with  those  of  the  government  de- 
posit banks.     The  loss  on  each  payment  was 
great — one  dollar  in  every  five.   Even  patriotism 
could  not  stand  it.    The  deposit  banks  and  their 
notes  were  execrated :  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  and  its  notes  were  called  for.    It  was  the 
children  of  Israel  wailing  for  the  fleshpots  of 
Eg}rpt.      Discontent,   from   individual  became 
general,  extending  from  persons  to  masses.  The 
State  took  the  infection.     From  being  one  of 
the   firmest   and  foremost   of  the   democratic 
States,  Tennessee  fell  off  from  her  party,  and 
went  into  opposition.     At  the  next  election  she 
showed  a  majority  of  20,000  against  her  old 
friends  ;   and  that  in  the    lifetime  of  General 
Jackson ;  and  contrary  to  what  it  would  have 
been  if  his  foresight  had  been  seconded.     He 
foresaw  the  consequences  of  paying   out  this 
depreciated  paper.      The  paymaster  had  fore- 
seen them,  and  before  drawing  a  dollar  from  the 
banks  he  went  to  General  Jackson  for  his  advice. 
This  energetic  man,  then  aged,  and  dying,  and 
retired  to  his  beloved  hermitage, — but  all  head 
and  nerve  to  the  last,  and  scorning  to  see  the 
government    capitulate   to    insurgent  banks, — 
acted  up  to  his  character.     He  advised  the  pay- 
master to  proceed  to  Washington  and  ask  for 
solid  money — for  the  gold  and  silver  which  was 
then  lying  in  the  western  land  offices.    He  went ; 
but  being  a  military  subordinate,  he  only  ap- 
plied   according    to  the    rules    of   subordina- 
tion,   through  the    channels  of  official   inter- 
course :  and  was  denied  the  hard  money,  wanted 
for  payments  on  debenture  bonds  and  officers 
of  the  government.      He  did  not  go  to  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  as  General  Jackson  intended  he  should 
do.     He  did  not  feel  himself  authorized  to  go 
beyond  official  routine.     It  was  in  the  recess  of 
Congress,  and  I  was  not  in  Washington  to  go  to 
the  President  in  his  place  (as  I  shculd  instantly 
have  done)  ;  and,  returning  without  the  desired 
orders,  the  payments  were  made,  through  a  storm 
of  imprecations,  in  this  loathsome  trash :  and 
Tennessee  was  lost.     And  so  it  was,  in  more  or 
less  degree,  throughout  the  Union.     The  first 
object  of  the  suspension  had  been  accomplished 
— a  political  revolt  against  the  administration. 

Miserable  as  was  the  currency  which  the 
government  was  obliged  to  use,  it  was  yet  in 
the  still  more  miserable  condition  of  not  having 
enough  of  it !  The  deposits  with  the  States  had 
absorbed  two  sums  of  near  ten  millions  each : 


28 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


two  more  sums  of  equal  amount  were  demand- 
able  in  the  course  of  the  year.  Financial  em- 
barrassment, and  general  stagnation  of  business, 
diminished  the  current  receipts  from  lands  and 
customs  :  an  absolute  deficit — that  horror,  and 
shame,  and  mortal  test  of  governments — showed 
itself  ahead.  An  extraordinary  session  of  Con- 
gress became  a  necessity,  inexorable  to  any  con- 
trivance of  the  administration:  and,  on  the  15th 
day  of  May — just  five  days  after  the  suspension 
in  the  principal  cities — the  proclamation  was 
issued  for  its  assembling:  to  take  place  on  the 
first  Monday  of  the  ensuing  September.  It  was 
a  mortifying  concession  to  imperative  circum- 
stances ;  and  the  more  so  as  it  had  just  been  re- 
fused to  the  grand  committee  of  Fifty — demand- 
ing it  in  the  imposing  name  of  that  great  meet- 
ing in  the  city  of  New  York. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

EXTEA  SESSION:    MES3AGE,  AND  KECOMMENDA- 
TIONS. 

The  first  session  of  the  twenty-fifth  Congress, 
convened  upon  the  proclamation  of  the  Presi- 
dent, to  meet  an  extraordinary  occasion,  met  on 
the  first  Monday  in  September,  and  consisted 
of  the  following  members  : 

SENATE. 

New  Hampshire  —  Henry  Hubbard  and 
Franklin  Pierce. 

Maine — John  Ruggles  and  Ruel  Williams. 

Vermont — Samuel  Prentiss  and  Benjamin 
Swift. 

Massachusetts — Daniel  Webster  and  John 
Davis. 

Rhode  Island — Nehemiah  R.  Knight  and 
Asher  Robbins. 

Connecticut — John  M.  Niles  and  Perry 
Smith. 

New  York — Silas  Wright  and  Nathaniel  P. 
Tallmadge. 

New  Jersey — Garret  D.  Wall  and  Samuel 
L.  Southard. 

Delaware — Richard  H.  Bayard  and  Thomas 
Clayton. 

Pennsylvania — James  Buchanan  and  Sam- 
uel McKean. 

Maryland  —  Joseph  Kent  and  John  S. 
Spence. 

Virginia — William  C.  Rives  and  William 
H.  Roane. 


North  Carolina — Bedford  Brown  and  Rob- 
ert Strange. 

South  Carolina — John  C.  Calhoun  and 
Wm.  Campbell  Preston. 

Georgia — John  P.  King  and  Alfred  Cuth- 
bert. 

Alabama — Wm.  Rufus  King  and  Clement  C. 
Clay. 

Mississippi  —  John  Black  and  Robert  J. 
Walker. 

Louisiana — Robert  C.  Nicholas  and  Alexan- 
der Mouton. 

Tennessee — Hugh  L.  White  and  Felix 
Grundy. 

Kentucky — Henry  Clay  and  John  Critten- 
den. 

Arkansas — Ambrose  H.  Sevier  and  William 
S.  Fulton. 

Missouri — Thomas  H.  Benton  and  Lewis  F. 
Linn. 

Illinois — Richard  M.  Young  and  John  M. 
Robinson. 

Indiana — Oliver  H.  Smith  and  John  Tipton. 

Ohio — William  Allen  and  Thomas  Morris. 

Michigan — Lucius  Lyon  and  John  Norvell. 

HOUSE     OF     EEPEESENTATIVES. 

Maine — George  Evans,  John  Fairfield,  Tim- 
othy J.  Carter,  F.  0.  J.  Smith,  Thomas  Davee, 
Jonathan  Cilley,  Joseph  C.  Noyes,  Hugh  J. 
Anderson. 

New  Hampshire — Samuel  Cushman,  James 
Farrington,  Charles  G.  Atherton,  Joseph  Weeks, 
Jared  W.  Williams. 

Massachusetts — Richard  Fletcher,  Stephen 
C.  Phillips,  Caleb  Cushing,  Wm.  Parmenter, 
Levi  Lincoln,  George  Grinnell,  jr.,  George  N. 
Briggs,  Wm.  B.  Calhoun,  Nathaniel  B.  Borden, 
John  Q.  Adams,  John  Reed,  Abbott  Lawrence, 
Wm.  S.  Hastings. 

Rhode  Island — Robert  B.  Cranston,  Joseph 
L.  Tillinghast. 

Connecticut — Isaac  Toucey,  Samuel  Ing- 
ham, Elisha  Haley,  Thomas  T.  Whittlesey, 
Launcelot  Phelps,  Orrin  Holt. 

Vermont — Hiland  Hall,  William  Slade,  He- 
man  Allen,  Isaac  Fletcher,  Horace  Everett. 

New  York — Thomas  B.  Jackson,  Abraham 
Vanderveer,  C.  C.  Cambreleng,  Ely  JVIoore, 
Edward  Curtis,  Ogden  Hofi'man,  Gouverneur 
Kemble,  Obadiah  Titus,  Nathaniel  Jones,  John 
C.  Broadhead,  Zadoc  Pratt,  Robert  McClel- 
land, Henry  Vail,  Albert  Gallup,  John  I. 
DeGraff,  David  Russell,  John  Palmer,  James 
B.  Spencer,  John  Edwards,  Arphaxad  Loomis, 
Henry  A.  Foster,  Abraham  P.  Grant,  Isaac  H. 
Bronson,  John  H.  Prentiss,  Amasa  J.  Parker, 
John  C.  Clark,  Andrew  D.  W.  Bruyn,  Hiram 
Gray,  William  Taylor,  Bennett  Bicknell,  Wil- 
liam H.  Noble,  Samuel  Birdsall,  Mark  H.  Sib- 
ley, John  T.  Andrews,  Timothy  Childs,  Wil- 
liam Patterson,  Luther  C.  Peck,  Richard  P. 
Marvin,  Millard  Fillmore,  Charles  F.  Mitchell. 

New  Jersey — John  B.  Aycrigg,  John  P.  B. 


ajs i\u  i»3<.     maktjun    VAiS  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


29 


Maxwell,  William  Halstead,  Jos.  F.  Randolph, 
Charles  G.  Stratton,  Thomas  Jones  Yorke. 

Pennsylvania — Lemuel  Paynter,  John  Ser- 
geant, George  W.  Toland,  Charles  Naylor,  Ed- 
ward Davies,  David  Potts,  Edward  Darlington, 
Jacob  Fry,  jr.,  Matthias  Morris,  David  D.  Wag- 
ener,  Edward  B.  Hubley,  Henry  A.  Muhlen- 
berg, Luther  Reilly,  Henry  Logan,  Daniel 
Sheffer,  Chas.  McClure,  Win.  W.  Potter,  David 
Petriken,  Robert  H.  Hammond,  Samuel  W. 
Morris,  Charles  Ogle,  John  Klingensmith,  An- 
drew Buchanan,  T.  M.  T.  McKennan,  Richard 
Biddle,  William  Beatty,  Thomas  Henry,  Arnold 
Plumer. 

Delaware — John  J.  Milligan. 

Maryland — John  Dennis,  James  A.  Pearce, 
J.  T.  H.  Worthington,  Benjamin  C.  Howard, 
Isaac  McKim,  William  Cost  Johnson,  Francis 
Thomas,  Daniel  Jenifer. 

Virginia — Henry  A.  Wise,  Francis  Mallory, 
John  Robertson,  Charles  F.  Mercer,  John  Talia- 
ferro, R.  T.  M.  Hunter,  James  Garland,  Francis 

E.  Rives,  Walter  Coles,  George  C.  Dromgoole, 
James  W.  Bouldin,  John  M.  Patton,  James  M. 
Mason,  Isaac  S.  Pennybacker,  Andrew  Beirne, 
Archibald  Stuart,  John  W.  Jones,  Robert 
Craig,  Geo.  W.  Hopkins,  Joseph  Johnson,  Wm. 
S.  Morgan. 

North  Carolina — Jesse  A.  Bynum,  Edward 
D.  Stanley,  Charles  Shepard,  Micajah  T.  Haw- 
kins, James  McKay,  Edmund  Djeberry,  Abra- 
ham Rencher,  William  Montgomery,  Augustine 
H.  Shepherd,  James  Graham,  Henry  Connor, 
Lewis  Williams,  Samuel  T.  Sawyer. 

South  Carolina — H.  S.  Legare,  Waddy 
Thompson,  Francis  W.  Pickens,  W.  K.  Clowney, 

F.  H.  Elmore,  John  K.  Griffin,  R.  B.  Smith. 
John  Campbell,  John  P.  Richardson. 

Georgia — Thomas  Glascock,  S.  F.  Cleveland, 
Seaton  Grantland,  Charles  E.  Haynes,  Hopkins 
Holsey,  Jabez  Jackson,  Geo.  W.  Owens,  Geo. 
W.  B.  Townes,  W.  C.  Dawson. 

Tennessee — Wm.  B.  Carter,  A.  A.  McClel- 
land, Joseph  Williams,  (one  vacancy,)  H.  L. 
Turney,  Wm.  B.  Campbell,  John  Bell,  Abraham 
P.  Maury,  James  K.  Polk,  Ebenezer  J.  Shields, 
Richard  Cheatham,  John  W.  Crockett,  Christo- 
pher H.  Williams. 

Kentucky — John  L.  Murray,  Edward  Rum- 
sey,  Sherrod  Williams,  Joseph  R.  Underwood, 
James  Harlan,  John  Calhoun,  John  Pope,  Wm. 
J.  Graves,  John  White,  Richard  Hawes,  Rich- 
ard II.  Menifee,  John  Chambers,  Wm.  W. 
Southgate. 

Ohio — Alexander  Duncan,  Taylor  Webster, 
Patrick  G.  Goode,  Thomas  Corwin,  Thomas  L. 
Hamer,  Calvary  Morris,  Wm.  K.  Bond,  J. 
Ridgeway,  John  Chaney,  Samson  Mason>  J. 
Alexander,  jr.,  Alexander  Harper,  D.  P.  Lead- 
better,  Wm.  H.  Hunter,  John  W.  Allen,  Elisha 
Whittlesey,  A.  W.  Loomis,  Matthias  Shepler, 
Daniel  Kilgore. 

Alabama — Francis  S.  Lycn,  Dixon  H.  Lewi3, 
Joab  Lawler,  Reuben  Chapman,  J.  L.  Martin. 


Indiana — Ratliff  Boon,  John  Ewing,  William 
Graham,  George  H.  Dunn,  James  Rariden,  Wil- 
liam Herrod,  Albert  S.  White. 

Illinois — A.  W.  Snyder,  Zadoc  Casey,  Wm. 
L.  May. 

Louisiana — Henry  Johnson,  Eleazer  W.  Rip- 
ley, Rice  Garland. 

Mississippi — John  F.  H.  Claiborne,  S.  H. 
Gholson. 

Arkansas — Archibald  Yell. 

Missouri — Albert  G.  Harrison,  John  Miller. 

Michigan — Isaac  E.  Crary. 

Florida — Charles  Downing. 

Wisconsin — George  W.  Jones. 

In  these  ample  lists,  both  of  the  Senate  and 
of  the  House,  will  be  discovered  a  succession  of 
eminent  names — many  which  had  then  achieved 
eminence,  others  to  achieve  it : — and,  besides 
those  which  captivate  regard  by  splendid  abil- 
ity, a  still  larger  number  of  those  less  brilliant, 
equally  respectable,  and  often  more  useful 
members,  whose  business  talent  performs  the 
work  of  the  body,  and  who  in  England  are  well 
called,  the  working  members.  Of  these  numer- 
ous members,  as  well  the  brilliant  as  the  useful, 
it  would  be  invidious  to  particularize  part  with- 
out enumerating  the  whole ;  and  that  would 
require  a  reproduction  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
list  of  each  House.  Four  only  can  be  named, 
and  they  entitled  to  that  distinction  from  the 
station  attained,  or  to  be  attained  by  them: 
— Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,  who  had  been  pres- 
ident; Messrs.  James  K.  Polk,  Millard  Fill- 
more and  Franklin  Pierce,  who  became  presi- 
dents. In  my  long  service  I  have  not  seen  a 
more  able  Congress ;  and  it  is  only  necessary  to 
read  over  the  names,  and  to  possess  some 
knowledge  of  our  public  men,  to  be  struck  with 
the  number  of  names  which  would  come  under 
the  description  of  useful  or  brilliant  members. 

The  election  of  speaker  was  the  first  business 
of  the  House;  and  Mr.  James  K.  Polk  and  Mr. 
John  Bell,  both  of  Tennessee,  being  put  in 
nomination,  Mr.  Polk  received  116  votes;  and 
was  elected — Mr.  Bell  receiving  103.  Mr.  Wal- 
ter S.  Franklin  was  elected  clerk. 

The  message  was  delivered  upon  receiving 
notice  of  the  organization  of  the  two  Houses  ; 
and,  with  temperance  and  firmness,  it  met  all 
the  exigencies  of  the  occasion.  That  specie  order 
which  had  been  the  subject  of  so  much  denun- 
ciation,— the  imputed  cause  of  the  suspension, 
and  the  revocation  of  which  was  demanded  with 
so  much  pertinacity  and  such  imposing  demon- 


30 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


stration. — far  from  being  given  up  was  com- 
mended for  the  good  effects  it  had  produced; 
and  the  determination  expressed  not  to  inter- 
fere with  its  operation.  In  relation  to  that 
decried  measure  the  message  said : 

"  Of  my  own  duties  under  the  existing  laws, 
when  the  banks  suspended  specie  payments,  I 
could  not  doubt.  Directions  were  immediately 
given  to  prevent  the  reception  into  the  Treasury 
of  any  thing  but  gold  and  silver,  or  its  equivalent; 
and  every  practicable  arrangement  was  made  to 
preserve  the  public  faith,  by  similar  or  equivalent 
payments  to  the  public  creditors.  The  revenue 
from  lands  had  been  for  some  time  substantially 
so  collected,  under  the  order  issued  by  the  direc- 
tions of  my  predecessor.  The  effects  of  that 
order  had  been  so  salutary,  and  its  forecast  in 
regard  to  the  increasing  insecurity  of  bank  paper 
had  become  so  apparent,  that,  even  before  the 
catastrophe,  I  had  resolved  not  to  interfere  with 
its  operation.  Congress  is  now  to  decide  whether 
the  revenue  shall  continue  to  be  so  collected,  or 
not." 

This  was  explicit,  and  showed  that  all  at- 
tempts to  operate  upon  the  President  at  that 
point,  and  to  coerce  the  revocation  of  a  meas- 
ure which  he  deemed  salutary,  had  totally  failed. 
The  next  great  object  of  the  party  which  had 
contrived  the  suspension  and  organized  the  dis- 
tress, was  to  extort  the  re-establishment  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States ;  and  here  again  was 
an  equal  failure  to  operate  upon  the  firmness  of 
the  President.  He  reiterated  his  former  objec- 
tions to  such  an  institution — not  merely  to  the 
particular  one  which  had  been  tried — but  to  any 
one  in  any  form,  and  declared  his  former  con- 
victions to  be  strengthened  by  recent  events. 
Thus: 

"  We  have  seen  for  nearly  half  a  century,  that 
those  who  advocate  a  national  bank,  by  what- 
ever motive  they  may  be  influenced,  constitute 
a  portion  of  our  community  too  numerous  to 
allow  us  to  hope  for  an  early  abandonment  of 
their  favorite  plan.  On  the  other  hand,  they 
must  indeed  form  an  erroneous  estimate  of  the 
intelligence  and  temper  of  the  American  people, 
who  suppose  that  they  have  continued,  on  slight 
or  insufficient  grounds,  their  persevering  opposi- 
tion to  such  an  institution ;  or  that  they  can  be 
induced  by  pecuniary  pressure,  or  by  any  other 
combination  of  circumstances,  to  surrender  prin- 
ciples they  have  so  long  and  so  inflexibly  maintain- 
ed. My  own  views  of  the  subject  are  unchanged. 
They  have  been  repeatedly  and  unreservedly  an- 
nounced to  my  fellow-citizens,  who,  with  full 
knowledge  of  them,  conferred  upon  me  the  two 
highest  offices  of  the  government.    On  the  last 


of  these  occasions.  I  felt  it  due  to  the  people  to 
apprise  them  distinctly,  that,  in  the  event  of  my 
election,  I  would  not  be  able  to  co-operate  in 
the  re-establishment  of  a  national  bank.  To 
these  sentiments,  I  have  now  only  to  add  the 
expression  of  an  increased  conviction,  that  the 
re-establishment  of  such  a  bank,  in  any  form, 
whilst  it  would  not  accomplish  the  beneficial 
purpose  promised  by  its  advocates,  would 
impair  the  rightful  supremacy  of  the  popular 
will ;  injure  the  character  and  diminish  the  in- 
fluence of  our  political  system ;  and  bring  once 
more  into  existence  a  concentrated  moneyed 
power,  hostile  to  the  spirit,  and  threatening  the 
permanency,  of  our  republican  institutions." 

Having  noticed  these  two  great  points  of  pres- 
sure upon  him,  and  thrown  them  off  with  equal 
strength  and  decorum,  he  went  forward  to  a 
new  point — the  connection  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment with  any  bank  of  issue  in  any  form,  either 
as  a  depository  of  its  moneys,  or  in  the  use  of 
its  notes ; — and  recommended  a  total  and  per- 
petual dissolution  of  the  connection.  This  was 
a  new  point  of  policy,  long  meditated  by  some, 
but  now  first  brought  forward  for  legislative 
action,  and  cogently  recommended  to  Congress 
for  its  adoption.  The  message,  referring/  to  the 
recent  failure  of  the  banks,  took  advantage  of  it 
to  say : 

"  Unforeseen  in  the  organization  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  forced  on  the  Treasury  by  early  ne- 
cessities, the  practice  of  employing  banks,  was, 
in  truth,  from  the  beginning,  more  a  measure  of 
emergency  than  of  sound  policy.  When  we 
started  into  existence  as  a  nation,  in  addition  to 
the  burdens  of  the  new  government,  we  assumed 
all  the  large,  but  honorable  load,  of  debt  which 
was  the  price  of  our  liberty ;  but  we  hesitated 
to  weigh  down  the  infant  industry  of  the  coun- 
try by  resorting  to  adequate  taxation  for  the 
necessary  revenue.  The  facilities  of  banks,  in 
return  for  the  privileges  they  acquired,  were 
promptly  offered,  and  perhaps  too  readily  re- 
ceived, by  an  embarrassed  treasury.  During 
the  long  continuance  of  a  national  debt,  and  the 
intervening  difficulties  of  a  foreign  war,  the  con- 
nection was  continued  from  m  otives  of  conveni- 
ence ;  but  these  causes  have  long  since  passed 
away.  We  have  no  emergencies  that  make  banks 
necessary  to  aid  the  wants  of  the  Treasury ;  we 
have  no  load  of  national  debt  to  provide  for,  and 
we  have  on  actual  deposit  a  large  surplus.  No 
public  interest,  therefore,  now  requires  the 
renewal  of  a  connection  that  circumstances  have 
dissolved.  The  complete  organization  of  our 
government,  the  abundance  of  our  resources,  the 
general  harmony  which  prevails  between  the 
different  States,  and  with  foreign  powers,  all  en- 
able us  now  to  select  the  system  most  consistent 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


31 


with  the  constitution,  and  most  conducive  to  the 
«  public  welfare." 

This  wise  recommendation  laid  the  founda- 
tion for  the  Independent  Treasury — a  measure 
opposed  with  unwonted  violence  at  the  time, 
but  vindicated  as  well  by  experience  as  recom- 
mended by  wisdom ;  and  now  universally  concur- 
red in — constituting  an  era  in  our  financial  his- 
tory, and  reflecting  distinctive  credit  on  Mr.  Van 
Buren's  administration.  But  he  did  not  stop  at 
proposing  a  dissolution  of  governmental  con- 
nection with  these  institutions ;  he  went  further, 
and  proposed  to  make  them  safer  for  the  com- 
munity, and  more  amenable  to  the  laws  of  the 
land.  These  institutions  exercised  the  privilege 
of  stopping  payment,  qualified  by  the  gentle 
name  of  suspension,  when  they  judged  a  condi- 
tion of  the  country  existed  making  it  expedient 
to  do  so.  Three  of  these  general  suspensions 
had  taken  place  in  the  last  quarter  of  a  century, 
presenting  an  evil  entirely  too  large  for  the 
remedy  of  individual  suits  against  the  delinquent 
banks ;  and  requiring  the  strong  arm  of  a  gen- 
eral and  authoritative  proceeding.  This  could 
only  be  found  in  subjecting  them  to  the  process 
of  bankruptcy ;  and  this  the  message  boldly  re- 
commended. It  was  the  first  recommendation 
of  the  kind,  and  deserves  to  be  commemorated 
for  its  novelty  and  boldness,  and  its  undoubted 
efficiency,  if  adopted.  This  is  the  recommenda- 
tion: 

"  In  the  mean  time,  it  is  our  duty  to  provide 
all  the  remedies  against  a  depreciated  paper 
currency  which  the  constitution  enables  us  to 
afford.  The  Treasury  Department,  on  several 
former  occasions,  has  suggested  the  propriety 
and  importance  of  a  uniform  law  concerning 
bankruptcies  of  corporations,  and  other  bankers. 
Through  the  instrumentality  of  such  a  law,  a 
salutary  check  may  doubtless  be  imposed  on 
the  issues  of  paper  money,  and  an  effectual 
remedy  given  to  the  citizen,  in  a  way  at  once 
equal  in  all  parts  of  the  Union,  and  fully  autho- 
rized by  the  constitution." 

A  bankrupt  law  for  banks!  That  was  the 
remedy.  Besides  its  efficacy  in  preventing  fu- 
ture suspensions,  it  would  be  a  remedy  for  the 
actual  one.  The  day  fixed  for  the  act  to  take 
effect  would  be  the  day  for  resuming  payments, 
or  going  into  liquidation.  It  would  be  the  day 
of  honesty  or  death  to  these  corporations ;  and 
between  these  two  alternatives  even  the  most 


refractory  bank  would  choose  the  former,  if 
able  to  do  so. 

The  banks  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  and 
their  currency,  being  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
Congress,  admitted  a  direct  remedy  in  its  own 
legislation,  both  for  the  fact  of  their  suspension 
and  the  evil  of  the  small  notes  which  they 
issued.  The  forfeiture  of  the  charter,  where  the 
resumption  did  not  take  place  in  a  limited  time, 
and  penalties  on  the  issue  of  the  small  notes, 
were  the  appropriate  remedies  ; — and,  as  such, 
were  recommended  to  Congress. 

There  the  President  not  only  met  and  con- 
fronted the  evils  of  Jthe  actual  suspension  as 
they  stood,  but  west  further,  and  provided 
against  the  recurrence  of  such  evils  thereafter, 
in  four  cardinal  recommendations :  1,  never  to 
have  another  national  bank ;  2,  never  to  receive 
bank  notes  again  in  payment  of  federal  dues  ; 
3,  never  to  use  the  banks  again  for  depositories 
of  the  public  moneys  ;  4,  to  apply  the  process 
of  bankruptcy  to  all  future  defaulting  banks. 
These  were  strong  recommendations,  all  founded 
in  a  sense  of  justice  to  the  public,  and  called  for 
by  the  supremacy  of  the  government,  if  it 
meant  to  maintain  its  supremacy ;  but  recom- 
mendations running  deep  into  the  pride  and  in- 
terests of  a  powerful  class,  and  well  calculated 
to  inflame  still  higher  the  formidable  combina- 
tion already  arrayed  against  the  President,  and 
to  extend  it  to  all  that  should  support  him. 

The  immediate  cause  for  convoking  the  extra- 
ordinary session — the  approaching  deficit  in  the 
revenue — was  frankly  stated,  and  the  remedy 
as  frankly  proposed.  Six  millions  of  dollars 
was  the  estimated  amount;  and  to  provide  it 
neither  loans  nor  taxes  were  proposed,  but  the 
retention  of  the  fourth  instalment  of  the  deposit 
to  be  made  with  the  States,  and  a  temporary 
issue  of  treasury  notes  to  supply  the  deficiency 
until  the  incoming  revenue  should  replenish  the 
treasury.  The  following  was  that  recommenda- 
tion: 

"  It  is  not  proposed  to  procure  the  required 
amount  by  loans  or  increased  taxation.  There 
are  now  in  the  treasury  nine  millions  three 
hundred  and  sixty-seven  thousand  two  hundred 
and  fourteen  dollars,  directed  by  the  Act  of  the 
23d  of  June,  1836,  to  be  deposited  with  the 
States  in  October  next.  This  sum,  if  so  depos- 
ited, will  be  subject^  under  the  law,  to  be  re- 
called, if  needed,  to  defray  existing  appropria- 
tions ;  and,  as  it  is  now  evident  that  the  whole,. 


32 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


or  the  principal  part  of  it,  will  be  wanted  for 
that  purpose,  it  appears  most  proper  that  the 
deposits  should  be  withheld.  Until  the  amount 
can  be  collected  from  the  banks,  treasury  notes 
may  be  temporarily  issued,  to  be  gradually  re- 
deemed as  it  is  received." 

Six  millions  of  treasury  notes  only  were  re- 
quired, and  from  this  small  amount  required,  it 
is  easy  to  see  how  readily  an  adequate  amount 
could  have  been  secured  from  the  deposit 
banks,  if  the  administration  had  foreseen  a 
month  or  two  beforehand  that  the  suspension 
was  to  take  place.  An  issue  of  treasury  notes, 
being  an  imitation  of  the  exchequer  bill  issues 
of  the  British  government,  which  had  been  the 
facile  and  noiseless  way  of  swamping  that  gov- 
ernment in  bottomless  debt,  was  repugnant  to 
the  policy  of  this  writer,  and  opposed  by  him : 
but  of  this  hereafter.  The  third  instalment  of 
the  deposit,  as  it  was  called,  had  been  received 
by  the  States— received  in  depreciated  paper, 
and  the  fourth  demanded  in  the  same.  A  de- 
posit demanded  !  and  claimed  as  a  debt ! — that 
is  to  say  :  the  word  "  deposit"  used  in  the  act 
admitted  to  be  both  by  Congress  and  the  States 
a  fraud  and  a  trick,  and  distribution  the 
thing  intended  and  done.  Seldom  has  it  hap- 
pened that  so  gross  a  fraud,  and  one,  too,  in- 
tended to  cheat  the  constitution,  has  been  so 
promptly  acknowledged  by  the  high  parties 
perpetrating  it.     But  of  this  also  hereafter. 

The  decorum  and  reserve  of  a  State  paper 
would  not  allow  the  President  to  expatiate 
upon  the  enormity  of  the  suspension  which  had 
been  contrived,  nor  to  discriminate  between  the 
honest  and  solvent  banks  which  had  been  taken 
by  surprise  and  swept  off  in  a  current  which 
they  could  not  resist,  and  the  insolvent  or  crim- 
inal class,  which  contrived  the  catastrophe  and 
exulted  in  its  success.  He  could  only  hint  at 
the  discrimination,  and,  while  recommending 
the  bankrupt  process  for  one  class,  to  express 
his  belief  that  with  all  the  honest  and  solvent 
institutions  the  suspension  would  be  temporary, 
and  that  they  would  seize  the  earliest  moment 
which  the  conduct  of  others  would  permit,  to 
vindicate  their  integrity  and  ability  by  return- 
ing to  specie  payments. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

ATTACKS  ON  THE  MESSAGE :    TREASURY  NOTES. 

Under  the  first  two  of  our  Presidents, 
"Washington,  and  the  first  Mr.  Adams,  the 
course  of  the  British  Parliament  was  followed 
in  answering  the  address  of  the  President,  as  the 
course  of  the  sovereign  was  followed  in  deliver- 
ing it.  The  Sovereign  delivered  his  address  in 
person  to  the  two  assembled  Houses,  and  each 
answered  it :  our  two  first  Presidents  did  the 
same,  and  the  Houses  answered.  The  purport 
of  the  answer  was  always  to  express  a  concur- 
rence, or  non-concurrence  with  the  general 
policy  of  the  government  as  thus  authentically 
exposed;  and  the  privilege  of  answering  the 
address  laid  open  the  policy  o^the  government 
to  the  fullest  discussion.  The  effect  of  the 
practice  was  to  lay  open  the  state  of  the 
country,  and  the  public  policy,  to  the  fullest  dis- 
cussion ;  and,  in  the  character  of  the  answer, 
to  decide  the  question  of  accord  or  disaccord — 
of  support  or  opposition — between  the  repre- 
sentative and  the  executive  branches  of  the 
government.  .The  change  from  the  address 
delivered  in  person,  with  its  answer,  to  the 
message  sent  by  the  private  secretary,  and  no 
answer,  was  introduced  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  and 
considered  a  reform ;  but  it  was  questioned  at 
the  time,  whether  any  good  would  come  of  it, 
and  whether  that  would  not  be  done  irregularly, 
in  the  course  of  the  debates,  which  otherwise 
would  have  been  done  regularly  in  the  discussion 
of  the  address.  The  administration  policy  would 
be  sure  to  be  attacked,  and  irregularly,  in  the 
course  of  business,  if  the  spirit  of  opposition 
should  not  be  allowed  full  indulgence  in  a 
general  and  regular  discussion.  The  attacks 
would  come,  and  many  of  Mr.  Jefferson's 
friends  thought  it  better  they  should  come  at 
once,  and  occupy  the  first  week  or  two  of  the  ses- 
sion, than  to  be  scattered  through  the  whole  ses- 
sion and  mixed  up  with  all  its  business.  But  the 
change  was  made,  and  has  stood,  and  now  any 
bill  or  motion  is  laid  hold  of,  to  hang  a  speech 
upon,  against  the  measures  or  policy  of  an 
administration.  This  was  signally  the  case  at 
this  extra  session,  in  relation  to  Mr.  Yan 
Buren's  policy.     He  had  staked  himself  too 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


33 


decisively  against  too  large  a  combination  of 
interests  to  expect  moderation  or  justice  from 
his  opponents ;  and  he  received  none.  Seldom 
has  any  President  been  visited  with  more 
violent  and  general  assaults  than  he  received, 
almost  every  opposition  speaker  assailing  some 
part  of  the  message.  One  of  the  number,  Mr. 
Caleb  Cushing,  of  Massachusetts,  made  it  a 
business  to  reply  to  the  whole  document,  for- 
mally and  elaborately,  under  two  and  thirty 
distinct  heads — the  number  of  points  in  the 
mariner's  compass :  each  head  bearing  a  caption 
to  indicate  its  point :  and  in  that  speech  any 
one  that  chooses,  can  find  in  a  condensed  form, 
and  convenient  for  reading,  all  the  points  of  ac- 
cusation against  the  democratic  policy  from  the 
beginning  of  the  government  down  to  that  day. 

Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Webster  assailed  it  for 
what  it  contained,  and  for  what  it  did  not — for 
its  specific  recommendations,  and  for  its  omission 
to  recommend  measures  which  they  deemed 
necessary.  The  specie  payments — the  discon- 
nection with  banks — the  retention  of  the  fourth 
instalment — the  bankrupt  act  against  banks — 
the  brief  issue  of  treasury  notes  ;  all  were  con- 
demned as  measures  improper  in  themselves 
and  inadequate  to  the  relief  of  the  country : 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  a  national  bank  ap- 
peared to  them  to  be  the  proper  and  adequate 
remedy  for  the  public  evils.  With  them  acted 
many  able  men  : — in  the  Senate,  Bayard,  of  Del- 
aware, Crittenden,  of  Kentucky,  John  Davis, 
of  Massachusetts,  Preston,  of  South  Carolina, 
Southard,  of  New  Jersey,  Rives,  of  Virginia : — 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  Mr.  John 
Quincy  Adams,  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  Richard 
Biddle,  of  Pennsylvania,  Cushing,  of  Massachu- 
setts, Fillmore,  of  New  York,  Henry  Johnson, 
of  Louisiana,  Hunter  and  Mercer,  of  Virginia, 
John  Pope,  of  Kentucky,  John  Sargeant,  Un- 
derwood of  Kentucky,  Lewis  Williams,  Wise. 
All  these  were  speaking  members,  and  in  their 
diversity  of  talent  displayed  all  the  varieties  of 
effective  speaking— close  reasoning,  sharp  invec- 
tive, impassioned  declamation,  rhetoric,  logic. 

On  the  other  hand  was  an  equal  array,  both 
in  number  and  speaking  talent,  on  the  other 
side,  defending  and  supporting  the  recommenda- 
tions of  the  President :— in  the  Senate,  Silas 
Wright,  Grundy,  John  M.  Niles,  King,  of 
Alabama,  Strange,  of  North  Carolina,  Buchan- 
an, Calhoun,  Linn,  of  Missouri,  Benton,  Bed- 
YOL.   II.— 3 


ford  Brown,  of  North  Carolina,  William  Allen, 
of  Ohio,  John  P.  King,  of  Georgia,  Walker,  of 
Mississippi : — in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
Cambreleng,  of  New  York,  Hamer,  of  Ohio, 
Howard  and  Francis  Thomas,  of  Maryland, 
McKay,  of  North  Carolina,  John  M.  Patton, 
Francis  Pickens. 

The  treasury  note  bill  was  one  of  the  first 
measures  on  which  the  struggle  took  place.  It 
was  not  a  favorite  with  the  whole  body  of  the 
democracy,  but  the  majority  preferred  a  small 
issue  of  that  paper,  intended  to  operate,  not  as 
a  currency,  but  as  a  ready  means  of  borrowing 
money,  and  especially  from  small  capitalists  ; 
and,  therefore,  preferable  to  a  direct  loan.  It 
was  opposed  as  a  paper  money  bill  in  disguise, 
as  germinating  a  new  national  debt,  and  as  the 
easy  mode  of  raising  money,  so  ready  to  run 
into  abuse  from  its  very  facility  of  use.  The 
President  had  recommended  the  issue  in  gen- 
eral terms  :  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  had 
descended  into  detail,  and  proposed  notes  as 
low  as  twenty  dollars,  and  without  interest. 
The  Senate's  committee  rejected  that  proposi- 
tion, and  reported  a  bill  only  for  large  notes— 
none  less  than  100  dollars,  and  bearing  interest; 
so  as  to  be  used  for  investment,  not  circulation. 
Mr.  Webster  assailed  the  Secretary's  plan,  say- 
ing— 

"  He  proposes,  sir,  to  issue  treasury  notes  of 
small  denominations,  down  even  as  low  as 
twenty  dollars,  not  bearing  interest,  and  re- 
deemable at  no  fixed  period ;  they  are  to  be  re- 
ceived in  debts  due  to  government,  but  are  not 
otherwise  to  be  paid  until  at  some  indefinite 
time  there  shall  be  a  certain  surplus  in  the 
treasury  beyond  what  the  Secretary  may  think 
its  wants  require.  Now,  sir,  this  is  plain,  au- 
thentic, statutable  paper  money  ;  it  is  exactly  a 
new  emission  of  old  continental.  If  the  genius 
of  the  old  confederation  were  now  to  rise  up  in 
the  midst  of  us,  he  could  not  furnish  us,  from 
the  abundant  stores  of  his  recollection,  with  a 
more  perfect  model  of  paper  money.  It  carries 
no  interest ;  it  has  no  fixed  time  of  payment ; 
it  is  to  circulate  as  currency,  and  it  is  to  circu- 
late on  the  credit  of  government  alone,  with  no 
fixed  period  of  redemption!  If  this  be  not 
paper  money,  pray,  sir,  what  is  it?  And,  sir, 
who  expected  this  ?  Who  expected  that  in  the 
fifth  year  of  the  experiment  for  reforming  the 
currency,  and  bringing  it  to  an  absolute  gold 
and  silver  circulation,  the  Treasury  Department 
would  be  found  recommending  to  us  a  regular 
emission  of  paper  money?  This,  sir,  is  quite 
new  in  the  history  of  this  government ;  it  be- 
longs to  that  of  the  confederation  which  has 


34 


THIRTY  TEARS'  VIEW. 


passed  away.  Since  1789,  although  we  have 
issued  treasury  notes  on  sundry  occasions,  we 
have  issued  none  like  these ;  that  is  to  say,  we 
have  issued  none  not  bearing  interest,  intended 
for  circulation,  and  with  no  fixed  mode  of  re- 
demption. I  am  glad,  however,  Mr.  President, 
that  the  committee  have  not  adopted  the  Secre- 
tary's recommendation,  and  that  they  have  re- 
commended the  issue  of  treasury  notes  of  a  de- 
scription more  conformable  to  the  practice  of 
the  government." 

Mr.  Benton,  though  opposed  to  the  policy  of 
issuing  these  notes,  and  preferring  himself  a 
direct  loan  in  this  case,  yet  defended  the  partic- 
ular bill  which  had  been  brought  in  from  the 
character  and  effects  ascribed  to  it,  and  said : 

"  He  should  not  have  risen  in  this  debate, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  misapprehensions  which 
seemed  to  pervade  the  minds  of  some  senators 
as  to  the  character  of  the  bill.  It  is  called  by 
some  a  paper-money  bill,  and  by  others  a  bill 
to  germinate  a  new  national  debt.  These  are 
serious  imputations,  and  require  to  be  answered, 
not  by  declamation  and  recrimination,  but  by 
facts  and  reasons,  addressed  to  the  candor  and 
to  the  intelligence  of  an  enlightened  and  patri- 
otic community. 

"  I  dissent  from  the  imputations  on  the  char- 
acter of  the  bill.  I  maintain  that  it  is  neither 
a  paper-money  bill,  nor  a  bill  to  lay  the  founda- 
tion for  a  new  national  debt ;  and  will  briefly 
give  my  reasons  for  believing  as  I  do  on  both 
points. 

"  There  are  certainly  two  classes  of  treasury 
notes — one  for  investment,  and  one  for  circula- 
tion ;  and  both  classes  are  known  to  our  laws, 
and  possess  distinctive  features,  which  define 
their  respective  characters,  and  confine  them  to 
their  respective  uses. 

"The  notes  for  investment  bear  ah  interest 
sufficient  to  induce  capitalists  to  exchange  gold 
and  silver  for  them,  and  to  lay  them  by  as  a 
productive  fund.  This  is  their  distinctive  fea- 
ture, but  not  the  only  one ;  they  possess  other 
subsidiary  qualities,  such  as  transferability  only 
by  indorsement — payable  at  a  fixed  time — not 
re-issuable — nor  of  small  denomination — and  to 
be  cancelled  when  paid.  Notes  of  this  class  are, 
in  fact,  loan  notes — notes  to  raise  loans  on,  by 
selling  them  for  hard  money — either  immedi- 
ately by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  or, 
secondarily,  by  the  creditor  of  the  government 
to  whom  they  have  been  paid.  In  a  word,  they 
possess  all  the  qualities  which  invite  invest- 
ment and  forbid  and  impede  circulation. 

"  The  treasury  notes  for  currency  are  distin- 
guished by  features  and  qualities  the  reverse  of 
those  which  have  been  mentioned.  They  bear 
little  or  no  interest.  They  are  payable  to  bearer 
— transferable  by  delivery — re-issuable — of  low 
denominations — and  frequently  reimbursable  at 
the  pleasure  of  the  government.     They  are,  in 


fact,  paper  money,  and  possess  all  the  qualities 
which  forbid  investment,  and  invite  to  circula- 
tion. The  treasury  notes  of  1815  were  of  that 
character,  except  for  the  optional  clause  to  ena- 
ble the  holder  to  fund  them  at  the  interest 
which  commanded  loans — at  seven  per  cent. 

"  These  are  the  distinctive  features  of  the  two 
classes  of  notes.  Now  try  the  committee's  bill 
by  the  test  of  these  qualities.  It  will  be  found 
that  the  notes  which  it  authorizes  belong  to  the 
first-named  class ;  that  they  are  to  bear  an  in- 
terest, which  may  be  six  per  cent. ;  that  they 
are  transferable  only  by  indorsement;  that 
they  are  not  re-issuable ;  that  they  are  to  be 
paid  at  a  day  certain — to  wit.  within  one  year ; 
that  they  are  not  to  be  issued  of  less  denomina- 
tion than  one  hundred  dollars  ;  are  to  be  can- 
celled when  taken  up ;  and  that  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  is  expressly  authorized  to  raise 
money  upon  them  by  loaning  them. 

"  These  are  the  features  and  qualities  of  the 
notes  to  be  issued,  and  they  define  and  fix  their 
character  as  notes  to  raise  loans,  and  to  be  laid 
by  as  investments,  and  not  as  notes  for  cur- 
rency, to  be  pushed  into  circulation  by  the 
power  of  the  government ;  and  to  add  to  the 
curse  of  the  day  by  increasing  the  quantity  of 
unconvertible  paper  money." 

Though  yielding  to  an  issue  of  these  notes  in 
this  particular  form,  limited  in  size  of  the  notes 
to  one  hundred  dollars,  yet  Mr.  Benton  deemed 
it  due  to  himself  and  the  subject  to  enter  a  pro- 
test against  the  policy  of  such  issues,  and  to 
expose  their  dangerous  tendency,  both  to  slide 
into  a  paper  currency,  and  to  steal  by  a  noise- 
less march  into  the  creation  of  public  debt,  and 
thus  expressed  himself: 

"  I  trust  I  have  vindicated  the  bill  from  the 
stigma  of  being  a  paper  currency  bill,  and  from 
the  imputation  of  being  the  first  step  towards 
the  creation  of  a  new  national  debt.  I  hope  it 
is  fully  cleared  from  the  odium  of  both  these 
imputations.  I  will  now  say  a  few  words  on 
the  policy  of  issuing  treasury  notes  in  time  of 
peace,  or  even  in  time  of  war,  until  the  ordinary 
resources  of  loans  and  taxes  had  been  tried  and 
exhausted.  I  am  no  friend  to  the  issue  of 
treasury  notes  of  any  kind.  As  loans,  they  are 
a  disguised  mode  of  borrowing,  and  easy  to 
slide  into  a  currency :  as  a  currency,  it  is  the 
most  seductive,  the  most  dangerous,  and  the 
most  liable  to  abuse  of  all  the  descriptions  of 
paper  money.  'The  stamping  of  paper  (by 
government)  is  an  operation  so  much  easier 
than  the  laying  of  taxes,  or  of  borrowing 
money,  that  a  government  in  the  habit  of  paper 
emissions  would  rarely  fail,  in  any  emergency, 
to  indulge  itself  too  far  in  the  employment  of 
that  resource,  to  avoid  as  much  as  possible  one 
less  auspicious  to  present  popularity.'  So  said 
General   Hamilton;    and   Jefferson,   Madison 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


35 


Macon.  Randolph,  and  all  the  fathers  of  the 
republican  church,  concurred  with  him.  These 
sagacious  statesmen  were  shy  of  this  facile  and 
seductive  resource,  '  so  liable  to  abuse,  and  so 
certain  of  being  abused.'  They  held  it  inadmis- 
sible to  recur  to  it  in  time  of  peace,  and  that  it 
could  only  be  thought  of  amidst  the  exigencies 
and  perils  of  war,  and  that  after  exhausting  the 
direct  and  responsible  alternative  of  loans  and 
taxes.  Bred  in  the  school  of  these  great  men, 
[  .came  here  at  this  session  to  oppose,  at  all 
risks,  an  issue  of  treasury  notes.  I  preferred  a 
direct  loan,  and  that  for  many  and  cogent  rea- 
sons. There  is  clear  authority  to  borrow  in  the 
constitution;  but,  to  find  authority  to  issue 
these  notes,  we  must  enter  the  field  of  con- 
structive powers.  To  borrow,  is  to  do  a  re- 
sponsible act ;  it  is  to  incur  certain  accounta- 
bility to  the  constituent,  and  heavy  censure  if 
it  cannot  be  justified  ;  to  issue  these  notes,  is  to 
do  an  act  which  few  consider  of,  which  takes 
but  little  hold  of  the  public  mind,  which  few 
condemn  and  some  encourage,  because  it  in- 
creases the  quantum  of  what  is  vainly  called 
money.  Loans  are  limited  by  the  capacity,  at 
least,  of  one  side  to  borrow,  and  of  the  other  to 
lend :  the  issue  of  these  notes  has  no  limit  but 
the  will  of  the  makers,  and  the  supply  of  lamp- 
black and  rags.  The  continental  bills  of  the 
Revolution,  and  the  assignats  of  France,  should 
furnish  some  instructive  lessons  on  this  head. 
Direct  loans  are  always  voluntary  on  the  part 
of  the  lender ;  treasury  note  loans  may  be  a 
forced  borrowing  from  the  government  creditor 
— as  much  so  as  if  the  bayonet  were  put  to  his 
breast ;  for  necessity  has  no  law,  and  the  neces- 
sitous claimant  must  take  what  is  tendered, 
whether  with  or  without  interest — whether  ten 
or  fifty  per  cent,  below  par.  I  distrust,  dislike, 
aDf'  svould  fain  eschew,  this  treasury  note  re- 
vurce.  I  prefer  the  direct  loans  of  1820-'21. 
1  could  only  bring  myself  to  acquiesce  in  this 
measure  when  it  was  urged  that  there  was  not 
time  to  carry  a  loan  through  its  forms;  nor 
even  then  could  I  consent  to  it,  until  every  fea- 
ture of  a  currency  character  had  been  eradicated 
from  the  face  of  the  bill." 

The  bill  passed  the  Senate  by  a  general  vote, 
only  Messrs.  Clay,  Crittenden,  Preston,  South- 
ard, and  Spence  of  Maryland,  voting  against  it. 
In  the  House  of  Representatives  it  encountered 
a  more  strenuous  resistance,  and  was  subjected 
to  some  trials  which  showed  the  dangerous  pro- 
clivity of  these  notes  to  slide  from  the  founda- 
tion of  investment  into  the  slippery  path  of  cur- 
rency. Several  motions  were  made  to  reduce 
their  size — to  make  them  as  low  as  $25 ;  and 
that  failing,  to  reduce  them  to  $50 ;  which  suc- 
ceeded. The  interest  was  struck  at  in  a  motion 
to  reduce  it  to  a  nominal  amount ;  and  this  mo- 
tion, like  that  for  reducing  the  minimum  size  to 


$25,  received  a  large  support — some  ninety 
votes.  The  motion  to  reduce  to  $50  was  carried 
by  a  majority  of  forty.  Returning  to  the  Senate 
with  this  amendment,  Mr.  Benton  moved  to 
restore  the  $100  limit,  and  intimated  his  inten- 
tion, if  it  was  not  done,  of  withholding  his  sup- 
port from  the  bill — declaring  that  nothing  but 
the  immediate  wants  of  the  Treasury,  and  the 
lack  of  time  to  raise  the  money  by  a  direct  loan 
as  declared  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
could  have  brought  him  to  vote  for  treasury 
notes  in  any  shape.  Mr.  Clay  opposed  the  whole 
scheme  as  a  government  bank  in  disguise,  but 
supported  Mr.  Benton's  motion  as  being  adverse 
to  that  design.     He  said : 

"  He  had  been  all  along  opposed  to  this  mea- 
sure, and  he  saw  nothing  now  to  change  that 
opinion.  Mr.  C.  would  have  been  glad  to  aid 
the  wants  of  the  Treasury,  but  thought  it  might 
have  been  done  better  by  suspending  the  action 
of  many  appropriations  not  so  indispensably 
necessarjr,  rather  than  by  resorting  to  a  loan. 
Reduction,  economy,  retrenchment,  had  been  re- 
commended by  the  President,  and  why  not  then 
pursued?  Mr.  C.'s  chief  objection,  however, 
was,  that  these  notes  were  mere  post  notes,  only 
differing  from  bank  notes  of  that  kind  in  giving 
the  Secretary  a  power  of  fixing  the  interest  as 
he  pleases. 

It  is,  said  Mr.  C,  a  government  bank,  issuing 
government  bank  notes ;  an  experiment  to  set 
up  a  government  bank.  It  is,  in  point  of  fact, 
an  incipient  bank.  Now,  if  government  has  the 
power  to  issue  bank  notes,  and  so  to  form  in- 
directly and  covertly  a  bank,  how  is  it  that  it 
has  not  the  power  to  establish  a  national  bank  '\ 
What  difference  is  there  between  a  great  govern- 
ment bank,  with  Mr.  Woodbury  as  the  great 
cashier,  and  a  bank  composed  of  a  corporation 
of  private  citizens  ?  What  difference  is  there, 
except  that  the  latter  is  better  and  safer,  and 
more  stable,  and  more  free  from  political  influ- 
ences, and  more  rational  and  more  republican  ? 
An  attack  is  made  at  Washington  upon  all  the 
banks  of  the  country,  when  we  have  at  least  one 
hundred  millions  of  bank  paper  in  circulation. 
At  such  a  time,  a  time  too  of  peace,  instead  of 
aid,  we  denounce  them,  decry  them,  seek  to  ruin 
them,  and  begin  to  issue  paper  in  opposition  to 
them  !  You  resort  to  paper,  which  you  profess 
to  put  down ;  you  resort  to  a  bank,  which  you 
pretend  to  decry  and  to  denounce ;  you  resort 
to  a  government  paper  currency,  after  having 
exclaimed  against  every  currency  except  that  of 
gold  and  silver !  Mr.  C.  said  he  should  vote  for 
Mr.  Benton's  amendment,  as  far  as  it  went  to 
prevent  the  creation  of  a  government  bank  and  a 
government  currency." 

Mr.  Webster  also  supported  the  motion  of 
Mr.  Benton,  saying : 


36 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"  He  would  not  be  unwilling  to  give  his  sup- 
port to  the  bill,  as  a  loan,  and  that  only  a  tem- 
porary loan.  He  was,  however,  utterly  opposed 
to  every  modification  of  the  measure  which  went 
to  stamp  npon  it  the  character  of  a  government 
currency.  All  past  experience  showed  that  such 
a  currency  would  depreciate;  that  it  will  and 
must  depreciate.  He  should  vote  for  the  amend- 
ment, inasmuch  as  $100  bills  were  less  likely  to 
get  into  common  circulation  than  $50  bills.  His 
objection  was  against  the  old  continental  money 
in  any  shape  or  in  any  disguise,  and  he  would 
therefore  vote  for  the  amendment." 

The  motion  was  lost  by  a  vote  of  16  to  25, 
the  yeas  and  nays  being : 

Yeas — Messrs.  Allen,  Benton,  Clay,  of  Ken- 
tucky, Clayton,  Kent,  King,  of  Georgia,  KcKean, 
Pierce,  Rives,  Robbins,  Smith,  of  Connecticut, 
Southard,  Spence,  Tipton,  Webster,  White — 16. 

Nays — Messrs.  Buchanan,  Clay,  of  Alabama, 
Crittenden,  Fulton,  Grundy,  Hubbard,  King,  of 
Alabama,  Knight,  Linn,  Lyon,  Morris,  Nicholas, 
Niles,  Norvell,  Roane,  Robinson,  Smith,  of  Indi- 
ana, Strange,  Swift,  Talmadge,  Walker,  Wil- 
liams, Wall,  Wright,  Young— 25. 


CHAPTER   X. 

RETENTION  OF  THE  FOURTH  DEPOSIT  INSTAL- 
MENT. 

The  deposit  with  the  States  had  only  reached 
its  second  instalment  when  the  deposit  banks, 
unable  to  stand  a  continued  quarterly  drain  of 
near  ten  millions  to  the  quarter,  gave  np  the 
effort  and  closed  their  doors.  The  first  instal- 
ment had  been  delivered  the  first  of  January,  in 
specie,  or  its  equivalent  ;  the  second  in  April, 
also  in  valid  money  ;  the  third  one  demandable 
on  the  first  of  June,  was  accepted  by  the  States 
in  depreciated  paper :  and  they  were  very  willing 
to  receive  the  fourth  instalment  in  the  same 
way.  It  had  cost  the  States  nothing, — was  not 
likely  to  be  called  back  by  the  federal  govern- 
ment, and  was  all  clear  gains  to  those  who  took 
it  as  a  deposit  and  held  it  as  a  donation.  But 
the  Federal  Treasury  needed  it  also ;  and  like- 
wise needed  ten  millions  more  of  that  amount 
which  had  already  been  "  deposited  "  with  the 
States ;  and  which  "  deposit "  was  made  and  ac- 
cepted under  a  statute  which  required  it  to  be 
paid  back  whenever  the  wants  of  the  Treasury 
required  it.     That  want  had  now  come,  and  the 


event  showed  the  delusion  and  the  cheat  of  the 
bill  under  which  a  distribution  had  been  made 
in  the  name  of  a  deposit.  The  idea  of  restitu- 
tion entered  no  one's  head!  neither  of  the 
government  to  demand  it,  nor  of  the  States  to 
render  back.  What  had  been  delivered,  was 
(gone  !  that  was  a  clear  case;  and  reclamation, 
iOr  rendition,  even  of  the  smallest  part,  or  at  the 
most  remote  period,  was  not  dreamed  of.  R.ut 
there  was  a  portion  behind— another  instalment 
of  ten  millions — deliverable  out  of  the  "  sur- 
plus "  on  the  first  day  of  October :  but  there 
was  no  surplus :  on  the  contrary  a  deficit :  and 
the  retention  of  this  sum  would  seem  to  be  a 
matter  of  course  with  the  government,  only  re- 
quiring the  form  of  an  act  to  release  the  obliga- 
tion for  the  delivery.  It  was  recommended  by 
the  President,  counted  upon  in  the  treasury 
estimates,  and  its  retention  the  condition  on 
which  the  amount  of  treasury  notes  was  limited 
to  ten  millions  of  dollars.  A  bill  was  reported  for 
the  purpose,  in  the  mildest  form,  not  to  repeal 
but  to  postpone  the  clause ;  and  the  reception 
which  it  met,  though  finally  successful,  should  be 
an  eternal  admonition  to  the  federal  government 
never  to  have  any  money  transaction  with  its 
members — a  transaction  in  which  the  members 
become  the  masters,  and  the  devourers  of  the 
head.  The  finance  committee  of  the  Senate  had 
brought  in  a  bill  to  repeal  the  obligation  to  de- 
posit this  fourth  instalment ;  and  from  the  be- 
ginning it  encountered  a  serious  resistance.  Mr. 
Webster  led  the  way,  saying : 

"  We  are  to  consider  that  this  money,  accord- 
ing to  the  provisions  of  the  existing  law,  is  to 
go  equally  among  all  the  States,  and  among  all 
the  people ;  and  the  wants  of  the  Treasury 
must  be  supplied,  if  supplies  be  necessary, 
equally  by  all  the  people.  It  is  not  a  question, 
therefore,  whether  some  shall  have  money,  and 
others  shall  make  good  the  deficiency.  All 
partake  in  the  distribution,  and  all  will  contri- 
bute to  the  supply.  So  that  it  is  a  mere  ques- 
tion of  convenience,  and,  in  my  opinion,  it  is 
decidedly  most  convenient,  on  all  accounts,  that 
this  instalment  should  follow  its  present  desti- 
!  nation,  and  the  necessities  of  the  Treasury  be 
'provided  for  by  other  means." 

Mr.  Preston  opposed  the  repealing  bill,  prin- 
cipally on  the  ground  that  many  of  the  States 
had  already  appropriated  this  money;  that  is 
to  say,  had  undertaken  public  works  on  the 
strength  of  it ;  and  would  suffer  more  injury 
from  not  receiving  it  than  the  Federal  Treasury 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


37 


would  suffer  from  otherwise  supplying  its  place. 
Mr.  Crittenden  opposed  the  bill  on  the  same 
ground.  Kentucky,  he  said,  had  made  provision 
for  the  expenditure  of  the  money,  and  relied 
upon  it,  and  could  not  expect  the  law  to  be 
lightly  rescinded,  or  broken,  on  the  faith  of 
which  she  had  anticipated  its  use.  Other 
senators  treated  the  deposit  act  as  a  contract, 
which  the  United  States  was  bound  to  comply 
with  by  delivering  all  the  instalments. 

In  the  progress  of  the  bill  Mr.  Buchanan 
proposed  an  amendment,  the  effect  of  which 
would  be  to  change  the  essential  character  of 
the  so  called,  deposit  act,  and  convert  it  into  a 
real  distribution  measure.  By  the  terms  of  the 
act,  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  to  call  upon  the  States  for  a  return 
of  the  deposit  when  needed  by  the  Federal 
Treasury:  Mr.  Buchanan  proposed  to  release 
the  Secretary  from  this  duty,  and  devolve  it 
upon  Congress,  by  enacting  that  the  three  in- 
stalments already  delivered,  should  remain  on 
deposit  with  the  States  until  called  for  by  Con- 
gress. Mr.  Niles  saw  the  evil  of  the  proposition, 
and  thus  opposed  it : 

"  He  must  ask  for  the  yeas  and  nays  on  the 
amendment,  and  was  sorry  it  had  been  offered. 
If  it  was  to  be  fully  considered,  it  would  renew 
the  debate  on  the  deposit  act,  as  it  went  to 
change  the  essential  principles  and  terms  of  that 
act.  A  majority  of  those  who  voted  for  that 
act,  about  which  there  had  been  so  much  said, 
and  so  much  misrepresentation,  had  professed 
to  regard  it — and  he  could  not  doubt  that  at  the 
time  they  did  so  regard  it — as  simply  a  deposit 
law ;  as  merely  changing  the  place  of  deposit 
from  the  banks  to  the  States,  so  far  as  related 
to  the  surplus.  The  money  was  still  to  be  in 
the  Treasury,  and  liable  to  be  drawn  out,  with 
certain  limitations  and  restrictions,  by  the  ordi- 
nary appropriation  laws,  without  the  direct  ac- 
tion of  Congress.  The  amendment,  if  adopted, 
will  change  the  principles  of  the  deposit  act, 
and  the  condition  of  the  money  deposited  with 
the  States  under  it.  It  will  no  longer  be  a  de- 
posit ;  it  will  not  be  in  the  Treasury,  even  in 
point  of  legal  effect  or  form :  the  deposit  will 
be  changed  to  a  loan,  or,  perhaps  more  properly, 
a  grant  to  the  States.  The  rights  of  the  United 
States  will  be  changed  to  a  mere  claim,  like  that 
against  the  late  Bank  of  the  United  States;  and 
a  claim  without  any  means  to  enforce  it.  We 
were  charged,  at  the  time,  of  making  a  distribu- 
tion of  the  public  revenue  to  the  States,  in  the 
disguise  and  form  of  a  deposit ;  and  this  amend- 
ment, it  appeared  to  him,  would  be  a  very  bold 
step  towards  confirming  the  truth  of  that  charge. 
He  deemed  the  amendment  an  important  one, 


and  highly  objectionable ;  but  he  saw  that  the 
Senate  were  prepared  to  adopt  it,  and  he  would 
not  pursue  the  discussion,  but  content  himself 
with  repeating  his  request  for  the  ayes  and 
noes  on  the  question." 

Mr.  Buchanan  expressed  his  belief  that  the 
substitution  of  Congress  for  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  would  make  no  difference  in  the  nature 
of  the  fund:  and  that  remark  of  his,  if  understood 
as  sarcasm,  was  undoubtedly  true ;  for  the  deposit 
was  intended  as  a  distribution  by  its  authors 
from  the  beginning,  and  this  proposed  substitu- 
tion was  only  taking  a  step,  and  an  effectual  one, 
to  make  it  so :  for  it  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  a  Congress  would  ever  be  found  to  call  for 
this  money  from  the  States,  which  they  were  so 
eager  to  give  to  the  States.  The  proposition  of 
Mr.  Buchanan  was  carried  by  a  large  majority 
— 33  to  12 — all  the  opponents  of  the  adminis- 
tration, and  a  division  of  its  friends,  voting  for 
it.  Thus,  the  whole  principle,  and  the  whole 
argument  on  which  the  deposit  act  had  been 
passed,  was  reversed.  It  was  passed  to  make 
the  State  treasuries  the  Treasury  pro  tanto  of 
the  United  States — to  substitute  the  States  for 
the  banks,  for  the  keeping  of  this  surplus  until 
it  was  wanted — and  it  was  placed  within  the 
call  of  a  federal  executive  officer  that  it  might 
be  had  for  the  public  service  when  needed.  All 
this  was  reversed.  The  recall  of  the  money  was 
taken  from  the  federal  executive,  and  referred 
to  the  federal  legislative  department — to  the 
Congress,  composed  of  members  representing 
the  States — that  is  to  say,  from  the  payee  to 
the  payor,  and  was  a  virtual  relinquishment  of 
the  payment.  And  thus  the  deposit  was  made 
a  mockery  and  a  cheat ;  and  that  by  those  who 
passed  it. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  the  disposi- 
tion to  treat  the  deposit  as  a  contract,  and  to 
compel  the  government  to  deliver  the  money 
(although  it  would  be  compelled  to  raise  by 
extraordinary  means  what  was  denominated  a 
surplus),  was  still  stronger  than  in  the  Senate, 
and  gave  rise  to  a  protracted  struggle,  long  and 
doubtful  in  its  issue.  Mr.  Cushing  laid  down 
the  doctrine  of  contract,  and  thus  argued  it : 

"  The  clauses  of  the  deposit  act,  which  apper- 
tain to  the  present  question,  seem  to  me  to  pos- 
sess all  the  features  of  a  contract.  It  provides 
that  the  whole  surplus  revenue  of  the  United 
States,  beyond  a  certain  sum,  which  may  be  in 
the  Treasury  on  a  certain  day,  shall  be  deposited 


38 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


with  the  several  States ;  which  deposit  the 
States  are  to  keep  safely,  and  to  pay  back  to  the 
United  States,  whenever  the  same  shall  be 
called  for  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  a 
prescribed  time  and  mode,  and  on  the  happening 
of  a  given  contingency.  Here,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  a  contract  in  honor ;  and,  so  far  as  there  can 
be  a  contract  between  the  United  States  and 
the  several  States,  a  contract  in  law;  there 
being  reciprocal  engagements,  for  a  valuable 
consideration,  on  both  sides.  It  is,  at  any  rate. 
a  quasi-contract.  They  who  impugn  this  view 
of  the  question  argue  on  the  supposition  that 
the  act,  performed  or  to  be  performed  by  the 
United  States,  is  an  inchoate  gift  of  money 
to  the  States.  Not  so.  It  is  a  contract  of 
deposit ;  and  that  contract  is  consummated,  and 
made  perfect,  on  the  formal  reception  of  any  in- 
stalment of  the  deposit  by  the  States.  Now, 
entertaining  this  view  of  the  transaction,  I  am 
asked  by  the  administration  to  come  forward 
and  break  this  contract.  True,  a  contract  made 
by  the  government  of  the  United  States  cannot 
be  enforced  in  law.  Does  that  make  it  either 
honest  or  honorable  for  the  United  States  to 
take  advantage  of  its  power  and  violate  its 
pledged  faith  ?  I  refuse  to  participate  in  any 
such  breach  of  faith.  But  further.  The  admin- 
istration solicits  Congress  to  step  in  between 
the  United  States  and  the  States  as  a  volunteer, 
and  to  violate  a  contract,  as  the  meaus  of  help- 
ing the  administration  out  of  difficulties,  into 
which  its  own  madness  and  folly  have  wilfully 
sunk  it,  and  which  press  equally  upon  the  gov- 
ernment and  the  people.  The  object  of  the 
measure  is  to  relieve  the  Secretary  of  the  Trea- 
sury from  the  responsibility  of  acting  in  this 
matter  as  he  has  the  power  to  do.  Let  him  act. 
I  will  not  go  out  of  my  way  to  interpose  in 
this  between  the  Executive  and  the  several 
States,  until  the  administration  appeals  to  me 
in  the  right  spirit.  This  it  has  not  done.  The 
Executive  comes  to  us  with  a  new  doctrine, 
which  is  echoed  by  his  friends  in  this  House, 
namely,  that  the  American  government  is  not 
to  exert  itself  for  the  relief  of  the  American 
people.  Very  well.  If  this  be  your  policy,  I, 
as  representing  the  people,  will  not  exert  myself 
for  the  relief  of  your  administration." 

Such  was  the  chicanery,  unworthy  of  a  pie- 
poudre court — with  which  a  statute  of  the 
federal  Congress,  stamped  with  every  word,  in- 
vested with  every  form,  hung  with  every  attri- 
bute, to  define  it  a  deposit — not  even  a  loan — 
was  to  be  pettifogged  into  a  gift !  and  a  contract 
for  a  gift  t  and  the  federal  Treasury  required  to 
stand  and  deliver !  and  all  that,  not  in  a  low 
law  court,  where  attorneys  congregate,  but  in 
the  high  national  legislature,  where  candor 
and  firmness  alone  should  appear.  History 
would  be  faithless  to  her  mission  if  she  did 


not  mark  such  conduct  for  reprobation,  and  in- 
voke a  public  judgment  upon  it. 

After  a  prolonged  contest  the  vote  was  taken, 
and  the  bill  carried,  but  by  the  smallest  majority 
— 119  to  117  ; — a  difference  of  two  votes,  which 
was  only  a  difference  of  one  member.  But 
even  that  was  a  delusive  victory.  It  was  im- 
mediately seen  that  more  than  one  had  voted 
with  the  majority,  not  for  the  purpose  of  pass- 
ing the  bill,  but  to  gain  the  privilege  of  a  major- 
ity member  to  move  for  a  reconsideration.  Mr. 
Pickens,  of  South  Carolina,  immediately  made 
that  motion,  and  it  was  carried  by  a  majority  of 
70!  Mr.  Pickens  then  proposed  an  amend- 
ment, which  was  to  substitute  definite  for  in- 
definite postponement — to  postpone  to  a  day 
certain  instead  of  the  pleasure  of  Congress :  and 
the  first  day  of  January,  1839,  was  the  day 
proposed  ;  and  that  without  reference  to  the 
condition  of  the  Treasury  (which  might  not  then 
have  any  surplus),  for  the  transfer  of  this  fourth 
instalment  of  a  deposit  to  the  States.  The  vote 
being  taken  on  this  proposed  amendment,  it  was 
carried  by  a  majority  of  40 :  and  that  amend- 
ment being  concurred  in  by  the  Senate,  the  bill 
in  that  form  became  a  law,  and  a  virtual  legali- 
zation of  the  deposit  into  a  donation  of  forty 
millions  to  the  States.  And  this  was  done  by 
the  votes  of  members  who  had  voted  for  a  de- 
posit with  the  States;  because  a  donation  to 
the  States  was  unconstitutional.  The  three  in- 
stalments already  delivered  were  not  to  be  re- 
called until  Congress  should  so  order;  and  it 
was  quite  certain  that  it  never  would  so  order. 
At  the  same  time  the  nominal  discretion  of 
Congress  over  the  deposit  of  the  remainder  was 
denied,  and  the  duty  of  the  Secretary  made  pe- 
remptory to  deliver  it  in  the  brief  space  of  one 
year  and  a  quarter  from  that  time.  But  events 
frustrated  that  order.  The  Treasury  was  in  no 
condition  on  the  first  day  of  January,  1839,  to 
deliver  that  amount  of  money.  It  was  penniless 
itself.  The  compromise  act  of  1833,  making 
periodical  reductions  in  the  tariff,  until  the 
whole  duty  was  reduced  to  an  ad  valorem  of 
twenty  per  cent.,  had  nearly  run  its  course,  and 
left  the  Treasury  in  the  condition  of  a  borrower, 
instead  of  that  of  a  donor  or  lender  of  money. 
This  fourth  instalment  could  not  be  delivered  at 
the  time  appointed,  nor  subsequently ; — and  was 
finally  relinquished,  the  States  retaining  the 
amount  they  had  received :  which  was  so  much 


ANNO  1837.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


39 


clear  gain  through  the  legislative  fraud  of 
making  a  distribution  under  the  name  of  a  de- 
posit. 

This  was  the  end  of  one  of  the  distribution 
schemes  which  had  so  long  afflicted  and  dis- 
turbed Congress  and  the  country.  Those 
schemes  began  now  to  be  known  by  their  con- 
sequences— evil  to  those  they  were  intended  to 
benefit,  and  of  no  service  to  those  whose  popu- 
larity they  were  to  augment.  To  the  States  the 
deposit  proved  to  be  an  evil,  in  the  contentions 
and  combinations  to  which  their  disposition  gave 
rise  in  the  general  assemblies — in  the  objects  to 
which  they  were  applied — and  the  futility  of  the 
help  which  they  afforded.  Popularity  hunting, 
on  a  national  scale,  gave  birth  to  the  schemes  in 
Congress:  the  same  spirit,  on  a  smaller  and 
local  scale,  took  them  up  in  the  States.  All 
sorts  of  plans  were  proposed  for  the  employ- 
ment of  the  money,  and  combinations  more  or 
less  interested,  or  designing,  generally  carried  the 
point  in  the  universal  scramble.  In  some  States 
a  pro  rata  division  of  the  money,  per  capite,  was 
made ;  and  the  distributive  share  of  each  indi- 
vidual being  but  a  few  shillings,  was  received 
with  contempt  by  some,  and  rejected  with  scorn 
by  others.  In  other  States  it  was  divided  among 
the  counties,  and  gave  rise  to  disjointed  under- 
takings of  no  general  benefit.  Others,  again, 
were  stimulated  by  the  unexpected  acquisition 
of  a  large  sum,  to  engage  in  large  and  premature 
works  of  internal  improvement,  embarrassing 
the  State  with  debt,  and  commencing  works 
which  could  not  be  finished.  Other  States 
again,  looking  upon  the  deposit  act  as  a  legis- 
lative fraud  to  cover  an  unconstitutional  and 
demoralizing  distribution  of  public  money  to  the 
people,  refused  for  a  long  time  to  receive  their 
proffered  dividend,  and  passed  resolutions  of 
censure  upon  the  authors  of  the  act.  And  thus 
the  whole  policy  worked  out  differently  from 
what  had  been  expected.  The  States  and  the 
people  were  not  grateful  for  the  favor:  the 
authors  of  the  act  gained  no  presidential  elec- 
tion by  it :  and  the  gratifying  fact  became  evi- 
dent that  the  American  people  were  not  the  de- 
generate Romans,  or  the  volatile  Greeks,  to  be 
seduced  with  their  own  money — to  give  their 
votes  to  men  who  lavished  the  public  moneys 
on  their  wants  or  their  pleasures — in  grain  to 
feed  them,  or  in  shows  and  games  to  delight 
and  amuse  them. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

INDEPENDENT  TKEASURY  AND  HAED  MONET 
PAYMENTS. 

These  were  the  crowning  measures  of  the  ses- 
sion, and  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  administration, — 
not  entirely  consummated  at  that  t^me,  but  partly, 
and  the  rest  assured ; — and  constitute  in  fact  an 
era  in  our  financial  history.  They  were  the 
most  strenuously  contested  measures  of  the  ses- 
sion, and  made  the  issue  completely  between  the 
hard  money  and  the  paper  money  systems. 
They  triumphed — have  maintained  their  su- 
premacy ever  since — and  vindicated  their  excel- 
lence on  trial.  Vehemently  opposed  at  the  time, 
and  the  greatest  evil  predicted,  opposition  has 
died  away,  and  given  place  to  support  ;  and  the 
predicted  evils  have  been  seen  only  in  blessings. 
No  attempt  has  been  made  to  disturb  these  great 
measures  since  their  final  adoption,  and  it  would 
seem  that  none  need  now  be  apprehended ;  but 
the  history  of  their  adoption  presents  one  of  the 
most  instructive  lessons  in  our  financial  legisla- 
tion, and  must  have  its  interest  with  future  ages 
as  well  as  with  the  present  generation.  The  bills 
which  were  brought  in  for  the  purpose  were 
clear  in  principle — simple  in  detail :  the  govern- 
ment to  receive  nothing  but  gold  and  silver  for 
its  revenues,  and  its  own  officers  to  keep  it — 
the  Treasury  being  at  the  seat  of  government, 
with  branches,  or  sub-treasuries  at  the  principal 
points  of  collection  and  disbursement.  And 
these  treasuries  to  be  real,  not  constructive — 
strong  buildings  to  hold  the  public  moneys,  and 
special  officers  to  keep  the  keys.  The  capacious, 
strong-walled  and  well-guarded  custom  houses 
and  mints,  furnished  in  the  great  cities  the 
rooms  that  were  wanted  :  the  Treasury  building 
at  Washington  was  ready,  and  in  the  right 
place. 

This  proposed  total  separation  of  the  federal 
government  from  all  banks — called  at  the  time 
in  the  popular  language  of  the  day,  the  divorce 
of  Bank  and  State — naturally  arrayed  the  whole  ^ 
bank  power  against  it,  from  a  feeling  of  interest; 
and  all  (or  nearly  so)  acted  in  conjunction  with 
the  once  dominant,  and  still  potent,  Bank  of  the 
United  States.  In  the  Senate,  Mr.  Webster 
headed  one  interest— Mr.  Rives,  of  Virginia,  the 


40 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


other;  and  Mr.  Calhoun,  who  had  long  acted 
with  the  opposition,  now  came  back  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  democracy,  and  gave  the  aid  without 
which  these  great  measures  of  the  session  could 
not  have  been  carried.  His  temperament  re- 
quired him  to  have  a  lead ;  and  it  was  readily 
yielded  to  him  in  the  debate  in  all  cases  where 
he  went  with  the  recommendations  of  the  mes- 
sage ;  and  hence  he  appeared,  in  the  debate  on 
these  measures,  as  the  principal  antagonist  of 
Mr.  Webster  and  Mr.  Rives. 

The  present  attitude  of  Mr.  Calhoun  gave 
rise  to  some  taunts  in  relation  to  his  former 
support  of  a  national  bank,  and  on  his  present 
political  associations,  which  gave  him  the  oppor- 
tunity to  set  himself  right  in  relation  to  that 
institution  and  his  support  of  it  in  1816  and 
1834.    In  this  vein  Mr.  Rives  said : 

"  It  does  seem  to  me,  Mr.  President,  that  this 
perpetual  and  gratuitous  introduction  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States  into  this  debate, 
with  which  it  has  no  connection,  as  if  to  alarm 
the  imaginations  of  grave  senators,  is  but  a  poor 
evidence  of  the  intrinsic  strength  of  the  gentle- 
man's cause.  Much  has  been  said  of  argument 
ad  captandum  in  the  course  of  this  discussion. 
I  have  heard  none  that  can  compare  with  this 
solemn  stalking  of  the  ghost  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  through  this  hall,  to  'frighten 
senators  from  their  propriety.'  I  am  as  much 
opposed  to  that  institution  as  the  gentleman  or 
any  one  else  is,  or  can  be.  I  think  I  may  say  I 
have  given  some  proofs  of  it.  The  gentleman  him- 
self acquits  me  of  any  design  to  favor  the  interest 
of  that  institution,  while  he  says  such  is  the 
necessary  consequence  of  my  proposition.  The 
suggestion  is  advanced  for  effect,  and  then  re- 
tracted in  form.  Whatever  be  the  new-born 
zeal  of  the  senator  from  South  Carolina  against 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  I  flatter  myself 
that  I  stand  in  a  position  that  places  me,  at 
least,  as  much  above  suspicion  of  an  undue  lean- 
ing in  favor  of  that  institution  as  the  honorable 
gentleman.  If  I  mistake  not,  it  was  the  senator 
from  South  Carolina  who  introduced  and  sup- 
ported the  bill  for  the  charter  of  the  United 
States  Bank  in  1816;  it  was  he,  also,  who 
brought  in  a  bill  in  1834,  to  extend  the  charter 
of  that  institution  for  a  term  of  twelve  years ; 
and  none  were  more  conspicuous  than  he  in  the 
well-remembered  scenes  of  that  day,  in  urging 
the  restoration  of  the  government  deposits  to 
this  same  institution." 

The  reply  of  Mr.  Calhoun  to  those  taunts, 
which  impeached  his  consistency — a  point  at 
which  he  was  always  sensitive — was  quiet  and 
ready,  and  the  same  that  he  had  often  been 


heard  to  express  in  common  conversation.     He 
said: 

"  In  supporting  the  bank  of  1816, 1  openly 
declared  that,  as  a  question  de  novo,  I  would 
be  decidedly  against  the  bank,  and  would  be  the 
last  to  give  it  my  support.  I  also  stated  that, 
in  supporting  the  bank  then,  I  yielded  to  the 
necessity  of  the  case,  growing  out  of  the  then  ex- 
isting and  long-established  connection  between 
the  government  and  the  banking  system.  I  took 
the  ground,  even  at  that  early  period,  that  so 
long  as  the  connection  existed,  so  long  as  the 
government  received  and  paid  away  bank  notes 
as  money,  they  were  bound  to  regulate  their 
value,  and  had  no  alternative  but  the  establish- 
ment of  a  national  bank.  I  found  the  connec- 
tion in  existence  and  established  before  my  time, 
and  over  which  I  could  have  no  control.  I 
yielded  to  the  necessity,  in  order  to  correct  the 
disordered  state  of  the  currency,  which  had 
fallen  exclusively  under  the  control  of  the 
States.  I  yielded  to  what  I  could  not  reverse, 
just  as  any  member  of  the  Senate  now  would, 
who  might  believe  that  Louisiana  was  unconsti- 
tutionally admitted  into  the  Union,  but  who 
would,  nevertheless,  feel  compelled  to  vote  to 
extend  the  laws  to  that  State,  as  one  of  its 
members,  on  the  ground  that  its  admission  was 
an  act,  whether  constitutional  or  unconstitu- 
tional, which  he  could  not  reverse.  In  1834,  I 
acted  in  conformity  to  the  same  principle,  in 
proposing  the  renewal  of  the  bank  charter  for  a 
short  period.  My  object,  as  expressly  avowed, 
was  to  use  the  bank  to  break  the  connection  be- 
tween the  government  and  the  banking  system 
gradually,  in  order  to  avert  the  catastrophe 
which  has  now  befallen  us.  and  which  I  then 
clearly  perceived.  But  the  connection,  which  I 
believed  to  be  irreversible  in  1816,  has  now  been 
broken  by  operation  of  law.  It  is  now  an  open 
question.  I  feel  myself  free,  for  the  first  time, 
to  choose  my  course  on  this  important  subject ; 
and,  in  opposing  a  bank,  I  act  in  conformity  to 
principles  which  I  have  entertained  ever  since  I 
have  fully  investigated  the  subject." 

Going  on  with  his  lead  in  support  of  the 
President's  recommendations,  Mr.  Calhoun 
brought  forward  the  proposition  to  discontinue 
the  use  of  bank  paper  in  the  receipts  and  dis- 
bursements of  the  federal  government,  and  sup- 
ported his  motion  as  a  measure  as  necessary  to 
the  welfare  of  the  banks  themselves  as  to  the 
safety  of  the  government.  In  this  sense  he 
said: 

"  We  have  reached  a  new  era  with  regard  to 
these  institutions.  He  who  would  judge  of  the 
future  by  the  past,  in  reference  to  them,  will  be 
wholly  mistaken.  The  year  1833  marks  the 
commencement  of  this  era.  That  extraordinary 
man,  who  had  the  power  of  imprinting  his  own 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


41 


feelings  on  the  community,  then  commenced 
his  hostile  attacks,  which  have  left  such  effects 
behind,  that  the  war  then  commenced  against 
the  banks,  I  clearly  see,  will  not  terminate,  un- 
less there  be  a  separation  between  them  and 
the  government, — until  one  or  the  other  tri- 
umphs— till  the  government  becomes  the  bank, 
or  the  bank  the  government.  In  resisting  their 
union,  I  act  as  the  friend  of  both.  I  have,  as  I 
have  said,  no  unkind  feeling  toward  the  banks. 
I  am  neither  a  bank  man,  nor  an  anti-bank  man. 
I  have  had  little  connection  with  them.  Many 
of  my  best  friends,  for  whom  I  have  the  high- 
est esteem,  have  a  deep  interest  in  their  pros- 
perity, and,  as  far  as  friendship  or  personal  at- 
tachment extends,  my  inclination  would  be 
strongly  in  their  favor.  But  I  stand  up  here  as 
the  representative  of  no  particular  interest.  I 
look  to  the  whole,  and  to  the  future,  as  well  as 
the  present ;  and  I  shall  steadily  pursue  that 
course  which,  under  the  most  enlarged  view,  I 
believe  to  be  my  duty.  In  1834  I  saw  the 
present  crisis.  I  in  vain  raised  a  warning  voice, 
and  endeavored  to  avert  it.  I  now  see,  with 
equal  certainty,  one  far  more  portentous.  If 
this  struggle  is  to  go  on — if  the  banks  will  in- 
sist upon  a  reunion  with  the  government,  against 
the  sense  of  a  large  and  influential  portion  of 
the  community — and,  above  all,  if  they  should 
(succeed  in  effecting  it — a  reflux  flood  will  inev- 
itably sweep  away  the  whole  system.  A  deep 
popular  excitement  is  never  without  some  rea- 
son, and  ought  ever  to  be  treated  with  respect ; 
and  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to  look  timely  into 
the  cause,  and  correct  it  before  the  excitement 
shall  become  so  great  as  to  demolish  the  object, 
with  all  its  good  and  evil,  against  which  it  is 
directed." 

Mr.  Rives  treated  the  divorce  of  bank  and 
State  as  the  divorce  of  the  government  from 
the  people,  and  said : 

"Much  reliance,  Mr.  President,  has  been 
placed  on  the  popular  catch-word  of  divorcing 
the  government  from  all  connection  with  banks. 
Nothing  is  more  delusive  and  treacherous  than 
catch-words.  How  often  has  the  revered  name 
of  liberty  been  invoked,  in  every  quarter  of  the 
globe,  and  every  age  of  the  world,  to  disguise 
and  sanctify  the  most  heartless  despotisms. 
Let  us  beware  that,  in  attempting  to  divorce 
the  government  from  all  connection  with  banks, 
we  do  not  end  with  divorcing  the  government 
from  the  people.  As  long  as  the  people  shall 
be  satisfied  in  their  transactions  with  each 
other,  with  a  sound  convertible  paper  medium, 
with  a  due  proportion  of  the  precious  metals 
forming  the  basis  of  that  medium,  and  mingled 
in  the  current  of  circulation,  why  should  the 
government  reject  altogether  this  currency  of 
the  people,  in  the  operations  of  the  public 
Treasury?  If  this  currency  be  good  enough 
for  the  masters,  it  ought  to  be  so  for  the  ser- 


vants. If  the  government  sternly  reject,  for  its 
uses,  the  general  medium  of  exchange  adopted 
by  the  community,  is  it  not  thereby  isolated 
from  the  general  wants  and  business  of  the 
country,  in  relation  to  this  great  concern  of  the 
currency?  Do  you  not  give  it  a  separate,  if 
not  hostile,  interest,  and  thus,  in  effect,  produce 
a  divorce  between  government  and  people  ? — a 
result,  of  all  others,  to  be  most  deprecated  in  a 
republican  system." 

Mr.  Webster's  main  argument  in  favor  of  the 
re-establishment  of  the  National  Bank  (which 
was  the  consummation  he  kept  steadily  in  his 
eye)  was,  as  a  regulator  of  currency,  and  of  the 
domestic  exchanges.  The  answer  to  this  was, 
that  these  arguments,  now  relied  on  as  the 
main  ones  for  the  continuance  of  the  institution, 
were  not  even  thought  of  at  its  commencement 
— that  no  such  reasons  were  hinted  at  by  Gen- 
eral Hamilton  and  the  advocates  of  the  first 
bank — that  they  were  new-fangled,  and  had  not 
been  brought  forward  by  others  until  after  the 
paper  system  had  deranged  both  currency  and 
exchanges  ; — and  that  it  was  contradictory  to 
look  for  the  cure  of  the  evil  in  the  source  of  the 
evil.  It  was  denied  that  the  regulation  of  ex- 
changes was  a  government  concern,  or  that  the 
federal  government  was  created  for  any  such 
purpose.  The  buying  and  selling  of  bills  of 
exchange  was  a  business  pursuit — a  commercial 
business,  open  to  any  citizen  or  bank ;  and  the 
loss  or  profit  was  an  individual,  and  not  a  gov- 
ernment concern.  It  was  denied  that  there 
was  any  derangement  of  currency  in  the  only 
currency  which  the  constitution  recognized — 
that  of  gold  and  silver.  Whoever  had  this  cur- 
rency to  be  exchanged — that  is,  given  in  ex- 
change at  one  place  for  the  same  in  another 
place — now  had  the  exchange  effected  on  fair 
terms,  and  on  the  just  commercial  principle — 
that  of  paying  a  difference  equal  to  the  freight 
and  insurance  of  the  money :  and,  on  that  prin- 
ciple, gold  was  the  best  regulator  of  exchanges ; 
for  its  small  bulk  and  little  weight  in  propor- 
tion to  its  value,  made  it  easy  and  cheap  of 
transportation ;  and  brought  down  the  exchange 
to  the  minimum  cost  of  such  transportation 
(even  when  necessary  to  be  made),  and  to  the 
uniformity  of  a  permanent  business.  That  was 
the  principle  of  exchange  ;  but,  ordinarily,  there 
was  no  transportation  in  the  case  :  the  exchange 
dealer  in  one  city  had  his  correspondent  in 
another :  a  letter  often  did  the  business.     The 


42 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


regulation  of  the  currency  required  an  under- 
standing of  the  meaning  of  the  term.  As  used 
by  the  friends  of  a  National  Bank,  and  referred 
to  its  action,  the  paper  currency  alone  was  in- 
tended. The  phrase  had  got  into  vogue  since 
the  paper  currency  had  become  predominant, 
and  that  is  a  currency  not  recognized  by  the 
constitution,  but  repudiated  by  it ;  and  one  of 
its  main  objects  was  to  prevent  the  future 
existence  of  that  currency — the  evils  of  which 
its  framers  had  seen  and  felt.  Gold  and  silver 
was  the  only  currency  recognized  by  that  in- 
strument, and  its  regulation  specially  and  exclu- 
sively given  to  Congress,  which  had  lately  dis- 
charged its  duty  in  that  particular,  in  regula- 
ting the  relative  value  of  the  two  metals.  The 
gold  act  of  1834  had  made  that  regulation,  cor- 
recting the  error  of  previous  legislation,  and 
had  revived  the  circulation  of  gold,  as  an  ordi- 
nary currency,  after  a  total  disappearance  of  it 
under  an  erroneous  valuation,  for  an  entire  gen- 
eration. It  was  in  full  circulation  when  the 
combined  stoppage  of  the  banks  again  sup- 
pressed it.  That  was  the  currency — gold  and 
silver,  with  the  regulation  of  which  Congress 
was  not  only  intrusted,  but  charged :  and  this 
regulation  included  preservation.  It  must  be 
saved  before  it  can  be  regulated ;  and  to  save  it, 
it  must  be  brought  into  the  country — and  kept 
in  it.  The  demand  of  the  federal  treasury 
could  alone  accomplish  these  objects.  The 
quantity  of  specie  required  for  the  use  of  that 
treasury — its  large  daily  receipts  and  disburse- 
ments— all  inexorably  confined  to  hard  money 
— would  create  the  demand  for  the  precious 
metals  which  would  command  their  presence, 
and  that  in  sufficient  quantity  for  the  wants  of  the 
people  as  well  as  of  the  government.  For  the 
government  does  not  consume  what  it  collects 
— does  not  melt  up  or  hoard  its  revenue,  or 
export  it  to  foreign  countries,  but  pays  it  out 
to  the  people ;  and  thus  becomes  the  distributor 
of  gold  and  silver  among  them.  It  is  the  great- 
est paymaster  in  the  country ;  and,  while  it 
pays  in  hard  money,  the  people  will  be  sure  of 
a  supply.  We  are  taunted  with  the  demand : 
"  Where  is  the  better  currency  f "  We  an- 
swer :  "  Suppressed  by  the  conspiracy  of  the 
banks  !  "  And  this  is  the  third  time  in  the 
last  twenty  years  in  which  paper  money  has 
suppressed  specie,  and  now  suppresses  it:  for 
this  is  a  game — (the  war  between  gold  and 


paper) — in  which  the  meanest  and  weakest  is 
always  the  conqueror.  The  baser  currency 
always  displaces  the  better.  Hard  money 
needs  support  against  paper,  and  that  support 
can  be  given  by  us,  by  excluding  paper  money 
from  all  federal  receipts  and  payments ;  and  con- 
fining paper  money  to  its  own  local  and  inferior 
orbit :  and  its  regulation  can  be  well  accom- 
plished by  subjecting  delinquent  banks  to  the 
process  of  bankruptcy,  and  their  small  notes  to 
suppression  under  a  federal  stamp  duty. 

The  distress  of  the  country  figured  largely  in 
the  speeches  of  several  members,  but  without 
finding  much  sympathy.  That  engine  of  opera- 
ting upon  the  government  and  "the  people  had 
been  over-worked  in  the  panic  session  of  1833-'34, 
and  was  now  a  stale  resource,  and  a  crippled  ma- 
chine. The  suspension  appeared  to  the  country  to 
have  been  purposely  contrived,  and  wantonly  con- 
tinued. There  was  now  more  gold  and  silver  in 
the  country  than  had  ever  been  seen  in  it  before 
— four  times  as  much  as  in  1832,  when  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  was  in  its  palmy  state,  and 
was  vaunted  to  have  done  so  much  for  the  cur- 
rency. Twenty  millions  of  silver  was  then  its 
own  estimate  of  the  amount  of  that  metal  in  the 
United  States,  and  not  a  particle  of  gold  in- 
cluded in  the  estimate.  Now  the  estimate  of 
gold  and  silver  was  eighty  millions ;  and  with 
this  supply  of  the  precious  metals,  and  the  de- 
termination of  all  the  sound  banks  to  resume  as 
soon  as  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  could  be 
forced  into  resumption,  or  forced  into  open  in- 
solvency, so  as  to  lose  control  over  others,  the 
suspension  and  embarrassment  were  obliged  to 
be  of  brief  continuance.  Such  were  the  argu- 
ments of  the  friends  of  hard  money. 

The  divorce  bill,  as  amended,  passed  the 
Senate,  and  though  not  acted  upon  in  the  House 
during  this  called  session,  yet  received  the  im- 
petus which  soon  carried  it  through,  and  gives 
it  a  right  to  be  placed  among  the  measures  of 
that  session. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

ATTEMPTED  RESUMPTION  OF  SPECIE  PAYMENTS. 

The  suspension  of  the  banks  commenced  at  New 
York,  and  took  place  on  the  morning  of  the  10th 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


43 


of  May :  those  of  Philadelphia,  headed  by  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  closed  their  doors  two  days 
after,  and  merely  in  consequence,  as  they  alleged, 
of  the  New  York  suspension ;  and  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  especially  declared  its  wish  and 
ability  to  have  continued  specie  payments  with- 
out reserve,  but  felt  it  proper  to  follow  the  ex- 
ample which  had  been  set.  All  this  was  known 
to  be  a  fiction  at  the  time ;  and  the  events  were 
soon  to  come,  to  prove  it  to  be  so.  As  early  as 
the  15th  of  August  ensuing— in  less  than  one 
hundred  days  after  the  suspension — the  banks 
of  New  York  took  the  initiatory  steps  towards 
resuming.  A  general  meeting  of  the  officers  of 
the  banks  of  the  city  took  place,  and  appointed 
a  committee  to  correspond  with  other  banks  to 
procure  the  appointment  of  delegates  to  agree 
upon  a  time  of  general  resumption.  In  this 
meeting  it  was  unanimously  resolved :  "  That 
the  banks  of  the  several  States  be  respectfully 
invited  to  appoint  delegates  to  meet  on  the 
21th  day  of  November  next,  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  for  the  purpose  of  conferring  on  the 
time  when  specie  payments  may  be  resumed 
with  safety  ;  and  on  the  measures  necessary  to 
effect  that  purpose"  Three  citizens,  eminently 
respectable  in  themselves,  and  presidents  of  the 
leading  institutions — Messrs.  Albert  Gallatin, 
George  Newbold,  and  Cornelius  W.  Lawrence — 
were  appointed  a  committee  to  correspond  with 
other  banks  on  the  subject  of  the  resolution. 
They  did  so  ;  and,  leaving  to  each  bank  the 
privilege  of  sending  as  many  delegates  as  it 
pleased,  they  warmly  urged  the  importance  of 
the  occasion,  and  that  the  banks  from  each 
State  should  be  represented  in  the  proposed 
convention.  There  was  a  general  concurrence 
in  the  invitation ;  but  the  convention  did  not 
take  place.  One  powerful  interest,  strong 
enough  to  paralyze  the  movement,  refused  to 
come  into  it.  That  interest  was  the  Philadel- 
phia banks,  headed  by  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States !  So  soon  were  fallacious  pretensions 
exploded  when  put  to  the  test.  And-tfre  test 
in  this  case  was  not  resumption  itself,  but  only 
a  meeting  to  confer  upon  a  time  when  it  would 
suit  the  general  interest  to  resume.  Even  to 
unite  in  that  conference  was  refused  by  this  ar- 
rogant interest,  affecting  such  a  superiority  over 
all  other  banks ;  and  pretending  to  have  been 
only  dragged  into  their  condition  by  their  ex- 
ample.    But  a  reason  had  to  be  given  for  this 


refusal,  and  it  was — and  was  worthy  of  the 
party;  namely,  that  it  was  not  proper  to  do 
any  thing  in  the  business  until  after  the  ad- 
journment of  the  extra  session  of  Congress. 
That  answer  was  a  key  to  the  movements  in 
Congress  to  thwart  the  government  plans,  and 
to  coerce  a  renewal  of  the  United  States  Bank 
charter.  After  the  termination  of  the  session  it 
will  be  seen  that  another  reason  for  refusal  was 
found. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

BANKRUPT  ACT  AGAINST  BANKS. 

This  was  the  stringent  measure  recommended 
by  the  President  to  cure  the  evil  of  bank  sus- 
pensions. Scattered  through  all  the  States  of 
the  Union,  and  only  existing  as  local  institu- 
tions, the  federal  government  could  exercise  no 
direct  power  over  them ;  and  the  impossibility 
of  bringing  the  State  legislatures  to  act  in  con- 
cert, left  the  institutions  to  do  as  they  pleased ; 
or  rather,  left  even  the  insolvent  ones  to  do  as 
they  pleased;  for  these,  dominating  over  the 
others,  and  governed  by  their  own  necessities,  or 
designs,  compelled  the  solvent  banks,  through 
panic  or  self-defence,  to  follow  their  example. 
Three  of  these  general  suspensions  had  occurred  p 
in  the  last  twenty  years.  The  notes  of  these 
banks  constituting  the  mass  of  the  circulating 
medium,  put  the  actual  currency  into  the4iands 
of  these  institutions ;  leaving  ffteycommunity 
helpless ;  for  it  was  not  in  £He  power  of  indi- 
viduals to  contend  with  associated  corporations 
It  was  a  reproach  to  the  federal  government  to 
be  unable  to  correct  this -state  of  things — to  see 
the  currency  of  the '{constitution  driven  out  of 
circulation,  and  out  of  the  country ;  and  substi- 
tuted by  depreciated  paper ;  and  the  very  evil 
produced  which  it  was  a  main  object  of  the  con- 
stitution to  prevent.  The  framers  of  that  instru- 
ment were  hard-money  men.  They  had  seen 
the  evils  of  paper  money,  and  intended  to  guard 
their  posterity  against  what  they  themselves  had 
suffered.  They  had  done  so,  as  they  believed, 
in  the  prohibition  upon  the  States  to  issue  bills 
of  credit ;  and  in  the  prohibition  upon  the  States 
to  make  any  thing  but  gold  and  silver  a  tender 
in  discharge  of  debts.     The  invention  of  banks, 


44 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


and  their  power  over  the  community,  had  nulli- 
fied this  just  and  wise  intention  of  the  constitu- 
tion ;  and  certainly  it  would  be  a  reproach  to 
that  instrument  if  it  was  incapable  of  protecting 
itself  against  such  enemies,  at  such  an  important 
point.  Thus  far  it  had  been  found  so  incapable  j 
but  it  was  a  question  whether  the  fault  was  in 
the  instrument,  or  in  its  administrators.  There 
were  many  who  believed  it  entirely  to  be  the 
fault  of  the  latter — who  believed  that  the  con- 
stitution had  ample  means  of  protection,  within 
itself,  against  insolvent,  or  delinquent  banks — 
and  that,  all  that  was  wanted  was  a  will  in  the 
federal  legislature  to  apply  the  remedy  which 
the  evil  required.  This  remedy  was  the  process 
of  bankruptcy,  under  which  a  delinquent  bank 
might  be  instantly  stopped  in  its  operations — 
its  circulation  called  in  and  paid  off.  as  far  as  its 
assets  would  go — itself  closed  up,  and  all  power 
of  further  mischief  immediately  terminated. 
This  remedy  it  was  now  proposed  to  apply. 
President  Van  Buren  recommended  it :  he  was 
the  first  President  who  had  had  the  merit  of 
doing  so ;  and  all  that  was  now  wanted  was  a 
Congress  to  back  him:  and  that  was  a  great 
want !  one  hard  to  supply.  A  powerful  array, 
strongly  combined,  was  on  the  other  side,  both 
moneyed  and  political.  All  the  local  banks 
were  against  it ;  and  they  counted  a  thousand 
— their  stockholders  myriads  ; — and  many  of 
their  owners  and  debtors  were  in  Congress: 
the  (still  so-called)  Bank  of  the  United  States 
was  against  it:  and  its  power  and  influence 
were  still  great :  the  whole  political  party  op- 
posed to  the  administration  were  against  it,  as 
well  because  opposition  is  always  a  necessity  of 
the  party  out  of  power,  as  a  means  of  getting  in, 
as  because  in  the  actual  circumstances  of  the 
present  state  of  things  opposition  was  essential 
to  the  success  of  the  outside  party.  Mr.  Webster 
was  the  first  to  oppose  the  measure,  and  did  so, 
seeming  to  question  the  right  of  Congress  to 
apply  the  remedy  rather  than  to  question  the 
expediency  of  it.     He  said 

"  We  have  seen  the  declaration  of  the  President, 
in  which  he  says  that  he  refrains  from  suggesting 
any  specific  plan  for  the  regulation  of  the  exchan- 
ges of  the  country,  and  for  relieving  mercantile  em- 
barrassments, or  for  interfering  with  the  ordinary 
operation  of  foreign  or  domestic  commerce  ;  and 
that  he  does  this  from  a  conviction  that  such 
measures  are  not  within  the  constitutional  pro- 
vince of  the  general  government  j  and  yet  he 


has  made  a  recommendation  to  Congress  which 
appears  to  me  to  be  very  remarkable,  and  it  is 
of  a  measure  which  he  thinks  may  prove  a 
salutary  remedy  against  a  depreciated  paper 
currency.  This  measure  is  neither  more  nor 
less  than  a  bankrupt  law  against  corporations 
and  other  bankers. 

"  Now,  Mr.  President,  it  is  certainly  true  that 
the  constitution  authorizes  Congress  to  establish 
uniform  rules  on  the  subject  of  bankruptcies ; 
but  it  is  equally  true,  and  abundantly  manifest, 
that  this  power  was  not  granted  with  any  refer- 
ence to  currency  questions.  It  is  a  general 
power — a  power  to  make  uniform  rules  on  the 
subject.  How  is  it  possible  that  such  a  power 
can  be  fairly  exercised  by  seizing  on  corpora- 
tions and  bankers,  but  excluding  all  the  other 
usual  subjects  of  bankrupt  laws !  Besides,  do 
such  laws  ordinarily  extend  to  corporations  at 
all  1  But  suppose  they  might  be  so  extended, 
by  a  bankrupt  law  enacted  for  the  usual  pur- 
poses contemplated  by  such  laws ;  how  can  a 
law  be  defended,  which  embraces  them  and 
bankers  alone  ?  I  should  like  to  hear  what  the 
learned  gentleman  at  the  head  of  the  Judiciary 
Committee,  to  whom  the  subject  is  referred,  has 
to  say  upon  it.  How  does  the  President's  sug- 
gestion conform  to  his  notions  of  the  constitu- 
tion? The  object  of  bankrupt  laws,  sir,  has  no 
relation  to  currency.  It  is  simply  to  distribute 
the  effects  of  insolvent  debtors  among  their 
creditors  :  and  I  must  say,  it  strikes  me  that  it 
would  be  a  great  perversion  of  the  power  con- 
ferred on  Congress  to  exercise  it  upon  corpora- 
tions and  bankers,  with  the  leading  and  primary 
object  of  remedying  a  depreciated  paper  cur- 
rency. 

"And  this  appears  the  more  extraordinary, 
inasmuch  as  the  President  is  of  opinion  that  the 
general  subject  of  the  currency  is  not  within 
our  province.  Bankruptcy,  in  its  common  and 
just  meaning,  is  within  our  province.  Currency, 
says  the  message,  is  not.  But  we  have  a  bank- 
ruptcy power  in  the  constitution,  and  we  will 
use  this  power,  not  for  bankruptcy,  indeed,  but 
for  currency.  This,  I  confess,  sir,  appears  to  me 
to  be  the  short  statement  of  the  matter.  I  would 
not  do  the  message,  or  its  author,  any  intentional 
injustice,  nor  create  any  apparent,  where  there 
was  not  a  real  inconsistency ;  but  I  declare,  in 
i  all  sincerity,  that  I  cannot  reconcile  the  proposed 
|  use  of  the  bankrupt  power  with  those  opinions 
i  of  the  message  which  respect  the  authority  of 
Congress  over  the  currency  of  the  country." 

The  right  to  use  this  remedy  against  bank- 
rupt corporations  was  of  course  well  considered 
I  by  the  President  before  he  recommended  it,  and 
|  also  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  (Mr. 
i  Woodbury),  bred  to  the  bar,  and  since  a  justice 
i  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  by 
i  whom  it  had  been  several  times  recommended. 
!  Doubtless  the  remedy  was  sanctioned  by  the 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


45 


whole  cabinet  before  it  became  a  subject  of  exe- 
cutive recommendation.  But  the  objections  of 
Mr.  Webster,  though  rather  suggested  than 
urged,  and  confined  to  the  right  without  im- 
peaching the  expediency  of  the  remedy,  led  to  a 
full  examination  into  the  nature  and  objects  of 
the  laws  of  bankruptcy,  in  which  the  right  to 
use  tHem  as  proposed  seemed  to  be  fully  vindi- 
cated. But  the  measure  was  not  then  pressed 
to  a  vote  3  and  the  occasion  for  the  remedy  hav- 
ing soon  passed  away,  and  not  recurring  since, 
the  question  has  not  been  revived.  But  the  im- 
portance of  the  remedy,  and  the  possibility  that 
it  may  be  wanted  at  some  future  time,  and  the 
high  purpose  of  showing  that  the  constitution  is 
not  impotent  at  a  point  so  vital,  renders  it  pro- 
per to  present,  in  this  View  of  the  working  of 
the  government,  the  line  of  argument  which  was 
then  satisfactory  to  its  advocates :  and  this  is 
done  in  the  ensuing  chapter. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

BANKRUPT  ACT  FOR  BANKS :  MR.  BENTON'S 
SPEECH. 

The  power  of  Congress  to  pass  bankrupt  laws 
is  expressly  given  in  our  constitution,  and  given 
without  limitation  or  qualification.  It  is  the 
fourth  in  the  number  of  the  enumerated  powers, 
and  runs  thus :  "  Congress  shall  have  power  to 
establish  a  uniform  rule  of  naturalization,  and 
uniform  laws  on  the  subject  of  bankruptcies 
throughout  the  United  States."  This  is  a  full 
and  clear  grant  of  power.  Upon  its  face  it  admits 
of  no  question,  and  leaves  Congress  at  full 
liberty  to  pass  any  kind  of  bankrupt  laws  they 
please,  limited  only  by  the  condition,  that  what- 
ever laws  are  passed,  they  are  to  be  uniform  in 
their  operation  throughout  the  United  States. 
Upon  the  face  of  our  own  constitution  there  is 
no  question  of  our  right  to  pass  a  bankrupt  law, 
limited  to  banks  and  bankers  ;  but  the  senator 
from  Massachusetts  [Mr.  Webster]  and  others 
who  have  spoken  on  the  same  side  with  him, 
must  carry  us  to  England,  and  conduct  us 
through  the  labyrinth  of  English  statute  law, 
and  through  the  chaos  of  English  judicial  de- 
cisions, to  learn  what  this  word  bankruptcies, 
in  our  constitution,  is  intended  to  signify.  In 
this  he,  and  they,  are  true  to  the  habits  of  the 


legal  profession — those  habits  which,  both  in 
Great  Britain  and  our  America,  have  become  a 
proverbial  disqualification  for  the  proper  ex- 
ercise of  legislative  duties.  I  know,  Mr.  Pres- 
ident, that  it  is  the  fate  of  our  lawyers  and 
judges  to  have  to  run  to  British  law  books  to 
find  out  the  meaning  of  the  phrases  contained  in 
our  constitution ;  but  it  is  the  business  of  the 
legislator,  and  of  the  statesman,  to  take  a  larger 
view — to  consider  the  difference  between  the 
political  institutions  of  the  two  countries — to 
ascend  to  first  principles — to  know  the  causes 
of  events — and  to  judge  how  far  what  was  suit- 
able and  beneficial  to  one  might  be  prejudicial 
and  inapplicable  to  the  other.  We  stand  here 
as  legislators  and  statesmen,  not  as  lawyers  and 
judges ;  we  have  a  grant  of  power  to  execute, 
not  a  statute  to  interpret ;  and  our  first  duty 
is  to  look  to  that  grant,  and  see  what  it  is ;  and 
our  next  duty  is  to  look  over  our  country,  and 
see  whether  there  is  any  thing  in  it  which  re- 
quires the  exercise  of  that  grant  of  power.  This 
is  what  our  President  has  done,  and  what  we 
ought  to  do.  He  has  looked  into  the  constitu- 
tion, and  seen  there  an  unlimited  grant  of  power 
to  pass  uniform  laws  on  the  subject  of  bank- 
ruptcies; and  he  has  looked  over  the  United 
States,  and  seen  what  he  believes  to  be  fit  sub- 
jects for  the  exercise  of  that  power,  namely, 
about  a  thousand  banks  in  a  state  of  bankruptcy, 
and  no  State  possessed  of  authority  to  act  be- 
yond its  own  limits  in  remedying  the  evils  of  a 
mischief  so  vast  and  so  frightful.  Seeing  these 
two  things — a  power  to  act,  and  a  subject  matter 
requiring  action — the  President  has  recom- 
mended the  action  which  the  constitution  per- 
mits, and  which  the  subject  requires ;  but  the 
senator  from  Massachusetts  has  risen  in  his 
place,  and  called  upon  us  to  shift  our  view ;  to 
transfer  our  contemplation — from  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  to  the  British  statute 
book — from  actual  bankruptcy  among  ourselves 
to  historical  bankruptcy  in  England ;  and  to 
confine  our  legislation  to  the  characteristics  of 
the  English  model. 

As  a  general  proposition,  I  lay  it  down  that 
Congress  is  not  confined,  like  jurists  and  judges, 
to  the  English  statutory  definitions,  or  the  Nisi 
Prius  or  King's  Bench  construction  of  the 
phrases  known  to  English  legislation,  and  used 
in  our  constitution.  Such  a  limitation  would 
not  only  narrow  us  down  to  a  mere  lawyer's 


46 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


view  of  a  subject,  but  would  limit  us,  in  point 
of  time,  to  English  precedents,  as  they  stood  at 
the  adoption  of  our  constitution,  in  the  year 
1789.  I  protest  against  this  absurdity,  and  con- 
tend that  we  are  to  use  our  granted  powers  ac- 
cording to  the  circumstances  of  our  own  coun- 
try, and  according  to  the  genius  of  our  republican 
institutions,  and  according  to  the  progress  of 
events  and  the  expansion  of  light  and  knowledge 
among  ourselves.  If  not,  and  if  we  are  to  be 
confined  to  the  "  usual  objects,"  and  the  u  usual 
subjects,"  and  the  "  usual  purposes,"  of  British 
legislation  at  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  our 
constitution,  how  could  Congress  ever  make  a 
law  in  relation  to  steamboats,  or  to  railroad 
cars,  both  of  which  were  unknown  to  British 
legislation  in  1789 ;  and  therefore,  according  to 
the  idea  that  would  send  us  to  England  to  find 
out  the  meaning  of  our  constitution,  would  not 
fall  within  the  limits  of  our  legislative  authority. 
Upon  their  face,  the  words  of  the  constitution 
are  sufficient  to  justify  the  President's  recom- 
mendation, even  as  understood  by  those  who 
impugn  that  recommendation.  The  bankrupt 
clause  is  very  peculiar  in  its  phraseology,  and 
the  more  strikingly  so  from  its  contrast  with 
the  phraseology  of  the  naturalization  clause, 
which  is  coupled  with  it.  Mark  this  difference : 
there  is  to  be  a  uniform  rule  of  naturalization : 
there  are  to  be  uniform  laws  on  the  subject  of 
bankruptcies.  One  is  in  the  singular,  the  other 
in  the  plural ;  one  is  to  be  a  rule,  the  other  are 
to  be  laws  ;  one  acts  on  individuals,  the  other 
on  the  subject ;  and  it  is  bankruptcies  that  are, 
and  not  bankruptcy  that  is,  to  be  the  objects  of 
these  uniform  laws. 

As  a  proposition,  now  limited  to  this  particu- 
lar case,  I  lay  it  down  that  we  are  not  confined 
to  the  modern  English  acceptation  of  this  term 
bankrupt ;  for  it  is  a  term,  not  of  English,  but 
of  Roman  origin.  It  is  a  term  of  the  civil  law, 
and  borrowed  by  the  English  from  that  code. 
They  borrowed  from  Italy  both  the  name  and  the 
purpose  of  the  law ;  and  also  the  first  objects  to 
which  the  law  was  applicable.  The  English 
were  borrowers  of  every  thing  connected  with 
this  code  ;  and  it  is  absurd  in  us  to  borrow  from 
a  borrower — to  copy  from  a  copyist — when  we 
have  the  original  lender  and  the  original  text 
before  us.  Bancus  and  ruptus  signifies  a 
broken  bench ;  and  the  word  broken  is  not 
metaphorical  but  literal,  and.  is  descriptive  of 


the  ancient  method  of  cashiering  an  insolvent 
or  fraudulent  banker,  by  turning  him  out  of  the 
exchange  or  market  place,  and  breaking  the 
table  bench  to  pieces  on  which  he  kept  his  money 
and  transacted  his  business.  The  term  bank- 
rupt, then,  in  the  civil  law  from  which  the  Eng- 
lish borrowed  it,  not  only  applied  to  bankers,  but 
was  confined  to  them  ;  and  it  is  preposterous  in 
us  to  limit  ourselves  to  an  English  definition  of 
a  civil  law  term. 

Upon  this  exposition  of  our  own  constitution, 
and  of  the  civil  law  derivation  of  this  term 
bankrupt,  I  submit  that  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  is  not  limited  to  the  English 
judicial  or  statutory  acceptation  of  the  term ; 
and  so  I  finish  the  first  point  which  I  took 
in  the  argument.  The  next  point  is  more 
comprehensive,  and  makes  a  direct  issue  with 
the  proposition  of  the  senator  from  Massa- 
chusetts, [Mr.  Webster.]  His  proposition  is, 
that  we  must  confine  our  bankrupt  legislation 
to  the  usual  objects,  the  usual  subjects,  and  the 
usual  purposes  of  bankrupt  laws  in  England ; 
and  that  currency  (meaning  paper  money  and 
shin-plasters  of  course),  and  banks,  and  bank- 
ing, are  not  within  the  scope  of  that  legislation. 
I  take  issue,  sir.  upon  all  these  points,  and  am 
ready  to  go  with  the  senator  to  England,  and  to 
contest  them,  one  by  one,  on  the  evidences  of 
English  history,  of  English  statute  law,  and  of 
English  judicial  decision.  I  say  English ;  for, 
although  the  senator  did  not  mention  England, 
yet  he  could  mean  nothing  else,  in  his  reference 
to  the  usual  objects,  usual  subjects,  and  usual 
purposes  of  bankrupt  laws.  He  could  mean 
nothing  else.  He  must  mean  the  English  exam- 
ples and  the  English  practice,  or  nothing ;  and 
he  is  not  a  person  to  speak,  and  mean  nothing. 

Protesting  against  this  voyage  across  the  high 
seas,  I  nevertheless  will  make  it,  and  will  ask 
the  senator  on  what  act,  out  of  the  scores  which 
Parliament  has  passed  upon  this  subject,  or  on 
what  period,  out  of  the  five  hundred  years  that 
she  has  been  legislating  upon  it,  will  he  fix  for 
his  example  ?  Or,  whether  he  will  choose  to 
view  the  whole  together ;  and  out  of  the  vast 
chaotic  and  heterogeneous  mass,  extract  a 
general  power  which  Parliament  possesses,  and 
which  he  proposes  for  our  exemplar  ?  For  my- 
self, I  am  agreed  to  consider  the  question  under 
the  whole  or  under  either  of  these  aspects,  and, 
relying  on  the  goodness  of  the  cause,  expect  a 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


47 


safe  deliverance  from  the  contest,  take  it  in  any 
way. 

And  first,  as  to  the  acts  passed  upon  this 
subject ;  great  is  their  number,  and  most  dis- 
similar their  provisions.  For  the  first  two 
hundred  years,  these  acts  applied  to  none  but 
aliens,  and  a  single  class  of  aliens,  and  only  for 
a  single  act,  that  of  flying  the  realm  to  avoid 
their  creditors.  Then  they  were  made  to  apply 
to  all  debtors,  whether  natives  or  foreigners, 
engaged  in  trade  or  not,  and  took  effect  for 
three  acts  :  1st,  flying  the  realm  ;  2d,  keeping 
the  house  to  avoid  creditors ;  3d,  taking  sanc- 
tuary in  a  church  to  avoid  arrest.  For  upwards 
of  two  hundred  years — to  be  precise,  for  two 
hundred  and  twenty  years — bankruptcy  was 
only  treated  criminally,  and  directed  against 
those  who  would  not  face  their  creditors,  or 
abide  the  laws  of  the  land ;  and  the  remedies 
against  them  were  not  civil,  but  criminal  ■•  *+ 
was  not  a  distribution  of  the  effects,  bm  „ur- 
poral  punishment,  to  wit:  imprisonment  and 
outlawry.*  The  statute  of  Elizabeth  was  the 
first  that  confined  the  law  to  merchants  and 
traders,  took  in  the  unfortunate  as  well  as  the 
criminal,  extended  the  acts  of  bankruptcy  to  in- 
ability as  well  as  to  disinclination  to  pay,  dis- 
criminated between  innocent  and  fraudulent 
bankruptcy;  and  gave  to  creditors  the  remedial 
right  to  a  distribution  of  effects.  This  statute 
opened  the  door  to  judicial  construction,  and  the 
judges  went  to  work  to  define  by  decisions,  who 
were  traders,  and  what  acts  constituted  the 
fact,  or  showed  an  intent  to  delay  or  to  defraud 
creditors.  In  making  these  decisions,  the  judges 
reached  high  enough  to  get  hold  of  royal  com- 
panies, and  low  enough  to  get  hold  of  shoe- 
makers ;  the  latter  upon  the  ground  that  they 
bought  the  leather  out  of  which  they  made  the 
shoes ;  and  they  even  had  a  most  learned  con- 
sultation to  decide  whether  a  man  who  was 
a  landlord  for  dogs,  and  bought  dead  horses  for 
his  four-legged  boarders,  and  then  sold  the  skins 
and  bones  of  the  horse  carcases  he  had  bought, 

Preamble  to  the  act  of  34$  of  Henry  viii. 
"  Whereas  divers  and  sundry  persons  craftily  obtained  into 
their  hands  great  substance  of  other  men's  goods,  do  suddenly 
flee  to  parts  unknown,  or  keep  their  houses,  not  minding  to 
pay  or  restore  to  any  of  their  creditors,  their  debts  and  duties, 
but  at  their  own  wills  and  own  pleasures  consume  the  sub- 
stance obtained  by  credit  of  other  men  for  their  own  pleasures 
and  delicate  living,  against  all  reason,  equity,  and  good  con- 
science. _ 


was  not  a  trader  within  the  meaning  of  the  act; 
and  so  subject  to  the  statute  of  bankrupts. 
These  decisions  of  the  judges  set  the  Parliament 
to  work  again  to  preclude  judicial  constructions 
by  the  precision,  negatively  and  affirmatively, 
of  legislative  enactment.  But,  worse  and  worse  ! 
Out  of  the  frying-pan  into  the  fire.  The  more 
legislation  the  more  construction ;  the  more 
statutes  Parliament  made,  the  more  numerous 
and  the  more  various  the  judicial  decisions ; 
until,  besides  merchants  and  traders,  near  forty 
other  descriptions  of  persons  were  included ;  and 
the  catalogue  of  bankruptcy  acts,  innocent  or 
fraudulent,  is  swelled  to  a  length  which  requires 
whole  pages  to  contain  it.  Among  those  who 
are  now  included  by  statutory  enactment  in 
England,  leaving  out  the  great  classes  compre- 
hended under  the  names  of  merchants  and 
traders,  are  bankers,  brokers,  factors,  and  scri- 
veners ;  insurers  against  perils  by  sea  and  land ; 
warehousemen,  wharfingers,  packers,  builders, 
carpenters,  shipwrights  and  victuallers ;  keepers 
of  inns,  hotels,  taverns  and  coffee-houses ;  dyers, 
printers,  bleachers,  fullers,  calendrers,  sellers 
of  cattle  or  sheep  ;  commission  merchants  and 
consignees ;  and  the  agents  of  all  these  classes. 
These  are  the  affirmative  definitions  of  the 
classes  liable  to  bankruptcy  in  England ;  then 
come  the  negative;  and  among  these  are  far- 
mers, graziers,  and  common  laborers  for  hire ; 
the  receivers  general  of  the  king's  taxes,  and 
members  or  subscribers  to  any  incorporated 
companies  established  by  charter  of  act  of  Par- 
liament. And  among  these  negative  and  affirm- 
ative exclusions  and  inclusions,  there  are  many 
classes  which  have  repeatedly  changed  position, 
and  found  themselves  successively  in  and  out  of 
the  bankrupt  code.  Now,  in  all  this  mass  of 
variant  and  contradictory  legislation,  what  part 
of  it  will  the  senator  from  Massachusetts  select 
for  his  model  ?  The  improved,  and  approved 
parts,  to  be  sure !  But  here  a  barrier  presents 
itself — an  impassable  wall  interposes— a  veto 
power  intervenes.  For  it  so  happens  that  the 
improvements  in  the  British  bankrupt  code, 
those  parts  of  it  which  are  considered  best,  and 
most  worthy  of  our  imitation,  are  of  modern 
origin — the  creations  of  the  last  fifty  years — 
actually  made  since  the  date  of  our  constitution; 
and,  therefore,  not  within  the  pale  of  its  purview 
and  meaning.  Yes,  sir,  made  since  the  estab- 
lishment of  our  constitution,  and,  therefore,  not 


48 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


to  be  included  within  its  contemplation ;  unless 
this  doctrine  of  searching  into  British  statutes 
for  the  meaning  of  our  constitution,  is  to  make 
us  search  forwards  to  the  end  of  the  British  em- 
pire, as  well  as  search  backwards  to  its  begin- 
ning. Fact  is,  that  the  actual  bankrupt  code  of 
Great  Britain — the  one  that  preserves  all  that 
is  valuable,  that  consolidates  all  that  is  pre- 
served, and  improves  all  that  is  improvable,  is  an 
act  of  most  recent  date — of  the  reign  of  George 
IV.,  and  not  yet  a  dozen  years  old.  Here,  then, 
in  going  back  to  England  for  a  model,  we  are 
cut  off  from  her  improvements  in  the  bankrupt 
code,  and  confined  to  take  it  as  it  stood  under 
the  reign  of  the  Plantagenets,  the  Tudors,  the 
Stuarts,  and  the  earlier  reigns  of  the  Brunswick 
sovereigns.  This  should  be  a  consideration,  and 
sufficiently  weighty  to  turn  the  scale  in  favor 
of  looking  to  our  own  constitution  alone  for  the 
extent  and  circumscription  of  our  powers. 

But  let  us  continue  this  discussion  upon  prin- 
ciples of  British  example  and  British  legislation. 
"We  must  go  to  England  for  one  of  two  things  ; 
either  for  a  case  in  point,  to  be  found  in  some 
statute,  or  a  general  authority,  to  be  extracted 
from  a  general  practice.  Take  it  either  way,  or 
both  ways,  and  I  am  ready  and  able  to  vindicate, 
upon  British  precedents,  our  perfect  right  to  en- 
act a  bankrupt  law,  limited  in  its  application  to 
banks  and  bankers.  And  first,  for  a  case  in 
point,  that  is  to  say,  an  English  statute  of  bank- 
ruptcy, limited  to  these  lords  of  the  purse- 
strings  :  we  have  it  at  once,  in  the  first  act  ever 
passed  on  the  subject — the  act  of  the  30th 
year  of  the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  against  the 
Lombard  Jews.  Every  body  knows  that  these 
Jews  were  bankers,  usually  formed  into  compa- 
nies, who,  issuing  from  Venice,  Milan,  and  other 
parts  of  Italy,  spread  over  the  south  and  west 
of  Europe,  during  the  middle  ages ;  and  estab- 
lished themselves  in  every  country  and  city  in 
which  the  dawn  of  reviving  civilization,  and  the 
germ  of  returning  industry,  gave  employment 
to  money,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  credit. 
They  came  to  London  as  early  as  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  gave  their  name  to  a  street  which 
still  retains  it,  as  well  as  it  still  retains  the  par- 
ticular occupation,  and  the  peculiar  reputation, 
which  the  Lombard  Jews  established  for  it. 
The  first  law  against  bankrupts  ever  passed  in 
England,  was  against  the  banking  company  com- 
posed of  these  Jews,  and  confined  exclusively  to 


them.  It  remained  in  force  two  hundred  years, 
without  any  alteration  whatever,  and  was  noth- 
ing but  the  application  of  the  law  of  their  own 
country  to  these  bankers  in  the  country  of  their 
sojournment — the  Italian  law,  founded  upon  the 
civil  law,  and  called  in  Italy  banco  rotto,  bro- 
ken bank.  It  is  in  direct  reference  to  these 
Jews,  and  this  application  of  the  exotic  bank- 
rupt law  to  them,  that  Sir  Edward  Coke,  in  his 
institutes,  takes  occasion  to  say  that  both  the 
name  and  the  wickedness  of  bankruptcy  were 
of  foreign  origin,  and  had  been  brought  into 
England  from  foreign  parts.  It  was  enacted 
under  the  reign  of  one  of  the  most  glorious  of 
the  English  princes — a  reign  as  much  distin- 
guished for  the  beneficence  of  its  civil  adminis- 
tration as  for  the  splendor  of  its  military  achieve- 
ments. This  act  of  itself  is  a  full  answer  to  the 
whole  objection  taken  by  the  senator  from  Mas- 
sachusetts. It  shows  that,  even  in  England,  a 
bankrupt  law  has  been  confined  to  a  single  class 
of  persons,  and  that  class  a  banking  company. 
And  here  I  would  be  willing  to  close  my  speech 
upon  a  compromise — a  compromise  founded  in 
reason  and  reciprocity,  and  invested  with  the 
equitable  mantle  of  a  mutual  concession.  It  is 
this  :  if  we  must  follow  English  precedents,  let 
us  follow  them  chronologically  and  orderly. 
Let  us  begin  at  the  beginning,  and  take  them  as 
they  rise.  Give  me  a  bankrupt  law  for  two 
hundred  years  against  banks  and  bankers ;  and, 
after  that,  make  another  for  merchants  and 
traders. 

The  senator  from  Massachusetts  [Mr.  Web- 
ster] has  emphatically  demanded,  how  the 
bankrupt  power  could  be  fairly  exercised  by 
seizing  on  corporations  and  bankers,  and  ex- 
cluding all  the  other  usual  subjects  of  bankrupt 
laws  1  I  answer,  by  following  the  example  of 
that  England  to  which  he  has  conducted  us ; 
by  copying  the  act  of  the  30th  of  Edward 
III.  j  by  going  back  to  that  reign  of  heroism, 
patriotism,  and  wisdom ;  that  reign  in  which  the 
monarch  acquired  as  much  glory  from  his  do- 
mestic policy  as  from  his  foreign  conquests ; 
that  reign  in  which  the  acquisition  of  dyers  and 
weavers  from  Flanders,  the  observance  of  law 
and  justice,  and  the  encouragement  given  to  ag- 
riculture and  manufactures,  conferred  more  bene- 
fit upon  the  kingdom,  and  more  glory  upon  the 
king,  than  the  splendid  victories  of  Poictiers, 
Agincourt,  and  Cressy. 


ANNO  1837.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


49 


But  the  senator  may  not  be  willing  to  yield 
to  this  example,  this  case  in  point,  drawn  from 
his  own  fountain,  and  precisely  up  to  the  exi- 
gency of  the  occasion.  He  may  want  something 
more ;  and  he  shall  have  it.  I  will  now  take  the 
question  upon  its  broadest  bottom  and  fullest 
merits.  I  will  go  to  the  question  of  general 
power — the  point  of  general  authority — exem- 
plified by  the  general  practice  of  the  British  Par- 
liament, for  five  hundred  years,  over  the  whole 
subject  of  bankruptcy.  I  will  try  the  question 
upon  this  basis  ;  and  here  I  lay  down  the  pro- 
position, that  this  five  hundred  years  of  parlia- 
mentary legislation  on  bankruptcy  establishes 
the  point  of  full  authority  in  the  British  Parlia- 
ment to  act  as  it  pleased  on  the  entire  subject 
of  bankruptcies.  This  is  my  proposition  ;  and, 
when  it  is  proved,  I  shall  claim  from  those  who 
carry  me  to  England  for  authority,  the  same 
amount  of  power  over  the  subject  which  the 
British  Parliament  has  been  in  the  habit  of  ex- 
ercising. Now,  what  is  the  extent  of  that 
power  ?  Happily  for  me,  I,  who  have  to  speak, 
without  any  inclination  for  the  task  ;  still  more 
happily  for  those  who  have  to  hear  me,  perad- 
venture  without  profit  or  pleasure  ;  happily  for 
both  parties,  my  proposition  is  already  proved, 
partly  by  what  I  have  previously  advanced,  and 
fully  by  what  every  senator  knows.  I  have  al- 
ready shown  the  practice  of  Parliament  upon 
this  subject,  that  it  has  altered  and  changed, 
contracted  and  enlarged,  put  in  and  left  out, 
abolished  and  created,  precisely  as  it  pleased.  I 
have  already  shown,  in  my  rapid  view  of  Eng- 
lish legislation  on  this  subject,  that  the  Parlia- 
ment exercised  plenary  power  and  unlimited 
authority  over  every  branch  of  the  bankrupt 
question;  that  it  confined  the  action  of  the 
bankrupt  laws  to  a  single  class  of  persons,  or 
extended  it  to  many  classes  ;  that  it  was  some- 
times confined  to  foreigners,  then  applied  to  na- 
tives, and  that  now  it  comprehends  natives, 
aliens,  denizens,  and  women  ;  that  at  one  time 
all  debtors  were  subject  to  it ;  then  none  but 
merchants  and  traders ;  and  now,  besides  mer- 
chants and  traders,  a  long  list  of  persons  who 
have  nothing  to  do  with  trade  ;  that  at  one  time 
bankruptcy  was  treated  criminally,  and  its  ob- 
ject punished  corporeally,  while  now  it  is  a  re- 
medial measure  for  the  benefit  of  the  creditors, 
and  the  relief  of  unfortunate  debtors ;  and  that 
the  acts  of  the  debtor  which  may  constitute  him 
Vol.  II.— 4 


a  bankrupt,  have  been  enlarged  from  three  or 
four  glaring  misdeeds,  to  so  long  a  catalogue  of 
actions,  divided  into  the  heads  of  innocent  and 
fraudulent ;  constructive  and  positive ;  inten- 
tional and  unintentional ;  voluntary  and  forced ; 
that  none  but  an  attorney,  with  book  in  hand, 
can  pretend  to  enumerate  them.  All  this  has 
been  shown  ;  and,  from  all  this,  it  is  incontest- 
able that  Parliament  can  do  just  what  it  pleases 
on  the  subject ;  and,  therefore,  our  Congress,  if 
referred  to  England  for  its  powers,  can  do  just 
what  it  pleases  also.  And  thus,  whether  we  go 
by  the  words  of  our  own  constitution,  or  by  a 
particular  example  in  England,  or  deduce  a  gen- 
eral authority  from  the  general  practice  of  that 
country,  the  result  is  still  the  same :  we  have 
authority  to  limit,  if  we  please,  our  bankrupt 
law  to  the  single  class  of  banks  and  bankers. 

The  senator  from  Massachusetts  [Mr.  Web- 
ster] demands  whether  bankrupt  laws  ordina- 
rily extend  to  corporations,  meaning  moneyed 
corporations.  I  am  free  to  answer  that,  in  point 
of  fact,  they  do  not.  But  why  ?  because  they 
ought  not  ?  or  because  these  corporations  have 
yet  been  powerful  enough,  or  fortunate  enough, 
to  keep  their  necks  out  of  that  noose  ?  Cer- 
tainly the  latter.  It  is  the  power  of  these  mo- 
neyed corporations  in  England,  and  their  good 
fortune  in  our  America,  which,  enabling  them  to 
grasp  all  advantages  on  one  hand,  and  to  repulse 
all  penalties  on  the  other,  has  enabled  them  to 
obtain  express  statutory  exemption  from  bank- 
rupt liabilities  in  England ;  and  to  escape,  thus 
far,  from  similar  liabilities  in  the  United  States. 
This,  sir,  is  history,  and  not  invective;  it  is 
fact,  and  not  assertion ;  and  I  will  speedily  re- 
fresh the  senator's  memory,  and  bring  him  to 
recollect  why  it  is,  in  point  of  fact,  that  bank- 
rupt laws  do  not  usually  extend  to  these  corpo- 
rations. And,  first,  let  us  look  to  England, 
that  great  exemplar,  whose  evil  examples  we 
are  so  prompt,  whose  good  ones  we  are  so  slow, 
to  imitate.  How  stands  this  question  of  corpo- 
ration unliability  there  ?  By  the  judicial  con- 
struction of  the  statute  of  Elizabeth,  the  part- 
ners in  all  incorporated  companies  were  held 
subject  to  the  bankrupt  law ;  and,  under  this 
construction,  a  commission  of  bankrupt  was 
issued  against  Sir  John  Wolstenholme,  a  gen- 
tleman of  large  fortune,  who  had  advanced  a  sum 
of  money  on  an  adventure  in  the  East  India 
Company's  trade.    The  issue  of  this  commission 


50 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


was  affirmed  by  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  9 
but  this  happened  to  take  place  in  the  reign 
of  Charles  IL — that  reign  during  which  so 
little  is  found  worthy  of  imitation  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  Great  Britain — and  immediately  two 
acts  of  Parliament  were  passed,  one  to  annul 
the  judgment  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  in 
the  case  of  Sir  John  Wolstenholme,  and  the 
other  to  prevent  any  such  judgments  from  being 
given  in  future.  Here  are  copies  of  the  two 
acts: 

FIRST  ACT,  TO    ANNUL    THE    JUDGMENT. 

"  Whereas  a  verdict  and  judgment  was  had  in 
the  Easter  term  of  the  King's  Bench,  whereby 
Sir  John  Wolstenholme,  knight,  and  adventurer 
in  the  East  India  Company,  was  found  liable  to 
a  commission  of  bankrupt  only  for,  and  by  rea- 
son of,  a  share  which  he  had  in  the  joint  stock 
of  said  company :  Now,  &c,  Be  it  enacted,  That 
the  said  judgment  be  reversed,  annulled,  vacated, 
and  for  naught  held,"  &c 

SECOND    ACT,   TO    PREVENT    SUCH    JUDGMENTS    IN 
FUTURE. 

"  That  whereas  divers  noblemen  and  gentle- 
men, and  persons  of  quality,  no  ways  bred  up 
to  trade,  do  often  put  in  great  stocks  of  money 
into  the  East  India  and  Guinea  Company :  Be  it 
enacted,  That  no  persons  adventurers  for  put- 
ting in  money  or  merchandise  into  the  said  com- 
panies, or  for  venturing  or  managing  the  fishing 
trade,  called  the  royal  fishing  trade,  shall  be  re- 
puted or  taken  to  be  a  merchant  or  trader  within 
any  statutes  for  bankrupts." 

Thus,  and  for  these  reasons,  were  chartered 
companies  and  their  members  exempted  from 
the  bankrupt  penalties,  under  the  dissolute 
reign  of  Charles  II.  It  was  not  the  power 
of  the  corporations  at  that  time — for  the  Bank 
of  England  was  not  then  chartered,  and  the 
East  India  Company  had  not  then  conquered 
India — which  occasioned  this  exemption  ;  but  it 
was  to  favor  the  dignified  characters  who  en- 
gaged in  the  trade — noblemen,  gentlemen,  and 
persons  of  quality.  But,  afterwards,  when  the 
Bank  of  England  had  become  almost  the  gov- 
ernment of  England,  and  when  the  East  India 
Company  had  acquired  the  dominions  of  the 
Great  Mogul,  an  act  of  Parliament  expressly 
declared  that  no  member  of  any  incorporated 
company,  chartered  by  act  of  Parliament,  should 
be  liable  to  become  bankrupt.  This  act  was 
passed  in  the  reign  of  George  IV.,  when  the 
Wellington  ministry  was  in  power,  and  when 
liberal   principles   and  human  rights  were  at 


the  last  gasp.  So  much  for  these  corpora- 
tion exemptions  in  England ;  and  if  the  senator 
from  Massachusetts  finds  any  thing  in  such  in- 
stances worthy  of  imitation,  let  him  stand  forth 
and  proclaim  it. 

But,  sir,  I  am  not  yet  done  with  my  answer 
to  this  question ;  do  such  laws  ordinarily  extend 
to  corporations  at  all  1  I  answer,  most  decided- 
ly, that  they  do  !  that  they  apply  in  England  to 
all  the  corporations,  except  those  specially  ex- 
cepted by  the  act  of  George  IV.;  and  these 
are  few  in  number,  though  great  in  power 
— powerful,  but  few — nothing  but  units  to  my- 
riads, compared  to  those  which  are  not  excepted. 
The  words  of  that  act  are :  "  Members  of,  or 
subscribers  to,  any  incorporated  commercial  or 
trading  companies,  established  by  charter  act 
of  Parliament."  These  words  cut  off  at  once 
the  many  ten  thousand  corporations  in  the 
British  empire  existing  by  prescription,  or  in- 
corporated by  letters  patent  from  the  king ; 
and  then  they  cut  off  all  those  even  chartered 
by  act  of  Parliament  which  are  not  commercial 
or  trading  in  their  nature.  This  saves  but  a 
few  out  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  corpo- 
rations which  abound  in  England,  Scotland, 
Wales,  and  Ireland.  It  saves,  or  rather  con- 
firms, the  exemption  of  the  Bank  of  England, 
which  is  a  trader  in  money;  and  it  confirms, 
also,  the  exemption  of  the  East  India  Company, 
which  is,  in  contemplation  of  law  at  least,  a 
commercial  company ;  and  it  saves  or  exempts 
a  few  others  deriving  charters  of  incorporation 
from  Parliament;  but  it  leaves  subject  to  the 
law  the  whole  wilderness  of  corporations,  of 
which  there  are  thousands  in  London  alone, 
which  derive  from  prescription  or  letters  patent ; 
and  it  also  leaves  subject  to  the  same  laws  all 
the  corporations  created  by  charter  act  of  Par- 
liament, which  are  not  commercial  or  trading, 
The  words  of  the  act  are  very  peculiar — "  char- 
ter act  of  Parliament;"  so  that  corporations 
by  a  general  law,  without  a  special  charter  act, 
are  not  included  in  the  exemption.  This  an- 
swer, added  to  what  has  been  previously  said, 
must  be  a  sufficient  reply  to  the  senator's  ques- 
tion, whether  bankrupt  laws  ordinarily  extend 
to  corporations  ?  Sir,  out  of  the  myriad  of  cor- 
porations in  Great  Britain,  the  bankrupt  law 
extends  to  the  whole,  except  some  half  dozen 
or  dozen. 

So  much  for  the  exemption  of  these  corpora- 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


51 


tions  in  England  j  now  for  our  America.  We 
never  had  but  one  bankrupt  law  in  the  United 
States,  and  that  for  the  short  period  of  three  or 
four  years.  It  was  passed  under  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  elder  Mr.  Adams,  and  repealed 
under  Mr.  Jefferson.  It  copied  the  English  acts 
including  among  the  subjects  of  bankruptcy, 
bankers,  brokers,  and  factors.  Corporations 
were  not  included ;  and  it  is  probable  that  no 
question  was  raised  about  them,  as,  up  to  that 
time,  their  number  was  few,  and  their  conduct 
generally  good.  But,  at  a  later  date,  the  enact- 
ment of  a  bankrupt  law  was  again  attempted  in 
our  Congress  ;  and,  at  that  period,  the  multipli- 
cation and  the  misconduct  of  banks  presented 
them  to  the  minds  of  many  as  proper  subjects 
for  the  application  of  the  law ;  I  speak  of  the 
bill  of  1827,  brought  into  the  Senate,  and  lost. 
That  bill,  like  all  previous  laws  since  the  time 
of  George  II.,  was  made  applicable  to  bankers, 
brokers,  and  factors.  A  senator  from  North 
Carolina  [Mr.  Branch]  moved  to  include  bank- 
ing corporations.  The  motion  was  lost,  there 
being  but  twelve  votes  for  it ;  but  in  this  twelve 
there  were  some  whose  names  must  carry  weight 
to  any  cause  to  which  they  are  attached.  The 
twelve  were,  Messrs.  Barton,  Benton,  Branch, 
Cobb,  Dickerson,  Hendricks,  Macon,  Noble,  Ran- 
dolph, Reed,  Smith  of  South  Carolina,  and  White. 
The  whole  of  the  friends  of  the  bill,  twenty-one 
in  number,  voted  against  the  proposition,  (the 
present  Chief  Magistrate  in  the  number,)  and 
for  the  obvious  reason,  with  some,  of  not  encum- 
bering the  measure  they  were  so  anxious  to 
carry,  by  putting  into  it  a  new  and  untried  pro- 
vision. And  thus  stands  our  own  legislation  on 
this  subject.  In  point  of  fact,  then,  chartered 
corporations  have  thus  far  escaped  bankrupt 
penalties,  both  in  England,  and  in  our  America ; 
but  ought  they  to  continue  to  escape  ?  This  is 
the  question — this  the  true  and  important  in- 
quiry, which  is  now  to  occupy  the  public  mind. 
The  senator  from  Massachusetts  [Mr.  Web- 
ster] says  the  object  of  bankrupt  laws  has  no 
relation  to  currency ;  that  their  object  is  sim- 
ply to  distribute  the  effects  of  insolvent  debtors 
among  their  creditors.  So  says  the  senator,  but 
what  says  history  ?  What  says  the  practice  of 
Great  Britain  1  I  will  show  you  what  it  says, 
and  for  that  purpose  will  read  a  passage  from 
McCulloch's  notes  on  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations. 
He  says : 


"In  1814-'15,  and  '16,  no  fewer  than  240 
country  banks  stopped  payment,  and  ninety-two 
commissions  of  bankruptcy  were  issued  against 
these  establishments,  being  at  the  rate  of  one 
commission  against  every  seven  and  a  half  of 
the  total  number  of  country  banks  existing:  in 
1813." 

Two  hundred  and  forty  stopped  payment  at 
one  dash,  and  ninety-two  subjected  to  commis- 
sions of  bankruptcy.  They  were  not  indeed 
chartered  banks,  for  there  are  none  such  in  Eng- 
land, except  the  Bank  of  England ;  but  they 
were  legalized  establishments,  existing  under  the 
first  joint-stock  bank  act  of  1708 ;  and  they  were 
banks  of  issue.  Yet  they  were  subjected  to  the 
bankrupt  laws,  ninety-two  of  them  in  a  single 
season  of  bank  catalepsy  ;  their  broken  "  prom- 
ises to  pay  "  were  taken  out  of  circulation;  their 
doors  closed  ;  their  directors  and  officers  turned 
out ;  their  whole  effects,  real  and  personal,  their 
money,  debts,  books,  paper,  and  every  thing,  put 
into  the  hands  of  assignees ;  and  to  these  as- 
signees, the  holders  of  their  notes  forwarded 
their  demands,  and  were  paid,  every  one  in 
equal  proportion — as  the  debts  of  the  bank  were 
collected,  and  its  effects  converted  into  money  ; 
and  this  without  expense  or  trouble  to  any  one 
of  them.  Ninety-two  banks  in  England  shared 
this  fate  in  a  single  season  of  bank  mortality  ; 
five  hundred  more  could  be  enumerated  in  other 
seasons,  many  of  them  superior  in  real  capital, 
credit,  and  circulation,  to  our  famous  chartered 
banks,  most  of  which  are  banks  of  moonshine, 
built  upon  each  other's  paper ;  and  the  whole 
ready  to  fly  sky-high  the  moment  any  one  of 
the  concern  becomes  sufficiently  inflated  to 
burst.  The  immediate  effect  of  this  application 
of  the  bankrupt  laws  to  banks  in  England,  is 
two-fold:  first,  to  save  the  general  currency 
from  depreciation,  by  stopping  the  issue  and 
circulation  of  irredeemable  notes ;  secondly,  to 
do  equal  justice  to  all  creditors,  high  and  low, 
rich  and  poor,  present  and  absent,  the  widow 
and  the  orphan,  as  well  as  the  cunning  and  the 
powerful,  by  distributing  their  effects  in  propor- 
tionate amounts  to  all  who  hold  demands.  This 
is  the  operation  of  bankrupt  laws  upon  banks  in 
England,  and  all  over  the  British  empire ;  and  it 
happens  to  be  the  precise  check  upon  the  issue 
of  broken  bank  paper,  and  the  precise  remedy 
for  the  injured  holders  of  their  dishonored  paper 
which  the  President  recommends.  Here  is  his 
recommendation,  listen  to  it; 


52 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"  In  the  mean  time,  it  is  our  duty  to  provide 
all  the  remedies  against  a  depreciated  paper  cur- 
rency which  the  constitution  enables  us  to  af- 
ford. The  Treasury  Department,  on  several 
former  occasions,  has  suggested  the  propriety 
and  importance  of  a  uniform  law  concerning 
bankruptcies  of  corporations  and  other  bankers. 
Through  the  instrumentality  of  such  a  law,  a 
salutary  check  may  doubtless  be  imposed  on  the 
issues  of  paper  money,  and  an  effectual  remedy 
given  to  the  citizen,  in  a  way  at  once  equal  in 
all  parts  of  the  Union,  and  fully  authorized  by 
the  constitution." 

The  senator  from  Massachusetts  says  he 
would  not,  intentionally,  do  injustice  to  the  mes- 
sage or  its  author ;  and  doubtless  he  is  not  con- 
scious of  violating  that  benevolent  determina- 
tion ;  but  here  is  injustice,  both  to  the  message 
and  to  its  author ;  injustice  in  not  quoting  the 
message  as  it  is,  and  showing  that  it  proposes  a 
remedy  to  the  citizen,  as  well  as  a  check  upon 
insolvent  issues  ;  injustice  to  the  author  in  de- 
nying that  the  object  of  bankrupt  laws  has  any 
relation  to  currency,  when  history  shows  that 
these  laws  are  the  actual  instrument  for  regula- 
ting and  purifying  the  whole  local  paper  curren- 
cy of  the  entire  British  empire,  and  saving  that 
country  from  the  frauds,  losses,  impositions, 
and  demoralization  of  an  irredeemable  paper 
money. 

The  senator  from  Massachusetts  says  the  ob- 
ject of  bankrupt  laws  has  no  relation  to  curren- 
cy. If  he  means  hard-money  currency,  I  agree 
with  him ;  but  if  he  means  bank  notes,  as  I  am 
sure  he  does,  then  I  point  him  to  the  British 
bankrupt  code,  which  applies  to  every  bank  of 
issue  in  the  British  empire,  except  the  Bank  of 
England  itself,  and  the  few  others,  four  or  five 
in  number,  which  are  incorporated  by  charter 
acts.  All  the  joint-stock  banks,  all  the  private 
banks,  all  the  bankers  of  England,  Scotland, 
Wales,  and  Ireland,  are  subject  to  the  law  of 
bankruptcy.  Many  of  these  establishments  are 
of  great  capital  and  credit ;  some  having  hun- 
dreds, or  even  thousands  of  partners ;  and  many 
of  them  having  ten,  or  twenty,  or  thirty,  and 
some  even  forty  branches.  They  are  almost  the 
exclusive  furnishers  of  the  local  and  common 
bank  note  currency ;  the  Bank  of  England  notes 
being  chiefly  used  in  the  great  cities  for  large 
mercantile  and  Government  payments.  These 
joint-stock  banks,  private  companies,  and  indi- 
vidual bankers  are,  practically,  in  the  British 
empire  what  the  local  banks  are  in  the  United 


States.  They  perform  the  same  functions,  and 
differ  in  name  only;  not  in  substance  nor  in 
conduct.  They  have  no  charters,  but  they  have 
a  legalized  existence ;  they  are  not  corporations, 
but  they  are  allowed  by  law  to  act  in  a  body  ; 
they  furnish  the  actual  paper  currency  of  the 
great  body  of  the  people  of  the  British  empire, 
as  much  so  as  our  local  banks  furnish  the  mass 
of  paper  currency  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  They  have  had  twenty-four  millions 
sterling  (one  hundred  and  twenty  millions  of 
dollars)  in  circulation  at  one  time  ;  a  sum  near- 
ly equal  to  the  greatest  issue  ever  known  in  the 
United  States ;  and  more  than  equal  to  the  whole 
bank-note  circulation  of  the  present  day.  They 
are  all  subject  to  the  law  of  bankruptcy,  and 
their  twenty-four  millions  sterling  of  currency 
along  with  them ;  and  five  hundred  of  them 
have  been  shut  up  and  wound  up  under  com- 
missions of  bankruptcy  in  the  last  forty  years  5 
and  yet  the  senator  from  Massachusetts  informs 
us  that  the  object  of  bankrupt  laws  has  no  rela- 
tion to  currency ! 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  all  the  way  to 
England  to  find  bankrupt  laws  having  relation 
to  currency.  The  act  passed  in  our  own  coun- 
try, about  forty  years  ago,  applied  to  bankers  : 
the  bill  brought  into  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, about  fifteen  years  ago,  by  a  gentleman 
then,  and  now,  a  representative  from  the  city 
of  Philadelphia,  [Mr.  Sergeant,}  also  applied 
to  bankers  ;  and  the  bill  brought  into  this  Sen- 
ate, ten  years  ago,  by  a  senator  from  South 
Carolina,  not  now  a  member  of  this  body, 
[General  Hayne,]  still  applied  to  bankers. 
These  bankers,  of  whom  there  were  many  in  the 
United  States,  and  of  whom  Girard,  in  the 
East,  and  Yeatman  and  Woods,  in  the  West, 
were  the  most  considerable — these  bankers  all 
issued  paper  money ;  they  all  issued  currency. 
The  act,  then,  of  1798,  if  it  had  continued  in 
force,  or  the  two  bills  just  referred  to,  if  they 
had  become  law,  would  have  operated  upon 
these  bankers  and  their  banks — would  have 
stopped  their  issues,  and  put  their  establish- 
ments into  the  hands  of  assignees,  and  distrib- 
uted their  effects  among  their  creditors.  This, 
certainly,  would  have  been  having  some  rela- 
tion to  currency:  so  that,  even  with  our  limited 
essays  towards  a  bankrupt  system,  we  have 
scaled  the  outworks  of  the  banking  empire ;  we 
have  laid  hold  of  bankers,  but  not  of  banks 


ANNO  1837.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


53 


we  have  reached  the  bank  of  Girard,  but  not 
the  Girard  Bank ;  we  have  applied  our  law  to 
the  bank  of  Yeatman  and  Woods,  but  not  to 
the  rabble  of  petty  corporations  which  have  not 
the  tithe  of  their  capital  and  credit.  We  have 
gone  as  far  as  bankers,  but  not  as  far  as  banks ; 
and  now  give  me  a  reason  for  the  difference. 
Give  me  a  reason  why  the  act  of  1798,  the  bill 
of  Mr.  Sergeant,  in  1821,  and  the  bill  of  Gen- 
eral Hayne,  in  1827,  should  not  include  banks 
as  well  as  bankers.  They  both  perform  the 
same  function — that  of  issuing  paper  currency. 
They  both  involve  the  same  mischief  when 
they  stop  payment — that  of  afflicting  the  coun- 
try with  a  circulation  of  irredeemable  and  de- 
preciated paper  money.  They  are  both  culpa- 
ble in  the  same  mode,  and  in  the  same  degree  ; 
for  they  are  both  violators  of  their  "  promises 
to  pay."  They  both  exact  a  general  credit 
from  the  community,  and  they  both  abuse  that 
credit.  They  both  have  creditors,  and  they 
both  have  effects ;  and  these  creditors  have  as 
much  right  to  a  pro  rata  distribution  of  the 
effects  in  one  case  as  in  the  other.  Why,  then, 
a  distinction  in  favor  of  the  bank  ?  Is  it  be- 
cause corporate  bodies  are  superior  to  natural 
bodies?  because  artificial  beings  are  superior 
to  natural  beings  ?  or,  rather,  is  it  not  because 
corporations  are  assemblages  of  men ;  and  as- 
semblages are  more  powerful  than  single  men ; 
and,  therefore,  these  corporations,  in  addition 
to  all  their  vast  privileges,  are  also  to  have  the 
privilege  of  being  bankrupt,  and  afflicting  the 
country  with  the  evils  of  bankruptcy,  without 
themselves  being  subjected  to  the  laws  of  bank- 
ruptcy ?  Be  this  as  it  may — be  the  cause  what 
it  will — the  decree  has  gone  forth  for  the  deci- 
sion of  the  question — for  the  trial  of  the  issue 
— for  the  verdict  and  judgment  upon  the  claim 
of  the  banks.  They  have  many  privileges  and 
exemptions  now,  and  they  have  the  benefit  of 
all  laws  against  the  community.  They  pay  no 
taxes ;  the  property  of  the  stockholders  is  not 
liable  for  their  debts ;  they  sue  their  debtors, 
sell  their  property,  and  put  their  bodies  in  jail. 
They  have  the  privilege  of  stamping  paper 
money ;  the  privilege  of  taking  interest  upon 
double,  treble,  and  quadruple  their  actual 
money.  They  put  up  and  put  down  the  price 
of  property,  labor,  and  produce,  as  they  please. 
They  have  the  monopoly  of  making  the  actual 
currency.     They  are  strong  enough  to  suppress 


the  constitutional  money,  and  to  force  their 
own  paper  upon  the  community,  and  then  to 
redeem  it  or  not,  as  they  please.  And  is  it  to 
be  tolerated,  that,  in  addition  to  all  these  priv- 
ileges, and  all  these  powers,  they  are  to  be 
exempted  from  the  law  of  bankruptcy?  the 
only  law  of  which  they  are  afraid,  and  the  only 
one  which  can  protect  the  country  against 
their  insolvent  issues,  and  give  a  fair  chance  for 
payment  to  the  numerous  holders  of  their  vio- 
lated "  promises  to  pay  ! " 

I  have  discussed,  Mr.  President,  the  right  of 
Congress  to  apply  a  bankrupt  law  to  banking 
corporations  ;  I  have  discussed  it  on  the  words 
of  our  own  constitution,  on  the  practice  of 
England,  and  on  the  general  authority  of  Par- 
liament; and  on  each  and  every  ground,  as  I 
fully  believe,  vindicated  our  right  to  pass  the 
law.  The  right  is  clear  ;  the  expediency  is  mani- 
fest and  glaring.  Of  all  the  objects  upon  the 
earth,  banks  of  circulation  are  the  fittest  sub- 
jects of  bankrupt  laws.  They  act  in  secret, 
and  they  exact  a  general  credit.  Nobody 
knows  their  means,  yet  every  body  must  trust 
them.  They  send  their  "  promises  to  pay  "  far 
and  near.  They  push  them  into  every  body's 
hands  ;  they  make  them  small  to  go  into  small 
hands — into  the  hands  of  the  laborer,  the 
widow,  the  helpless,  the  ignorant.  Suddenly 
the  bank  stops  payment ;  all  these  helpless 
holders  of  their  notes  are  without  pay,  and 
without  remedy.  A  few  on  the  spot  get  a  lit- 
tle ;  those  at  a  distance  get  nothing.  For  each 
to  sue,  is  a  vexatious  and  a  losing  business. 
The  only  adequate  remedy — the  only  one  that 
promises  any  justice  to  the  body  of  the  com- 
munity, and  the  helpless  holders  of  small  notes 
— is  the  bankrupt  remedy  of  assignees  to  dis- 
tribute the  effects.  This  makes  the  real  effects 
available.  When  a  bank  stops,  it  has  little  or 
no  specie  ;  but  it  has,  or  ought  to  have,  a  good 
mass  of  solvent  debts.  At  present,  all  these 
debts  are  unavailable  to  the  community — they 
go  to  a  few  large  and  favored  creditors ;  and 
those  who  are  most  in  need  get  nothing.  But 
a  stronger  view  remains  to  be  taken  of  these 
debts  :  the  mass  of  them  are  due  from  the  own- 
ers and  managers  of  the  banks — from  the  pres- 
idents, directors,  cashiers,  stockholders,  attor- 
neys ;  and  these  people  do  not  make  them- 
selves pay.  They  do  not  sue  themselves,  nor 
protest    themselves.     They  sue    and    protest 


54 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


others,  and  sell  out  their  property,  and  put 
their  bodies  in  jail ;  but,  as  for  themselves, 
who  are  the  main  debtors,  it  is  another  affair  ! 
They  take  their  time,  and  usually  wait  till  the 
notes  are  heavily  depreciated,  and  then  square 
off  with  a  few  cents  in  the  dollar  !  A  commis- 
sion of  bankruptcy  is  the  remedy  for  this  evil ; 
assignees  of  the  effects  of  the  bank  are  the  per- 
sons to  make  these  owners,  and  managers,  and 
chief  debtors  to  the  institutionSj  pay  up.  Un- 
der the  bankrupt  law,  every  holder  of  a  note, 
no  matter  how  small  in  amount,  nor  how  dis- 
tant the  holder  may  reside,  on  forwarding  the 
note  to  the  assignees,  will  receive  his  ratable 
proportion  of  the  bank's  effects,  without  ex* 
pense,  and  without  trouble  to  himself.  It  is  a 
most  potent,  a  most  proper,  and  most  constitu- 
tional remedy  against  delinquent  banks.  It  is 
an  equitable  and  a  brave  remedy.  It  does 
honor  to  the  President  who  recommended  it, 
and  is  worthy  of  the  successor  of  Jackson. 

Senators  upon  this  floor  have  ventured  the 
expression  of  an  opinion  that  there  can  be  no 
resumption  of  specie  payments  in  this  country 
until  a  national  bank  shall  be  established,  mean- 
ing, all  the  while,  until  the  present  miscalled 
Bank  of  the  United  States  shall  be  rechartered. 
Such  an  opinion  is  humiliating  to  this  govern- 
ment, and  a  reproach  upon  the  memory  of  its 
founders.  It  is  tantamount  to  a  declaration 
that  the  government,  framed  by  the  heroes  and 
sages  of  the  Revolution,  is  incapable  of  self- 
preservation ;  that  it  is  a  miserable  image  of 
imbecility,  and  must  take  refuge  in  the  embraces 
of  a  moneyed  corporation,  to  enable  it  to  sur- 
vive its  infirmities.  The  humiliation  of  such  a 
thought  should  expel  it  from  the  imagination 
of  every  patriotic  mind.  Nothing  but  a  dire 
necessity — a  last,  a  sole,  an  only  alternative — 
should  bring  this  government  to  the  thought 
of  leaning  upon  any  extraneous  aid.  But  here 
is  no  necessity,  no  reason,  no  pretext,  no  excuse, 
no  apology,  for  resorting  to  collateral  aid ;  and, 
above  all,  to  the  aid  of  a  master  in  the  shape 
of  a  national  bank.  The  granted  powers  of  the 
government  are  adequate  to  the  coercion  of  all 
the  banks.  As  banks,  the  federal  government 
has  no  direct  authority  over  them ;  but  as  bank- 
rupts, it  has  them  in  its  own  hands.  It  can 
pass  bankrupt  laws  for  these  delinquent  insti- 
tutions. It  can  pass  such  laws  either  with  or 
without  including  merchants  and  traders  j  and 


the  day  for  such  law  to  take  effect,  will  be  the 
day  for  the  resumption  of  specie  payments  by 
every  solvent  bank,  and  the  day  for  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  abused  privileges  of  every  insolvent 
one.  So  far  from  requiring  the  impotent  aid 
of  the  miscalled  Bank  of  the  United  States  to 
effect  a  resumption,  that  institution  will  be  un- 
able to  prevent  a  resumption.  Its  veto  power 
over  other  banks  will  cease ;  and  it  will  itself 
be  compelled  to  resume  specie  payment,  or  die ! 
Besides  these  great  objects  to  be  attained  by 
the  application  of  a  bankrupt  law  to  banking 
corporations,  there  are  other  great  purposes  to 
be  accomplished,  and  some  most  sacred  duties 
to  be  fulfilled,  by  the  same  means.  Our  con- 
stitution contains  three  most  vital  prohibitions, 
of  which  the  federal  government  is  the  guardian 
and  the  guarantee,  and  which  are  now  publicly 
trodden  under  foot.  No  State  shall  emit  bills 
of  credit ;  no  State  shall  make  any  thing  but 
gold  and  silver  coin  a  tender  in  payment  of 
debts;  no  State  shall  pass  any  law  impairing 
the  obligation  of  contracts.  No  State  shall  do 
these  things.  So  says  the  constitution  under 
which  we  live,  and  which  it  is  the  duty  of 
every  citizen  to  protect,  preserve,  and  defend. 
But  a  new  power  has  sprung  up  among  us,  and 
has  annulled  the  whole  of  these  prohibitions. 
That  new  power  is  the  oligarchy  of  banks.  It 
has  filled  the  whole  land  with  bills  of  credit ; 
for  it  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that  bank  notes, 
not  convertible  into  specie,  are  bills  of  credit. 
It  has  suppressed  the  constitutional  currency, 
and  made  depreciated  paper  money  a  forced 
tender  in  payment  of  every  debt.  It  has  vio- 
lated all  its  own  contracts,  and  compelled  all 
individuals,  and  the  federal  government  and 
State  governments,  to  violate  theirs ;  and  has 
obtained  from  sovereign  States  an  express  sanc- 
tion, or  a  silent  acquiescence,  in  this  double 
violation  of  sacred  obligations,  and  in  this 
triple  annulment  of  constitutional  prohibitions. 
It  is  our  duty  to  bring,  or  to  try  to  bring,  this 
new  power  under  subordination  to  the  laws 
and  the  government.  It  is  our  duty  to  go  to 
the  succor  of  the  constitution — to  rescue,  if  pos- 
sible, these  prohibitions  from  daily,  and  public, 
and  permanent  infraction.  The  application  of  the 
bankrupt  law  to  this  new  power,  is  the  way  to 
effect  this  rescue— the  way  to  cause  these  vital 
prohibitions  to  be  respected  and  observed,  and 
to  do  it  in  a  way  to  prevent  collisions  between 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


55 


the  States  and  the  federal  government.  The 
prohibitions  are  upon  the  States ;  it  is  they 
who  are  not  to  do  these  things,  and,  of  course, 
are  not  to  authorize  others  to  do  what  they 
cannot  do  themselves.  The  banks  are  their 
delegates  in  this  three-fold  violation  of  the 
constitution ;  and,  in  proceeding  against  these 
delegates,  we  avoid  collision  with  the  States. 

Mr.  President,  every  form  of  government  has 
something  in  it  to  excite  the  pride,  and  to 
rouse  the  devotion,  of  its  citizens.  In  monar- 
chies, it  is  the  authority  of  the  king  5  in  repub- 
lics, it  is  the  sanctity  of  the  laws.  The  loyal 
subject  makes  it  the  point  of  honor  to  obey  the 
king ;  the  patriot  republican  makes  it  his  glory 
to  obey  the  laws.  We  are  a  republic.  We  have 
had  illustrious  citizens,  conquering  generals,  and 
victorious  armies ;  but  no  citizen,  no  general,  no 
army,  has  undertaken  to  dethrone  the  laws  and 
to  reign  in  their  stead.  This  parricidal  work 
has  been  reserved  for  an  oligarchy  of  banks ! 
Three  times,  in  thrice  seven  years,  this  oligarchy 
has  dethroned  the  law,  and  reigned  in  its  place. 
Since  May  last,  it  has  held  the  sovereign  sway, 
and  has  not  yet  vouchsafed  to  indicate  the  day 
of  its  voluntary  abdication.  The  Roman  mili- 
tary dictators  usually  fixed  a  term  to  their 
dictatorships.  I  speak  of  the  usurpers,  not  of 
the  constitutional  dictators  for  ten  days.  These 
usurpers  usually  indicated  a  time  at  which 
usurpation  should  cease,  and  law  and  order 
again  prevail.  Not  so  with  this  new  power 
which  now  lords  it  over  our  America.  They  fix 
no  day ;  they  limit  no  time ;  they  indicate  no 
period  for  their  voluntary  descent  from  power, 
and  for  their  voluntary  return  to  submission  to 
the  laws.  They  could  agree  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye — at  the  drop  of  a  hat — at  the  crook  of  a 
finger — to  usurp  the  sovereign  power;  they 
cannot  agree,  in  four  months,  to  relinquish  it. 
They  profess  to  be  willing,  but  cannot  agree  upon 
the  time.  Let  us  perform  that  service  for  them. 
Let  us  name  a  day.  Let  us  fix  it  in  a  bankrupt 
law.  Let  us  pass  that  law,  and  fix  a  day  for  it 
to  take  effect ;  and  that  day  will  be  the  day  for 
the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  or  for  the 
trial  of  the  question  of  permanent  supremacy 
between  the  oligarchy  of  banks,  and  the  consti- 
tutional government  of  the  people. 

We  are  called  upon  to  have  mercy  upon  the 
banks ;  the  prayer  should  rather  be  to  them,  to 
have  mercy  upon  the  government  and  the  peo- 


ple. Since  May  last  the  ex-deposit  banks  alone 
have  forced  twenty-five  millions  of  depreciated 
paper  through  the  federal  government  upon  its 
debtors  and  the  States,  at  a  loss  of  at  least  two 
and  a  half  millions  to  the  receivers,  and  a  gain 
of  an  equal  amount  to  the  payers.  The  thou- 
sand banks  have  the  country  and  the  govern- 
ment under  their  feet  at  this  moment,  owing  to 
the  community  upwards  of  an  hundred  millions 
of  dollars,  of  which  they  will  pay  nothing,  not 
even  ninepences,  picayunes,  and  coppers.  Meta- 
phorically, if  not  literally,  they  give  their  credi- 
tors more  kicks  than  coppers.  It  is  for  them  to 
have  mercy  on  us.  But  what  is  the  conduct  of 
government  towards  these  banks  ?  Even  at  this 
session,  with  all  their  past  conduct  unatoned  for, 
we  have  passed  a  relief  bill  for  their  benefit — a 
bill  to  defer  the  collection  of  the  large  balance 
which  they  still  owe  the  government.  But 
there  is  mercy  due  in  another  quarter — upon  the 
people,  suffering  from  the  use  of  irredeemable 
and  depreciated  paper — upon  the  government, 
reduced  to  bankruptcy — upon  the  character  of 
the  country,  suffering  in  the  eyes  of  Europe — 
upon  the  character  of  republican  government, 
brought  into  question  by  the  successful  usurpa- 
tion of  these  institutions.  This  last  point  is  the 
sorest.  Gentlemen  speak  of  the  failure  of  ex- 
periments— the  failure  of  the  specie  experiment, 
as  it  is  called  by  those  who  believe  that  paper  is 
the  ancient  and  universal  money  of  the  world  ; 
and  that  the  use  of  a  little  specie  for  the  first 
time  is  not  to  be  attempted.  They  dwell  upon  the 
supposed  failure  of  "  the  experiment ; "  while  all 
the  monarchists  of  Europe  are  rejoicing  in  the 
failure  of  the  experiment  of  republican  govern- 
ment, at  seeing  this  government,  the  last  hope 
of  the  liberal  world,  struck  and  paralyzed  by  an 
oligarchy  of  banks — seized  by  the  throat,  throt- 
tled and  held  as  a  tiger  would  hold  a  babe — 
stripped  of  its  revenues,  bankrupted,  and  sub- 
jected to  the  degradation  of  becoming  their  en- 
gine to  force  their  depreciated  paper  upon  help- 
less creditors.  Here  is  the  place  for  mercy — 
upon  the  people — upon  the  government — upon 
the  character  of  the  country — upon  the  charac- 
ter of  republican  government. 

The  apostle  of  republicanism,  Mr.  Jefferson, 
has  left  it  as  a  political  legacy  to  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  never  to  suffer  their  govern- 
ment to  fall  under  the  control  of  any  unauthor- 
ized, irresponsible,  or  self-created  institutions  or 


56 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


bodies  whatsoever.  His  allusion  was  to  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  its  notorious 
machinations  to  govern  the  elections,  and  get 
command  of  the  government ;  but  his  admoni- 
tion applies  with  equal  force  to  all  other  similar 
or  affiliated  institutions  ;  and,  since  May  last,  it 
applies  to  the  whole  league  of  banks  which  then 
"  shut  up  the  Treasury,"  and  reduced  the  gov- 
ernment to  helpless  dependence. 

It  is  said  that  bankruptcy  is  a  severe  remedy 
to  apply  to  banks.  It  may  be  answered  that  it 
is  not  more  severe  here  than  in  England,  where 
it  applies  to  all  banks  of  issue,  except  the  Bank 
of  England,  and  a  few  others ;  and  it  is  not  more 
severe  to  them  than  it  is  to  merchants  and  tra- 
ders, and  to  bankers  and  brokers,  and  all  unin- 
corporated banks.  Personally,  I  was  disposed 
to  make  large  allowances  for  the  conduct  of  the 
banks.  Our  own  improvidence  tempted  them 
into  an  expansion  of  near  forty  millions,  in  1835 
and  1836,  by  giving  them  the  national  domain 
to  bank  upon ;  a  temptation  which  they  had  not 
the  fortitude  to  resist,  and  which  expanded  them 
to  near  the  bursting  point.  Then  they  were 
driven  almost  to  a  choice  of  bankruptcy  between 
themselves  and  their  debtors,  by  the  act  which 
required  near  forty  millions  to  be  distributed  in 
masses,  and  at  brief  intervals,  among  the  States. 
Some  failures  were  inevitable  under  these 
circumstances,  and  I  was  disposed  to  make  lib- 
eral allowances  for  them ;  but  there  are  three 
things  for  which  the  banks  have  no  excuse,  and 
which  should  forever  weigh  against  their  claims 
to  favor  and  confidence.  These  things  are,  first, 
the  political  aspect  which  the  general  suspen- 
sion of  payment  was  permitted  to  assume,  and 
which  it  still  wears ;  secondly,  the  issue  and  use 
of  shinplasters,  and  refusal  to  pay  silver  change, 
when  there  are  eighty  millions  of  specie  in  the 
country;  thirdly,  the  refusal,  by  the  deposit 
banks  to  pay  out  the  sums  which  had  been 
severed  from  the  Treasury,  and  stood  in  the 
names  of  disbursing  officers,  and  was  actually 
due  to  those  who  were  performing  work  and 
labor,  and  rendering  daily  services  to  the  gov- 
ernment. For  these  three  things  there  is  no 
excuse ;  and,  while  memory  retains  their  recol- 
lection, there  can  be  no  confidence  in  those  who 
have  done  them. 


CHAPTER   XV. 

DIYOKCE  OF  BANK  AND   STATE:  ME.  BENTON'S 
SPEECH. 

The  bill  is  to  divorce  the  government  from  the 
banks,  or  rather  is  to  declare  the  divorce,  for 
the  separation  has  already  taken  place  by  the 
operation  of  law  and  by  the  delinquency  of  the 
banks.  The  bill  is  to  declare  the  divorce ;  the 
amendment  is  to  exclude  their  notes  from  reve- 
nue payments,  not  all  at  once,  but  gradually, 
and  to  be  accomplished  by  the  1st  day  of  Janu- 
ary, 1841.  Until  then  the  notes  of  specie-pay- 
ing banks  may  be  received,  diminishing  one- 
fourth  annually;  and  after  that  day,  all  pay- 
ments to  and  from  the  federal  government  are 
to  be  made  in  hard  money.  Until  that  day,  pay- 
ments from  the  United  States  will  be  governed 
by  existing  laws.  The  amendment  does  not 
affect  the  Post  Office  department  until  January, 
1841 ;  until  then,  the  fiscal  operations  of  that 
Department  remain  under  the  present  laws; 
after  that  day  they  fall  under  the  principle  of 
the  bill,  and  all  payments  to  and  from  that  de- 
partment will  be  made  in  hard  money.  The 
effect  of  the  whole  amendment  will  be  to  restore 
the  currency  of  the  constitution  to  the  federal 
government — to  re-establish  the  great  acts  of 
1789  and  of  1800 — declaring  that  the  revenues 
should  be  collected  in  gold  and  silver  coin  only ; 
those  early  statutes  which  were  enacted  by  the 
hard  money  men  who  made  the  constitution, 
who  had  seen  and  felt  the  evils  of  that  paper  mo- 
ney, and  intended  to  guard  against  these  evils 
in  future  by  creating,  not  a  paper,  but  a  hard- 
money  government. 

I  am  for  this  restoration.  I  am  for  restoring 
to  the  federal  treasury  the  currency  of  the  con- 
stitution. I  am  for  carrying  back  this  govern- 
ment to  the  solidity  projected  by  its  founders. 
This  is  a  great  object  in  itself— a  reform  of  the 
first  magnitude — a  reformation  with  healing  on 
its  wings,  bringing  safety  to  the  government  and 
blessings  to  the  people.  The  currency  is  a  thing 
which  reaches  every  individual,  and  every  insti- 
tution. From  the  government  to  the  washer- 
woman, all  are  reached  by  it,  and  all  concerned 
in  it ;  and,  what  seems  parodoxical,  all  are  con- 
cerned to  the  same  degree;  for  all  are  con- 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


57 


cerned  to  the  whole  extent  of  their  property  and 
dealings  ;  and  all  is  all,  whether  it  be  much  or 
little.  The  government  with  its  many  ten  mil- 
lions of  revenue,  suffers  no  more  in  proportion 
than  the  humble  and  meritorious  laborer  who 
works  from  sun  to  sun  for  the  shillings  which 
give  food  and  raiment  to  his  family.  The  fede- 
ral government  has  deteriorated  the  currency, 
and  carried  mischief  to  the  whole  community, 
and  lost  its  own  revenues,  and  subjected  itself 
to  be  trampled  upon  by  corporations,  by  depart- 
ing from  the  constitution,  and  converting  this 
government  from  a  hard-money  to  a  paper  mo- 
ney government.  The  object  of  the  amendment 
and  the  bill  is  to  reform  these  abuses,  and  it  is 
a  reform  worthy  to  be  called  a  reformation — 
worthy  to  engage  the  labor  of  patriots — worthy 
to  unite  the  exertions  of  different  parties — wor- 
thy to  fix  the  attention  of  the  age — worthy  to 
excite  the  hopes  of  the  people,  and  to  invoke 
upon  its  success  the  blessings  of  heaven. 

Great  are  the  evils, — political,  pecuniary,  and 
moral, — which  have  flowed  from  this  departure 
from  our  constitution.  Through  the  federal 
government  alone — through  it,  not  by  it — two 
millions  and  a  half  of  money  have  been  lost  in 
the  last  four  months.  Thirty-two  millions  of 
public  money  was  the  amount  in  the  deposit 
banks  when  they  stopped  payment ;  of  this  sum 
twenty-five  millions  have  been  paid  over  to  gov- 
ernment creditors,  or  transferred  to  the  States. 
But  how  paid,  and  how  transferred  ?  In  what  ? 
In  real  money,  or  its  equivalent  ?  Not  at  all ! 
But  in  the  notes  of  suspended  banks — in  notes 
depreciated,  on  an  average,  ten  per  cent.  Here 
then  were  two  and  a  half  millions  lost.  Who 
bore  the  loss  ?  The  public  creditors  and  the 
States.  Who  gained  it  ?  for  where  there  is  a 
loss  to  one,  there  must  be  a  gain  to  another. 
Who  gained  the  two  and  a  half  millions,  thus 
sunk  upon  the  hands  of  the  creditors  and  the 
States  ?  The  banks  were  the  gainers ;  they 
gained  it ;  the  public  creditors  and  the  States 
lost  it ;  and  to  the  creditors  it  was  a  forced  loss. 
It  is  in  vain  to  say  that  they  consented  to  take 
it.  They  had  no  alternative.  It  was  that  or 
nothing.  The  banks  forced  it  upon  the  govern- 
ment ;  the  government  forced  it  upon  the  credi- 
tor. Consent  was  out  of  the  question.  Power 
ruled,  and  that  power  was  in  the  banks ;  and 
they  gained  the  two  and  a  half  millions  which 
the  States  and  the  public  creditors  lost. 


I  do  not  pretend  to  estimate  the  moneyed 
losses,  direct  and  indirect,  to  the  government 
alone,  from  the  use  of  local  bank  notes  in  the 
last  twenty-five  years,  including  the  war,  and 
covering  three  general  suspensions;.  Leaving 
the  people  out  of  view,  as  a  field  of  losses  be- 
yond calculation,  I  confine  myself  to  the  federal 
government,  and  say,  its  losses  have  been  enor- 
mous, prodigious,  and  incalculable.  We  have 
had  three  general  stoppages  of  the  local  banks 
in  the  short  space  of  twenty-two  years.  It  is 
at  the  average  rate  of  one  in  seven  years  ;  and 
who  is  to  guaranty  us  from  another,  and  from 
the  consequent  losses,  if  we  continue  to  receive 
their  bills  in  payment  of  public  dues  ?  Another 
stoppage  must  come,  and  that,  reasoning  from 
all  analogies,  in  less  than  seven  years  after  the 
resumption.  Many  must  perish  in  the  attempt 
to  resume,  and  would  do  better  to  wind  up  at 
once,  without  attempting  to  go  on,  without  ade- 
quate means,  and  against  appalling  obstacles. 
Another  revulsion  must  come.  Thus  it  was 
after  the  last  resumption.  The  banks  recom- 
menced payments  in  1817 — in  two  years,  the 
failures  were  more  disastrous  than  ever.  Thus 
it  was  in  England  after  the  long  suspension  of 
twenty-six  years.  Payments  recommenced  in 
1823 — in  1825  the  most  desolating  crash  of 
banks  took  place  which  had  ever  been  known 
in  the  kingdom,  although  the  Bank  of  England 
had  imported,  in  less  than  four  years,  twenty 
millions  sterling  in  gold, — about  one  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  to  recommence  upon.  Its 
effects  reached  this  country,  crushed  the  cotton 
houses  in  New  Orleans,  depressed  the  money 
market,  and  injured  all  business. 

The  senators  from  New  York  and  Virginia 
(Messrs.  Tallmadge  and  Rives)  push  this  point 
of  confidence  a  little  further ;  they  address  a 
question  to  me,  and  ask  if  I  would  lose  confi- 
dence in  all  steamboats,  and  have  them  all  dis- 
carded, if  one  or  two  blew  up  in  the  Mississippi  ? 
I  answer  the  question  in  all  frankness,  and  say, 
that  I  should  not.  But  if,  instead  of  one  or  two 
in  the  Mississippi,  all  the  steamboats  in  the 
Union  should  blow  up  at  once — in  every  creek, 
river  and  bay— while  all  the  passengers  were 
sleeping  in  confidence,  and  the  pilots  crying  out 
all  is  well ;  if  the  whole  should  blow  up  from 
one  end  of  the  Union  to  the  other  just  as  fast  as 
they  could  hear  each  other's  explosions  ;  then, 
indeed,  I  should  lose  confidence  in  them,  and 


58 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


never  again  trust  wife,  or  child,  or  my  own  foot, 
or  any  thing  not  intended  for  destruction,  on 
board  such  sympathetic  and  contagious  engines 
of  death.  I  answer  further,  and  tell  the  gentle- 
men, that  if  only  one  or  two  banks  had  stopped 
last  May  in  New  York,  I  should  not  have  lost 
all  confidence  in  the  remaining  nine  hundred 
and  ninety-nine ;  but  when  the  whole  thou- 
sand stopped  at  once ;  tumbled  down  together — 
fell  in  a  lump — lie  there— and  when  ONE  of 
their  number,  by  a  sign  with  the  little  finger, 
can  make  the  whole  lie  still,  then,  indeed,  confi- 
dence is  gone  !  And  this  is  the  case  with  the 
banks.  They  have  not  only  stopped  altogether, 
but  in  a  season  of  profound  peace,  with  eighty 
millions  of  specie  in  the  country,  and  just  after 
the  annual  examinations  by  commissioners  and 
legislative  committees,  and  when  all  was  re- 
ported well.  "With  eighty  millions  in  the  coun- 
try, they  stop  even  for  change  !  It  did  not  take 
a  national  calamity — a  war — to  stop  them  ! 
They  fell  in  time  of  peace  and  prosperity  !  We 
read  of  people  in  the  West  Indies,  and  in  South 
America,  who  rebuild  their  cities  on  the  same 
spot  where  earthquakes  had  overthrown  them ; 
we  are  astonished  at  their  fatuity ;  we  wonder 
that  they  will  build  again  on  the  same  perilous 
foundations.  But  these  people  have  a  reason 
for  their  conduct ;  it  is,  that  their  cities  are  only 
destroyed  by  earthquakes ;  it  takes  an  earth- 
quake to  destroy  them ;  and  when  there  is  no 
earthquake,  they  are  safe.  But  suppose  their 
cities  fell  down  without  any  commotion  in  the 
earth,  or  the  air — fell  in  a  season  of  perfect 
calm  and  serenity — and  after  that  the  survivors 
should  go  to  building  again  in  the  same  place  ; 
would  not  all  the  world  say  that  they  were  de- 
mented, and  were  doomed  to  destruction  ?  So 
of  the  government  of  the  United  States  by  these 
banks.  If  it  continues  to  use  them,  and  to  re- 
ceive their  notes  for  revenue,  after  what  has 
happened,  and  in  the  face  of  what  now  exists, 
it  argues  fatuity,  and  a  doom  to  destruction. 

Resume  when  they  will,  or  when  they  shall, 
and  the  longer  it  is  delayed  the  worse  for  them- 
selves, the  epoch  of  resumption  is  to  be  a  peril- 
ous crisis  to  many.  This  stopping  and  resuming 
by  banks,  is  the  realization  of  the  poetical  de- 
scription of  the  descent  into  hell,  and  the  return 
from  it.  Facilis  descensus  Averni — sed  revo- 
care  gradum — hie  opus,  hie  labor  est.  Easy 
is  the  descent  into  the  regions  below,  but  to  re- 


turn !  this  is  work,  this  is  labor  indeed  !  Our 
banks  have  made  the  descent ;  they  have  gone 
down  with  ease  ;  but  to  return — to  ascend  the 
rugged  steps,  and  behold  again  the  light  above, 
how  many  will  falter,  and  fall  back  into  the 
gloomy  regions  below. 

Banks  of  circulation  are  banks  of  hazard  and 
of  failure.  It  is  an  incident  of  their  nature. 
Those  without  circulation  rarely  fail.  That  of 
Venice  has  stood  seven  hundred  years ;  those  of 
Hamburgh,  Amsterdam,  and  others,  have  stood 
for  centuries.  The  Bank  of  England,  the  great 
mother  of  banks  of  circulation,  besides  an  actual 
stoppage  of  a  quarter  of  a  century,  has  had  her 
crisis  and  convulsion  in  average  periods  of  seven 
or  eight  years,  for  the  last  half  century — in 
1783,  '93,  '97, 1814,  '19,  '25,  '36— and  has  only 
been  saved  from  repeated  failure  by  the  power- 
ful support  of  the  British  government,  and  pro- 
fuse supplies  of  exchequer  bills.  Her  numerous 
progeny  of  private  and  joint  stock  banks  of  cir- 
culation have  had  the  same  convulsions ;  and 
not  being  supported  by  the  government,  have 
sunk  by  hundreds  at  a  time.  All  the  banks  of 
the  United  States  are  banks  of  circulation ;  they 
are  all  subject  to  the  inherent  dangers  of  that 
class  of  banks,  and  are,  besides,  subject  to  new 
dangers  peeuliar  to  themselves.  From  the 
quantity  of  their  stock  held  by  foreigners,  the 
quantity  of  other  stocks  in  their  hands,  and  the 
current  foreign  balance  against  the  United 
States,  our  paper  system  has  become  an  ap- 
pendage to  that  of  England.  As  such,  it  suffers 
from  sympathy  when  the  English  system  suffers. 
In  addition  to  this,  a  new  doctrine  is  now 
broached — that  our  first  duty  is  to  foreigners  ! 
and,  upon  this  principle,  when  the  banks  of  the 
two  countries  are  in  peril,  ours  are  to  be  sacri- 
ficed to  save  those  of  England ! 

The  power  of  a  few  banks  over  the  whole, 
presents  a  new  feature  of  danger  in  our  system. 
It  consolidates  the  banks  of  the  whole  Union 
into  one  mass,  and  subjects  them  to  one  fate, 
and  that  fate  to  be  decided  by  a  few,  without 
even  the  knowledge  of  the  rest.  An  unknown 
divan  of  bankers  sends  forth  an  edict  which 
sweeps  over  the  empire,  crosses  the  lines  of 
States  with  the  facility  of  a  Turkish  firman, 
prostrating  all  State  institutions,  breaking  up 
all  engagements,  and  levelling  all  law  before  it. 
This  is  consolidation  of  a  kind  which  the  genius 
of  Patrick  Henry  had  not  even  conceived.    But 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


59 


while  this  firman  is  thus  potent  and  irresistible 
for  prostration,  it  is  impotent  aDd  powerless  for 
resurrection.  It  goes  out  in  vain,  bidding  the 
prostrate  banks  to  rise.  A  veto  power  intervenes. 
One  voice  is  sufficient  to  keep  all  down ;  and  thus 
we  have  seen  one  word  from  Philadelphia  an- 
nihilate the  New  York  proposition  for  resump- 
tion, and  condemn  the  many  solvent  banks  to 
the  continuation  of  a  condition  as  mortifying  to 
their  feelings  as  it  is  injurious  to  their  future 
interests. 

Again,  from  the  mode  of  doing  business  among 
our  banks — using  each  other's  paper  to  bank 
upon,  instead  of  holding  each  other  to  weekly 
settlements,  and  liquidation  of  balances  in  specie, 
and  from  the  fatal  practice  of  issuing  notes  at 
one  place,  payable  at  another — our  banks  have 
all  become  links  of  one  chain,  the  strength  of  the 
whole  being  dependent  on  the  strength  of  each. 
A  few  govern  all.  Whether  it  is  to  fail,  or  to 
resume,  the  few  govern  ;  and  not  only  the  few, 
but  the  weak.  A  few  weak  banks  fail ;  a  panic 
ensues,  and  the  rest  shut  up ;  many  strong  ones 
are  ready  to  resume ;  the  weak  are  not  ready, 
and  the  strong  must  wait.  Thus  the  principles 
of  safety,  and  the  rules  of  government,  are  re- 
versed. The  weak  govern  the  strong ;  the  bad 
govern  the  good ;  and  the  insolvent  govern  the 
solvent.  This  is  our  system,  if  system  it  can  be 
called,  which  has  no  feature  of  consistency,  no 
principle  of  safety,  and  which  is  nothing  but  the 
floating  appendage  of  a  foreign  and  overpower- 
ing system. 

The  federal  government  and  its  creditors  have 
suffered  great  pecuniary  losses  from  the  use  of 
these  banks  and  their  paper;  they  must  con- 
tinue to  sustain  such  losses  if  they  continue  to 
use  such  depositories  and  to  receive  such  paper. 
The  pecuniary  losses  have  been,  now  are,  and 
must  be  hereafter  great ;  but,  great  as  they  have 
been,  now  are,  and  may  be  hereafter,  all  that 
loss  is  nothing  compared  to  the  political  dangers 
which  flow  from  the  same  source.  These  dan- 
gers affect  the  life  of  the  government.  They  go 
to  its  existence.  They  involve  anarchy,  con- 
fusion, violence,  dissolution!  They  go  to 
deprive  the  government  of  support  —  of  the 
means  of  living ;  they  strip  it  in  an  instant  of 
every  shilling  of  revenue,  and  leave  it  penniless, 
helpless,  lifeless.  The  late  stoppage  might  have 
broken  up  the  government,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  fidelity  and  affection  of  the  people  to  their  in- 
stitutions and  the  eighty  millions  of  specie  which 


General  Jackson  had  accumulated  in  the  coun- 
try. That  stoppage  presented  a  peculiar  feature 
of  peril  which  has  not  been  brought  to  the 
notice  of  the  public ;  it  was  the  stoppage  of  the 
sums  standing  in  the  names  of  disbursing 
officers,  and  wanted  for  daily  payments  in  all 
the  branches  of  the  public  service.  These  sums 
amounted  to  about  five  millions  of  dollars. 
They  had  been  drawn  from  the  Treasury,  they 
were  no  longer  standing  to  the  credit  of  the 
United  States ;  they  had  gone  into  the  hands  of 
innumerable  officers  and  agents,  in  all  parts  of 
the  Union,  and  were  temporarily,  and  for  mere 
safe-keeping  from  day  to  day,  lodged  with  these 
deposit  banks,  to  be  incessantly  paid  out  to 
those  who  were  doing  work  and  labor,  perform- 
ing contracts,  or  rendering  service,  civil  or  mili- 
tary, to  the  country.  These  five  millions  were 
stopped  with  the  rest !  In  an  instant,  as  if  by 
enchantment,  every  disbursing  officer,  in  every 
part  of  the  Union,  was  stripped  of  the  money 
which  he  was  going  to  pay  out !  All  officers  of 
the  government,  high  and  low,  the  whole  army 
and  navy,  all  the  laborers  and  contractors,  post 
offices  and  all,  were  suddenly,  instantaneously, 
left  without  pay;  and  consequently  without  sub- 
sistence. It  was  tantamount  to  a  disbandment 
of  the  entire  government.  It  was  like  a  decree 
for  the  dissolution  of  the  body  politic.  It  was 
celebrated  as  a  victory — as  a  conquest — as  a 
triumph,  over  the  government.  The  least  that 
was  expected  was  an  immediate  civil  revolution 
— the  overthrow  of  the  democratic  party,  the 
change  of  administration,  the  reascension  of  the 
federal  party  to  power,  and  the  re-establishment 
of  the  condemned  Bank  of  the  United  States. 
These  consequences  were  counted  upon ;  and 
that  they  did  not  happen  was  solely  owing  to 
the  eighty  millions  of  hard  money  which  kept 
up  a  standard  of  value  in  the  country,  and  pre- 
vented the  dishonored  bank  notes  from  sinking 
too  low  to  be  used  by  the  community.  But  it  is 
not  merely  stoppage  of  the  banks  that  we  have 
to  fear :  collisions  with  the  States  may  ensue. 
State  legislatures  may  sanction  the  stoppage, 
withhold  the  poor  right  of  suing,  and  thus  in- 
terpose their  authority  between  the  federal 
government  and  its  revenues.  This  has  already 
happened,  not  in  hostility  to  the  government, 
but  in  protection  of  themselves ;  and  the  conse- 
quence was  the  same  as  if  the  intention  had  been 
hostile.  It  was  interposition  between  the 
federal  government  and  its  depositories  ;  it  was 


60 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


deprivation  of  revenue ;  it  was  an  act  the  recur- 
rence of  which  should  be  carefully  guarded 
against  in  future. 

This  is  what  we  have  seen ;  this  is  a  danger 
which  we  have  just  escaped ;  and  if  these  banks 
shall  be  continued  as  depositories  of  public 
money,  or,  which  is  just  the  same  thing,  if  the 
government  shall  continue  to  receive  their 
"  paper  promises  to  pay,"  the  same  danger  may 
be  seen  again,  and  under  far  more  critical  cir- 
cumstances. A  similar  stoppage  of  the  banks 
may  take  place  again — will  inevitably  take 
place  again — and  it  may  be  when  there  is  little 
specie  in  the  country,  or  when  war  prevails.  All 
history  is  full  of  examples  of  armies  and  navies 
revolting  for  want  of  pay  j  all  history  is  full  of 
examples  of  military  and  naval  operations  mis- 
carried for  want  of  money ;  all  history  is  full  of  in- 
stances of  governments  overturned  from  deficits 
of  revenue  and  derangements  of  finances.  And 
are  we  to  expose  ourselves  recklessly,  and  with 
our  eyes  open,  to  such  dangers  ?  And  are  we  to 
stake  the  life  and  death  of  this  government  upon 
the  hazards  and  contingencies  of  banking — and 
of  such  banking  as  exists  in  these  United  States  ? 
Are  we  to  subject  the  existence  of  this  govern- 
ment to  the  stoppages  of  the  banks,  whether 
those  stoppages  result  from  misfortune,  impro- 
vidence, or  bad  faith?  Are  we  to  subject  this 
great  and  glorious  political  fabric,  the  work  of 
so  many  wise  and  patriotic  heads,  to  be  de- 
molished in  an  instant,  and  by  an  unseen  hand? 
Are  we  to  suffer  the  machinery  and  the  work- 
ing of  our  boasted  constitution  to  be  arrested 
by  a  spring-catch,  applied  in  the  dark  ?  Are 
men,  with  pens  sticking  behind  their  ears,  to  be 
allowed  to  put  an  end  to  this  republic  ?  No, 
sir !  never.  If  we  are  to  perish  prematurely,  let 
us  at  least  have  a  death  worthy  of  a  great 
nation ;  let  us  at  least  have  a  field  covered  with 
the  bodies  of  heroes  and  of  patriots,  and  conse- 
crated forever  to  the  memory  of  a  subverted 
empire.  "Rome  had  her  Pharsalia — Greece  her 
Chseronea — and  many  barbarian  kingdoms  have 
given  immortality  to  the  spot  on  which  they 
expired ;  and  shall  this  great  republic  be  sub- 
jected to  extinction  on  the  contingencies  of  trade 
and  banking  ? 

But  what  excuse,  what  apology,  what  justi- 
fication have  we  for  surrendering,  abandoning, 
and  losing  the  precise  advantage  for  which  the 
present  constitution  was  formed?    What  was 


that  advantage — what  the  leading  and  govern- 
ing object,  which  led  to  the  abandonment  of  the 
old  confederation,  and  induced  the  adoption  of 
the  present  form  of  government  ?  It  was  reve- 
nue! independent  revenue!  a  revenue  under 
the  absolute  control  of  this  government,  and 
free  from  the  action  of  the  States.  Tliis  was 
the  motive — the  leading  and  the  governing  mo- 
tive— which  led  to  the  formation  of  this  govern- 
ment. The  reason  was,  that  the  old  confedera- 
tion, being  dependent  upon  the  States,  was 
often  left  without  money.  This  state  of  being 
was  incompatible  with  its  existence ;  it  deprived 
it  of  all  power ;  its  imbecility  was  a  proverb. 
To  extricate  it  from  that  condition  was  the  de- 
sign— and  the  cardinal  design — of  the  new  con- 
stitution. An  independent  revenue  was  given 
to  it — independent,  even,  of  the  States.  Is  it 
not  suicidal  to  surrender  that  independence, 
and  to  surrender  it,  not  to  States,  but  to  money 
corporations?  What  does  history  record  of  the 
penury  and  moneyed  destitution  of  the  old  con- 
federation, comparable  to  the  annihilation  of  the 
revenues  of  this  government  in  May  last  ?  when 
the  banks  shut  down,  in  one  night,  upon  a  rev- 
enue, in  hand,  of  thirty-two  millions;  even 
upon  that  which  was  in  the  names  of  disbursing 
officers,  and  refuse  a  nine-pence,  or  a  picaillon 
in  money,  from  that  day  to  this?  What  is 
there  in  the  history  of  the  old  confederation 
comparable  to  this?  The  old  confederation 
was  often  reduced  low — often  near  empty- 
handed — but  never  saw  itself  stripped  in  an 
instant,  as  if  by  enchantment,  of  tens  of  mil- 
lions, and  heard  the  shout  of  triumph  thun- 
dered over  its  head,  and  the  notes  of  exultation 
sung  over  its  supposed  destruction !  Yet,  this 
is  what  we  have  seen — what  we  now  see— from 
having  surrendered  to  corporations  our  moneyed 
independence,  and  unwisely  abandoned  the  pre- 
cise advantage  which  led  to  the  formation  of  this 
federal  government. 

I  do  not  go  into  the  moral  view  of  this  ques- 
tion. It  is  too  obvious,  too  impressive,  too 
grave,  to  escape  the  observation  of  any  one. 
Demoralization  follows  in  the  train  of  an  un- 
convertible paper  money.  The  whole  com- 
munity becomes  exposed  to  a  moral  pestilence. 
Every  individual  becomes  the  victim  of  some 
imposition  ;  and,  in  self-defence,  imposes  upon 
some  one  else.  The  weak,  the  ignorant,  the 
uninformed,  the  necessitous,  are  the  sufferers ; 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


61 


the  crafty  and  the  opulent  are  the  gainers. 
The  evil  augments  until  the  moral  sense  of  the 
community,  revolting  at  the  frightful  accumu- 
lation of  fraud  and  misery,  applies  the  radical 
remedy  of  total  reform. 

Thus,  pecuniary,  political,  and  moral  con- 
siderations require  the  government  to  retrace 
its  steps,  to  return  to  first  principles,  and  to 
restore  its  fiscal  action  to  the  safe  and  solid 
path  of  the  constitution.  Reform  is  demanded. 
It  is  called  for  by  every  public  and  by  every 
private  consideration.  Now  is  the  time  to 
make  it.  The  connection  between  Bank  and 
State  is  actually  dissolved.  It  is  dissolved  by 
operation  of  law,  and  by  the  delinquency  of 
these  institutions.  They  have  forfeited  the 
right  to  the  deposits,  and  lost  the  privilege  of 
paying  the  revenue  in  their  notes,  by  ceasing  to 
pay  specie.  The  government  is  now  going  on 
without  them,  and  all  that  is  wanting  is  the 
appropriate  legislation  to  perpetuate  the  divorce 
which,  in  point  of  fact,  has  already  taken  place. 
Now  is  the  time  to  act;  this  the  moment  to 
restore  the  constitutional  currency  to  the  fed- 
eral government ;  to  restore  the  custody  of  the 
public  moneys  to  national  keepers ;  and  to  avoid, 
in  time  to  come,  the  calamitous  revulsions  and 
perilous  catastrophes  of  1814,  1819,  and  1837. 

And  what  is  the  obstacle  to  the  adoption  of 
this  course,  so  imperiously  demanded  by  the 
safety  of  the  republic  and  the  welfare  of  the 
people,  and  so  earnestly  recommended  to  us  by 
the  chief  magistrate  ?  What  is  the  obstacle — 
what  the  power  that  countervails  the  Executive 
recommendation,  paralyzes  the  action  of  Con- 
gress, and  stays  the  march  of  reform?  The 
banks — the  banks — the  banks,  are  this  obsta- 
cle, and  this  power.  They  set  up  the  preten- 
sion to  force  their  paper  into  the  federal  Treas- 
ury, and  to  force  themselves  to  be  constituted 
that  Treasury.  Though  now  bankrupt,  their 
paper  dishonored,  their  doors  closed  against 
creditors,  every  public  and  every  private  obli- 
gation violated,  still  they  arrogate  a  supremacy 
over  this  federal  government ;  they  demand  the 
guardianship  of  the  public  moneys,  and  the 
privilege  of  furnishing  a  federal  currency ;  and, 
though  too  weak  to  pay  their  debts,  they  are 
strong  enough  to  throttle  this  government,  and 
to  hold  in  doubtful  suspense  the  issue  of  their 
vast  pretensions. 

The  President,  in  his  message,  recommends 


four  things  :  first,  to  discontinue  the  reception 
of  local  bank  paper  in  payment  of  federal  dues ; 
secondly,  to  discontinue  the  same  banks  as 
depositories  of  the  public  moneys ;  thirdly,  to 
make  the  future  collection  and  disbursement  of 
the  public  moneys  in  gold  and  silver ;  fourthly, 
to  take  the  keeping  of  the  public  moneys  into 
the  hands  of  our  own  officers. 

What  is  there  in  this  but  a  return  to  the 
words  and  meaning  of  the  constitution,  and  a 
conformity  to  the  practice  of  the  government  in 
the  first  years  of  President  Washington's  ad- 
ministration ?  When  this  federal  government 
was  first  formed,  there  was  no  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  and  no  local  banks,  except  three 
north  of  the  Potomac.  By  the  act  of  1789,  the 
revenues  were  directed  to  be  collected  in  gold 
and  silver  coin  only ;  and  it  was  usually  drawn 
out  of  the  hands  of  collectors  by  drafts  drawn 
upon  them,  payable  at  sight.  It  was  a  most 
effectual  way  of  drawing  money  out  of  their 
hands  ;  far  more  so  than  an  order  to  deposit  in 
banks ;  for  the  drafts  must  be  paid,  or  pro- 
tested, at  sight,  while  the  order  to  deposit  may 
be  eluded  under  various  pretexts. 

The  right  and  the  obligation  of  the  govern- 
ment to  keep  its  own  moneys  in  its  own  hands, 
results  from  first  principles,  and  from  the  great 
law  of  self-preservation.  Every  thing  else  that 
belongs  to  her,  she  keeps  herself;  and  why  not 
keep  that  also,  without  which  every  thing  else 
is  nothing?  Arms  and  ships — provisions,  muni- 
tions, and  supplies  of  every  kind — are  kept  in 
the  hands  of  government  officers ;  money  is  the 
sinew  of  war,  and  why  leave  this  sinew  exposed 
to  be  cut  by  any  careless  or  faithless  hand  ? 
Money  is  the  support  and  existence  of  the  gov- 
ernment— the  breath  of  its  nostrils,  and  why 
leave  this  support— this  breath — to  the  custody 
of  those  over  whom  we  have  no  control  ?  How 
absurd  to  place  our  ships,  our  arms,  our  mili- 
tary and  naval  supplies  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  could  refuse  to  deliver  them  when  re- 
quested, and  put  the  government  to  a  suit  at 
law  to  recover  their  possession !  Every  body 
sees  the  absurdity  of  this;  but  to  place  our 
money  in  the  same  condition,  and,  moreover,  to 
subject  it  to  the  vicissitudes  of  trade  and  the 
perils  of  banking,  is  still  more  absurd ;  for  it  is 
the  life  blood,  without  which  the  government 
cannot  live — the  oil,  without  which  no  part  of 
its  machinery  can  move. 


62 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


England,  with  all  her  banks,  trusts  none  of 
them  with  the  collection,  keeping,  and  disburse- 
ment of  her  public  moneys.  The  Bank  of 
England  is  paid  a  specific  sum  to  manage  the 
public  debt ;  but  the  revenue  is  collected  and 
disbursed  through  subordinate  collectors  and 
receivers  general ;  and  these  receivers  general 
are  not  subject  to  the  bankrupt  laws,  because 
the  government  will  not  suffer  its  revenue  to 
be  operated  upon  by  any  law  except  its  own 
will.  In  France,  subordinate  collectors  and 
receivers  general  collect,  keep,  and  disburse  the 
public  moneys.  If  they  deposit  any  thing  in 
banks,  it  is  at  their  own  risk.  It  is  the  same 
thing  in  England.  A  bank  deposit  by  an  offi- 
cer is  at  the  risk  of  himself  and  his  securities. 
Too  much  of  the  perils  and  vicissitudes  of 
banking  is  known  in  these  countries  to  permit 
the  government  ever  to  jeopard  its  revenues  in 
their  keeping.  All  this  is  shown,  fully  and  at 
large,  in  a  public  document  now  on  our  tables. 
And  who  does  not  recognize  in  these  collectors 
and  receivers  general  of  France  and  England, 
the  ancient  Roman  officers  of  quaestors  and  pro- 
quaestors  ?  These  fiscal  officers  of  France  and 
England  are  derivations  from  the  Roman  insti- 
tutions ;  and  the  same  are  found  in  all  the 
modern  kingdoms  of  Europe  which  were  for- 
merly, like  France  and  Britain,  provinces  of  the 
Roman  empire.  The  measure  before  the  Sen- 
ate is  to  enable  us  to  provide  for  our  future 
safety,  by  complying  with  our  own  constitution, 
and  conforming  to  the  practice  of  all  nations, 
great  or  small,  ancient  or  modern. 

Coming  nearer  home,  and  looking  into  our 
own  early  history,  what  were  the  "  continental 
treasurers "  of  the  confederation,  and  the  "  pro- 
vincial treasurers  and  collectors,"  provided  for 
as  early  as  July,  1775,  but  an  imitation  of  the 
French  and  English  systems,  and  very  near  the 
plan  which  we  propose  now  to  re-establish ! 
These  continental  treasurers,  and  there  were 
two  of  them  at  first,  though  afterwards  reduced 
to  one,  were  the  receivers  general ;  the  provin- 
cial treasurers  and  collectors  were  their  subor- 
dinates. By  these  officers  the  public  moneys 
were  collected,  kept,  and  disbursed;  for  there 
were  no  banks  then !  and  all  government  drafts 
were  drawn  directly  upon  these  officers.  This 
simple  plan  worked  well  during  the  Revolution, 
and  afterwards,  until  the  new  government  was 
formed;  and  continued  to  work,  with  a  mere 


change  of  names  and  forms,  during  the  first 
years  of  Washington's  administration,  and  until 
General  Hamilton's  bank  machinery  got  into 
play.  This  bill  only  proposes  to  re-establish, 
in  substance,  the  system  of  the  Revolution,  of 
the  Congress  of  the  confederation,  and  of  the 
first  years  of  Washington's  administration. 

The  bill  reported  by  the  chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Finance  [Mr.  Wright  of  New  York] 
presents  the  details  of  the  plan  for  accomplish- 
ing this  great  result.  That  bill  has  been  printed 
and  read.  Its  simplicity,  economy,  and  efficien- 
cy strike  the  sense  of  all  who  hear  it,  and  anni- 
hilate without  argument,  the  most  formidable 
arguments  of  expense  and  patronage,  which  had 
been  conceived  against  it.  The  present  officers, 
the  present  mints,  and  one  or  two  more  mints 
in  the  South,  in  the  West,  and  in  the  North, 
complete  the  plan.  There  will  be  no  necessity 
to  carry  masses  of  hard  money  from  one  quar- 
ter of  the  Union  to  another.  Government  drafts 
will  make  the  transfer  without  moving  a  dollar. 
A  government  draft  upon  a  national  mint,  will 
be  the  highest  order  of  bills  of  exchange.  Mo- 
ney wanted  by  the  government  in  one  place, 
will  be  exchanged,  through  merchants,  for  mo- 
ney in  another  place.  Thus  it  has  been  for 
thousands  of  years,  and  will  for  ever  be.  We 
read  in  Cicero's  letters  that,  when  he  was  Gov- 
ernor of  Cilicia,  in  Asia  Minor,  he  directed  his 
qucestor  to  deposit  the  tribute  of  the  province  in 
Antioch,  and  exchange  it  for  money  in  Rome 
with  merchants  engaged  in  the  Oriental  trade, 
of  which  Antioch  was  one  of  the  emporiums. 
This  is  the  natural  course  of  things,  and  is  too 
obvious  to  require  explanation,  or  to  admit  of 
comment. 

We  are  taunted  with  these  treasury  notes  ;  it 
seems  to  be  matter  of  triumph  that  the  govern- 
ment is  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  issuing  them ; 
but  with  what  justice  ?  And  how  soon  can  any 
government  that  wishes  it,  emerge  from  the 
wretchedness  of  depreciated  paper,  and  stand 
erect  on  the  solid  foundations  of  gold  and  sil- 
ver? How  long  will  it  take  any  respectable 
government,  that  so  wills  it,  to  accomplish  this 
great  change  1  Our  own  history,  at  the  close 
of  the  Revolution,  answers  the  question ;  and 
more  recently,  and  more  strikingly,  the  history 
of  France  answers  it  also.  I  speak  of  the 
French  finances  from  1800  to  1807 ;  from  the 
commencement  of  the  consulate  to  the  peace  of 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


63 


Tilsit.  This  wonderful  period  is  replete  with 
instruction  on  the  subject  of  finance  and  curren- 
cy. The  whole  period  is  full  of  instruction ; 
but  I  can  only  seize  two  views — the  beginning 
and  the  end — and,  for  the  sake  of  precision,  will 
read  what  I  propose  to  present.  I  read  from 
Bignon,  author  of  the  civil  and  diplomatic  his- 
tory of  France  during  the  consulate  and  the  first 
years  of  the  empire ;  written  at  the  testamen- 
tary request  of  the  Emperor  himself. 

After  stating  that  the  expenditures  of  the  re- 
public were  six  hundred  millions  of  francs — 
about  one  hundred  and  ten  millions  of  dollars — 
when  Bonaparte  became  First  Consul,  the  histo- 
rian proceeds : 

"At  his  arrival  at  power,  a  sum  of  160,000 
francs  in  money  [about  $32,000]  was  all  that 
the  public  chests  contained.  In  the  impossibili- 
ty of  meeting  the  current  service  by  the  ordina- 
ry receipts,  the  Directorial  Government  had  re- 
sorted to  ruinous  expedients,  and  had  thrown 
into  circulation  bills  of  various  values,  and 
which  sunk  upon  the  spot  fifty  to  eighty  per 
cent.  A  part  of  the  arrearages  had  been  dis- 
charged in  bills  two-thirds  on  credit,  payable  to 
the  bearer,  but  which,  in  fact,  the  treasury  was 
not  able  to  pay  when  due.  The  remaining 
third  had  been  inscribed  in  the  great  boolc,  un- 
der the  name  of  consolidated  third.  For  the 
payment  of  the  forced  requisitions  to  which 
they  had  been  obliged  to  have  recourse,  there 
had  been  issued  bills  receivable  in  payment  of 
the  revenues.  Finally,  the  government,  in  order 
to  satisfy  the  most  imperious  wants,  gave  orders 
upon  the  receivers  general,  delivered  in  advance 
to  contractors,  which  they  negotiated  before 
they  began  to  furnish  the  supplies  for  which 
they  were  the  payment" 

This,  resumed  Mr.  B.,  was  the  condition  of 
the  French  finances  when  Bonaparte  became 
First  Consul  at  the  close  of  the  year  1799.  The 
currency  was  in  the  same  condition — no  spe- 
cie— a  degraded  currency  of  assignats,  ruinous- 
ly depreciated,  and  issued  as  low  as  ten  sous. 
That  great  man  immediately  began  to  restore 
order  to  the  finances,  and  solidity  to  the  curren- 
cy. Happily  a  peace  of  three  years  enabled  him 
to  complete  the  great  work,  before  he  was  called 
to  celebrate  the  immortal  campaigns  ending  at 
Austerlitz,  Jena,  and  Friedland.  At  the  end 
of  three  years — before  the  rupture  of  the  peace 
of  Amiens — the  finances  and  the  currency  were 
restored  to  order  and  to  solidity  j  and,  at  the 
end  of  six  years,  when  the  vast  establishments, 
and  the  internal  ameliorations  of  the  imperial 


government,  had  carried  the  annual  expenses  to 
eight  hundred  millions  of  francs,  about  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  millions  of  dollars  ;  the  same 
historian  copying  the  words  of  the  Minister  of 
Finance,  thus  speaks  of  the  treasury,  and  the 
currency : 

"  The  resources  of  the  State  hate  increased 
beyond  its  wants;  the  public  chests  are  full ; 
all  payments  are  made  at  the  day  named  ;  the 
orders  upon  the  public  treasury  have  become  the 
most  approved  bills  of  exchange.  The  finances 
are  in  the  most  happy  condition  ;  France  alone, 
among  all  the  States  of  Europe,  has  no  paper 
money." 

What  a  picture  !  how  simply,  how  powerful- 
ly drawn !  and  what  a  change  in  six  years  ! 
Public  chests  full — payments  made  to  the  day — 
orders  on  the  treasury  the  best  bills  of  exchange 
— France  alone,  of  all  Europe,  having  no  paper 
money ;  meaning  no  government  paper  money, 
for  there  were  bank  notes  of  five  hundred  francs, 
and  one  thousand  francs.  A  government  reve- 
nue of  one  hundred  and  sixty  millions  of  dollars 
was  paid  in  gold  and  silver  ;  a  hard  money  cur- 
rency, of  five  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dol- 
lars, saturated  all  parts  of  France  with  specie, 
and  made  gold  and  silver  the  every  day  curren- 
cy of  every  man,  woman  and  child,  in  the  em- 
pire. These  great  results  were  the  work  of  six 
years,  and  were  accomplished  by  the  simple  pro- 
cess of  gradually  requiring  hard  money  pay- 
ments— gradually  calling  in  the  assignats — in- 
creasing the  branch  mints  to  fourteen,  and  lim- 
iting the  Bank  of  France  to  an  issue  of  large 
notes — five  hundred  francs  and  upwards.  This 
simple  process  produced  these  results,  and  thus 
stands  the  French  currency  at  this  day  ;  for  the 
nation  has  had  the  wisdom  to  leave  untouched 
the  financial  system  of  Bonaparte. 

I  have  repeatedly  given  it  as  my  opinion — 
many  of  my  speeches  declare  it — that  the 
French  currency  is  the  best  in  the  world.  It 
has  hard  money  for  the  government ;  hard  mo- 
ney for  the  common  dealings  of  the  people  j  and 
large  notes  for  large  transactions.  This  curren- 
cy has  enabled  France  to  stand  two  invasions, 
the  ravaging  of  300,000  men,  two  changes  of  dy- 
nasty, and  the  payment  of  a  milliard  of  contri- 
butions j  and  all  without  any  commotion  or  re- 
vulsion in  trade.  It  has  saved  her  from  the 
revulsions  which  have  afflicted  England  and  our 
America  for  so  many  years.    It  has  saved  her 


64 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW 


from  expansions,  contractions,  and  ruinous  fluc- 
tuations of  price.  It  has  saved  her,  for  near 
forty  years,  from  a  debate  on  currency.  It  has 
saved  her  even  from  the  knowledge  of  our  sweet- 
scented  phrases:  "sound  currency — unsound 
currency ;  plethoric,  dropsical,  inflated,  bloated ; 
the  money  market  tight  to-day — a  little  easier 
this  morning ; "  and  all  such  verbiage,  which 
the  haberdashers'  boys  repeat.  It  has  saved 
France  from  even  a  discussion  on  currency; 
while  in  England,  and  with  us,  it  is  banks  ! 
banks!  banks! — morning,  noon,  and  night; 
breakfast,  dinner,  and  supper ;  levant,  and  cou- 
chant ;  sitting,  or  standing ;  at  home,  or  abroad ; 
steamboat,  or  railroad  car  ;  in  Congress,  or  out 
of  Congress,  it  is  all  the  same  thing :  banks — 
banks — banks  ;  currency — currency — curren- 
cy; meaning,  all  the  while,  paper  money  and 
shin-plasters ;  until  our  very  brains  seem  as 
if  they  would  be  converted  into  lampblack  and 
rags. 

The  bill  before  the  Senate  dispenses  with  the 
further  use  of  banks  as  depositories  of  the  pub- 
lic moneys.  In  that  it  has  my  hearty  concur- 
rence. Four  times  heretofore,  and  on  four  dif- 
ferent occasions,  I  have  made  propositions  to 
accomplish  a  part  of  the  same  purpose.  First, 
in  proposing  an  amendment  to  the  deposit  bill 
of  1836,  by  which  the  mint,  and  the  branch 
mints,  were  to  be  included  in  the  list  of  deposi- 
tories ;  secondly,  in  proposing  that  the  public 
moneys  here,  at  the  seat  of  Government,  should 
be  kept  and  paid  out  by  the  Treasurer  ;  thirdly, 
by  proposing  that  a  preference,  in  receiving  the 
deposits,  should  be  given  to  such  banks  as  should 
cease  to  be  banks  of  circulation  ;  fourthly,  in  op- 
posing the  establishment  of  a  bank  agency  in 
Missouri,  and  proposing  that  the  moneys  there 
should  be  drawn  direct  from  the  hands  of  the 
receivers.  Three  of  these  propositions  are  now 
included  in  the  bill  before  the  Senate ;  and  the 
whole  object  at  which  they  partially  aimed  is 
fully  embraced.  I  am  for  the  measure — fully, 
cordially,  earnestly  for  it. 

Congress  has  a  sacred  duty  to  perform  in  re- 
forming the  finances,  and  the  currency ;  for  the 
ruin  of  both  has  resulted  from  federal  legisla- 
tion, and  federal  administration.  The  States  at 
the  formation  of  the  constitution,  delivered  a 
solid  currency — I  will  not  say  sound,  for  that 
word  implies  subject  to  unsoundness,  to  rotten- 
ness, and  to  death — but  they  delivered  a  solid 


currency,  one  not  liable  to  disease,  to  this  fede- 
ral government.  They  started  the  new  govern- 
ment fair  upon  gold  and  silver.  The  first  act 
of  Congress  attested  this  great  fact ;  for  it  made 
the  revenues  payable  in  gold  and  silver  coin 
only.  Thus  the  States  delivered  a  solid  cur- 
rency to  this  government,  and  they  reserved 
the  same  currency  for  themselves ;  and  they 
provided  constitutional  sanctions  to  guard  both. 
The  thing  to  be  saved,  and  the  power  to  save  it, 
was  given  to  this  government  by  the  States ; 
and  in  the  hands  of  this  government  it  became 
deteriorated.  The  first  great  error  was  General 
Hamilton's  construction  of  the  act  of  1789,  by 
which  he  nullified  that  act,  and  overturned  the 
statute  and  the  constitution  together.  The 
next  great  error  was  the  establishment  of  a  na- 
tional bank  of  circulation,  with  authority  to  pay 
all  the  public  dues  in  its  own  paper.  This  con- 
firmed the  overthrow  of  the  constitution,  and 
of  the  statute  of  1789  ;  and  it  set  the  fatal  ex- 
ample to  the  States  to  make  banks,  and  to  re- 
ceive their  paper  for  public  dues,  as  the  United 
States  had  done.  This  was  the  origin  of  the 
evil — this  the  origin  of  the  overthrow  of  the 
solid  currency  which  the  States  had  delivered  to 
the  federal  government.  It  was  the  Hamilto- 
nian  policy  that  did  the  mischief;  and  the  state 
of  things  in  1837,  is  the  natural  fruit  of  that 
policy.  It  is  time  for  us  to  quit  it — to  return 
to  the  constitution  and  the  statute  of  1789,  and 
to  confine  the  federal  Treasury  to  the  hard  mo- 
ney which  was  intended  for  it. 

I  repeat,  this  is  a  measure  of  reform,  wor- 
thy to  be  called  a  reformation.  It  goes  back  to 
a  fundamental  abuse,  nearly  coeval  with  the 
foundation  of  the  government.  Two  epochs 
have  occurred  for  the  reformation  of  this  abuse ; 
one  was  lost,  the  other  is  now  in  jeopardy. 
Mr.  Madison's  administration  committed  a  great 
error  at  the  expiration  of  the  charter  of  the 
first  Bank  of  the  United  States,  in  not  reviving 
the  currency  of  the  constitution  for  the  federal 
Treasury,  and  especially  the  gold  currency. 
That  error  threw  the  Treasury  back  upon  the 
local  bank  paper.  This  paper  quickly  failed, 
and  out  of  that  failure  grew  the  second  United 
States  Bank.  Those  who  put  down  the  second 
United  States  Bank,  warned  by  the  calamity, 
determined  to  avoid  the  error  of  Mr.  Madison's 
administration  :  they  determined  to  increase 
the  stock  of  specie,  and  to  revive  the  gold  cir- 


ANNO  1837.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


65 


dilation,  which  had  been  dead  for  thirty  years. 
The  accumulation  of  eighty  millions  in  the  brief 
space  of  five  years,  fifteen  millions  of  it  in  gold, 
attest  the  sincerity  of  their  design,  and  the  fa- 
cility of  its  execution.  The  country  was  going 
on  at  the  rate  of  an  average  increase  of  twelve 
millions  of  specie  per  annum,  when  the  general 
stoppages  of  the  banks  in  May  last,  the  expor- 
tation of  specie,  and  the  imposition  of  irredeem- 
able paper  upon  the  government  and  the  peo- 
ple, seemed  to  announce  the  total  failure  of  the 
plan.  But  it  was  a  seeming  only.  The  impe- 
tus given  to  the  specie  policy  still  prevails,  and 
five  millions  are  added  to  the  stock  during  the 
present  fiscal  year.  So  far,  then,  as  the  coun- 
teraction of  the  government  policy,  and  the 
suppression  of  the  constitutional  currency,  might 
have  been  expected  to  result  from  that  stop- 
page, the  calculation  seems  to  be  in  a  fair  way 
to  be  disappointed.  The  spirit  of  the  people, 
and  our  hundred  millions  of  exportable  produce, 
are  giving  the  victory  to  the  glorious  policy  of 
our  late  illustrious  President.  The  other  great 
consequences  expected  to  result  from  that  stop- 
page, namely,  the  recharter  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  the  change  of  administration, 
the  overthrow  of  the  republican  party,  and  the 
restoration  of  the  federal  dynasty,  all  seem  to 
be  in  the  same  fair  way  to  total  miscarriage ; 
but  the  objects  are  too  dazzling  to  be  abandoned 
by  the  party  interested,  and  the  destruction  of 
the  finances  and  the  currency,  is  still  the  cher- 
ished road  to  success.  The  miscalled  Bank  of 
the  United  States,  the  soul  of  the  federal  dynas- 
ty, and  the  anchor  of  its  hopes — believed  by 
many  to  have  been  at  the  bottom  of  the  stop- 
pages in  May,  and  known  by  all  to  be  at  the 
head  of  non-resumption — now  displays  her  pol- 
icy on  this  floor ;  it  is  to  compel  the  repetition 
of  the  error  of  Mr.  Madison's  administration  ! 
Knowing  that  from  the  repetition  of  this  error 
must  come  the  repetition  of  the  catastrophes  of 
1814,  1819,  and  1837 ;  and  out  of  these  catas- 
trophes to  extract  a  new  clamor  for  the  revivi- 
fication of  herself.  This  is  her  line  of  conduct  j 
and  to  this  line,  the  conduct  of  all  her  friends 
conforms.  With  one  heart,  one  mind,  one 
voice,  they  labor  to  cut  off  gold  and  silver  from 
the  federal  government,  and  to  impose  paper 
upon  it !  they  labor  to  deprive  it  of  the  keeping 
of  its  own  revenues,  and  to  place  them  again 
where  they  have  been  so  often  lost !  This  is 
Vol.  II.— 5 


the  conduct  of  that  bank  and  its  friends.  Let 
us  imitate  their  zeal,  their  unanimity,  and  their 
perseverance.  THe  amendment  and  the  bill, 
now  before  the  Senate,  embodies  our  policy. 
Let  us  carry  them,  and  the  republic  is  safe. 

The  extra  session  had  been  called  to  relieve 
the  distress  of  the  federal  treasury,  and  had 
done  so  by  authorizing  an  issue  of  treasury 
notes.  That  object  being  accomplished,  and 
the  great  measures  for  the  divorce  of  Bank  and 
State,  and  for  the  sole  use  of  gold  and  silver  in 
federal  payments,  having  been  recommended, 
and  commenced,  the  session  adjourned. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

FIRST   REGULAR   SESSION  UNDER   MR.  VAN  BU- 
REN'S  ADMINISTRATION:  HIS  MESSAGE. 

A  brief  interval  of  two  months  only  inter- 
vened between  the  adjournment  of  the  called  ses- 
sion and  the  meeting  of  the  regular  one ;  and  the 
general  state  of  the  public  affairs,  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  being  essentially  the  same  at  both 
periods,  left  no  new  or  extraordinary  measures 
for  the  President  to  recommend.  With  foreign 
powers  we  were  on  good  terms,  the  settlement 
of  all  our  long-standing  complaints  under  Gen- 
eral Jackson's  administration  having  left  us 
free  from  the  foreign  controversies  which  gave 
trouble  ;  and  on  that  head  the  message  had  lit- 
tle but  what  was  agreeable  to  communicate. 
Its  topics  were  principally  confined  to  home 
affairs,  and  that  part  of  these  affairs  which  were 
connected  with  the  banks.  That  of  the  United 
States,  as  it  still  called  itself,  gave  a  new  spe- 
cies of  disregard  of  moral  and  legal  obligation, 
and  presented  a  new  mode  of  depraving  the 
currency  and  endangering  property  and  con- 
tracts, by  continuing  to  issue  and  to  use  the 
notes  of  the  expired  institution.  Its  currency 
was  still  that  of  the  defunct  bank.  It  used  the 
dead  notes  of  that  institution,  for  which,  of 
course,  neither  bank  was  liable.  They  were 
called  resurrection  notes ;  and  their  use,  besides 
the  injury  to  the  currency  and  danger  to  prop- 
erty, was  a  high  contempt  and  defiance  of  the 
authority  which  had  created  it ;  and  called  for 
the  attention  of  the  federal  government.    The 


66 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


President,  therefore,  thus  formally  brought  the 
procedure  to  the  notice  of  Congress  : 

"  It  was  my  hope  that  nothing  would  occur  to 
make  necessary,  on  this  occasion,  any  allusion 
to  the  late  national  bank.  There  are  circum- 
stances, however,  connected  with  the  present 
state  of  its  affairs  that  bear  so  directly  on  the 
character  of  the  government  and  the  welfare  of 
the  citizen,  that  I  should  not  feel  myself  excused 
in  neglecting  to  notice  them.  The  charter  which 
terminated  its  banking  privileges  on  the  4th 
of  March.  1836,  continued  its  corporate  powers 
two  years  more,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  closing 
its  affairs,  with  authority  '  to  use  the  corporate 
name,  style,  and  capacity,  for  the  purpose  of 
suits  for  a  final  settlement  and  liquidation  of  the 
affairs  and  acts  of  the  corporation,  and  for  the 
sale  and  disposition  of  their  estate,  real,  per- 
sonal and  mixed,  but  for  no  other  purpose  or  in 
any  other  manner  whatsoever.'  Just  before 
the  banking  privileges  ceased,  its  effects  were 
transferred  by  the  bank  to  a  new  State  institu- 
tion then  recently  incorporated,  in  trust,  for  the 
discharge  of  its  debts  and  the  settlement  of  its 
affairs.  With  this  trustee,  by  authority  of  Con- 
gress, an  adjustment  was  subsequently  made  of 
the  large  interest  which  the  government  had  in 
the  stock  of  the  institution.  The  manner  in 
which  a  trust  unexpectedly  created  upon  the 
act  granting  the  charter,  and  involving  such 
great  public  interests,  has  been  executed,  would, 
under  any  circumstances,  be  a  fit  subject  of  in- 
quiry ;  but  much  more  does  it  deserve  your  at- 
tention, when  it  embraces  the  redemption  of 
obligations  to  which  the  authority  and  credit  of 
the  United  States  have  given  value.  The  two 
years  allowed  are  now  nearly  at  an  end.  It  is 
well  understood  that  the  trustee  has  not  re- 
deemed and  cancelled  the  outstanding  notes  of 
the  bank,  but  has  reissued,  and  is  actually  re- 
issuing, since  the  3d  of  March,  1836,  the  notes 
which  have  been  received  by  it  to  a  vast  amount. 
According  to  its  own  official  statement,  so  late 
as  the  1st  of  October  last,  nineteen  months 
after  the  banking  privileges  given  by  the  charter 
had  expired,  it  had  under  its  control  uncancelled 
notes  of  the  late  Bank  of  the  United  States  to 
the  amount  of  twenty-seven  millions  five  hun- 
dred and  sixty-one  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
sixty-six  dollars,  of  which  six  millions  one 
hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand  eight  hun- 
dred and  sixty-one  dollars  were  in  actual  circu- 
lation, one  million  four  hundred  and  sixty-eight 
thousand  six  hundred  and  twenty-seven  dollars 
at  State  bank  agencies,  and  three  millions  two 
thousand  three  hundred  and  ninety  dollars  in 
transitu;  thus  showing  that  upwards  of  ten 
millions  and  a  half  of  the  notes  of  the  old  bank 
were  then  still  kept  outstanding.  The  impro- 
priety of  this  procedure  is  obvious :  it  being  the 
duty  of  the  trustee  to  cancel  and  not  to  put 
forth  the  notes  of  an  institution,  whose  concerns 
it  had  undertaken  to  wind  up.    If  the  trustee 


has  a  right  to  reissue  these  notes  now,  I  can  see 
no  reason  why  it  may  not  continue  to  do  so  after 
the  expiration  of  the  two  years.  As  no  one 
could  have  anticipated  a  course  so  extraordinary, 
the  prohibitory  clause  of  the  charter  above 
quoted  was  not  accompanied  by  any  penalty  or 
other  special  provision  for  enforcing  it;  nor 
have  we  any  general  law  for  the  prevention  of 
similar  acts  in  future. 

"  But  it  is  not  in  this  view  of  the  subject  alone 
that  your  interposition  is  required.  The  United 
States,  in  settling  with  the  trustee  for  their 
stock,  have  withdrawn  their  funds  from  their 
former  direct  ability  to  the  creditors  of  the  old 
bank,  yet  notes  of  the  institution  continue  to  be 
sent  forth  in  its  name,  and  apparently  upon  the 
authority  of  the  United  States.  The  transac- 
tions connected  with  the  employment  of  the 
bills  of  the  old  bank  are  of  vast  extent ;  and 
should  they  result  unfortunately,  the  interests 
of  individuals  may  be  deeply  compromised. 
Without  undertaking  to  decide  how  far,  or  in 
what  form,  if  any,  the  trustee  could  be  made 
liable  for  notes  which  contain  no  obligation  on 
its  part ;  or  the  old  bank,  for  such  as  are  put 
in  circulation  after  the  expiration  of  its  char- 
ter, and  without  its  authority ;  or  the  govern- 
ment for  indemnity,  in  case  of  loss,  the  question 
still  presses  itself  upon  your  consideration, 
whether  it  is  consistent  with  duty  and  good 
faith  on  the  part  of  the  government,  to  witness 
this  proceeding  without  a  single  effort  to  arrest 
it." 

On  the  subject  of  the  public  lands,  and  the 
most  judicious  mode  of  disposing  of  them — a 
question  of  so  much  interest  to  the  new  States 
— the  message  took  the  view  of  those  who 
looked  to  the  domain  less  as  a  source  of  revenue 
than  as  a  means  of  settling  and  improving  the 
country.  He  recommended  graduated  prices 
according  to  the  value  of  the  different  classes  of 
lands  in  order  to  facilitate  their  sale;  and  a 
prospective  permanent  pre-emption  act  to  give 
encouragement  to  settlers.  On  the  first  of 
these  points  he  said  : 

"  Hitherto,  after  being  offered  at  public  sale, 
lands  have  been  disposed  of  at  one  uniform 
price,  whatever  difference  there  might  be  in 
their  intrinsic  value.  The  leading  considera- 
tions urged  in  favor  of  the  measure  referred  to, 
are,  that  in  almost  all  the  land  districts,  and  par- 
ticularly in  those  in  which  the  lands  have  been 
long  surveyed  and  exposed  to  sale,  there  are 
still  remaining  numerous  and  large  tracts  of 
every  gradation  of  value,  from  the  government 
price  downwards ;  that  these  lands  will  not  be 
purchased  at  the  government  price,  so  long  as 
better  can  be  conveniently  obtained  for  the  same 
amount ;  that  there  are  large  tracts  which  even 
the  improvements  of  the  adjacent  lands  will 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


67 


never  raise  to  that  price ;  and  that  the  present 
uniform  price,  combined  with  their  irregular 
value,  operates  to  prevent  a  desirable  compact- 
ness of  settlement  in  the  new  States,  and  to  re- 
tard the  full  development  of  that  wise  policy  on 
which  our  land  system  is  founded,  to  the  injury 
not  only  of  the  several  States  where  the  lands 
lie,  but  of  the  United  States  as  a  whole. 

"  The  remedy  proposed  has  been  a  reduction  of 
prices  according  to  the  length  of  time  the  lands 
have  been  in  market,  without  reference  to  any 
other  circumstances.  The  certainty  that  the 
efflux  of  time  would  not  always  in  such  cases, 
and  perhaps  not  even  generally,  furnish  a  true 
oriterion  of  value ;  and  the  probability  that  per- 
sons residing  in  the  vicinity,  as  the  period  for 
the  reduction  of  prices  approached,  would  post- 
pone purchases  they  would  otherwise  make,  for 
the  purpose  of  availing  themselves  of  the  lower 
price,  with  other  considerations  of  a  similar 
character,  have  hitherto  been  successfully  urged 
to  defeat  the  graduation  upon  time.  May  not 
all  reasonable  desires  upon  this  subject  be  satis- 
fied without  encountering  any  of  these  objec- 
tions ?  All  will  concede  the  abstract  principle, 
that  the  price  of  the  public  lands  should  be  pro- 
portioned to  their  relative  value,  so  far  as  that 
can  be  accomplished  without  departing  from  the 
rule,  heretofore  observed,  requiring  fixed  prices 
in  cases  of  private  entries.  The  difficulty  of  the 
subject  seems  to  lie  in  the  mode  of  ascertaining 
what  that  value  is.  Would  not  the  safest  plan 
be  that  which  has  been  adopted  by  many  of  the 
States  as  the  basis  of  taxation ;  an  actual  valua- 
tion of  lands,  and  classification  of  them  into  dif- 
ferent rates  ?  Would  it  not  be  practicable  and 
expedient  to  cause  the  relative  value  of  the  pub- 
lic lands  in  the  old  districts,  which  have  been 
for  a  certain  length  of  time  in  market,  to  be  ap- 
praised, and  classed  into  two  or  more  rates  be- 
low the  present  minimum  price,  by  the  officers 
now  employed  in  this  branch  of  the  public  ser- 
vice, or  in  any  other  mode  deemed  preferable, 
and  to  make  those  prices  permanent,  if  upon  the 
coming  in  of  the  report  they  shall  prove  satis- 
factory to  Congress?  Cannot  all  the  objects 
of  graduation  be  accomplished  in  this  way,  and 
the  objections  which  have  hitherto  been  urged 
against  it  avoided  ?  It  would  seem  to  me  that 
such  a  step,  with  a  restriction  of  the  sales  to 
limited  quantities,  and  for  actual  improvement, 
would  be  free  from  all  just  exception." 

A  permanent  prospective  pre-emption  law  was 
cogently  recommended  as  a  measure  just  in  it- 
self to  the  settlers,  and  not  injurious  to  the  pub- 
lic Treasury,  as  experience  had  shown  that  the 
auction  system — that  of  selling  to  the  highest 
bidder  above  the  prescribed  minimum  price — 
had  produced  in  its  aggregate  but  a  few  cents 
on  the  acre  above  the  minimum  price.  On  this 
point  he  said : 


"  A  large  portion  of  our  citizens  have  seated 
themselves  on  the  public  lands,  without  authori- 
ty, since  the  passage  of  the  last  pre-emption  law, 
and  now  ask  the  enactment  of  another,  to  ena- 
ble them  to  retain  the  lands  occupied,  upon  pay- 
ment of  the  minimum  government  price.  They 
ask  that  which  has  been  repeatedly  granted  be- 
fore. If  the  future  may  be  judged  of  by  the  past, 
little  harm  can  be  done  to  the  interests  of  the 
Treasury  by  yielding  to  their  request.  Upon 
a  critical  examination,  it  is  found  that  the  lands 
sold  at  the  public  sales  since  the  introduction 
of  cash  payments  in  1820,  have  produced,  on  an 
average,  the  net  revenue  of  only  six  cents  an 
acre  more  than  the  minimum  government  price. 
There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  future  sales 
will  be  more  productive.  The  government, 
therefore,  has  no  adequate  pecuniary  interest  to 
induce  it  to  drive  these  people  from  the  lands 
they  occupy,  for  the  purpose  of  selling  them  to 
others." 

This  wise  recommendation  has  since  been 
carried  into  effect,  and  pre-emptive  rights  are 
now  admitted  in  all  cases  where  settlements  are 
made  upon  lands  to  which  the  Indian  title  shall 
have  been  extinguished  ;  and  the  graduation  of 
the  price  of  the  public  lands,  though  a  measure 
long  delayed,  yet  prevailed  in  the  end,  and  was 
made  as  originally  proposed,  by  reductions  ac- 
cording to  the  length  of  time  the  land  had  been 
offered  at  sale.  Beginning  at  the  minimum  price 
of  $1  25  per  acre,  the  reduction  of  price  went 
down  through  a  descending  scale,  according  to 
time,  as  low  as  12£  cents  per  acre.  But  this 
was  long  after. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

PENNSYLVANIA  BANK  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES . 
ITS  USE  OF  THE  DEFUNCT  NOTES  OF  THE  EX- 
PIRED INSTITUTION. 

History  gives  many  instances  of  armies  re- 
fusing to  be  disbanded,  and  remaining  in  arms 
in  defiance  of  the  authority  which  created  them ; 
but  the  example  of  this  bank  presents,  probably, 
the  first  instance  in  which  a  great  moneyed  cor- 
poration refused  to  be  dissolved— refused  to 
cease  its  operations  after  its  legal  existence  had 
expired  ; — and  continued  its  corporate  transac- 
tions as  if  in  full  life.  It  has  already  been  shown 
that  its  proviso  charter,  at  the  end  of  a  local 
railroad  act,  made  no  difference  in  its  condition — 


68 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


that  it  went  on  exactly  as  before.  Its  use  of 
the  defunct  notes  of  the  expired  institution  was 
a  further  instance  of  this  conduct,  transcending 
any  thing  conceived  of,  and  presenting  a  case  of 
danger  to  the  public,  and  defiance  of  government, 
which  the  President  had  deemed  it  his  duty  to 
bring  to  the  attention  of  Congress,  and  ask  a 
remedy  for  a  proceeding  so  criminal.  Congress 
acted  on  the  recommendation,  and  a  bill  was 
brought  in  to  make  the  repetition  of  the  of- 
fence a  high  misdemeanor,  and  the  officers  and 
managers  of  the  institution  personally  and  in- 
dividually liable  for  its  commission.  In  sup- 
port of  this  bill,  Mr.  Buchanan  gave  the  fullest 
and  clearest  account  of  this  almost  incredible 
misconduct.     He  said  : 

"  The  charter  of  the  late  Bank  of  the  United 
States  expired,  by  its  own  limitation,  on  the  3d 
of  March,  1836.  After  that  day,  it  could  issue 
no  notes,  discount  no  new  paper,  and  exercise 
none  of  the  usual  functions  of  a  bank.  For 
two  years  thereafter,  until  the  3d  of  March, 
1838,  it  was  merely  permitted  to  use  its  corpo- 
rate name  and  capacity  'for  the  purpose  of 
suits  for  the  final  settlement  and  liquidation  of 
the  affairs  and  accounts  of  the  corporation,  and 
for  the  sale  and  disposition  of  their  estate,  real, 
personal,  and  mixed ;   but  not  for  any  other 

gurpose,  or  in  any  other  manner,  whatsoever.' 
ongress  had  granted  the  bank  no  power  to 
make  a  voluntary  assignment  of  its  property 
to  any  corporation  or  any  individual.  On  the 
contrary,  the  plain  meaning  of  the  charter  was, 
that  all  the  affairs  of  the  institution  should  be 
wound  up  by  its  own  president  and  directors. 
It  received  no  authority  to  delegate  this  impor- 
tant trust  to  others,  and  yet  what  has  it  done  ? 
On  the  second  day  of  March,  1836,  one  day  be- 
fore the  charter  had  expired,  this  very  president 
and  these  directors  assigned  all  the  property 
and  effects  of  the  old  corporation  to  the  Penn- 
sylvania Bank  of  the  United  States.  On  the 
same  day,  this  latter  bank  accepted  the  assign- 
ment, and  agreed  to  'pay,  satisfy,  and  discharge 
all  debts,  contracts,  and  engagements,  owing, 
entered  into,  or  made  by  this  [the  old]  bank, 
as  the  same  shall  become  due  and  payable,  and 
fulfil  and  execute  all  trusts  and  obligations 
whatsoever  arising  from  its  transactions,  or 
from  any  of  them,  so  that  every  creditor  or 
rightful  claimant  shall  be  fully  satisfied.'  By 
its  own  agreement,  it  has  thus  expressly  cre- 
ated itself  a  trustee  of  the  old  bank.  But  this 
was  not  necessary  to  confer  upon  it  that  char- 
acter. By  the  bare  act  of  accepting  the  assign- 
ment, it  became  responsible,  under  the  laws  of 
the  land,  for  the  performance  of  all  the  duties 
and  trusts  required  by  the  old  charter.  Under 
the  circumstances,  it  cannot  make  the  slightest 
pretence  of  any  want  of  notice. 


"Having  assumed  this  responsibility,  the 
duty  of  the  new  bank  was  so  plain  that  it 
could  not  have  been  mistaken.  It  had  a  double 
character  to  sustain.  Under  the  charter  from 
Pennsylvania,  it  became  a  new  banking  corpo- 
ration ;  whilst,  under  the  assignment  from  the 
old  bank,  it  became  a  trustee  to  wind  up  the 
concerns  of  that  institution  under  the  Act  of 
Congress.  These  two  characters  were  in  their 
nature  separate  and  distinct,  and  never  ought 
to  have  been  blended.  For  each  of  these  pur- 
poses it  ought  to  have  kept  a  separate  set  of 
books.  Above  all,  as  the  privilege  of  circulating 
bank  notes,  and  thus  creating  a  paper  currency, 
is  that  function  of  a  bank  which  most  deeply 
and  vitally  affects  the  community,  the  new  bank 
ought  to  have  cancelled  or  destroyed  all  the 
notes  of  the  old  bank  which  it  found  in  its  pos- 
session on  the  4th  of  March,  1836,  and  ought 
to  have  redeemed  the  remainder  at  its  counter, 
as  they  were  demanded  by  the  holders,  and 
then  destroyed  them.  This  obligation  no  sen- 
ator has  attempted  to  doubt,  or  to  deny.  But 
what  was  the  course  of  the  bank?  It  has 
grossly  violated  both  the  old  and  the  new  char- 
ter* It  at  once  declared  independence  of  both, 
and  appropriated  to  itself  all  the  notes  of  the 
old  bank, — not  only  those  which  were  then 
still  in  circulation,  but  those  which  had  been 
redeemed  before  it  accepted  the  assignment, 
and  were  then  lying  dead  in  its  vaults.  I  have 
now  before  me  the  first  monthly  statement 
which  was  ever  made  by  the  Bank  to  the  Au- 
ditor-general of  Pennsylvania.  It  is  dated  on 
the  2d  of  April,  1836,  and  signed  J.  Cowper- 
thwaite,  acting  cashier.  In  this  statement,  the 
Bank  charges  itself  with  'notes  issued,' 
.$36,620,420  16;  whilst,  in  its  cash  account, 
along  with  its  specie  and  the  notes  of  State 
banks,  it  credits  itself  with  '  notes  of  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  and  offices,'  on  hand, 
$16,794,713  71.  It  thus  seized  these  dead 
notes  to  the  amount  of  $16,794,713  71,  and 
transformed  them  into  cash ;  whilst  the  differ- 
ence between  those  on  hand  and  those  issued, 
equal  to  $19,825,706  45,  was  the  circulation 
which  the  new  bank  boasted  it  had  inherited 
from  the  old.  It  thus,  in  an  instant,  appropri- 
ated to  itself,  and  adopted  as  its  own  circula- 
tion, all  the  notes  and  all  the  illegal  branch 
drafts  of  the  old  bank  which  were  then  in  exist- 
ence. Its  boldness  was  equal  to  its  utter  dis- 
regard of  law.  In  this  first  return,  it  not  only 
proclaimed  to  the  Legislature  and  people  of 
Pennsylvania  that  it  had  disregarded  its  trust 
as  assignee  of  the  old  Bank,  by  seizing  upon 
the  whole  of  the  old  circulation  and  converting 
it  to  its  own  use,  but  that  it  had  violated  one 
of  the  fundamental  provisions  of  its  new  char- 
ter." 

Mr.  Calhoun  spoke  chiefly  to  the  question  of 
the  right  of  Congress  to  pass  a  bill  of  the  tenor 
proposed.    Several  senators  denied  that  right : 


ANNO  1838.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


69 


others  supported  it — among  them  Mr.  Wright, 
Mr.  Grundy,  Mr.  "William  H.  Roane,  Mr.  John 
M.  Niles,  Mr.  Clay,  of  Alabama,  and  Mr.  Cal- 
houn. Some  passages  from  the  speech  of  the 
latter  are  here  given. 

"  He  [Mr.  Calhoun]  held  that  the  right  pro- 
posed to  be  exercised  in  this  case  rested  on  the 
general  power  of  legislation  conferred  on  Con- 
gress, which  embraces  not  only  the  power  of 
making,  but  that  of  repealing  laws.     It  was,  in 
fact,  a  portion  of  the  repealing  power.     No  one 
could  doubt  the  existence  of  the  right  to  do 
either,  and  that  the  right  of  repealing  extends 
as  well   to  unconstitutional   as   constitutional 
laws.     The  case  as  to  the  former  was,  in  fact, 
stronger  than  the  latter ;  for,  whether  a  consti- 
tutional law  should  be  repealed  or  not,  was  a 
question  of  expediency,  which  left  us  free  to  act 
according  to  our  discretion ;  while,  in  the  case 
of  an  unconstitutional  law,  it  was  a  matter  of 
obligation  and  duty,  leaving  no  option ;  and  the 
more  unconstitutional,  the  more  imperious  the 
obligation  and  duty.     Thus  far,  there  could  be 
no  doubt  nor  diversity  of  opinion.     But  there 
are  many  laws,  the  effects  of  which  do  not  cease 
with  their  repeal  or  expiration,  and  which  re- 
quire some  additional  act  on  our  part  to  arrest 
or  undo  them.     Such,  for  instance,  is  the  one  in 
question.     The  charter  of  the  late  bank  expired 
some  time  agp,  but  its  notes  are  still  in  exist- 
ence, freely  circulating  from  hand  to  hand,  and 
reissued  and  banked  on  by  a  bank  chartered  by 
the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  into  whose  posses- 
sion the  notes  of  the  old  bank  have  passed.     In 
a  word,  our  name  and  authority  are  used  almost 
as  freely  for  banking  purposes  as  they  were 
before  the  expiration  of  the  charter  of  the  late 
bank.     Now,  he  held  that  the  right  of  arresting 
or  undoing  these  after-effects  rested  on  the 
same  principle  as  the  right  of  repealing  a  law, 
and,  like  that,   embraces  unconstitutional    as 
well  as  constitutional  acts,  superadding,  in  the 
case  of  the  former,  obligation  and  duty  to  right. 
We  have  an  illustration  of  the  truth  of  this 
principle  in  the  case  of  the  alien  and  sedition 
acts,  which  are  now  conceded  on  all  sides  to 
have  been  unconstitutional.    Like  the  act  incor- 
porating the  late  bank,  they  expired  by  their 
own  limitation ;  and,  like  it,  also,  their  effects 
continued  after  the  period  of  their  expiration. 
Individuals  had  been  tried,  convicted,  fined,  and 
imprisoned  under  them ;  but,  so  far  was  their 
unconstitutionality  from  being  regarded  as  an 
impediment  to  the  right  of  arresting  or  undoing 
these  effects,  that  Mr.  Jefferson  felt  himself 
compelled  on  that  very  account  to  pardon  those 
who  had  been  fined  and  convicted  under  their 
provisions,  and  we  have  at  this  session  passed, 
on  the  same  ground,  an  act  to  refund  the  money 
paid  by  one  of  the  sufferers  under  them.     The 
bill  is  limited  to  those  only  who  are  the  trus- 
tees, or  agents  for  winding  up  the  concerns  of 
the  late  bank,  and  it  is  those,  and  those  only, 


who  are  subject  to  the  penalties  of  the  bill  for 
reissuing  its  notes.  They  are,  pro  tanto,  our 
officers,  and,  to  that  extent,  subject  to  our  juris- 
diction, and  liable  to  have  their  acts  controlled, 
as  far  as  they  relate  to  the  trust  or  agency  con- 
fided to  them ;  just  as  much  so  as  receivers  or 
collectors  of  the  revenue  would  be.  No  one 
can  doubt  that  we  could  prohibit  them  from 
passing  off  any  description  of  paper  currency 
that  might  come  into  their  hands  in  their  offi- 
cial character.  Nor  is  the  right  less  clear  in 
reference  to  the  persons  who  may  be  compre- 
hended in  this  bill.  Whether  Mr.  Biddle  or 
others  connected  with  this  bank  are,  in  fact, 
trustees,  or  agents,  within  the  meaning  of  the 
bill,  is  not  a  question  for  us  to  decide.  They 
are  not  named,  nor  referred  to  by  description. 
The  bill  is  very  properly  drawn  up  in  general 
terms,  so  as  to  comprehend  all  cases  of  the 
kind,  and  would  include  the  banks  of  the  Dis- 
trict, should  Congress  refuse  to  re-charter 
them.  It  is  left  to  the  court  and  jury,  to 
whom  it  properly  belongs,  to  decide,  when  a  case 
comes  up,  whether  the  party  is,  or  is  not,  a 
trustee,  or  agent;  and,  of  course,  whether  he 
is,  or  is  not,  included  in  the  provisions  of  the 
bill.  If  he  is,  he  will  be  subject  to  its  penal- 
ties, but  not  otherwise  ;  and  it  cannot  possibly 
affect  the  question  of  the  constitutionality  of 
the  bill,  whether  Mr.  Biddle,  and  others  con- 
nected with  him,  are,  or  are  not,  comprehended 
in  its  provisions,  and  subject  to  its  penalties." 

The  bill  was  severe  in  its  enactments,  pre- 
scribing both  fine  and  imprisonment  for  the  re- 
petition of  the  offence — the  fine  not  to  exceed 
ten  thousand  dollars—the  imprisonment  not  to 
be  less  than  one  nor  more  than  five  years.  It 
also  gave  a  preventive  remedy  in  authorizing  in- 
junctions from  the  federal  courts  to  prevent  the 
circulation  of  such  defunct  notes,  and  proceed- 
ings in  chancery  to  compel  their  surrender  for 
cancellation.  And  to  this  "complexion"  had 
the  arrogant  institution  come  which  so  lately 
held  itself  to  be  a  power,  and  a  great  one,  in  the 
government — now  borne  on  the  statute  book  as 
criminally  liable  for  a  high  misdemeanor,  and 
giving  its  name  to  a  new  species  of  offence  in 
the  criminal  catalogue — exhumer  and  resurrec- 
tionist of  defunct  notes.  And  thus  ended  the 
last  question  between  the  federal  government 
and  this,  once  so  powerful  moneyed  corpora- 
tion ;  and  certainly  any  one  who  reads  the  his- 
tory of  that  bank  as  faithfully  shown  in  our 
parliamentary  history,  and  briefly  exhibited  in 
this  historic  View,  can  ever  wish  to  see  another 
national  bank  established  in  our  country,  or 
any  future  connection  of  any  kind  between  the 
government  and  the  banks.     The  last  struggle 


70 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


between  it  and  the  government  was  now  over 
— just  seven  years  since  that  struggle  began: 
but  its  further  conduct  will  extort  a  further 
notice  from  history. 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

FLOEIDA  INDIAN  WAR  :  ITS  ORIGIN    AND  CON- 
DUCT. 

This  was  one  of  the  most  troublesome,  expen- 
sive and  unmanageable  Indian  wars  in  which 
the  United  States  had  been  engaged ;  and  from 
the  length  of  time  which  it  continued,  the 
amount  of  money  it  cost,  and  the  difficulty  of 
obtaining  results,  it  became  a  convenient  handle 
of  attack  upon  the  administration  ;  and  in  which 
party  spirit,  in  pursuit  of  its  object,  went  the 
length  of  injuring  both  individual  and  national 
character.  It  contiuued  about  seven  years — as 
long  as  the  revolutionary  war — cost  some  thirty 
millions  of  money — and  baffled  the  exertions  of 
several  generals ;  recommenced  when  supposed 
to  be  finished ;  and  was  only  finally  terminated 
by  changing  military  campaigns  into  an  armed 
occupation  by  settlers.  All  the  opposition 
presses  and  orators  took  hold  of  it,  and  made 
its  misfortunes  the  common  theme  of  invective 
and  declamation.  Its  origin  was  charged  to  the 
oppressive  conduct  of  the  administration — its 
protracted  length  to  their  imbecility — its  cost 
to  their  extravagance — its  defeats  to  the  want 
of  foresight  and  care.  The  Indians  stood  for  an 
innocent  and  persecuted  people.  Heroes  and 
patriots  were  made  of  their  chiefs.  Our  gene- 
rals and  troops  were  decried;  applause  was 
lavished  upon  a  handful  of  savages  who  could 
thus  defend  their  country;  and  corresponding 
censure  upon  successive  armies  which  could  not 
conquer  them.  All  this  going  incessantly  into 
the  Congress  debates  and  the  party  newspapers, 
was  injuring  the  administration  at  home,  and 
the  country  abroad ;  and,  by  dint  of  iteration 
and  reiteration,  stood  a  good  chance  to  become 
history,  and  to  be  handed  down  to  posterity. 
At  the  same  time  the  war  was  one  of  flagrant 
and  cruel  aggression  on  the  part  of  these  Indians. 
Their  removal  to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi 
was  part  of  the  plan  for  the  general  removal  of 
all  the  Indians,  and  every  preparation  was  com- 


plete for  their  departure  by  their  own  agree- 
ment, when  it  was  interrupted  by  a  horrible 
act.  It  was  the  28th  day  of  December,  1835, 
that  the  United  States  agent  in  Florida,  and 
several  others,  were  suddenly  massacred  by  a 
party  under  Osceola,  who  had  just  been  at  the 
hospitable  table  with  them :  at  the  same  time 
the  sutler  and  others  were  attacked  as  they  sat 
at  table :  same  day  two  expresses  were  killed : 
and  to  crown  these  bloody  deeds,  the  same  day 
witnessed  the  destruction  of  Major  Dade's  com- 
mand of  112  men,  on  its  march  from  Tampa 
Bay  to  Withlacootchee.  All  these  massacres 
were  surprises,  the  result  of  concert,  and  exe- 
cuted as  such  upon  unsuspecting  victims.  The 
agent  (Mr.  Thompson),  and  some  friends  were 
shot  from  the  bushes  while  taking  a  walk  near 
his  house  :  the  sutler  and  his  guests  were  shot 
at  the  dinner  table:  the  express  riders  were 
waylaid,  and  shot  in  the  road:  Major  Dade's 
command  was  attacked  on  the  march,  by  an  un- 
seen foe,  overpowered,  and  killed  nearly  to  the 
last  man.  All  these  deadly  attacks  took  place 
on  the  same  day,  and  at  points  wide  apart — 
showing  that  the  plot  was  as  extensive  as  it  was 
secret,  and  cruel  as  it  was  treacherous ;  for  not  a 
soul  was  spared  in  either  of  the  four  relentless 
attacks. 

It  was  two  days  after  the  event  that  an  in- 
fantry soldier  of  Major  Dade's  command,  ap- 
peared at  Fort  King,  on  Tampa  Bay,  from  which 
it  had  marched  six  days  before,  and  gave  infor- 
mation of  what  had  happened.  The  command 
was  on  the  march,  in  open  pine  woods,  tall  grass 
all  around,  and  a  swamp  on  the  left  flank.  The 
grass  concealed  a  treacherous  ambuscade.  The 
advanced  guard  had  passed,  and  was  cut  off. 
Both  the  advance  and  the  main  body  were  at- 
tacked at  the  same  moment,  but  divided  from 
each  other.  A  circle  of  fire  enclosed  each — fire 
from  an  invisible  foe.  To  stand,  was  to  be  shot 
down  :  to  advance  was  to  charge  upon  concealed 
rifles.  But  it  was  the  only  course — was  brave- 
ly adopted — and  many  savages  thus  sprung  from 
their  coverts,  were  killed.  The  officers,  coura- 
geously exposing  themselves,  were  rapidly  shot 
— Major  Dade  early  in  the  action.  At  the  end 
of  an  hour  successive  charges  had  roused  the 
savages  from  the  grass,  (which  seemed  to  be 
alive  with  their  naked  and  painted  bodies,  yell- 
ing and  leaping,)  and  driven  beyond  the  range 
of  shot.     But  the  command  was  too  much  weak- 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


71 


ened  for  a  further  operation.  The  wounded 
were  too  numerous  to  be  carried  along :  too 
precious  to  be  left  behind  to  be  massacred.  The 
battle  ground  was  maintained,  and  a  small  band 
had  conquered  respite  from  attack :  but  to  ad- 
vance or  retreat  was  equally  impossible.  The 
only  resource  was  to  build  a  small  pen  of  pine 
logs,  cut  from  the  forest,  collect  the  wounded 
and  the  survivors  into  it,  as  into  a  little  fort, 
and  repulse  the  assailants  as  long  as  possible. 
This  was  done  till  near  sunset — the  action  hav- 
ing began  at  ten  in  the  morning.  By  that  time 
every  officer  was  dead  but  one,  and  he  despe- 
rately wounded,  and  helpless  on  the  ground. 
Only  two  men  remained  without  wounds,  and 
they  red  with  the  blood  of  others,  spirted  upon 
them,  or  stained  in  helping  the  helpless.  The 
little  pen  was  filled  with  the  dead  and  the  dying. 
The  firing  ceased.  The  expiring  lieutenant  told 
the  survivors  he  could  do  no  more  for  them, 
and  gave  them  leave  to  save  themselves  as  they 
could.  They  asked  his  advice.  He  gave  it  to 
them ;  and  to  that  advice  we  are  indebted  for 
the  only  report  of  that  bloody  day's  work.  He 
advised  them  all  to  lay  down  among  the  dead — 
to  remain  still — and  take  their  chance  of  being 
considered  dead.  This  advice  was  followed.  All 
became  still,  prostrate  and  motionless  ;  and  the 
savages,  slowly  and  cautiously  approaching, 
were  a  long  time  before  they  would  venture 
within  the  ghastly  pen,  where  danger  might 
still  lurk  under  apparent  death.  A  squad  of 
about  forty  negroes — fugitives  from  the  South- 
ern States,  more  savage  than  the  savage — were 
the  first  to  enter.  They  came  in  with  knives 
and  hatchets,  cutting  throats  and  splitting  skulls 
wherever  they  saw  a  sign  of  life.  To  make  sure 
of  skipping  no  one  alive,  all  were  pulled  and 
handled,  punched  and  kicked ;  and  a  groan  or 
movement,  an  opening  of  the  eye,  or  even  the 
involuntary  contraction  of  a  muscle,  was  an  in- 
vitation to  the  knife  and  the  tomahawk.  Only 
four  of  the  living  were  able  to  subdue  sensa- 
tions, bodily  and  mental,  and  remain  without 
sign  of  feeling  under  this  dreadful  ordeal ;  and 
two  of  these  received  stabs,  or  blows — as  many 
of  the  dead  did.  Lying  still  until  the  search 
was  over,  and  darkness  had  come  on,  and  the 
butchers  were  gone,  these  four  crept  from  among 
their  dead  comrades  and  undertook  to  make 
their  way  back  to  Tampa  Bay — separating  into 
two  parties  for  greater  safety.     The  one  that 


came  in  first  had  a  narrow  escape.  Pursuing  a 
path  the  next  day,  an  Indian  on  horseback,  and 
with  a  rifle  across  the  saddle  bow,  met  them  full 
in  the  way.  To  separate,  and  take  the  chance 
of  a  divided  pursuit,  was  the  only  hope  for 
either  :  and  they  struck  off  into  opposite  direc- 
tions. The  one  to  the  right  was  pursued ;  and 
very  soon  the  sharp  crack  of  a  rifle  made  known 
his  fate  to  the  one  that  had  gone  to  the  left. 
To  him  it  was  a  warning,  that  his  comrade  be- 
ing despatched,  his  own  turn  came  next.  It 
was  open  pine  woods,  and  a  running,  or  stand- 
ing man,  visible  at  a  distance.  The  Indian  on 
horseback  was  already  in  view.  Escape  by 
flight  was  impossible.  Concealment  in  the  grass, 
or  among  the  palmettos,  was  the  only  hope  : 
and  this  was  tried.  The  man  laid  close :  the 
Indian  rode  near  him.  He  made  circles  around, 
eyeing  the  ground  far  and  near.  Rising  in  his 
stirrups  to  get  a  wider  view,  and  seeing  nothing, 
he  turned  the  head  of  his  horse  and  galloped 
off — the  poor  soldier  having  been  almost  under 
the  horse's  feet.  This  man,  thus  marvellously 
escaping,  was  the  first  to  bring  in  the  sad  re- 
port of  the  Dade  defeat — followed  soon  after  by 
two  others  with  its  melancholy  confirmation. 
And  these  were  the  only  reports  ever  received 
of  that  completest  of  defeats.  No  officer  sur- 
vived to  report  a  word.  All  were  killed  in  their 
places — men  and  officers,  each  in  his  place,  no 
one  breaking  ranks  or  giving  back :  and  when 
afterwards  the  ground  was  examined,  and  events 
verified  by  signs,  the  skeletons  in  their  places, 
and  the  bullet  holes  in  trees  and  logs,  and  the 
little  pen  with  its  heaps  of  bones,  showed  that 
the  carnage  had  taken  place  exactly  as  described 
by  the  men.  And  this  was  the  slaughter  of 
Major  Dade  and  his  command — of  108  out  of 
112 :  as  treacherous,  as  barbarous,  as  perse- 
veringly  cruel  as  ever  was  known.  One  single 
feature  is  some  relief  to  the  sadness  of  the  pic- 
ture, and  discriminates  this  defeat  from  most 
others  suffered  at  the  hands  of  Indians.  There 
were  no  prisoners  put  to  death ;  for  no  man 
surrendered.  There  were  no  fugitives  slain  in 
vain  attempts  at  flight ;  for  no  one  fled.  All 
stood,  and  fought,  and  fell  in  their  places,  re- 
turning blow  for  blow  while  life  lasted.  It  was 
the  death  of  soldiers,  showing  that  steadiness  in 
defeat  which  is  above  courage  in  victory. 

And  this  was  the  origin  of  the  Florida  Indian 
war:   and  a  more  treacherous,  ferocious,  and 


72 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


cold-blooded  origin  was  never  given  to  any  In- 
dian war.  Yet  such  is  the  perversity  of  party 
spirit  that  its  author — the  savage  Osceola — has 
been  exalted  into  a  hero-patriot ;  our  officers, 
disparaged  and  ridiculed ;  the  administration 
loaded  with  obloquy.  And  all  this  by  our  pub- 
lic men  in  Congress,  as  well  as  by  writers  in  the 
daily  and  periodical  publications.  The  future 
historian  who  should  take  these  speeches  and 
publications  for  their  guide,  (and  they  are  too 
numerous  and  emphatic  to  be  overlooked,) 
would  write  a  history  discreditable  to  our  arms, 
and  reproachful  to  our  justice.  It  would  be  a 
narrative  of  wickedness  and  imbecility  on  our 
part — of  patriotism  and  heroism  on  the  part  of 
the  Indians :  those  Indians  whose  very  name 
(Seminole — wild,)  define  them  as  the  fugitives 
from  all  tribes,  and  made  still  worse  than  fugi- 
tive Indians  by  a  mixture  with  fugitive  negroes, 
some  of  whom  became  their  chiefs.  It  was  to 
obviate  the  danger  of  such  a  history  as  that 
would  be,  that  the  author  of  this  View  delivered 
at  the  time,  and  in  the  presence  of  all  concerned, 
an  historical  speech  on  the  Florida  Indian  war, 
fortified  by  facts,  and  intended  to  stand  for 
true ;  and  which  has  remained  unimpeached. 
Extracts  from  that  speech  will  constitute  the 
next  chapter,  to  which  this  brief  sketch  will 
serve  as  a  preface  and  introduction. 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

FLOEIDA  INDIAN  WAE :  HISTORICAL  SPEECH  OF 
ME.  BENTON. 

A  senator  from  New  Jersey  [Mr.  Southard] 
has  brought  forward  an  accusation  which  must 
affect  the  character  of  the  late  and  present  ad- 
ministrations at  home,  and  the  character  of  the 
country  abroad ;  and  which,  justice  to  these 
administrations,  and  to  the  country,  requires 
to  be  met  and  answered  upon  the  spot.  That 
senator  has  expressly  charged  that  a  fraud  was 
committed  upon  the  Florida  Indians  in  the 
treaty  negotiated  with  them  for  their  removal 
to  the  West ;  that  the  war  which  has  ensued 
was  the  consequence  of  this  fraud;  and  that 
our  government  was  responsible  to  the  moral 
sense  of  the  community,  and  of  the  world,  for 


all  the  blood  that  has  been  shed,  and  for  all  the 
money  that  has  been  expended,  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  this  war.  This  is  a  heavy  accusation. 
At  home,  it  attaches  to  the  party  in  power,  and 
is  calculated  to  make  them  odious ;  abroad,  it 
attaches  to  the  country,  and  is  calculated  to 
blacken  the  national  character.  It  is  an  accu- 
sation, without  the  shadow  of  a  foundation! 
and,  both,  as  one  of  the  party  in  power,  and  as 
an  American  citizen,  I  feel  myself  impelled  by  an 
imperious  sense  of  duty  to  my  friends,  and  to 
my  country,  to  expose  its  incorrectness  at  once, 
and  to  vindicate  the  government,  and  the  coun- 
try, from  an  imputation  as  unfounded  as  it  is 
odious. 

The  senator  from  New  Jersey  first  located 
this  imputed  fraud  in  the  Payne's  Landing 
treaty,  negotiated  by  General  Gadsden,  in  Flor- 
ida, in  the  year  1832 ;  and,  after  being  tendered 
an  issue  on  the  fairness  and  generosity  of  that 
treaty  by  the  senator  from  Alabama  [Mr. 
Clay],  he  transferred  the  charge  to  the  Fort 
Gibson  treaty,  made  in  Arkansas,  in  the  year 
1833,  by  Messrs.  Stokes,  Ellsworth  and  Scher- 
merhorn.  This  was  a  considerable  change  of 
locality,  but  no  change  in  the  accusation  itself; 
the  two  treaties  being  but  one,  and  the  last  be- 
ing a  literal  performance  of  a  stipulation  con- 
tained in  the  first.  These  are  the  facts ;  and, 
after  stating  the  case,  I  will  prove  it  as  stated. 
This  is  the  statement :  The  Seminole  Indians  in 
Florida  being  an  emigrant  band  of  the  Creeks, 
and  finding  game  exhausted,  subsistence  diffi- 
cult, and  white  settlements  approaching,  con- 
cluded to  follow  the  mother  tribe,  the  Creeks, 
to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  to  reunite 
with  them.  This  was  conditional^  agreed  to 
be  done  at  the  Payne's  Landing  treaty ;  and  in 
that  treaty  it  was  stipulated  that  a  deputation 
of  Seminole  chiefs,  under  the  sanction  of  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  should  pro- 
ceed to  the  Creek  country  beyond  the  Missis- 
sippi— there  to  ascertain  first  whether  a  suita- 
ble country  could  be  obtained  for  them  there ; 
and,  secondly,  whether  the  Creeks  would  re- 
ceive them  back  as  a  part  of  their  confederacy : 
and  if  the  deputation  should  be  satisfied  on 
these  two  points,  then  the  conditional  obliga- 
tion to  remove,  contained  in  the  Payne's  Land- 
ing treaty,  to  become  binding  and  obligatory 
upon  the  Seminole  tribe.  The  deputation  went ; 
the  two  points  were  solved  in  the  affirmative ; 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


73 


the  obligation  to  remove  became  absolute  on  the 
part  of  the  Indians;  and  the  government  of 
the  United  States  commenced  preparations  for 
effecting  their  easy,  gradual,  and  comfortable 
removal. 

The  entire  emigration  was  to  be  completed 
in  three  years,  one-third  going  annually,  com- 
mencing in  the  year  1833,  and  to  be  finished  in 
the  years  1834,  and  1835.  The  deputation  sent 
to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi,  completed  their 
agreement  with  the  Creeks  on  the  28th  of 
March,  1833  ;  they  returned  home  immediately, 
and  one-third  of  the  tribe  was  to  remove  that 
year.  Every  thing  was  got  ready  on  the  part 
of  the  United  States,  both  to  transport  the  In- 
dians to  their  new  homes,  and  to  subsist  them 
for  a  year  after  their  arrival  there.  But,  in- 
stead of  removing,  the  Indians  began  to  invent 
excuses,  and  to  interpose  delays,  and  to  pass 
off  the  time  without  commencing  the  emigra- 
tion. The  year  1833,  in  which  one-third  of  the 
tribe  were  to  remove,  passed  off  without  any 
removal ;  the  year  1834,  in  which  another  third 
was  to  go,  was  passed  off  in  the  same  manner ; 
the  year  1835,  in  which  the  emigration  was  to 
have  been  completed,  passed  away,  and  the  emi- 
gration was  not  begun.  On  the  contrary,  on 
the  last  days  of  the  last  month  of  that  year, 
while  the  United  States  was  still  peaceably  urg- 
ing the  removal,  an  accumulation  of  treacherous 
and  horrible  assassinations  and  massacres  were 
committed.  The  United  States  agent,  General 
Thompson,  Lieutenant  Smith,  of  the  artillery, 
and  five  others,  were  assassinated  in  sight  of 
Fort  King ;  two  expresses  were  murdered ;  and 
Major  Dade's  command  was  massacred. 

In  their  excuses  and  pretexts  for  not  remov- 
ing, the  Indians  never  thought  of  the  reasons 
which  have  been  supplied  to  them  on  this  floor. 
They  never  thought  of  alleging  fraud.  Their 
pretexts  were  frivolous  ;  as  that  it  was  a  long 
distance,  and  that  bad  Indians  lived  in  that 
country,  and  that  the  old  treaty  of  Fort  Moul- 
trie allowed  them  twenty  years  to  live  in  Flor- 
ida. Their  real  motive  was  the  desire  of  blood 
and  pillage  on  the  part  of  many  Indians,  and 
still  more  on  the  part  of  the  five  hundred  run- 
away negroes  mixed  up  among  them  ;  and  who 
believed  that  they  could  carry  on  their  system 
of  robbery  and  murder  with  impunity,  and  that 
the  swamps  of  the  country  would  for  ever  pro- 
tect them  against  the  pursuit  of  the  whites. 


This,  Mr.  President,  is  the  plain  and  brief 
narrative  of  the  causes  which  led  to  the  Semi- 
nole war ;  it  is  the  brief  historical  view  of  the 
case ;  and  if  I  was  speaking  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances, and  in  reply  to  incidental  remarks, 
I  should  content  myself  with  this  narrative, 
and  let  the  question  go  to  the  country  upon  the 
strength  and  credit  of  this  statement.  But  I 
do  not  speak  under  ordinary  circumstances ;  I 
am  not  replying  to  incidental  and  casual  re- 
marks. I  speak  in  answer  to  a  formal  accusa- 
tion, preferred  on  this  floor ;  I  speak  to  defend 
the  late  and  present  administrations  from  an 
odious  charge ;  and,  in  defending  them,  to  vin- 
dicate the  character  of  our  country  from  the 
accusation  of  the  senator  from  New  Jersey 
[Mr.  Southard],  and  to  show  that  fraud  has 
not  been  committed  upon  these  Indians,  and 
that  the  guilt  of  a  war,  founded  in  fraud,  is  not 
justly  imputable  to  them. 

The  Seminoles  had  stipulated  that  the  agent, 
Major  Phagan,  and  their  own  interpreter,  the 
negro  Abraham,  should  accompany  them ;  and 
this  was  done.  It  so  happened,  also,  that  an  ex- 
traordinary commission  of  three  members  sent 
out  by  the  United  States  to  adjust  Indian  diffi- 
culties generally,  was  then  beyond  the  Missis- 
sippi; and  these  commissioners  were  directed 
to  join  in  the  negotiations  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States,  and  to  give  the  sanction  of  our 
guarantee  to  the  agreements  made  between  the 
Seminoles  and  the  Creeks  for  the  reunion  of  the 
former  to  the  parent  tribe.  This  was  done. 
Our  commissioners,  Messrs.  Stokes,  Ellsworth, 
and  Schermerhorn,  became  party  to  a  treaty 
with  the  Creek  Indians  for  the  reunion  of  the 
Seminoles,  made  at  Fort  Gibson,  the  14th  of 
February,  1833.  The  treaty  contained  this 
article : 

"  Article  IV.  It  is  understood  and  agreed 
that  the  Seminole  Indians  of  Florida,  whose  re- 
moval to  this  country  is  provided  for  by  their 
treaty  with  the  United  States,  dated  May  9, 
1832,  shall  also  have  a  permanent  and  comfort- 
able home  on  the  lands  hereby  set  apart  as  the 
country  of  the  Creek  nation;  and  they,  the 
Seminoles,  will  hereafter  be  considered  as  a  con- 
stituent part  of  the  said  nation,  but  are  to  be 
located  on  some  part  of  the  Creek  country  by 
themselves,  which  location  shall  be  selected  for 
them  by  the  commissioners  who  have  seen  these 
articles  of  agreement." 

This  agreement  with  the  Creeks  settled  one 
of  the  conditions  on  which  the  removal  of  the 


74 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Seminoles  was  to  depend.     We  will  now  see 
how  the  other  condition  was  disposed  of. 

In  a  treaty  made  at  the  same  Fort  Gibson,  on 
the  28  th  of  March,  1833,  between  the  same 
three  commissioners  on  the  part  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  seven  delegated  Seminole  chiefs, 
after  reciting  the  two  conditions  precedent  con- 
tained in  the  Payne's  Landing  treaty,  and  re- 
citing, also,  the  convention  with  the  Creeks  on 
the  14th  of  February  preceding,  it  is  thus  stipu- 
lated : 

"  Now,  therefore,  the  commissioners  aforesaid, 
by  virtue  of  the  power  and  authority  vested  in 
them  by  the  treaty  made  with  the  Creek  Indians 
on  the  14th  of  February,  1833,  as  above  stated, 
hereby  designate  and  assign  to  the  Seminole 
tribe  of  Indians,  for  their  separate  future  resi- 
dence for  ever,  a  tract  of  country  lying  between 
the  Canadian  River  and  the  south  fork  thereof, 
and  extending  west  to  where  a  line  running 
north  and  south  between  the  main  Canadian 
and  north  branch  will  strike  the  forks  of  Little 
River  j  provided  said  west  line  does  not  extend 
more  than  twenty-five  miles  west  from  the 
mouth  of  said  Little  River.  And  the  under- 
signed Seminole  chiefs,  delegated  as  aforesaid, 
on  behalf  of  the  nation,  hereby  declare  them- 
selves well  satisfied  with  the  location  provided 
for  them  by  the  commissioners,  and  agree  that 
their  nation  shall  commence  the  removal  to  their 
new  home  as  soon  as  the  government  will  make 
the  arrangements  for  their  emigration  satisfac- 
tory to  the  Seminole  nation." 

This  treaty  is  signed  by  the  delegation,  and 
by  the  commissioners  of  the  United  States,  and 
witnessed,  among  others,  by  the  same  Major 
Phagan,  agent,  and  Abraham,  interpreter,  whose 
presence  was  stipulated  for  at  Payne's  Landing. 

Thus  the  two  conditions  on  which  the  re- 
moval depended,  were  complied  with;  they 
were  both  established  in  the  affirmative.  The 
Creeks,  under  the  solemn  sanction  and  guarantee 
of  the  United  States,  agree  to  receive  back  the 
Seminoles  as  a  part  of  their  confederacy,  and 
agree  that  they  shall  live  adjoining  them  on 
lands  designated  for  their  residence.  The  dele- 
gation declare  themselves  well  satisfied  with  the 
country  assigned  them,  and  agree  that  the  re- 
moval should  commence  as  soon  as  the  United 
States  could  make  the  necessary  arrangements 
for  the  removal  of  the  people. 

This  brings  down  the  proof  to  the  conclusion 
of  all  questions  beyond  the  Mississippi;  it 
brings  it  down  to  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty 
at  Fort  Gibson — that  treaty  in  which  the  sena- 


tor from  New  Jersey  [Mr.  Southard]  has 
located  the  charge  of  fraud,  after  withdrawing 
the  same  charge  from  the  Payne's  Landing 
treaty.  It  brings  us  to  the  end  of  the  negotia- 
tions at  the  point  selected  for  the  charge ;  and 
now  how  stands  the  accusation  ?  How  stands 
the  charge  of  fraud?  Is  there  a  shadow,  an 
atom,  a  speck,  of  foundation  on  which  to  rest 
it?  No,  sir:  Nothing — nothing — nothing! 
Every  thing  was  done  that  was  stipulated  for ; 
done  by  the  persons  who  were  to  do  it ;  and 
done  in  the  exact  manner  agreed  upon.  In  fact, 
the  nature  of  the  things  to  be  done  west  of  the 
Mississippi  was  such  as  not  to  admit  of  fraud. 
Two  things  were  to  be  done,  one  to  be  seen 
with  the  eyes,  and  the  other  to  be  heard  with 
the  ears.  The  deputation  was  to  see  th«ir  new 
country,  and  say  whether  they  liked  it.  This 
was  a  question  to  their  own  senses — to  their 
own  eyes — and  was  not  susceptible  of  fraud. 
They  were  to  hear  whether  the  Creeks  would 
receive  them  back  as  a  part  of  their  confederacy ; 
this  was  a  question  to  their  own  ears,  and  was 
also  unsusceptible  of  fraud.  Their  own  eyes 
could  not  deceive  them  in  looking  at  land ;  their 
own  ears  could  not  deceive  them  in  listening  to 
their  own  language  from  the  Creeks.  No,  sir : 
there  was  no  physical  capacity,  or  moral  means, 
for  the  perpetration  of  fraud ;  and  none  has  ever 
been  pretended  by  the  Indians  from  that  day 
to  this.  The  Indians  themselves  have  never 
thought  of  such  a  thing.  There  is  no  assump- 
tion of  a  deceived  party  among  them.  It  is  not 
a  deceived  party  that  is  at  war — a  party  de- 
ceived by  the  delegation  which  went  to  the  West 
— but  that  very  delegation  itself,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Charley  Emarthla,  are  the  hostile 
leaders  at  home  !  This  is  reducing  the  accusa- 
tion to  an  absurdity.  It  is  making  the  delega- 
tion the  dupes  of  their  own  eyes  and  of  their 
own  ears,  and  then  going  to  war  with  the 
United  States,  because  their  own  eyes  deceived 
them  in  looking  at  land  on  the  Canadian  River, 
and  their  own  ears  deceived  them  in  listening  to 
their  own  language  from  the  Creeks ;  and  then 
charging  these  frauds  upon  the  United  States. 
All  this  is  absurd ;  and  it  is  due  to  these  absent 
savages  to  say  that  they  never  committed  any 
such  absurdity — that  they  never  placed  their 
objection  to  remove  upon  any  plea  of  deception 
practised  upon  them  beyond  the  Mississippi, 
but  on  frivolous  pretexts  invented  long  after 


ANNO  1838.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


75 


the  return  of  the  delegation;  which  pretexts 
covered  the  real  grounds  growing  out  of  the 
influence  of  runaway  slaves,  and  some  evilly 
disposed  chiefs,  and  that  thirst  for  blood  and 
plunder,  in  which  they  expected  a  long  course 
of  enjoyment  and  impunity  in  their  swamps, 
believed  to  be  impenetrable  to  the  whites. . 

Thus,  sir,  it  is  clearly  and  fully  proved  that 
there  was  no  fraud  practised  upon  these  Indi- 
ans ;  that  they  themselves  never  pretended  such 
a  thing ;  and  that  the  accusation  is  wholly  a 
charge  of  recent  origin  sprung  up  among  our- 
selves. Having  shown  that  there  was  no  fraud, 
this  might  be  sufficient  for  the  occasion,  but 
having  been  forced  into  the  inquiry,  it  may  be 
as  well  to  complete  it  by  showing  what  were 
the  causes  of  this  war.  To  understand  these 
causes,  it  is  necessary  to  recur  to  dates,  to  see 
the  extreme  moderation  with  which  the  United 
States  acted,  the  long  time  which  they  tolerated 
the  delays  of  the  Indians,  and  the  treachery  and 
murder  with  which  their  indulgence  and  for- 
bearance was  requited.  The  emigration  was  to 
commence  in  1833,  and  be  completed  in  the 
years  1834  and  1835.  The  last  days  of  the  last 
month  of  this  last  year  had  arrived,  and  the  emi- 
gration had  not  yet  commenced.  Wholly  in- 
tent on  their  peaceable  removal,  the  administra- 
tion had  despatched  a  disbursing  agent,  Lieu- 
tenant Harris  of  the  army,  to  take  charge  of  the 
expenditures  for  the  subsistence  of  these  people. 
He  arrived  at  Fort  King  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
28th  of  December,  1835  ;  and  as  he  entered  the 
fort,  he  became  almost  an  eye-witness  of  a  horrid 
scene  which  was  the  subject  of  his  first  despatch 
to  his  government.  He  describes  it  in  these  words: 

"  I  regret  that  it  becomes  my  first  duty  after 
my  arrival  here  to  be  the  narrator  of  a  story, 
which  it  will  be,  I  am  sure,  as  painful  for  you 
to  hear,  as  it  is  for  me,  who  was  almost  an  eye 
witness  to  the  bloody  deed,  to  relate  to  you. 
Our  excellent  superintendent,  General  Wiley 
Thompson,  has  been  most  cruelly  murdered  by 
a  party  of  the  hostile  Indians,  and  with  him 
Lieutenant  Constant  Smith,  of  the  2d  regiment 
of  artillery,  Erastus  Rogers,  the  suttler  to  the 
post,  with  his  two  clerks,  a  Mr.  Kitzler,  and  a 
boy  called  Robert.  This  occurred  on  the  after- 
noon of  the  28th  instant  (December),  between 
three  and  four  o'clock.  On  the  day  of  the  mas- 
sacre, Lieutenant  Smith  had  dined  with  the 
General,  and  after  dinner  invited  him  to  take  a 
short  stroll  with  him.  They  had  not  proceeded 
more   than  three   hundred  yards  beyond  the 


agency  office,  when  they  were  fired  upon  by  a 
party  of  Indians,  who  rose  from  ambush  in  the 
hammock,  within  sight  of  the  fort,  and  on  which 
the  suttler's  house  borders.  The  reports  of  the 
rifles  fired,  the  war-whoop  twice  repeated,  and 
after  a  brief  space,  several  other  volleys  more 
remote,  and  in  the  quarter  of  Mr.  Rogers's  house, 
were  heard,  and  the  smoke  of  the  firing  seen 
from  the  fort.  Mr.  Rogers  and  his  clerks  were 
surprised  at  dinner.  Three  escaped  :  the  rest 
murdered.  The  bodies  of  General  Thompson, 
Lieutenant  Smith,  and  Mr.  Kitzler,  were  soon 
found  and  brought  in.  Those  of  the  others 
were  not  found  until  this  morning.  That  of 
General  Thompson  was  perforated  with  fourteen 
bullets.  Mr.  Rogers  had  received  seventeen. 
All  were  scalped,  except  the  boy.  The  coward- 
ly murderers  are  supposed  to  be  a  party  of  Mi- 
casookees,  40  or  50  strong,  under  the  traitor 
Powell  (Osceola),  whose  shrill,  peculiar  war- 
whoop,  was  recognized  by  our  interpreters,  and 
the  one  or  two  friendly  Indians  we  have  in  the 
fort,  and  who  knew  it  well.  Two  expresses 
(soldiers)  were  despatched  upon  fresh  horses  on 
the  evening  of  this  horrid  tragedy,  with  tidings 
of  it  to  General  Clinch;  but  not  hearing  from 
him  or  them,  we  conclude  they  were  cut  off. 
We  are  also  exceedingly  anxious  for  the  fate  of 
the  two  companies  (under  Major  Dade)  which 
had  been  ordered  up  from  Fort  Brooke,  and  of 
whom  we  learn  nothing." 

Sir,  this  is  the  first  letter  of  the  disbursing 
agent,  specially  detached  to  furnish  the  supplies 
to  the  emigrating  Indians.  He  arrives  in  the 
midst  of  treachery  and  murder;  and  his  first 
letter  is  to  announce  to  the  government  the  as- 
sassination of  their  agent,  an  officer  of  artillery, 
and  five  citizens ;  the  assassination  of  two  ex- 
presses, for  they  were  both  waylaid  and  mur- 
dered;  and  the  massacre  of  one  hundred  and 
twelve  men  and  officers  under  Major  Dade.  All 
this  took  place  at  once  ;  and  this  was  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war.  Up  to  that  moment  the 
government  of  the  United  States  were  wholly 
employed  in  preparing  the  Indians  for  removal, 
recommending  them  to  go,  and  using  no  force  or 
violence  upon  them.  This  is  the  way  the  war 
was  brought  on  ;  this  is  the  way  it  began  ;  and 
was  there  ever  a  case  in  which  a -government 
was  so  loudly  called  upon  to  avenge  the  dead, 
to  protect  the  living,  and  to  cause  itself  to  be 
respected  by  punishing  the  contemners  of  its 
power  ?  The  murder  of  the  agent  was  a  double 
offence,  a  peculiar  outrage  to  the  government 
whose  representative  he  was,  and  a  violation 
even  of  the  national  law  of  savages.  Agents  are 
seldom  murdered  even  by  savages  ;  and  bound 


76 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


as  every  government  is  to  protect  all  its  citizens, 
it  is  doubly  bound  to  protect  its  agents  and  re- 
presentatives abroad.  Here,  then,  is  a  govern- 
ment agent,  and  a  military  officer,  five  citizens, 
two  expresses,  and  a  detachment  of  one  hundred 
and  twelve  men,  in  all  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
one  persons,  treacherously  and  inhumanly  mas- 
sacred in  one  day  !  and  because  General  Jack- 
son's administration  did  not  submit  to  this  hor- 
rid outrage,  he  is  charged  with  the  guilt  of  a 
war  founded  in  fraud  upon  innocent  and  unof- 
fending Indians  !  Such  is  the  spirit  of  opposi- 
tion to  our  own  government !  such  the  love  of 
Indians  and  contempt  of  whites  !  and  such  the 
mawkish  sentimentality  of  the  day  in  which  we 
live — a  sentimentality  which  goes  moping  and 
sorrowing  about  in  behalf  of  imaginary  wrongs 
to  Indians  and  negroes,  while  the  whites  them- 
selves are  the  subject  of  murder,  robbery  and 
defamation. 

The  prime  mover  in  all  this  mischief,  and  the 
leading  agent  in  the  most  atrocious  scene  of  it, 
was  a  half-blooded  Indian  of  little  note  before 
this  time,  and  of  no  consequence  in  the  councils 
of  his  tribe  ;  for  his  name  is  not  to  be  seen  in  the 
treaty  either  of  Payne's  Landing  or  Fort  Gibson. 
We  call  him  Powell ;  by  his  tribe  he  was  called 
Osceola.  He  led  the  attack  in  the  massacre  of 
the  agent,  and  of  those  who  were  killed  with 
him,  in  the  afternoon  of  the  28th  of  December. 
The  disbursing  agent,  whose  letter  has  been 
read,  in  his  account  of  that  massacre,  applies  the 
epithet  traitor  to  the  name  of  this  Powell.  Well 
might  he  apply  that  epithet  to  that  assassin ; 
for  he  had  just  been  fed  and  caressed  by  the 
very  person  whom  he  waylaid  and  murdered. 
He  had  come  into  the  agency  shortly  before  that 
time  with  seventy  of  his  followers,  professed  his 
satisfaction  with  the  treaty,  his  readiness  to  re- 
move, and  received  subsistence  and  supplies  for 
himself  and  all  his  party.  The  most  friendly 
relations  seemed  to  be  established;  and  the 
doomed  and  deceived  agent,  in  giving  his  ac- 
count of  it  to  the  government,  says  :  "  The  re- 
sult was  that  we  closed  with  the  utmost  good 
feeling ;  and  I  have  never  seen  Powell  and  the 
other  chiefs  so  cheerful  and  in  so  fine  a  humor, 
at  the  close  of  a  discussion  upon  the  subject  of 
removal." 

This  is  Powell  (Osceola),  for  whom  all  our 
sympathies  are  so  pathetically  invoked  !  a 
treacherous  assassin,  not  only  of  our  people,  but 


of  his  own — for  he  it  was  who  waylaid,  and  shot 
in  the  back,  in  the  most  cowardly  manner,  the 
brave  chief  Charley  Emarthla,  whom  he  dared 
not  face,  and  whom  he  thus  assassinated  because 
he  refused  to  join  him  and  his  runaway  negroes 
in  murdering  the  white  people.  The  collector 
of  Indian  curiosities  and  portraits,  Mr.  Catlin, 
may  be  permitted  to  manufacture  a  hero  out  of 
this  assassin,  and  to  make  a  poetical  scene  of 
his  imprisonment  on  Sullivan's  island ;  but  it 
will  not  do  for  an  American  senator  to  take  the 
same  liberties  with  historical  truth  and  our  na- 
tional character.  Powell  ought  to  have  been 
hung  for  the  assassination  of  General  Thomp- 
son ;  and  the  only  fault  of  our  officers  is,  that 
they  did  not  hang  him  the  moment  they  caught 
him.  The  fate  of  Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister  was 
due  to  him  a  thousand  times  over. 

I  have  now  answered  the  accusation  of  the 
senator  from  New  Jersey  [Mr.  Southard].  I 
have  shown  the  origin  of  this  war.  I  have  shown 
that  it  originated  in  no  fraud,  no  injustice,  no 
violence,  on  the  part  of  this  government,  but  in 
the  thirst  for  blood  and  rapine  on  the  part  of 
these  Indians,  and  in  their  confident  belief  that 
their  swamps  would  be  their  protection  against 
the  pursuit  of  the  whites  ;  and  that,  emerging 
from  these  fastnesses  to  commit  robbery  and 
murder,  and  retiring  to  them  to  enjoy  the  fruits 
of  their  marauding  expeditions,  they  had  before 
them  a  long  perspective  of  impunity  in  the  en- 
joyment of  their  favorite  occupation.  This  I 
have  shown  to  be  the  cause  of  the  war ;  and 
having  vindicated  the  administration  and  the 
country  from  the  injustice  of  the  imputation 
cast  upon  them,  I  proceed  to  answer  some 
things  said  by  a  senator  from  South  Carolina 
[Mr.  Preston],  which  tended  to  disparage  the 
troops  generally  which  have  been  employed  in 
Florida ;  to  disparage  a  particular  general  offi- 
cer, and  also  to  accuse  that  general  officer  of  a 
particular  and  specified  offence.  That  senator 
has  decried  our  troops  in  Florida  for  the  gene- 
ral inefficiency  of  their  operations  j  he  has  de- 
cried General  Jesup  for  the  general  imbecility 
of  his  operations,  and  he  has  charged  this  Gen- 
eral with  the  violation  of  a  flag,  and  the  com- 
mission of  a  perfidious  act,  in  detaining  and  im- 
prisoning the  Indian  Powell,  who  came  into  his 
camp. 

I  think  there  is  great  error  and  great  injus- 
tice in  all  these  imputations,  and  that  it  is  right 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


77 


for  some  senator  on  this  floor  to  answer  them. 
My  position,  as  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Military  Affairs,  would  seem  to  assign  that 
duty  to  me,  and  it  may  be  the  reason  why 
others  who  have  spoken  have  omitted  all  reply 
on  these  points.  Be  that  as  it  may,  I  feel  im- 
pelled to  say  something  in  behalf  of  those  who 
are  absent,  and  cannot  speak  for  themselves — 
those  who  must  always  feel  the  wound  of  un- 
merited censure,  and  must  feel  it  more  keenly 
when  the  blow  that  inflicts  the  wound  falls 
from  the  elevated  floor  of  the  American  Senate. 
So  far  as  the  army,  generally,  is  concerned  in 
this  censure,  I  might  leave  them  where  they 
have  been  placed  by  the  senator  from  South 
Carolina  [Mr.  Preston],  and  others  on  that  side 
of  the  House,  if  I  could  limit  myself  to  acting  a 
political  part  here.  The  army,  as  a  body,  is  no 
friend  of  the  political  party  to  which  I  belong. 
Individuals  among  them  are  friendly  to  the  ad- 
ministration; but,  as  a  body,  they  go  for  the 
opposition,  and  would  terminate  our  political 
existence,  if  they  could,  and  put  our  opponents 
in  our  place,  at  the  first  general  election  that 
intervenes.  As  a  politician,  then,  I  might  aban- 
don them  to  the  care  of  their  political  friends ; 
but,  as  an  American,  as  a  senator,  and  as  hav- 
ing had  some  connection  with  the  military  pro- 
fession, I  feel  myself  called  upon  to  dissent  from 
the  opinion  which  has  been  expressed,  and  to 
give  my  reasons  for  believing  that  the  army  has 
not  suffered,  and  ought  not  to  suffer,  in  charac- 
ter, by  the  events  in  Florida.  True,  our  offi- 
cers and  soldiers  have  not  performed  the  same 
feats  there  which  they  performed  in  Canada,  and 
elsewhere.  But  why  ?  Certainly  because  they 
have  not  got  the  same,  or  an  equivalent,  theatre 
to  act  upon,  nor  an  enemy  to  cope  with  over 
whom  brilliant  victories  can  be  obtained.  The 
peninsula  of  Florida,  where  this  war  rages,  is 
sprinkled  all  over  with  swamps,  hammocks, 
and  lagoons,  believed  for  three  hundred  years 
to  be  impervious  to  the  white  man's  tread. 
The  theatre  of  war  is  of  great  extent,  stretching 
over  six  parallels  of  latitude ;  all  of  it  in  the 
sultry  region  below  thirty-one  degrees  of  north 
latitude.  The  extremity  of  this  peninsula  ap- 
proaches the  tropic  of  Capricorn ;  and  at  this 
moment,  while  we  speak  here,  the  soldier  under 
arms  at  mid-day  there  will  cast  no  shadow :  a 
vertical  sun  darts  its  fiery  rays  direct  upon  the 
crown  of  his  head.  Suffocating  heat  oppresses 
the  frame;  annoying  insects  sting  the  body; 


burning  sands,  a  spongy  morass,  and  the  sharp 
cutting  saw  grass,  receive  the  feet  and  legs; 
disease  follows  the  summer's  exertion  ;  and  a 
dense  foliage  covers  the  foe.  Eight  months  in 
the  year  military  exertions  are  impossible; 
during  four  months  only  can  any  thing  be 
done.  The  Indians  well  understand  this ;  and, 
during  these  four  months,  either  give  or  receive 
an  attack,  as  they  please,  or  endeavor  to  con- 
sume the  season  in  wily  parleys.  The  possi- 
bility of  splendid  military  exploits  does  not 
exist  in  such  a  country,  and  against  such  a  foe : 
but  there  is  room  there,  and  ample  room  there, 
for  the  exhibition  of  the  highest  qualities  of  the 
soldier.  There  is  room  there  for  patience,  and 
for  fortitude,  under  every  variety  of  suffering, 
and  under  every  form  of  privation.  There  is 
room  there  for  courage  and  discipline  to  exhibit 
itself  against  perils  and  trials  which  subject 
courage  and  discipline  to  the  severest  tests. 
And  has  there  been  any  failure  of  patience,  for- 
titude, courage,  discipline,  and  subordination  in 
all  this  war  ?  Where  is  the  instance  in  which 
the  men  have  revolted  against  their  officers,  or 
in  which  the  officer  has  deserted  his  men  ? 
Where  is  the  instance  of  a  flight  in  battle? 
Where  the  instance  of  orders  disobeyed,  ranks 
broken,  or  confusion  of  corps?  On  the  con- 
trary, we  have  constantly  seen  the  steadiness, 
and  the  discipline,  of  the  parade  maintained 
under  every  danger,  and  in  the  presence  of 
massacre  itself.  Officers  and  men  have  fought 
it  out  where  they  were  told  to  fight ;  they 
have  been  killed  in  the  tracks  in  which  they 
were  told  to  stand.  None  of  those  pitiable 
scenes  of  which  all  our  Indian  wars  have  shown 
some — those  harrowing  scenes  in  which  the 
helpless  prisoner,  or  the  hapless  fugitive,  is 
massacred  without  pity,  and  without  resist- 
ance :  none  of  these  have  been  seen.  Many 
have  perished ;  but  it  was  the  death  of  the 
combatant  in  arms,  and  not  of  the  captive  or 
the  fugitive.  In  no  one  of  our  savage  wars 
have  our  troops  so  stood  together,  and  con- 
quered together,  and  died  together,  as  they 
have  done  in  this  one;  and  this  standing  to- 
gether is  the  test  of  the  soldier's  character. 
Steadiness,  subordination,  courage,  discipline, — 
these  are  the  test  of  the  soldier ;  and  in  no  in- 
stance have  our  troops,  or  any  troops,  ever 
evinced  the  possession  of  these  qualities  in  a 
higher  degree  than  during  the  campaigns  in 
Florida.    While,  then,  brilliant  victories  may 


78 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


not  have  been  seen,  and,  in  fact,  were  impossi- 
ble, yet  the  highest  qualities  of  good  soldier- 
ship have  been  eminently  displayed  throughout 
this  war.  Courage  and  discipline  have  shown 
themselves,  throughout  all  its  stages,  in  their 
noblest  forms. 

From  the  general  imputation  of  inefficiency 
in  our  operations  in  Florida,  the  senator  from 
South  Carolina  [Mr.  Preston]  comes  to  a  par- 
ticular commander,  and  charges  inefficiency 
specifically  upon  him.  This  commander  is 
General  Jesup.  The  senator  from  South  Caro- 
lina has  been  lavish,  and  even  profuse,  in  his 
denunciation  of  that  general,  and  has  gone  so 
far  as  to  talk  about  military  courts  of  inquiry. 
Leaving  the  general  open  to  all  such  inquiry, 
and  thoroughly  convinced  that  the  senator 
from  South  Carolina  has  no  idea  of  moving 
such  inquiry,  and  intends  to  rest  the  effect  of 
his  denunciation  upon  its  delivery  here,  I  shall 
proceed  to  answer  him  here — giving  speech  for 
speech  on  this  floor,  and  leaving  the  general 
himself  to  reply  when  it  comes  to  that  threat- 
ened inquiry,  which  I  undertake  to  affirm  will 
never  be  moved. 

General  Jesup  is  charged  with  imbecility 
and  inefficiency  ;  the  continuance  of  the  war  is 
imputed  to  his  incapacity ;  and  he  is  held  up 
here,  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  to  public  repre- 
hension for  these  imputed  delinquencies.  This 
is  the  accusation ;  and  now  let  us  see  with  how 
much  truth  and  justice  it  is  made.  Happily 
for  General  Jesup,  this  happens  to  be  a  case  in 
which  we  have  data  to  go  upon,  and  in  which 
there  are  authentic  materials  for  comparing  the 
operations  of  himself  with  those  of  other  gen- 
erals— his  predecessors  in  the  same  field — with 
whose  success  the  senator  from  South  Carolina 
is  entirely  satisfied.  Dates  and  figures  furnish 
this  data  and  these  materials;  and,  after  re- 
freshing the  memory  of  the  Senate  with  a  few 
dates,  I  will  proceed  to  the  answers  which  the 
facts  of  the  case  supply.  The  first  date  is,  as 
to  the  time  of  the  commencement  of  this  war ; 
the  second,  as  to  the  time  that  General  Jesup 
assumed  the  command;  the  third,  as  to  the 
time  when  he  was  relieved  from  the  command. 
On  the  first  point,  it  will  be  recollected  that 
the  war  broke  out  upon  the  assassination  of 
General  Thompson,  the  agent,  Lieutenant 
Smith,  who  was  with  him ;  the  sutler  and  his 
clerks ;  the  murder  of  the  two  expresses ;  and 
the  massacre  of  Major    Dade's  command; — 


events  which  came  together  in  point  of  time, 
and  compelled  an  immediate  resort  to  war  by 
the  United  States.  These  assassinations,  these 
murders,  and  this  massacre,  took  place  on  the 
28th  day  of  December,  1835.  The  commence- 
ment of  the  war,  then,  dates  from  that  day. 
The  next  point  is,  the  time  of  General  Jesup's 
appointment  to  the  command.  This  occurred 
in  December,  1836.  The  third  point  is,  the 
date  of  General  Jesup's  relief  from  the  com- 
mand, and  this  took  place  in  May,  of  the  pres- 
ent year,  1838.  The  war  has  then  continued — 
counting  to  the  present  time — two  years  and  a 
half;  and  of  that  period,  General  Jesup  has  had 
command  something  less  than  one  year  and  a 
half.  Other  generals  had  command  for  a  year 
before  he  was  appointed  in  that  quarter.  Now, 
how  much  had  those  other  generals  done  ?  All 
put  together,  how  much  had  they  done  ?  And 
I  ask  this  question  not  to  disparage  their  meri- 
torious exertions,  but  to  obtain  data  for  the 
vindication  of  the  officer  now  assailed.  The 
senator  from  South  Carolina  [Mr.  Preston]  is 
satisfied  with  the  operations  of  the  previous 
commanders ;  now  let  him  see  how  the  opera- 
tions of  the  officer  whom  he  assails  will  com- 
pare with  the  operations  of  those  who  are  hon- 
ored with  his  approbation.  The  comparison  is 
brief  and  mathematical.  It  is  a  problem  in  the 
exact  sciences.  General  Jesup  reduced  the 
hostiles  in  the  one  year  and  a  half  of  his  com- 
mand, 2,200  souls :  all  his  predecessors  together 
had  reduced  them  150  in  one  year.  Where 
does  censure  rest  now  ? 

Sir,  I  disparage  nobody.  I  make  no  exhibit 
of  comparative  results  to  undervalue  the  opera- 
tions of  the  previous  commanders  in  Florida.  I 
know  the  difficulty  of  military  operations  there, 
and  the  ease  of  criticism  here.  I  never  assailed 
those  previous  commanders;  on  the  contrary, 
often  pointed  out  the  nature  of  the  theatre  on 
which  they  operated  as  a  cause  for  the  miscar- 
riage of  expeditions,  and  for  the  want  of  brilliant 
and  decisive  results.  Now  for  the  first  time  I 
refer  to  the  point,  and,  not  to  disparage  others, 
but  to  vindicate  the  officer  assailed.  His  vindi- 
cation is  found  in  the  comparison  of  results  be- 
tween himself  and  his  predecessors,  and  in  the 
approbation  of  the  senator  from  South  Carolina 
of  the  results  under  the  predecessors  of.  General 
Jesup.  Satisfied  with  them,  he  must  be  satis- 
fied with  him  ;  for  the  difference  is  as  fifteen  to 
one  in  favor  of  the  decried  general. 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


79 


Besides  the  general  denunciation  for  ineffi- 
ciency, which  the  senator  from  South  Carolina 
has  lavished  upon  General  Jesup,  and  which  de- 
nunciation has  so  completely  received  its  answer 
in  this  comparative  statement;  besides  this 
general  denunciation,  the  senator  from  South 
Carolina  brought  forward  a  specific  accusation 
against  the  honor  of  the  same  officer — an  accusa- 
tion of  perfidy,  and  of  a  violation  of  flag  of 
truce,  in  the  seizure  and  detention  of  the  Indian 
Osceola,  who  had  come  into  his  camp.  On  the 
part  of  General  Jesup,  I  repel  this  accusation, 
and  declare  his  whole  conduct  in  relation  to  this 
Indian,  to  have  been  justifiable,  under  the  laws 
of  civilized  or  savage  warfare ;  that  it  was  ex- 
pedient in  point  of  policy ;  and  that  if  any 
blame  could  attach  to  the  general,  it  would  be 
for  the  contrary  of  that  with  which  he  is 
blamed ;  it  would  be  for  an  excess  of  forbear- 
ance and  indulgence. 

The  justification  of  the  general  for  the  seizure 
and  detention  of  this  half-breed  Indian,  is  the  first 
point ;  and  that  rests  upon  several  and  distinct 
grounds,  either  of  which  fully  justifies  the  act. 

1.  This  Osceola  had  broken  his  parole;  and, 
therefore,  was  liable  to  be  seized  and  detained. 

The  facts  were  these :  In  the  month  of  May, 
1837,  this  chief,  with  his  followers,  went  into 
Fort  Mellon,  under  the  cover  of  a  white  flag,  and 
there  surrendered  to  Lieutenant  Colonel  Har- 
ney. He  declared  himcelf  done  with  the  war, 
and  ready  to  emigrate  to  the  west  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  solicited  subsistence  and  transporta- 
tion for  himself  and  his  people  for  that  purpose. 
Lieutenant  Colonel  Harney  received  him,  sup- 
plied him  with  provisions,  and,  relying  upon  his 
word  and  apparent  sincerity,  instead  of  sending 
him  under  guard,  took  his  parole  to  go  to  Tampa 
Bay,  the  place  at  which  he  preferred  to  embark, 
to  take  shipping  there  for  the  West.  Supplied 
with  every  thing,  Osceola  and  his  people  left 
Fort  Mellon,  under  the  pledge  to  go  to  Tampa 
Bay.  He  never  went  there  !  but  returned  to  the 
hostiles;  and  it  was  afterwards  ascertained  that 
he  never  had  any  idea  of  going  West,  but  merely 
wished  to  live  well  for  a  while  at  the  expense 
of  the  whites,  examine  their  strength  and  posi- 
tion, and  return  to  his  work  of  blood  and  pillage. 
After  this,  he  had  the  audacity  to  approach 
General  Jesup's  camp  in  October  of  the  same 
year,  with  another  piece  of  white  cloth  over  his 
head,  thinking,  after  his  successful  treacheries  to 
the  agent,  General  Thompson,  and  Lieut.  Colone 


Harney,  that  there  was  no  end  to  his  tricks 
upon  white  people.  General  Jesup  ordered  him 
to  be  seized  and  carried  a  prisoner  to  Sullivan's 
Island,  where  he  was  treated  with  the  greatest 
humanity,  and  allowed  ever}'  possible  indulgence 
and  gratification.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  in 
justification  of  General  Jesup's  conduct  to  that 
Indian,  and  it  is  sufficient  of  itself ;  but  there 
are  others,  and  they  shall  be  stated. 

2.  Osceola  had  violated  an  order  in  coming 
in,  with  a  view  to  return  to  the  hostiles  ;  and, 
therefore,  was  liable  to  be  detained. 

The  facts  were  these :  Many  Indians,  at  dif- 
ferent times,  had  come  in  under  the  pretext  of 
a  determination  to  emigrate  ;  and  after  receiv- 
ing supplies,  and  viewing  the  strength  and  po- 
sition of  the  troops,  returned  again  to  the  hos- 
tiles, and  carried  on  the  war  with  renewed  vigor. 
This  had  been  done  repeatedly.  It  was  making 
a  mockery  of  the  white  flag,  and  subjecting  our 
officers  to  ridicule  as  well  as  to  danger.  Gen- 
eral Jesup  resolved  to  put  an  end  to  these 
treacherous  and  dangerous  visits,  by  which  spies 
and  enemies  obtained  access  to  the  bosom  of  his 
camp.  He  made  known  to  the  chief,  Coi  Hadjo, 
his  determination  to  that  effect.  In  August, 
1837,  he  declared  peremptorily  to  this  chief,  for 
the  information  of  all  the  Indians,  that  none 
were  to  come  in,  except  to  remain,  and  to  emi- 
grate ;  that  no  one  coming  into  his  camp  again 
should  be  allowed  to  go  out  of  it,  but  should  be 
considered  as  having  surrendered  with  a  view 
to  emigrate  under  the  treaty,  and  should  be  de- 
tained for  that  purpose.  In  October,  Osceola 
came  in,  in  violation  of  that  order,  and  was  de- 
tained in  compliance  with  it.  This  is  a  second 
reason  for  the  justification  of  General  Jesup,  and 
is  of  itself  sufficient  to  justify  him ;  but  there 
is  more  justification  yet,  and  I  will  state  it. 

3.  Osceola  had  broken  a  truce,  and,  there- 
fore, was  liable  to  be  detained  whenever  he 
could  be  taken. 

The  facts  were  these :  The  hostile  chiefs  en- 
tered into  an  agreement  for  a  truce  at  Fort 
King,  in  August,  1837,  and  agreed :  1.  Not  to 
commit  any  act  of  hostility  upon  the  whites ; 
2.  Not  to  go  east  of  the  St.  John's  river,  or 
north  of  Fort  Mellon.  This  truce  was  broken 
by  the  Indians  in  both  points.  A  citizen  was 
killed  by  them,  and  they  passed  both  to  the 
east  of  the  St.  John's  and  far  north  of  Fort  Mel- 
lon. As  violators  of  this  truce,  General  Jesup 
had  a  right  to  detain  any  of  the  hostiles  which 


80 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


came  into  his  hands,  and  Osceola  was  one  of 
these. 

Here,  sir,  are  three  grounds  of  justification, 
either  of  them  sufficient  to  justify  the  conduct 
of  General  Jesup  towards  Powell,  as  the  gen- 
tlemen call  him.  The  first  of  the  three  reasons 
applies  personally  and  exclusively  to  that  half- 
breed  ;  the  other  two  apply  to  all  the  hostile 
Indians,  and  justify  the  seizure  and  detention  of 
others,  who  have  been  sent  to  the  West. 

So  much  for  justification  ;  now  for  the  expe- 
diency of  having  detained  this  Indian  Powell.  I 
hold  it  was  expedient  to  exercise  the  right  of 
detaining  him,  and  prove  this  expediency  by 
reasons  both  a  priori  and  a  posteriori.  His 
previous  treachery  and  crimes,  and  his  well 
known  disposition  for  further  treachery  and 
crimes,  made  it  right  for  the  officers  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  to  avail  themselves  of  the  first  justi- 
fiable occasion  to  put  an  end  to  his  depredations 
by  confining  his  person  until  the  war  was  over. 
This  is  a  reason  a  priori.  The  reason  a  pos- 
teriori is,  that  it  has  turned  out  right ;  it  has 
operated  well  upon  the  mass  of  the  Indians,  be- 
tween eighteen  and  nineteen  hundred  of  which, 
negroes  inclusive,  have  since  surrendered  to 
Gen.  Jesup.  This,  sir,  is  a  fact  which  contains 
an  argument  which  overturns  all  that  can  be 
said  on  this  floor  against  the  detention  of  Osce- 
ola. The  Indians  themselves  do  not  view  that 
act  as  perfidious  or  dishonorable,  or  the  viola- 
tion of  a  flag,  or  even  the  act  of  an  enemy.  They 
do  not  condemn  General  Jesup  on  account  of  it, 
but  no  doubt  respect  him  the  more  for  refusing 
to  be  made  the  dupe  of  a  treacherous  artifice. 
A  bit  of  white  linen,  stripped,  perhaps  from  the 
body  of  a  murdered  child,  or  its  murdered  mo- 
ther, was  no  longer  to  cover  the  insidious  visits 
of  spies  and  enemies.  A  firm  and  manly  course 
was  taken,  and  the  effect  was  good  upon  the 
minds  of  the  Indians.  The  number  since  sur- 
rendered is  proof  of  its  effect  upon  their  minds  ; 
and  this  proof  should  put  to  blush  the  lamenta- 
tions which  are  here  set  up  for  Powell,  and  the 
censure  thrown  upon  General  Jesup. 

No,  sir,  no.  General  Jesup  has  been  guilty 
of  no  perfidy,  no  fraud,  no  violation  of  flags. 
He  has  done  nothing  to  stain  his  own  charac- 
ter, or  to  dishonor  the  flag  of  the  United  States. 
If  he  has  erred,  it  has  been  on  the  side  of  hu- 
manity, generosity,  and  forbearance  to  the  In- 
dians. If  he  has  erred,  as  some  suppose,  in  los- 
ing time  to  parley  with  the  Indians,  that  error 


has  been  on  the  side  of  humanity,  and  of  confi- 
dence in  them.  But  has  he  erred  ?  Has  his 
policy  been  erroneous  ?  Has  the  country  been 
a  loser  by  his  policy '?  To  all  these  questions, 
let  results  give  the  answer.  Let  the  twenty- 
two  hundred  Indians,  abstracted  from  the  hos- 
tile ranks  by  his  measures,  be  put  in  contrast 
with  the  two  hundred,  or  less,  killed  and  taken 
by  his  predecessors.  Let  these  results  be  com- 
pared ;  and  let  this  comparison  answer  the 
question  whether,  in  point  of  fact,  there  has 
been  any  error,  even  a  mistake  of  judgment,  in 
his  mode  of  conducting  the  war. 

The  senator  from  South  Carolina  [Mr.  Pres- 
ton] complains  of  the  length  of  time  which 
General  Jesup  has  consumed  without  bringing 
the  war  to  a  close.  Here,  again,  the  chapter 
of  comparisons  must  be  resorted  to  in  order  to 
obtain  the  answer  which  justice  requires.  How 
long,  I  pray  you,  was  General  Jesup  in  com- 
mand ?  from  December,  1836,  to  May,  1838 ; 
nominally  he  was  near  a  year  and  a  half  in 
command  ;  in  reality  not  one  year,  for  the  sum- 
mer months  admit  of  no  military  operations  in 
that  peninsula.  His  predecessors  commanded 
from  December,  1835,  to  December,  1836;  a 
term  wanting  but  a  few  months  of  as  long  a  pe- 
riod as  the  command  of  General  Jesup  lasted. 
Sir,  there  is  nothing  in  the  length  of  time  which 
this  general  commanded,  to  furnish  matter  for 
disadvantageous  comparisons  to  him ;  but  the 
contrary.  He  reduced  the  hostiles  about  one- 
half  in  a  year  and  a  half;  they  reduced  them 
about  the  one-twentieth  in  a  year.  The  whole 
number  was  about  5,000 ;  General  Jesup  di- 
minished their  number,  during  his  command, 
2,200 ;  the  other  generals  had  reduced  them 
about  150.  At  the  rate  he  proceeded,  the  work 
would  be  finished  in  about  three  years  ;  at  the 
rate  they  proceeded,  in  about  twenty  years. 
Yet  he  is  to  be  censured  here  for  the  length  of 
time  consumed  without  bringing  the  war  to  a 
close.  He,  and  he  alone,  is  selected  for  cen- 
sure. Sir,  I  dislike  these  comparisons ;  it  is  a 
disagreeable  task  for  me  to  make  them ;  but  I 
am  driven  to  it,  and  mean  no  disparagement  to 
others.  The  violence  with  which  General  Jesup 
is  assailed  here — the  comparisons  to  which  he 
has  been  subjected  in  order  to  degrade  him — 
leave  me  no  alternative  but  to  abandon  a  meri- 
torious officer  to  unmerited  censure,  or  to  de- 
fend him  in  the  same  manner  in  which  he  has 
been  assailed. 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


81 


The  essential  policy  of  General  Jesup  has 
been  to  induce  the  Indians  to  come  in — to  sur- 
render— and  to  emigrate  under  the  treaty. 
This  has  been  his  main,  but  not  his  exclusive, 
policy ;  military  operations  have  been  combined 
with  it;  many  skirmishes  and  actions  have 
been  fought  since  he  had  command ;  and  it  is 
remarkable  that  this  general,  who  has  been  so 
much  assailed  on  this  floor,  is  the  only  com- 
mander-in-chief in  Florida  who  has  been  wound- 
ed in  battle  at  the  head  of  his  command.  His 
person  marked  with  the  scars  of  wounds  re- 
ceived in  Canada  during  the  late  war  with 
Great  Britain,  has  also  been  struck  by  a  bullet, 
in  the  face,  in  the  peninsula  of  Florida ;  yet 
these  wounds — the  services  in  the  late  war 
with  Great  Britain — the  removal  of  upwards 
of  16,000  Creek  Indians  from  Alabama  and 
Georgia  to  the  "West,  during  the  summer  of 
1836 — and  more  than  twenty -five  years  of  hon- 
orable employment  in  the  public  service — all 
these  combined,  and  an  unsullied  private  char- 
acter into  the  bargain,  have  not  been  able  to 
protect  the  feelings  of  this  officer  from  lacera- 
tion on  this  floor.  Have  not  been  sufficient  to 
protect  his  feelings  !  for,  as  to  his  character, 
that  is  untouched.  The  base  accusation — the 
vague  denunciation — the  offensive  epithets  em- 
ployed here,  may  lacerate  feelings,  but  they  do 
not  reach  character ;  and  as  to  the  military  in- 
quiry, which  the  senator  from  South  Carolina 
speaks  of,  I  undertake  to  say  that  no  such  in- 
quiry will  ever  take  place.  Congress,  or  either 
branch  of  Congress,  can  order  an  inquiry  if  it 
pleases ;  but  before  it  orders  an  inquiry,  a 
probable  cause  has  to  be  shown  for  it ;  and 
that  probable  cause  never  has  been,  and  never 
will  be,  shown  in  General  Jesup's  case. 

The  senator  from  South  Carolina  speaks  of 
the  large  force  which  was  committed  to  Gene- 
ral Jesup,  and  the  little  that  was  effected  with 
that  force.  Is  the  senator  aware  of  the  extent 
of  the  country  over  which  his  operations  ex- 
tended ?  that  it  extended  from  31  to  25  degrees 
of  north  latitude  ?  that  it  began  in  the  Okefe- 
nokee  swamp  in  Georgia,  and  stretched  to  the 
Everglades  in  Florida  ?  that  it  was  near  five 
hundred  miles  in  length  in  a  straight  line,  and 
the  whole  sprinkled  over  with  swamps,  one  of 
which  alone  was  equal  in  length  to  the  distance 
between  Washington  City  and  Philadelphia? 
But  it  was  not  extent  of  country  alone,  with  its 

Vol.  II.— 6 


fastnesses,  its  climate,  and  its  wily  foe,  that  had 
to  be  contended  with ;  a  new  element  of  oppo- 
sition was  encountered  by  General  Jesup,  in 
the  poisonous  information  which  was  conveyed 
to  the  Indians'  minds,  which  encouraged  them 
to  hold  out,  and  of  which  he  had  not  even 
knowledge  for  a  long  time.  This  was  the 
quantity  of  false  information  which  was  con- 
veyed to  the  Indians,  to  stimulate  and  encour- 
age their  resistance.  General  Jesup  took  com- 
mand just  after  the  presidential  election  of  1836. 
The  Indians  were  informed  of  this  change  of 
presidents,  and  were  taught  to  believe  that  the 
white  people  had  broke  General  Jackson — that 
was  the  phrase — had  broke  General  Jackson 
for  making  war  upon  them.  They  were  also 
informed  that  General  Jesup  was  carrying  on 
the  war  without  the  leave  of  Congress ;  that 
Congress  would  give  no  more  money  to  raise 
soldiers  to  fight  them ;  and  that  he  dared  not 
come  home  to  Congress.  Yes,  he  dared  not 
come  home  to  Congress  !  These  poor  Indians 
seem  to  have  been  informed  of  intended  move- 
ments against  the  general  in  Congress,  and  to 
have  relied  upon  them  both  to  stop  supplies 
and  to  punish  the  general.  Moreover,  they 
were  told,  that,  if  they  surrendered  to  emigrate, 
they  would  receive  the  worst  treatment  on  the 
way  j  that,  if  a  child  cried,  it  would  be  thrown 
overboard ;  if  a  chief  gave  offence,  he  would  be 
put  in  irons.  Who  the  immediate  informants 
of  all  these  fine  stories  were,  cannot  be  exactly 
ascertained.  They  doubtless  originated  with 
that  mass  of  fanatics,  devoured  by  a  morbid 
sensibility  for  negroes  and  Indians,  which  are 
now  Don  Quixoting  over  the  land,  and  filling 
the  public  ear  with  so  many  sympathetic  tales 
of  their  own  fabrication. 

General  Jesup  has  been  censured  for  writing 
a  letter  disparaging  to  his  predecessor  in  com- 
mand. If  he  did  so,  and  I  do  not  deny  it, 
though  I  have  not  seen  the  letter,  nobly  has  he 
made  the  amends.  Publicly  and  officially  has 
he  made  amends  for  a  private  and  unofficial 
wrong.  In  an  official  report  to  the  war  de- 
partment, piiblished  by  that  department,  he 
said : 

"  As  an  act  of  justice  to  all  my  predecessors 
in  command,  I  consider  it  my  duty  to  say  that 
the  difficulties  attending  military  operations  in 
this  country,  can  be  properly  appreciated  only 
by  those  acquainted  with  them.    I  have  advan- 


82 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


tages  which  neither  of  them  possessed,  in  bet- 
ter preparations  and  more  abundant  supplies  ; 
and  I  found  it  impossible  to  operate  with  any 
prospect  of  success,  until  I  had  established  a 
line  of  depots  across  the  country.  If  I  have  at 
any  time  said  aught  in  disparagement  of  the 
operations  of  others  in  Florida,  either  verbally 
or  in  writing,  officially  or  unofficially,  know- 
ing the  country  as  I  now  know  it,  I  consider 
myself  bound  as  a  man  of  honor  solemnly  to 
retract  it." 

Such  are  the  amends  which  General  Jesup 
makes — frank  and  voluntary — full  and  kindly — 
worthy  of  a  soldier  towards  brother  soldiers ; 
and  far  more  honorable  to  his  predecessors  in 
command  than  the  disparaging  comparisons 
which  have  been  instituted  here  to  do  them 
honor  at  his  expense. 

The  expenses  of  this  war  is  another  head  of 
attack  pressed  into  this  debate,  and  directed 
more  against  the  administration  than  against 
the  commanding  general.  It  is  said  to  have 
cost  twenty  millions  of  dollars  ;  but  that  is  an 
error — an  error  of  near  one-half.  An  actual 
return  of  all  expenses  up  to  February  last, 
amounts  to  nine  and  a  half  millions  ;  the  rest 
of  the  twenty  millions  go  to  the  suppression 
of  hostilities  in  other  places,  and  with  other  In- 
dians, principally  in  Georgia  and  Alabama,  and 
with  the  Cherokees  and  Creeks.  Sir,  this 
charge  of  expense  seems  to  be  a  standing  head 
with  the  opposition  at  present.  Every  speech 
gives  us  a  dish  of  it ;  and  the  expenditures  un- 
der General  Jackson  and  Mr.  Van  Buren  are 
constantly  put  in  contrast  with  those  of  pre- 
vious administrations.  Granted  that  these  ex- 
penditures are  larger — that  they  are  greatly  in- 
creased ;  yet  what  are  they  increased  for  ? 
Are  they  increased  for  the  personal  expenses  of 
the  officers  of  the  government,  or  for  great  na- 
tional objects  ?  The  increase  is  for  great  ob- 
jects ;  such  as  the  extinction  of  Indian  titles  in 
the  States  east  of  the  Mississippi — the  removal 
of  whole  nations  of  Indians  to  the  west  of  the 
Mississippi — their  subsistence  for  a  year  after 
they  arrive  there — actual  wars  with  some  tribes 
— the  fear  of  it  with  others,  and  the  consequent 
continual  calls  for  militia  and  volunteers  to 
preserve  peace — large  expenditures  for  the  per- 
manent defences  of  the  country,  both  by  land 
and  water,  with  a  pension  list  for  ever  increas- 
ing ;  and  other  heads  of  expenditure  which  are 
for  future  national  benefit,  and  not  for  present 


individual  enjoyment.  Stripped  of  all  these 
heads  of  expenditure,  and  the  expenses  of  the 
present  administration  have  nothing  to  fear 
from  a  comparison  with  other  periods.  Stated 
in  the  gross,  as  is  usually  done,  and  many  igno- 
rant people  are  deceived  and  imposed  upon, 
and  believe  that  there  has  been  a  great  waste 
of  public  money ;  pursued  into  the  detail,  and 
these  expenditures  will  be  found  to  have  been 
made  for  great  national  objects — objects  which 
no  man  would  have  undone,  to  get  back  the 
money,  even  if  it  was  possible  to  get  back  the 
money  by  undoing  the  objects.  No  one,  for 
example,  would  be  willing  to  bring  back  the 
Creeks,  the  Cherokees,  the  Choctaws,  and 
Chickasaws  into  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Geor- 
gia, Tennessee  and  North  Carolina,  even  if  the 
tens  of  millions  which  it  has  cost  to  remove 
them  could  be  got  back  by  that  means  ;  and  so 
of  the  other  expenditures:  yet  these  eternal 
croakers  about  expense  are  blaming  the  gov- 
ernment for  these  expenditures. 

Sir,  I  have  gone  over  the  answers,  which  I 
proposed  to  make  to  the  accusations  of  the  sen- 
ators from  New  Jersey  and  South  Carolina.  I 
have  shown  them  to  be  totally  mistaken  in  all 
'their  assumptions  and  imputations.  I  have 
shown  that  there  was  no  fraud  upon  the  In- 
dians in  the  treaty  at  Fort  Gibson — that  the 
identical  chiefs  who  made  that  treaty  have 
since  been  the  hostile  chiefs — that  the  assassi- 
nation and  massacre  of  an  agent,  two  govern- 
ment expresses,  an  artillery  officer,  five  citizens, 
and  one  hundred  and  twelve  men  of  Major 
Dade's  command,  caused  the  war — that  our 
troops  are  not  subject  to  censure  for  inefficien- 
cy— that  General  Jesup  has  been  wrongfully 
denounced  upon  this  floor — and  that  even  the 
expense  of  the  Florida  war,  resting  as  it  does  in 
figures  and  in  documents,  has  been  vastly  over- 
stated to  produce  efFect  upon  the  public  mind. 
All  these  things  I  have  shown  j  and  I  conclude 
with  saying  that  cost,  and  time,  and  loss  of 
men,  are  all  out  of  the  question ;  that,  for  out- 
rages so  wanton  and  so  horrible  as  those  which 
occasioned  this  war,  the  national  honor  requires 
the  most  ample  amends ;  and  the  national  safety 
requires  a  future  guarantee  in  prosecuting  this 
war  to  a  successful  close,  and  completely  clear- 
ing the  peninsula  of  Florida  of  all  the  Indians 
that  are  upon  it. 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


83 


CHAPTER    XX. 

RESUMPTION  OF  SPECIE  PAYMENTS  BY  THE 
NEW  YORK  BANKS. 

The  suspension  commenced  on  the  10th  of  May 
in  New  York,  and  was  followed  throughout  the 
country.  In  August  the  New  York  banks  pro- 
posed to  all  others  to  meet  in  convention,  and 
agree  upon  a  time  to  commence  a  general  re- 
sumption. That  movement  was  frustrated  by 
the  opposition  of  the  Philadelphia  banks,  for 
the  reason,  as  given,  that  it  was  better  to  await 
the  action  of  the  extra  session  of  Congress, 
then  convoked,  and  to  meet  in  September. 
The  extra  session  adjourned  early  in  October, 
and  the  New  York  banks,  faithful  to  the  prom- 
ised resumption  of  specie  payments,  immediate- 
ly issued  another  invitation  for  the  general  con- 
vention of  the  banks  in  that  city  on  the  27  th 
of  November  ensuing,  to  carry  into  effect  the 
object  of  the  meeting  which  had  been  invited 
in  the  month  of  August.  The  27th  of  Novem- 
ber arrived;  a  large  proportion  of  the  delin- 
quent banks  had  accepted  the  invitation  to  send 
delegates  to  the  convention :  but  its  meeting 
was  again  frustrated — and  from  the  same  quar- 
ter— the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  the  in- 
stitutions under  its  influence.  They  then  re- 
solved to  send  a  committee  to  Philadelphia  to 
ascertain  from  the  banks  when  they  would  be 
ready,  and  to  invite  them  to  name  a  day  when 
they  would  be  able  to  resume ;  and  if  no  day 
was  definitely  fixed,  to  inform  them  that  the 
New  York  banks  would  commence  specie  pay- 
ments without  waiting  for  their  co-operation. 
The  Philadelphia  banks  would  not  co-operate. 
They  would  not  agree  to  any  definite  time  to 
take  even  initiatory  steps  towards  resumption. 
This  was  a  disappointment  to  the  public  mind 
—that  large  part  of  it  which  still  had  faith  in 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States ;  and  the  con- 
tradiction which  it  presented  to  all  the  previous 
professions  of  that  institution,  required  explan- 
ations, and,  if  possible,  reconciliation  with  past 
declarations.  The  occasion  called  for  the  pen 
of  Mr.  Biddle,  always  ready,  always  confident, 
always  presenting  an  easy  remedy,  and  a  sure 
one,  for  all  the  diseases  tc  which  banks,  cur- 
rency, and  finance  were  heir.     It  called  for 


another  letter  to  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,  that 
is  to  say,  to  the  public,  through  the  distinction 
of  that  gentleman's  name.  It  came — the  most 
elaborate  and  ingenious  of  its  species  ;  its  bur- 
den, to  prove  the  entire  ability  of  the  bank 
over  which  he  presided  to  pay  in  full,  and 
without  reserve,  but  its  intention  not  to  do  so, 
on  account  of  its  duty  to  others  not  able  to  fol- 
low its  example,  and  which  might  be  entirely 
ruined  by  a  premature  effort  to  do  so.  And 
he  concluded  with  condensing  his  opinion  into 
a  sentence  of  characteristic  and  sententious 
brevity :  "  On  the  whole,  the  course  which  in 
my  judgment  the  banks  ought  to  pursue,  is 
simply  this :  The  banks  should  remain  exact- 
ly  as  they  are — prepared  to  resume,  but  not 
yet  resuming."  But  he  did  not  stop  there,  but 
in  another  publication  went  the  length  of  a 
direct  threat  of  destruction  against  the  New 
York  banks  if  they  should,  in  conformity  to 
their  promise,  venture  to  resume,  saying :  "  Let 
the  banks  of  the  Empire  State  come  up  from 
their  Elba,  and  enjoy  their  hundred  days  of  re- 
sumption !  a  Waterloo  awaits  them,  and  a  Saint 
Helena  is  prepared  for  them." 

The  banks  of  New  York  were  now  thrown 
upon  the  necessity  of  acting  without  the  con- 
currence of  those  of  Pennsylvania,  and  in  fact 
under  apprehension  of  opposition  and  counter- 
action from  that  quarter.  They  were  publicly 
pledged  to  act  without  her,  and  besides  were 
under  a  legal  obligation  to  do  so.  The  legisla- 
ture of  the  State,  at  the  time  of  the  suspension, 
only  legalized  it  for  one  year.  The  indulgence 
would  be  out  on  the  15  th  of  May,  and  for- 
feiture of  charter  was  the  penalty  to  be  incurred 
throughout  the  State  for  continuing  it  beyond 
that  time.  The  city  banks  had  the  control  of 
the  movement,  and  they  invited  a  convention 
of  delegates  from  all  the  banks  in  the  Union  to 
meet  in  New  York  on  the  15th  of  April.  One 
hundred  and  forty-three  delegates,  from  the 
principal  banks  in  a  majority  of  the  States,  at- 
tended. Only  delegates  from  fifteen  States 
voted — Pennsylvania,  Maryland  and  South  Car- 
olina among  the  absent;  which,  as  including  the 
three  principal  commercial  cities  on  the  Atlan- 
tic board  south  of  New  York,  was  a  heavy  de- 
falcation from  the  weight  of  the  convention. 
Of  the  fifteen  States,  thirteen  voted  for  resuming 
on  the  1st  day  of  January,  1839— a  delay  of 
near  nine  months  j  two  voted  against  that  day 


84 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


— New  York  and  Mississippi ;  and  (as  it  often 
happens  in  concurring  votes)  for  reasons  di- 
rectly opposite  to  each  other.  The  New  York 
banks  so  voted  because  the  day  was  too  distant 
— those  of  Mississippi  because  it  was  too  near. 
The  New  York  delegates  wished  the  15th  of 
May,  to  avoid  the  penalty  of  the  State  law : 
those  of  Mississippi  wished  the  1st  of  January, 
1840,  to  allow  them  to  get  in  two  more  cotton 
crops  before  the  great  pay-day  came.  The  re- 
sult of  the  voting  showed  the  still  great  power 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  The  dele- 
gates of  the  banks  of  ten  States,  including  those 
with  which  she  had  most  business,  either  re- 
fused to  attend  the  convention,  or  to  vote  after 
having  attended.  The  rest  chiefly  voted  the 
late  day,  "  to  favor  the  views  of  Philadelphia 
and  Baltimore  rather  than  those  of  New 
York."  So  said  the  delegates,  "frankly  avow- 
ing that  their  interests  and  sympathies  were 
with  the  former  two  rather  than  with  the  lat- 
ter." The  banks  of  the  State  of  New  York 
were  then  left  to  act  alone — and  did  so.  Sim- 
ultaneously with  the  issue  of  the  convention 
recommendation  to  resume  on  the  first  day  of 
January,  1839,  they  issued  another,  recommend- 
ing all  the  banks  of  the  State  of  New  York  to 
resume  on  the  10th  day  of  May,  1838  ;  that  is 
to  say,  within  twenty-five  days  of  that  time. 
Those  of  the  city  declared  their  determination 
to  begin  on  that  day,  or  earlier,  expressing  their 
belief  that  they  had  nothing  to  fear  but  from 
the  opposition  and  "deliberate  animosity  of 
others" — meaning  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States.  The  New  York  banks  all  resumed  at 
the  day  named.  Their  example  was  immedi- 
ately followed  by  others,  even  by  the  institu- 
tions in  those  States  whose  delegates  had  voted 
for  the  long  day;  so  that  within  sixty  days 
thereafter  the  resumption  was  almost  general, 
leaving  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  uncover- 
ed, naked,  and  prominent  at  the  head  of  all  the 
delinquent  banks  in  the  Union.  But  her  power 
was  still  great.  Her  stock  stood  at  one  hun- 
dred and  twelve  dollars  to  the  share,  being  a 
premium  of  twelve  dollars  on  the  hundred.  In 
Congress,  which  was  still  in  session,  not  a  tittle 
was  abated  of  her  pretensions  and  her  assurance 
— her  demands  for  a  recharter — for  the  repeal 
of  the  specie  circular — and  for  the  condemnation 
of  the  administration,  as  the  author  of  the  mis- 
fortunes of  the  country ;  of  which  evils  there 


were  none  except  the  bank,  suspensions,  of 
which  she  had  been  the  secret  prime  contriver, 
and  was  now  the  detected  promoter.  Briefly 
before  the  New  York  resumption,  Mr.  Webster, 
the  great  advocate  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  truest  exponent  of  her  wishes, 
harangued  the  Senate  in  a  set  speech  in  her  fa- 
vor, of  which  some  extracts  will  show  the  de- 
sign and  spirit : 

"  And  now,  sir,  we  see  the  upshot  of  the  ex- 
periment. We  see  around  us  bankrupt  corpo- 
rations and  broken  promises ;  but  we  see  no 
promises  more  really  and  emphatically  broken 
than  all  those  promises  of  the  administration 
which  gave  us  assurance  of  a  better  currency. 
These  promises,  now  broken,  notoriously  and 
openly  broken,  if  they  cannot  be  performed, 
ought,  at  least,  to  be  acknowledged.  The  gov- 
ernment ought  not,  in  common  fairness  and 
common  honesty,  to  deny  its  own  responsibili- 
ty, seek  to  escape  from  the  demands  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  to  hide  itself,  out  of  the  way  and  be- 
yond the  reach  of  the  process  of  public  opinion, 
by  retreating  into  this  sub-treasury  system. 
Let  it,  at  least,  come  forth  ;  let  it  bear  a  port  of 
honesty  and  candor ;  let  it  confess  its  promises, 
if  it  cannot  perform  them  ;  and,  above  all.  now, 
even  now,  at  this  late  hour,  let  it  renounce 
schemes  and  projects,  the  inventions  of  pre- 
sumption, and  the  resorts  of  desperation,  and 
let  it  address  itself,  in  all  good  faith,  to  the  great 
work  of  restoring  the  currency  by  approved  and 
constitutional  means. 

"  What  say  these  millions  of  souls  to  the  sub- 
treasury  ?  In  the  first  place,  what  says  tfee  city 
of  New  York,  that  great  commercial  emporium, 
worthy  the  gentleman's  [Mr.  Wright]  commen- 
dation in  1834,  and  worthy  of  his  commendation 
and  my  commendation,  and  all  commendation, 
at  all  times  ?  What  sentiments,  what  opinions, 
what  feelings,  are  proclaimed  by  the  thousands 
of  merchants,  traders,  manufacturers,  and  la- 
borers ?  What  is  the  united  shout  of  all  the 
voices  of  all  her  classes  ?  What  is  it  but  that 
you  will  put  down  this  new-fangled  sub-treasu- 
ry system,  alike  alien  to  their  interests  and 
their  feelings,  at  once,  and  for  ever  ?  What  is 
it,  but  that  in  mercy  to  the  mercantile  interest, 
the  trading  interest,  the  shipping  interest,  the 
manufacturing  interest,  the  laboring  class,  and 
all  classes,  you  will  give  up  useless  and  perni- 
cious political  schemes  and  projects,  and  return 
to  the  plain,  straight  course  of  wise  and  whole- 
some legislation  ?  The  sentiments  of  the  city 
cannot  be  misunderstood.  A  thousand  pens 
and  ten  thousand  tongues,  and  a  spirited  press, 
make  them  all  known.  If  we  have  not  already 
heard  enough,  we  shall  hear  more.  Embar- 
rassed, vexed,  pressed  and  distressed,  as  are  her 
citizens  at  this  moment,  yet  their  resolution  is 
not  shaken,  their  spirit  is  not  broken  ;  and,  de- 
pend upon  it,  they  will  not  see  their  commerce, 


ANNO  1838.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


85 


their  business,  their  prosperity  and  their  hap- 
piness, all  sacrificed  to  preposterous  schemes 
and  political  empiricism,  without  another,  and 
a  yet  more  vigorous  struggle. 

"  Sir,  I  think  there  is  a  revolution  in  public 
opinion  now  going  on,  whatever  may  be  the 
opinion  of  the  member  from  New  York,  or 
others.  I  think  the  fall  elections  prove  this, 
and  that  other  more  recent  events  confirm  it. 
I  think  it  is  a  revolt  against  the  absolute  dicta- 
tion of  party,  a  revolt  against  coercion  on  the 
public  judgment ;  and,  especially,  against  the 
adoption  of  new  mischievous  expedients  on 
questions  of  deep  public  interest ;  a  revolt 
against  the  rash  and  unbridled  spirit  of  change  ; 
a  revolution,  in  short,  against  further  revolu- 
tion. I  hope,  most  sincerely,  that  this  revolu- 
tion may  go  on ;  not,  sir,  for  the  sake  of  men, 
but  for  the  sake  of  measures,  and  for  the  sake 
of  the  country.  I  wish  it  to  proceed,  till  the 
whole  country,  with  an  imperative  unity  of 
voice,  shall  call  back  Congress  to  the  true  policy 
of  the  government. 

"  I  verily  believe  a  majority  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States  are  now  of  the  opinion  that 
a  national  bank,  properly  constituted,  limited, 
and  guarded,  is  both  constitutional  and  expe- 
dient, and  ought  now  to  be  established.  So  far 
as  I  can  learn,  three-fourths  of  the  western  peo- 
ple are  for  it.  Their  representatives  here  can 
form  a  better  judgment ;  but  such  is  my  opinion 
upon  the  best  information  which  I  can  obtain. 
The  South  may  be  more  divided,  or  may  be 
against  a  national  institution ;  but,  looking 
again  to  the  centre,  the  North  and  the  East, 
and  comprehending  the  whole  in  one  view,  I 
believe  the  prevalent  sentiment  is  such  as  I 
have  stated. 

"  At  the  last  session  great  pains  were  taken 
to  obtain  a  vote  of  this  and  the  other  House 
against  a  bank,  for  the  obvious  purpose  of  pla- 
cing such  an  institution  out  of  the  list  of  reme- 
dies, and  so  reconciling  the  people  to  the  sub- 
treasury  scheme.  Well,  sir,  and  did  those  votes 
produce  any  effect  1  None  at  all.  The  people 
did  not,  and  do  not,  care  a  rush  for  them.  I 
never  have  seen,  or  heard,  a  single  man,  who 
paid  the  slightest  respect  to  those  votes  of  ours. 
The  honorable  member,  to-day,  opposed  as  he  is 
to  a  bank,  has  not  even  alluded  to  them.  So 
entirely  vain  is  it,  sir,  in  this  country,  to  at- 
tempt to  forestall,  commit,  or  coerce  the  public 
judgment.  All  those  resolutions  fell  perfectly 
dead  on  the  tables  of  the  two  Houses.  We 
may  resolve  what  we  please,  and  resolve  it 
when  we  please ;  but  if  the  people  do  not  like 
it,  at  their  own  good  pleasure  they  will  rescind 
it ;  and  they  are  not  likely  to  continue  their 
approbation  long  to  any  system  of  measures, 
however  plausible,  which  terminates  in  deep 
disappointment  of  all  their  hopes,  for  their  own 
prosperity." 

All  the  friends  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  came  to  her  assistance  in  this  last  trial. 


The  two  halls  of  Congress  resounded  with  her 
eulogium,  and  with  condemnation  of  the  mea- 
sures of  the  administration.  It  was  a  last  effort 
to  save  her,  and  to  force  her  upon  the  federal 
government.  Multitudes  of  speakers  on  one 
side  brought  out  numbers  on  the  other — among 
those  on  the  side  of  the  sub-treasury  and  hard 
money,  and  against  the  whole  paper  system,  of 
which  he  considered  a  national  bank  the  cita- 
del, was  the  writer  of  this  View,  who  under- 
took to  collect  into  a  speech,  from  history  and 
experience,  the  facts  and  reasons  which  would 
bear  upon  the  contest,  and  act  upon  the  judg- 
ment of  candid  men,  and  show  the  country  to 
be  independent  of  banks,  if  it  would  only  will 
it.  Some  extracts  from  that  speech  make  the 
next  chapter. 


CHAPTER    XXI. 

KESUMPTION  OF  SPECIE  PAYMENTS:  HISTORI- 
CAL NOTICES:  MR.  BENTON'S  SPEECH:  EX- 
TRACTS. 

There  are  two  of  those  periods,  each  marking 
the  termination  of  a  national  bank  charter,  and 
each  presenting  us  with  the  actual  results  of  the 
operations  of  those  institutions  upon  the  gene- 
ral currency,  and  each  replete  with  lessons  of 
instruction  applicable  to  the  present  day,  and 
to  the  present  state  of  things.  The  first  of 
these  periods  is  the  year  1811,  when  the  first 
national  bank  had  run  its  career  of  twenty 
years,  and  was  permitted  by  Congress  to  expire 
upon  its  own  limitation.  I  take  for  my  guide 
the  estimate  of  Mr.  Lloyd,  then  a  senator  in 
Congress  from  the  State  of  Massachusetts, 
whose  dignity  of  character  and  amenity  of  man- 
ners is  so  pleasingly  remembered  by  those  who 
served  with  him  here,  and  whose  intelligence 
and  accuracy  entitle  his  statements  to  the  high- 
est degree  of  credit.  That  eminent  senator  es- 
timated the  total  currency  of  the  country,  at 
the  expiration  of  the  charter  of  the  first  na- 
tional bank,  at  sixty  millions  of  dollars,  to  wit : 
ten  millions  of  specie,  and  fifty  millions  in  bank 
notes.  Now  compare  the  two  quantities,  and 
mark  the  results.  Our  population  has  precisely 
doubled  itself  since  1811.  The  increase  of  our 
currency  should,  therefore,  upon  the  same  prin- 
ciple of  increase,  be  the  double  of  what  it  then 


86 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


was ;  yet  it  is  three  times  as  great  as  it  then 
was !  The  next  period  which  challenges  our 
attention  is  the  veto  session  of  1832,  when  the 
second  Bank  of  the  United  States,  according  to 
the  opinion  of  its  eulogists,  had  carried  the  cur- 
rency to  the  ultimate  point  of  perfection. 
What  was  the  amount  then?  According  to 
the  estimate  of  a  senator  from  Massachusetts, 
then  and  now  a  member  of  this  body  [Mr. 
Webster],  then  a  member  of  the  Finance  Com- 
mittee, and  with  every  access  to  the  best  infor- 
mation, the  whole  amount  of  currency  was  then 
estimated  at  about  one  hundred  millions ;  to 
wit :  twenty  millions  in  specie,  and  seventy-five 
to  eighty  millions  in  bank  notes.  The  increase 
of  our  population  since  that  time  is  estimated 
at  twenty  per  cent. ;  so  that  the  increase  of  our 
currency,  upon  the  basis  of  increased  popula- 
tion, should  also  be  twenty  per  cent.  This 
would  give  an  increase  of  twenty  millions  of 
dollars,  making,  in  the  whole,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  millions.  Thus,  our  currency  in  actual 
existence,  is  nearly  one-third  more  than  either 
the  ratio  of  1811  or  of  1832  would  give.  Thus, 
we  have  actually  about  fifty  millions  more,  in 
this  season  of  ruin  and  destitution,  than  we 
should  have,  if  supplied  only  in  the  ratio  of 
what  we  possessed  at  the  two  periods  of  what 
is  celebrated  as  the  best  condition  of  the  cur- 
rency, and  most  prosperous  condition  of  the 
country.  So  much  for  quantity ;  now  for  the 
solidity  of  the  currency  at  these  respective  pe- 
riods. How  stands  the  question  of  solidity  ? 
Sir,  it  stands  thus :  in  1811,  five  paper  dollars 
to  one  of  silver ;  in  1822,  four  to  one ;  in  1838, 
one  to  one,  as  near  as  can  be  !  Thus,  the  com- 
parative solidity  of  the  currency  is  infinitely 
preferable  to  what  it  ever  was  before  ;  for  the 
increase,  under  the  sagacious  policy  of  General 
Jackson,  has  taken  place  precisely  where  it  was 
needed — at  the  bottom,  and  not  at  the  top ;  at 
the  foundation,  and  not  in  the  roof;  at  the  base, 
and  not  at  the  apex.  Our  paper  currency  has 
increased  but  little  ;  we  may  say  nothing,  upon 
the  bases  of  1811  and  1832  ;  our  specie  has  in- 
creased immeasurably ;  no  less  than  eight-fold, 
since  1811,  and  four-f&M  since  1832.  The 
whole  increase  is  specie ;  and  of  that  we  have 
seventy  millions  more  than  in  1811,  and  sixty 
millions  more  than  in  1832.  Such  are  the 
fruits  of  General  Jackson's  policy !  a  policy 
which  we  only  have  to  persevere  in  for  a  few 
years,  to  have  our  country  as  amply  supplied 


with  gold  and  silver  as  France  and  Holland  are; 
that  France  and  Holland  in  which  gold  is  bor- 
rowed at  three  per  cent,  per  annum,  while  w& 
often  borrow  paper  money  at  three  per  cent,  a 
month. 

But  there  is  no  specie.  Not  a  ninepence  to 
be  got  for  a  servant ;  not  a  picayune  for  a  beg- 
gar; not  a  ten  cent  piece  for  the  post-office. 
Such  is  the  assertion ;  but  how  far  is  it  true  ? 
Go  to  the  banks,  and  present  their  notes  at 
their  counter,  and  it  is  all  too  true.  No  gold, 
no  silver,  no  copper  to  be  had  there  in  redemp- 
tion of  their  solemn  promises  to  pay.  Meta- 
phorically, if  not  literally  speaking,  a  demand 
for  specie  at  the  counter  of  a  bank  might  bring 
to  the  unfortunate  applicant  more  kicks  than 
coppers.  But  change  the  direction  of  the  de- 
mand ;  go  to  the  brokers ;  present  the  bank 
note  there ;  no  sooner  said  than  done ;  gold 
and  silver  spring  forth  in  any  quantity;  the 
notes  are  cashed;  you  are  thanked  for  your 
custom,  invited  to  return  again ;  and  thus,  the 
counter  of  the  broker,  and  not  the  counter  of 
the  bank,  becomes  the  place  for  the  redemption 
of  the  notes  of  the  bank.  The  only  part  of  the 
transaction  that  remains  to  be  told,  is  the  per 
centum  which  is  shaved  off!  And,  whoever 
will  submit  to  that  shaving,  can  have  all  the 
bank  notes  cashed  which  he  can  carry  to  them. 
Yes,  Mr.  President,  the  brokers,  and  not  the 
bankers,  now  redeem  the  bank  notes.  There  is 
no  dearth  of  specie  for  that  purpose.  They 
have  enough  to  cash  all  the  notes  of  the  banks, 
and  all  the  treasury  notes  of  the  government 
into  the  bargain.  Look  at  their  placards  I  not 
a  village,  not  a  city,  not  a  town  in  the  Union, 
in  which  the  sign-boards  do  not  salute  the  eye 
of  the  passenger,  inviting  him  to  come  in  and 
exchange  his  bank  notes,  and  treasury  notes, 
for  gold  and  silver.  And  why  cannot  the  banks 
redeem,  as  well  as  the  brokers?  Why  can 
they  not  redeem  their  own  notes  ?  Because  a 
veto  has  issued  from  the  city  of  Philadelphia, 
and  because  a  political  revolution  is  to  be  effect- 
ed by  injuring  the  country,  and  then  charging 
the  injury  upon  the  folly  and  wickedness  of  the 
republican  administrations.  This  is  the  reason, 
and  the  sole  reason.  The  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  its  affiliated  institutions,  and  its  politi- 
cal confederates,  are  the  sole  obstacles  to  the 
resumption  of  specie  payments.  They  alone 
prevent  the  resumption.  It  is  they  who  are 
now  in  terror  lest  the  resumption  shall  begin, 


ANNO  1888.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


87 


and  to  prevent  it,  we  hear  the  real  shout,  and 
feel  the  real  application  of  the  rallying  cry,  so 
pathetically  uttered  on  this  floor  by  the  sena- 
tor from  Massachusetts  [Mr.  Webster]— once 
more  to  the  breach,  dear  friends,  once  more  ! 

Yes,  Mr.  President,  the  cause  of  the  non-re- 
sumption of  specie  payments  is  now  plain  and 
undeniable.  It  is  as  plain  as  the  sun  at  high 
noon,  in  a  clear  sky.  No  two  opinions  can  dif- 
fer about  it,  how  much  tongues  may  differ. 
The  cause  of  not  resuming  is  known,  and  the 
cause  of  suspension  will  soon  be  known  like- 
wise. Gentlemen  of  the  opposition  charge  the 
suspension  upon  the  folly,  the  wickedness,  the 
insanity,  the  misrule,  and  misgovernment  of 
the  outlandish  administration,  as  they  classi- 
cally call  it ;  expressions  which  apply  to  the 
people  who  created  the  administration  which 
have  been  so  much  vilified,  and  who  have  sanc- 
tioned their  policy  by  repeated  elections.  The 
opposition  charge  the  suspension  to  them — to 
their  policy — to  their  acts — to  the  veto  of  1832 
— the  removal  of  the  deposits  of  1833 — the 
Treasury  order  of  1836 — and  the  demand  for 
specie  for  the  federal  Treasury.  This  is  the 
charge  of  the  politicians,  and  of  all  who  follow 
the  lead,  and  obey  the  impulsion  of  the  dena- 
tionalized Bank  of  the  United  States.  But 
what  say  others  whose  voice  should  be  poten- 
tial, and  even  omnipotent,  on  this  question? 
What  say  the  New  York  city  banks,  where  the 
suspension  began,  and  whose  example  was  al- 
leged for  the  sole  cause  of  suspension  by  all  the 
rest?  What  say  these  banks,  whose  position 
is  at  the  fountain-head  of  knowledge,  and  whose 
answer  for  themselves  is  an  answer  for  all. 
What  say  they  ?  Listen,  and  you  shall  hear  ! 
for  I  hold  in  my  hand  a  report  of  a  committee 
of  these  banks,  made  under  an  official  injunc- 
tion, by  their  highest  officers,  and  deliberately 
approved  by  all  the  city  institutions.  It  is 
signed  by  Messrs.  Albert  Gallatin,  George  New- 
bold,  C.  C.  Lawrence,  C.  Heyer,  J.  J.  Palmer, 
Preserved  Fish,  and  G.  A.  Worth, — seven  gen- 
tlemen of  known  and  established  character;  and 
not  more  than  one  out  of  the  seven  politically 
friendly  to  the  late  and  present  administrations 
of  the  federal  government.  This  is  their  re- 
port: 

"  The  immediate  causes  which  thus  compelled 
the  banks  of  the  city  of  New  York  to  suspend 
specie  payments  on  the  10th  of  May  last,  are 


well  known.  The  simultaneous  withdrawing 
of  the  large  public  deposits,  and  of  excessive 
foreign  credits,  combined  with  the  great  and 
unexpected  fall  in  the  price  of  the  principal  ar- 
ticle of  our  exports,  with  an  import  of  corn  and 
bread  stuffs,  such  as  had  never  before  occurred, 
and  with  the  consequent  inability  of  the  coun- 
try, particularly  in  the  south-western  States,  to 
make  the  usual  and  expected  remittances,  did, 
at  one  and  the  same  time,  fall  principally  and 
necessarily,  on  the  greatest  commercial  empo- 
rium of  the  Union.  After  a  long  and  most  ar- 
duous struggle,  during  which  the  banks,  though 
not  altogether  unsuccessfully,  resisting  the  im- 
perative foreign  demand  for  the  precious  metals, 
were  gradually  deprived  of  a  great  portion  of 
their  specie;  some  unfortunate  incidents  of  a 
local  nature,  operating  in  concert  with  other 
previous  exciting  causes,  produced  distrust  and 
panic,  and  finally  one  of  those  general  runs, 
which,  if  continued,  no  banks  that  issue  paper 
money,  payable  on  demand,  can  ever  resist ;  and 
which  soon  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  those  of 
this  city  to  sustain  specie  payments.  The  ex- 
ample was  followed  by  the  banks  throughout 
the  whole  country,  with  as  much  rapidity  as 
the  news  of  the  suspension  in  New  York  reach- 
ed them,  without  waiting  for  an  actual  run  ; 
and  principally,  if  not  exclusively,  on  the  al- 
leged grounds  of  the  effects  to  be  apprehended 
from  that  suspension.  Thus,  whilst  the  New 
York  city  banks  were  almost  drained  of  their 
specie,  those  in  other  places  preserved  the 
amount  which  they  held  before  the  final  catas- 
trophe." 

These  are  the  reasons !  and  what  becomes 
now  of  the  Philadelphia  cry,  re-echoed  by  poli- 
ticians and  subaltern  banks,  against  the  ruinous 
measures  of  the  administration  ?  Not  a  mea- 
sure of  the  administration  mentioned  !  not  one 
alluded  to !  Not  a  word  about  the  Treasury 
order ;  not  a  word  about  the  veto  of  the  Na- 
tional Bank  charter  ;  not  a  word  about  the  re- 
moval of  the  deposits  from  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States;  not  a  word  about  the  specie 
policy  of  the  administration !  Not  one  word 
about  any  act  of  the  government,  except  that 
distribution  act,  disguised  as  a  deposit  law, 
which  was  a  measure  of  Congress,  and  not  of 
the  administration,  and  the  work  of  the  oppo- 
nents, and  not  the  friends  of  the  administration, 
and  which  encountered  its  only  opposition  in 
the  ranks  of  those  friends.  I  opposed  it,  with 
some  half  dozen  others;  and  among  my  grounds 
of  opposition,  one  was,  that  it  would  endanger 
the  deposit  banks,  especially  the  New  York 
city  deposit  banks, — that  it  would  reduce  them 
to  the  alternative  of  choosing  between  breaking 


88 


THIETY  YEAES'  VIEW. 


their  customers,  and  being  broken  themselves. 
This  was  the  origin  of  that  act — the  work  of 
the  opposition  on  this  floor ;  and  now  we  find 
that  very  act  to  be  the  cause  which  is  put  at 
the  head  of  all  the  causes  which  led  to  the  sus- 
pension of  specie  payments.  Thus,  the  admin- 
istration is  absolved.  Truth  has  performed  its 
office.  A  false  accusation  is  rebuked  and 
silenced.  Censure  falls  where  it  is  due;  and 
the  authors  of  the  mischief  stand  exposed  in  the 
double  malefaction  of  having  done  the  mischief, 
and  then  charged  it  upon  the  heads  of  the  inno- 
cent. 

But,  gentlemen  of  the  opposition  say,  there 
can  be  no  resumption  until  Congress  "acts 
upon  the  currency."  Until  Congress  acts  upon 
the  currency  !  that  is  the  phrase  !  and  it  comes 
from  Philadelphia ;  and  the  translation  of  it  is, 
that  there  shall  be  no  resumption  until  Con- 
gress submits  to  Mr.  Biddle's  bank,  and  re- 
charters  that  institution.  This  is  the  language 
from  Philadelphia,  and  the  meaning  of  the  lan- 
guage ;  but,  happily,  a  different  voice  issues 
from  the  city  of  New  York!  The  authentic 
notification  is  issued  from  the  banks  of  that 
city,  pledging  themselves  to  resume  by  the  10th 
day  of  May.  They  declare  their  ability  to  re- 
sume, and  to  continue  specie  payments  ;  and 
declare  they  have  nothing  to  fear,  except  from 
"  deliberate  hostility  " — an  hostility  for  which 
they  allege  there  can  be  no  motive — but  of 
which  they  delicately  intimate  there  is  danger. 
Philadelphia  is  distinctly  unveiled  as  the  seat 
of  this  danger.  The  resuming  banks  fear  hos- 
tility— deliberate  acts  of  hostility — from  that 
quarter.  They  fear  nothing  from  the  hostility, 
or  folly,  or  wickedness  of  this  administration. 
They  fear  nothing  from  the  Sub-Treasury  bill. 
They  fear  Mr.  Biddle's  bank,  and  nothing  else 
but  his  bank,  with  its  confederates  and  subal- 
terns. They  mean  to  resume,  and  Mr.  Biddle 
means  that  they  shall  not.  Henceforth  two 
flags  will  be  seen,  hoisted  from  two  great  cities. 
The  New  York  flag  will  have  the  word  resump- 
tion inscribed  upon  it;  the  Philadelphia  flag 
will  bear  the  inscription  of  non-resumption,  and 
destruction  to  all  resuming  banks. 

I  have  carefully  observed  the  conduct  of  the 
leading  banks  in  the  United  States.  The  New 
York  banks,  and  the  principal  deposit  banks, 
had  a  cause  for  stopping  which  no  others  can 
plead,  or  did  plead.    I  announced  that  cause, 


not  once,  but  many  times,  on  this  floor ;  not 
only  during  the  passage  of  the  distribution  law, 
but  during  the  discussion  of  those  famous  land 
bills,  which  passed  this  chamber ;  and  one  of 
which  ordered  a  peremptory  distribution  of 
sixty-four  millions,  by  not  only  taking  what 
was  in  the  Treasury,  but  by  reaching  back,  and 
taking  all  the  proceeds  of  the  land  sales  for 
years  preceding.  I  then  declared  in  my  place, 
and  that  repeatedly,  that  the  banks,  having 
lent  this  money  under  our  instigation,  if  called 
upon  to  reimburse  it  in  this  manner,  must  be 
reduced  to  the  alternative  of  breaking  their 
customers,  or  of  being  broken  themselves. 
When  the  New  York  banks  stopped,  I  made 
great  allowances  for  them ;  but  I  could  not  jus- 
tify others  for  the  rapidity  with  which  they 
followed  their  example ;  and  still  less  can  I  jus- 
tify them  for  their  tardiness  in  following  the 
example  of  the  same  banks  in  resuming.  Now 
that  the  New  York  banks  have  come  forward 
to  redeem  their  obligations,  and  have  shown 
that  sensibility  to  their  own  honor,  and  that 
regard  for  the  punctual  performance  of  their 
promises,  which  once  formed  the  pride  and 
glory  of  the  merchant's  and  the  banker's  char- 
acter, I  feel  the  deepest  anxiety  for  their  suc- 
cess in  the  great  contest  which  is  to  ensue. 
Their  enemy  is  a  cunning  and  a  powerful  one, 
and  as  wicked  and  unscrupulous  as  it  is  cunning 
and  strong.  Twelve  years  ago,  the  president  of 
that  bank  which  now  forbids  other  banks  to  re- 
sume, declared  in  an  official  communication  to 
the  Finance  Committee  of  this  body,  "  that 
there  were  but  few  State  banks  which  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  could  not  DESTROY 
by  an  exertion  of  its  POWER."  Since  that 
time  it  has  become  more  powerful ;  and,  besides 
its  political  strength,  and  its  allied  institutions, 
and  its  exhaustless  mine  of  resurrection  notes, 
it  is  computed  by  its  friends  to  wield  a  power 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars  !  all 
at  the  beck  and  nod  of  one  single  man !  for  his 
automaton  directors  are  not  even  thought  of! 
The  wielding  of  this  immense  power,  and  its 
fatal  direction  to  the  destruction  of  the  resum- 
ing banks,  presents  the  prospect  of  a  fearful 
conflict  ahead.  Many  of  the  local  banks  will 
doubtless  perish  in  it;  many  individuals  will 
be  ruined ;  much  mischief  will  be  done  to  the 
commerce  and  to  the  business  of  different 
places ;  and  all  the  destruction  that  is  accom- 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


89 


plished  will  be  charged  upon  some  act  of  the 
administration — no  matter  what — for  whatever 
is  given  out  from  the  Philadelphia  head  is  incon- 
tinently repeated  by  all  the  obsequious  follow- 
ers, until  the  signal  is  given  to  open  upon  some 
new  cry. 

Sir,  the  honest  commercial  banks  have  re- 
sumed, or  mean  to  resume.  They  have  re- 
sumed, not  upon  the  fictitious  and  delusive 
credit  of  legislative  enactments,  but  upon  the 
solid  basis  of  gold  and  silver.  The  hundred 
millions  of  specie  which  we  have  accumulated 
in  the  country  has  done  the  business.  To  that 
hundred  millions  the  country  is  indebted  for 
this  early,  easy,  proud  and  glorious  resumption ! 
— and  here  let  us  do  justice  to  the  men  of  this 
day — to  the  policy  of  General  Jackson — and  to 
the  success  of  the  experiments — to  which  we 
are  indebted  for  these  one  hundred  millions. 
Let  us  contrast  the  events  and  effects  of  the 
stoppages  in  1814,  and  in  1819,  with  the  events 
and  effects  of  the  stoppage  in  1837.  and  let  us 
see  the  difference  between  them,  and  the 
causes  of  that  difference.  The  stoppage  of  1814 
compelled  the  government  to  use  depreciated 
bank  notes  during  the  remainder  of  the  war, 
and  up  to  the  year  1817.  Treasury  notes,  even 
bearing  a  large  interest,  were  depreciated  ten, 
twenty,  thirty  per  cent.  Bank  notes  were  at 
an  equal  depreciation.  The  losses  to  the  gov- 
ernment from  depreciated  paper  in  loans  alone, 
during  the  war,  were  computed  by  a  committee 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  at  eighty  mil- 
lions of  dollars.  Individuals  suffered  in  the 
same  proportion ;  and  every  transaction  of  life 
bore  the  impress  of  the  general  calamity. 
Specie  was  not  to  be  had.  There  was,  nation- 
ally speaking,  none  in  the  country.  The  specie 
standard  was  gone ;  the  measure  of  values  was 
lost ;  a  fluctuating  paper  money,  ruinously  de- 
preciated, was  the  medium  of  all  exchanges.  To 
extricate  itself  from  this  deplorable  condition, 
the  expedient  of  a  National  Bank  was  resorted 
to — that  measure  of  so  much  humiliation,  and  of 
so  much  misfortune  to  the  republican  party. 
For  the  moment  it  seemed  to  give  relief,  and  to 
restore  national  prosperity;  but  treacherous 
and  delusive  was  the  seeming  boon.  The  banks 
resumed — relapsed — and  every  evil  of  the  pre- 
vious suspension  returned  upon  the  country 
with  increased  and  aggravated  force. 

Politicians  alone  have  taken  up  this  matter, 


and  have  proposed,  for  the  first  time  since  the 
foundation  of  the  government — for  the  first 
time  in  48  years — to  compel  the  government  to 
receive  paper  money  for  its  dues.  The  pretext 
is,  to  aid  the  banks  in  resuming !  This,  indeed, 
is  a  marvellous  pretty  conception !  Aid  the 
banks  to  resume  !  Why,  sir,  we  cannot  pre- 
vent them  from  resuming.  Every  solvent, 
commercial  bank  in  the  United  States  either 
has  resumed,  or  has  declared  its  determination 
to  do  so  in  the  course  of  the  year.  The  insol- 
vent, and  the  political  banks,  which  did  not 
mean  to  resume,  will  have  to  follow  the  New 
York  example,  or  die  !  Mr.  Biddle's  bank  must 
follow  the  New  York  lead,  or  die !  The  good 
banks  are  with  the  country :  the  rest  we  defy. 
The  political  banks  may  resume  or  not,  as  they 
please,  or  as  they  dare.  If  they  do  not,  they 
die !  Public  opinion,  and  the  laws  of  the  land, 
will  exterminate  them.  If  the  president  of  the 
miscalled  Bank  of  the  United  States  has  made 
a  mistake  in  recommending  indefinite  non- 
resumption,  and  in  proposing  to  establish  a  con- 
federation of  broken  banks,  and  has  found  out 
his  mistake,  and  wants  a  pretext  for  retreating, 
let  him  invent  one.  There  is  no  difficulty  in 
the  case.  Any  thing  that  the  government 
does,  or  does  not — any  thing  that  has  happened, 
will  happen,  or  can  happen — will  answer  the 
purpose.  Let  the  president  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  give  out  a  tune :  incontinently  it 
will  be  sung  by  every  bank  man  in  the  United 
States ;  and  no  matter  how  ridiculous  the  ditty 
may  be,  it  will  be  celebrated  as  superhuman 
music. 

But  an  enemy  lies  in  wait  for  them !  one 
that  foretells  their  destruction,  is  able  to  de- 
stroy them,  and  which  looks  for  its  own  suc- 
cess in  their  ruin.  The  report  of  the  commit- 
tee of  the  New  York  banks  expressly  refers  to 
"  acts  of  deliberate  hostility "  from  a  neigh- 
boring institution  as  a  danger  which  the  resum- 
ing banks  might  have  to  dread.  The  reference 
was  plain  to  the  miscalled  Bank  of  the  United 
States  as  the  source  of  this  danger.  Since  that 
time  an  insolent  and  daring  threat  has  issued 
from  Philadelphia,  bearing  the  marks  of  its 
bank  paternity,  openly  threatening  the  resum- 
ing banks  of  New  York  with  destruction.  This 
is  the  threat :  "  Let  the  banks  of  the  Empire 
State  come  up  from  their  Elba,  and  enjoy 
their  hundred  days  of  resumption  ;  a  Water- 


90 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


loo  awaits  them,  and  a  St.  Helena  is  prepared 
for  them."  Here  is  a  direct  menace,  and  com- 
ing from  a  source  which  is  able  to  make  good 
what  it  threatens.  Without  hostile  attacks, 
the  resuming  banks  have  a  perilous  process  to 
go  through.  The  business  of  resumption  is  al- 
ways critical.  It  is  a  case  of  impaired  credit, 
and  a  slight  circumstance  may  excite  a  panic 
which  may  be  fatal  to  the  whole.  The  public 
having  seen  them  stop  payment,  can  readily  be- 
lieve in  the  mortality  of  their  nature,  and  that 
another  stoppage  is  as  easy  as  the  former.  On 
the  slightest  alarm — on  the  stoppage  of  a  few 
inconsiderable  banks,  or  on  the  noise  of  a 
groundless  rumor — a  general  panic  may  break 

out.     Sauve  qui  pent save  himself  who  can 

— becomes  the  cry  with  the  public ;  and  al- 
most every  bank  may  be  run  down.  So  it  was 
in  England  after  the  long  suspension  there  from 
1797  to  1823 ;  so  it  was  in  the  United  States 
after  the  suspension  from  1814  to  1817 ;  in  each 
country  a  second  stoppage  ensued  in  two  years 
after  resumption;  and  these  second  stoppages 
are  like  relapses  to  an  individual  after  a  spell 
of  sickness  :  the  relapse  is  more  easily  brought 
on  than  the  original  disease,  and  is  far  more 
dangerous. 

The  banks  in  England  suspended  in  1797 — 
they  broke  in  1825  ;  in  the  United  States  it 
was  a  suspension  during  the  war,  and  a  break- 
ing in  1819-20.  So  it  may  be  again  with  us. 
There  is  imminent  danger  to  the  resuming 
banks,  without  the  pressure  of  premeditated 
hostility ;  but,  with  that  hostility,  their  pros- 
tration is  almost  certain.  The  Bank  of  the 
United  States  can  crush  hundreds  on  any  day 
that  it  pleases.  It  can  send  out  its  agents  into 
every  State  of  the  Union,  with  sealed  orders  to 
be  opened  on  a  given  day,  like  captains  sent  in- 
to different  seas ;  and  can  break  hundreds  of 
local  banks  within  the  same  hour,  and  over  an 
extent  of  thousands  of  miles.  It  can  do  this 
with  perfect  ease — the  more  easily  with  resur- 
rection notes — and  thus  excite  a  universal  panic, 
crush  the  resuming  banks,  and  then  charge  the 
whole  upon  the  government.  This  is  what  it 
can  do;  this  is  what  it  has  threatened;  and 
stupid  is  the  bank,  and  doomed  to  destruction, 
that  does  not  look  out  for  the  danger,  and  forti- 
fy against  it.  In  addition  to  all  these  dangers, 
the  senator  from  Kentucky,  the  author  of  the 
resolution  himself,  tells  you  that  these  banks 


must  fail  again  !  he  tells  you  they  will  fail !  and 
in  the  very  same  moment  he  presses  the  com- 
pulsory reception  of  all  the  notes  on  all  these 
banks  upon  the  federal  treasury  !  What  is  this 
but  a  proposition  to  ruin  the  finances — to  bank- 
rupt the  Treasury — to  disgrace  the  adminis- 
tration— to  demonstrate  the  incapacity  of  the 
State  banks  to  serve  as  the  fiscal  agents  of  the 
government,  and  to  gain  a  new  argument  for 
the  creation  of  a  national  bank,  and  the  ele- 
vation of  the  bank  party  to  power  ?  This  is 
the  clear  inference  from  the  proposition;  and 
viewing  it  in  this  light,  I  feel  it  to  be  my  duty 
to  expose,  and  to  repel  it,  as  a  proposition  to 
inflict  mischief  and  disgrace  upon  the  country. 

But  to  return  to  the  point,  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  effects  and  events  of  former  bank 
stoppages,  and  the  effects  and  events  of  the 
present  one.  The  effects  of  the  former  were  to 
sink  the  price  of  labor  and  of  property  to  the 
lowest  point,  to  fill  the  States  with  stop  laws, 
relief  laws,  property  laws,  and  tender  laws ;  to 
ruin  nearly  all  debtors',  and  to  make  property 
change  hands  at  fatal  rates ;  to  compel  the  fed- 
eral government  to  witness  the  heavy  deprecia- 
tion of  its  treasury  notes,  to  receive  its  reve- 
nues in  depreciated  paper ;  and,  finally,  to  sub- 
mit to  the  establishment  of  a  national  bank  as 
the  means  of  getting  it  out  of  its  deplorable 
condition — that  bank,  the  establishment  of 
which  was  followed  by  the  seven  years  of  the 
greatest  calamity  which  ever  afHicted  the  coun- 
try ;  and  from  which  calamity  we  then  had  to 
seek  relief  from  the  tariff,  and  not  from  more 
banks.  How  different  the  events  of  the  present 
time  !  The  banks  stopped  in  May,  1837 ;  they 
resume  in  May,  1838.  Their  paper  depreciated 
but  little  ;  property,  except  in  a  few,  places,  was 
but  slightly  affected  ;  the  price  of  produce  con- 
tinued good ;  people  paid  their  debts  without 
sacrifices ;  treasury  notes,  in  defiance  of  politi- 
cal and  moneyed  combinations  to  depress  them, 
kept  at  or  near  par ;  in  many  places  above  it ; 
the  government  was  never  brought  to  receive 
its  revenues  in  depreciated  paper ;  and  finally 
all  good  banks  are  resuming  in  the  brief  space 
of  a  year ;  and  no  national  bank  has  been  cre- 
ated. Such  is  the  contrast  between  the  two 
periods ;  and  now,  sir,  what  is  all  this  owing 
to  ?  what  is  the  cause  of  this  great  difference  in 
two  similar  periods  of  bank  stoppages  ?  It  is 
owing  to  our  gold  bill  of  1834,  by  which  we 


ANNO  1838.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


91 


corrected  the  erroneous  standard  of  gold,  and 
which  is  now  giving  us  an  avalanche  of  that 
metal ;  it  is  owing  to  our  silver  bill  of  the  same 
year,  by  which  we  repealed  the  disastrous  act 
of  1819,  against  the  circulation  of  foreign  silver, 
and  which  is  now  spreading  the  Mexican  dol- 
lars all  over  the  country ;  it  is  owing  to  our 
movements  against  small  notes  under  twenty 
dollars ;  to  our  branch  .mints,  and  the  increased 
activity  of  the  mother  mint ;  to  our  determina- 
tion to  revive  the  currency  of  the  constitution, 
and  to  our  determination  not  to  fall  back  upon 
the  local  paper  currencies  of  the  States  for  a 
national  currency.  It  was  owinac  to  these 
measures  that  we  have  passed  through  this 
bank  stoppage  in  a  style  so  different  from 
what  has  been  done  heretofore.  It  is  owing  to 
our  "experiments"  on  the  currency — to  our 
"  humbug  "  of  a  gold  and  silver  currency — to 
our  "  tampering "  with  the  monetary  system 
— it  is  owing  to  these  that  we  have  had  this 
signal  success  in  this  last  stoppage,  and  are  now 
victorious  over  all  the  prophets  of  woe,  and  over 
all  the  architects  of  mischief.  These  experi- 
ments, this  humbugging,  and  this  tampering, 
has  increased  our  specie  in  six  years  from  twen- 
ty millions  to  one  hundred  millions ;  and  it  is 
these  one  hundred  millions  of  gold  and  silver 
which  have  sustained  the  country  and  the  gov- 
ernment under  the  shock  of  the  stoppage — has 
enabled  the  honest  solvent  banks  to  resume, 
and  will  leave  the  insolvent  and  political  banks 
without  excuse  or  justification  for  not  resum- 
ing. Our  experiments — I  love  the  word,  and 
am  sorry  that  gentlemen  of  the  opposition  have 
ceased  to  repeat  it — have  brought  an  avalanche 
of  gold  and  silver  into  the  country ;  it  is  satu- 
rating us  with  the  precious  metals,  it  has  re- 
lieved and  sustained  the  country;  and  now 
when  these  experiments  have  been  successful — 
have  triumphed  over  all  opposition — gentlemen 
cease  their  ridicule,  and  go  to  work  with  their 
paper-money  resolutions  to  force  the  govern- 
ment to  use  paper,  and  thereby  to  drive  off  the 
gold  and  silver  which  our  policy  has  brought 
into  the  country,  destroy  the  specie  basis  of  the 
banks,  give  us  an  exclusive  paper  currency 
again,  and  produce  a  new  expansion  and  a  new 
explosion. 

Justice  to  the  men  of  this  day  requires  these 
things  to  be  stated.  They  have  avoided  the 
errors  of  1811.    They  have  avoided  the  pit  into 


which  they  saw  their  predecessors  fall.  Those 
who  prevented  the  renewal  of  the  bank  charter 
in  1811,  did  nothing  else  but  prevent  its  re- 
newal ;  they  provided  no  substitute  for  the 
notes  of  the  bank ;  did  nothing  to  restore  the 
currency  of  the  constitution  ;  nothing  to  revive 
the  gold  currency ;  nothing  to  increase  the  spe- 
cie of  the  country.  They  fell  back  upon  the 
exclusive  use  of  local  bank  notes,  without  even 
doing  any  thing  to  strengthen  the  local  banks, 
by  discarding  their  paper  under  twenty  dollars. 
They  fell  back  upon  the  local  banks ;  and  the 
consequence  was,  the  total  prostration,  the  ut- 
ter helplessness,  the  deplorable  inability  of  the 
government  to  take  care  of  itself,  or  to  relieve 
and  restore  the  country,  when  the  banks  failed. 
Those  who  prevented  the  recharter  of  the 
second  Bank  of  the  United  States  had  seen  all 
this ;  and  they  determined  to  avoid  such  error 
and  calamity.  They  set  out  to  revive  the  na- 
tional gold  currency,  to  increase  the  silver  cur- 
rency, and  to  reform  and  strengthen  the  bank- 
ing system.  They  set  out  to  do  these  things ; 
and  they  have  done  them.  Against  a  powerful 
combined  political  and  moneyed  confederation, 
they  have  succeeded ;  and  the  one  hundred  mil- 
lions of  gold  and  silver  now  in  the  country  at- 
tests the  greatness  of  their  victory,  and  insures 
the  prosperity  of  the  country  against  the  ma- 
chinations of  the  wicked  and  the  factious. 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

MR.  CLAY'S  RESOLUTION  IN  FAVOR  OF  RESUM- 
ING BANKS,  AND  MR.  BENTON'S  REMARKS  UPON 
IT. 

After  the  New  York  banks  had  resolved  to 
recommence  specie  payments,  and  before  the 
day  arrived  for  doing  so,  Mr.  Clay  submitted  a 
resolution  in  the  Senate  to  promote  resumption 
by  making  the  notes  of  the  resuming  banks  re- 
ceivable in  payment  of  all  dues  to  the  federal 
government.  It  was  clearly  a  movement  in  be- 
half of  the  delinquent  banks,  as  those  of  New 
York,  and  others,  had  resolved  to  return  to 
specie  payments  without  requiring  any  such 
condition.  Nevertheless  he  placed  the  banks 
of  the  State  of  New  York  in  the  front  rank  for 
the  benefits  to  be  received  under  his  proposed 


92 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


measure.  They  had  undertaken  to  recommence 
payments,  he  said,  not  from  any  ability  to  do 
so,  but  from  compulsion  under  a  law  of  the 
State.  The  receivability  of  their  notes  in  pay- 
ment of  all  federal  dues  would  give  them  a 
credit  and  circulation  which  would  prevent 
their  too  rapid  return  for  redemption.  So  of 
others.  It  would  be  a  help  to  all  in  getting 
through  the  critical  process  of  resumption  ;  and 
in  helping  them  would  benefit  the  business  and 
prosperity  of  the  country.  He  thought  it  wise 
to  give  that  assistance ;  but  reiterated  his  opin- 
ion that,  nothing  but  the  establishment  of  a 
national  bank  would  effectually  remedy  the 
evils  of  a  disordered  currency,  and  permanently 
cure  the  wounds  under  which  the  country  was 
now  suffering.  Mr.  Benton  replied  to  Mr. 
Clay,  and  said : 

This  resolution  of  the  senator  from  Kentucky 
[Mr.  Clay],  is  to  aid  the  banks  to  resume — to 
aid,  encourage,  and  enable  them  to  resume. 
This  is  its  object,  as  declared  by  its  mover; 
and  it  is  offered  here  after  the  leading  banks 
have  resumed,  and  when  no  power  can  even 
prevent  the  remaining  solvent  banks  from  re- 
suming. Doubtless,  immortal  glory  will  be 
acquired  by  this  resolution !  It  can  be  heralded 
to  all  corners  of  the  country,  and  celebrated  in 
all  manner  of  speeches  and  editorials,  as  the 
miraculous  cause  of  an  event  which  had  already 
occurred !  Yes,  sir — already  occurred  !  for  the 
solvent  banks  have  resumed,  are  resuming,  and 
will  resume.  Every  solvent  bank  in  the  United 
States  will  have  resumed  in  a  few  months,  and 
no  efforts  of  the  insolvents  and  their  political 
confederates  can  prevent  it.  In  New  York  the 
resumption  is  general ;  in  Massachusetts,  Rhode 
Island,  Maine,  and  New  Jersey,  it  is  partial; 
and  every  where  the  solvent  banks  are  prepar- 
ing to  redeem  the  pledge  which  they  gave  when 
they  stopped — that  of  resuming  whenever  New 
York  did.  The  insolvent  and  political  banks 
will  not  resume  at  all,  or,  except  for  a  few 
weeks,  to  fail  again,  make  a  panic  and  a  new  run 
upon  the  resuming  banks — stop  them,  if  possi- 
ble, then  charge  it  upon  the  administration,  and 
recommence  their  lugubrious  cry  for  a  National 
Bank. 

The  resumption  will  take  place.  The  masses 
of  gold  and  silver  pouring  into  the  country 
under  the  beneficent  effects  of  General  Jackson's 
hard-money  policy,  will  enable  every  solvent 


bank  to  resume ;  a  moral  sense,  and  a  fear  of 
consequences,  will  compel  them  to  do  it.  The 
importations  of  specie  are  now  enormous,  and 
equalling  every  demand,  if  it  was  not  sup- 
pressed. There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  the 
quantity  of  specie  in  the  country  is  equal  to  the 
amount,  of  bank  notes  in  circulation — that  they 
are  dollar  for  dollar — that  the  country  is  better 
off  for  money  at  this  day  than  it  ever  was  be- 
fore, though  shamefully  deprived  of  the  use  of 
gold  and  silver  by  the  political  and  insolvent 
part  of  the  banks  and  their  confederate  poli- 
ticians. 

The  solvent  banks  will  resume,  and  Congress 
cannot  prevent  them  if  it  tried.  They  have 
received  the  aid  which  they  need  in  the 
$100,000,000  of  gold  and  silver  which  now  re- 
lieves the  country,  and  distresses  the  politicians 
who  predicted  no  relief,  until  a  national  bank 
was  created.  Of  the  nine  hundred  banks  in  the 
country,  there  are  many  which  never  can  re- 
sume, and  which  should  not  attempt  it,  except 
to  wind  up  their  affairs.  Many  of  these  are 
rotten  to  the  core,  and  will  fall  to  pieces  the 
instant  they  are  put  to  the' specie  test.  Some 
of  them  even  fail  now  for  rags ;  several  have  so 
failed  in  Massachusetts  and  Ohio,  to  say  nothing 
of  those  called  wild  cats — the  progeny  of  a  gen- 
eral banking  law  in  Michigan.  We  want  a  re- 
sumption to  discriminate  between  banks,  and 
to  save  the  community  from  impositions. 

"We  wanted  specie,  and  we  have  got  it.  Five 
years  ago — at  the  veto  session  of  1832 — there 
were  but  twenty  millions  in  the  country.  So 
said  the  senator  from  Massachusetts  who  has 
just  resumed  his  seat  [Mr.  Webster].  We 
have  now,  or  will  have  in  a  few  weeks,  one 
hundred  millions.  This  is  the  salvation  of  the 
country.  It  compels  resumption,  and  has  de- 
feated all  the  attempts  to  scourge  the  country 
into  a  submission  to  a  national  bank.  While 
that  one  hundred  millions  remains,  the  country 
can  place  at  defiance  the  machinations  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  its  confederate 
politicians,  to  perpetuate  the  suspension,  and  to 
continue  the  reign  of  rags  and  shin-plasters. 
Their  first  object  is  to  get  rid  of  these  hundred 
millions,  and  all  schemes  yet  tried  have  failed 
to  counteract  the  Jacksonian  policy.  Ridicule 
was  tried  first ;  deportation  of  specie  was  tried 
next ;  a  forced  suspension  has  been  continued 
for  a  year ;  the  State  governments  and  the  peo- 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


93 


pie  were  vanquished ;  still  the  specie  came  in, 
because  the  federal  government  created  a  de- 
mand for  it.  This  firm  demand  has  frustrated 
all  the  schemes  to  drive  off  specie,  and  to  deliver 
up  the  country  to  the  dominion  of  the  paper- 
money  party.  This  demand  has  been  the 
stumbling  block  of  that  party ;  and  this  resolu- 
tion now  comes  to  remove  that  stumbling 
block.  It  is  the  most  revolting  proposition  ever 
made  in  this  Congress  !  It  is  a  flagrant  viola- 
tion of  the  constitution,  by  making  paper  money 
a  tender  both  to  and  from  the  government.  It 
is  fraught  with  ruin  and  destruction  to  the  pub- 
lic property,  the  public  Treasury,  and  the  pub- 
lic creditors.  The  notes  of  nine  hundred  banks 
are  to  be  received  into  the  Treasury,  and  dis- 
bursed from  the  Treasury.  They  are  to  be 
paid  out  as*well  as  paid  in.  The  ridiculous 
proviso  of  willingness  to  receive  them  on  the 
part  of  the  public  creditor  is  an  insult  to  him  ; 
for  there  is  no  choice — it  is  that  or  nothing. 
The  disbursing  officer  does  not  offer  hard  money 
with  one  hand,  and  paper  with  the  other,  and 
tell  the  creditor  to  take  his  choice.  No!  he 
offers  paper  or  nothing !  To  talk  of  willing- 
ness, when  there  is  no  choice,  is  insult,  mockery 
and  outrage.  Great  is  the  loss  of  popularity 
which  this  administration  has  sustained  from 
paying  out  depreciated  paper ;  great  the  decep- 
tion which  has  been  practised  upon  the  gov- 
ernment in  representing  this  paper  as  being 
willingly  received.  Necessity,  and  not  good 
will,  ruled  the  creditor;  indignation,  resent- 
ment, and  execrations  on  the  administration, 
were  the  thanks  with  which  he  received  it. 
This  has  disgraced  and  injured  the  administra- 
tion more  than  all  other  causes  put  together ; 
it  has  lost  it  tens  of  thousands  of  true  friends. 
It  is  now  getting  into  a  condition  to  pay  hard 
money;  and  this  resolution  comes  to  prevent 
such  payment,  and  to  continue  and  to  perpetu- 
ate the  ruinous  paper-money  payments.  Defeat 
the  resolution,  and  the  government  will  quickly 
pay  all  demands  upon  it  in  gold  and  silver,  and 
Will  recover  its  popularity ;  pass  it,  and  paper 
money  will  continue  to  be  paid  out,  and  the  ad- 
ministration will  continue  to  lose  ground. 

The  resolution  proposes  to  make  the  notes  of 
900  banks  the  currency  of  the  general  govern- 
ment, and  the  mover  of  the  resolution  tells  you, 
at  the  same  time,  that  all  these  banks  will  fail ! 
that  they  cannot  continue  specie  payments  if 


they  begin  !  that  nothing  but  a  national  bank 
can  hold  them  up  to  specie  payments,  and  that 
we  have  no  such  bank.  This  is  the  language 
of  the  mover ;  it  is  the  language,  also,  of  all  his 
party;  more  than  that — it  is  the  language  of 
Mr.  Biddle's  letter — that  letter  which  is  the 
true  exposition  of  the  principles  and  policy  of 
the  opposition  party.  Here,  then,  is  a  proposi- 
tion to  compel  the  administration,  by  law,  to 
give  up  the  public  lands  for  the  paper  of  banks 
which  are  to  fail — to  fill  the  Treasury  with  the 
paper  of  such  banks — and  to  pay  out  such 
paper  to  the  public  creditors.  This  is  the  prop- 
osition, and  it  is  nothing  but  another  form  of 
accomplishing  what  was  attempted  in  this 
chamber  a  few  weeks  ago,  namely,  a  direct  re- 
ceipt of  irredeemable  paper  money !  That  prop- 
osition was  too  naked  and  glaring ;  it  was  too 
rank  and  startling ;  it  was  rebuked  and  repulsed. 
A  circuitous  operation  is  now  to  accomplish 
what  was  then  too  rashly  attempted  by  a  direct 
movement.  Receive  the  notes  of  900  banks  for 
the  lands  and  duties ;  these  900  banks  will  all 
fail  again ; — so  says  the  mover,  because  there  is 
no  king  bank  to  regulate  them.  We  have  then 
lost  our  lands  and  revenues,  and  filled  our 
Treasury  with  irredeemable  paper.  This  is 
just  the  point  aimed  at  by  the  original  propo- 
sition to  receive  irredeemable  paper  in  the  first 
instance :  it  ends  in  the  reception  of  such 
paper.  If  the  resolution  passes,  there  will  be 
another  explosion :  for  the  receivability  of  these 
notes  for  the  public  dues,  and  especially  for  the 
public  lands,  will  run  out  another  vast  expan- 
sion of  the  paper  system — to  be  followed,  of 
course,  by  another  general  explosion.  The  only 
way  to  save  the  banks  is  to  hold  them  down  to 
specie  payments.  To  do  otherwise,  and  espe- 
cially to  do  what  this  resolution  proposes,  is  to 
make  the  administration  the  instrument  of  its 
own  disgrace  and  degradation — to  make  it  join 
in  the  ruin  of  the  finances  and  the  currency — in 
the  surrender  of  the  national  domain  for  broken 
bank  paper — and  in  producing  a  new  cry  for  a 
national  bank,  as  the  only  remedy  for  the  evils 
it  has  produced. 

[The  measure  proposed  by  Mr.  Clay  was  de- 
feated, and  the  experiment  of  a  specie  currency 
for  the  government  was  continued.] 


94 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

RESUMPTION  BY  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  UNITED 
STATES  BANK ;  AND  OTHERS  WHICH  FOLLOW- 
ED HER  LEAD. 

The  resumption  by  the  New  York  banks  had 
its  effect.  Their  example  was  potent,  either  to 
suspend  or  resume.  All  the  banks  in  the  Union 
had  followed  their  example  in  stopping  specie 
payments :  more  than  half  of  them  followed 
them  in  recommencing  payments.  Those  which 
did  not  recommence  became  obnoxious  to  pub- 
lic censure,  and  to  the  suspicion  of  either  dis- 
honesty or  insolvency.  At  the  head  of  this  de- 
linquent class  stood  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  justly  held  accountable  by  the  public 
voice  for  the  delinquency  of  all  the  rest.  Her 
position  became  untenable.  She  was  compelled 
to  descend  from  it ;  and,  making  a  merit  of  ne- 
cessity, she  affected  to  put  herself  at  the  head 
of  a  general  resumption ;  and  in  pursuance  of 
that  idea  invited,  in  the  month  of  July,  through 
a  meeting  of  the  Philadelphia  banks,  a  general 
meeting  in  that  city  on  the  25  th  of  that  month, 
to  consult  and  fix  a  time  for  resumption.  A 
few  banks  sent  delegates;  others  sent  letters, 
agreeing  to  whatever  might  be  done.  In  all 
there  were  one  hundred  and  forty  delegates,  or 
letters,  from  banks  in  nine  States ;  and  these 
delegates  and  letters  forming  themselves  into  a 
general  convention  of  banks,  passed  a  resolution 
for  a  general  resumption  on  the  13th  of  August 
ensuing.  And  thus  ended  this  struggle  to  act 
upon  the  government  through  the  distresses  of 
the  country,  and  coerce  it  into  a  repeal  of  the 
specie  circular — into  a  recharter  of  the  United 
States  Bank — the  restoration  of  the  deposits — 
and  the  adoption  of  the  notes  of  this  bank  for  a 
national  currency.  The  game  had  been  over- 
played. The  public  saw  through  it,  and  derived 
a  lesson  from  it  which  put  bank  and  state  per- 
manently apart,  and  led  to  the  exclusive  use  of 
gold  and  silver  by  the  federal  government ;  and 
the  exclusive  keeping  of  its  own  moneys  by  its 
own  treasurers.  All  right-minded  people  re- 
joiced at  the  issue  of  the  struggle ;  but  there 
were  some  that  well  knew  that  the  resumption 
on  the  part  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
was  hollow  and  deceptive — that  she  had  no 


foundations,  and  would  stop  again,  and  for  ever. 
I  said  this  to  Mr.  Yan  Buren  at  the  time,  and 
he  gave  the  opinion  I  expressed  a  better  accept- 
ance than  he  had  accorded  to  the  previous  one 
in  February,  1837.  Parting  from  him  at  the 
end  of  the  session,  1838-39, 1  said  to  him,  this 
bank  would  stop  before  we  meet  again ;  that  is 
to  say,  before  I  should  return  to  Congress.  It 
did  so,  and  for  ever.  At  meeting  him  the  ensu- 
ing November,  he  was  the  first  to  remark  upon 
the  truth  of  these  predictions. 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

PROPOSED  ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS:    MR.  PRES- 
TON'S MOTION  AND  SPEECH :  EXTRACTS. 

The  republic  of  Texas  had  now  applied  for  ad- 
mission into  the  federal  Union,  as  one  of  its 
States.  Its  minister  at  "Washington,  Memucan 
Hunt,  Esq.,  had  made  the  formal  application  to 
our  executive  government.  That  was  one  ob- 
stacle in  the  way  of  annexation  removed.  It 
was  no  longer  an  insult  to  her  to  propose  to 
annex  her;  and  she  having  consented,  it  referred 
the  question  to  the  decision  of  the  United 
States.  But  there  was  still  another  objection, 
and  which  was  insuperable  :  Texas  was  still  at 
war  with  Mexico  ;  and  to  annex  her  was  to  an- 
nex the  war — a  consequence  which  morality 
and  policy  equally  rejected.  Mr.  Preston,  of 
South  Carolina,  brought  in  a  resolution  on  the 
subject — not  for  annexation,  but  for  a  legisla- 
tive expression  in  favor  of  the  measure,  as  a 
basis  for  a  tripartite  treaty  between  the  United 
States,  Mexico  and  Texas ;  so  as  to  effect  the 
annexation  by  the  consent  of  all  parties,  to 
avoid  all  cause  of  offence ;  and  unite  our  own 
legislative  with  the  executive  authority  in  ac- 
complishing the  measure.  In  support  of  this 
motion,  he  delivered  a  speech  which,  as  showing 
the  state  of  the  question  at  the  time,  and  pre- 
senting sound  views,  and  as  constituting  a  link 
in  the  history  of  the  Texas  annexation,  is  here 
introduced — some  extracts  to  exhibit  its  lead- 
ing ideas. 

"  The  proposition  which  I  now  submit  in  re- 
gard to  this  prosperous  and  self-dependent  State 
would  be  indecorous  and  presumptuous,  had  not 


ANNO  1838.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


95 


the  lead  been  given  by  Texas  herself.  It  ap- 
pears by  the  correspondence  of  the  envoy  extra- 
ordinary of  that  republic  with  our  own  govern- 
ment, that  the  question  of  annexation  on  certain 
terras  and  conditions  has  been  submitted  to  the 
people  of  the  republic,  and  decided  in  the  affirm- 
ative by  a  very  large  majority ;  whereupon,  and 
in  pursuance  of  instructions  from  his  govern- 
ment, he  proposes  to  open  a  negotiation  for  the 
accomplishment  of  that  object.  The  correspond- 
ence has  been  communicated  upon  a  call  from 
the  House  of  Representatives,  and  thus  the 
proposition  becomes  a  fit  subject  for  the  delibe- 
ration of  Congress.  Nor  is  it  proposed  by  my 
resolution,  Mr.  President,  to  do  any  thing  which 
could  be  justly  construed  into  cause  of  offence 
by  Mexico.  The  terms  of  the  resolution  guard 
our  relations  with  that  republic ;  and  the  spirit 
in  which  it  is  conceived  is  entirely  averse  to 
any  compromise  of  our  national  faith  and  honor, 
for  any  object,  of  whatever  magnitude.  More 
especially  would  I  have  our  intercourse  with 
Mexico  characterized  by  fair  dealing  and  mode- 
ration, on  account  of  her  unfortunate  condition, 
resulting  from  a  long-continued  series  of  intes- 
tine dissensions,  which  all  who  have  not  been 
born  to  liberty  must  inevitably  encounter  in 
seeking  for  it.  As  long,  therefore,  as  the  pre- 
tensions of  Mexico  are  attempted  to  be  asserted 
by  actual  force,  or  as  long  as  there  is  any  rea- 
sonable prospect  that  she  has  the  power  and  the 
will  to  resubjugate  Texas,  I  do  not  propose  to 
interfere.  My  own  deliberate  conviction,  to  be 
sure,  is,  that  that  period  has  already  passed ; 
and  I  beg  leave  to  say  that,  in  my  judgment, 
there  is  more  danger  of  an  invasion  and  con- 
quest of  Mexico  by  Texas,  than  that  this  last 
will  ever  be  reannexed  to  Mexico. 

"I  disavow,  Mr.  President,  all  hostile  pur- 
poses, or  even  ill  temper,  towards  Mexico ;  and 
I  trust  that  I  impugn  neither  the  policy  nor 
principles  of  the  administration.  I  therefore 
feel  myself  at  liberty  to  proceed  to  the  discus- 
sion of  the  points  made  in  the  resolution,  en- 
tirely disembarrassed  of  any  preliminary  ob- 
stacle, unless,  indeed,  the  mode  by  which  so 
important  an  act  is  to  be  effected  may  be  con- 
sidered as  interposing  a  difficulty.  If  the  ob- 
ject itself  be  within  the  competency  of  this  gov- 
ernment, as  I  shall  hereafter  endeavor  to  show, 
and  both  parties  consent,  every  means  mutually 
agreed  upon  would  establish  a  joint  obligation. 
The  acquisition  of  new  territory  has  heretofore 
been  effected  by  treaty,  and  this  mode  of  pro- 
ceeding in  regard  to  Texas  has  been  proposed 
by  her  minister ;  but  I  believe  it  would  com- 
port more  with  the  importance  of  the  measure, 
that  both  branches  of  the  government  should 
concur,  the  legislature  expressing  a  previous 
opinion;  and,  this  being  done,  all  difficulties, 
of  all  kinds  whatsoever,  real  or  imaginary, 
might  be  avoided  by  a  treaty  tripartite  between 
Mexico,  Texas,  and  the  United  States,  in  which 
the  assent  and  confirmation  of  Mexico  (for  a 


pecuniary  consideration,  if  you  choose)  might 
be  had,  without  infringing  the  acknowledged 
independence  and  free  agency  of  Texas. 

"  The  treaty,  Mr.  President,  of  1819,  was  a 
great  oversight  on  the  part  of  the  Southern 
States.  We  went  into  it  blindly,  I  must  say. 
The  great  importance  of  Florida,  to  which  the 
public  mind  was  strongly  awakened  at  that 
time  by  peculiar  circumstances,  led  us  precip- 
itately into  a  measure  by  which  we  threw  a 
gem  away  that  would  have  bought  ten  Flori- 
das.  Under  any  circumstances,  Florida  would 
have  been  ours  in  a  short  time ;  but  our  impa- 
tience induced  us  to  purchase  it  by  a  territory 
ten  times  as  large — a  hundred  times  as  fertile, 
and  to  give  five  millions  of  dollars  into  the  bar- 
gain. Sir,  I  resign  myself  to  what  is  done ;  I 
acquiesce  in  the  inexorable  past ;  I  propose  no 
wild  and  chimerical  revolution  in  the  established 
order  of  things,  for  the  purpose  of  remedying 
what  I  conceive  to  have  been  wrong  originally. 
But  this  I  do  propose  :  that  we  should  seize  the 
fair  and  just  occasion  now  presented  to  remedy 
the  mistake  which  was  made  in  1819  ;  that  we 
should  repair  as  far  as  we  can  the  evil  effect  of 
a  breach  of  the  constitution;  that  we  should 
re-establish  the  integrity  of  our  dismembered 
territory,  and  get  back  into  our  Union,  by  the 
just  and  honorable  means  providentially  offered 
to  us,  that  fair  and  fertile  province  which,  in  an 
evil  hour,  we  severed  from  the  confederacy. 

"  But  the  boundary  line  established  by  the 
treaty  of  1819  not  only  deprives  us  of  this  ex- 
tensive and  fertile  territory,  but  winds  with  "  a 
deep  indent "  upon  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi 
itself,  running  upon  the  Red  River  and  the  Ar- 
kansas. It  places  a  foreign  nation  in  the  rear 
of  our  Mississippi  settlements,  and  brings  it 
within  a  stone's  throw  of  that  great  outlet 
which  discharges  the  commerce  of  half  the 
Union.  The  mouth  of  the  Sabine  and  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi  are  of  a  dangerous 
vicinity.  The  great  object  of  the  purchase  of 
Louisiana  was  to  remove  all  possible  interfer- 
ence of  foreign  States  in  the  vast  commerce  of 
the  outlet  of  so  many  States.  By  the  cession 
of  Texas,  this  policy  was,  to  a  certain  extent, 
compromised. 

"  The  committee,  it  appears  to  me,  has  been 
led  to  erroneous  conclusions  on  this  subject  by 
a  fundamental  mistake  as  to  the  nature  and 
character  of  our  government ;  a  mistake  which 
has  pervaded  and  perverted  all  its  reasoning, 
and  has  for  a  long  time  been  the  abundant 
source  of  much  practical  mischief  in  the  action 
of  this  government,  and  of  very  dangerous  spec- 
ulation. The  mistake  lies  in  considering  this, 
as  to  its  nature  and  powers,  a  consolidated  gov- 
ernment of  one  people,  instead  of  a  confederated 
government  of  many  States.  There  is  no  one 
single  act  performed  by  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  under  the  constitution,  as  one  people. 
Even  in  the  popular  branch  of  Congress  this 
distinction  is  maintained.     A  certain  number 


96 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  delegates  is  assigned  to  each  State,  and  the 
people  of  each  State  elect  for  their  own  State. 
When  the  functionaries  of  the  government  as- 
semble here,  they  have  no  source  of  power  but 
the  constitution,  which  prescribes,  defines,  and 
limits  their  action,  and  constitutes  them,  in 
their  aggregate  capacity,  a  trust  or  agency,  for 
the  performance  of  certain  duties  confided  to 
them  by  various  States  or  communities.  This 
government  is,  therefore,  a  confederacy  of  sov- 
ereign States,  associating  themselves  together 
for  mutual  advantages.  They  originally  came 
together  as  sovereign  States,  having  no  authori- 
ty and  pretending  to  no  power  of  reciprocal 
control.  North  Carolina  and  Rhode  Island 
stood  off  for  a  time,  refusing  to  join  the  con- 
federacy, and  at  length  came  into  it  by  the  ex- 
ercise of  a  sovereign  discretion.  So  too  of  Mis- 
souri, who  was  a  State  fully  organized  and  per- 
fect, and  self-governed,  before  she  was  a  State 
of  this  Union ;  and,  in  the  very  nature  of  things, 
this  has  been  the  case  with  all  the  States  here- 
tofore admitted,  and  must  always  continue  to 
be  so.  Where,  then,  is  the  difficulty  of  admit- 
ting another  State  into  this  confederacy  1  The 
power  to  admit  new  States  is  expressly  given. 
"  New  States  may  be  admitted  by  the  Congress 
into  this  Union."  By  the  very  terms  of  the 
grant,  they  must  be  States  before  they  are  ad- 
mitted ;  when  admitted,  they  become  States  of 
the  Union.  The  terms,  restrictions,  and  prin- 
ciples upon  which  new  States  are  to  be  received, 
are  matters  to  be  regulated  by  Congress,  under 
the  constitution. 

"  Heretofore,  in  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana 
and  Florida,  France  and  Spain  both  stipulated 
that  the  inhabitants  of  the  ceded  territories 
should  be  incorporated  in  the  Union  of  the 
United  States  as  soon  as  may  be  consistent 
with  the  principles  of  the  federal  constitution, 
and  admitted  to  all  the  privileges,  rights,  and 
immunities  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
In  compliance  with  this  stipulation,  Louisiana, 
Arkansas,  and  Missouri  have  been  admitted  into 
the  Union,  and  at  no  distant  day  Florida  will 
be.  Now,  if  we  contract  with  France  and  Spain 
for  the  admission  of  States,  why  shall  we  not 
with  Texas  ?  If  France  can  sell  to  us  her  sub- 
jects and  her  territory,  why  cannot  the  people 
of  Texas  give  themselves  and  their  territory  to 
us  7  Is  it  more  consistent  with  our  republican 
notions  that  men  and  territory  can  be  trans- 
ferred by  the  arbitrary  will  of  a  monarch,  for  a 
price,  than  that  a  free  people  may  be  associated 
with  us  by  mutual  consent  ? 

"  It  is  supposed  that  there  is  a  sort  of  politi- 
cal impossibility,  resulting  from  the  nature  of 
things,  to  effect  the  proposed  union.  The  com- 
mittee says  that  "  the  measure  is  in  fact  the  un- 
ion of  two  independent  governments."  Cer- 
tainly the  union  of  twenty-seven  "  independent 
governments;"  but  the  committee  adds,  that 
it  should  rather  be  termed  the  dissolution  of 
both,  and  the  formation  of  a  new  one,  which, 


whether  founded  on  the  same  or  another  writ- 
ten constitution,  is,  as  to  its  identity,  different 
from  either.  This  can  only  be  effected  by  the 
summum  jus,  &c. 

"  A  full  answer  to  this  objection,  even  if  many 
others  were  not  at  hand,  as  far  as  Texas  is  con- 
cerned, is  contained  in  the  fact  that  the  sum- 
mum  jus  has  been  exercised. 

"  Her  citizens,  by  a  unanimous  vote,  have  de- 
cided in  favor  of  annexation ;  and,  according  to 
the  admission  of  the  committee,  this  is  suffi- 
ciently potent  to  dissolve  their  government,  and 
to  surrender  themselves  to  be  absorbed  by  ours. 
To  receive  this  augmentation  of  our  territory 
and  population,  manifestly  does  not  dissolve  this 
government,  or  even  remodel  it.  Its  identity  is 
not  disturbed.  There  is  no  appeal  necessary  to 
the  summum  jus  populi  for  such  a  political  ar- 
rangement on  our  part,  even  if  the  summum 
jus  populi  could  be  predicated  of  this  govern- 
ment, which  it  cannot.  Now,  it  is  very  ob- 
vious that  two  free  States  may  associate  for 
common  purposes,  and  that  these  common  pur- 
poses may  be  multiplied  in  number  or  increased 
in  importance  at  the  discretion  of  the  parties. 
They  may  establish  a  common  agency  for  the 
transaction  of  their  business  ;  and  this  may  in- 
clude a  portion  or  all  of  their  political  func- 
tions. The  new  creation  may  be  an  agency  if 
created  by  States,  or  a  government  if  created 
by  the  people ;  for  the  people  have  a  right  to 
abolish  and  create  governments.  Does  any  one 
doubt  whether  Texas  could  rejoin  the  republic 
of  Mexico  1  Why  not,  then,  rejoin  this  repub- 
lic? 

"  No  one  doubts  that  the  States  now  compos- 
ing this  Union  might  have  joined  Great  Britain 
after  the  declaration  of  independence.  The 
learned  committee  would  not  contend  that  there 
was  a  political  impossibility  in  the  union  of 
Scotland  and  England,  or  of  Ireland  and  Brit- 
ain ;  or  that,  in  the  nature  of  things,  it  would 
be  impossible  for  Louisiana,  if  she  were  a  sov- 
ereign State  out  of  this  Union,  to  join  with  the 
sovereign  State  of  Texas  in  forming  a  new  gov- 
ernment. 

"  There  is  no  point  of  view  in  which  the  prop- 
osition for  annexation  can  be  considered,  that 
any  serious  obstacle  in  point  of  form  presents 
itself.  If  this  government  be  a  confederation 
of  States,  then  it  is  proposed  to  add  another 
State  to  the  confederacy.  If  this  government 
be  a  consolidation,  then  it  is  proposed  to  add  to 
it  additional  territory  and  population.  That 
we  can  annex,  and  afterwards  admit,  the  cases 
of  Florida  and  Louisiana  prove.  We  can,  there- 
fore, deal  with  the  people  of  Texas  for  the  ter- 
ritory of  Texas,  and  the  people  can  be  secured 
in  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  constitution, 
as  were  the  subjects  of  Spain  and  France. 

"The  Massachusetts  legislature  experience 
much  difficulty  in  ascertaining  the  mode  of  ac- 
tion by  which  the  proposed  annexation  can  be 
effected,  and  demand  "  in  what  form  would  be 


ANNO  1838.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


97 


the  practical  exercise  of  the  supposed  power  ? 
In  what  department  does  it  lie  ?  "  The  pro- 
gress of  events  already,  in  a  great  measure,  an- 
swers this  objection.  Texas  has  taken  the  ini- 
tiative. Her  minister  has  introduced  the  sub- 
ject to  that  department  which  is  alone  capable 
of  receiving  communications  from  foreign  gov- 
ernments, and  the  executive  has  submitted  the 
correspondence  to  Congress.  The  resolutions 
before  you  propose  an  expression  of  opinion  by 
Congress,  which,  if  made,  the  executive  will 
doubtless  address  itself  earnestly,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  authorities  of  Texas,  to  the  con- 
summation of  the  joint  wishes  of  the  parties, 
which  can  be  accomplished  by  treaty,  emanat- 
ing from  one  department  of  this  government,  to 
be  carried  into  effect  by  the  passage  of  all  need- 
ful laws  by  the  legislative  department,  and  by 
the  exercise  of  the  express  power  of  Congress 
to  admit  new  States." 

The  proposition  of  Mr.  Preston  did  not  pre- 
vail ;  the  period  for  the  annexation  of  Texas  had 
not  yet  arrived.  War  still  existing  between 
Mexico  and  Texas — the  status  of  the  two  coun- 
tries being  that  of  war,  although  hostilities 
hardly  existed — a  majority  of  the  Senate  deem- 
ed it  unadvisable  even  to  take  the  preliminary 
steps  towards  annexation  which  his  resolution 
proposed.  A  motion  to  lay  the  proposition  on 
the  table  prevailed,  by  a  vote  of  24  to  14. 


CHAPTER    XXV. 

DEBATE  BETWEEN  MR.  CLAY  AND  ME.  CAL- 
HOUN, PERSONAL  AND  POLITICAL,  AND  LEAD- 
ING TO  EXPOSITIONS  AND  VINDICATIONS  OF 
PUBLIC  CONDUCT  WHICH  BELONG  TO  HISTO- 
RY. 

For  seven  years  past  Mr.  Calhoun,  while  dis- 
claiming connection  with  any  party,  had  acted 
on  leading  measures  with  the  opposition,  head- 
ed by  Messrs.  Clay  and  Webster.  Still  dis- 
claiming any  such  connection,  he  was  found  at 
the  extra  session  co-operating  with  the  admin- 
istration. His  co-operation  with  the  opposition 
had  given  it  the  victory  in  many  eventful  con~ 
tests  in  that  long  period  ;  his  co-operation  with 
the  Van  Buren  administration  might  turn  the 
tide  of  victory.  The  loss  or  gain  of  a  chief 
who,  in  a  nearly  balanced  state  of  parties,  could 
carry  victory  to  the  side  which  he  espoused, 
was  an  event  not  to  be  viewed  without  vexation 

Vol.  II.— 7 


by  the  party  which  ho  left.  Resentment  was 
as  natural  on  one  side  as  gratification  was  on 
the  other.  The  democratic  party  had  made  no 
reproaches — (I  speak  of  the  debates  in  Con- 
gress)— when  Mr.  Calhoun  left  them ;  they  de- 
bated questions  with  him  as  if  there  had  been 
no  cause  for  personal  complaint.  Not  so  with 
the  opposition  now  when  the  course  of  his  tran- 
sit was  reversed,  and  the  same  event  occurred 
to  themselves.  They  took  deeply  to  heart  this 
withdrawal  of  one  of  their  leaders,  and  his  ap- 
pearance on  the  other  side.  It  created  a  feel- 
ing of  personal  resentment  against  Mr.  Calhoun 
which  had  manifested  itself  in  several  small 
side-blows  at  the  extra  session ;  and  it  broke 
out  into  systematic  attack  at  the  regular  one. 
Some  sharp  passages  took  place  between  himself 
and  Mr.  Webster,  but  not  of  a  kind  to  lead  to 
any  thing  historical.  He  (Mr.  Webster)  was  but 
slightly  inclined  towards  that  kind  of  speaking 
which  mingles  personality  with  argument,  and 
lessens  the  weight  of  the  adversary  argument 
by  reducing  the  weight  of  the  speaker's  char- 
acter. Mr.  Clay  had  a  turn  that  way  ;  and,  cer- 
tainly, a  great  ability  for  it.  Invective,  mingled 
with  sarcasm,  was  one  of  the  phases  of  his  ora- 
tory. He  was  supreme  at  a  philippic  (taken  in 
the  sense  of  Demosthenes  and  Cicero),  where  the 
political  attack  on  a  public  man's  measure  was 
to  be  enforced  and  heightened  by  a  personal 
attack  on  his  conduct.  He  owed  much  of  his 
fascinating  power  over  his  hearers  to  the  exer- 
cise of  this  talent — always  so  captivating  in  a 
popular  assembly,  and  in  the  galleries  of  the 
Senate ;  not  so  much  so  in  the  Senate  itself ; 
and  to  him  it  naturally  fell  to  become  the  organ 
of  the  feelings  of  his  party  towards  Mr.  Cal- 
houn. And  very  cordially,  and  carefully,  and 
amply,  did  he  make  preparation  for  it. 

The  storm  had  been  gathering  since  Septem- 
ber :  it  burst  in  February.  It  had  been  evi- 
dently waiting  for  an  occasion  :  and  found  it  in 
the  first  speech  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  of  that  session, 
in  favor  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  recommendation  for 
an  independent  treasury  and  a  federal  hard- 
money  currency.  This  speech  was  delivered  the 
15th  of  February,  and  was  strictly  argumenta- 
tive and  parliamentary,  and  wholly  confined  to 
its  subject.  Four  days  thereafter  Mr.  Clay  an- 
swered it ;  and  although  ready  at  an  extempo- 
raneous speech,  he  had  the  merit,  when  time  per- 
mitted, of  considering  well  both  the  matter  and 


98 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  words  of  what  he  intended  to  deliver.  On 
this  occasion  he  had  had  ample  time ;  for  the 
speech  of  Mr.  Calhoun  could  not  be  essentially 
different  from  the  one  he  delivered  on  the  same 
subject  at  the  extra  session ;  and  the  personal 
act  which  excited  his  resentment  was  of  the 
same  date.  There  had  been  six  months  for  pre- 
paration ;  and  fully  had  preparation  been  made. 
The  whole  speech  bore  the  impress  of  careful 
elaboration,  and  especially  the  last  part ;  for  it 
consisted  of  two  distinct  parts — the  first,  argu- 
mentative, and  addressed  to  the  measure  before 
the  Senate :  and  was  in  fact,  as  well  as  in  name, 
a  reply.  The  second  part  was  an  attack,  under 
the  name  of  a  reply,  and  was  addressed  to  the 
personal  conduct  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  reproaching 
him  with  his  desertion  (as  it  was  called),  and 
taunting  him  with  the  company  he  had  got 
into — taking  care  to  remind  him  of  his  own 
former  sad  account  of  that  company :  and  then, 
launching  into  a  wider  field,  he  threw  up  to 
him  all  the  imputed  political  delinquencies  of 
his  life  for  near  twenty  years — skipping  none 
from  1816  down  to  the  extra  session  ; — al- 
though he  himself  had  been  in  close  political 
friendship  with  this  alleged  delinquent  during 
the  greater  part  of  that  long  time.  Mr.  Calhoun 
saw  at  once  the  advantage  which  this  general 
and  sweeping  assault  put  into  his  hands.  Had 
the  attack  been  confined  to  the  mere  circum- 
stance of  quitting  one  side  and  joining  the  other, 
it  might  have  been  treated  as  a  mere  personali- 
ty ;  and,  either  left  unnoticed,  or  the  account 
settled  at  once  with  some  ready  words  of  retort 
and  justification.  But  in  going  beyond  the  act 
which  gave  the  offence — beyond  the  cause  of  re- 
sentment, which  was  recent,  and  arraigning  a 
member  on  the  events  of  almost  a  quarter  of  a 
century  of  public  fife,  he  went  beyond  the  lim- 
its of  the  occasion,  and  gave  Mr.  Calhoun  the 
opportunity  of  explaining,  or  justifying,  or  ex- 
cusing all  that  had  ever  been  objected  to  him ; 
and  that  with  the  sympathy  in  the  audience 
with  which  attack  for  ever  invests  the  rights 
of  defence.  He  saw  his  advantage,  and  availed 
himself  of  it.  Though  prompt  at  a  reply,  he 
chose  to  make  none  in  a  hurry.  A  pause  en- 
sued Mr.  Clay's  conclusion,  every  one  deferring 
to  Mr.  Calhoun's  right  of  reply.  He  took  the 
floor,  but  it  was  only  to  say  that  he  would  re- 
ply at  his  leisure  to  the  senator  from  Ken- 
tucky. 


He  did  reply,  and  at  his  own  good  time,  which 
was  at  the  end  of  twenty  days  ;  and  in  a  way 
to  show  that  he  had  "  smelt  the  lamp."  not  of 
Demades,  but  of  Demosthenes,  during  that  time. 
It  was  profoundly  meditated  and  elaborately 
composed  :  the  matter  solid  and  condensed ; 
the  style  chaste,  terse  and  vigorous  :  the  narra- 
tive clear ;  the  logic  close ;  the  sarcasm  cutting  : 
and  every  word  bearing  upon  the  object  in  view. 
It  was  a  masterly  oration,  and  like  Mr.  Clay's 
speech,  divided  into  two  parts  ;  but  the  second 
part  only  seemed  to  occupy  his  feelings,  and 
bring  forth  words  from  the  heart  as  well  as  from 
the  head.  And  well  it  might !  He  was  speak- 
ing, not  for  life,  but  for  character  !  and  defend- 
ing public  character,  in  the  conduct  which  makes 
it,  and  on  high  points  of  policy,  which  belonged 
to  history — defending  it  before  posterity  and  the 
present  age,  impersonated  in  the  American  Sen- 
ate, before  which  he  stood,  and  to  whom  he  ap- 
pealed as  judges  while  invoking  as  witnesses. 
He  had  a  high  occasion,  and  he  felt  it ;  a  high 
tribunal  to  plead  before,  and  he  rejoiced  in  it ; 
a  high  accuser,  and  he  defied  him  ;  a  high  stake 
to  contend  for,  his  own  reputation :  and  manful- 
ly, earnestly,  and  powerfully  did  he  defend  it. 
He  had  a  high  example  both  in  oratory,  and  in 
the  analogies  of  the  occasion,  before  him ;  and 
well  had  he  looked  into  that  example.  I  hap- 
pened to  know  that  in  this  time  he  refreshed 
his  reading  of  the  Oration  on  the  Crown  ;  and, 
as  the  delivery  of  his  speech  showed,  not  with- 
out profit.  Besides  its  general  cast,  which  was 
a  good  imitation,  there  were  passages  of  a  vigor 
and  terseness — of  a  power  and  simplicity — 
which  would  recall  the  recollection  of  that  mas- 
terpiece of  the  oratory  of  the  world.  There 
were  points  of  analogy  in  the  cases  as  well  as  in 
the  speeches,  each  case  being  that  of  one  emi- 
nent statesman  accusing  another,  and  before  a 
national  tribunal,  and  upon  the  events  of  a  pub- 
lic life.  More  happy  than  the  Athenian  orator, 
the  American  statesman  had  no  foul  imputations 
to  repel.  Different  from  iEschines  and  Demos- 
thenes, both  himself  and  Mr.  Clay  stood  above 
the  imputation  of  corrupt  action  or  motive.  If 
they  had  faults,  and  what  public  man  is  without 
them  ?  they  were  the  faults  of  lofty  natures — 
not  of  sordid  souls;  and  they  looked  to  the 
honors  of  their  country — not  its  plunder — for 
their  fair  reward. 

When  Mr.  Calhoun  finished,   Mr.  Clay  in- 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


99 


stantly  arose,  and  rejoined — his  rejoinder  almost 
entirely  directed  to  the  personal  part  of  the  dis- 
cussion, which  from  its  beginning  had  been  the 
absorbing  part.  Much  stung  by  Mr.  Calhoun's 
reply,  who  used  the  sword  as  well  as  the  buck- 
ler, and  with  a  keen  edge  upon  it,  he  was  more 
animated  and  sarcastic  in  the  rejoinder  than  in 
the  first  attack.  Mr.  Calhoun  also  rejoined  in- 
stantly. A  succession  of  brief  and  rapid  re- 
joinders took  place  between  them  (chiefly  omit- 
ted in  this  work),  which  seemed  running  to  in- 
finity, when  Mr.  Calhoun,  satisfied  with  what 
he  had  done,  pleasantly  put  an  and  to  it  by  say- 
ing, he  saw  the  senator  from  Kentucky  was  de- 
termined to  have  the  last  word ;  and  he  would 
yield  it  to  him.  Mr.  Clay,  in  the  same  spirit, 
disclaimed  that  desire ;  and  said  no  more.  And 
thus  the  exciting  debate  terminated  with  more 
courtesy  than  that  with  which  it  had  been  con- 
ducted. 

In  all  contests  of  this  kind  there  is  a  feeling 
of  violated  decorum  which  makes  each  party 
solicitous  to  appear  on  the  defensive,  and  for 
that  purpose  to  throw  the  blame  of  commencing 
on  the  opposite  side.  Even  the  one  that  pal- 
pably throws  the  first  stone  is  yet  anxious  to 
show  that  it  was  a  defensive  throw ;  or  at  least 
provoked  by  previous  wrong.  Mr.  Clay  had 
this  feeling  upon  him,  and  knew  that  the  onus 
of  making  out  a  defensive  case  fell  upon  him ; 
and  he  lost  no  time  in  endeavoring  to  establish 
it.  He  placed  his  defence  in  the  forepart  of  the 
attack.  At  the  very  outset  of  the  personal  part 
of  his  speech  he  attended  to  this  essential  pre- 
liminary, and  found  the  justification,  as  he  be- 
lieved, in  some  expressions  of  Mr.  Calhoun  in 
his  sub-treasury  speech;  and  in  a  couple  of 
passages  in  a  letter  he  had  written  on  a  public 
occasion,  after  his  return  from  the  extra  session 
— commonly  called  the  Edgefield  letter.  In  the 
speech  he  believed  he  found  a  reproach  upon 
the  patriotism  of  himself  and  friends  in  not  fol- 
lowing his  (Mr.  Calhoun's)  "  lead  "  in  support 
of  the  administration  financial  and  currency 
measures ;  and  in  the  letter,  an  impeachment 
of  the  integrity  and  patriotism  of  himself  and 
friends  if  they  got  into  power;  and  also  an 
avowal  that  his  change  of  sides  was  for  selfish 
considerations.  The  first  reproach,  that  of  lack 
of  patriotism  in  not  following  Mr.  Calhoun's 
lead,  he  found  it  hard  to  locate  in  any  definite 
part  of  the  speech;  and  had  to  rest  it  upon  gene- 


ral expressions.  The  others,  those  founded 
upon  passages  in  the  letter,  were  definitely 
quoted;  and  were  in  these  terms:  "/  could 
not  back  and,  sustain  those  in  such  opposition 
in  whose  wisdom,  firmness  and  patriotism  I 
had  no  reason  to  confide.'''1 — "  It  was  clear, 
with  our  joint  forces  (whigs  and  nullifiers), 
we  could  utterly  overthrow  and  demolish 
them;  but  it  was  not  less  clear  that  the  vic- 
tory would  enure,  not  to  us,  but  exclusively  to 
the  benefit  of  our  allies,  and  their  cause." 
These  passages  were  much  commented  upon, 
especially  in  the  rejoinders ;  and  the  whole  let- 
ter produced  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  the  meaning 
claimed  for  them  fully  stated  by  him. 

In  the  speeches  for  and  against  the  crown  we 
see  Demosthenes  answering  what  has  not  been 
found  in  the  speech  of  Eschines:  the  same 
anomaly  took  place  in  this  earnest  debate,  as 
reported  between  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Calhoun. 
The  latter  answers  much  which  is  not  found  in 
the  published  speech  to  which  he  is  replying. 
It  gave  rise  to  some  remark  between  the 
speakers  during  the  rejoinders.  Mr.  Calhoun 
said  he  was  replying  to  the  speech  as  spoken. 
Mr.  Clay  said  it  was  printed  under  his  super- 
vision— as  much  as  to  say  he  sanctioned  the 
omissions.  The  fact  is,  that  with  a  commend- 
able feeling,  he  had  softened  some  parts,  and 
omitted  others  ;  for  that  which  is  severe  enough 
in  speaking,  becomes  more  so  in  writing ;  and 
its  omission  or  softening  is  a  tacit  retraction, 
and  honorable  to  the  cool  reflection  which  con- 
demns what  passion,  or  heat,  had  prompted. 
But  Mr.  Calhoun  did  not  accept  the  favor:  and, 
neither  party  desiring  quarter,  the  one  answer- 
ed what  had  been  dropt,  and  the  other  re-pro- 
duced it,  with  interest.  In  his  rejoinders,  Mr. 
Clay  supplied  all  that  had  been  omitted — and 
made  additions  to  it. 

This  contest  between  two  eminent  men,  on  a 
theatre  so  elevated,  in  which  the  stake  to  each 
was  so  great,  and  in  which  each  did  his  best, 
conscious  that  the  eye  of  the  age  and  of  posterity 
was  upon  him,  was  an  event  in  itself,  and  in 
their  lives.  It  abounded  with  exemplifications 
of  all  the  different  sorts  of  oratory  of  which 
each  was  master:  on  one  side — declamation, 
impassioned  eloquence,  vehement  invective, 
taunting  sarcasm :  on  the  other — close  reason- 
ing, chaste  narrative,  clear  statement,  keen  re- 
tort.   Two  accessories  of  such  contests  (disrup- 


100 


THIRTY  TEARS'  YIEW. 


tions  of  friendships),  were  missing,  and  well — 
the  pathetic  and  the  virulent.  There  was  no 
crying,  or  blackguarding  in  it — nothing  like  the 
weeping  scene  between  Fox  and  Burke,  when 
the  heart  overflowed  with  tenderness  at  the  re- 
collection of  former  love,  now  gone  forever ;  nor 
like  the  virulent  one  when  the  gall,  overflowing 
with  bitterness,  warned  an  ancient  friend  never 
to  return  as  a  spy  to  the  camp  which  he  had 
left  as  a  deserter. 

There  were  in  the  speeches  of  each  some  re- 
markable passages,  such  only  as  actors  in  the 
scenes  could  furnish,  and  which  history  will 
claim.  Thus :  Mr.  Clay  gave  some  inside  views 
of  the  concoction  of  the  famous  compromise  act 
of  1833 ;  which,  so  far  as  they  go,  correspond 
with  the  secret  history  of  the  same  concoction 
as  given  in  one  of  the  chapters  on  that  subject 
in  the  first  volume  of  this  work.  Mr.  Clay's 
speech  is  also  remarkable  for  the  declaration 
that  the  protective  system,  which  he  so  long 
advocated,  was  never  intended  to  be  permanent : 
that  its  only  design  was  to  give  temporary  en- 
couragement to  infant  manufactures :  and  that  it 
had  fulfilled  its  mission.  Mr.  Calhoun's  speech 
was  also  remarkable  for  admitting  the  power, 
and  the  expediency  of  incidental  protection,  as 
it  was  called;  and  on  this  ground  he  justified 
his  support  of  the  tariff  of  1816 — so  much  ob- 
jected against  him.  He  also  gave  his  history  of 
the  compromise  of  1833,  attributing  it  to  the  effi- 
cacy of  nullification  and  of  the  military  attitude 
of  South  Carolina :  which  brought  upon  him  the 
relentless  sarcasm  of  Mr.  Clay;  and  occasioned 
his  explanation  of  his  support  of  a  national 
bank  in  1816.  He  was  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee which  reported  the  charter  for  that  bank, 
and  gave  it  the  support  which  carried  it  through; 
with  which  he  was  reproached  after  he  became 
opposed  to  the  bank.  He  explained  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  he  gave  that  support — 
such  as  I  had  often  heard  him  state  in  con- 
versation ;  and  which  always  appeared  to  me  to 
be  sufficient  to  exempt  him  from  reproach.  At 
the  same  time  (and  what  is  but  little  known), 
he  had  the  merit  of  opposing,  and  probably  of 
defeating,  a  far  more  dangerous  bank — one  of 
fifty  millions  (equivalent  to  one  hundred  and 
twenty  millions  now),  and  founded  almost 
wholly  upon  United  States  stocks — imposingly 
recommended  to  Congress  by  the  then  secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  Alexander  J.  Dallas.    The 


analytical  mind  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  then  one  of  the 
youngest  members,  immediately  solved  this 
monster  proposition  into  its  constituent  ele- 
ments; and  his  power  of  generalization  and 
condensation,  enabled  him  to  express  its  char- 
acter in  two  words — lending  our  credit  to  the 
bank  for  nothing,  and  borrowing  it  back  at 
six  per  cent,  interest.  As  an  alternative,  and 
not  as  a  choice,  he  supported  the  national  bank 
that  was  chartered,  after  twice  defeating  the 
monster  bank  of  fifty  millions  founded  on  paper ; 
for  that  monster  was  twice  presented  to  Con- 
gress, and  twice  repulsed.  The  last  time  it 
came  as  a  currency  measure — as  a  bank  to 
create  a  national  currency ;  and  as  such  was  re- 
ferred to  a  select  committee  on  national  cur- 
rency, of  which  Mr.  Calhoun  was  chairman. 
He  opposed  it,  and  fell  into  the  support  of  the 
bank  which  was  chartered.  Strange  that  in 
this  search  for  a  national  bank,  the  currency  of 
the  constitution  seemed  to  enter  no  one's  head. 
The  revival  of  the  gold  currency  was  never  sug- 
gested; and  in  that  oblivion  of  gold,  and  still 
hunting  a  substitute  in  paper,  the  men  who  put 
down  the  first  national  bank  did  their  work 
much  less  effectually  that  those  who  put  down 
the  second  one. 

The  speech  of  each  of  these  senators,  so  far  as 
they  constitute  the  personal  part  of  the  debate, 
will  be  given  in  a  chapter  of  its  own :  the  re- 
joinders being  brief,  prompt,  and  responsive 
each  to  the  other,  will  be  put  together  in 
another  chapter.  The  speeches  of  each,  having 
been  carefully  prepared  and  elaborated,  may  be 
considered  as  fair  specimens  of  their  speaking 
powers — the  style  of  each  different,  but  each  a 
first  class  speaker  in  the  branch  of  oratory  to 
which  he  belonged.  They  may  be  read  with 
profit  by  those  who  would  wish  to  form  an  idea 
of  the  style  and  power  of  these  eminent  orators. 
Manner,  and  all  that  is  comprehended  under  the 
head  of  delivery,  is  a  different  attribute ;  and 
there  Mr.  Clay  had  an  advantage,  which  is  lost 
in  transferring  the  speech  to  paper.  Some  of 
Mr.  Calhoun's  characteristics  of  manner  may  be 
seen  in  these  speeches.  He  eschewed  the  stud- 
ied exordiums  and  perorations,  once  so  much  in 
vogue,  and  which  the  rhetorician's  rules  teach 
how  to  make.  A  few  simple  words  to  an- 
nounce the  beginning,  and  the  same  to  show 
the  ending  of  his  speech,  was  about  as  much  as 
he  did  in  that  way ;  and  in  that  departure  from 


ANNO  1888.     MARTIN  VAN  BUEEN,  PRESIDENT. 


101 


custom  he  conformed  to  what  was  becoming  in 
a  business  speech,  as  his  generally  were ;  and 
also  to  what  was  suitable  to  his  own  intellectual 
style  of  speaking.  He  also  eschewed  the  trite, 
familiar,  and  unparliamentary  mode  (which  of 
late  has  got  into  vogue)  of  referring  to  a  sena- 
tor as,  "  my  friend,"  or,  "  the  distinguished,"  or, 
"  the  eloquent,"  or,  "  the  honorable,"  &c.  He 
followed  the  written  rule  of  parliamentary  law ; 
which  is  also  the  clear  rule  of  propriety,  and 
referred  to  the  member  by  his  sitting-place  in 
the  Senate,  and  the  State  from  which  he  came. 
Thus  :  "  the  senator  from  Kentucky  who  sits 
farthest  from  me  ; "  which  was  a  sufficient  desig- 
nation to  those  present,  while  for  the  absent, 
and  for  posterity  the  name  (Mr.  Clay)  would 
be  put  in  brackets.  He  also  addressed  the  body 
by  the  simple  collective  phrase,  "  senators  ; " 
and  this  was,  not  accident,  or  fancy,  but  system, 
resulting  from  convictions  of  propriety  ;  and  he 
would  allow  no  reporter  to  alter  it. 

Mr.  Calhoun  laid  great  stress  upon  his 
speech  in  this  debate,  as  being  the  vindica- 
tion of  his  public  life;  and  declared,  in  one  of  his 
replies  to  Mr.  Clay,  that  he  rested  his  public 
character  upon  it,  and  desired  it  to  be  read  by 
those  who  would  do  him  justice.  In  justice  to 
him,  and  as  being  a  vindication  of  several  meas- 
ures of  his  mentioned  in  this  work,  not  approv- 
ingly, a  place  is  here  given  to  it. 

This  discussion  between  two  eminent  men, 
growing  out  of  support  and  opposition  to  the 
leading  measures  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  adminis- 
tration, indissolubly  connects  itself  with  the 
passage  of  those  measures  ;  and  gives  additional 
emphasis  and  distinction  to  the  era  of  the 
crowning  policy  which  separated  bank  and 
state— made  the  government  the  keeper  of  its 
own  money — repulsed  paper  money  from  the 
federal  treasury — filled  the  treasury  to  bursting 
with  solid  gold ;  and  did  more  for  the  prosperi- 
ty of  the  country  than  any  set  of  measures  from 
the  foundation  of  the  government. 


CHAPTER    XXVI. 


DEBATE    BETWEEN    MR.    CLAY    AND    MR.    CAL. 
HOUN  :  MR.  CLAY'S  SPEECH  :  EXTRACTS. 


"  Who,  Mr.  President,  are  the  most  conspicu- 
ous of  those  who  perseveringly  pressed  this 
bill  upon  Congress  and  the  American  people  ? 
Its  drawer  is  the  distinguished  gentleman  in 
the  white  house  not  far  off  (Mr.  Van  Buren)  ; 
its  indorser  is  the  distinguished  senator  from 
South  Carolina,  here  present.  What  the  draw- 
er thinks  of  the  indorser,  his  cautious  reserve 
and  stifled  enmity  prevent  us  from  knowing. 
But  the  frankness  of  the  indorser  has  not  left 
us  in  the  same  ignorance  with  respect  to  his 
opinion  of  the  drawer.  He  has  often  expressed 
it  upon  the  floor  of  the  Senate.  On  an  occasion 
not  very  distant,  denying  him  any  of  the  noble 
qualities  of  the  royal  beast  of  the  forest,  he  at- 
tributed to  him  those  which  belong  to  the  most 
crafty,  most  skulking,  and  the  meanest  of  the 
quadruped  tribe.  Mr.  President,  it  is  due  to 
myself  to  say,  that  I  do  not  altogether  share 
with  the  senator  from  South  Carolina  in  this 
opinion  of  the  President  of  the  United  States. 
I  have  always  found  him,  in  his  manners  and 
deportment,  civil,  courteous,  and  gentlemanly ; 
and  he  dispenses,  in  the  noble  mansion  which 
he  now  occupies,  one  worthy  the.  residence  of 
the  chief  magistrate  of  a  great  people,  a  gener- 
ous and  liberal  hospitality.  An  acquaintance 
with  him  of  more  than  twenty  years'  duration 
has  inspired  me  with  a  respect  for  the  man, 
although,  I  regret  to  be  compelled  to  say,  I  de- 
test the  magistrate. 

"  The  eloquent  senator  from  South  Carolina 
has  intimated  that  the  course  of  my  friends  and 
myself,  in  opposing  this  bill,  was  unpatriotic, 
and  that  we  ought  to  have  followed  in  his  lead ; 
and,  in  a  late  letter  of  his,  he  has  spoken  of  his 
alliance  with  us,  and  of  his  motives  for  quitting 
it.  I  cannot  admit  the  justice  of  his  reproach. 
We  united,  if,  indeed,  there  were  any  alliance  in 
the  case,  to  restrain  the  enormous  expansion  of 
executive  power  ;  to  arrest  the  progress  of  cor- 
ruption; to  rebuke  usurpation;  and  to  drive 
the  Goths  and  Vandals  from  the  capital ;  to  ex- 
pel Brennus  and  his  horde  from  Rome,  who, 
when  he  threw  his  sword  into  the  scale,  to  aug- 
ment the  ransom  demanded  from  the  mistress 
of  the  world,  showed  his  preference  for  gold ; 
that  he  was  a  hard-money  chieftain.  It  was 
by  the  much  more  valuable  metal  of  iron  that 
he  was  driven  from  her  gates.  And  how  often 
have  we  witnessed  the  senator  from  South 
Carolina,  with  woful  countenance,  and  in  dole- 
ful strains,  pouring  forth  touching  and  mourn- 
ful eloquence  on  the  degeneracy  of  the  times, 
and  the  downward  tendency  of  the  republic  7 
Day  after  day,  in  the  Senate,  have  we  seen  the 


102 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


displays  of  his  lofty  and  impassioned  eloquence. 
Although  I  shared  largely  with  the  senator  in 
his  apprehension  for  the  purity  of  our  institu- 
tions, and  the  permanency  of  our  civil  liberty, 
disposed  always  to  look  at  the  brighter  side  of 
human  affairs,  I  was  sometimes  inclined  to  hope 
that  the  vivid  imagination  of  the  senator  had 
depicted  the  dangers  by  which  we  were  encom- 
passed in  somewhat  stronger  colors  than  they 
justified. 

"  The  arduous  contest  in  which  we  were  so 
long  engaged  was  about  to  terminate  in  a  glori- 
ous victory.  The  very  object  for  which  the 
alliance  was  formed  was  about  to  be  accom- 
plished. At  this  critical  moment  the  senator 
left  us  ;  he  left  us  for  the  very  purpose  of  pre- 
venting the  success  of  the  common  cause.  He 
took  up  his  musket,  knapsack,  and  shot-pouch, 
and  joined  the  other  party.  He  went,  horse, 
foot,  and  dragoon ;  and  he  himself  composed  the 
whole  corps.  He  went,  as  his  present  most 
distinguished  ally  commenced  with  his  expung- 
ing resolution,  solitary  and  alone.  The  earliest 
instance  recorded  in  history,  within  my  recol- 
lection, of  an  ally  drawing  off  his  forces  from 
the  combined  army,  was  that  of  Achilles  at  the 
siege  of  Troy.  He  withdrew,  with  all  his 
troops,  and  remained  in  the  neighborhood,  in 
sullen  and  dignified  inactivity.  But  he  did  not 
join  the  Trojan  forces ;  and  when,  during  the 
progress  of  the  siege,  his  faithful  friend  fell  in 
battle,  he  raised  his  avenging  arm,  drove  the 
Trojans  back  into  the  gates  of  Troy,  and  sati- 
ated his  vengeance  by  slaying  Priam's  noblest 
and  dearest  son,  the  finest  hero  in  the  immortal 
Iliad.  But  Achilles  had  been  wronged,  or 
imagined  himself  wronged,  in  the  person  of  the 
fair  and  beautiful  Briseis.  We  did  no  wrong 
to  the  distinguished  senator  from  South  Caro- 
lina. On  the  contrary,  we  respected  him,  con- 
fided in  his  great  and  acknowledged  ability,  his 
uncommon  genius,  his  extensive  experience,  his 
supposed  patriotism  ;  above  all,  we  confided  in 
his  stern  and  inflexible  fidelity.  Nevertheless, 
he  left  us,  and  joined  our  common  opponents, 
distrusting  and  distrusted.  He  left  us,  as  he 
tells  us  in  the  Edgefield  letter,  because  the  vic- 
tory which  our  common  arms  were  about  to 
achieve,  was  not  to  enure  to  him  and  his  party, 
but  exclusively  to  the  benefit  of  his  allies  and 
their  cause.  I  thought  that,  actuated  by  patri- 
otism (that  noblest  of  human  virtues),  we  had 
been  contending  together  for  our  common  coun- 
try, for  her  violated  rights,  her  threatened  liber- 
ties, her  prostrate  constitution.  Never  did  I 
suppose  that  personal  or  party  considerations 
entered  into  our  views.  Whether,  if  victory 
shall  ever  again  be  about  to  perch  upon  the 
standard  of  the  spoils  party  (the  denomination 
which  the  senator  from  South  Carolina  has  so 
often  given  to  his  present  allies),  he  will  not 
feel  himself  constrained,  by  the  principles  on 
which  he  has  acted,  to  leave  them,  because  it 
may  not  enure  to  the  benefit  of  himself  and  his 


party,  I  leave  to  be  adjusted  between  them- 
selves. 

"  The  speech  of  the  senator  from  South  Caro- 
lina was  plausible,  ingenious,  abstract,  meta- 
physical, and  generalizing.  It  did  not  appear 
to  me  to  be  adapted  to  the  bosoms  and  business 
of  human  life.  It  was  aerial,  and  not  very  high 
up  in  the  air,  Mr.  President,  either — not  quite 
as  high  as  Mr.  Clayton  was  in  his  last  ascension 
in  his  balloon.  The  senator  announced  that 
there  was  a  single  alternative,  and  no  escape 
from  one  or  the  other  branch  of  it.  He  stated 
that  we  must  take  the  bill  under  consideration, 
or  the  substitute  proposed  by  the  senator  from 
Virginia.  I  do  not  concur  in  that  statement  of 
the  case.  There  is  another  course  embraced  in 
neither  branch  of  the  senator's  alternative ; 
and  that  course  is  to  do  nothing, — always  the 
wisest  when  you  are  not  certain  what  you  ought 
to  do.  Let  us  suppose  that  neither  branch  of 
the  alternative  is  accepted,  and  that  nothing  is 
done.  What,  then,  would  be  the  consequence  ? 
There  would  be  a  restoration  of  the  law  of  1789, 
with  all  its  cautious  provisions  and  securities, 
provided  by  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors,  which 
has  been  so  trampled  upon  by  the  late  and 
present  administrations.  By  that  law,  estab- 
lishing the  Treasury  department,  the  treasure 
of  the  United  States  is  to  be  received,  kept,  and 
disbursed  by  the  treasurer,  under  a  bond  with 
ample  security,  under  a  large  penalty  fixed  by 
law,  and  not  left,  as  this  bill  leaves  it,  to  the 
uncertain  discretion  of  a  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury. If,  therefore,  we  were  to  do  nothing,  that 
law  would  be  revived;  the  treasurer  would 
have  the  custody,  as  he  ought  to  have,  of  the 
public  money,  and  doubtless  he  would  make 
special  deposits  of  it  in  all  instances  with  safe 
and  sound  State  banks;  as  in  some  cases  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is  now  obliged  to  do. 
Thus,  we  should  have  in  operation  that  very 
special  deposit  system,  so  much  desired  by  some 
gentlemen,  by  which  the  public  money  would 
remain  separate  and  unmixed  with  the  money 
of  banks. 

"  There  is  yet  another  course,  unembraced  by 
either  branch  of  the  alternative  presented  by 
the  senator  from  South  Carolina ;  and  that  is, 
to  establish  a  bank  of  the  United  States,  consti- 
tuted according  to  the  old  and  approved  method 
of  forming  such  an  institution,  tested  and  sanc- 
tioned by  experience;  a  bank  of  the  United 
States  which  should  Mend  public  and  private 
interests,  and  be  subject  to  public  and  private 
control ;  united  together  in  such  manner  as  to 
present  safe  and  salutary  checks  against  all 
abuses.  The  senator  mistakes  his  own  aban- 
donment of  that  institution  as  ours.  I  know 
that  the  party  in  power  has  barricaded  itself 
against  the  establishment  of  such  a  bank.  It 
adopted,  at  the  last  extra  session,  the  extraor- 
dinary and  unprecedented  resolution,  that  the 
people  of  the  United  States  should  not  have 
such  a  bank,  although  it  might  be  manifest  that 


ANNO  1838.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


103 


there  was  a  clear  majority  of  them  demanding 
it.  But  the  day  may  come,  and  I  trust  is  not 
distant,  when  the  will  of  the  people  must  pre- 
vail in  the  councils  of  her  own  government; 
and  when  it  does  arrive,  a  bank  will  be  estab- 
lished. 

"  The  senator  from  South  Carolina  reminds 
us  that  we  denounced  the  pet  bank  system ; 
and  so  we  did,  and  so  we  do.  But  does  it 
therefore  follow  that,  bad  as  that  system  was, 
we  must  be  driven  into  the  acceptance  of  a  sys- 
tem infinitely  worse  ?  He  tells  us  that  the  bill 
under  consideration  takes  the  public  funds  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  Executive,  and  places  them 
in  the  hands  of  the  law.  It  does  no  such  thing. 
They  are  now  without  law,  it  is  true,  in  the 
custody  of  the  Executive ;  and  the  bill  pro- 
poses by  law  to  confirm  them  in  that  custody, 
and  to  convey  new  and  enormous  powers  of 
control  to  the  Executive  over  them.  Every 
custodary  of  the  public  funds  provided  by  the 
bill  is  a  creature  of  the  Executive,  dependent 
upon  his  breath,  and  subject  to  the  same  breath 
for  removal,  whenever  the  Executive — from 
caprice,  from  tyranny,  or  from  party  motives — 
shall  choose  to  order  it.  What  safety  is  there 
for  the  public  money,  if  there  were  a  hundred 
subordinate  executive  officers  charged  with  its 
care,  whilst  the  doctrine  of  the  absolute  unity 
of  the  whole  executive  power,  promulgated  by 
the  last  administration,  and  persisted  in  by 
this,  remains  unrevoked  and  unrebuked  ? 

"  Whilst  the  senator  from  South  Carolina 
professes  to  be  the  friend  of  State  banks,  he 
has  attacked  the  whole  banking  system  of  the 
United  States.  He  is  their  friend ;  he  only 
thinks  they  are  all  unconstitutional !  Why  ? 
Because  the  coining  power  is  possessed  by  the 
general  government ;  and  that  coining  power, 
he  argues,  was  intended  to  supply  a  currency 
of  the  precious  metals  j  but  the  State  banks 
absorb  the  precious  metals,  and  withdraw  them 
from  circulation,  and,  therefore,  are  in  conflict 
with  the  coining  power.  That  power,  accord- 
ing to  my  view  of  it,  is  nothing  but  a  naked 
authority  to  stamp  certain  pieces  of  the  precious 
metals,  in  fixed  proportions  of  alloy  and  pure 
metal  prescribed  by  law;  so  that  their  exact 
value  be  known.  When  that  office  is  performed, 
the  power  is  functus  officio  ;  the  money  passes 
out  of  the  mint,  and  becomes  the  lawful  prop- 
erty of  those  who  legally  acquire  it.  They 
may  do  with  it  as  they  please, — throw  it  into 
the  ocean,  bury  it  in  the  earth,  or  melt  it  in  a 
crucible,  without  violating  any  law.  When  it 
has  once  left  the  vaults  of  the  mint,  the  law 
maker  has  nothing  to  do  with  it,  but  to  protect 
it  against  those  who  attempt  to  debase  or  coun- 
terfeit, and,  subsequently,  to  pass  it  as  lawful 
money.  In  the  sense  in  which  the  senator 
supposes  banks  to  conflict  with  the  coining 
power,  foreign  commerce,  and  especially  our 
commerce  with  China,  conflicts  with  it  much 
more  extensively. 


"  The  distinguished  senator  is  no  enemy  to  the 
banks ;  he  merely  thinks  them  injurious  to  the 
morals  and  industry  of  the  country.  He  likes 
them  very  well,  but  he  nevertheless  believes 
that  they  levy  a  tax  of  twenty-five  millions  an- 
nually on  the  industry  of  the  country !  The 
senator  from  South  Carolina  would  do  the  banks 
no  harm ;  but  they  are  deemed  by  him  highly 
injurious  to  the  planting  interest !  According 
to  him,  they  inflate  prices,  and  the  poor  planter 
sells  his  productions  for  hard  mone}^,  and  has 
to  purchase  his  supplies  at  the  swollen  prices 
produced  by  a  paper  medium.  The  senator  tells 
us  that  it  has  been  only  within  a  few  days  that 
he  has  discovered  that  it  is  illegal  to  receive  bank 
notes  in  payment  of  public  dues.  Does  he  think 
that  the  usage  of  the  government  under  all  its 
administrations,  and  with  every  party  in  power, 
which  has  prevailed  for  nigh  fifty  years,  ought 
to  be  set  aside  by  a  novel  theory  of  his,  just 
dreamed  into  existence,  even  if  it  possess  the 
merit  of  ingenuity  ?  The  bill  under  considera- 
tion, which  has  been  eulogized  by  the  senator 
as  perfect  in  its  structure  and  details,  contains  a 
provision  that  bank  notes  shall  be  received  in 
diminished  proportions,  during  a  term  of  six 
years.  He  himself  introduced  the  identical 
principle.  It  is  the  only  part  of  the  bill  that  is 
emphatically  his.  How,  then,  can  he  contend 
that  it  is  unconstitutional  to  receive  bank  notes 
in  payment  of  public  dues  ?  I  appeal  from  him- 
self to  himself." 

"  The  doctrine  of  the  senator  in  1816  was,  as 
he  now  states  it,  that  bank  notes  being  in  fact 
received  by  the  executive,  although  contrary  to 
law,  it  was  constitutional  to  create  a  Bank  of  the 
United  States.  And  in  1834,  finding  that  bank 
which  was  constitutional  in  its  inception,  but 
had  become  unconstitutional  in  its  progress,  yet 
in  existence,  it  was  quite  constitutional  to  pro- 
pose, as  the  senator  did,  to  continue  it  twelve 
years  longer." 

"  The  senator  and  I  began  our  public  career 
nearly  together ;  we  remained  together  through- 
out the  war.  We  agreed  as  to  a  Bank  of  the 
United  States — as  to  a  protective  tariff — as  to 
internal  improvements ;  and  lately  as  to  those 
arbitrary  and  violent  measures  which  character- 
ized the  administration  of  General  Jackson. 
No  two  men  ever  agreed  better  together  in  re- 
spect to  important  measures  of  public  policy. 
We  concur  in  nothing  now." 


CHAPTEE    XXVII. 

DEBATE    BETWEEN    MR.    CLAY  AND    MR.    CAL- 
HOUN: MR.  CALHOUNS  SPEECH;  EXTRACTS. 

"I  rise  to  fulfil  a  promise  I  made  some  time 
since,  to  notice  at  my  leisure  the  reply  of  the 
senator  from  Kentucky  farthest  from  me  [Mr. 


04 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Clay],  to  my  remarks,  when  I  first  addressed 
the  Senate  on  the  subject  now  under  discus- 
sion. 

"  On  comparing  with  care  the  reply  with  the 
remarks,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  determine  whether  it 
is  the  most  remarkable  for  its  omissions  or  mis- 
statements. Instead  of  leaving  not  a  hair  in  the 
head  of  my  arguments,  as  the  senator  threaten- 
ed (to  use  his  not  very  dignified  expression),  he 
has  not  even  attempted  to  answer  a  large,  and 
not  the  least  weighty,  portion;  and  of  that 
which  he  has,  there  is  not  one  fairly  stated,  or 
fairly  answered.  I  speak  literally,  and  without 
exaggeration ;  nor  would  it  be  difficult  to  estab- 
lish to  the  letter  what  I  assert,  if  I  could  recon- 
cile it  to  myself  to  consume  the  time  of  the 
Senate  in  establishing  a  long  series  of  negative 
propositions,  in  which  they  could  take  but  little 
interest,  however  important  they  may  be  re- 
garded by  the  senator  and  myself.  To  avoid  so 
idle  a  consumption  of  the  time,  I  propose  to 
present  a  few  instances  of  his  misstatements, 
from  which  the  rest  may  be  inferred ;  and,  that 
I  may  not  be  suspected  of  having  selected  them, 
I  shall  take  them  in  the  order  in  which  they 
stand  in  his  reply. 

[The  argumentative  part  omitted.] 
"  But  the  senator  did  not  restrict  himself  to 
a  reply  to  my  arguments.  He  introduced  per- 
sonal remarks,  which  neither  self-respect,  nor  a 
regard  to  the  cause  I  support,  will  permit  mc  to 
pass  without  notice,  as  adverse  as  I  am  to  all 
personal  controversies.  Not  only  my  education 
and  disposition,  but,  above  all,  my  conception  of 
the  duties  belonging  to  the  station  I  occupy,  in- 
disposes me  to  such  controversies.  We  are  sent 
here,  not  to  wrangle,  or  indulge  in  personal 
abuse,  but  to  deliberate  and  decide  on  the  com- 
mon interests  of  the  States  of  this  Union,  as  far 
as  they  have  been  subjected  by  the  constitution 
to  our  jurisdiction.  Thus  thinking  and  feeling, 
and  having  perfect  confidence  in  the  cause  I  sup- 
port, I  addressed  myself,  when  I  was  last  up, 
directly  and  exclusively  to  the  understanding, 
carefully  avoiding  every  remark  which  had 
the  least  personal  or  party  bearing.  In  proof 
of  this,  I  appeal  to  you,  senators,  my  wit- 
nesses and  judges  on  this  occasion.  But  it 
seems  that  no  caution  on  my  part  could  prevent 
what  I  was  so  anxious  to  avoid.  The  senator, 
having  no  pretext  to  give  a  personal  direction 
to  the  discussion,  made  a  premeditated  and 
gratuitous  attack  on  me.  I  say  having  no  pre- 
text ;  for  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  foundation  for 
the  assertion  that  I  called  on  him  and  his  party 
to  follow  my  lead,  at  which  he  seemed  to  take 
offence,  as  I  have  already  shown.  I  made  no 
such  call,  or  any  thing  that  could  be  construed 
into  it.  It  would  have  been  impertinent,  in  the 
relation  between  myself  and  his  party,  at  any 
stage  of  this  question  ;  and  absurd  at  that  late 
period,  when  every  senator  had  made  up  his 
mind.  As  there  was,  then,  neither  provocation 
nor  pretext,  what  could  be  the  motive  of  the 


senator  in  making  the  attack  ?  It  could  not  be 
to  indulge  in  the  pleasure  of  personal  abuse — the 
lowest  and  basest  of  all  our  passions :  and  which 
is  so  far  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  senator's 
character  and  station.  Nor  could  it  be  with  the 
view  to  intimidation.  The  senator  knows  me 
too  long,  and  too  well,  to  make  such  an  attempt. 
I  am  sent  here  by  constituents  as  respectable 
as  those  he  represents,  in  order  to  watch  over 
their  peculiar  interests,  and  take  care  of  the 
general  concern ;  and  if  I  were  capable  of  being 
deterred  by  any  one,  or  any  consequence,  in 
discharging  my  duty,  from  denouncing  what  I 
regarded  as  dangerous  or  corrupt,  or  giving  a 
decided  and  zealous  support  to  what  I  thought 
right  and  expedient,  I  would,  in  shame  and  con- 
fusion, return  my  commission  to  the  patriotic 
and  gallant  State  I  represent,  to  be  placed  in 
more  resolute  and  trustworthy  hands. 

"  If,  then,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  of 
these  be  the  motive,  what,  I  repeat,  can  it  be  ? 
In  casting  my  eyes  over  the  whole  surface  I  can 
see  but  one,  which  is,  that  the  senator,  despairing 
of  the  sufficiency  of  his  reply  to  overthrow  my 
arguments,  had  resorted  to  personalities,  in  the 
hope,  with  their  aid,  to  effect  what  he  could  not 
accomplish  by  main  strength.  He  well  knows 
that  the  force  of  an  argument  on  moral  or  politi- 
cal subjects  depends  greatly  on  the  character  of 
him  who  advanced  it ;  and  that  to  cast  suspicion 
on  his  sincerity  or  motive,  or  to  shake  confi- 
dence in  his  understanding,  is  often  the  most  ef- 
fectual mode  to  destroy  its  force.  Thus  viewed, 
his  personalities  may  be  fairly  regarded  as  con- 
stituting a  part  of  his  reply  to  my  argument; 
and  we,  accordingly,  find  the  senator  throwing 
them  in  front,  like  a  skilful  general,  in  order  to 
weaken  my  arguments  before  he  brought  on  his 
main  attack.  In  repelling,  then,  his  personal 
attacks,  I  also  defend  the  cause  which  I  advo- 
cate. It  is  against  that  his  blows  are  aimed, 
and  he  strikes  at  it  through  me,  because  he  be- 
lieves his  blows  will  be  the  more  effectual. 

u  Having  given  this  direction  to  his  reply,  he 
has  imposed  on  me  a  double  duty  to  repel  his 
attacks :  duty  to  myself,  and  to  the  cause  I  sup- 
port. I  shall  not  decline  its  performance  ;  and 
when  it  is  discharged,  I  trust  1  shall  have  placed 
my  character  as  far  beyond  the  darts  which 
he  has  hurled  at  it,  as  my  arguments  have 
proved  to  be  above  his  abilities  to  reply  to 
them.  In  doing  this,  I  shall  be  compelled  to 
speak  of  myself.  No  one  can  be  more  sensible 
than  I  am  how  odious  it  is  to  speak  of  one's 
self.  I  shall  endeavor  to  confine  myself  within 
the  limits  of  the  strictest  propriety ;  but  if  any 
thing  should  escape  me  that  may  wound  the 
most  delicate  ear,  the  odium  ought  in  justice  to 
fall  not  on  me,  but  the  senator,  who,  by  his  un- 
provoked and  wanton  attack,  has  imposed  on 
me  the  painful  necessity  of  speaking  of  myself. 

"  The  leading  charge  of  the  senator— that  on 
which  all  the  others  depend,  and  which,  being 
overthrown,  they  fall  to  the  ground— is  that  I 


ANNO  1838.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


105 


have  gone  over ;  have  left  his  side,  and  joined 
the  other.  By  this  vague  and  indefinite  ex- 
pression, I  presume  he  meant  to  imply  that  I 
had  either  changed  my  opinion,  or  abandoned 
my  principle,  or  deserted  my  party.  If  he  did 
not  mean  one,  or  all ;  if  I  have  changed  neither 
opinions,  principles,  nor  party,  then  the  charge 
meant  nothing  deserving  notice.  But  if  he  in- 
tended to  imply,  what  I  have  presumed  he  did, 
I  take  issue  on  the  fact — I  meet  and  repel  the 
charge.  It  happened,  fortunately  for  me,  fortu- 
nately for  the  cause  of  truth  and  justice,  that  it 
was  not  the  first  time  that  I  had  offered  my 
sentiments  on  the  question  now  under  consid- 
eration. There  is  scarcely  a  single  point  in  the 
present  issue  on  which  I  did  not  explicitly  ex- 
press my  opinion,  four  years  ago,  in  my  place 
here,  when  the  removal  of  the  deposits  and 
the  questions  connected  with  it  were  under  dis- 
cussion— so  explicitly  as  to  repel  effectually  the 
charge  of  any  change  on  my  part ;  and  to  make 
it  impossible  for  me  to  pursue  any  other  course 
than  I  have  without  involving  myself  in  gross 
inconsistency.  I  intend  not  to  leave  so  impor- 
tant a  point  to  rest  on  my  bare  assertion. 
What  I  assert  stands  on  record,  which  I  now 
hold  in  my  possession,  and  intend,  at  the  prop- 
er time,  to  introduce  and  read.  But,  before  I 
do  that,  it  will  be  proper  I  should  state  the 
questions  now  at  issue,  and  my  course  in  rela- 
tion to  them ;  so  that,  having  a  clear  and  dis- 
tinct perception  of  them,  you  may,  senators, 
readily  and  satisfactorily  compare  and  deter- 
mine whether  my  course  on  the  present  occa- 
sion coincides  with  the  opinions  I  then  ex- 
pressed. 

u  There  are  three  questions,  as  is  agreed  by 
ail,  involved  in  the  present  issue :  Shall  we  sep- 
arate the  government  from  the  banks,  or  shall 
we  revive  the  league  of  State  banks,  or  create 
a  national  bank  ?  My  opinion  and  course  in 
reference  to  each  are  well  known.  I  prefer  the 
separation  to  either  of  the  others  ;  and,  as  be- 
tween the  other  two,  I  regard  a  national  bank 
as  a  more  efficient,  and  a  less  corrupting  fiscal 
agent  than  a  league  of  State  banks.  It  is  also 
well  known  that  I  have  expressed  myself  on 
the  present  occasion  hostile  to  the  banking  sys- 
tem, as  it  exists  j  and  against  the  constitutional 
power  of  making  a  bank,  unless  on  the  assump- 
tion that  we  have  the  right  to  receive  and  treat 
bank-notes  as  cash  in  our  fiscal  operations, 
which  I,  for  the  first  time,  have  denied  on  the 
present  occasion.  Now,  I  entertained  and  ex- 
pressed all  these  opinions,  on  a  different  occa- 
sion, four  years  ago,  except  the  right  of  receiv- 
ing bank-notes,  in  regard  to  which  I  then  re- 
served my  opinion ;  and  if  all  this  should  be 
fully  and  clearly  established  by  the  record,  from 
speeches  delivered  and  published  at  the  time, 
the  charge  of  the  senator  must,  in  the  opinion 
of  all,  however  prejudiced,  sink  to  the  ground. 
I  am  now  prepared  to  introduce,  and  have  the, 
record  read.    I  delivered  two  speeches  in  the 


session  of  1833-'34,  one  on  the  removal  of  the 
deposits,  and  the  other  on  the  question  of  the 
renewal  of  the  charter  of  the  late  bank.  1  ask 
the  secretary  to  turn  to  the  volume  lying  be- 
fore him,  and  read  the  three  paragraphs  marked 
in  my  speech  on  the  deposits.  I  will  thank 
him  to  raise  his  voice,  and  read  slowly,  so  that 
he  may  be  distinctly  heard  ;  and  I  must  ask  you, 
senators,  to  give  your  attentive  hearing  ;  for  on 
the  coincidence  between  my  opinions  then  and 
my  course  now,  my  vindication  against  this  un- 
provoked and  groundless  charge  rests. 

u  [The  secretary  of  the  Senate  read  as  request- 
ed.] 

li  Such  were  my  sentiments,  delivered  four 
years  since,  on  the  question  of  the  removal  of 
the  deposits,  and  now  standing  on  record  ;  and 
I  now  call  your  attention  senators,  while  they 
are  fresh  in  your  minds,  and  before  other  ex- 
tracts are  read,  to  the  opinions  I  then  enter- 
tained and  expressed,  in  order  that  you  may 
compare  them  with  those  that  I  have  express- 
ed, and  the  course  I  have  pursued  on  the  pres- 
ent occasion.  In  the  first  piice,  I  then  ex- 
pressed myself  explicitly  and  decidedly  against 
the  banking  system,  and  intimated,  in  language 
too  strong  to  be  mistaken,  that,  if  the  question 
was  then  bank  or  no  bank,  as  it  now  is,  as  far 
as  government  is  concerned,  I  would  not  be 
found  on  the  side  of  the  bank.  Now.  I  ask,  I 
appeal  to  the  candor  of  all,  even  the  most  prej- 
udiced, is  there  any  thing  in  all  this  contradic- 
tory  to  my  present  opinions  or  course  ?  On 
the  contrary,  having  entertained  and  expressed 
these  opinions,  could  I,  at  this  time,  when  the 
issue  1  then  supposed  is  actually  presented, 
have  gone  against  the  separation  without  gross 
inconsistency  ?  Again,  I  then  declared  myself 
to  be  utterly  opposed  to  a  combination  or  league 
of  State  banks,  as  being  the  most  efficient  and 
corrupting  fiscal  agent  the  government  could 
select,  and  more  objectionable  than  a  bank  of 
the  United  States.  I  again  appeal,  is  there  a 
sentiment  or  a  word  in  all  this  contradictory  to 
what  I  have  said,  or  done,  on  the  present  occa- 
sion ?  So  far  otherwise,  is  there  not  a  perfect 
harmony  and  coincidence  throughout,  which, 
considering  the  distance  of  time  and  the  differ- 
ence of  the  occasion,  is  truly  remarkable  ;  and 
this  extending  to  all  the  great  and  governing 
questions  now  at  issue  ? 

"  To  prove  all  this  I  again  refer  to  the  record. 
If  it  shall  appear  from  it  that  my  object  was  to 
disconnect  the  government  gradually  and  cau- 
tiously from  the  banking  system,  and  with  that 
view,  and  that  only,  I  proposed  to  use  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  for  a  short  time,  and  that  I 
explicitly  expressed  the  same  opinions  then  as 
I  now  have  on  almost  every  point  connected 
with  the  system ;  I  shall  not  only  have  vindi- 
cated my  character  from  the  charge  of  the  sen- 
ator from  Kentucky,  but  shall  do  more,  much 
more  to  show  that  I  did  all  an  individual, 
standing  alone,  as  I  did,  could  do  to  avert  the 


106 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


present  calamities :  and,  of  course,  I  am  free 
from  all  responsibility  for  what  has  since  hap- 
pened. I  have  shortened  the  extracts,  as  far  as 
was  possible  to  do  justice  to  myself,  and  have 
left  out  much  that  ought,  of  right,  to  be  read  in 
my  defence,  rather  than  to  weary  the  Senate. 
I  know  how  difficult  it  is  to  command  attention 
to  reading  of  documents  ;  but  I  trust  that  this, 
where  justice  to  a  member  of  the  body,  whose 
character  has  been  assailed,  without  the  least 
provocation,  will  form  an  exception.  The  ex- 
tracts are  numbered,  and  I  will  thank  the  sec- 
retary to  pause  at  the  end  of  each,  unless  other- 
wise desired. 

"  [The  secretary  read  as  requested.] 
"  But  the  removal  of  the  deposits  was  not  the 
only  question  discussed  at  that  remarkable  and 
important  session.  The  charter  of  the  United 
States  Bank  was  then  about  to  expire.  The 
senator  from  Massachusetts  nearest  to  me  [Mr. 
Webster],  then  at  the  head  of  the  committee 
on  finance,  suggested,  in  his  place,  that  he 
intended  to  introduce  a  bill  to  renew  the 
charter.  I  clearly  perceived  that  the  movement, 
if  made,  would  fail;  and  that  there  was  no 
prospect  of  doing  any  thing  to  arrest  the  dan- 
ger approaching,  unless  the  subject  was  taken 
up  on  the  broad  question  of  the  currency ;  and 
that  if  any  connection  of  the  government  with 
the  banks  could  be  justified  at  all,  it  must  be  in 
that  relation.  I  am  not  among  those  who  be- 
lieve that  the  currency  was  in  a  sound  condition 
when  the  deposits  were  removed  in  1834.  I 
then  believed,  and  experience  has  proved  I  was 
correct,  that  it  was  deeply  and  dangerously  dis- 
eased ;  and  that  the  most  efficient  measures 
were  necessary  to  prevent  the  catastrophe  which 
has  since  fallen  on  the  circulation  of  the  country. 
There  was  then  not  more  than  one  dollar  in 
specie,  on  an  average,  in  the  banks,  including 
the  United  States  Bank  and  all,  for  six  of  bank 
notes  in  circulation;  and  not  more  than  one 
in  eleven  compared  to  liabilities  of  the  banks ; 
and  this  while  the  United  States  Bank  was  in 
full  and  active  operation ;  which  proves  con- 
clusively that  its  charter  ought  not  to  be  re- 
newed, if  renewed  at  all,  without  great  modifica- 
tions. I  saw  also  that  the  expansion  of  the  cir- 
culation, great  as  it  then  was,  must  still  farther 
increase ;  that  the  disease  lay  deep  in  the  sys- 
tem ;  that  the  terms  on  which  the  charter  of  the 
Bank  of  England  was  renewed  would  give  a 
western  direction  to  specie,  which,  instead  of 
correcting  the  disorder,  by  substituting  specie 
for  bank  notes  in  our  circulation,  would  become 
the  basis  of  new  banking  operations  that  would 
greatly  increase  the  swelling  tide.  Such  were 
my  conceptions  then,  and  I  honestly  and  ear- 
nestly endeavored  to  carry  them  into  effect,  in 
order  to  prevent  the  approaching  catastrophe. 

"  The  political  and  personal  relations  between 
myself  and  the  senator  from  Massachusetts  [Mr. 
Webster],  were  then  not  the  kindest.  We 
stood  in  opposition  at  the  preceding  session  on 


the  great  question  growing  out  of  the  conflict 
between  the  State  I  represented  and  the  general 
government,  which  could  not  pass  away  with- 
out leaving  unfriendly  feelings  on  both  sides ; 
but  where  duty  is  involved,  I  am  not  in  the 
habit  of  permitting  my  personal  relations  to  in- 
terfere. In  my  solicitude  to  avoid  coming  dan- 
gers, I  sought  an  interview,  through  a  common 
friend,  in  order  to  compare  opinions  as  to  the 
proper  course  to  be  pursued.  We  met,  and  con- 
versed freely  and  fully,  but  parted  without 
agreeing.  I  expressed  to  him  my  deep  regret 
at  our  disagreement,  and  informed  him  that,  al- 
though I  could  not  agree  with  him,  I  would 
throw  no  embarrassment  in  his  way ;  but  should 
feel  it  to  be  my  duty,  when  he  made  his  motion 
to  introduce  a  bill  to  renew  the  charter  of  the 
bank,  to  express  my  opinion  at  large  on  the 
state  of  the  currency  and  the  proper  course  to 
be  pursued  ;  which  I  accordingly  did.  On  that 
memorable  occasion  I  stood  almost  alone.  One 
party  supported  the  league  of  State  banks,  and 
the  other  the  United  States  Bank,  the  charter 
of  which  the  senator  from  Massachusetts  [Mr. 
Webster,]  proposed  to  renew  for  six  years. 
Nothing  was  left  me  but  to  place  myself  dis- 
tinctly before  the  country  on  the  ground  I  occu- 
pied, which  I  did  fully  and  explicitly  in  the 
speech  I  delivered  on  the  occasion.  In  justice 
to  myself,  I  ought  to  have  every  word  of  it  read 
on  the  present  occasion.  It  would  of  itself  be  a 
full  vindication  of  my  course.  I  stated  and  en- 
larged on  all  the  points  to  which  I  have  already 
referred ;  objected  to  the  recharter  as  proposed 
by  the  mover ;  and  foretold  that  what  has  since 
happened  would  follow,  unless  something  effec- 
tual was  done  to  prevent  it.  As  a  remedy,  I 
proposed  to  use  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
as  a  temporary  expedient,  fortified  with  strong 
guards,  in  order  to  resist  and  turn  back  the 
swelling  tide  of  circulation. 

"After  having  so  expressed  myself,  which  clear- 
ly shows  that  my  object  was  to  use  the  bank 
for  a  time  in  such  a  manner  as  to  break  the 
connection  with  the  system,  without  a  shock  to 
the  coustry  or  currency,  I  then  proceed  and  ex- 
amine the  question,  whether  this  could  be  best 
accomplished  by  the  renewal  of  the  charter  of 
the  United  States  Bank,  or  through  a  league  of 
State  banks.  After  concluding  what  I  had  to 
say  on  the  subject,  in  my  deep  solicitude  I  ad- 
dressed the  three  parties  in  the  Senate  sepa- 
rately, urging  such  motives  as  I  thought  best 
calculated  to  act  on  them ;  and  pressing  them  to 
join  me  in  the  measure  suggested,  in  order  to 
avert  approaching  danger.  I  began  with  my 
friends  of  the  State  rights  party,  and  with 
the  administration.  I  have  taken  copious  ex- 
tracts from  the  address  to  the  first,  which  will 
clearly  prove  how  exactly  my  opinions  then  and 
now  coincide  on  all  questions  connected  with 
the  banks.  I  now  ask  the  secretary  to  read  the 
•extract  numbered  two. 

"  [The  secretary  read  accordingly.] 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


107 


"  I  regret  to  trespass  on  the  patience  of  the 
Senate,  but  I  wish,  in  justice  to  myself,  to  ask 
their  attention  to  one  more,  which,  though  not 
immediately  relating  to  the  question  under  con- 
sideration, is  not  irrelevant  to  my  vindication. 
I  not  only  expressed  my  opinions  freely  in  rela- 
tion to  the  currency  and  the  bank,  in  the  speech 
from  which  such  copious  extracts  have  been 
read,  but  had  the  precaution  to  define  my 
political  position  distinctly  in  reference  to  the 
political  parties  of  the  day,  and  the  course  I 
would  pursue  in  relation  to  each.  I  then,  as 
now,  belonged  to  the  party  to  which  it  is  my 
glory  ever  to  have  been  attached  exclusively  ; 
and  avowed,  explicitly,  that  I  belonged  to  nei- 
ther of  the  two  parties,  opposition  or  adminis- 
tration, then  contending  for  superiority ;  which 
of  itself  ought  to  go  far  to  repel  the  charge  of 
the  senator  from  Kentucky,  that  I  have  gone 
over  from  one  party  to  the  other.  The  secre- 
tary will  read  the  last  extract. 

"[The  secretary  read.] 

"  Such,  senators,  are  my  recorded  sentiments 
in  1834.  They  are  full  and  explicit  on  all  the 
questions  involved  in  the  present  issue,  and 
prove,  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt,  that  I 
have  changed  no  opinion,  abandoned  no  princi- 
ple, nor  deserted  any  party.  I  stand  now  on 
the  ground  I  stood  then,  and,  of  course,  if  my 
relations  to  the  two  opposing  parties  are 
changed — if  I  now  act  with  those  I  then  op- 
posed, and  oppose  those  with  whom  I  then 
acted,  the  change  is  not  in  me.  I,  at  least,  have 
stood  still.  In  saying  this,  I  accuse  none  of 
changing.  I  leave  others  to  explain  their  posi- 
tion, now  and  then,  if  they  deem  explanation 
necessary.  But,  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  state 
my  opinion,  I  would  say  that  the  change  is 
rather  in  the  questions  and  the  circumstances, 
than  in  the  opinions  or  principles  of  either  of 
the  parties.  The  opposition  were  then,  and  are 
now,  national  bank  men,  and  the  administra- 
tion, in  like  manner,  were  anti-national  bank, 
and  in  favor  of  a  league  of  State  banks ;  while  I 
preferred  then,  as  now,  the  former  to  the  latter, 
and  a  divorce  from  banks  to  either.  When  the 
experiment  of  the  league  failed,  the  administra- 
tion were  reduced  to  the  option  between  a 
national  bank  and  a  divorce.  They  chose  the 
latter,  and  such,  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt, 
would  have  been  their  choice,  had  the  option 
been  the  same  four  years  ago.  Nor  have  I  any 
doubt,  had  the  option  been  then  between  a 
league  of  banks  and  divorce,  the  opposition 
then,  as  now,  would  have  been  in  favor  of  the 
league.  In  all  this  there  is  more  apparent  than 
real  change.  As  to  myself,  there  has  been 
neither.  If  I  acted  with  the  opposition  and 
opposed  the  administration  then,  it  was  because 
I  was  openly  opposed  to  the  removal  of  the 
deposits  and  the  league  of  banks,  as  I  now  am ; 
and  if  I  now  act  with  the  latter  and  oppose  the 
former,  it  is  because  I  am  now,  as  then,  in  favor 
of  a  divorce,  and  opposed  to  either  a  league  of 


State  banks  or  a  national  bank,  except,  indeed, 
as  the  means  of  effecting  a  divorce  gradually 
and  safely.  What,  then,  is  my  offence  ?  What 
but  refusing  to  abandon  my  first  choice,  the 
divorce  from  the  banks,  because  the  administra- 
tion has  selected  it,  and  of  going  with  the  oppo- 
sition for  a  national  bank,  to  which  I  have  been 
and  am  still  opposed  ?  That  is  all ;  and  for  this 
I  am  charged  with  going  over — leaving  one 
party  and  joining  the  other. 

"  Yet,  in  the  face  of  all  this,  the  senator  has 
not  only  made  the  charge,  but  has  said,  in  his 
place,  that  he  heard,  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life,  at  the  extra  session,  that  I  was  opposed  to 
a  national  bank  !  I  could  place  the  senator  in 
a  dilemma  from  which  there  is  no  possibility 
of  escape.  I  might  say  to  him,  you  have  either 
forgot,  or  not,  what  I  said  in  1834.  If  you  have 
not,  how  can  you  justify  yourself  in  making  the 
charge  you  have  ?  But  if  you  have — if  you 
have  forgot  what  is  so  recent,  and  what,  from 
the  magnitude  of  the  question  and  the  import- 
ance of  the  occasion,  was  so  well  calculated  to 
impress  itself  on  your  memory,  what  possible 
value  can  be  attached  to  your  recollection  or 
opinions,  as  to  my  course  on  more  remote  and 
less  memorable  occasions,  on  which  you  have 
undertaken  to  impeach  my  conduct  1  He  may 
take  his  choice. 

"  Having  now  established  by  the  record  that 
I  have  changed  no  opinion,  abandoned  no  prin- 
ciple, nor  deserted  any  party,  the  charge  of  the 
senator,  with  all  the  aspersions  with  which  he 
accompanied  it,  falls  prostrate  to  the  earth. 
Here  I  might  leave  the  subject,  and  close  my 
vindication.  But  I  choose  not.  I  shall  follow 
the  senator  up,  step  by  step,  in  his  unprovoked, 
and  I  may  now  add,  groundless  attack,  with 
blows  not  less  decisive  and  victorious. 

"  The  senator  next  proceeded  to  state,  that 
in  a  certain  document  (if  he  named  it,  I  did 
not  hear  him)  I  assigned  as  the  reason  why  I 
Could  not  join  in  the  attack  on  the  administra- 
tion, that  the  benefit  of  the  victory  would  not 
enure  to  myself,  or  my  party ;  or,  as  he  ex- 
plained himself,  because  it  would  not  place 
myself  and  them  in  power.  I  presume  he  re- 
ferred to  a  letter,  in  answer  to  an  invitation  to 
a  public  dinner,  offered  me  by  my  old  and  faith- 
ful friends  and  constituents  of  Edgefield,  in  ap- 
probation of  my  course  at  the  extra  session. 

"[Mr.  Clay.    I  do.] 

"The  pressure  of  domestic  engagements 
would  not  permit  me  to  accept  their  invitation ; 
and,  in  declining  it,  I  deemed  it  due  to  them 
and  myself  to  explain  my  course,  in  its  political 
and  party  bearing,  more  fully  than  I  had  done 
in  debate.  They  had  a  right  to  know  my  rea- 
sons, and  I  expressed  myself  with  the  frankness 
due  to  the  long  and  uninterrupted  confidence 
that  had  ever  existed  between  us. 

"  Having  made  these  explanatory  remarks,  'I 
now  proceed  to  meet  the  assertion  of  the  sen- 
ator.   I  again  take  issue  on  the  fact.     I  assigned 


108 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


no  such  reason  as  the  senator  attributes  to  me. 
I  never  dreamed  nor  thought  of  such  a  one ;  nor 
can  any  force  of  construction  extort  such  from 
what  I  said.  No ;  my  object  was  not  power  or 
place,  either  for  myself  or  party.  I  was  far 
more  humble  and  honest.  It  was  to  save  our- 
selves and  our  principles  from  being  absorbed 
and  lost  in  a  party,  more  numerous  and  power- 
ful ;  but  differing  from  us  on  almost  every  prin- 
ciple and  question  of  policy. 

"When  the  suspension  of  specie  payments 
took  place  in  May  last  (not  unexpected  to  me), 
I  immediately  turned  my  attention  to  the  event 
earnestly,  considering  it  as  an  event  pregnant 
with  great  and  lasting  consequences.  Review- 
ing the  whole  ground,  I  saw  nothing  to  change 
in  the  opinions  and  principles  I  had  avowed  in 
1834 ;  and  I  determined  to  carry  them  out,  as 
far  as  circumstances  and  my  ability  would  ena- 
ble me.  But  I  saw  that  my  course  must  be 
influenced  by  the  position  which  the  two  great 
contending  parties  might  take  in  reference  to 
the  question.  I  did  not  doubt  that  the  opposi- 
tion would  rally  either  on  a  national  bank,  or 
a  combination  of  State  banks,  with  Mr.  Biddle's 
at  the  head  ;  but  I  was  wholly  uncertain  what 
course  the  administration  would  adopt,  and  re- 
mained so  until  the  message  of  the  President 
was  received  and  read  by  the  secretary  at  his 
table.  When  I  saw  he  went  for  a  divorce,  I 
never  hesitated  a  moment.  Not  only  my  opin- 
ions and  principles  long  entertained,  and,  as  I 
have  shown,  fully  expressed  years  ago,  but  the 
highest  political  motives,  left  me  no  alternative. 
I  perceived  at  once  that  the  object,  to  accom- 
plish which  we  had  acted  in  concert  with  the 
opposition,  had  ceased :  Executive  usurpations 
had  come  to  an  end  for  the  present :  and  that 
the  struggle  with  the  administration  was  no 
longer  for  power,  but  to  save  themselves.  I 
also  clearly  saw,  that  if  we  should  unite  with 
the  opposition  in  their  attack  on  the  adminis- 
tration, the  victory  over  them,  in  the  position 
they  occupied,  would  be  a  victory  over  us  and 
our  principles.  It  required  no  sagacity  to  see 
that  such  would  be  the  result.  It  was  as  plain 
as  day.  The  administration  had  taken  position, 
as  I  have  shown,  on  the  very  ground  I  occupied 
in  1834;  and  which  the  whole  State  rights 
party  had  taken  at  the  same  time  in  the  other 
House,  as  its  journals  will  prove.  The  opposi- 
tion, under  the  banner  of  the  bank,  were  moving 
against  them  for  the  very  reason  that  they  had 
taken  the  ground  they  did. 

"  Now,  I  ask,  what  would  have  been  the  re- 
sult if  we  had  joined  in  the  attack?  No  one 
can  now  doubt  that  the  victory  over  those  in 
power  would  have  been  certain  and  decisive, 
nor  would  the  consequences  have  been  the 
least  doubtful.  The  first  fruit  would  have  been 
a  national  bank.  The  principles  of  the  opposi- 
tion, and  the  very  object  of  the  attack,  would 
have  necessarily  led  to  that.  We  would  have 
been  not  only  too  feeble  to  resist,  but  would 


have  been  committed  by  joining  in  the  attack 
with  its  avowed  object  to  go  for  one,  while 
those  who  support  the  administration  would 
have  been  scattered  in  the  winds.  We  should 
then  have  had  a  bank — that  is  clear ;  nor  is  it 
less  certain,  that  in  its  train  there  would  have 
followed  all  the  consequences,  which  have  and 
ever  will  follow,  when  tried — high  duties,  over- 
flowing revenue,  extravagant  expenditures,  large 
surpluses ;  in  a  word,  all  those  disastrous  con- 
sequences which  have  well  near  overthrown 
our  institutions,  and  involved  the  country  in 
its  present  difficulties.  The  influence  of  the 
institution,  the  known  principles  and  policy  of 
the  opposition,  and  the  utter  prostration  of  the 
administration  party,  and  the  absorption  of 
ours,  would  have  led  to  these  results  as  cer- 
tainly as  we  exist. 

"  I  now  appeal,  senators,  to  your  candor  and 
justice,  and  ask,  could  I,  having  all  these  conse- 
quences before  me,  with  my  known  opinions  and 
that  of  the  party  to  which  I  belong,  and  to  which 
only  I  owe  fidelity,  have  acted  differently  from 
what  I  did  ?  Would  not  any  other  course  have 
justly  exposed  me  to  the  charge  of  having  aban- 
doned my  principles  and  party,  with  which  I  am 
now  accused  so  unjustly  ?  Nay,  would  it  not 
have  been  worse  than  folly — been  madness  in 
me,  to  have  taken  any  other  ?  And  yet,  the 
grounds  which  I  have  assumed  in  this  exposi- 
tion are  the  very  reasons  assigned  in  my  letter, 
and  which  the  senator  has  perverted  most  un- 
fairly and  unjustly  into  the  pitiful,  personal,  and 
selfish  reason,  which  he  has  attributed  to  me. 
Confirmative  of  what  I  say,  I  again  appeal  to 
the  record.  The  secretary  will  read  the  para- 
graph marked  in  my  Edgefield  letter,  to  which, 
I  presume,  the  senator  alluded. 

"  [The  secretary  of  the  Senate  reads  :] 
" '  As  soon  as  I  saw  this  state  of  things,  I  clearly 
perceived  that  a  very  important  question  was 
presented  for  our  determination,  which  we  were 
compelled  to  decide  forthwith — shall  we  con- 
tinue our  joint  attack  with  the  Nationals  on 
those  in  power,  in  the  new  position  which  they 
have  been  compelled  to  occupy  ?  It  was  clear, 
with  our  joint  forces,  we  could  utterly  over- 
throw and  demolish  them  j  but  it  was  not  less 
clear  that  the  victory  would  enure,  not  to  us, 
but  exclusively  to  the  benefit  of  our  allies  and 
their  cause.  They  were  the  most  numerous  and 
powerful,  and  the  point  of  assault  on  the  posi- 
tion which  the  party  to  be  assaulted  had  taken 
in  relation  to  the  banks,  would  have  greatly 
strengthened  the  settled  principles  and  policy 
of  the  National  party,  and  weakened,  in  the 
same  degree,  ours.  They  are,  and  ever  have 
been,  the  decided  advocates  of  a  national  bank ; 
and  are  now  in  favor  of  one  with  a  capital  so 
ample  as  to  be  sufficient  to  control  the  State  in- 
stitutions, and  to  regulate  the  currency  and  ex- 
changes of  the  country.  To  join  them  with 
their  avowed  object  in  the  attack  to  overthrow 
those  in  power,  on  the  ground  they  occupied 


ANNO  1888.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


109 


against  a  bank,  would,  of  course,  not  only  have 
placed  the  government  and  country  in  their 
hands  without  opposition,  but  would  have  com- 
mitted us,  beyond  the  possibility  of  extrication, 
for  a  bank ;  and  absorbed  our  party  in  the  ranks 
of  the  National  Republicans.  The  first  fruits 
of  the  victory  would  have  been  an  overshadow- 
ing National  Bank,  with  an  immense  capital, 
not  less  than  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  millions ; 
which  would  have  centralized  the  currency  and 
exchanges,  and  with  them  the  commerce  and 
capital  of  the  country,  in  whatever  section  the 
head  of  the  institution  might  be  placed.  The 
next  would  be  the  indissoluble  union  of  the 
political  opponents,  whose  principles  and  policy 
are  so  opposite  to  ours,  and  so  dangerous  to  our 
institutions,  as  well  as  oppressive  to  us.' 

"  I  now  ask,  is  there  any  thing  in  this  extract 
which  will  warrant  the  construction  that  the 
senator  has  attempted  to  force  on  it  ?  Is  it  not 
manifest  that  the  expression  on  which  he  fixes, 
that  the  victory  would  enure,  not  to  us,  but 
exclusively  to  the  benefit  of  the  opposition, 
alludes  not  to  power  or  place,  but  to  principle 
and  policy  ?  Can  words  be  more  plain  ?  What 
then  becomes  of  all  the  aspersions  of  the  sena- 
tor, his  reflections  about  selfishness  and  the 
want  of  patriotism,  and  his  allusions  and  illus- 
trations to  give  them  force  and  effect  ?  They 
fall  to  the  ground  without  deserving  a  notice, 
with  his  groundless  accusation. 

"  But,  in  so  premeditated  and  indiscriminate 
an  attack,  it  could  not  be  expected  that  my  mo- 
tives would  entirely  escape ;  and  we  accordingly 
find  the  senator  very  charitably  leaving  it  to 
time  to  disclose  my  motive  for  going  over. 
Leave  it  to  time  to  disclose  my  motive  for  going 
over !  I  who  have  changed  no  opinion,  aban- 
doned no  principle,  and  deserted  no  party :  I, 
who  have  stood  still,  and  maintained  my  ground 
against  every  difficulty,  to  be  told  that  it  is  left 
to  time  to  disclose  my  motive  !  The  imputation 
sinks  to  the  earth  with  the  groundless  charge 
on  which  it  rests.  I  stamp  it  with  scorn  in  the 
dust.  I  pick  up  the  dart,  which  fell  harmless 
at  my  feet.  I  hurl  it  back.  What  the  senator 
charges  on  me  unjustly,  he  has  actually  done. 
He  went  over  on  a  memorable  occasion,  and  did 
not  leave  it  to  time  to  disclose  his  motive. 

"  The  senator  next  tells  us  that  I  bore  a  char- 
acter for  stern  fidelity  j  which  he  accompanied 
with  remarks  implying  that  I  had  forfeited  it 
by  my  course  on  the  present  occasion.  If  he 
means  by  stern  fidelity  a  devoted  attachment  to 
duty  and  principle,  which  nothing  can  overcome, 
the  character  is,  indeed,  a  high  one ;  and  I  trust, 
not  entirely  unmerited.  I  have,  at  least,  the 
authority  of  the  senator  himself  for  saying  that 
it  belonged  to  me  before  the  present  occasion, 
and  it  is,  of  course,  incumbent  on  him  to  show 
that  I  have  since  forfeited  it.  He  will  find  the 
task  a  Herculean  one.  It  would  be  by  far  more 
easy  to  show  the  opposite  ;  that,  instead  of  for- 
feiting, I  have  strengthened  my  title  to  the  char- 


acter ;  instead  of  abandoning  any  principles,  I 
have  firmly  adhered  to  them ;  and  that  too,  under 
the  most  appalling  difficulties.  If  I  were  to 
select  an  instance  in  the  whole  course  of  my 
life  on  which,  above  all  others,  to  rest  my  claim 
to  the  character  which  the  senator  attributed 
to  me,  it  would  be  this  very  one,  which  he  has 
selected  to  prove  that  I  have  forfeited  it. 

"  I  acted  with  the  full  knowledge  of  the  diffi- 
culties I  had  to  encounter,  and  the  responsibil- 
ity I  must  incur.  I  saw  a  great  and  powerful 
party,  probably  the  most  powerful  in  the  coun- 
try, eagerly  seizing  on  the  catastrophe  which 
had  befallen  the  currency,  and  the  consequent 
embarrassments  that  followed,  to  displace  those 
in  power,  against  whom  they  had  been  long 
contending.  I  saw  that,  to  stand  between  them 
and  their  object,  I  must  necessarily  incur  their 
deep  and  lasting  displeasure.  I  also  saw  that, 
to  maintain  the  administration  in  the  position 
they  had  taken — to  separate  the  government 
from  the  banks,  I  would  draw  down  on  me, 
with  the  exception  of  some  of  the  southern 
banks,  the  whole  weight  of  that  extensive,  con- 
centrated, and  powerful  interest — the  most  pow- 
erful by  far  of  any  in  the  whole  community ; 
and  thus  I  would  unite  against  me  a  combina- 
tion of  political  and  moneyed  influence  almost 
irresistible.  Nor  was  this  all.  I  could  not  but 
see  that,  however  pure  and  disinterested  my 
motives,  and  however  consistent  my  course 
with  all  I  had  ever  said  or  done,  I  would  be  ex- 
posed to  the  very  charges  and  aspersions  which 
I  am  now  repelling.  The  ease  with  which  they 
could  be  made,  and  the  temptation  to  make 
them,  I  saw  were  too  great  to  be  resisted  by 
the  party  morality  of  the  day — as  groundless  as 
I  have  demonstrated  them.  But  there  was 
another  consequence  that  I  could  not  but  fore- 
see, far  more  painful  to  me  than  all  others.  I 
but  too  clearly  saw  that,  in  so  sudden  and  com- 
plex a  juncture,  called  on  as  I  was  to  decide  on 
my  course  instantly,  as  it  were,  on  the  field  of 
battle,  without  consultation,  or  explaining  my 
reasons,  I  would  estrange  for  a  time  many  of 
my  political  friends,  who  had  passed  through 
with  me  so  many  trials  and  difficulties,  and  for 
whom  I  feel  a  brother's  love.  But  I  saw  before 
me  the  path  of  duty,  and,  though  rugged,  and 
hedged  on  all  sides  with  these  and  many  other 
difficulties,  I  did  not  hesitate  a  moment  to  take 
it.  After  I  had  made  up  my  mind  as  to  my 
course,  in  a  conversation  with  a  friend  about 
the  responsibility  I  would  assume,  he  remarked 
that  my  own  State  might  desert  me.  I  replied 
that  it  was  not  impossible ;  but  the  result  has 
proved  that  I  under-estimated  the  intelligence 
and  patriotism  of  my  virtuous  and  noble  State. 
I  ask  her  pardon  for  the  distrust  implied  in  my 
answer;  but  I  ask  with  assurance  it  will  be 
granted,  on  the  grounds  I  shall  put  it — that,  in 
being  prepared  to  sacrifice  her  confidence,  as 
dear  to  me  as  light  and  life,  rather  than  disobey 
on  this  great  question,  the  dictates  of  my  judg- 


110 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ment  and  conscience,  I  proved  myself  worthy 
of  being  her  representative. 

"  But  if  the  senator,  in  attributing  to  me 
stern  fidelity,  meant,  not  devotion  to  principle, 
but  to  party,  and  especially  the  party  of  which 
he  is  so  prominent  a  member,  my  answer  is, 
that  I  never  belonged  to  his  party,  nor  owed  it 
any  fidelity;  and,  of  course,  could  forfeit,  in 
reference  to  it,  no  character  for  fidelity.  It  is 
true,  we  acted  in  concert  against  what  we  be- 
lieved to  be  the  usurpations  of  the  Executive  ; 
and  it  is  true  that,  during  the  time,  I  saw  much 
to  esteem  in  those  with  whom  I  acted,  and  con- 
tracted friendly  relations  with  many  ;  which  I 
shall  not  be  the  first  to  forget.  It  is  also  true 
that  a  common  party  designation  was  applied 
to  the  opposition  in  the  aggregate — not,  how- 
ever, with  my  approbation ;  but  it  is  no  less 
true  that  it  was  universally  known  that  it  con- 
sisted of  two  distinct  parties,  dissimilar  in  prin- 
ciple and  policy,  except  in  relation  to  the  object 
for  which  they  had  united  :  the  national  repub- 
lican party,  and  the  portion  of  the  State  rights 
party  which  had  separated  from  the  administra- 
tion, on  the  ground  that  it  had  departed  from 
the  true  principles  of  the  original  party.  That 
I  belonged  exclusively  to  that  detached  portion, 
and  to  neither  the  opposition  nor  administration 
party,  I  prove  by  my  explicit  declaration,  con- 
tained in  one  of  the  extracts  read  from  my 
speech  on  the  currency  in  1834.  That  the 
party  generally,  and  the  State  which  I  repre- 
sent in  part,  stood  aloof  from  both  of  the  par- 
ties, may  be  established  from  the  fact  that  they 
refused  to  mingle  in  the  party  and  political  con- 
tests of  the  day.  My  State  withheld  her  elec- 
toral vote  in  two  successive  presidential  elections ; 
and,  rather  than  to  bestow  it  on  either  the  sen- 
ator from  Kentucky,  or  the  distinguished  citizen 
whom  he  opposed,  in  the  first  of  those  elec- 
tions, she  threw  her  vote  on  a  patriotic  citizen 
of  Virginia,  since  deceased,  of  her  own  politics ; 
but  who  was  not  a  candidate ;  and,  in  the  last, 
she  refused  to  give  it  to  the  worthy  senator 
from  Tennessee  near  me  (Judge  White),  though 
his  principles  and  views  of  policy  approach  so 
much  nearer  to  hers  than  that  of  the  party  to 
which  the  senator  from  Kentucky  belongs. 

"  And  here,  Mr.  President,  I  avail  myself  of 
the  opportunity  to  declare  my  present  political 
position,  so  that  there  may  be  no  mistake  here- 
after. I  belong  to  the  old  Republican  State 
Rights  party  of  '98.  To  that,  and  that  alone,  I 
owe  fidelity,  and  by  that  I  shall  stand  through 
every  change,  and  in  spite  of  every  difficulty. 
Its  creed  is  to  be  found  in  the  Kentucky  reso- 
lutions, and  Virginia  resolutions  and  report  ; 
and  its  policy  is  to  confine  the  action  of  this 
government  within  the  narrowest  limits  com- 
patible with  the  peace  and  security  of  these 
States,  and  the  objects  for  which  the  Union 
was  expressly  formed.  I,  as  one  of  that  party, 
shall  support  all  who  support  its  principles  and 
policy,  and  oppose  all  who  oppose  them.     I 


have  given,  and  shall  continue  to  give,  the  ad- 
ministration a  hearty  and  sincere  support  on 
the  great  question  now  under  discussion,  be- 
cause I  regard  it  as  in  strict  conformity  to  our 
creed  and  policy ;  and  shall  do  every  thing  in 
my  power  to  sustain  them  under  the  great  re- 
sponsibility which  they  have  assumed.  But 
let  me  tell  those  who  are  more  interested  in 
sustaining  them  than  myself,  that  the  danger 
which  threatens  them  lies  not  here,  but  in 
another  quarter.  This  measure  will  tend  to 
uphold  them,  if  they  stand  fast,  and  adhere  to 
it  with  fidelity.  But,  if  they  wish  to  know 
where  the  danger  is,  let  them  look  to  the  fiscal 
department  of  the  government.  I  said,  years 
ago,  that  we  were  committing  an  error  the  re- 
verse of  the  great  and  dangerous  one  that  was 
committed  in  1828,  and  to  which  we  owe  our 
present  difficulties,  and  all  we  have  since  expe- 
rienced. Then  we  raised  the  revenue  greatly, 
when  the  expenditures  were  about  to  be  re- 
duced by  the  discharge  of  the  public  debt ;  and 
now  we  have  doubled  the  disbursements,  when 
the  revenue  is  rapidly  decreasing;  an  error, 
which,  although  probably  not  so  fatal  to  the 
country,  will  prove,  if  immediate  and  vigorous 
measures  be  not  adopted,  far  more  so  to  those 
in  power. 

"  But  the  senator  did  not  confine  his  attack 
to  my  conduct  and  motives  in  reference  to  the 
present  question.  In  his  eagerness  to  weaken 
the  cause  I  support,  by  destroying  confidence  in 
me,  he  made  an  indiscriminate  attack  on  my  in- 
tellectual faculties,  which  he  characterized  as 
metaphysical,  eccentric,  too  much  of  genius,  and 
too  little  common  sense  ;  and  of  course  wanting 
a  sound  and  practical  judgment. 

"Mr.  President,  according  to  my  opinion, 
there  is  nothing  of  which  those  who  are  en- 
dowed with  superior  mental  faculties  ought  to 
be  more  cautious,  than  to  reproach  those  with 
their  deficiency  to  whom  Providence  has  been 
less  liberal.  The  faculties  of  our  mind  are  the 
immediate  gift  of  our  Creator,  for  which  we  are 
no  farther  responsible  than  for  their  proper  cul- 
tivation, according  to  our  opportunities,  and 
their  proper  application  to  control  and  regulate 
our  actions.  Thus  thinking,  I  trust  I  shall  be 
the  last  to  assume  superiority  on  my  part,  or 
reproach  any  one  with  inferiority  on  his ;  but 
those  who  do  not  regard  the  rule,  when  ap- 
plied to  others,  cannot  expect  it  to  be  observed 
when  applied  to  themselves.  The  critic  must 
expect  to  be  criticised ;  and  he  who  points  out 
the  faults  of  others,  to  have  his  own  pointed 
out. 

"  I  cannot  retort  on  the  senator  the  charge  of 
being  metaphysical.  I  cannot  accuse  him  of 
possessing  the  powers  of  analysis  and  generali- 
zation, those  higher  faculties  of  the  mind  (called 
metaphysical  by  those  who  do  not  possess 
them),  which  decompose  and  resolve  into  their 
elements  the  complex  masses  of  ideas  that  exist 
in  the  world  of  mind — as  chemistry  does  the 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


Ill 


bodies  that  surround  us  in  the  material  world ; 
and  without  which  those  deep  and  hidden 
causes  which  are  in  constant  action,  and  pro- 
ducing such  mighty  changes  in  the  condition 
of  society,  would  operate  unseen  and  undetect- 
ed. The  absence  of  these  higher  qualities  of 
the  mind  is  conspicuous  throughout  the  whole 
course  of  the  senator's  public  life.  To  this  it 
may  be  traced  that  he  prefers  the  specious  to 
the  solid,  and  the  plausible  to  the  true.  To 
the  same  cause,  combined  with  an  ardent  tem- 
perament, it  is  owing  that  we  ever  find  him 
mounted  on  some  popular  and  favorite  measure, 
which  he  whips  along,  cheered  by  the  shouts  of 
the  multitude,  and  never  dismounts  till  he  has 
rode  it  down.  Thus,  at  one  time,  we  find  him 
mounted  on  the  protective  system,  which  he 
rode  down;  at  another,  on  internal  improve- 
ment ;  and  now  he  is  mounted  on  a  bank,  which 
will  surely  share  the  same  fate,  unless  those 
who  are  immediately  interested  shall  stop  him 
in  his  headlong  career.  It  is  the  fault  of  his 
mind  to  seize  on  a  few  prominent  and  striking 
advantages,  and  to  pursue  them  eagerly  with- 
out looking  to  consequences.  Thus,  in  the  case 
of  the  protective  system,  he  was  struck  with 
the  advantages  of  manufactures  ;  and,  believing 
that  high  duties  was  the  proper  mode  of  pro- 
tecting them,  he  pushed  forward  the  system, 
without  seeing  that  he  was  enriching  one  por- 
tion of  the  country  at  the  expense  of  the  other ; 
corrupting  the  one  and  alienating  the  other ; 
and,  finally,  dividing  the  community  into  two 
great  hostile  interests,  which  terminated  in  the 
overthrow  of  the  system  itself.  So,  now,  he 
looks  only  to  a  uniform  currency,  and  a  bank 
as  the  means  of  securing  it,  without  once  re- 
flecting how  far  the  banking  system  has  pro- 
gressed, and  the  difficulties  that  impede  its  far- 
ther progress ;  that  banking  and  politics  are 
running  together  to  their  mutual  destruction ; 
and  that  the  only  possible  mode  of  saving  his 
favorite  system  is  to  separate  it  from  the  gov- 
ernment. 

"  To  the  defects  of  understanding,  which  the 
senator  attributes  to  me,  I  make  no  reply.  It 
is  for  others,  and  not  me,  to  determine  the  por- 
tion of  understanding  which  it  has  pleased  the 
Author  of  my  being  to  bestow  on  me.  It  is, 
however,  fortunate  for  me,  that  the  standard  by 
which  I  shall  be  judged  is  not  the  false,  preju- 
diced, and,  as  I  have  shown,  unfounded  opinion 
which  the  senator  has  expressed ;  but  my  acts. 
They  furnish  materials,  neither  few  nor  scant, 
to  form  a  just  estimate  of  my  mental  facul- 
ties. I  have  now  been  more  than  twenty-six 
years  continuously  in  the  service  of  this  gov- 
ernment, in  various  stations,  and  have  taken 
part  in  almost  all  the  great  questions  which 
have  agitated  this  country  during  this  long  and 
important  period.  Throughout  the  whole  I 
have  never  followed  events,  but  have  taken  my 
stand  in  advance,  openly  and  freely  avowing  my 
opinions  on  all  questions,  and  leaving  it  to  time 


and  experience  to  condemn  or  approve  my 
course.  Thus  acting,  I  have  often,  and  on  great 
questions,  separated  from  those  with  whom  I 
usually  acted,  and  if  I  am  really  so  defective  in 
sound  and  practical  judgment  as  the  senator 
represents,  the  proof,  if  to  be  found  any  where, 
must  be  found  in  such  instances,  or  where  I 
have  acted  on  my  sole  responsibility.  Now,  I 
ask,  in  which  of  the  many  instances  of  the  kind 
is  such  proof  to  be  found  ?  It  is  not  my  inten- 
tion to  call  to  the  recollection  of  the  Senate  all 
such ;  but  that  you,  senators,  may  judge  for 
yourselves,  it  is  due  in  justice  to  myself,  that  I 
should  suggest  a  few  of  the  most  prominent, 
which  at  the  time  were  regarded  as  the  senator 
now  considers  the  present ;  and  then,  as  now. 
because  where  duty  is  involved,  I  would  not 
submit  to  party  trammels. 

"  I  go  back  to  the  commencement  of  my  pub- 
lic life,  the  war  session,  as  it  was  usually  called, 
of  1812,  when  I  first  took  my  seat  in  the  other 
House,  a  young  man,  without  experience  to 
guide  me,  and  I  shall  select,  as  the  first  instance, 
the  Navy.  At  that  time  the  administration  and 
the  party  to  which  I  was  strongly  attached  were 
decidedly  opposed  to  this  important  arm  of  ser- 
vice. It  was  considered  anti-republican  to  sup- 
port it ;  but  acting  with  my  then  distinguished 
colleague,  Mr.  Cheves,  who  led  the  way,  I  did 
not  hesitate  to  give  it  my  hearty  support,  re- 
gardless of  party  ties.  Does  this  instance  sus- 
tain the  charge  of  the  senator  ? 

"  The  next  I  shall  select  is  the  restrictive 
system  of  that  day,  the  embargo,  the  non-im- 
portation and  non-intercourse  acts.  This,  too, 
was  a  party  measure  which  had  been  long  and 
warmly  contested,  and  of  course  the  lines  of 
party  well  drawn.  Young  and  inexperienced  as 
I  was,  I  saw  its  defects,  and  resolutely  opposed 
it,  almost  alone  of  my  party.  The  second  or 
third  speech  I  made,  after  I  took  my  seat,  was 
in  open  denunciation  of  the  sj^stem  ;  and  I  may 
refer  to  the  grounds  I  then  assumed,  the  truth 
of  which  have  been  confirmed  by  time  and  ex- 
perience, with  pride  and  confidence.  This  will 
scarcely  be  selected  by  the  senator  to  make  good 
his  charge. 

'•  I  pass  over  other  instances,  and  come  to 
Mr.  Dallas's  bank  of  1814-15.  That,  too,  was 
a  party  measure.  Banking  was  then  compar- 
atively but  little  understood,  and  it  may  seem 
astonishing,  at  this  time,  that  such  a  project 
should  ever  have  received  any  countenance 
or  support.  It  proposed  to  create  a  bank  of 
$50,000,000,  to  consist  almost  entirely  of  what 
was  called  then  the  war  stocks  ;  that  is,  the  pub- 
lic debt  created  in  carrying  on  the  then  war.  It 
was  provided  that  the  bank  should  not  pay 
specie  during  the  war,  and  for  three  years  after 
its  termination,  for  carrying  on  which  it  was  to 
lend  the  government  the  funds.  In  plain  lan- 
guage, the  government  was  to  borrow  back  its 
own  credit  from  the  bank,  and  pay  to  the  insti- 
tution six  per  cent,  for  its  use.      I  had  scarcely 


112 


THIETY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ever  before  seriously  thought  of  banks  or  bank- 
ing, but  I  clearly  saw  through  the  operation, 
and  the  danger  to  the  government  and  country ; 
and,  regardless  of  party  ties  or  denunciations,  I 
opposed  and  defeated  it  in  the  manner  I  ex- 
plained at  the  extra  session.  I  then  subjected 
myself  to  the  very  charge  which  the  senator 
now  makes  ;  but  time  has  done  me  justice,  as  it 
will  in  the  present  instance. 

"Passing  the  intervening  instances,  I  come 
down  to  my  administration  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment, where  I  acted  on  my  own  judgment  and 
responsibility.  It  is  known  to  all,  that  the  de- 
partment, at  that  time,  was  perfectly  disorgan- 
ized, with  not  much  less  than  $50,000,000  of 
outstanding  and  unsettled  accounts ;  and  the 
greatest  confusion  in  every  branch  of  service. 
Though  without  experience,  I  prepared,  shortly 
after  I  went  in,  the  bill  for  its  organization,  and 
on  its  passage  I  drew  up  the  body  of  rules  for 
carrying  the  act  into  execution ;  both  of  which  re- 
main substantially  unchanged  to  this  day.  After 
reducing  the  outstanding  accounts  to  a  few  mil- 
lions, and  introducing  order  and  accountability  in 
every  branch  of  service,  and  bringing  down  the 
expenditure  of  the  army  from  four  to  two  and  a 
half  millions  annually,  without  subtracting  a 
single  comfort  from  either  officer  or  soldier,  I 
left  the  department  in  a  condition  that  might 
well  be  compared  to  the  best  in  any  country. 
If  I  am  deficient  in  the  qualities  which  the  sena- 
tor attributes  to  me,  here  in  this  mass  of  details 
and  business  it  ought  to  be  discovered.  Will 
he  look  to  this  to  make  good  his  charge  ? 

"  From  the  war  department  I  was  transferred 
to  the  Chair  which  you  now  occupy.  How  I 
acquitted  myself  in  the  discharge  of  its  duties,  I 
leave  it  to  the  body  to  decide,  without  adding  a 
word.  The  station,  from  its  leisure,  gave  me  a 
good  opportunity  to  study  the  genius  of  the 
prominent  measure  of  the  day,  called  then  the 
American  system ;  of  which  I  profited.  I  soon 
perceived  where  its  errors  lay,  and  how  it  would 
operate.  I  clearly  saw  its  desolating  effects  in 
one  section,  and  corrupting  influence  in  the 
other ;  and  when  I  saw  that  it  could  not  be  ar- 
rested here,  I  fell  back  on  my  own  State,  and  a 
blow  was  given  to  a  system  destined  to  destroy 
our  institutions,  if  not  overthrown,  which 
brought  it  to  the  ground.  This  brings  me 
down  to  the  present  times,  and  where  passions 
and  prejudices  are  yet  too  strong  to  make  an 
appeal,  with  any  prospect  of  a  fair  and  impartial 
verdict.  I  then  transfer  this,  and  all  my  subse- 
quent acts,  including  the  present,  to  the  tribunal 
of  posterity;  with  a  perfect  confidence  that 
nothing  will  be  found,  in  what  I  have  said  or 
done,  to  impeach  my  integrity  or  understand- 
ing. 

"  I  have  now,  senators,  repelled  the  attacks 
on  me.  I  have  settled  the  account  and  cancel- 
led the  debt  between  me  and  my  accuser.  I 
have  not  sought  this  controversy,  nor  have  I 
shunned  it  when  forced  on  me.    I  have  acted  on 


the  defensive,  and  if  it  is  to  continue,  which 
rests  with  the  senator,  I  shall  throughout  con- 
tinue so  to  act.  I  know  too  well  the  advantage 
of  my  position  to  surrender  it.  The  senator 
commenced  the  controversy,  and  it  is  but  right 
that  he  should  be  responsible  for  the  direction 
it  shall  hereafter  take.  Be  his  determination 
what  it  may,  I  stand  prepared  to  meet  him." 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 

DEBATE  BETWEEN  ME.  CLAY  AND  ME.  CALHOUN: 
EEJOINDEES  BY  EACH. 

Mr.  Clay: — "As  to  the  personal  part  of  the 
speech  of  the  senator  from  South  Carolina,  I 
must  take  the  occasion  to  say  that  no  man  is 
more  sincerely  anxious  to  avoid  all  personal  con- 
troversy than  myself.  And  I  may  confidently 
appeal  to  the  whole  course  of  my  life  for  the 
confirmation  of  that  disposition.  No  man  cher- 
ishes less  than  I  do  feelings  of  resentment; 
none  forgets  or  forgives  an  injury  sooner  than 
I  do.  The  duty  which  I  had  to  perform  in 
animadverting  upon  the  public  conduct  and 
course  of  the  senator  from  South  Carolina  was 
painful  in  the  extreme  ;  but  it  was,  nevertheless, 
a  public  duty ;  and  I  shrink  from  the  performance 
of  no  duty  required  at  my  hands  by  my  country. 
It  was  painful,  because  I  had  long  served  in  the 
public  councils  with  the  senator  from  South 
Carolina,  admired  his  genius,  and  for  a  great 
while  had  been  upon  terms  of  intimacy  with 
him.  Throughout  my  whole  acquaintance  with 
him,  I  have  constantly  struggled  to  think  well 
of  him,  and  to  ascribe  to  him  public  virtues. 
Even  after  his  famous  summerset  at  the  extra 
session,  on  more  than  one  occasion  I  defended 
his  motives  when  he  was  assailed ;  and  insisted 
that  it  was  uncharitable  to  attribute  to  him 
others  than  those  which  he  himself  avowed. 
This  I  continued  to  do,  until  I  read  this  most 
extraordinary  and  exceptionable  letter :  [Here 
Mr.  Clay  held  up  and  exhibited  to  the  Senate 
the  Edgefield  letter,  dated  at  Fort  Hill,  Novem- 
ber 3,  1837  :]  a  letter  of  which  I  cannot  speak 
in  merited  term's,  without  a  departure  from  the 
respect  which  I  owe  to  the  Senate  and  to  myself. 
When  I  read  that  letter,  sir,  its  unblushing 
avowals,  and  its  unjust  reproaches  cast  upon  my 
friends  and  myself,  I  was  most  reluctantly  com- 
pelled to  change  my  opinion  of  the  honorable 
senator  from  South  Carolina.  One  so  distin- 
guished as  he  is,  cannot  expect  to  be  indulged 
with  speaking  as  he  pleases  of  others,  without 
a  reciprocal  privilege.  He  cannot  suppose  that 
he  may  set  to  the  right  or  the  left,  cut  in  and 
out,  and  chasse,  among  principles  and  parties 
as  often  as  he  pleases,  without  animadversion. 
I  did,  indeed,  understand  the  senator  to  say,  in 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


113 


his  former  speech,  that  we,  the  whigs,  were  un- 
wise and  unpatriotic  in  not  uniting  with  him 
in  supporting  the  bill  under  consideration.  But 
in  that  Edgefield  letter,  among  the  motives 
which  he  assigns  for  leaving  us,  I  understand 
him  to  declare  that  he  could  not '  back  and  sus- 
tain those  in  such  opposition,  in  whose  wisdom, 
firmness,  and  patriotism,  I  have  no  reason  to 
confide.' 

"  After  having  written  and  published  to  the 
world  such  a  letter  as  that,  and  after  what  has 
fallen  from  the  senator,  in  the  progress  of  this 
debate,  towards  my  political  friends,  does  he 
imagine  that  he  can  persuade  himself  and  the 
country  that  he  really  occupies,  on  this  occa- 
sion, a  defensive  attitude?  In  that  letter  he 
says : 

" '  I  clearly  saw  that  our  bold  and  vigorous  attacks  had  made 
a  deep  and  successful  impression.  State  interposition  had 
overthrown  the  protective  tariff,  and  with  it  the  American 
system,  and  put  a  stop  to  the  congressional  usurpation  ;  and 
the  joint  attacks  of  our  party,  and  that  of  our  old  opponents, 
the  national  republicans,  had  effectually  brought  down  the 
power  of  the  Executive,  and  arrested  its  encroachments  for 
the  present.  It  was  for  that  purpose  we  had  united.  True 
to  our  principle  of  opposition  to  the  encroachment  of  power, 
from  whatever  quarter  it  might  come,  we  did  not  hesitate, 
after  overthrowing  the  protective  system,  and  arresting  legis- 
lative usurpation,  to  join  the  authors  of  that  system,  in  order 
to  arrest  the  encroachments  of  the  Executive,  although  we 
differed  as  widely  as  the  poles  on  almost  every  other  question, 
and  regarded  the  usurpation  of  the  Executive  but  as  a  neces- 
cary  consequence  of  the  principles  and  policy  of  our  new 
allies.' 

"  State  interposition  ! — that  is  as  I  understand 
the  senator  from  South  Carolina ;  nullification, 
he  asserts,  overthrew  the  protective  tariff  and 
the  American  system.  And  can  that  senator, 
knowing  what  he  knows,  and  what  I  know, 
deliberately  make  such  an  assertion  here?  I 
had  heard  similar  boasts  before,  but  did  not 
regard  them,  until  I  saw  them  coupled  in  this 
letter  with  the  imputation  of  a  purpose  on  the 
part  of  my  friends  to  disregard  the  compromise, 
and  revive  the  high  tariff.  Nullification,  Mr. 
President,  overthrew  the  protective  policy  ! 
No,  sir.  The  compromise  was  not  extorted  by 
the  terror  of  nullification.  Among  other  more 
important  motives  that  influenced  its  passage, 
it  was  a  compassionate  concession  to  the  impru- 
dence and  impotency  of  nullification  !  The  dan- 
ger from  nullification  itself  excited  no  more  ap- 
prehension than  would  be  felt  by  seeing  a  regi- 
ment of  a  thousand  boys,  of  five  or  six  years  of 
age,  decorated  in  brilliant  uniforms,  with  their 
gaudy  plumes  and  tiny  muskets,  marching  up 
to  assault  a  corps  of  50,000  grenadiers,  six  feet 
high.  At  the  commencement  of  the  session  of 
1832.  the  senator  from  South  Carolina  was  in 
any  condition  other  than  that  of  dictating  terms. 
Those  of  us  who  were  then  here  must  recollect 
well  his  haggard  looks  and  his  anxious  and  de- 
pressed countenance.  A  highly  estimable  friend 
of  mine,  Mr.  J.  M.  Clayton,  of  Delaware,  allud- 
ing to  the  possibility  of  a  rupture  with  South 
Carolina,  and  declarations  of  President  Jackson 
with  respect  to  certain  distinguished  individuals 
Vol.  II.— 8 


whom  he  had  denounced  and  proscribed,  said 
to  me,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  referring  to 
the  senator  from  South  Carolina  and  some  of 
his  colleagues,  "  They  are  clever  fellows,  and  it 
will  never  do  to  let  old  Jackson  hang  them." 
Sir,  this  disclosure  is  extorted  from  me  by  the 
senator. 

"  So  far  from  nullification  having  overthrown 
the  protective  policy,  in  assenting  to  the  com- 
promise, it  expressly  sanctioned  the  constitu- 
tional power  which  it  had  so  strongly  contro- 
verted, and  perpetuated  it.  There  is  protection 
from  one  end  to  the  other  in  the  compromise 
act ;  modified  and  limited  it  is  true,  but  protec- 
tion nevertheless.  There  is  protection,  adequate 
and  abundant  protection,  until  the  year  1842 ; 
and  protection  indefinitely  beyond  it.  Until 
that  year,  the  biennial  reduction  of  duties  is 
slow  and  moderate,  such  as  was  perfectly  satis- 
factory to  the  manufacturers.  Now,  if  the  sys- 
tem were  altogether  unconstitutional,  as  had 
been  contended,  how  could  the  senator  vote  for 
a  bill  which  continued  it  for  nine  years  ?  Then, 
beyond  that  period,  there  is  the  provision  for 
cash  duties,  home  valuations,  a  long  and  liberal 
list  of  free  articles,  carefully  made  out  by  my 
friend  from  Rhode  Island  (Mr.  Knight),  ex- 
pressly for  the  benefit  of  the  manufacturers ;  and 
the  power  of  discrimination,  reserved  also  for 
their  benefit ;  within  the  maximum  rate  of  duty 
fixed  in  the  act.  In  the  consultations  between 
the  senator  and  myself  in  respect  to  the  com- 
promise act,  on  every  point  upon  which  I  in- 
sisted he  gave  way.  He  was  for  a  shorter  term 
than  nine  years,  and  more  rapid  reduction.  I 
insisted,  and  he  yielded.  He  was  for  fifteen  in- 
stead of  twenty  per  cent,  as  the  maximum  duty  ; 
but  yielded.  He  was  against  any  discrimination 
within  the  limited  range  of  duties  for  the  benefit 
of  the  manufacturers ;  but  consented.  To  the 
last  he  protested  against  home  valuation,  but 
finally  gave  way.  Such  is  the  compromise  act ; 
and  the  Senate  will  see  with  what  propriety  the 
senator  can  assert  that  nullification  had  over- 
thrown the  protective  tariff  and  the  American 
system.  Nullification  !  which  asserted  the  ex- 
traordinary principle  that  one  of  twenty-four 
members  of  a  confederacy,  by  its  separate  action, 
could  subvert  and  set  aside  the  expressed  will 
of  the  whole  !  Nullification  !  a  strange,  imprac- 
ticable, incomprehensible  doctrine,  that  partakes 
of  the  character  of  the  metaphysical  school  of 
German  philosophy,  or  would  be  worthy  of  the 
puzzling  theological  controversies  of  the  middle 
ages. 

"  No  one,  Mr.  President,  in  the  commence- 
ment of  the  protective  policy,  ever  supposed 
that  it  was  to  be  perpetual.  We  hoped  and  be- 
lieved that  temporary  protection  extended  to 
our  infant  manufactures,  would  bring  them  up. 
and  enable  them  to  withstand  competition  with 
those  of  Europe.  We  thought,  as  the  wise 
French  minister  did,  who,  when  urged  by  a 
British  minister  to  consent  to  the  equal  intro- 


114 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


duction  into  the  two  countries  of  their  respective 
productions,  replied  that  free  trade  might  be 
very  well  for  a  country  whose  manufactures 
had  reached  perfection,  but  was  not  entirely 
adapted  to  a  country  which  wished  to  build  up 
its  manufactures.  If  the  protective  policy  were 
entirely  to  cease  in  1842,  it  would  have  existed 
twenty-six  years  from  1816,  or  18  from  1824 ; 
quite  as  long  as,  at  either  of  those  periods,  its 
friends  supposed  might  be  necessary.  But  it 
does  not  cease  then,  and  I  sincerely  hope  that 
the  provisions  contained  in  the  compromise  act 
for  its  benefit  beyond  that  period,  will  be  found 
sufficient  for  the  preservation  of  all  our  interest- 
ing manufactures.  For  one,  I  am  willing  to  ad- 
here to,  and  abide  by  the  compromise  in  all  its 
provisions,  present  and  prospective,  if  its  fair 
operation  is  undisturbed.  The  Senate  well 
knows  that  I  have  been  constantly  in  favor  of  a 
strict  and  faithful  adherence  to  the  compromise 
act.  I  have  watched  and  defended  it  on  all 
occasions.  I  desire  to  see  it  faithfully  and  in- 
violably maintained.  The  senator,  too,  from 
South  Carolina,  alleging  that  the  South  were 
the  weaker  party,  has  hitherto  united  with  me 
in  sustaining  it.  Nevertheless,  he  has  left  us, 
as  he  tells  us  in  his  Edgefield  letter,  because  he 
apprehended  that  our  principles  would  lead  us 
to  the  revival  of  a  high  tariff. 

"  The  senator  from  South  Carolina  proceeds, 
in  his  Edgefield  letter,  to  say  : 

" '  I  clearly  perceived  that  a  very  important,  question  was 
presented  for  our  determination,  which  we  were  compelled 
to  decide  forthwith  :  shall  we  continue  our  joint  attack  with 
the  nationals  on  those  in  power,  in  the  new  position  which 
they  have  been  compelled  to  occupy  ?  It  was  clear  that,  with 
our  joint  forces,  we  could  utterly  overthrow  and  demolish 
them.  But  it  was  not  less  clear  that  the  victory  would 
enure  not  to  us,  but  exclusively  to  the  benefit  of  our  allies 
and  their  cause.' 

"  Thus  it  appears  that  in  a  common  struggle 
for  the  benefit  of  our  whole  country,  the  sena- 
tor was  calculating  upon  the  party  advantages 
which  would  result  from  success.  He  quit  us 
because  he  apprehended  that  he  and  his  party 
would  be'  absorbed  by  us.  Well,  what  is  to  be 
their  fate  in  his  new  alliance?  Is  there  no 
absorption  there?  Is  there  no  danger  that  the 
senator  and  his  party  will  be  absorbed  by  the 
administration  party  ?  Or  does  he  hope  to  ab- 
sorb that  ?  Another  motive  avowed  in  the 
letter,  for  his  desertion  of  us,  is,  that  '  it  would 
also  give  us  the  chance  of  effecting  what  is  still 
more  important  to  us,  the  union  of  the  entire 
South.'  What  sort  of  an  union  of  the  South 
does  the  senator  wish?  Is  not  the  South 
already  united  as  a  part  of  the  common  con- 
federacy ?  Does  he  want  any  other  union  of  it  ? 
I  wish  he  would  explicitly  state.  I  should  be 
glad,  also,  if  he  would  define  what  he  means  by 
the  South.  He  sometimes  talks  of  the  planta- 
tion or  staple  States.  Maryland  is  partly  a 
staple  State.  Virginia  and  North  Carolina 
more  so.  And  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  have 
also  staple  productions.    Are  all  these  States 


parts  of  his  South  ?  I  fear,  Mr.  President,  that 
the  political  geography  of  the  senator  compre- 
hends a  much  larger  South  than  that  South 
which  is  the  object  of  his  particular  solicitude  ; 
and  that,  to  find  the  latter,  we  should  have  to 
go  to  South  Carolina;  and,  upon  our  arrival 
there,  trace  him  to  Fort  Hill.  This  is  the  dis- 
interested senator  from  South  Carolina ! 

"  But  he  has  left  no  party,  and  joined  no 
party !  No  !  None.  With  the  daily  evidences 
before  us  of  his  frequent  association,  counselling 
and  acting  with  the  other  party,  he  would  tax 
our  credulity  too  much  to  require  us  to  believe 
that  he  has  formed  no  connection  with  it.  He 
may  stand  upon  his  reserved  rights ;  but  they 
must  be  mentally  reserved,  for  they  are  not  ob- 
vious to  the  senses.  Abandoned  no  party? 
Why  this  letter  proclaims  his  having  quitted  us, 
and  assigns  his  reasons  for  doing  it;  one  of 
which  is,  that  we  are  in  favor  of  that  national 
bank  which  the  senator  himself  has  sustained 
about  twenty-four  years  of  the  twenty-seven 
that  he  has  been  in  public  life.  Whatever  im- 
pression the  senator  may  endeavor  to  make 
without  the  Senate  upon  the  country  at  large, 
no  man  within  the  Senate,  who  has  eyes  to  see, 
or  ears  to  hear,  can  mistake  his  present  position 
and  party  connection.  If,  in  the  speech  which 
I  addressed  to  the  Senate  on  a  former  day, 
there  had  been  a  single  fact  stated  which  was 
not  perfectly  true,  or  an  inference  drawn  which 
was  not  fully  warranted,  or  any  description  of 
his  situation  which  was  incorrect,  no  man  would 
enjoy  greater  pleasure  than  I  should  do  in  recti- 
fying the  error.  If,  in  the  picture  which  I  por- 
trayed of  the  senator  and  his  course,  there  be 
any  thing  which  can  justly  give  him  dissatisfac- 
tion, he  must  look  to  the  original  and  not  to  the 
painter.  The  conduct  of  an  eminent  public  man 
is  a  fair  subject  for  exposure  and  animadversion. 
When  I  addressed  the  Senate  before,  I  had  just 
perused  this  letter.  I  recollected  all  its  re- 
proaches and  imputations  against  us,  and  those 
which  were  made  or  implied  in  the  speech  of 
the  honorable  senator  were  also  fresh  in  my 
memory.  Does  he  expect  to  be  allowed  to  cast 
such  imputations,  and  make  such  reproaches 
against  others  without  retaliation?  Holding 
myself  amenable  for  my  public  conduct,  I  choose 
to  animadvert  upon  his,  and  upon  that  of  others, 
whenever  circumstances,  in  my  judgment,  ren- 
der it  necessary ;  and  I  do  it  under  all  just  re- 
sponsibility which  belongs  to  the  exercise  of 
such  a  privilege. 

"  The  senator  has  thought  proper  to  exercise 
a  corresponding  privilege  towards  myself;  and, 
without  being  very  specific,  has  taken  upon 
himself  to  impute  to  me  the  charge  of  going 
over  upon  some  occasion,  and  that  in  a  manner 
which  left  my  motive  no  matter  of  conjecture. 
If  the  senator  mean  to  allude  to  the  stale  and 
refuted  calumny  of  George  Kremer,  I  assure 
him  I  can  hear  it  without  the  slightest  emo- 
tion ;  and  if  he  can  find  any  fragment  of  that 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT 


115 


rent  banner  to  cover  his  own  aberrations, 
he  is  perfectly  at  liberty  to  enjoy  all  the  shelter 
which  it  affords.  In  my  case  there  was  no 
going  over  about  it ;  I  was  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  and  had  to  give  a  vote 
for  one  of  three  candidates  for  the  presidency. 
Mr.  Crawford's  unfortunate  physical  condition 
placed  him  out  of  the  question.  The  choice  was, 
therefore,  limited  to  the  venerable  gentleman 
from  Massachusetts,  or  to  the  distinguished  in- 
habitant of  the  hermitage.  I  could  give  but  one 
vote  ;  and,  accordingly,  as  I  stated  on  a  former 
occasion,  t  gave  the  vote  which,  before  I  left 
Kentucky,  I  communicated  to  my  colleague 
[Mr.  Crittenden],  it  was  my  intention  to  give 
in  the  contingency  which  happened.  I  have 
never  for  one  moment  regretted  the  vote  I  then 
gave.  It  is  true,  that  the  legislature  of  Ken- 
tucky had  requested  the  representatives  from 
that  State  to  vote  for  General  Jackson  ;  but  my 
own  immediate  constituents,  I  knew  well,  were 
opposed  to  his  election,  and  it  was  their  will, 
and  not  that  of  the  legislature,  according  to 
every  principle  applicable  to  the  doctrine  of  in- 
structions, which  I  was  to  deposit  in  the  ballot- 
box.  It  is  their  glory  and  my  own  never  to 
have  concurred  in  the  elevation  of  General 
Jackson.  They  ratified  and  confirmed  my  vote, 
and  every  representative  that  they  have  sent  to 
Congress  since,  including  my  friend,  the  present 
member,  has  concurred  with  me  in  opposition 
to  the  election  and  administration  of  General 
Jackson. 

"  If  my  information  be  not  entirely  incorrect, 
and  there  was  any  going  over  in  the  presiden- 
tial election  which  terminated  in  February, 
1825,  the  senator  from  South  Carolina — and  not 
I — went  over.  I  have  understood  that  the 
senator,  when  he  ceased  to  be  in  favor  of  him- 
self,— that  is,  after  the  memorable  movement 
made  in  Philadelphia  by  the  present  minister  to 
Russia  (Mr.  Dallas),  withdrawing  his  name  from 
the  canvass,  was  the  known  supporter  of  the  elec- 
tion of  Mr.  Adams.  What  motives  induced  him 
afterwards  to  unite  in  the  election  of  General 
Jackson,  I  know  not.  It  is  not  my  habit  to 
impute  to  others  uncharitable  motives,  and  I 
leave  the  senator  to  settle  that  account  with  his 
own  conscience  and  his  country.  No,  sir,  I 
have  no  reproaches  to  make  myself,  and  feel 
perfectly  invulnerable  to  any  attack  from  others, 
on  account  of  any  part  which  I  took  in  the  elec- 
tion of  1825.  And  I  look  back  with  entire  and 
conscious  satisfaction  upon  the  whole  course  of 
the  arduous  administration  which  ensued. 

"  The  senator  from  South  Carolina  thinks  it 
to  be  my  misfortune  to  be  always  riding  some 
hobby,  and  that  I  stick  to  it  till  I  ride  it  down. 
I  think  it  is  his  never  to  stick  to  one  long 
enough.  He  is  like  a  courier  who,  riding  from 
post  to  post,  with  relays  of  fresh  horses,  when 
he  changes  his  steed,  seems  to  forget  altogether 
the  last  which  he  had  mounted.  Now,  it  is  a 
part  of  my  pride  and  pleasure  to  say,  that  I 


never  in  my  life  changed  my  deliberate  opinion 
upon  any  great  question  of  national  policy  but 
once,  and  that  was  twenty-two  years  ago,  on 
the  question  of  the  power  to  establish  a  bank 
of  the  United  States.  The  change  was  wrought 
by  the  sad  and  disastrous  experience  of  the 
want  of  such  an  institution,  growing  out  of  the 
calamities  of  war.  It  was  a  change  which  I 
made  in  common  with  Mr.  Madison,  two  gov- 
ernors of  Virginia,  and  the  great  body  of  the 
republican  party,  to  which  I  have  ever  be- 
longed. 

"  The  distinguished  senator  sticks  long  to  no 
hobby.  He  was  once  gayly  mounted  on  that 
of  internal  improvements.  We  rode  that  double 
— the  senator  before,  and  I  behind  him.  He 
quietly  slipped  off,  leaving  me  to  hold  the  bridle. 
He  introduced  and  carried  through  Congress  in 
1816,  the  bill  setting  apart  the  large  bonus  of 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States  for  internal  im- 
provements. His  speech,  delivered  on  that  oc- 
casion, does  not  intimate  the  smallest  question 
as  to  the  constitutional  power  of  the  govern- 
ment, but  proceeds  upon  the  assumption  of  its 
being  incontestable.  When  he  was  subse- 
quently in  the  department  of  war,  he  made  to 
Congress  a  brilliant  report,  sketching  as  splen- 
did and  magnificent  a  scheme  of  internal  im- 
provements for  the  entire  nation,  as  ever  was 
presented  to  the  admiration  and  wonder  of 
mankind. 

"  No,  sir,  the  senator  from  South  Carolina  is 
free  from  all  reproach  of  sticking  to  hobbies. 
He  was  for  a  bank  of  the  United  States  in  1816. 
He  proposed,  supported,  and  with  his  accus- 
tomed ability,  carried  through  the  charter.  He 
sustained  it  upon  its  admitted  grounds  of  con- 
stitutionality, of  which  he  never  once  breathed 
the  expression  of  a  doubt.  During  the  twenty 
years  of  its  Continuance  no  scruple  ever  escaped 
from  him  as  to  the  power  to  create  it.  And  in 
1834,  when  it  was  about  to  expire,  he  delibe- 
rately advocated  the  renewal  of  its  term  for 
twelve  years  more.  How  profound  he  may 
suppose  the  power  of  analysis  to  be,  and  what- 
ever opinion  he  may  entertain  of  his  own  meta- 
physical faculty, — can  he  imagine  that  any 
plain,  practical,  common  sense  man  can  ever 
comprehend  how  it  is  constitutional  to  prolong 
an  unconstitutional  bank  for  twelve  years  ?  He 
may  have  all  the  speeches  he  has  ever  delivered 
read  to  us  in  an  audible  voice  by  the  secretary, 
and  call  upon  the  Senate  attentively  to  hear 
them,  beginning  with  his  speech  in  favor  of  a 
bank  of  the  United  States  in  1816,  down  to  his 
speech  against  a  bank  of  the  United  States, 
delivered  the  other  day,  and  he  will  have  made 
no  progress  in  his  task.  I  do  not  speak  this  in 
any  unkind  spirit,  but  I  will  tell  the  honorable 
senator  when  he  will  be  consistent.  He  will 
be  so,  when  he  resolves  henceforward,  during 
the  residue  of  his  life,  never  to  pronounce  the 
word  again.  We  began  our  public  career 
nearly  together ;  we  remained  together  through- 


116 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


out  the  war  and  down  to  the  peace.  We  agreed 
as  to  a  bank  of  the  United  States — as  to  a  pro- 
tective tariff — as  to  internal  improvements — 
and  lately,  as  to  those  arbitrary  and  violent 
measures  which  characterized  the  administra- 
tion of  General  Jackson.  No  two  prominent 
public  men  ever  agreed  better  together  in  re- 
spect to  important  measures  of  national  policy. 
We  concur  now  in  nothing.  We  separate  for 
ever." 

Mr.  Calhoun.  "  The  senator  from  Kentucky 
says  that  the  sentiments  contained  in  my  Edge- 
field letter  then  met  his  view  for  the  first  time, 
and  that  he  read  that  document  with  equal  pain 
and  amazement.  Now  it  happens  that  I  ex- 
pressed these  self-same  sentiments  just  as 
strongly  in  1834,  in  a  speech  which  was  received 
with  unbounded  applause  by  that  gentleman's 
own  party;  and  of  which  a  vast  number  of 
copies  were  published  and  circulated  through- 
out the  United  States. 

"  But  the  senator  tells  us  that  he  is  among 
the  most  constant  men  in  this  world.  I  am 
not  in  the  habit  of  charging  others  with  incon- 
sistency ;  but  one  thing  I  will  say,  that  if  the 
gentleman  has  not  changed  his  principles,  he 
has  most  certainly  changed  his  company ;  for, 
though  he  boasts  of  setting  out  in  public  life  a 
republican  of  the  school  of  '98,  he  is  now  sur- 
rounded by  some  of  the  most  distinguished 
members  of  the  old  federal  party.  I  do  not  de- 
sire to  disparage  that  party.  I  always  respected 
them  as  men,  though  I  believed  their  political 
principles  to  be  wrong.  Now,  either  the  gen- 
tleman's associates  have  changed,  or  he  has ; 
for  they  are  now  together,  though  belonging 
formerly  to  different  and  opposing  parties — par- 
ties, as  every  one  knows,  directly  opposed  to 
each  other  in  policy  and  principles. 

(:  He  says  I  was  in  favor  of  the  tariff  of  1816, 
and  took  the  lead  in  its  support.  He  is  cer- 
tainly mistaken  again.  It  was  in  charge  of  my 
colleague  and  friend,  Mr.  Lowndes,  chairman 
then  of  the  committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  as 
a  revenue  measure  only.  I  took  no  other  part 
whatever  but  to  deliver  an  off-hand  speech,  at 
the  request  of  a  friend.  The  question  of  pro- 
tection, as  a  constitutional  question,  was  not 
touched  at  all.  It  was  not  made,  if  my  memo- 
ry serves  me,  for  some  years  after.  As  to  pro- 
tection, I  believe  little  of  it,  except  what  all  ad- 
mit was  incidental  to  revenue,  was  contained  in 
the  act  of  1816.  As  to  my  views  in  regard  to 
protection  at  that  early  period,  I  refer  to  my 
remarks  in  1813,  when  I  opposed  a  renewal 
of  the  non-importation  act,  expressly  on  the 
ground  of  its  giving  too  much  protection  to  the 
manufacturers.  But  while  I  declared,  in  my 
place,  that  I  was  opposed  to  it  on  that  ground, 
I  at  the  same  time  stated  that  I  would  go  as  far 
as  I  could  with  propriety,  when  peace  return- 
ed, to  protect  the  capital  which  the  war  and  the 
extreme  policy  of  the  government  had  turned 
into  that  channel.     The  senator  refers  to  my 


report  on  internal  improvement,  when  I  was 
secretary  of  war ;  but,  as  usual  with  him,  for- 
gets to  tell  that  I  made  it  in  obedience  to  a  res- 
olution of  the  House,  to  which  I  was  bound  to 
answer,  and  that  I  expressly  stated  I  did  not 
involve  the  constitutional  question ;  of  which 
the  senator  may  now  satisfy  himself,  if  he  will 
read  the  latter  part  of  the  report.  As  to  the 
bonus  bill,  it  grew  out  of  the  recommendation 
of  Mr.  Madison  in  his  last  message;  and  al- 
though I  proposed  that  the  bonus  should  be 
set  apart  for  the  purpose  of  internal  improve- 
ment, leaving  it  to  be  determined  thereafter, 
whether  we  had  the  power,  or  the  constitution 
should  be  amended,  in  conformity  to  Mr.  Madi- 
son's recommendation.  I  did  not  touch  the 
question  to  what  extent  Congress  might  pos- 
sess the  power ;  and  when  requested  to  insert 
a  direct  recognition  of  the  power  by  some  of 
the  leading  members,  I  refused,  expressly  on 
the  ground  that,  though  I  believed  it  existed,  I 
had  not  made  up  my  mind  how  far  it  extended. 
As  to  the  bill,  it  was  perfectly  constitutional 
in  my  opinion  then,  and  which  still  remains 
unchanged,  to  set  aside  the  fund  proposed,  and 
with  the  object  intended,  but  which  could  not 
be  used  without  specific  appropriations  there- 
after. 

"  In  my  opening  remarks  to-day,  I  said  the 
senator's  speech  was  remarkable,  both  for  its 
omissions  and  mistakes ;  and  the  senator  infers, 
with  his  usual  inaccuracy,  that  I  alluded  to  a 
difference  between  his  spoken  and  printed 
speech,  and  that  I  was  answering  the  latter. 
In  this  he  was  mistaken  ;  I  hardly  ever  read  a 
speech,  but  reply  to  what  is  said  here  in  de- 
bate. I  know  no  other  but  the  speech  deliver- 
ed here. 

"As  to  the  arguments  of  each  of  us,  I  am 
willing  to  leave  them  to  the  judgment  of  the 
country :  his  speech  and  arguments,  and  mine, 
will  be  read  with  the  closer  attention  and  deeper 
interest  in  consequence  of  this  day's  occurrence. 
It  is  all  I  ask." 

Mr.  Clay.  "  It  is  very  true  that  the  senator 
had  on  other  occasions,  besides  his  Edgefield 
letter,  claimed  that  the  influence  arising  from 
the  interference  of  his  own  State  had  effected 
the  tariff  compromise.  Mr.  C.  had  so  stated 
the  fact  when  up  before.  But  in  the  Edge- 
field letter  the  senator  took  new  ground,  he  de- 
nounced those  with  whom  he  had  been  acting, 
as  persons  in  whom  he  could  have  no  confi- 
dence, and  imputed  to  them  the  design  of  re- 
newing a  high  tariff  and  patronizing  extrava- 
gant expenditures,  as  the  natural  consequences 
of  the  establishment  of  a  bank  of  the  United 
States,  and  had  presented  this  as  a  reason  for 
his  recent  course.  When,  said  Mr.  C,  I  saw  a 
charge  like  this,  together  with  an  imputation 
of  unworthy  motives,  and  all  this  deliberately 
written  and  published,  I  could  not  but  feel  very 
differently  from  what  I  should  have  done  under 
a  mere  casual  remark. 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


117 


"  But  the  senator  says,  that  if  I  have  not 
changed  principles,  I  have  at  least  got  into 
strange  company.  Why  really,  Mr.  President, 
the  gentleman  has  so  recently  changed  his  rela- 
tions that  he  seems  to  have  forgotten  into 
what  company  he  has  fallen  himself.  He  says 
that  some  of  my  friends  once  belonged  to  the 
federal  party.  Sir,  I  am  ready  to  go  into  an 
examination  with  the  honorable  senator  at  any 
time,  and  then  we  shall  see  if  there  are  not 
more  members  of  that  same  old  federal  party 
amongst  those  whom  the  senator  has  so  re- 
cently joined,  than  on  our  side  of  the  house. 
The  plain  truth  is,  that  it  is  the  old  federal  par- 
ty with  whom  he  is  now  acting.  For  all  the 
former  grounds  of  difference  which  distin- 
guished that  party,  and  were  the  great  subjects 
of  contention  between  them  and  the  republi- 
cans, have  ceased  from  lapse  of  time  and  change 
of  circumstances,  with  the  exception  of  one,  and 
that  is  the  maintenance  and  increase  of  execu- 
tive power.  This  was  a  leading  policy  of  the 
federal  party.  A  strong,  powerful,  and  ener- 
getic executive  was  its  favorite  tenet.  The 
leading  members  of  that  party  had  come  out  of 
the  national  convention  with  an  impression  that 
under  the  new  constitution  the  executive  arm 
was  too  weak.  The  danger  they  apprehended 
was,  that  the  executive  would  be  absorbed  by 
the  legislative  department  of  the  government ; 
and  accordingly  the  old  federal  doctrine  was 
that  the  Executive  must  be  upheld,  that  its  in- 
fluence must  be  extended  and  strengthened ; 
and  as  a  means  to  this,  that  its  patronage  must 
be  multiplied.  And  what,  I  pray,  is  at  this 
hour  the  leading  object  of  that  party,  which  the 
senator  has  joined,  but  this  very  thing  ?  It 
was  maintained  in  the  convention  by  Mr.  Madi- 
son, that  to  remove  a  public  officer  without 
valid  cause,  would  rightfully  subject  a  president 
of  the  United  States  to  impeachment.  But 
now  not  only  is  no  reason  required,  but  the 
principle  is  maintained  that  no  reason  can  be 
asked.  A  is  removed  and  B  is  put  in  his  place, 
because  such  is  the  pleasure  of  the  president. 

"  The  senator  is  fond  of  the  record.  I  should 
not  myself  have  gone  to  it  but  for  the  infinite 
gravity  and  self-complacency  with  which  he 
appeals  to  it  in  vindication  of  his  own  consis- 
tency. Let  me  then  read  a  little  from  one  of 
the  very  speeches  in  1834,  from  which  he  has 
so  liberally  qitoted,  and  called  upon  the  secre- 
tary to  read  so  loud,  and  the  Senate  to  listen  so 
attentively : 

"  But  there  is  in  my  opinion  a  strong,  if  not  an  insuperable 
objection  against  resorting  to  this  measure,  resulting  from  the 
fact  that  an  exclusive  receipt  of  specie  in  the  treasury  would, 
to  give  it  efficacy,  and  to  prevent  extensive  speculation  and 
fraud,  require  an  entire  disconnection  on  the  part  of  the  gov- 
ernment, with  the  banking  system,  in  all  its  forms,  and  a  re- 
sort to  the  6trong  box,  as  the  means  of  preserving  and  guard- 
ing its  funds— a  means,  if  practicable  at  all  in  the  present  state 
of  things,  liable  to  the  objection  of  being  far  less  safe,  econo- 
mical, and  efficient,  than  the  present." 

"  Here  is  a  strong  denunciation  of  that  very 
system  he  is  now  eulogising  to  the  skies.   Here 


he  deprecates  a  disconnection  with  all  banks  as 
a  most  disastrous  measure  ;  and,  as  the  strongest 
argument  against  it,  says  that  it  will  necessarily 
lead  to  the  antiquated  policy  of  the  strong  box. 
Yet,  now  the  senator  thinks  the  strong  box 
system  the  wisest  thing  on  earth.  As  to  the 
acquiescence  of  the  honorable  senator  in  mea- 
sures deemed  by  him  unconstitutional,  I  only 
regret  that  he  suddenly  stopped  short  in  his 
acquiescence.  He  was,  in  1816,  at  the  head  of 
the  finance  committee,  in  the  other  House,  having 
been  put  there  by  myself,  acquiescing  all  the 
while  in  the  doctrines  of  a  bank,  as  perfectly 
sound,  and  reporting  to  that  effect.  He  acqui- 
esced for  nearly  twenty  years,  not  a  doubt  es- 
caping from  him  during  the  whole  time.  The 
year  1834  comes :  the  deposits  are  seized,  the 
currency  turned  up  side  down,  and  the  senator 
comes  forward  and  proposes  as  a  remedy  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  for 
twelve  years — here  acquiescing  once  more  ;  and 
as  he  tells  us,  in  order  to  save  the  country. 
But  if  the  salvation  of  the  country  would  justify 
his  acquiescence  in  181G  and  in  1834, 1  can  only 
regret  that  he  did  not  find  it  in  his  heart  to 
acquiesce  once  more  in  what  would  have  reme- 
died all  our  evils. 

"  In  regard  to  the  tariff  of  1816,  has  the  senator 
forgotten  the  dispute  at  that  time  about  the 
protection  of  the  cotton  manufacture  ?  The 
very  point  of  that  dispute  was,  whether  we  had 
a  right  to  give  protection  or  not.  He  admits 
the  truth  of  what  I  said,  that  the  constitutional 
question  as  to  the  power  of  the  government  to 
protect  our  own  industry  was  never  raised  be- 
fore 1820  or  1822.  It  was  but  first  hinted,  then 
controverted,  and  soon  after  expanded  into  nul- 
lification, although  the  senator  had  supported 
the  tariff  of  1816  on  the  very  ground  that  we 
had  power.  I  do  not  now  recollect  distinctly 
his  whole  course  in  the  legislature,  but  he  cer- 
tainly introduced  the  bonus  bill  in  1816,  and 
sustained  it  by  a  speech  on  the  subject  of  in- 
ternal improvements,  which  neither  expresses 
nor  implies  a  doubt  of  the  constitutional  power. 
But  why  set  apart  a  bonus,  if  the  government 
had  no  power  to  make  internal  improvements  ? 
If  he  wished  internal  improvements,  but  con- 
scientiously believed  them  unconstitutional,  why 
did  he  not  introduce  a  resolution  proposing  to 
amend  the  constitution  7  Yet  he  offered  no 
such  thing.  When  he  produced  his  splendid 
report  from  the  war  department,  what  did  he 
mean?  Why  did  he  tantalize  us  with  that 
bright  and  gorgeous  picture  of  canals  and  roads, 
and  piers  and  harbors,  if  it  was  unconstitutional 
for  us  to  touch  the  plan  with  one  of  our  fingers  ? 
The  senator  says  in  reply,  that  this  report  did 
not  broach  the  constitutional  question.  True. 
But  why  ?  Is  there  any  other  conclusion  than 
that  he  did  not  entertain  himself  any  doubt 
about  it?  What  a  most  extraordinary  thing 
would  it  be,  should  the  head  of  a  department, 
in  his  official  capacity,  present  a  report  to  both 


118 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


houses  of  Congress,  proposing  a  most  elaborate 
plan  for  the  internal  improvement  of  the  whole 
union,  accompanied  by  estimates  and  statistical 
tables,  when  he  believed  there  was  no  power  in 
either  house  to  adopt  any  part  of  it.  The  sena- 
tor dwells  upon  his  consistency  :  I  can  tell  him 
when  he  will  be  consistent — and  that  is  when 
he  shall  never  pronounce  that  word  again." 

Mr.  Calhoun.  "  As  to  the  tariff  of  1816, 1 
never  denied  that  Congress  have  the  power  to 
impose  a  protective  tariff  for  the  purpose  of 
revenue ;  and  beyond  that  the  tariff  of  1816 
did  not  go  one  inch.  The  question  of  the  con- 
stitutionality of  the  protective  tariff  was  never 
raised  till  some  time  afterwards. 

"  As  to  what  the  senator  says  of  executive 
power,  I,  as  much  as  he,  am  opposed  to  its  aug- 
mentation, and  I  will  go  as  far  in  preventing  it 
as  any  man  in  this  House.  I  maintain  that  the 
executive  and  judicial  authorities  should  have 
no  discretionary  power,  and  as  soon  as  they 
begin  to  exercise  such  power,  the  matter  should 
be  taken  up  by  Congress.  These  opinions  are 
well  grounded  in  my  mind,  and  I  will  go  as  far 
as  any  in  bringing  the  Executive  to  this  point. 
But,  I  believe,  the  Executive  is  now  outstripped 
by  the  congressional  power.  He  is  for  restrict- 
ing the  one.     I  war  upon  both. 

"  The  senator  says  I  assigned  as  a  reason  of 
my  course  at  the  extra  session  that  I  suspected 
that  he  and  the  gentleman  with  whom  he  acted 
would  revive  the  tariff.  I  spoke  not  of  the  tariff, 
but  a  national  bank.  I  believe  that  banks  natu- 
rally and  assuredly  ally  themselves  to  taxes  on 
the  community.  The  higher  the  taxes  the  greater 
their  profits  ;  and  so  it  is  with  regard  to  a  sur- 
plus and  the  government  disbursements.  If  the 
banking  power  is  on  the  side  of  a  national  bank, 
I  see  in  that  what  may  lead  to  all  the  conse- 
quences which  I  have  described ;  and  I  oppose 
institutions  that  are  likely  to  lead  to  such  re- 
sults. When  the  bank  should  receive  the  money 
of  the  government,  it  would  ally  itself  to  taxa- 
tion, and  it  ought  to  be  resisted  on  that  ground. 
I  am  very  glad  that  the  question  is  now  fairly 
met.  The  fate  of  the  country  depends  on  the 
point  of  separation  ;  if  there  be  a  separation  be- 
tween the  government  and  banks,  the  banks 
will  be  on  the  republican  side  in  opposition  to 
taxes ;  if  they  unite,  they  will  be  in  favor  of 
the  exercise  of  the  taxing  power. 

"  The  senator  says  I  acquiesced  in  the  use  of 
the  banks  because  the  banks  existed.  I  did  so 
because  the  connection  existed.  The  banks  were 
already  used  as  depositories  of  the  government, 
and  it  was  impossible  at  once  to  reverse  that 
state  of  things.  I  went  on  the  ground  that  the 
banks  were  a  necessary  evil.  The  State  banks 
exist ;  and  would  not  he  be  a  madman  that 
would  annihilate  them  because  their  respective 
bills  are  uncurrent  in  distant  parts  of  the  coun- 
try ?  The  work  of  creating  them  is  done,  and 
cannot  be  reversed  ;  when  once  done,  it  is  done 
for  ever. 


"  I  was  formerly  decided  in  favor  of  separating 
the  banks  and  the  government,  but  it  was  im- 
possible then  to  make  it,  and  it  would  have  been 
followed  by  nothing  but  disaster.  The  senator 
says  the  separation  already  exists  ;  but  it  is 
only  contingent ;  whenever  the  banks  resume, 
the  connection  will  be  legally  restored.  In  1834 
I  objected  to  the  sub-treasury  project,  and  I 
thought  it  not  as  safe  as  the  system  now  before 
us.  But  it  turns  out  that  it  was  more  safe,  as 
appears  from  the  argument  of  the  senator  from 
Delaware,  (Mr.  Bayard.)  I  was  then  under 
the  impression  that  the  banks  were  more  safe 
but  it  proves  otherwise." 

Mr.  Clay.  "  If  the  senator  would  review  his 
speech  again,  he  would  see  there  a  plain  and 
explicit  denunciation  of  a  sub-treasury  system. 

"  The  distinguished  senator  from  South  Caro- 
lina (I  had  almost  said  my  friend  from  South 
Carolina,  so  lately  and  so  abruptly  has  he  bursted 
all  amicable  relations  between  us,  independent 
of  his  habit  of  change,  I  think,  when  he  finds 
into  what  federal  doctrines  and  federal  company 
he  has  gotten,  he  will  be  disposed  soon  to  feel 
regret  and  to  return  to  us,)  has  not,  I  am  per- 
suaded, weighed  sufficiently  the  import  of  the 
unkind  imputations  contained  in  his  Edgefield 
letter  towards  his  former  allies — imputations 
that  their  principles  are  dangerous  to  our  insti- 
tutions, and  of  their  want  of  firmness  and  pa- 
triotism. I  have  read  that  singular  letter  again 
and  again,  with  inexpressible  surprise  and  re- 
gret ;  more,  however,  if  he  will  allow  me  to  say 
so,  on  his  own  than  on  our  account. 

"  Mr.  President,  I  am  done  ;  and  I  sincerely 
hope  that  the  adjustment  of  the  account  between 
the  senator  and  myself,  just  made,  may  be  as 
satisfactory  to  him  as  I  assure  him  and  the 
Senate  it  is  perfectly  so  to  me." 

Mr.  Calhoun.  "  I  have  more  to  say,  but  will 
forbear,  as  the  senator  appears  desirous  of  hav- 
ing the  last  word." 

Mr.  Clay.     "Not  at  all." 


The  personal  debate  between  Mr.  Calhoun 
and  Mr.  Clay  terminated  for  the  day,  and  with 
apparent  good  feeling ;  but  only  to  break  out 
speedily  on  a  new  point,  and  to  lead  to  further 
political  revelations  important  to  history  Mr. 
Calhoun,  after  a  long  alienation,  personal  as  well 
as  political,  from  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  bitter 
warfare  upon  him,  had  become  reconciled  to  him 
in  both  capacities,  and  had  made  a  complimen- 
tary call  upon  him,  and  had  expressed  to  him 
an  approbation  of  his  leading  measures.  All 
this  was  natural  and  proper  after  he  had  be- 
come a  public  supporter  of  these  measures ;  but  a 
manifestation  of  respect  and  confidence  so  de- 
cided, after  a  seven  years'  perseverance  in  a  war- 
fare so  bitter,  could  not  be  expected  to  pass 


ANNO  1888.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


119 


without  the  imputation  of  sinister  motives; 
and,  accordingly,  a  design  upon  the  presidency 
as  successor  to  Mr.  Van  Buren  was  attributed 
to  him.  The  opposition  newspapers  abounded 
with  this  imputation;  and  an  early  occasion 
was  taken  in  the  Senate  to  make  it  the  subject 
of  a  public  debate.  Mr.  Calhoun  had  brought 
into  the  Senate  a  bill  to  cede  to  the  several 
States  the  public  lands  within  their  limits, 
after  a  sale  of  the  saleable  parts  at  graduated 
prices,  for  the  benefit  of  both  parties — the 
new  States  and  the  United  States.  It  was 
the  same  bill  Avhich  he  had  brought  in  two 
years  before ;  but  Mr.  Clay,  taking  it  up  as  a 
new  measure,  inquired  if  it  was  an  administra- 
tion measure?  whether  he  had  brought  it  in 
with  the  concurrence  of  the  President  ?  If  no- 
thing more  had  been  said  Mr.  Calhoun  could 
have  answered,  that  it  was  the  same  bill  which 
he  had  brought  in  two  years  before,  when  he  was 
in  opposition  to  the  administration  ;  and  that  his 
reasons  for  bringing  it  in  were  the  same  now  as 
then ;  but  Mr.  Clay  went  on  to  taunt  him  with 
his  new  relations  with  the  chief  magistrate,  and 
to  connect  the  bill  with  the  visit  to  Mr.  Van 
Buren  and  approval  of  his  measures.  Mr.  Cal- 
houn saw  that  the  inquiry  was  only  a  vehicle 
for  the  taunt,  and  took  it  up  accordingly  in  that 
sense :  and  this  led  to  an  exposition  of  the  rea- 
sons which  induced  him  to  join  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
and  to  explanations  on  other  points,  which  be- 
long to  history.  Mr.  Clay  began  the  debate  thus : 

"  "Whilst  up,  Mr.  Clay  would  be  glad  to  learn 
whether  the  administration  is  in  favor  of  or 
against  this  measure,  or  stands  neutral  and  un- 
committed. This  inquiry  he  should  not  make, 
if  the  recent  relations  between  the  senator  who 
introduced  this  bill  and  the  head  of  that  admin- 
istration, continued  to  exist;  but  rumors,  of 
which  the  city,  the  circles,  and  the  press  are 
full,  assert  that  those  relations  are  entirely 
changed,  and  have,  within  a  few  days,  been 
substituted  by  others  of  an  intimate,  friendly, 
and  confidential  nature.  And  shortly  after  the 
time  when  this  new  state  of  things  is  alleged  to 
have  taken  place,  the  senator  gave  notice  of  his  in- 
tention to  move  to  introduce  this  bill.  Whether 
this  motion  has  or  has  not  any  connection  with 
that  adjustment  of  former  differences,  the  public 
would,  he  had  no  doubt,  be  glad  to  know.  At 
all  events,  it  is  important  to  know  in  what  re- 
lation of  support,  opposition,  or  neutrality,  the 
administration  actually  stands  to  this  momen- 
tous measure ;  and  he  [Mr.  C]  supposed  that 
the  senator  from  South  Carolina,  or  some  other 


senator,  could  communicate  the  desired  informa- 
tion." 

Mr.  Calhoun,  besides  vindicating  himself,  re- 
buked the  indecorum  of  making  his  personal 
conduct  a  subject  of  public  remark  in  the  Sen- 
ate ;  and  threw  back  the  taunt  by  reminding 
Mr.  Clay  of  his  own  change  in  favor  of  Mr. 
Adams. 

"  He  said  the  senator  from  Kentucky  had  in- 
troduced other,  and  extraneous  personal  matter ; 
and  asked  whether  the  bill  had  the  sanction  of 
the  Executive ;  assigning  as  a  reason  for  his  in- 
quiry, that,  if  rumor  was  to  be  credited,  a  change 
of  personal  relation  had  taken  place  between 
the  President  and  myself  within  the  last  few 
days.  He  [Mr.  C]  would  appeal  to  the  Senate 
whether  it  was  decorous  or  proper  that  his  per- 
sonal relations  should  be  drawn  in  question 
here.  Whether  he  should  establish  or  suspend 
personal  relations  with  the  President,  or  any 
other  person,  is  a  private  and  personal  concern, 
which  belongs  to  himself  individually  to  deter- 
mine on  the  propriety,  without  consulting  any 
one,  much  less  the  senator.  It  was  none  of  his 
concern,  and  he  has  no  right  to  question  me  in 
relation  to  it. 

"  But  the  senator  assumes  that  a  change  in 
my  personal  relations  involves  a  change  of  poli- 
tical position ;  and  it  is  on  that  he  founds  his 
right  to  make  the  inquiry.  He  judges,  doubt- 
less, by  his  own  experience  ;  but  I  would  have 
him  to  understand,  said  Mr.  C,  that  what  may 
be  true  in  his  own  case  on  a  memorable  occa- 
sion, is  not  true  in  mine.  His  political  course 
may  be  governed  by  personal  considerations ; 
but  mine,  I  trust,  is  governed  strictly  by  my 
principles,  and  is  not  at  all  under  the  control  of 
my  attachments  or  enmities.  Whether  the 
President  is  personally  my  friend  or  enemy, 
has  no  influence  over  me  in  the  discharge  of  my 
duties,  as,  I  trust,  my  course  has  abundantly 
proved.  Mr.  C.  concluded  by  saying,  that  he 
felt  that  these  were  improper  topics  to  intro- 
duce here,  and  that  he  had  passed  over  them  as 
briefly  as  possible." 

This  retort  gave  new  scope  and  animation  to 
the  debate,  and  led  to  further  expositions  of  the 
famous  compromise  of  1833,  which  was  a  matter 
of  concord  between  them  at  the  time,  and  of 
discord  ever  since ;  and  which,  being  much  con- 
demned in  the  first  volume  of  this  work,  the 
authors  of  it  are  entitled  to  their  own  vindica- 
tions when  they  choose  to  make  them :  and  this 
they  found  frequent  occasion  to  do.  The  debate 
proceeded : 

"  Mr.  Clay  contended  that  his  question,  as  to 
whether  this  was  an  administration  measure  or 


120 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


not,  was  a  proper  one,  as  it  was  important  for 
the  public  information.  He  again  referred  to 
the  rumors  of  Mr.  Calhoun's  new  relations  with 
the  President,  and  supposed  from  the  declara- 
tions of  the  senator,  that  these  rumors  were 
true ;  and  that  his  support,  if  not  pledged,  was 
at  least  promised  conditionally  to  the  adminis- 
tration. Was  it  of  no  importance  to  the  public 
to  learn  that  these  pledges  and  compromises  had 
been  entered  into  ? — that  the  distinguished  sena- 
tor had  made  his  bow  in  court,  kissed  the  hand 
of  the  monarch,  was  taken  into  favor,  and  agreed 
henceforth  to  support  his  edicts  ?  " 

This  allusion  to  rumored  pledges  and  condi- 
tions on  which  Mr.  Calhoun  had  joined  Mr. 
Van  Buren,  provoked  a  retaliatory  notice  of 
what  the  same  rumor  had  bruited  at  the  time 
that  Mr.  Clay  became  the  supporter  of  Mr. 
Adams ;  and  Mr.  Calhoun  said : 

"  The  senator  from  Kentucky  had  spoken 
much  of  pledges,  understandings,  and  political 
compromises,  and  sudden  change  of  personal  re- 
lations. He  [said  Mr.  C]  is  much  more  expe- 
rienced in  such  things  than  I  am.  If  my  mem- 
ory serves  me,  and  if  rumors  are  to  be  trusted, 
the  senator  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  such 
things,  in  connection  with  a  distinguished  citi- 
zen, now  of  the  other  House  ;  and  it  is  not  at 
all  surprising,  from  his  experience  then,  in  his 
own  case,  that  he  should  not  be  indisposed  to 
believe  similar  rumors  of  another  now.  But 
whether  his  sudden  change  of  personal  relations 
then,  from  bitter  enmity  to  the  most  confiden- 
tial friendship  with  that  citizen,  was  preceded 
by  pledges,  understandings,  and  political  com- 
promises on  the  part  of  one  or  both,  it  is  not 
for  me  to  say.  The  country  has  long  since 
passed  on  that." 

All  this  taunt  on  both  sides  was  mere  irrita- 
tion, having  no  foundation  in  fact.  It  so  hap- 
pened that  the  writer  of  this  View,  on  each  of 
these  occasions  (of  sudden  conjunctions  with 
former  adversaries),  stood  in  a  relation  to  know 
what  took  place.  In  one  case  he  was  confiden- 
tial with  Mr.  Clay  ;  in  the  other  with  Mr.  Van 
Buren.  In  a  former  chapter  he  has  given  his 
testimony  in  favor  of  Mr.  Clay,  and  against  the 
imputed  bargain  with  Mr.  Adams :  he  can  here 
give  it  in  favor  of  Mr.  Calhoun.  He  is  entirely 
certain — as  much  so  as  it  is  possible  to  be  in  sup- 
porting a  negative — that  no  promise,  pledge,  or 
condition  of  any  kind,  took  place  between  Mr. 
Calhoun  and  Mr.  Van  Buren,  in  coming  together 
as  they  did  at  this  juncture.  How  far  Mr.  Cal- 
houn might  have  looked  to  his  own  chance  of 
succeeding  Mr.  Van  Buren,  is  another  question, 
and  a  fair  one.     The  succession  was  certainly 


open  in  the  democratic  line.  Those  who  stood 
nearest  the  head  of  the  party  had  no  desire  for 
the  presidency,  but  the  contrary;  and  only 
wished  a  suitable  chief  magistrate  at  the  head 
of  the  government — giving  him  a  cordial  sup- 
port in  all  patriotic  measures;  and  preserving 
their  independence  by  refusing  his  favors.  This 
allusion  refers  especially  to  Mr.  Silas  Wright ; 
and  if  it  had  not  been  for  a  calamitous  confla- 
gration, there  might  be  proof  that  it  would  ap- 
ply to  another.  Both  Mr.  Wright  and  Mr. 
Benton  refused  cabinet  appointments  from  Mr. 
Van  Buren;  and  repressed  every  movement 
in  their  favor  towards  the  presidency.  Under 
such  circumstances,  Mr.  Calhoun  might  have 
indulged  in  a  vision  of  the  democratic  succes- 
sion, after  the  second  term  of  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
without  the  slippery  and  ignominious  contriv- 
ance of  attempting  to  contract  for  it  before- 
hand. There  was  certainly  a  talk  about  it,  and 
a  sounding  of  public  men.  Two  different 
friends  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  at  two  different  times 
and  places, — one  in  Missouri  (Thomas  Hudson, 
Esq.),  and  the  other  in  Washington  (Gov.  Wil- 
liam Smith,  of  Virginia), — inquired  of  this 
writer  whether  he  had  said  that  he  could  not 
support  Mr.  Calhoun  for  the  presidency,  if 
nominated  by  a  democratic  convention?  and 
were  answered  that  he  had,  and  because  Mr. 
Calhoun  was  the  author  of  nullification,  and 
of  measures  tending  to  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union.  The  answer  went  into  the  newspapers, 
without  the  agency  of  him  who  gave  it,  and 
without  the  reasons  which  he  gave :  and  his 
opposition  was  set  down  to  causes  equally 
gratuitous  and  unfounded — one,  personal  ill-will 
to  Mr.  Calhoun ;  the  other,  a  hankering  after 
the  place  himself.  But  to  return  to  Messrs. 
Clay  and  Calhoun.  These  reciprocal  taunts 
having  been  indulged  in,  the  debate  took  a 
more  elevated  turn,  and  entered  the  region  of 
history.     Mr.  Calhoun  continued : 

"I  will  assure  the  senator,  if  there  were 
pledges  in  his  case,  there  were  none  in  mine. 
I  have  terminated  my  long-suspended  personal 
intercourse  with  the  President,  without  the 
slightest  pledge,  understanding,  or  compromise, 
on  either  side.  I  would  be  the  last  to  receive 
or  exact  such.  The  transition  from  their  for- 
mer to  their  present  personal  relation  was  easy 
and  natural,  requiring  nothing  of  the  kind.  It 
gives  me  pleasure  to  say,  thus  openly,  that  I 
have  approved  of  all  the  leading  measures  of 
the   President,  since   he  took  the  Executive 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


121 


chair,  simply  because  they  accord  with  the  prin- 
ciples and  policy  on  which  I  have  long  acted, 
and  often  openly  avowed.  The  change,  then,  in 
our  personal  relations,  had  simply  followed  that 
of  our  political.  Nor  was  it  made  suddenly,  as 
the  senator  charges.  So  far  from  it,  more  than 
two  years  have  elapsed  since  I  gave  a  decided 
support  to  the  leading  measure  of  the  Execu- 
tive, and  on  which  almost  all  others  since  have 
turned.  This  long  interval  was  permitted  to 
pass,  in  order  that  his  acts  might  give  assurance 
whether  there  was  a  coincidence  between  our 
political  views  as  to  the  principles  on  which  the 
government  should  be  administered,  before  our 
personal  relations  should  be  changed.  I  deemed 
it  due  to  both  thus  long  to  delay  the  change, 
among  other  reasons  to  discountenance  such 
idle  rumors  as  the  senator  alludes  to.  That  his 
political  course  might  be  judged  (said  Mr.  Cal- 
houn) by  the  object  he  had  in  view,  and  not  the 
suspicion  and  jealousy  of  his  political  opponents, 
he  would  repeat  what  he  had  said,  at  the  last 
session,  was  his  object.  It  is,  said  he,  to  oblit- 
erate all  those  measures  which  had  originated 
in  the  national  consolidation  school  of  politics, 
and  especially  the  senator's  famous  American 
system,  which  he  believed  to  be  hostile  to  the 
constitution  and  the  genius  of  our  political  sys- 
tem, and  the  real  source  of  all  the  disorders  and 
dangers  to  which  the  country  was,  or  had  been, 
subject.  This  done,  he  was  for  giving  the  gov- 
ernment a  fresh  departure,  in  the  direction  in 
which  Jefferson  and  his  associates  would  give, 
were  they  now  alive  and  at  the  helm.  He  stood 
where  he  had  always  stood,  on  the  old  State 
rights  ground.  His  change  of  personal  relation, 
which  gave  so  much  concern  to  the  senator,  so 
far  from  involving  any  change  in  his  principles 
or  doctrines,  grew  out  of  them." 

The  latter  part  of  this  reply  of  Mr.  Calhoun 
is  worthy  of  universal  acceptance,  and  perpetual 
remembrance.  The  real  source  of  all  the  disor- 
ders to  which  the  country  was,  or  had  been 
subject,  was  in  the  system  of  legislation  which 
encouraged  the  industry  of  one  part  of  the 
Union  at  the  expense  of  the  other — which  gave 
rise  to  extravagant  expenditures,  to  be  expended 
unequally  in  the  two  sections  of  the  Union — 
and  which  left  the  Southern  section  to  pay  the 
expenses  of  a  system  which  exhausted  her. 
This  remarkable  declaration  of  Mr.  Calhoun  was 
made  in  1839 — being  four  years  after  the  slavery 
agitation  had  superseded  the  tariff  agitation, — 
and  which  went  back  to  that  system  of  meas- 
ures, of  which  protective  tariff  was  the  main- 
spring, to  find,  and  truly  find,  the  real  source 
of  all  the  dangers  and  disorders  of  the  country 
— past  and  present.     Mr.  Clay  replied : 

"  He  had  understood  the  senator  as  felicitat- 


ing himself  on  the  opportunity  which  had  been 
now  afforded  him  by  Mr.  C.  of  defining  once 
more  his  political  position;  and  Mr.  C.  must 
say  that  he  had  now  defined  it  very  clearly, 
and  had  apparently  given  it  a  new  definition. 
The  senator  now  declared  that  all  the  leading 
measures  of  the  present  administration  had  met 
his  approbation,  and  should  receive  his  support. 
It  turned  out,  then,  that  the  rumor  to  which 
Mr.  C.  had  alluded  was  true,  and  that  the  sen- 
ator from  South  Carolina  might  be  hereafter 
regarded  as  a  supporter  of  this  administration, 
since  he  had  declared  that  all  its  leading  meas- 
ures were  approved  by  him,  and  should  have 
his  support.  As  to  the  allusion  which  the  sen- 
ator from  South  Carolina  had  made  in  regard 
to  Mr.  C.'s  support  of  the  head  of  another  ad- 
ministration [Mr.  Adams],  it  occasioned  Mr.  C. 
no  pain  whatever.  It  was  an  old  story,  which 
had  long  been  sunk  in  oblivion,  except  when 
the  senator  and  a  few  others  thought  proper  to 
bring  it  up.  But  what  were  the  facts  of  that 
case  ?  Mr.  C.  was  then  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  to  whom  three  persons  had 
been  returned,  from  whom  it  was  the  duty  of 
the  House  to  make  a  selection  for  the  presiden- 
c}^.  As  to  one  of  those  three  candidates,  he  was 
known  to  be  in  an  unfortunate  condition,  in 
which  no  one  sympathized  with  him  more  than 
did  Mr.  C.  Certainly  the  senator  from  South 
Carolina  did  not.  That  gentleman  was  there- 
fore out  of  the  question  as  a  candidate  for  the 
chief  magistracy ;  and  Mr.  C.  had  consequently 
the  only  alternative  of  the  illustrious  individual 
at  the  Hermitage,  or  of  the  man  who  was  now 
distinguished  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  who  had  held  so  many  public  places  with 
honor  to  himself,  and  benefit  to  the  country. 
And  if  there  was  any  truth  in  history,  the 
choice  which  Mr.  C.  then  made  was  precisely 
the  choice  which  the  senator  from  South  Caro- 
lina had  urged  upon  his  friends.  The  senator 
himself  had  declared  his  preference  of  Adams 
to  Jackson.  Mr.  C.  made  the  same  choice ; 
and  his  constituents  had  approved  it  from  that 
day  to  this,  and  would  to  eternity.  History 
would  ratify  and  approve  it.  Let  the  senator 
from  South  Carolina  make  any  thing  out  of  that 
part  of  Mr.  C.'s  public  career  if  he  could.  Mr. 
C.  defied  him.  The  senator  had  alluded  to  Mr. 
C.  as  the  advocate  of  compromise.  Certainly 
he  was.  This  government  itself,  to  a  great  ex- 
tent, was  founded  and  rested  on  compromise ; 
and  to  the  particular  compromise  to  which  al- 
lusion had  been  made,  Mr.  C.  thought  no  man 
ought  to  be  more  grateful  for  it  than  the  sena- 
tor from  South  Carolina.  But  for  that  com- 
promise, Mr.  C.  was  not  at  all  confident  that  he 
would  have  now  had  the  honor  to  meet  that 
senator  face  to  face  in  this  national  capitol." 

The  allusion  in  the  latter  part  of  this  reply 
was  to  the  President's  declared  determination 
to  execute  the  laws  upon  Mr.  Calhoun  if  an 


122 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


overt  act  of  treason  should  be  committed  under 
the  nullification  ordinance  of  South  Carolina ; 
and  the  preparations  for  which  (overt  act)  were 
too  far  advanced  to  admit  of  another  step,  either 
backwards  or  forwards  ;  and  from  which  most 
critical  condition  the  compromise  relieved  those 
who  were  too  deeply  committed,  to  retreat  with- 
out ruin,  or  to  advance  without  personal  peril. 
Mr.  Calhoun's  reply  was  chiefly  directed  to  this 
pregnant  allusion. 

"  The  senator  from  Kentucky  has  said,  Mr. 
President,  that  I,  of  all  men,  ought  to  be  grate- 
ful to  him  for  the  compromise  act. 

[Mr.  Clay.  k  I  did  not  say  '  to  me.'  "] 
"  The  senator  claims  to  be  the  author  of  that 
measure,  and,  of  course,  if  there  be  any  gratitude 
due,  it  must  be  to  him.  I,  said  Mr.  Calhoun, 
made  no  allusion  to  that  act ;  but  as  the  senator 
has  thought  proper  to  refer  to  it,  and  claim  my 
gratitude,  I,  in  turn,  now  tell  him  I  feel  not  the 
least  gratitude  towards  him  for  it.  The  meas- 
ure was  necessary  to  save  the  senator  politi- 
cally :  and  as  he  has  alluded  to  the  subject,  both 
on  this  and  on  a  former  occasion,  I  feel  bound 
to  explain  what  might  otherwise  have  been  left 
in  oblivion.  The  senator  was  then  compelled  to 
compromise  to  save  himself.  Events  had  placed 
him  flat  on  his  back,  and  he  had  no  way  to  re- 
cover himself  but  by  the  compromise.  This  is 
no  after  thought.  I  wrote  more  than  half  a 
dozen  of  letters  home  at  the  time  to  that  effect. 
I  shall  now  explain.  The  proclamation  and 
message  of  General  Jackson  necessarily  rallied 
around  him  all  the  steadfast  friends  of  the  sena- 
tor's system.  They  withdrew  their  allegiance  at 
once  from  him,  and  transferred  it  to  General 
Jackson.  The  senator  was  thus  left  in  the  most 
hopeless  condition,  with  no  more  weight  with  his 
former  partisans  than  this  sheet  of  paper  (raising 
a  sheet  from  his  desk).  This  is  not  all.  The 
position  which  General  Jackson  had  assumed, 
necessarily  attracted  towards  him  a  distinguish- 
ed senator  from  Massachusetts,  not  now  here 
[Mr.  Webster],  who,  it  is  clear,  would  have 
reaped  all  the  political  honors  and  advantages 
of  the  system,  had  the  contest  come  to  blows. 
These  causes  made  the  political  condition  of  the 
senator  truly  forlorn  at  the  time.  On  him 
rested  all  the  responsibility,  as  the  author  of  the 
system;  while  all  the  power  and  influence  it 
gave,  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  others.  Com- 
promise was  the  only  means  of  extrication.  He 
was  thus  forced  by  the  action  of  the  State,  which 
I  in  part  represent,  against  his  system,  by  my 
counsel  to  compromise,  in  order  to  save  him- 
self. I  had  the  mastery  over  him  on  the  occa- 
sion." 

This  is  historical,  and  is  an  inside  view  of  his- 
tory. Mr.  Webster,  in  that  great  contest  of 
nullification,  was  on  the  side  of  President  Jack- 


son, and  the  supreme  defender  of  his  great 
measure — the  Proclamation  of  1833  ;  and  the 
first  and  most  powerful  opponent  of  the 
measure  out  of  which  it  grew.  It  was  a  splen- 
did era  in  his  life— both  for  his  intellect,  and 
his  patriotism.  No  longer  the  advocate  of 
classes,  or  interests,  he  appeared  the  great  de- 
fender of  the  Union — of  the  constitution — of 
the  country — and  of  the  administration,  to 
which  he  was  opposed.  Released  from  the 
bonds  of  party,  and  from  the  narrow  confines 
of  class  and  corporation  advocacy,  his  colossal 
intellect  expanded  to  its  full  proportions  in  the 
field  of  patriotism,  luminous  with  the  fires  of 
genius ;  and  commanding  the  homage,  not  of 
party,  but  of  country.  His  magnificent  ha- 
rangues touched  Jackson  in  his  deepest-seated 
and  ruling  feeling — love  of  country  !  and 
brought  forth  the  response  which  always  came 
from  him  when  the  country  was  in  peril,  and  a 
defender  presented  himself.  He  threw  out  the 
right  hand  of  fellowship — treated  Mr.  Webster 
with  marked  distinction — commended  him  with 
public  praise — and  placed  him  on  the  roll  of  pa- 
triots. And  the  public  mind  took  the  belief, 
that  they  were  to  act  together  in  future ;  and 
that  a  cabinet  appointment,  or  a  high  mission, 
would  be  the  reward  of  his  patriotic  service. 
(It  was  the  report  of  such  expected  preferment 
that  excited  Mr.  Randolph  (then  in  no  condi- 
tion to  bear  excitement)  against  General  Jack- 
son.) It  was  a  crisis  in  the  political  life  of  Mr. 
Webster.  He  stood  in  public  opposition  to  Mr. 
Clay  and  Mr.  Calhoun.  With  Mr.  Clay  he  had 
a  public  outbreak  in  the  Senate.  He  was  cor- 
dial with  Jackson.  The  mass  of  his  party 
stood  by  him  on  the  proclamation.  He  was  at 
a  point  from  which  a  new  departure  might  be 
taken  : — one  at  which  he  could  not  stand  still : 
from  which  there  must  be  advance,  or  recoil. 
It  was  a  case  in  which  will,  more  than  intellect, 
was  to  rule.  He  was  above  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr. 
Calhoun  in  intellect — below  them  in  will.  And 
he  was  soon  seen  co-operating  with  them  (Mr. 
Clay  in  the  lead),  in  the  great  measure  con- 
demning President  Jackson.  And  so  passed 
away  the  fruits  of  the  golden  era  of  1833.  It 
was  to  the  perils  of  this  conjunction  (of  Jack- 
son and  Webster)  that  Mr.  Calhoun  referred, 
as  the  forlorn  condition  from  which  the  com- 
promise relieved  Mr.  Clay:  and,  allowing  to 
each  the  benefit  of  his  assertion,  history  avails 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


123 


herself  of  the  declarations  of  each  in  giving  an 
inside  view  of  personal  motives  for  a  momen- 
tous public  act.  And,  without  deciding  a  ques- 
tion of  mastery  in  the  disputed  victory,  History 
performs  her  task  in  recording  the  fact  that,  in 
a  brief  space,  both  Mr.  Calhoun  and  Mr.  Web- 
ster were  seen  following  the  lead  of  Mr.  Clay 
in  his  great  attack  upon  President  Jackson  in 
the  session  of  1834-'35. 

"Mr.  Clay,  rejoining,  said  he  had  made  no 
allusion  to  the  compromise  bill  till  it  was  done 
by  the  senator  from  South  Carolina  himself;  he 
made  no  reference  to  the  events  of  1825  until 
the  senator  had  himself  set  him  the  example ; 
and  he  had  not  in  the  slightest  and  the  most 
distant  manner  alluded  to  nullification  until 
after  the  senator  himself  had  called  it  up.  The 
senator  ought  not  to  have  introduced  that  sub- 
ject, especially  when  he  had  gone  over  to  the 
authors  of  the  force  bill  and  the  proclamation. 
The  senator  from  South  Carolina  said  that  he 
[Mr.  C]  was  flat  on  his  back,  and  that  he  was 
my  master.  Sir,  I  would  not  own  him  as  my 
slave.  He  my  master !  and  I  compelled  by  him ! 
And,  as  if  it  were  impossible  to  go  far  enough 
in  one  paragraph,  he  refers  to  certain  letters  of 
his  own  to  prove  that  I  was  flat  on  my  back ! 
and,  that  I  was  not  only  on  my  back,  but  an- 
other senator  and  the  President  had  robbed 
me  !  I  was  flat  on  my  back,  and  unable  to  do 
any  thing  but  what  the  senator  from  South 
Carolina  permitted  me  to  do  ! 

"  Why,  sir,  [said  Mr.  C]  I  gloried  in  my 
strength,  and  was  compelled  to  introduce  the 
compromise  bill ;  and  compelled,  too,  by  the 
senator,  not  in  consequence  of  the  weakness, 
but  of  the  strength,  of  my  position.  If  it  was 
possible  for  the  senator  from  South  Carolina  to 
introduce  one  paragraph  without  showing  the 
egotism  of  his  character,  he  would  not  now  ac- 
knowledge that  he  wrote  letters  home  to  show 
that  he  (Mr.  C.)  was  flat  on  his  back,  while  he 
was  indebted  to  him  for  that  measure  which  re- 
lieved him  from  the  difficulties  in  which  he  was 
involved.  Now,  what  was  the  history  of  the 
case  ?  Flat  as  he  was  on  his  back,  Mr.  C.  said 
he  was  able  to  produce  that  compromise,  and  to 
carry  it  through  the  Senate,  in  opposition  to  the 
most  strenuous  exertions  of  the  gentleman  who, 
the  senator  from  South  Carolina  said,  had  sup- 
planted him,  and  in  spite  of  his  determined  and 
unceasing  opposition.  There  was  (said  Mr.  C.) 
a  sort  of  necessity  operating  on  me  to  compel 
me  to  introduce  that  measure.  No  necessity 
of  a  personal  character  influenced  him;  but 
considerations  involving  the  interests,  the  peace 
and  harmony  of  the  whole  country,  as  well  as 
of  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  directed  him  in 
the  course  he  pursued.  He  saw  the  condition 
of  the  senator  from  South  Carolina  and  that  of 
his  friends  ;  he  saw  the  condition  to  which  he 
had  reduced  the  gallant  little  State  of  South 


Carolina  by  his  unwise  and  dangerous  measures; 
he  saw,  too,  that  we  were  on  the  eve  of  a  civil 
war;  and  he  wished  to  save  the  effusion  of 
blood — the  blood  of  our  own  fellow-citizens. 
That  was  one  reason  why  he  introduced  the 
compromise  bill.  There  was  another  reason 
that  powerfully  operated  on  him.  The  very  in- 
terest that  the  tariff  laws  were  enacted  to  pro- 
tect— so  great  was  the  power  of  the  then  chief 
magistrate,  and  so  rapidly  was  that  power  in- 
creasing— was  in  danger  of  being  sacrificed.  He 
saw  that  the  protective  system  was  in  danger 
of  being  swept  away  entirely,  and  probably  at 
the  next  session  of  Congress,  by  the  tremendous 
power  of  the  individual  who  then  filled  the  Exe- 
cutive chair ;  and  he  felt  that  the  greatest  service 
that  he  could  render  it,  would  be  to  obtain  for 
it  '  a  lease  for  a  term  of  years,'  to  use  an  expres- 
sion that  had  been  heretofore  applied  to  the  com- 
promise bill.  He  saw  the  necessity  that  existed 
to  save  the  protective  system  from  the  danger 
which  threatened  it.  He  saw  the  necessity 
to  advance  the  great  interests  of  the  nation,  to 
avert  civil  war,  and  to  restore  peace  and  har- 
mony to  a  distracted  and  divided  country  ;  and 
it  was  therefore  that  he  had  brought  forward 
this  measure.  The  senator  from  South  Carolina, 
to  betray  still  further  and  more  strikingly  the 
characteristics  which  belonged  to  him,  said,  that 
in  consequence  of  his  (Mr.  C.'s)  remarks  this 
very  day,  all  obligations  towards  him  on  the 
part  of  himself  (Mr.  Calhoun),  of  the  State  of 
South  Carolina,  and  the  whole  South,  were  can- 
celled. And  what  right  had  the  senator  to  get 
up  and  assume  to  speak  of  the  whole  South,  or 
even  of  South  Carolina  herself?  If  he  was  not 
mistaken  in  his  judgment  of  the  political  signs 
of  the  times,  and  if  the  information  which  came 
to  him  was  to  be  relied  on,  a  day  would  come, 
and  that  not  very  distant  neither,  when  the 
senator  would  not  dare  to  rise  in  his  place  and 
presume  to  speak  as  he  had  this  day  done,  as 
the  organ  of  the  gallant  people  of  the  State  he 
represented." 

The  concluding  remark  of  Mr.  Clay  was 
founded  on  the  belief,  countenanced  by  many 
signs,  that  the  State  of  South  Carolina  would 
not  go  with  Mr.  Calhoun  in  support  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren ;  but  he  was  mistaken.  The  State  stood 
by  her  distinguished  senator,  and  even  gave  her 
presidential  vote  for  Mr.  Van  Buren  at  the  en- 
suing election — being  the  first  time  she  had 
voted  in  a  presidential  election  since  1829.  Mr. 
Grundy,  and  some  other  senators,  put  an  end 
to  this  episodical  and  personal  debate  by  turning 
the  Senate  to  a  vote  on  the  bill  before  it. 


124 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

INDEPENDENT  TEEASUEY,  or,  DIVOECE  OE  BANK 
AND  STATE:  PASSED  IN  THE  SENATE:  LOST 
IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  EEPEESENTATIVES. 

This  great  measure  consisted  of  two  distinct 
parts :  1.  The  keeping  of  the  public  moneys : 
2.  The  hard  money  currency  in  which  they 
were  to  be  paid.  The  two  measures  together 
completed  the  system  of  financial  reform  recom- 
mended by  the  President.  The  adoption  of 
either  of  them  singly  would  be  a  step — and  a 
step  going  half  the  distance — towards  establish- 
ing the  whole  system :  and  as  it  was  well  sup- 
posed that  some  of  the  democratic  party  would 
balk  at  the  hard  money  payments,  it  was  de- 
termined to  propose  the  measures  singly.  With 
this  view  the  committee  reported  a  bill  for  the 
Independent  Treasury — that  is  to  say,  for  the 
keeping  of  the  government  moneys  by  its  own 
officers — without  designating  the  currency  to 
be  paid  to  them.  But  there  was  to  be  a  loss 
either  way ;  for  unless  the  hard  money  pay- 
ments were  made  a  part  of  the  act  in  the  first 
instance,  Mr.  Calhoun  and  some  of  his  friends 
could  not  vote  for  it.  He  therefore  moved  an 
amendment  to  that  effect ;  and  the  hard  money 
friends  of  the  administration  supporting  his 
motion,  although  preferring  that  it  had  not  been 
made,  and  some  others  voting  for  it  as  making 
the  bill  obnoxious  to  some  other  friends  of  the 
administration,  it  was  carried;  and  became  a 
part  of  the  bill.  At  the  last  moment,  and  when 
the  bill  had  been  perfected  as  far  as  possible  by 
its  friends,  and  the  final  vote  on  its  passage  was 
ready  to  be  taken,  a  motion  was  made  to  strike 
out  that  section — and  carried — by  the  helping 
vote  of  some  of  the  friends  of  the  administration 
— as  was  well  remarked  by  Mr.  Calhoun.  The 
vote  was,  for  striking  out — Messrs.  Bayard,  Bu- 
chanan, Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clayton  (Jno.  M.), 
Crittenden,  Cuthbert,  Davis  of  Mississippi,  Ful- 
ton, Grundy,  Knight,  M'Kean,  Merrick,  Morris, 
Nicholas,  Prentiss,  Preston,  Rives,  Robbins, 
Robinson,  Ruggles,  Sevier,  Smith,  of  Indiana. 
Southard,  Spence,  Swift,  Talmadge,  Tipton, 
Wall,  White,  Webster,  Williams— 31.  On  the 
other  hand  only  twenty-one  senators  voted  for 
retaining  the  clause.  They  were — Messrs.  Allen, 


of  Ohio,  Benton,  Brown  of  North  Carolina,  Cal- 
houn, Clay  of  Alabama,  Hubbard  of  New 
Hampshire,  King  of  Alabama,  Linn  of  Mis- 
souri, Lumpkin  of  Georgia,  Lyon  of  Michigan. 
Mouton  of  Louisiana,  Niles,  Norveli,  Franklin 
Pierce,  Roane  of  Virginia,  Smith  of  Connecti- 
cut, Strange  of  North  Carolina,  Trotter  of  Mis- 
sissippi, Robert  J.  Walker,  Silas  Wright,  Young 
of  Illinois— 21. 

This  section  being  struck  from  the  bill,  Mr. 
Calhoun  could  no  longer  vote  for  it;  and  gave 
his  reasons,  which  justice  to  him  requires  to 
be  preserved  in  his  own  words : 

"  On  the  motion  of  the  senator  from  Georgia 
(Mr.  Cuthbert),  the  23d  section,  which  pro- 
vides for  the  collection  of  the  dues  of  the  gov- 
ernment in  specie,  was  struck  out,  with  the  aid 
of  a  few  on  this  side,  and  the  entire  opposition 
to  the  divorce  on  the  other.  That  section  pro- 
vided for  the  repeal  of  the  joint  resolution  of 
1816,  which  authorizes  the  receipt  of  bank 
notes  as  cash  in  the  dues  of  the  public.  The 
effects  of  this  will  be,  should  the  bill  pass  in  its 
present  shape,  that  the  government  will  collect 
its  revenue  and  make  its  disbursements  ex- 
clusively in  bank  notes ;  as  it  did  before  the 
suspension  took  place  in  May  last.  Things  will 
stand  precisely  as  they  did  then,  with  but  a 
single  exception,  that  the  public  deposits  will 
be  made  with  the  officers  of  the  government 
instead  of  the  banks,  under  the  provision  of  the 
deposit  act  of  1836.  Thus  far  is  certain.  All 
agree  that  such  is  the  fact ;  and  such  the  effect 
of  the  passage  of  this  bill  as  it  stands.  Now, 
he  intended  to  show  conclusively,  that  the  dif- 
ference between  depositing  the  public  money 
with  the  public  officers,  or  with  the  banks 
themselves,  was  merely  nominal,  as  far  as  the 
operation  and  profits  of  the  banks  were  con- 
cerned; that  they  would  not  make  one  cent 
less  profit,  or  issue  a  single  dollar  less,  if  the 
deposits  be  kept  by  the  officers  of  the  govern- 
ment instead  of  themselves ;  and,  of  course,  that 
the  system  would  be  equally  subject  to  expan- 
sions and  contractions,  and  equally  exposed  to 
catastrophes  like  the  present,  in  the  one,  as  the 
other,  mode  of  keeping. 

"  But  he  had  other  and  insuperable  objections. 
In  giving  the  bill  originally  his  support,  he  was 
governed  by  a  deep  conviction  that  the  total 
separation  of  the  government  and  the  banks 
was  indispensable.  He  firmly  believed  that  we 
had  reached  a  point  where  the  separation  was 
absolutely  necessary  to  save  both  government 
and  banks.  He  was  under  a  strong  impression 
that  the  banking  system  had  reached  a  point  of 
decrepitude — that  great  and  important  changes 
were  necessary  to  save  it  and  prevent  convul- 
sions ;  and  that  the  first  step  was  a  perpetual 
separation  between  them  and  the  government. 
But  there  could  be,  in  his  opinion,  no  separation 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


125 


— no  divorce — without  collecting  the  public 
dues  in  the  legal  and  constitutional  currency  of 
the  country.  Without  that,  all  would  prove  a 
perfect  delusion ;  as  this  bill  would  prove  should 
it  pass.  We  had  no  constitutional  right  to  treat 
the  notes  of  mere  private  corporations  as  cash ; 
and  if  we  did,  nothing  would  be  done. 

"  These  views,  and  many  others  similar,  he 
had  openly  expressed,  in  which  the  great  body 
of  the  gentlemen  around  him  had  concurred. 
We  stand  openly  pledged  to  them  before  the 
country  and  the  world.  We  had  fought  the 
battle  manfully  and  successfully.  The  cause 
was  good,  and  having  stood  the  first  shock,  no- 
thing was  necessary,  but  firmness  ;  standing 
fast  on  our  position  to  ensure  victory — a  great 
and  glorious  victory  in  a  noble  cause,  which 
was  calculated  to  effect  a  more  important  re- 
formation in  the  condition  of  society  than  any 
in  our  time — he,  for  one,  could  not  agree  to 
terminate  all  those  mighty  efforts,  at  this  and 
the  extra  session,  by  returning  to  a  complete 
and  perfect  reunion  with  the  banks  in  the  worst 
and  most  dangerous  form.  He  would  not  belie 
all  that  he  had  said  and  done,  by  voting  for  the 
bill  as  it  now  stood  amended ;  and  to  terminate 
that  which  was  so  gloriously  begun,  in  so  miser- 
able a  farce.  He  could  not  but  feel  deeply  dis- 
appointed in  what  he  had  reason  to  apprehend 
would  be  the  result — to  have  all  our  efforts  and 
labor  thrown  away,  and  the  hopes  of  the  coun- 
try disappointed.  All  would  be  lost !  No ;  he 
expressed  himself  too  strongly.  Be  the  vote 
what  it  may,  the  discussion  would  stand.  Light 
had  gone  abroad.  The  public  mind  had  been 
aroused,  for  the  first  time,  and  directed  to  this 
great  subject.  The  intelligence  of  the  country 
is  every  where  busy  in  exploring  its  depths  and 
intricacies,  and  would  not  cease  to  investigate 
till  all  its  labyrinths  were  traced.  The  seed 
that  has  been  sown  will  sprout  and  grow  to 
maturity ;  the  revolution  that  has  been  begun 
will  go  through,  be  our  course  what  it  may." 

The  vote  was  then  taken  on  the  passage  of 
the  bill,  and  it  was  carried — by  the  lean  major- 
ity of  two  votes,  which  was  only  the  difference 
of  one  voter.  The  affirmative  vote  was :  Messrs. 
Allen,  Benton,  Brown,  Clay  of  Alabama,  Cuth- 
bert,  Fulton,  Hubbard,  King,  Linn,  Lumpkin, 
Lyon,  Morris,  Mouton,  Niles,  Norvell,  Pierce, 
Roane,  Robinson,  Sevier,  Smith  of  Connecti- 
cut, Strange,  Trotter,  Walker,  Wall,  Williams, 
Wright,  Young — 27.  The  negatives  were  : 
Messrs.  Bayard,  Buchanan,  Calhoun,  Clay  of 
Kentucky,  Clayton,  Crittenden,  Davies,  Grun- 
dy, Knight,  McKean,  Merrick,  Nicholas,  Pren- 
tiss, Preston,  Rives,  Bobbins,  Ruggles,  Smith 
of  Indiana,  Southard,  Spencc,  Swift  Talmadge, 
Tipton,  Webster,  Hugh  L.  White— 25. 

The  act  having  passed  the  Senate  by  this 


slender  majority  was  sent  to  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives ;  where  it  was  lost  by  a  majority 
of  14.  This  was  a  close  vote  in  a  house  of  236 
present ;  and  the  bill  was  only  lost  by  several 
friends  of  the  administration  voting  with  the 
entire  opposition.  But  a  great  point  was 
gained.  Full  discussion  had  been  had  upon 
the  subject,  and  the  public  mind  was  waked 
up  to  it. 


CHAPTER    XXX. 

PUBLIC  LANDS:    GRADUATION  OF  PEICE :    PRE- 
EMPTION SYSTEM  :  TAXATION  WHEN  SOLD. 

For  all  the  new  States  composed  territory  be- 
longing, or  chiefly  so  to  the  federal  government, 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States  became  the 
local  legislature,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  place  of  a 
local  legislature  in  all  the  legislation  that  re- 
lates to  the  primary  disposition  of  the  soil.  In 
the  old  States  this  legislation  belonged  to  the 
State  legislatures,  and  might  have  belonged  to 
the  new  States  in  virtue  of  their  State  sove- 
reignty except  by  the  "compacts"  with  the 
federal  government  at  the  time  of  their  admis- 
sion into  the  Union,  in  which  they  bound  them- 
selves, in  consideration  of  land  and  money 
grants  deemed  equivalent  to  the  value  of  the 
surrendered  rights,  not  to  interfere  with  the 
primary  disposition  of  the  public  lands,  nor  to 
tax  them  while  remaining  unsold,  nor  for  five 
years  thereafter.  These  grants,  though  accept- 
ed as  equivalents  in  the  infancy  of  the  States, 
were  soon  found  to  be  very  far  from  it,  even  in 
a  mere  moneyed  point  of  view,  independent  of 
the  evils  resulting  from  the  administration  of 
domestic  local  questions  by  a  distant  national 
legislature.  The  taxes  alone  for  a  few  years  on 
the  public  lands  would  have  been  equivalent  to 
ali  the  benefits  derived  from  the  grants  in  the 
compacts.  Composed  of  citizens  from  the  old 
States  where  a  local  legislature  administered 
the  public  lands  according  to  the  local  interests 
— selling  lands  of  different  qualities  for  different 
prices,  according  to  its  quality — granting  pre- 
emptions and  donations  to  first  settlers — and 
subjecting  all  to  taxation  as  soon  as  it  became 
public  property;  it  was  a  national  feeling  to 
desire  the  same  advantages ;  and  for  this  pur- 
pose, incessant,  and  usually  vain  efforts  were 


126 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


made  to  obtain  them  from  Congress.  At  this 
session  (1837-38)  a  better  progress  was  made, 
and  bills  passed  for  all  the  purposes  through 
the  Senate. 

1.  The  graduation  bill.  This  measure  had 
been  proposed  for  twelve  years,  and  the  full 
system  embraced  a  plan  for  the  speedy  and 
final  extinction  of  the  federal  title  to  all  the 
lands  within  the  new  States.  Periodical  reduc- 
tions of  price  at  the  rate  of  25  cents  per  acre 
until  reduced  to  25  cents :  a  preference  in  the 
purchase  to  actual  settlers,  constituting  a  pre- 
emption right :  donations  to  destitute  settlers  : 
and  the  cession  of  the  refuse  to  States  in  which 
they  lay : — these  were  the  provisions  which 
constituted  the  system  and  which  were  all  con- 
tained in  the  first  bills.  But  finding  it  impos- 
sible to  carry  all  the  provisions  of  the  system 
in  any  one  bill,  it  became  necessary  to  secure 
what  could  be  obtained.  The  graduation-bill 
was  reduced  to  one  feature — reduction  of  price ; 
and  that  limited  to  two  reductions,  bringing 
down  the  price  at  the  first  reduction  to  one 
dollar  per  acre :  at  the  next  75  cents  per 
acre.  In  support  of  this  bill  Mr.  Benton  made 
a  brief  speech,  from  which  the  following  are 
some  passages : 

•'  The  bill  comes  to  us  now  under  more  favor- 
able auspices  than  it  has  ever  done  before.  The 
President  recommends  it,  and  the  Treasury 
needs  the  money  which  it  will  produce.  A 
gentleman  of  the  opposition  [Mr.  Clay],  re- 
proaches the  President  for  inconsistency  in 
making  this  recommendation ;  he  says  that  he 
voted  against  it  as  senator  heretofore,  and  re- 
commends it  as  President  now.  But  the  gen- 
tleman forgets  so  tell  us  that  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
when  a  member  of  the  Senate,  spoke  in  favor 
of  the  general  object  of  the  bill  from  the  first 
day  it  was  presented,  and  that  he  voted  in  favor 
of  one  degree  of  reduction — a  reduction  of  the 
price  of  the  public  lands  to  one  dollar  per  acre 
— the  last  session  that  he  served  here.  Far 
from  being  inconsistent,  the  President,  in  this 
recommendation,  has  only  carried  out  to  their 
legitimate  conclusions  the  principles  which  he 
formerly  expressed,  and  the  vote  which  he  for- 
merly gave. 

"  The  bill,  as  modified  on  the  motions  of  the 
senators  from  Tennessee  and  New  Hampshire 
[Messrs.  Grundy  and  Hubbard]  stands  shorn 
of  half  its  original  provisions.     Originally  it 


embraced  four  degrees  of  reduction ;  it  now  con- 
tains but  two  of  those  degrees.  The  two  last — 
the  fifty  cent,  and  the  twenty-five  cent  reduc- 
tions, have  been  cut  off.  I  made  no  objection 
to  the  motions  of  those  gentlemen.  I  knew 
them  to  be  made  in  a  friendly  spirit ;  I  knew 
also  that  the  success  of  their  motions  was  neces- 
sary to  the  success  of  any  part  of  the  bill.  Cer- 
tainly I  would  have  preferred  the  whole — would 
have  preferred  the  four  degrees  of  reduction. 
But  this  is  a  case  in  which  the  homely  maxim 
applies,  that  half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  bread. 
By  giving  up  half  the  bill,  we  may  gain  the  other 
half;  and  sure  I  am  that  our  constituents  will 
vastly  prefer  half  to  nothing.  The  lands  may 
now  be  reduced  to  one  dollar  for  those  which 
have  been  five  years  in  market,  and  to  seventy- 
five  cents  for  those  which  have  been  ten  years 
in  market.  The  rest  of  the  bill  is  relinquished 
for  the  present,  not  abandoned  for  ever.  The 
remaining  degrees  of  reduction  will  be  brought 
forward  hereafter,  and  with  a  better  prospect  of 
success,  after  the  lands  have  been  picked  and 
culled  over  under  the  prices  of  the  present  bill. 
Even  if  the  clauses  had  remained  which  have 
been  struck  out,  on  the  motions  of  the  gentle- 
men from  Tennessee  and  New  Hampshire,  it 
would  have  been  two  years  from  December 
next,  before  any  purchases  could  have  been  made 
under  them.  They  were  not  to  take  effect  until 
December,  1840.  Before  that  time  Congress 
will  twice  sit  again ;  and  if  the  present  bill 
passes,  and  is  found  to  work  well,  the  enactment 
of  the  present  rejected  clauses  will  be  a  matter 
of  course. 

"  This  is  a  measure  emphatically  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  agricultural  interest — that  great  inter- 
est, which  he  declared  to  be  the  foundation  of 
all  national  prosperity,  and  the  backbone,  and 
substratum  of  every  other  interest — which  was, 
in  the  body  politic,  front  rank  for  service,  and 
rear  rank  for  reward — which  bore  nearly  all  the 
burthens  of  government  while  carrying  the  go- 
vernment on  its  back — which  was  the  fountain 
of  good  production,  while  it  was  the  pack-horse 
of  burthens,  and  the  broad  shoulders  which  re- 
ceived nearly  all  losses — especially  from  broken 
banks.  This  bill  was  for  them ;  and,  in  voting 
for  it,  he  had  but  one  regret,  and  that  was,  that 
it  did  not  go  far  enough — that  it  was  not  equal 
to  their  merits." 

The  bill  passed  by  a  good  majority — 27  to 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


127 


16 ;  but  failed  to  be  acted  upon  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  though  favorably  reported 
upon  by  its  committee  on  the  public  lands. 

2.  The  pre-emptive  system.  The  provisions 
of  the  bill  were  simple,  being  merely  to  secure 
the  privilege  of  first  purchase  to  the  settler  on 
any  lands  to  which  the  Indian  title  had  been 
extinguished;  to  be  paid  for  at  the  minimum 
price  of  the  public  lands  at  the  time.  A  senator 
from  Maryland,  Mr.  Merrick,  moved  to  amend 
the  bill  by  confining  its  benefits  to  citizens  of 
the  United  States — excluding  unnaturalized 
foreigners.  Mr.  Benton  opposed  this  motion, 
in  a  brief  speech. 

';  He  was  entirely  opposed  to  the  amendment 
of  the  senator  from  Maryland  (Mr.  Merrick). 
It  proposed  something  new  in  our  legislation. 
It  proposed  to  make  a  distinction  between  aliens 
and  citizens  in  the  acquisition  of  property. 
Pre-  emption  rights  had  been  granted  since  the 
formation  of  the  government;  and  no  distinc- 
tion, until  now,  had  been  proposed,  between  the 
persons,  or  classes  of  persons,  to  whom  they 
were  granted.  No  law  had  yet  excluded  aliens 
from  the  acquisition  of  a  pre-emption  right,  and 
he  was  entirely  opposed  to  commencing  a  sys- 
tem of  legislation  which  was  to  affect  the  pro- 
perty rights  of  the  aliens  who  came  to  our 
country  to  make  it  their  home.  Political  rights 
rested  on  a  different  basis.  They  involved  the 
management  of  the  government,  and  it  was  right 
that  foreigners  should  undergo  the  process  of 
naturalization  before  they  acquired  the  right  of 
sharing  in  the  government.  But  the  acquisition 
of  property  was  another  affair.  It  was  a  private 
and  personal  affair.  It  involved  no  question  but 
that  of  the  subsistence,  the  support,  and  the 
comfortable  living  of  the  alien  and  his  family. 
Mr.  B.  would  be  against  the  principle  of  the 
proposed  amendment  in  any  case,  but  he  was 
particularly  opposed  to  this  case.  Who  were 
the  aliens  whom  it  proposed  to  affect?  Not 
those  who  are  described  as  paupers  and  crimi- 
nals, infesting  the  purlieus  of  the  cities,  but 
those  who  had  gone  to  the  remote  new  States, 
and  to  the  remote  parts  of  those  States,  and 
into  the  depths  of  the  wilderness,  and  there 
commenced  the  cultivation  of  the  earth.  These 
were  the  description  of  aliens  to  be  affected; 
and  if  the  amendment  was  adopted,  they  would 
be  excluded  from  a  pre-emption  right  in  the 
soil  they  were  cultivating,  and  made  to  wait 


until  they  were  naturalized.  The  senator  from 
Maryland  (Mr.  Merrick),  treats  this  as  a  case 
of  bounty.  He  treats  the  pre-emption  right  as 
a  bounty  from  the  government,  and  says  that 
aliens  have  no  right  to  this  bounty.  But,  is  this 
correct  ?  Is  the  pre-emption  a  bounty  ?  Far 
from  it.  In  point  of  money,  the  pre-emptioner 
pays  about  as  much  as  any  other  purchaser. 
He  pays  the  government  price,  one  dollar  and 
twenty-five  cents ;  and  the  table  of  land  sales 
proves  that  nobody  pays  any  more,  or  so  little 
more  that  it  is  nothing  in  a  national  point  of 
view.  One  dollar  twenty-seven  and  a  half  cents 
per  acre  is  the  average  of  all  the  sales  for  fifteen 
years.  The  twenty  millions  of  acres  sold  to 
speculators  in  the  year  1836,  all  went  at  one 
dollar  and  twenty-five  cents  per  acre.  The 
pre-emption  then  is  not  a  bounty,  but  a  sale,  and 
a  sale  for  full  price,  and,  what  is  more,  for  solid 
money ;  for  pre-emptioners  pay  with  gold  and 
silver,  and  not  with  bank  credits.  Numerous 
were  the  emigrants  from  Germany,  France,  Ire- 
land, and  other  countries,  now  in  the  West,  and 
especially  in  Missouri,  and  he  (Mr.  B.)  had  no 
idea  of  imposing  any  legal  disability  upon  them 
in  the  acquisition  of  property.  He  wished  them 
all  well.  If  any  of  them  had  settled  upon  the 
public  lands,  so  much  the  better.  It  was  an 
evidence  of  their  intention  to  become  citizens, 
and  their  labor  upon  the  soil  would  add  to  its 
product  and  to  the  national  wealth." 

The  motion  of  Mr.  Merrick  was  rejected  by 
a  majority  of  13.  The  yeas  were  :  Messrs. 
Bayard,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clayton,  Crittenden, 
Davis,  Knight,  Merrick,  Prentiss,  Preston,  Rives, 
Robbins,  Smith,  of  Indiana,  Southard,  Spence, 
Tallmadge,  Tepton,  15.  The  nays  were  :  Messrs. 
Allen,  Benton,  Brown,  Buchanan,  Calhoun,  Clay, 
of  Alabama,  Cuthbert,  Fulton,  Grundy,  Hub- 
bard, King,  Linn,  Lumpkin,  Lyon,  Mauton, 
Nicholas,  Niles,  Nowell,  Pierce,  Roane,  Robin- 
son, Sevier,  Walker,  Webster,  White,  Williams, 
Wright,  Young,  of  Illinois,  (28.)  The  bill  being 
then  put  to  the  vote,  was  passed  by  a  majority 
of  14. 

3.  Taxation  of  public  lands  when  sold. 
When  the  United  States  first  instituted  their 
land  system,  the  sales  were  uponv  credit,  at  a 
minimum  price  of  two  dollars,  payable  in  four 
equal  annual  payments,  with  a  liability  to  revert 
if  there  should  be  any  failure  in  the  payments. 
During  that  time  it  was  considered  as  public 


128 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


land,  nor  was  the  title  passed  until  the  patent 
issued — which  might  be  a  year  longer.  Five 
years,  therefore,  was  the  period  fixed,  during 
which  the  land  so  sold  should  be  exempt  from 
taxation  by  the  State  in  which  it  lay.  This 
continued  to  be  the  mode  of  sale,  until  the  year 
1821,  when  the  credit  was  changed  for  the  cash 
system,  and  the  minimum  price  reduced  to  one 
dollar  twenty-five  cents  per  acre.  The  reason 
for  the  five  years  exemption  from  state  taxation 
had  then  ceased,  but  the  compacts  remaining 
unaltered,  the  exemption  continued.  Repeated 
applications  were  made  to  Congress  to  consent 
to  the  modification  of  the  compacts  in  that  arti- 
cle ;  but  always  in  vain.  At  this  session  the 
application  was  renewed  on  the  part  of  the  new 
States ;  and  with  success  in  the  Senate,  where 
the  bill  for  that  purpose  passed  nearly  unani- 
mously, the  negatives  being  but  four,  to  wit : 
Messrs.  Brown,  Clay,  of  Kentucky,  Clayton, 
Southard.  Being  sent  to  the  H.  B.  it  remained 
there  without  action  till  the  end  of  the  session. 


CHAPTER    XXXI. 

SPECIE  BASIS  FOR  BANKS :  ONE  THIRD  OF  THE 
AMOUNT  OF  LIABILITIES  THE  LOWEST  SAFE 
PROPORTION :  SPEECH  OF  MR.  BENTON  ON  THE 
RECHARTER  OF  THE  DISTRICT  BANKS. 

This  is  a  point  of  great  moment — one  on  which 
the  public  mind  has  not  been  sufficiently 
awakened  in  this  country,  though  well  under- 
stood and  duly  valued  in  England.  The  char- 
ters of  banks  in  the  United  States  are  usually 
drawn  on  this  principle,  that  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  the  capital,  and  sometimes  the  whole  of 
it,  shall  be  paid  up  in  gold  or  silver  before  the 
charter  shall  take  effect.  This  is  the  usual  pro- 
vision, without  any  obligation  on  the  bank  to 
retain  any  part  of  this  specie  after  it  gets  into 
operation;  and  this  provision  has'  too  often 
proved  to  be  illusory  and  deceptive.  In  many 
cases,  the  banks  have  borrowed  the  requisite 
amount  for  a  day,  and  then  returned  it;  in 
many  other  cases,  the  proportion  of  specie, 
though  paid  up  in  good  faith,  is  immediately 
lent  out,  or  parted  with.  The  result  to  the 
public  is  about  the  same  in  both  cases;  the 
bank  has  little  or  no  specie,  and  its  place  is 


supplied  by  the  notes  of  other  banks.  The 
great  vice  of  the  banking  system  in  the  United 
States  is  in  banking  upon  paper — upon  the 
paper  of  each  other — and  treating  this  paper  as 
cash.  This  nay  be  safe  among  the  banks  them- 
selves ;  it  may  enable  them  to  settle  with  one 
another,  and  to  liquidate  reciprocal  balances; 
but  to  the  public  it  is  nothing.  In  the  event 
of  a  run  upon  a  bank,  or  a  general  run  upon  all 
banks,  it  is  specie,  and  not  paper,  that  is  wanted. 
It  is  specie,  and  not  paper,  which  the  public 
want,  and  must  have. 

The  motion  of  the  senator  from  Pennsylvania 
[Mr.  Buchanan]  is  intended  to  remedy  this 
vice  in  these  District  banks ;  it  is  intended  to 
impose  an  obligation  on  these  banks  to  keep  in 
their  vaults  a  quantum  of  specie  bearing  a  cer- 
tain proportion  to  the  amount  of  their  imme- 
diate liabilities  in  circulation  and  deposits.  The 
gentleman's  motion  is  well  intended,  but  it  is 
defective  in  two  particulars  :  first,  in  requiring 
the  proportion  to  be  the  one-fourth,  instead  of 
the  one-third,  and  next,  in  making  it  apply  to 
the  private  deposits  only.  The  true  propor- 
tion is  one-third,  and  this  to  apply  to  all  the 
circulation  and  deposits,  except  those  which  are 
special.  This  proportion  has  been  fixed  for  a 
hundred  years  at  the  Bank  of  England;  and 
just  so  often  as  that  bank  has  fallen  below  this 
proportion,  mischief  has  occurred.  This  is  the 
sworn  opinion  of  the  present  Governor  of  the 
Bank  of  England,  and  of  the  directors  of  that 
institution.  Before  Lord  Althorpe's  committee 
in  1832,  Mr.  Horsley  Palmer,  the  Governor  of 
the  Bank,  testified  in  these  words  : 

" '  The  average  proportion,  as  already  ob- 
served, of  coin  and  bullion  which  the  bank 
thinks  it  prudent  to  keep  on  hand,  is  at  the 
rate  of  a  third  of  the  total  amount  of  all  her 
liabilities,  including  deposits  as  well  as  issues.' 
Mr.  George  "Ward  Norman,  a  director  of  the 
bank,  states  the  same  thing  in  a  different  form 
of  words.  He  says :  '  For  a  full  state  of  the 
circulation  and  the  deposits,  say  twenty-one 
millions  of  notes  and  six  millions  of  deposits, 
making  in  the  whole  twenty-seven  millions  of 
liabilities,  the  proper  sum  in  coin  and  bullion 
for  the  bank  to  retain  is  nine  millions.'  Thus, 
the  average  proportion  of  one-third  between  the 
specie  on  hand  and  the  circulation  and  deposits, 
must  be  considered  as  an  established  principle 
at  that  bank,  which  is  quite  the  largest,  and 
amongst  the  oldest — probably,  the  very  oldest 
bank  of  circulation  in  the  world." 

The  Bank  of  England  is  not  merely  required 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


129 


to  keep  on  hand,  in  bullion,  the  one-third  of  its 
immediate  liabilities ;  it  is  bound  also  to  let  the 
country  see  that  it  has,  or  has  not,  that  propor- 
tion on  hand.  By  an  act  of  the  third  year  of 
William  IV.,  it  is  required  to  make  quarterly 
publications  of  the  average  of  the  weekly  liabil- 
ities of  the  bank,  that  the  public  may  see  when- 
ever it  descends  below  the  point  of  safety. 
Here  is  the  last  of  these  publications,  which  is 
a  full  exemplification  of  the  rule  and  the  policy 
which  now  governs  that  bank : 

Quarterly  average  of  the  weekly  liabilities  and 
assets  of  the  Bank  of  England,  from  the  12th 
December,  1837,  to  the  6th  of  March,  1838, 
both  inclusive,  published  pursuant  to  the  act 
3  and  William  IV.,  cap.  98: 


Liabilities. 

Circulation.  £18,600,000     Securities,     £22,792,900 
Deposits,  11,535,000     Bullion,  10,015,000 


£30,135,000 
London,  March  12. 


£30,807,000 


According  to  this  statement,  the  Bank  of 
England  is  now  safe  ;  and,  accordingly,  we  see 
that  she  is  acting  upon  the  principle  of  having 
bullion  enough,  for  she  is  shipping  gold  to  the 
United  States. 

The  proportion  in  England  is  one-third.  The 
bank  relies  upon  its  debts  and  other  resources 
for  the  other  two-thirds,  in  the  event  of  a  run 
upon  it.  This  is  the  rule  in  that  bank  which 
has  more  resources  than  any  other  bank  in  the 
world;  which  is  situated  in  the  moneyed  me- 
tropolis of  the  world — the  richest  merchants  its 
debtors,  friends  and  customers — and  the  Gov- 
ernment of  England  its  debtor  and  backer,  and 
always  ready  to  sustain  it  with  exchequer  bills, 
and  with  every  exertion  of  its  credit  and  means. 
Such  a  bank,  so  situated  and  so  aided,  still 
deems  it  necessary  to  its  safety  to  keep  in  hand 
always  the  one-third  in  bullion  of  the  amount 
of  its  immediate  liabilities.  Now,  if  the  propor- 
tion of  one-third  is  necessary  to  the  safety  of 
such  a  bank,  with  such  resources,  how  is  it  pos- 
sible for  our  banks,  with  their  meagre  resources 
and  small  array  of  friends,  to  be  safe  with  a 
less  proportion  ? 

This  is  the  rule  at  the  Bank  of  England,  and 
just  as  often  as  it  has  been  departed  from,  the 
danger  of  that  departure  has  been  proved.  It 
was  departed  from  in  1797,  when  the  proportion 
sunk  to  the  one-seventh  ;  and  what  was  the  re- 
sul  t  ?  The  stoppage  of  the  banks,  and  of  all  the 
Vol.  II.— 9 


banks  in  England,  and  a  suspension  of  specie 
payments  for  six-and-twenty  years!  It  was 
departed  from  again  about  a  year  ago,  when  the 
proportion  sunk  to  one-eighth  nearly ;  and  what 
was  the  result  ?  A  death  struggle  between  the 
paper  systems  of  England  and  the  United  States, 
in  which  our  system  was  sacrificed  to  save  hers. 
Her  system  was  saved  from  explosion  !  but  at 
what  cost? — at  what  cost  to  us,  and  to  herself? 
— to  us  a  general  stoppage  of  all  the  banks  for 
twelve  months  ;  to  the  English,  a  general  stag- 
nation of  business,  decline  of  manufactures,  and 
of  commerce,  much  individual  distress,  and  a 
loss  of  two  millions  sterling  of  revenue  to  the 
Crown.  The  proportion  of  one-third  may  then 
be  assumed  as  the  point  of  safety  in  the  Bank 
of  England ;  less  than  that  proportion  cannot 
be  safe  in  the  United  States.  Yet  the  senator 
from  Pennsylvania  proposes  less — he  proposes 
the  one-fourth  ;  and  proposes  it,  not  because  he 
feels  it  to  be  the  right  proportion,  but  from 
some  feeling  of  indulgence  or  forbearance  to 
this  poor  District.  Now,  I  think  that  this  is  a 
case  in  which  kind  feelings  can  have  no  place, 
and  that  the  point  in  question  is  one  upon  which 
there  can  be  no  compromise.  A  bank  is  a  bank, 
whether  made  in  a  district  or  a  State;  and  a 
bank  ought  to  be  safe,  whether  the  stockholders 
be  rich  or  poor.  Safety  is  the  point  aimed  at, 
and  nothing  unsafe  should  be  tolerated.  There 
should  be  no  giving  and  taking  below  the  point 
of  safety.  Experienced  men  fix  upon  the  one- 
third  as  the  safe  proportion;  we  should  not, 
therefore,  take  a  less  proportion.  Would  the 
gentleman  ask  to  let  the  water  in  the  boiler  of 
a  steamboat  sink  one  inch  lower,  when  the  ex- 
perienced captain  informed  him  that  it  had 
already  sunk  as  low  as  it  was  safe  to  go  ?  Cer- 
tainly not.  So  of  these  banks.  One-third  is 
the  point  of  safety;  let  us  not  tamper  with 
danger  by  descending  to  the  one-fourth. 

When  a  bank  stops  payment,  the  first  thing 
we  see  is  an  exposition  of  its  means,  and  a  de- 
claration of  ultimate  ability  to  pay  all  its  debts. 
This  is  nothing  to  the  holders  of  its  notes.  Im- 
mediate ability  is  the  only  ability  that  is  of  any 
avail  to  them.  The  fright  of  some,  and  the  ne- 
cessity of  others,  compel  them  to  part  with 
their  notes.  Cool,  sagacious  capitalists  can 
look  to  ultimate  ability,  and  buy  up  the  notes 
from  the  necessitous  and  the  alarmed.  To  them 
ultimate  ability  is  sufficient ;  to  the  community 


130 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


it  is  nothing.  It  is,  therefore,  for  the  benefit  of 
the  community  that  the  banks  should  be  re- 
quired to  keep  always  on  hand  the  one-third  of 
their  circulation  and  deposits;  they  are  then 
trusted  for  two-thirds,  and  this  is  carrying 
credit  far  enough.  If  pressed  by  a  run,  it  is  as 
much  as  a  bank  can  do  to  make  up  the  other 
two-thirds  out  of  the  debts  due  to  her.  Three 
to  one  is  credit  enough,  and  it  is  profit  enough. 
If  a  bank  draws  interest  upon  three  dollars 
when  it  has  but  one,  this  is  eighteen  per  cent., 
and  ought  to  content  her.  A  citizen  cannot 
lend  his  money  for  more  than  six  per  cent.,  and 
cannot  the  banks  be  contented  with  eighteen  ? 
Must  they  insist  upon  issuing  four  dollars,  or 
even  five,  upon  one,  so  as  to  draw  twenty-four 
or  thirty  per  cent. ;  and  thus,  after  paying  their 
officers  vast  salaries,  and  accommodating  friends 
with  loans  on  easy  terms,  still  make  enough 
out  of  the  business  community  to  cover  all  ex- 
penses and  all  losses  :  and  then  to  divide  larger 
profits  than  can  be  made  at  any  other  business  ? 

The  issuing  of  currency  is  the  prerogative  of 
sovereignty.  The  real  sovereign  in  this  coun- 
try— the  government — can  only  issue  a  cur- 
rency of  the  actual  dollar :  can  only  issue  gold 
and  silver — and  each  piece  worth  its  face.  The 
banks  which  have  the  privilege  of  issuing  curren- 
cy issue  paper ;  and  not  content  with  two  more 
dollars  out  for  one  that  is,  they  go  to  five,  ten, 
twenty — failing  of  course  on  the  first  run ;  and 
the  loss  falling  upon  the  holders  of  its  notes — 
and  especially  the  holders  of  the  small  notes. 

We  now  touch  a  point,  said  Mr.  B.,  vital  to 
the  safety  of  banking,  and  I  hope  it  will  neither 
be  passed  over  without  decision,  nor  decided  in 
an  erroneous  manner.  We  had  up  the  same 
question  two  years  ago,  in  the  discussion  of  the 
bill  to  regulate  the  keeping  of  the  public  moneys 
by  the  local  deposit  banks.  A  senator  from 
Massachusetts  (Mr.  Webster)  moved  the 
question;  he  (Mr.  B.)  cordially  concurred  in 
it ;  and  the  proportion  of  one-fourth  was  then 
inserted.  He  (Mr.  B.)  had  not  seen  at  that 
time  the  testimony  of  the  governor  and  direc- 
tors of  the  Bank  of  England,  fixing  on  the  one- 
third  as  the  proper  proportion,  and  he  presum- 
ed that  the  senator  from  Massachusetts  (Mr. 
W.)  had  not  then  seen  it,  as  on  another  occasion 
he  quoted  it  with  approbation,  and  stated  it  to 
be  the  proportion  observed  at  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States.     The  proportion  of  one-fourth 


was  then  inserted  in  the  deposit  bill ;  it  was  an 
erroneous  proportion,  but  even  that  proportion 
was  not  allowed  to  stand.  After  having  been 
inserted  in  the  bill,  it  was  struck  out ;  and  it 
was  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  to  fix  the  proportion.  To  this  I  then 
objected,  and  gave  my  reasons  for  it.  I  was  for 
fixing  the  proportion,  because  I  held  it  vital  to 
the  safety  of  the  deposit  banks ;  I  was  against 
leaving  it  to  the  secretary,  because  it  was  a  case 
in  which  the  inflexible  rule  of  law,  and  not  the 
variable  dictate  of  individual  discretion  should 
be  exercised ;  and  because  I  was  certain  that  no 
secretary  could  be  relied  upon  to  compel  the 
banks  to  toe  the  mark,  when  Congress  itself  had 
flinched  from  the  task  of  making  them  do  it. 
My  objections  were  unavailing.  The  proportion 
was  struck  out  of  the  bill ;  the  discretion  of  the 
secretary  to  fix  it  was  substituted ;  and  that 
discretion  it  was  impossible  to  exercise  with 
any  effect  over  the  banks.  They  were,  that  is 
to  say,  many  of  them  were,  far  beyond  the 
mark  then ;  and  at  the  time  of  the  issuing  of 
the  Treasury  order  in  July,  1836,  there  were 
deposit  banks,  whose  proportion  of  specie  in 
hand  to  their  immediate  liabilities  was  as  one 
to  twenty,  one  to  thirty,  one  to  forty,  and  even 
one  to  fifty  !  The  explosion  of  all  such  banks 
was  inevitable.  The  issuing  of  the  Treasury 
order  improved  them  a  little :  they  began  to  in- 
crease their  specie,  and  to  diminish  their  lia- 
bilities ;  but  the  gap  was  too  wide — the  chasm 
was  too  vast  to  be  filled :  and  at  the  touch  of 
pressure,  all  these  banks  fell  like  nine-pins! 
They  tumbled  down  in  a  heap,  and  lay^  there, 
without  the,  power  of  motion,  or  scarcely  of 
breathing.  Such  was  the  consequence  of  our 
error  in  omitting  to  fix  the  proper  proportion 
of  specie  in  hand  to  the  liabilities  of  our  deposit 
banks :  let  us  avoid  that  error  in  the  bill  now 
before  us. 


CHAPTER    XXXII. 

THE  NORTH  AND  THE  SOUTH :  COMPAEATIVE 
PROSPERITY:  SOUTHERN  DISCONTENT:  ITS 
TRUE  CAUSE. 

To  show  the  working  of  the  federal  government 
is  the  design  of  this  View— show  how  things 
are  done  under  it  and  their  effects ;  that  the 


ANNO  1888.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


131 


good  may  be  approved  and  pursued,  the  evil 
condemned  and  avoided,  and  the  machine  of 
government  be  made  to  work  equally  for  the 
benefit  of  the  whole  Union,  according  to  the 
wise  and  beneficent  intent  of  its  founders.  It 
thus  becomes  necessary  to  show  its  working  in 
the  two  great  Atlantic  sections,  originally  sole 
parties  to  the  Union — the  North  and  the  South 
— complained  of  for  many  years  on  one  part  as 
unequal  and  oppressive,  and  made  so  by  a 
course  of  federal  legislation  at  variance  with  the 
objects  of  the  confederation  and  contrary  to  the 
intent  or  the  words  of  the  constitution. 

The  writer  of  this  View  sympathized  with 
that  complaint ;  believed  it  to  be,  to  much  ex- 
tent, well  founded ;  saw  with  concern  the  cor- 
roding effect  it  had  on  the  feelings  of  patriotic 
men  of  the  South ;  and  often  had  to  lament  that 
a  sense  of  duty  to  his  own  constituents  required 
him  to  give  votes  which  his  judgment  disapprov- 
ed and  his  feelings  condemned.  This  complaint 
existed  when  he  came  into  the  Senate ;  it  had, 
in  fact,  commenced  in  the  first  years  of  the  fede- 
ral government,  at  the  time  of  the  assumption 
of  the  State  debts,  the  incorporation  of  the  first 
national  bank,  and  the  adoption  of  the  funding 
system ;  all  of  which  drew  capital  from  the 
South  to  the  North.  It  continued  to  increase  ; 
and,  at  the  period  to  which  this  chapter  relates, 
it  had  reached  the  stage  of  an  organized  sec- 
tional expression  in  a  voluntary  convention  of 
the  Southern  States.  It  had  often  been  ex- 
pressed in  Congress,  and  in  the  State  legis- 
latures, and  habitually  in  the  discussions  of  the 
people ;  but  now  it  took  the  more  serious  form 
of  joint  action,  and  exhibited  the  spectacle  of  a 
part  of  the  States  assembling  sectionally  to 
complain  formally  of  the  unequal,  and  to  them, 
injurious  operation  of  the  common  government, 
established  by  common  consent  for  the  common 
good,  and  now  frustrating  its  object  by  depart- 
ing from  the  purposes  of  its  creation.  The  con- 
vention was  called  commercial,  and  properly,  as 
the  grievance  complained  of  was  in  its  root 
commercial,  and  a  commercial  remedy  was  pro- 
posed. 

It  met  at  Augusta,  Georgia,  and  afterwards 
at  Charleston,  South  Carolina;  and  the  evil 
complained  of  and  the  remedy  proposed  were 
strongly  set  forth  in  the  proceedings  of  the 
body,  and  in  addresses  to  the  people  of  the 
Southern  and  Southwestern  States.  The  chang- 


ed relative  condition  of  the  two  sections  of  the 
country,  before  and  since  the  Union,  was  shown 
in  their  general  relative  depression  or  prosperity 
since  that  event,  and  especially  in  the  reversed 
condition  of  their  respective  foreign  import 
trade.  In  the  colonial  condition  the  compari- 
son was  wholly  in  favor  of  the  South;  under 
the  Union  wholljr  against  it.  Thus,  in  the  year 
1760 — only  sixteen  years  before  the  Declaration 
of  Independence — the  foreign  imports  into  Vir- 
ginia were  £850,000  sterling,  and  into  South 
Carolina  £555,000 ;  while  into  New  York 
they  were  only  £189,000,  into  Pennsylvania 
£490,000 ;  and  into  all  the  New  England  Colo- 
nies collectively  only  £561,000. 

These  figures  exhibit  an  immense  superiority 
of  commercial  prosperity  on  the  side  of  the 
South  in  its  colonial  state,  sadly  contrasting 
with  another  set  of  figures  exhibited  by  the 
convention  to  show  its  relative  condition  with- 
in a  few  years  after  the  Union.  Thus,  in  the 
year  1821,  the  imports  into  New  York  had 
risen  to  $23,000,000 — being  about  seventy  times 
its  colonial  import  at  about  an  equal  period  be- 
fore the  adoption  of  the  constitution ;  and  those 
of  South  Carolina  stood  at  $3,000,000— which, 
for  all  practical  purposes,  may  be  considered  the 
same  that  they  were  in  1760. 

Such  was  the  difference — the  reversed  condi- 
tions— of  the  two  sections,  worked  between 
them  in  the  brief  space  of  two  generations— 
within  the  actual  lifetime  of  some  who  had  seen 
their  colonial  conditions.  The  proceedings  of 
the  convention  did  not  stop  there,  but  brought 
down  the  comparison  (under  this  commercial 
aspect)  to  near  the  period  of  its  own  sitting — to 
the  actual  period  of  the  highest  manifestation 
of  Southern  discontent,  in  1832 — when  it  pro- 
duced the  enactment  of  the  South  Carolina  nul- 
lifying ordinance.  At  that  time  all  the  dispro- 
portions between  the  foreign  commerce  of  the 
two  sections  had  inordinately  increased.  The 
New  York  imports  (since  1821)  had  more  than 
doubled ;  the  Virginia  had  fallen  off  one-half; 
South  Carolina  two-thirds.  The  actual  figures 
stood :  New  York  fifty-seven  millions  of  dol- 
lars, Virginia  half  a  million,  South  Carolina  one 
million  and  a  quarter. 

This  was  a  disheartening  view,  and  rendered 
more  grievous  by  the  certainty  of  its  continua- 
tion, the  prospect  of  its  aggravation,  and  the 
conviction  that  the  South  (in  its  great  staples) 


132 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


furnished  the  basis  for  these  imports ;  of  which 
it  received  so  small  a  share.  To  this  loss  of  its 
import  trade,  and  its  transfer  to  the  North,  the 
convention  attributed,  as  a  primary  cause,  the 
reversed  conditions  of  the  two  sections — the 
great  advance  of  one  in  wealth  and  improve- 
ments— the  slow  progress  and  even  comparative 
decline  of  the  other  ;  and,  with  some  allowance 
for  the  operation  of  natural  or  inherent  causes, 
referred  the  effect  to  a  course  of  federal  legisla- 
tion unwarranted  by  the  grants  of  the  consti- 
tution and  the  objects  of  the  Union,  which  sub- 
tracted capital  from  one  section  and  accumu- 
lated it  in  the  other : — protective  tariff,  internal 
improvements,  pensions,  national  debt,  two  na- 
tional banks,  the  funding  system  and  the  paper 
system ;  the  multiplication  of  offices,  profuse 
and  extravagant  expenditure,  the  conversion  of 
a  limited  into  an  almost  unlimited  government ; 
and  the  substitution  of  power  and  splendor  for 
what  was  intended  to  be  a  simple  and  economi- 
cal administration  of  that  part  of  their  affairs 
which  required  a  general  head. 

These  were  the  points  of  complaint — abuses — 
which  had  led  to  the  collection  of  an  enormous 
revenue,  chiefly  levied  on  the  products  of  one 
section  of  the  Union  and  mainly  disbursed  in 
another.  So  far  as  northern  advantages  were 
the  result  of  fair  legislation  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  objects  of  the  Union,  all  discontent 
or  complaint  was  disclaimed.  All  knew  that 
the  superior  advantages  of  the  North  for  navi- 
gation would  give  it  the  advantage  in  foreign 
commerce  ;  but  it  was  not  expected  that  these 
facilities  would  operate  a  monopoly  on  one  side 
and  an  extinction  on  the  other ;  nor  was  that 
consequence  allowed  to  be  the  effect  of  these 
advantages  alone,  but  was  charged  to  a  course 
of  legislation  not  warranted  by  the  objects  of 
the  Union,  or  the  terms  of  the  constitution, 
which  created  it.  To  this  course  of  legislation 
was  attributed  the  accumulation  of  capital  in 
the  North,  which  had  enabled  that  section  to 
monopolize  the  foreign  commerce  which  was 
founded  upon  southern  exports ;  to  cover  one 
part  with  wealth  while  the  other  was  impover- 
ished ;  and  to  make  the  South  tributary  to  the 
North,  and  suppliant  to  it  for  a  small  part  of 
the  fruits  of  their  own  labor. 

Unhappily  there  was  some  foundation  for 
this  view  of  the  case  ;  and  in  this  lies  the  root 
of  the  discontent  of  the  South  and  its  dissatis- 


faction with  the  Union,  although  it  may  break 
out  upon  another  point.  It  is  in  this  belief  of 
an  incompatibility  of  interest,  from  the  pervert- 
ed working  of  the  federal  government,  that  lies 
the  root  of  southern  discontent,  and  which 
constitutes  the  danger  to  the  Union,  and  which 
statesmen  should  confront  and  grapple  with; 
and  not  in  any  danger  to  slave  property,  which 
has  continued  to  aggrandize  in  value  during  the 
whole  period  of  the  cry  of  danger,  and  is  now 
of  greater  price  than  ever  was  known  before ; 
and  such  as  our  ancestors  would  have  deemed 
fabulous.  The  sagacious  Mr.  Madison  knew 
this — knew  where  the  danger  to  the  Union  lay, 
when,  in  the  86th  year  of  his  age,  and  the  last 
of  his  life,  and  under  the  anguish  of  painful  mis- 
givings, he  wrote  (what  is  more  fully  set  out  in 
the  previous  volume  of  this  work)  these  por- 
tentous words : 

"  The  visible  susceptibility  to  the  contagion 
of  nullification  in  the  Souther?!  States,  the 
sympathy  arising-  from  known  causes,  and 
the  inculcated  impression  of  a  permanent  in- 
compatibility of  interest  between  the  North 
and  the  South,  may  put  it  in  the  power  of 
popular  leaders,  aspiring  to  the  highest  sta- 
tions, to  unite  the  /South,  on  some  critical  oc- 
casion, in  some  course  of  action  of  which  nul- 
lification may  be  the  first  step,  secession  the 
second,  and  a  farewell  separation  the  last." 

So  viewed  the  evil,  and  in  his  last  days,  the 
great  surviving  founder  of  the  Union — seeing, 
as  he  did,  in  this  inculcated  impression  of  a  per- 
manent incompatibility  of  interest  between  the 
two  sections,  the  fulcrum  or  point  of  support, 
on  which  disunion  could  rest  its  lever,  and  par- 
ricidal hands  build  its  schemes.  What  has 
been  published  in  the  South  and  adverted  to  in 
this  View  goes  to  show  that  an  incompatibility 
of  interest  between  the  two  sections,  though 
not  inherent,  has  been  produced  by  the  work- 
ing of  the  government — not  its  fair  and  le- 
gitimate, but  its  perverted  and  unequal  work- 
ing. 

This  is  the  evil  which  statesmen  should  see 
and  provide  against.  Separation  is  no  remedy ; 
exclusion  of  Northern  vessels  from  Southern 
ports  is  no  remedy;  but  is  disunion  itself— 
and  upon  the  very  point  which  caused  the 
Union  to  be  formed,  Regulation  of  commerce 
between  the  States,  and  with  foreign  nations, 
was  the  cause  of  the  formation  of  the  Union. 
Break  that  regulation,  and  the  Union  is  broken ; 


ANNO  1838.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


133 


and  the  broken  parts  converted  into  antagonist 
nations,  with  causes  enough  of  dissension  to 
engender  perpetual  wars,  and  inflame  incessant 
animosities.  The  remedy  lies  in  the  right 
working  of  the  constitution;  in  the  cessation 
of  unequal  legislation  ;  in  the  reduction  of  the 
inordinate  expenses  of  the  government ;  in  its 
return  to  the  simple,  limited,  and  economical 
machine  it  was  intended  to  be  ;  and  in  the  revi- 
val of  fraternal  feelings,  and  respect  for  each 
other's  rights  and  just  complaints ;  which  would 
return  of  themselves  when  the  real  cause  of  dis- 
content was  removed. 

The  conventions  of  Augusta  and  Charleston 
proposed  their  remedy  for  the  Southern  depres- 
sion, and  the  comparative  decay  of  which  they 
complained.  It  was  a  fair  and  patriotic  reme- 
dy— that  of  becoming  their  own  exporters,  and 
opening  a  direct  trade  in  their  own  staples  be- 
tween Southern  and  foreign  ports.  It  was  re- 
commended— attempted — failed.  Superior  ad- 
vantages for  navigation  in  the  North — greater 
aptitude  of  its  people  for  commerce — established 
course  of  business — accumulated  capital — con- 
tinued unequal  legislation  in  Congress  ;  and  in- 
creasing expenditures  of  the  government,  chief- 
ly disbursed  in  the  North,  and  defect  of  seamen 
in  the  South  (for  mariners  cannot  be  made  of 
slaves),  all  combined  to  retain  the  foreign  trade 
in  the  channel  which  had  absorbed  it ;  and  to 
increase  it  there  with  the  increasing  wealth 
and  population  of  the  country,  and  the  still 
faster  increasing  extravagance  and  profusion 
of  the  government.  And  now,  at  this  period 
(1855),  the  foreign  imports  at  New  York  are 
§195,000,000  ;  at  Boston  $58,000,000  ;  in  Vir- 
ginia $1,250,000 ;  in  South  Carolina  $1,750,000. 

This  is  what  the  dry  and  naked  figures  show. 
To  the  memory  and  imagination  it  is  worse ; 
for  it  is  a  tradition  of  the  Colonies  that  the 
South  had  been  the  seat  of  wealth  and  happi- 
ness, of  power  and  opulence  ;  that  a  rich  popu- 
lation covered  the  land,  dispensing  a  baronial 
hospitality,  and  diffusing  the  felicity  which 
themselves  enjoyed  ;  that  all  was  life,  and  joy, 
and  affluence  then.  And  this  tradition  was  not 
without  similitude  to  the  reality,  as  this  writer 
can  testify ;  for  he  was  old  enough  to  have  seen 
(after  the  Revolution)  the  still  surviving  state 
of  Southern  cojlaial  manners,  when  no  travel- 
ler was  allowed  to  go  to  a  tavern,  but  was 
handed  over  from  family  to  family  through  en- 


tire States  ;  when  holidays  were  days  of  festivi- 
ty and  expectation,  long  prepared  for,  and  cele- 
brated by  master  and  slave  with  music  and 
feasting,  and  great  concourse  of  friends  and  rela- 
tives ;  when  gold  was  kept  in  desks  or  chests 
(after  the  downfall  of  continental  paper)  and 
weighed  in  scales,  and  lent  to  neighbors  for 
short  terms  without  note,  interest,  witness,  or 
security;  and  on  bond  and  land  security  for 
long  years  and  lawful  usance  :  and  when  petty 
litigation  was  at  so  low  an  ebb  that  it  required 
a  fine  of  forty  pounds  of  tobacco  to  make  a  man 
serve  as  constable. 

The  reverse  of  all  this  was  now  seen  and  felt, 
— not  to  the  whole  extent  which  fancy  or  policy 
painted — but  to  extent  enough  to  constitute  a 
reverse,  and  to  make  a  contrast,  and  to  excite 
the  regrets  which  the  memory  of  past  joys  never 
fails  to  awaken.  A  real  change  had  come,  and 
this  change,  the  effect  of  many  causes,  was  wholly 
attributed  to  one — the  unequal  working  of  the 
Federal  Government — which  gave  all  the  bene- 
fits of  the  Union  to  the  North,  and  all  its  bur- 
dens to  the  South.  And  that  was  the  point  on 
which  Southern  discontent  broke  out — on  which 
it  openly  rested  until  1835  ;  when  it  was  shifted 
to  the  danger  of  slave  property. 

Separation  is  no  remedy  for  these  evils,  but 
the  parent  of  far  greater  than  either  just  discon- 
tent or  restless  ambition  would  fly  from.  To 
the  South  the  Union  is  a  political  blessing ;  to 
the  North  it  is  both  a  political  and  a  pecuniary 
blessing  ;  to  both  it  should  be  a  social  blessing. 
Both  sections  should  cherish  it,  and  the  North 
most.  The  story  of  the  boy  that  killed  the 
goose  that  laid  the  golden  egg  every  day,  that 
he  might  get  all  the  eggs  at  once,  was  a  fable  ; 
but  the  Northern  man  who  could  promote  sepa- 
ration by  any  course  of  wrong  to  the  South 
would  convert  that  fable  into  history — his  own 
history — and  commit  a  folly,  in  a  mere  profit 
and  loss  point  of  view,  of  which  there  is  no  pre- 
cedent except  in  fable. 


134 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER   XXXIII. 

PEOGEESS  OF  THE  SLAVEEY  AGITATION:  ME. 
CALHOUN'S  APPEOVAL  OF  THE  MISSOUEl  COM- 
PEOMISE. 

This  portentous  agitation,  destined  to  act  so 
seriously  on  the  harmony,  and  possibly  on  the 
stability  of  the  Union,  requires  to  be  noted  in 
its  different  stages,  that  responsibility  may  fol- 
low culpability,  and  the  judgment  of  history  fall 
where  it  is  due,  if  a  deplorable  calamity  is  made 
to  come  out  of  it.  In  this  point  of  view  the 
movements  for  and  against  slavery  in  the  session 
of  1837-'38  deserve  to  be  noted,  as  of  disturbing 
effect  at  the  time  ;  and  as  having  acquired  new 
importance  from  subsequent  events.  Early  in 
the  session  a  memorial  was  presented  in  the 
Senate  from  the  General  Assembly  of  Vermont, 
remonstrating  against  the  annexation  of  Texas 
to  the  United  States,  and  praying  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia — 
followed  by  many  petitions  from  citizens  and 
societies  in  the  Northern  States  to  the  same 
effect ;  and,  further,  for  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  Territories — for  the  abolition  of  the  slave 
trade  between  the  States — and  for  the  exclusion 
of  future  slave  States  from  the  Union. 

There  was  but  little  in  the  state  of  the  coun- 
try at  that  time  to  excite  an  anti-slavery  feel- 
ing, or  to  excuse  these  disturbing  applications 
to  Congress.  There  was  no  slave  territory  at 
that  time  but  that  of  Florida;  and  to  ask  to 
abolish  slavery  there,  where  it  had  existed  from 
the  discovery  of  the  continent,  or  to  make  its 
continuance  a  cause  for  the  rejection  of  the  State 
when  ready  for  admission  into  the  Union,  and 
thus  form  a  free  State  in  the  rear  of  all  the  great 
slave  States,  was  equivalent  to  praying  for  a  dis- 
solution of  the  Union.  Texas,  if  annexed,  would 
be  south  of  36°  30',  and  its  character,  in  relation 
to  slavery,  would  be  fixed  by  the  Missouri  com- 
promise line  of  1820.  The  slave  trade  between 
the  States  was  an  affair  of  the  States,  with  which 
Congress  had  nothing  to  do ;  and  the  continu- 
ance of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  so 
long  as  it  existed  in  the  adjacent  States  of  Vir- 
ginia and  Maryland,  was  a  point  of  policy  in 
which  every  Congress,  and  every  administra- 
tion, had  concurred  from  the  formation  of  the 


Union ;  and  in  which  there  was  never  a  more 
decided  concurrence  than  at  present. 

The  petitioners  did  not  live  in  any  Territory, 
State,  or  district  subject  to  slavery.  They  felt 
none  of  the  evils  of  which  they  complained — 
were  answerable  for  none  of  the  supposed  sin 
which  they  denounced — were  living  under  a 
general  government  which  acknowledged  prop- 
erty in  slaves — and  had  no  right  to  disturb  the 
rights  of  the  owner  :  and  they  committed  a 
cruelty  upon  the  slave  by  the  additional  rigors 
which  their  pernicious  interference  brought 
upon  him. 

The  subject  of  the  petitions  was  disagreeable 
in  itself;  the  language  in  which  they  were 
couched  was  offensive ;  and  the  wantonness  of 
their  presentation  aggravated  a  proceeding  suffi- 
ciently provoking  in  the  civilest  form  in  which 
it  could  be  conducted.  Many  petitions  were  in 
the  same  words,  bearing  internal  evidence  of 
concert  among  their  signers ;  many  were  signed 
by  women,  whose  proper  sphere  was  far  from 
the  field  of  legislation ;  all  united  in  a  common 
purpose,  which  bespoke  community  of  origin, 
and  the  superintendence  of  a  general  direction. 
Every  presentation  gave  rise  to  a  question  and 
debate,  in  which  sentiments  and  feelings  were 
expressed  and  consequences  predicted,  which  it 
was  painful  to  hear.  While  almost  every  sena- 
tor condemned  these  petitions,  and  the  spirit  in 
which  they  originated,  and  the  language  in  which 
they  were  couched,  and  considered  them  as 
tending  to  no  practical  object,  and  only  calcu- 
lated to  make  dissension  and  irritation,  there 
were  others  who  took  them  in  a  graver  sense, 
and  considered  them  as  leading  to  the  inevitable 
separation  of  the  States.  In  this  sense  Mr. 
Calhoun  said : 

"He  had  foreseen  what  this  subject  would 
come  to.  He  knew  its  origin,  and  that  it  lay 
deeper  than  was  supposed.  It  grew  out  of  a 
spirit  of  fanaticism  which  was  daily  increasing, 
and,  if  not  met  in  limine,  would  by  and  by  dis- 
solve this  Union.  It  was  particularly  'our  duty 
to  keep  the  matter  out  of  the  Senate — out  of  the 
halls  of  the  National  Legislature.  These  fanatics 
were  interfering  with  what  they  had  no  right. 
Grant  the  reception  of  these  petitions,  and  you 
will  next  be  asked  to  act  on  them.  He  was  for 
no  conciliatory  course,  no  temporizing ;  instead 
of  yielding  one  inch,  he  would  rise  in  opposition ; 
and  he  hoped  every  man  from  the  South  would 
stand  by  him  to  put  down  this  growing  evil. 
There  was  but  one  question  that  would  ever 
destroy  this  Union,  and  that  was  involved  in 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


135 


this  principle.  Yes;  this  was  potent  enough 
for  it,  and  must  be  early  arrested  if  the  Union 
was  to  be  preserved.  A  man  must  see  little 
into  what  is  going  on  if  he  did  not  perceive  that 
this  spirit  was  growing,  and  that  the  rising 
generation  was  becoming  more  strongly  imbued 
with  it.  It  was  not  to  be  stopped  by  reports 
on  paper,  but  by  action,  and  very  decided  ac- 
tion." 

The  question  which  occupied  the  Senate  was 
as  to  the  most  judicious  mode  of  treating  these 
memorials,  with  a  view  to  prevent  their  evil 
effects:   and  that  was   entirely  a  question  of 
policy,  on  which  senators  disagreed  who  con- 
curred in  the  main  object.     Some  deemed  it 
most  advisable  to  receive  and  consider  the  pe- 
titions— to    refer    them  to  a  committee — and 
subject    them    to   the    adverse    report   which 
they  would  be  sure  to  receive ;  as  had  been 
done  with  the   Quakers'  petitions  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  government.      Others   deemed 
it  preferable  to  refuse  to  receive  them.     The 
objection  urged  to  this  latter  course  was,  that 
it  would   mix  up  a  new  question  with  the 
slavery  agitation  which  would  enlist  the  sym- 
pathies of  many  who  did  not  co-operate  with 
the  Abolitionists — the  question  of  the  right  of 
petition  ;  and  that  this  new  question,  mixing 
with  the  other,  might  swell  the  number  of  pe- 
titioners, keep  up  the  applications  to  Congress, 
and  perpetuate  an  agitation  which  would  other- 
wise soon  die  out.    Mr.  Clay,  and  many  others 
were  of  this  opinion ;  Mr.  Calhoun  and  his 
friends  thought  otherwise  ;  and  the  result  was, 
so  far  as  it  concerned  the  petitions  of  individuals 
and  societies,  what  it  had  previously  been — a 
half-way  measure  between  reception  and  rejec- 
tion— a  motion  to  lay  the  question  of  reception 
on  the  table.    This  motion,  precluding  all  dis- 
cussion, got  rid  of  the  petitions  quietly,  and 
kept  debate  out  of  the  Senate.     In  the  case 
of  the  memorial  from  the  State  of  Vermont, 
the  proceeding  was  slightly  different  in  form, 
but  the  same  in  substance.     As  the  act  of  a 
State,  tn%  memorial  was  received;  but  after 
reception  was  laid  on  the  table.     Thus  all  the 
memorials  and  petitions  were  disposed  of  by 
the  Senate  in  a  way  to  accomplish  the  two-fold 
object,  first,  of  avoiding  discussion ;  and,  next, 
condemning  the  object  of  the  petitioners.    It 
was  accomplishing  all  that  the  South  asked; 
and  if  the  subject  had  rested  at  that  point,  there 
would  have  been  nothing  in  the  history  of  this 


session,  on  the  slavery  agitation,  to  distinguish 
it  from  other  sessions  about  that  period :  but 
the  subject  was  revived  ;  and  in  a  way  to  force 
discussion,  and  to  constitute  a  point  for  the  re- 
trospect of  history. 

Every  memorial  and  petition  had  been  dis- 
posed of  according  to  the  wishes  of  the  senators 
from  the  slaveholding  States ;  but  Mr.  Calhoun 
deemed  it  due  to  those  States  to  go  further,  and 
to  obtain  from  the  Senate  declarations  which 
should  cover  all  the  questions  of  federal  power 
over  the  institution  of  slavery  :  although  he 
had  just  said  that  paper  reports  would  do 
no  good.  For  that  purpose,  he  submitted  a 
series  of  resolves — six  in  number — which  de- 
rive their  importance  from  their  comparison, 
or  rather  contrast,  with  others  on  the  same 
subject  presented  by  him  in  the  Senate  ten 
years  later;  and  which  have  given  birth  to 
doctrines  and  proceedings  which  have  greatly 
disturbed  the  harmony  of  the  Union,  and  pal- 
pably endangered  its  stability.  The  six  reso- 
lutions of  this  period  ('37— '38)  undertook  to 
define  the  whole  extent  of  the  power  dele- 
gated by  the  States  to  the  federal  government 
on  the  subject  of  slavery ;  to  specify  the  acts 
which  would  exceed  that  power ;  and  to  show 
the  consequences  of  doing  any  thing  not  author- 
ized to  be  done — always  ending  in  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union.  The  first  four  of  these  related 
to  the  States ;  about  which,  there  being  no  dis- 
pute, there  was  no  debate.  The  sixth,  without 
naming  Texas,  was  prospective,  and  looked  for- 
ward to  a  case  which  might  include  her  annexa- 
tion ;  and  was  laid  upon  the  table  to  make  way 
for  an  express  resolution  from  Mr.  Preston  on 
the  same  subject.  The  fifth  related  to  the  ter- 
ritories, and  to  the  District  of  Columbia,  and 
was  the  only  one  which  excited  attention,  or  has 
left  a  surviving  interest.    It  was  in  these  words: 

"Resolved,  That  the  intermeddling  of  any 
State,  or  States,  or  their  citizens,  to  abolish 
slavery  in  this  District,  or  any  of  the  territo- 
ries, on  the  ground  or  under  the  pretext  that  it 
is  immoral  or  sinful,  or  the  passage  of  any  act 
or  measure  of  Congress  with  that  view,  would 
be  a  direct  and  dangerous  attack  on  the  institu- 
tions of  all  the  slaveholding  States." 

The  dogma  of  "no  power  in  Congress  to 
legislate  upon  the  existence  of  slavery  in  terri- 
tories" had  not  been  invented  at  that  time; 
and,  of  course,  was  not  asserted  in  this  resolve, 


136 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


intended  by  its  author  to  define  the  extent  of 
the  federal  legislative  power  on  the  subject. 
The  resolve  went  upon  the  existence  of  the 
power,  and  deprecated  its  abuse.  It  put  the 
District  of  Columbia  and  the  territories  into 
the  same  category,  both  for  the  exercise  of  the 
power  and  the  consequences  to  result  from  the 
intermeddling  of  States  or  citizens,  or  the  pas- 
sage of  any  act  of  Congress  to  abolish  slavery 
in  either ;  and  this  was  admitting  the  power  in 
the  territory,  as  in  the  District ;  where  it  is  an 
express  grant  in  the  grant  of  all  legislative 
power.  The  intermeddling  and  the  legislation 
were  deprecated  in  both  solely  on  the  ground  of 
inexpediency.  Mr.  Clay  believed  this  inexpe- 
diency to  rest  upon  different  grounds  in  the  Dis- 
trict and  in  the  territory  of  Florida — the  only 
territory  in  which  slavery  then  existed,  and  to 
which  Mr.  Calhoun's  resolution  could  apply.  He 
was  as  much  opposed  as  any  one  to  the  abolition 
of  slavery  in  either  of  these  places,  but  believed 
that  a  different  reason  should  be  given  for  each, 
founded  in  their  respective  circumstances  ;  and, 
therefore,  submitted  an  amendment,  consisting 
of  two  resolutions— one  applicable  to  the  Dis- 
trict, the  other  to  the  territory.  In  stating 
the  reasons  why  slavery  should  not  be  abol- 
ished in  Florida,  he  quoted  the  Missouri  com- 
promise line  of  1820.  This  was  objected  to  by 
other  senators,  on  the  ground  that  that  line  did 
not  apply  to  Florida,  and  that  her  case  was  com- 
plete without  it.  Of  that  opinion  was  the  Sen- 
ate, and  the  clause  was  struck  out.  This  gave 
Mr.  Calhoun  occasion  to  speak  of  that  com- 
promise, and  of  his  own  course  in  relation  to  it ; 
in  the  course  of  which  he  declared  himself  to 
have  been  favorable  to  that  memorable  measure 
at  the  time  it  was  adopted,  but  opposed  to  it 
now,  from  having  experienced  its  ill  effects  in 
encouraging  the  spirit  of  abolitionism : 

"  He  was  glad  that  the  portion  of  the  amend- 
ment which  referred  to  the  Missouri  compromise 
had  been  struck  out.  He  was  not  a  member  of 
Congress  when  that  compromise  was  made,  but 
it  is  due  to  candor  to  state  that  his  impressions 
were  in  its  favor  ;  but  it  is  equally  due  to  it  to 
say  that,  with  his  present  experience  and  knowl- 
edge of  the  spirit  which  then,  for  the  first  time, 
began  to  disclose  itself,  he  had  entirely  changed 
his  opinion.  He  now  believed  that  it  was  a 
dangerous  measure,  and  that  it  has  done  much 
to  rouse  into  action  the  present  spirit.  Had  it 
then  been  met  with  uncompromising  opposition, 
such  as  a  then  distinguished  and  sagacious 


member  from  Virginia  [Mr.  Randolph],  now 
no  more,  opposed  to  it,  abolition  might  have 
been  crushed  for  ever  in  its  birth.  He  then 
thought  of  Mr.  Randolph  as,  he  doubts  not, 
many  think  of  him  now  who  have  not  fully 
looked  into  this  subject,  that  he  was  too  un- 
yielding— too  uncompromising — too  impractica- 
ble ;  but  he  had  been  taught  his  error,  and  took 
pleasure  in  acknowledging  it." 

This  declaration  is  explicit.  It  is  made  in  a 
spirit  of  candor,  and  as  due  to  justice.  It  is  a 
declaration  spontaneously  made,  not  an  admis- 
sion obtained  on  interrogatories.  It  shows 
that  Mr.  Calhoun  was  in  favor  of  the  compro- 
mise at  the  time  it  was  adopted,  and  had  since 
changed  his  opinions — "  entirely  changed  "  them, 
to  use  his  own  words — not  on  constitutional, 
but  expedient  grounds.  He  had  changed  upon 
experience,  and  upon  seeing  the  dangerous  effects 
of  the  measure.  He  had  been  taught  his  error, 
and  took  pleasure  in  acknowledging  it.  He 
blamed  Mr.  Randolph  then  for  having  been  too 
uncompromising;  but  now  thought  him  saga- 
cious; and  believed  that  if  the  measure  had 
met  with  uncompromising  opposition  at  the 
time,  it  would  have  crushed  for  ever  the  spirit 
of  abolitionism.  All  these  are  reasons  of  expe- 
diency, derived  from  after-experience,  and  ex- 
cludes the  idea  of  any  constitutional  objection. 
The  establishment  of  the  Missouri  compromise 
line  was  the  highest  possible  exercise  of  legis- 
lative authority  over  the  subject  of  slavery  in  a 
territory.  It  abolished  it  where  it  legally  ex- 
isted. It  for  ever  forbid  it  where  it  had  legally 
existed  for  one  hundred  years.  Mr.  Randolph 
was  the  great  opponent  of  the  compromise.  He 
gave  its  friends  all  their  trouble.  It  was  then 
he  applied  the  phrase,  so  annoying  and  destruc- 
tive to  its  northern  supporters — "  dough  face,5* 
— a  phrase  which  did  them  more  harm  than 
the  best-reasoned  speech.  All  the  friends  of 
the  compromise  blamed  his  impracticable  op- 
position ;  and  Mr.  Calhoun,  in  joining  in  that 
blame,  placed  himself  in  the  ranks  o£  the  cor- 
dial friends  of  the  measure.  This  abolition 
and  prohibition  extended  over  an  area  large 
enough  to  make  a  dozen  States  ;  and  of  all 
this  Mr.  Calhoun  had  been  in  favor ;  and  now 
had  nothing  but  reasons  of  expediency,  and 
they  ex  post  facto,  against  it.  His  expressed 
belief  now  was,  that  the  measure  was  dangerous 
— he  does  not  say  unconstitutional,  but  danger- 
ous— and  this  corresponds  with  the  terms  of  his 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


137 


resolution  then  submitted;  which  makes  the 
intermeddling  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District 
or  territories,  or  any  act  or  measure  of  Congress 
to  that  effect,  a  "dangerous"  attack  on  the  in- 
stitutions of  the  slaveholding  States.  Certainly 
the  idea  of  the  unconstitutionality  of  such  legis- 
lation had  not  then  entered  his  head.  The  sub- 
stitute resolve  of  Mr.  Clay  differed  from  that 
of  Mr.  Calhoun,  in  changing  the  word  "  inter- 
meddling" to  that  of  "  interference ; "  and  con- 
fining that  word  to  the  conduct  of  citizens,  and 
making  the  abolition  or  attempted  abolition  of 
slavery  in  the  District  an  injury  to  its  own  in- 
habitants as  well  as  to  the  States ;  and  placing 
its  protection  under  the  faith  implied  in  accept- 
ing its  cession  from  Maryland  and  Virginia.  It 
was  in  these  words  : 

"  That  the  interference  by  the  citizens  of  any 
of  the  States,  with  the  view  to  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  this  District,  is  endangering  the  rights 
and  security  of  the  people  of  the  District;  and 
that  any  act  or  measure  of  Congress,  designed 
to  abolish  slavery  in  this  District,  would  be  a 
violation  of  the  faith  implied  in  the  cessions  by 
the  States  of  Virginia  and  Maryland — a  just 
cause  of  alarm  to  the  people  of  the  slaveholding 
States — and  have  a  direct  and  inevitable  ten- 
dency to  disturb  and  endanger  the  Union." 

The  vote  on  the  final  adoption  of  the  resolu- 
tion was : 

"Yeas — Messrs.  Allen,  Bayard,  Benton, 
Black,  Brown,  Buchanan,  Calhoun,  Clay,  of 
Alabama,  Clay,  of  Kentucky,  Thomas  Clayton, 
Crittenden,  Cuthbert,  Fulton,  Grundy,  Hub- 
bard, King,  Lumpkin,  Lyon,  Nicholas,  Niles, 
Noryell,  Franklin  Pierce,  Preston,  Rives,  Roane, 
Robinson,  Sevier,  Smith,  of  Connecticut,  Strange, 
Tallmadge,  Tipton,  Walker,  White,  Williams, 
Wright,  Young. 

"  Nays  —  Messrs.  Davis,  Knight,  McKean, 
Morris,  Prentiss,  Smith,  of  Indiana,  Swift,  Web- 
ster." 

The  second  resolution  of  Mr.  Clay  applied  to 
slavery  in  a  territory  where  it  existed,  and  de- 
precated any  attempt  to  abolish  it  in  such  ter- 
ritory, as  alarming  to  the  slave  States,  and  as 
violation  of  faith  towards  its  inhabitants,  unless 
they  asked  it ;  and  in  derogation  of  its  right  to 
decide  the  question  of  slavery  for  itself  when 
erected  into  a  State.  This  resolution  was  in- 
tended to  cover  the  case  of  Florida,  and  ran 
thus: 

"  Resolved,  That  any  attempt  of  Congress  to 
abolish  slavery  in  any  territory  of  the  United 
States  in  which  it  exists  would  create  serious 


alarm  and  just  apprehension  in  the  States  sus- 
taining that  domestic  institution,  and  would  be 
a  violation  of  good  faith  towards  the  inhabitants 
of  any  such  territory  who  have  been  permitted 
to  settle  with,  and  hold,  slaves  therein  ;  because 
the  people  of  any  such  territory  have  not  asked 
for  the  abolition  of  slavery  therein ;  and  because, 
when  any  such  territory  shall  be  admitted  into 
the  Union  as  a  State,  the  people  thereof  shall 
be  entitled  to  decide  that  question  exclusively 
for  themselves." 

And  the  vote  upon  it  was — 

"Yeas  —  Messrs.  Allen,  Bayard,  Benton, 
Black,  Brown,  Buchanan,  Calhoun,  Clay,  of 
Alabama,  Clay,  of  Kentucky,  Crittenden,  Cuth- 
bert, Fulton,  Grundjr,  Hubbard,  King,  Lump- 
kin, Lyon,  Merrick,  Nicholas,  Niles,  Norvell, 
Franklin  Pierce,  Preston,  Rives,  Roane,  Robin- 
son, Sevier,  Smith,  of  Connecticut,  Strange, 
Tipton,  Walker,  "VS  hite,  Williams,  Wright,  and 
Young. 

"Nays  —  Messrs.  Thomas  Clayton,  Davis, 
Knight,  McKean,  Prentiss,  Robbins,  Smith,  o£ 
Indiana,   Swift,  and  Webster." 

The  few  senators  who  voted  against  both 
resolutions  chiefly  did  so  for  reasons  wholly  un- 
connected with  their  merits;  some  because 
opposed  to  any  declarations  on  th£  subject,  as 
abstract  and  inoperative;  others  because  they 
dissented  from  the  reasons  expressed,  and  pre- 
ferred others :  and  the  senators  from  Delaware 
(a  slave  State)  because  they  had  a  nullification 
odor  about  them,  as  first  introduced.  Mr. 
Calhoun  voted  for  both,  not  in  preference  to  his 
own,  but  as  agreeing  to  them  after  they  had 
been  preferred  by  the  Senate ;  and  so  gave  his 
recorded  assent  to  the  doctrines  they  contain- 
ed. Both  admit  the  constitutional  power  of 
Congress  over  the  existence  of  slavery  both  in 
the  district  and  the  territories,  but  deprecate  its 
abolition  where  it  existed  for  reasons  of  high  ex- 
pediency :  and  in  this  view  it  is  believed  nearly 
the  entire  Senate  concurred ;  and  quite  the  en- 
tire Senate  on  the  constitutional  point — there 
being  no  reference  to  that  point  in  any  part  of 
the  debates.  Mr.  Webster  probably  spoke  the 
sentiments  of  most  of  those  voting  with  him,  as 
well  as  his  own,  when  he  said : 

"  If  the  resolutions  set  forth  that  all  domestic 
institutions,  except  so  far  as  the  constitution 
might  interfere,  and  any  intermeddling  there- 
with by  a  State  or  individual,  was  contrary  to 
the  spirit  of  the  confederacy,  and  was  thereby 
illegal  and  unjust,  he  would  give  them  his  hearty 
and  cheerful  support ;  and  would  do  so  still  if 


138 


THIRTY  TEARS'  VIEW. 


the  senator  from  South  Carolina  would  consent 
to  such  an  amendment ;  but  in  their  present 
form  he  must  give  his  vote  against  them." 

The  general  feeling  of  the  Senate  was  that  of 
entire  repugnance  to  the  whole  movement — that 
of  the  petitions  and  memorials  on  the  one  hand, 
and  Mr.  Calhoun's  resolutions  on  the  other. 
The  former  were  quietly  got  rid  of,  and  in  a  way 
to  rebuke,  as  well  as  to  condemn  their  presenta- 
tion ;  that  is  to  say,  by  motions  (sustained  by  the 
body)  to  lay  them  on  the  table.  The  resolutions 
could  not  so  easily  be  disposed  of,  especially 
as  their  mover  earnestly  demanded  discussion, 
spoke  at  large,  and  often,  himself;  "  and  desired 
to  make  the  question,  on  their  rejection  or  adop- 
tion, a  test  question."  They  were  abstract,  lead- 
ing to  no  result,  made  discussion  where  silence 
was  desirable,  frustrated  the  design  of  the  Sen- 
ate in  refusing  to  discuss  the  abolition  petitions, 
gave  them  an  importance  to  which  they  were 
not  entitled,  promoted  agitation,  embarrassed 
friendly  senators  from  the  North,  placed  some 
in  false  positions ;  and  brought  animadversions 
from  many.     Thus,  Mr.  Buchanan : 

"  I  cannot  believe  that  the  senator  from  South 
Carolina  has  taken  the  best  course  to  attain 
these  results  (quieting  agitation).  This  is  the 
great  centre  of  agitation;  from  this  capital  it 
spreads  over  the  whole  Union.  I  therefore  de- 
precate a  protracted  discussion  of  the  question 
here.  It  can  do  no  good,  but  may  do  much 
harm,  both  in  the  North  and  in  the  South.  The 
senators  from  Delaware,  although  representing 
a  slaveholding  State,  have  voted  against  these 
resolutions  because,  in  their  opinion,  they  can 
detect  in  them  the  poison  of  nullification.  Now, 
I  can  see  no  such  thing  in  them,  and  am  ready 
to  avow  in  the  main  they  contain  nothing  but 
correct  political  principles,  to  which  I  am  de- 
voted. But  what  then?  These  senators  are 
placed  in  a  false  position,  and  are  compelled  to 
vote  against  resolutions  the  object  of  which  they 
heartily  approve.  Again,  my  friend,  the  senator 
from  New  Jersey  (Mr.  Wall),  votes  against 
them  because  they  are  political  abstractions  of 
which  he  thinks  the  Senate  ought  not  to  take 
cognizance,  although  he  is  as  much  opposed  to 
abolition,  and  as  willing  to  maintain  the  consti- 
tutional rights  of  the  South  as  any  senator  upon 
this  floor.  Other  senators  believe  the  right  of 
petition  has  been  endangered;  and  until  that 
has  been  established  they  will  not  vote  for  any 
resolutions  on  the  subject.  Thus  we  stand: 
and  those  of  us  in  the  North  who  must  sustain 
the  brunt  of  the  battle  are  forced  into  false  posi- 
tions. Abolition  thus  acquires  force  by  bring- 
ing to  its  aid  the  right  of  petition,  and  the 
hostility  which  exists  at  the  North  against  the 


doctrines  of  nullification.  It  is  in  vain  to  say 
that  these  principles  are  not  really  involved  in 
the  question.  This  may  be,  and  in  my  opinion 
is,  true  ;  but  why,  by  our  conduct  here,  should 
we  afford  the  abolitionists  such  plausible  pre- 
texts ?  The  fact  is,  and  it  cannot  be  disguised, 
that  those  of  us  in  the  Northern  States  who  have 
determined  to  sustain  the  rights  of  the  slave 
States  at  every  hazard  are  placed  in  a  most  em- 
barrassing situation.  We  are  almost  literally 
between  two  fires.  Whilst  in  front  we  are 
assailed  by  the  abolitionists,  our  own  friends  in 
the  South  are  constantly  driving  us  into  posi- 
tions where  their  enemies  and  our  enemies  may 
gain  important  advantages." 

And  thus  Mr.  Crittenden : 

"  If  the  object  of  these  resolutions  was  to  pro- 
duce peace,  and  allay  excitement,  it  appeared  to 
him  that  they  were  not  very  likely  to  accom- 
plish such  a  purpose.  More  vague  and  general 
abstractions  could  hardly  have  been  brought 
forward,  and  they  were  more  calculated  to  pro- 
duce agitation  and  stir  up  discontent  and  bad 
blood  than  to  do  any  good  whatever.  Such  he 
knew  was  the  general  opinion  of  Southern  men, 
few  of  whom,  however  they  assented  to  the  ab- 
stractions, approved  of  this  method  of  agitating 
the  subject.  The  mover  of  these  resolutions 
relies  mainly  on  two  points  to  carry  the  Senate 
with  him  :  first,  he  reiterates  the  cry  of  danger 
to  the  Union ;  and,  next,  that  if  he  is  not  fol- 
lowed in  this  movement  he  urges  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  the  destruction  of  the  Union.  It 
is  possible  the  gentleman  may  be  mistaken.  It 
possibly  might  not  be  exactly  true  that,  to  save 
the  Union,  it  was  necessary  to  follow  him.  On 
the  contrary,  some  were  of  opinion,  and  he  for 
one  was  much  inclined  to  be  of  the  same  view, 
that  to  follow  the  distinguished  mover  of  these 
resolutions — to  pursue  the  course  of  irritation, 
agitation,  and  intimidation  which  he  chalked 
out — would  be  the  very  best  and  surest  method 
that  could  be  chalked  out  to  destroy  this  great 
and  happy  Union." 

And  thus  Mr.  Clay : 

"  The  series  of  resolutions  under  consideration 
has  been  introduced  by  the  senator  from  South 
Carolina,  after  he  and  other  senators  from  the 
South  had  deprecated  discussion  on  the  delicate 
subject  to  which  they  relate.  They  have  occa- 
sioned much  discussion,  in  which  hitherto  I 
have  not  participated.  I  hope  that  the  tenden- 
cy of  the  resolutions  may  be  to  allay  the  ex- 
citement which  unhappily  prevails  in  respect  to 
the  abolition  of  slavery;  but  I  confess  that, 
taken  altogether,  and  in  connection  with  other 
circumstances,  and  especially  considering  the 
manner  in  which  their  author  has  pressed  them 
on  the  Senate,  I  fear  that  they  will  have  the 
opposite  effect ;  and  particularly  at  the  North , 
that  they  may  increase  and  exasperate  instead 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


139 


of  diminishing  and  assuaging  the  existing 
tion." 

And  thus  Mr.  Preston,  of  South  Carolina : 

"His  objections  to  the  introduction  of  the 
resolutions  were  that  they  allowed  ground  for 
discussion ;  and  that  the  subject  ought  never  to 
be  allowed  to  enter  the  halls  of  the  legislative 
assembly,  was  always  to  be  taken  for  granted 
by  the  South ;  and  what  would  abstract  propo- 
sitions of  this  nature  effect  ?  " 

And  thus  Mr.  Strange,  of  North  Carolina : 

"  What  did  they  set  forth  but  abstract  prin- 
ciples, to  which  the  South  had  again  and  again 
certified  ?  What  bulwark  of  defence  was  need- 
ed stronger  than  the  constitution  itself?  Every 
movement  on  the  part  of  the  South  only  gave 
additional  strength  to  her  opponents.  The 
wisest,  nay,  the  only  safe,  course  was  to  remain 
quiet,  though  prepared  at  the  same  time  to  re- 
sist all  aggression.  Questions  like  this  only 
tended  to  excite  angry  feelings.  The  senator 
from  South  Carolina  (Mr.  Calhoun)  charged 
him  with  ' preaching''  to  one  side.  Perhaps 
he  had  sermonized  too  long  for  the  patience  of 
the  Senate ;  but  then  he  had  preached  to  all 
sides.  It  was  the  agitation  of  the  question  in 
any  form,  or  shape,  that  rendered  it  dangerous. 
Agitating  this  question  in  any  shape  was  ruinous 
to  the  South." 

And  thus  Mr.  Richard  H.  Bayard,  of  Dela- 
ware: 

"  Though  he  denounced  the  spirit  of  abolition 
as  dangerous  and  wicked  in  the  extreme,  yet  he 
did  not  feel  himself  authorized  to  vote  for  the 
resolutions.  If  the  doctrines  contained  in  them 
were  correct,  then  nullification  was  correct ; 
and  if  passed  might  hereafter  be  appealed  to  as 
a  precedent  in  favor  of  that  doctrine ;  though  he 
acquitted  the  senator  [Mr.  Calhoun]  of  having 
the  most  remote  intention  of  smuggling  in  any 
thing  in  relation  to  that  doctrine  under  cover 
of  these  resolutions." 

Mr.  Calhoun,  annoyed  by  so  much  condem- 
nation of  his  course,  and  especially  from  those 
as  determined  as  himself  to  protect  the  slave 
institution  where  it  legally  existed,  spoke  often 
and  warmly ;  and  justified  his  course  from  the 
greatness  of  the  danger,  and  the  fatal  conse- 
quences to  the  Union  if  it  was  not  arrested. 

"I  fear  (said  Mr.  C.)  that  the  Senate  has  not 
elevated  its  view  sufficiently  to  comprehend  the 
extent  and  magnitude  of  the  existing  danger. 
It  was  perhaps  his  misfortune  to  look  too  much 
to  the  future,  and  to  move  against  dangers  at 
too  great  a  distance,  which  had  involved  him  in 
many  difficulties  and  exposed  him  often  to  the 
imputation  of  unworthy  motives.    Thus  he  had 


agita- 


long  foreseen  the  immense  surplus  revenue 
which  a  false  system  of  legislation  must  pour 
into  the  Treasury,  and  the  fatal  consequences 
to  the  morals  and  institutions  of  the  country 
which  must  follow  When  nothing  else  could 
arrest  it  he  threw  himself,  with  his  State,  into 
the  breach,  to  arrest  dangers  which  could  not 
otherwise  be  arrested ;  whether  wisely  or  not 
he  left  posterity  to  judge.  He  now  saw  with 
equal  clearness — as  clear  as  the  noonday  sun 
— the  fatal  consequences  which  must  follow 
if  the  present  disease  be  not  timely  arrested. 
He  would  repeat  again  what  he  had  so  often 
said  on  this  floor.  This  was  the  only  ques- 
tion of  sufficient  magnitude  and  potency  to 
divide  this  Union;  and  divide  it  it  would,  or 
drench' the  country  in  blood,  if  not  arrested. 
He  knew  how  much  the  sentiment  he  had  ut- 
tered would  be  misconstrued  and  misrepre- 
sented. There  were  those  who  saw  no  dan- 
ger to  the  Union  in  the  violation  of  all  its 
fundamental  principles,  but  who  were  full  of 
apprehension  when  danger  was  foretold  or  re- 
sisted, and  who  held  not  the  authors  of  the 
danger,  but  those  who  forewarned  or  opposed 
it,  responsible  for  consequences." 

"But  the  cry  of  disunion  by  the  weak  or 
designing  had  no  terror  for  him.  If  his  attach- 
ment to  the  Union  was  less,  he  might  tamper 
with  the  deep  disease  which  now  afflicts  the 
body  politic,  and  keep  silent  till  the  patient  was 
ready  to  sink  under  its  mortal  blows.  It  is  a 
cheap,  and  he  must  say  but  too  certain  a  mode 
of  acquiring  the  character  of  devoted  attachment 
to  the  Union.  But,  seeing  the  danger  as  he 
did,  he  would  be  a  traitor  to  the  Union  and 
those  he  represented  to  keep  silence.  The  as- 
saults daily  made  on  the  institutions  of  nearly 
one  half  of  the  States  of  this  Union  by  the 
other — institutions  interwoven  from  the  begin- 
ning with  their  political  and  social  existence, 
and  which  cannot  be  other  than  that  without 
their  inevitable  destruction — will  and  must,  if 
continued,  make  two  people  of  one  by  destroy- 
ing every  sympathy  between  the  two  great  sec- 
tions— obliterating  from  their  hearts  the  recol- 
lection of  their  common  danger  and  glory — and 
implanting  in  their  place  a  mutual  hatred,  more 
deadly  than  ever  existed  between  two  neighbor- 
ing people  since  the  commencement  of  the  hu- 
man race.  He  feared  not  the  circulation  of  the 
thousands  of  incendiary  and  slanderous  publi- 
cations which  were  daily  issued  from  an  organ- 
ized and  powerful  press  among  those  intended 
to  be  vilified.  They  cannot  penetrate  our  sec- 
tion ;  that  was  not  the  danger  ;  it  lay  in  a  dif- 
ferent direction.  Their  circulation  in  the  non- 
slaveholding  States  was  what  was  to  be  dread- 
ed. It  was  infusing  a  deadly  poison  into  the 
minds  of  the  rising  generation,  implanting  in 
them  feelings  of  hatred,  the  most  deadly  ha- 
tred, instead  of  affection  and  love,  for  one  half 
of  this  Union,  to  be  returned,  on  their  part, 
with  equal  detestation.     The  fatal,  the  imniu- 


140 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


table  consequences,  if  not  arrested,  and  that 
without  delay,  were  such  as  he  had  presented. 
The  first  and  desirable  object  is  to  arrest  it 
in  the  non-slaveholding  States ;  to  meet  the 
disease  where  it  originated  and  where  it  exists  ; 
and  the  first  step  to  this  is  to  find  some  com- 
mon constitutional  ground  on  which  a  rally, 
with  that  object,  can  be  made.  These  resolu- 
tions present  the  ground,  and  the  only  one,  on 
which  it  can  be  made.  The  only  remedy  is  in 
the  State  rights  doctrines  ;  and  if  those  who 
profess  them  in  slaveholding  States  do  not  rally 
on  them  as  their  political  creed,  and  organize  as 
a  party  against  the  fanatics  in  order  to  put  them 
down,  the  South  and  West  will  be  compelled  to 
take  the  remedy  into  their  own  hands.  They 
will  then  stand  justified  in  the  sight  of  God  and 
man;  and  what  in  that  event  will  follow  no 
mortal  can  anticipate.  Mr.  President  (said  Mr. 
C),  we  are  reposing  on  a  volcano.  The  Senate 
seems  entirely  ignorant  of  the  state  of  feeling 
in  the  South.  The  mail  has  just  brought  us  in- 
telligence of  a  most  important  step  taken  by 
one  of  the  Southern  States  in  connection  with 
this  subject,  which  will  give  some  conception 
of  the  tone  of  feeling  which  begins  to  prevail  in 
that  quarter." 


It  was  such  speaking  as  this  that  induced 
some  votes  against  the  resolutions.  All  the 
senators  were  dissatisfied  at  the  constant  exhi- 
bition of  the  same  remedy  (disunion),  for  all 
the  diseases  of  the  body  politic ;  but  the  greater 
part  deemed  it  right,  if  they  voted  at  all,  to  vote 
their  real  sentiments.  Many  were  disposed  to 
lay  the  resolutions  on  the  table,  as  the  disturb- 
ing petitions  had  been  ;  but  it  was  concluded 
that  policy  made  it  preferable  to  vote  upon 
them. 

Mr.  Benton  did  not  speak  in  this  debate. 
He  believed,  as  others  did,  that  discussion  was 
injurious ;  that  it  was  the  way  to  keep  up  and 
extend  agitation,  and  the  thing  above  all  others 
which  the  abolitionists  desired.  Discussion 
upon  the  floor  of  the  American  Senate  was  to 
them  the  concession  of  an  immense  advantage — 
the  concession  of  an  elevated  and  commanding 
theatre  for  the  display  and  dissemination  of 
their  doctrines.  It  gave  them  the  point  to 
stand  upon  from  which  they  could  reach  every 
part  of  the  Union ;  and  it  gave  them  the  Reg- 
ister of  the  Debates,  instead  of  their  local  pa- 
pers, for  their  organ  of  communication.  Mr. 
Calhoun  was  a  fortunate  customer  for  them. 

The  Senate,  in  laying  all  their  petitions  and 
the  memorial  of  Vermont  on  the  table  with- 
out debate,  signified  its  desire  to  yield  them  no 


such  advantage.  The  introduction  of  Mr.  Cal- 
houn's resolution  frustrated  that  desire,  and  in- 
duced many  to  do  what  they  condemned.  Mb. 
Benton  took  his  own  sense  of  the  proper  course, 
in  abstaining  from  debate,  and  confining  the  ex- 
pression of  his  opinions  to  the  delivery  of  votes : 
and  in  that  he  conformed  to  the  sense  of  the 
Senate,  and  the  action  of  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives. Many  hundreds  of  these  petitions  were 
presented  in  the  House,  and  quietly  laid  upon 
the  table  (after  a  stormy  scene,  and  the  adoption 
of  a  new  rule),  under  motions  to  that  effect ;  and 
this  would  have  been  the  case  in  the  Senate,  had 
it  not  been  for  the  resolutions,  the  introduction 
of  which  was  so  generally  deprecated. 

The  part  of  this  debate  which  excited  no  at- 
tention at  the  time,  but  has  since  acquired  a 
momentous  importance,  is  that  part  in  which 
Mr.  Calhoun  declared  his  favorable  disposition 
to  the  Missouri  compromise,  and  his  condemna- 
tion of  Mr.  Randolph  (its  chief  opponent),  for 
opposing  it ;  and  his  change  of  opinion  since, 
not  for  unconstitutionality,  but  because  he  be- 
lieved it  to  have  become  dangerous  in  encour- 
aging the  spirit  of  abolitionism.  This  compro- 
mise was  the  highest,  the  most  solemn,  the  most 
momentous,  the  most  emphatic  assertion  of 
Congressional  power  over  slavery  in  a  territory 
which  had  ever  been  made,  or  could  be  con- 
ceived. It  not  only  abolished  slavery  where  it 
legally  existed ;  but  for  ever  prohibited  it  where 
it  had  long  existed,  and  that  over  an  extent  of 
territory  larger  than  the  area  of  all  the  Atlan- 
tic slave  States  put  together :  and  thus  yielding 
to  the  free  States  the  absolute  predominance  in 
the  Union. 

Mr.  Calhoun  was  for  that  resolution  in  1820, 
— blamed  those  who  opposed  it ;  and  could  see 
no  objection  to  it  in  1838  but  the  encourage- 
ment it  gave  to  the  spirit  of  abolitionism.  Nine 
years  afterwards  (session  of  1846-'47)  he  sub- 
mitted other  resolutions  (five  in  number)  on 
the  same  power  of  Congress  over  slavery  legis- 
lation in  the  territories  ;  in  which  he  denied  the 
power,  and  asserted  that  any  such  legislation 
to  the  prejudice  of  the  slaveholding  emigrants 
from  the  States,  in  preventing  them  from  re- 
moving, with  their  slave  property,  to  such  ter- 
ritory, "  would  be  a  violation  of  the  constitu- 
tion and  the  rights  of  the  States  from  which 
such  citizens  emigrated,  and  a  derogation  of 
that  perfect  equality  which  belongs  to  them  as 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


141 


members  of  this  Union ;  and  would  tend  di- 
rectly to  subvert  the  Union  itself." 

These  resolutions,  so  new  and  startling  in 
their  doctrines — so  contrary  to  their  anteces- 
sors, and  to  the  whole  course  of  the  government 
— were  denounced  by  the  writer  of  this  View 
the  instant  they  were  read  in  the  Senate  ;  and, 
being  much  discountenanced  by  other  senators, 
they  were  never  pressed  to  a  vote  in  that  body ; 
but  were  afterwards  adopted  by  some  of  the 
slave  State  legislatures.  One  year  afterwards, 
in  a  debate  on  the  Oregon  territorial  bill,  and 
an  the  section  which  proposed  to  declare  the 
anti-slavery  clause  of  the  ordinance  of  1787  to 
be  in  force  in  that  territory.  Mr.  Calhoun  de- 
nied the  power  of  Congress  to  make  any  such 
declaration,  or  in  any  way  to  legislate  upon 
slavery  in  a  territory.  He  delivered  a  most 
elaborate  and  thoroughly  considered  speech  on 
the  subject,  in  the  course  of  which  he  laid  down 
three  propositions : 

1.  That  Congress  had  no  power  to  legislate 
upon  slavery  in  a  territory,  so  as  to  prevent 
the  citizens  of  slaveholding  States  from  remov- 
ing into  it  with  their  slave  property.  2.  That 
Congress  had  no  power  to  delegate  such  au- 
thority to  a  territory.  3.  That  the  territory 
had  no  such  power  in  itself  (thus  leaving  the 
subject  of  slavery  in  a  territory  without  any 
legislative  power  over  it  at  all).  He  deduced 
these  dogmas  from  a  new  insight  into  the  con- 
stitution, which,  according  to  this  fresh  intro- 
spection, recognized  slavery  as  a  national  insti- 
tution, and  carried  that  part  of  itself  (by  its 
own  vigor)  into  all  the  territories ;  and  pro- 
tected slavery  there :  ergo,  neither  Congress, 
nor  its  deputed  territorial  legislature,  nor  the 
people  of  the  territory  during  their  territorial 
condition,  could  any  way  touch  the  subject — 
either  to  affirm,  or  disaffirm  the  institution. 
He  endeavored  to  obtain  from  Congress  a 
crutch  to  aid  these  lame  doctrines  in  limping 
into  the  territories  by  getting  the  constitution 
voted  into  them,  as  part  of  their  organic  law ; 
and,  failing  in  that  attempt  (repeatedly  made), 
he  took  position  on  the  ground  that  the  consti- 
tution went  into  these  possessions  of  itself,  so 
far  as  slavery  was  concerned,  it  being  a  na- 
tional institution. 

These  three  propositions  being  in  flagrant  con- 
flict with  the  power  exercised  by  Congress  in  the 
establishment  of  the  Missouri  compromise  line 


(which  had  become  a  tradition  as  a  Southern 
measure,  supported  by  Southern  members  of 
Congress,  and  sanctioned  by  the  cabinet  of  Mr. 
Monroe,  of  which  Mr.  Calhoun  was  a  member), 
the  fact  of  that  compromise  and  his  concur- 
rence in  it  was  immediately  used  against  him 
by  Senator  Dix,  of  New  York,  to  invalidate  his 
present  opinions. 

Unfortunately  he  had  forgotten  this  cabinet 
consultation,  and  his  own  concurrence  in  its 
decision — believing  fully  that  no  such  thing 
had  occurred,  and  adhering  firmly  to  the  new 
dogma  of  total  denial  of  all  constitutional  power 
in  Congress  to  legislate  upon  slavery  in  a  terri- 
tory. This  brought  up  recollections  to  sustain 
the  tradition  which  told  of  the  consultation — to 
show  that  it  took  place — that  its  voice  was 
unanimous  in  favor  of  the  compromise ;  and, 
consequently,  that  Mr.  Calhoun  himself  was  in 
favor  of  it.     Old  writings  were  produced  : 

First,  a  fac  simile  copy  of  an  original  paper 
in  Mr.  Monroe's  handwriting,  found  among  his 
manuscripts,  dated  March  4,  1820  (two  days 
before  the  approval  of  the  Missouri  compromise 
act),  and  indorsed  :  "  Interrogatories — Missouri 
— to  the  Heads  of  Departments  and  the  Attor- 
ney-General ; "  and  containing  within  two  ques- 
tions :  "1.  Has  Congress  a  right,  under  the 
powers  vested  in  it  by  the  constitution,  to 
make  a  regulation  prohibiting  slavery  in  a  ter- 
ritory ?  2.  Is  the  8  th  section  of  the  act  which 
passed  both  Houses  of  Congress  on  the  3d  in- 
stant for  the  admission  of  Missouri  into  the 
Union,  consistent  with  the  constitution  ? " 
Secondly,  the  draft  of  an  original  letter  in 
Mr.  Monroe's  handwriting,  but  without  signa- 
ture, date,  or  address,  but  believed  to  have  been 
addressed  to  General  Jackson,  in  which  he 
says  :  "  The  question  which  lately  agitated  Con- 
gress and  the  public  has  been  settled,  as  you 
have  seen,  by  the  passage  of  an  act  for  the  ad- 
mission of  Missouri  as  a  State,  unrestricted -; 
and  Arkansas,  also,  when  it  reaches  maturity ; 
and  the  establishment  of  the  parallel  of  36 
degrees  30  minutes  as  a  line  north  of  which 
slavery  is  prohibited,  and  permitted  south  of  it. 
I  took  the  opinion,  in  writing,  of  the  adminis- 
tration as  to  the  constitutionality  of  restraining 
territories,  which  was  explicit  in  favor  of  it; 
and,  as  it  was,  that  the  8th  section  of  the  act 
was  applicable  to  territories  only,  and  not  to 
States  when  they  should  be  admitted  into  the 


142 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW 


Union."  Thirdly \  an  extract  from  the  diary  of 
Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,  under  date  of  the  3d  of 
March,  1820,  stating  that  the  President  on  that 
day  assembled  his  cabinet  to  ask  their  opinions 
an  the  two  questions  mentioned — which  the 
whole  cabinet  immediately  answered  unani- 
mously, and  affirmatively ;  that  on  the  5  th  he 
sent  the  questions  in  writing  to  the  members 
of  his  cabinet,  to  receive  their  written  answers, 
to  be  filed  in  the  department  of  State  ;  and  that 
on  the  6th  he  took  his  own  answer  to  the  Pres- 
ident, to  be  filed  with  the  rest — all  agreeing  in 
the  affirmative,  and  only  differing  some  in  as- 
signing, others  not  assigning  reasons  for  his 
opinion.  The  diary  states  that  the  President 
signed  his  approval  of  the  Missouri  act  on  the 
6th  (which  the  act  shows  he  did),  and  request- 
ed Mr.  Adams  to  have  all  the  opinions  filed  in 
the  department  of  State. 

Upon  this  evidence  it  would  have  rested 
without  question  that  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet 
had  been  consulted  on  the  constitutionality  of 
the  Missouri  compromise  line,  and  that  all  con- 
curred in  it,  had  it  not  been  for  the  denial  of 
Mr.  Calhoun  in  the  debate  on  the  Oregon  ter- 
ritorial bill.  His  denial  brought  out  this  evi- 
dence ;  and,  notwithstanding  its  production  and 
conclusiveness,  he  adhered  tenaciously  to  his 
disbelief  of  the  whole  occurrence  ;  and  especial- 
ly the  whole  of  his  own  imputed  share  in  it. 
Two  circumstances,  specious  in  themselves,  fa- 
vored this  denial :  first,  that  no  such  papers  as 
those  described  by  Mr.  Adams  were  to  be  found 
in  the  department  of  State ;  secondly ',  that  in 
the  original  draft  of  Mr.  Monroe's  letter  it  had 
first  been  written  that  the  affirmative  answers 
of  his  cabinet  to  his  two  interrogatories  were 
"  unanimous,"  which  word  had  been  crossed 
out  and  "  explicit "  substituted. 

With  some  these  two  circumstances  weighed 
nothing  against  the  testimony  of  two  witnesses, 
and  the  current  corroborating  incidents  of  tradi- 
tion. In  the  lapse  of  twenty-seven  years,  and 
in  the  changes  to  which  our  cabinet  officers  and 
the  clerks  of  departments  are  subjected,  it  was 
easy  to  believe  that  the  papers  had  been  mislaid 
or  lost — far  easier  than  to  believe  that  Mr. 
Adams  could  have  been  mistaken  in  the  entry 
made  in  his  diary  at  the  time.  And  as  to  the 
substitution  of  "explicit"  for  "unanimous," 
that  was  known  to  be  necessary  in  order  to 
avoid  the  violation  of  the  rule  which  forbid  the 


disclosure  of  individual  opinions  in  the  cabinet 
consultations.  "With  others,  and  especially  with 
the  political  friends  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  they  were 
received  as  full  confirmation  of  his  denial,  and 
left  them  at  liberty  to  accept  his  present  opin- 
ions as  those  of  his  whole  life,  uninvalidated  by 
previous  personal  discrepancy,  and  uncounter- 
acted  by  the  weight  of  a  cabinet  decision  under 
Mr.  Monroe:  and  accordingly  the  new-born 
dogma  of  no  power  in  Congress  to  legislate 
upon  the  existence  of  slavery  in  the  territories 
became  an  article  of  political  faith,  incorporated 
in  the  creed,  and  that  for  action,  of  a  large  poli- 
tical party.  What  is  now  brought  to  light  of 
the  proceedings  in  the  Senate  in  '37-38  shows 
this  to  have  been  a  mistake — that  Mr.  Calhoun 
admitted  the  power  in  1820,  when  he  favored 
the  compromise  and  blamed  Mr.  Randolph  for 
opposing  it ;  that  he  admitted  it  again  in  1838, 
when  he  submitted  his  own  resolutions,  and 
voted  for  those  of  Mr.  Clay.  It  so  happened  that 
no  one  recollected  these  proceedings  of  '37-'3S 
at  the  time  of  the  Oregon  debate  of  '47-'48<  The 
writer  of  this  View,  though  possessing  a  me- 
mory credited  as  tenacious,  did  not  recollect 
them,  nor  remember  them  at  all,  until  found 
among  the  materials  collected  for  this  his- 
tory— a  circumstance  which  he  attributes  to 
his  repugnance  to  the  whole  debate,  and  tak- 
ing no  part  in  the  proceedings  except  to 
vote. 

The  cabinet  consultation  of  1820  was  not 
mentioned  by  Mr.  Calhoun  in  his  avowal  of 
1838,  nor  is  it  necessary  to  the  object  of  this 
View  to  pursue  his  connection  with  that  private 
executive  counselling.  The  only  material  in- 
quiry is  as  to  his  approval  of  the  Missouri  com- 
promise at  the  time  it  was  adopted ;  and  that  is 
fully  established  by  himself. 

It  would  be  a  labor  unworthy  of  history  to 
look  up  the  conduct  of  any  public  man,  and 
trace  him  through  shifting  scenes,  with  a  mere 
view  to  personal  effect — with  a  mere  view  to 
personal  disparagement,  by  showing  him  contra- 
dictory and  inconsistent  at  some  period  of  his 
course.  Such  a  labor  would  be  idle,  unprofit- 
able, and  derogatory ;  but,  when  a  change  takes 
place  in  a  publia  man's  opinions  which  leads  to 
a  change  of  conduct,  and  into  a  new  line  of 
action  disastrous  to  the  country,  it  becomes  the 
duty  of  history  to  note  the  fact,  and  to  expose 
the  contradiction — not  for  personal  disparage- 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


143 


ment — but  to  counteract  the  force  of  the  new 
and  dangerous  opinion. 

In  this  sense  it  becomes  an  obligatory  task  to 
show  the  change,  or  rather  changes,  in  Mr.  Cal- 
houn's opinions  on  the  constitutional  power  of 
Congress  over  the  existence  of  slavery  in  the 
national  territories;  and  these  changes  have 
been  great — too  great  to  admit  of  followers  if 
they  had  been  known.  First,  fully  admitting 
the  power,  and  justifying  its  exercise  in  the 
largest  and  highest  possible  case.  Next,  ad- 
mitting the  power,  but  deprecating  its  exercise 
in  certain  limited,  specified,  qualified  cases. 
Then,  denying  it  in  a  limited  and  specified  case. 
Finally,  denying  the  power  any  where,  and 
every  where,  either  in  Congress,  or  in  the  terri- 
torial legislature  as  its  delegate,  or  in  the  people 
as  sovereign.  The  last  of  these  mutations,  or 
rather  the  one  before  the  last  (for  there  are  but 
few  who  can  go  the  whole  length  of  the  three 
propositions  in  the  Oregon  speech),  has  been 
adopted  by  a  large  political  party  and  acted 
upon ;  and  with  deplorable  effect  to  the  coun- 
try. Holding  the  Missouri  compromise  to  have 
been  unconstitutional,  they  have  abrogated  it 
as  a  nullity ;  and  in  so  doing  have  done  more  to 
disturb  the  harmony  of  this  Union,  to  unsettle 
its  foundations,  to  shake  its  stability,  and  to 
prapare  the  two  halves  of  the  Union  for  part- 
ing, than  any  act,  or  all  acts  put  together,  since 
the  commencement  of  the  federal  government. 
This  lamentable  act  could  not  have  been  done, 
— could  not  have  found  a  party  to  do  it. — if  Mr. 
Calhoun  had  not  changed  his  opinion  on  the 
constitutionality  of  the  Missouri  compromise 
line;  or  if  he  could  have  recollected  in  1848 
that  he  approved  that  line  in  1820 ;  and  fur- 
ther remembered,  that  he  saw  nothing  uncon- 
stitutional in  it  as  late  as  1838.  The  change 
being  now  shown,  and  the  imperfection  of  his 
memory  made  manifest  by  his  own  testimony,  it 
becomes  certain  that  the  new  doctrine  was  an 
after-thought,  disowned  by  its  antecedents— a 
figment  of  the  brain  lately  hatched— and  which 
its  author  would  have  been  estopped  from  pro- 
mulgating if  these  antecedents  had  been  recol- 
lected. History  now  pleads  them  as  an  estoppel 
against  his  followers. 

Mr.  Monroe,  in  his  letter  to  General  Jackson, 
immediately  after  the  establishment  of  the  Mis- 
souri compromise,  said  that  that  compromise 
settled  the  slavery  agitation  which  threatened 


to  break  up  the  Union.  Thirt}^-four  years  of 
quiet  and  harmony  under  that  settlement  bear 
witness  to  the  truth  of  these  words,  spoken  in 
the  fulness  of  patriotic  gratitude  at  seeing  his 
country  escape  from  a  great  danger.  The  year 
1854  has  seen  the  abrogation  of  that  compro- 
mise ;  and  with  its  abrogation  the  revival  of  the 
agitation,  and  with  a  force  and  fury  never  known 
before :  and  now  may  be  seen  in  fact  what  was 
hypothetically  foreseen  by  Mr.  Calhoun  in  1838, 
when,  as  the  fruit  of  this  agitation,  he  saw  the 
destruction  of  all  sympathy  between  the  two 
sections  of  the  Union — obliteration  from  the  me- 
mory of  all  proud  recollections  of  former  com- 
mon danger  and  glory — hatred  in  the  hearts  of 
the  North  and  the  South,  more  deadly  than 
ever  existed  between  two  neighboring  nations. 
May  we  not  have  to  witness  the  remainder  of 
his  prophetic  vision — "Two  people  made  of 
one  ! " 

P.  S. — After  this  chapter  had  been  written, 
the  author  received  authentic  information  that, 
during  the  time  that  John  M.  Clayton,  Esq.  of 
Delaware,  was  Secretary  of  State  under  Presi- 
dent Taylor  (1849-50),  evidence  had  been 
found  in  the  Department  of  State,  of  the  fact, 
that  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Calhoun  and  of  the  rest 
of  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet,  had  been  filed  there. 
In  consequence  a  note  of  inquiry  was  addressed 
to  Mr.  Clayton,  who  answered  (under  date  of 
July  19th,  1855)  as  follows  : 

"  In  reply  to  your  inquiry  I  have  to  state  that 
I  have  no  recollection  of  having  ever  met  with 
Mr.  Calhoun's  answer  to  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet 
queries,  as  to  the  constitutionality  of  the  Mis- 
souri compromise.  It  had  not  been  found  while 
I  was  in  the  department  of  state,  as  I  was  then 
informed :  but  the  archives  of  the  department 
disclose  the  fact,  that  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  other 
members  of  the  cabinet,  did  answer  Mr.  Mon- 
roe's questions.  It  appears  by  an  index  that 
these  answers  were  filed  among  the  archives  of 
that  department.  I  was  told  they  had  been 
abstracted  from  the  records,  and  could  not  be 
found ;  but  I  did  not  make  a  search  for  them 
myself.  I  have  never  doubted  that  Mr.  Calhoun 
at  least  acquiesced  in  the  decision  of  the  cabinet 
of  that  day.  Since  I  left  the  Department  of 
State  I  have  heard  it  rumored  that  Mr.  Cal- 
houn's answer  to  Mr.  Monroe's  queries  had 
been  found ;  but  I  know  not  upon  what  au- 
thority the  statement  was  made." 


144 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER  XXXIY. 

DEATH  OF  COMMODOEE  EODGEES,  AND  NOTICE 
OF  HI3  LIFE  AND  CHAKACTEE. 

My  idea  of  the  perfect  naval  commander  had 
been  formed  from  history,  and  from  the  study 
of  such  characters  as  the  Yon  Tromps  and  De 
Ruyters  of  Holland,  the  Blakes  of  England,  and 
the  De  Tourvilles  of  France — men  modest  and 
virtuous,  frank  and  sincere,  brave  and  patriotic, 
gentle  in  peace,  terrible  in  war ;  formed  for  high 
command  by  nature  ;  and  raising  themselves  to 
their  proper  sphere  by  their  own  exertions  from 
low  beginnings.  When  I  first  saw  Commodore 
Rodgers,  which  was  after  I  had  reached  sena- 
torial age  and  station,  he  recalled  to  me  the  idea 
of  those  model  admirals ;  and  subsequent  ac- 
quaintance confirmed  the  impression  then  made. 
He  was  to  me  the  complete  impersonation  of 
my  idea  of  the  perfect  naval  commander — per- 
son, mind,  and  manners  ;  with  the  qualities  for 
command  grafted  on  the  groundwork  of  a  good 
citizen  and  good  father  of  a  family ;  and  all 
lodged  in  a  frame  to  bespeak  the  seaman  and 
the  officer. 

His  very  figure  and  face  were  those  of  the 
naval  hero — such  as  we  conceive  from  naval 
songs  and  ballads  ;  and,  from  the  course  of  life 
which  the  sea  officer  leads — exposed  to  the 
double  peril  of  waves  and  war,  and  contending 
with  the  storms  of  the  elements  as  well  as  with 
the  storm  of  battle.  We  associate  the  idea  of 
bodily  power  with  such  a  life ;  and  when  we 
find  them  united — the  heroic  qualities  in  a  frame 
of  powerful  muscular  development — we  expe- 
rience a  gratified  feeling  of  completeness,  which 
fulfils  a  natural  expectation,  and  leaves  nothing 
to  be  desired.  And  when  the  same  great  quali- 
ties are  found,  as  they  often  are,  in  the  man  of 
slight  and  slender  frame,  it  requires  some  effort 
of  reason  to  conquer  a  feeling  of  surprise  at  a 
combination  which  is  a  contrast,  and  which 
presents  so  much  power  in  a  frame  so  little 
promising  it ;  and  hence  all  poets  and  orators, 
all  painters  and  sculptors,  all  the  dealers  in  im- 
aginary perfections,  give  a  corresponding  figure 
of  strength  and  force  to  the  heroes  they  create. 

Commodore  Rodgers  needed  no  help  from  the 


creative  imagination  to  endow  him  with  the  form 
which  naval  heroism  might  require.  His  person 
was  of  the  middle  height,  stout,  square,  solid, 
compact ;  well-proportioned ;  and  combining  in 
the  perfect  degree  the  idea  of  strength  and  en- 
durance with  the  reality  of  manly  comeliness — 
the  statue  of  Mars,  in  the  rough  state,  before  the 
conscious  chisel  had  lent  the  last  polish.  His 
face,  stern  in  the  outline,  was  relieved  by  a 
gentle  and  benign  expression — grave  with  the 
overshadowing  of  an  ample  and  capacious  fore- 
head and  eyebrows.  C ourage  need  not  be  named 
among  the  qualities  of  Americans  ;  the  question 
would  be  to  find  one  without  it.  His  skill,  en- 
terprise, promptitude  and  talent  for  command, 
were  shown  in  the  war  of  1812  with  Great 
Britain;  in  the  quasi  war  of  1799  with  the 
French  Republic — quasi  only  as  it  concerned 
political  relations,  real  as  it  concerned  desperate 
and  brilliant  combats  at  sea ;  and  in  the  Medi- 
terranean wars  with  the  Barbary  States,  when 
those  States  were  formidable  in  that  sea  and 
held  Europe  under  tribute ;  and  which  tribute 
from  the  United  States  was  relinquished  by 
Tripoli  and  Tunis  at  the  end  of  the  war  with 
these  States — Commodore  Rodgers  command- 
ing at  the  time  as  successor  to  Barron  and 
Preble.  It  was  at  the  end  of  this  war,  1804,  so 
valiantly  conducted  and  so  triumphantly  con- 
cluded, that  the  reigning  Pope,  Pius  the  Seventh, 
publicly  declared  that  America  had  done  more 
for  Christendom  against  the  Barbary  States, 
than  all  the  powers  of  Europe  combined. 

He  was  first  lieutenant  on  the  Constellation 
when  that  frigate,  under  Truxton,  vanquished 
and  captured  the  French  frigate  Insurgent; 
and  great  as  his  merit  was  in  the  action,  where 
he  showed  himself  to  be  the  proper  second  to  an 
able  commander,  it  was  greater  in  what  took 
place  after  it ;  and  in  which  steadiness,  firmness, 
humanity,  vigilance,  endurance,  and  seamanship, 
were  carried  to  their  highest  pitch ;  and  in  all 
which  his  honors  were  shared  by  the  then  strip- 
ling midshipman,  afterwards  the  brilliant  Com- 
modore Porter. 

The  Insurgent  having  struck,  and  part  of  her 
crew  been  transferred  to  the  Constellation, 
Lieut.  Rodgers  and  Midshipman  Porter  were 
on  board  the  prize,  superintending  the  trans- 
fer, when  a  tempest  arose — the  ships  parted — 
and  dark  night  came  on.  There  were  still  one 
hundred  and  seventy-three  French  prisoners  on 


ANNO  1838.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


145 


board.  The  two  young  officers  had  but  eleven 
men — thirteen  in  all — to  guard  thirteen  times 
their  number ;  and  work  a  crippled  frigate  at 
the  same  time,  and  get  her  into  port.  And 
nobly  did  they  do  it.  For  three  days  and  nights 
did  these  thirteen  (though  fresh  from  a  bloody 
conflict  which  strained  every  faculty  and  brought 
demands  for  rest),  without  sleep  or  repose,  arm- 
ed to  the  teeth,  watching  with  eye  and  ear,  stand 
to  the  arduous  duty — sailing  their  ship,  restrain- 
ing their  prisoners,  solacing  the  wounded — 
ready  to  kill,  and  hurting  no  one.  They  did  not 
sail  at  random,  or  for  the  nearest  port;  but, 
faithful  to  the  orders  of  their  commander,  given 
under  different  circumstances,  steered  for  St. 
Kitts,  in  the  West  Indies — arrived  there  safely 
— and  were  received  with  triumph  and  admira- 
tion. 

Such  an  exploit  equalled  any  fame  that  could 
be  gained  in  battle ;  for  it  brought  into  requi- 
sition all  the  qualities  for  command  which  high 
command  requires ;  and  foreshadowed  the  fu- 
ture eminence  of  these  two  young  officers. 
What  firmness,  steadiness,  vigilance,  endurance, 
and  courage — far  above  that  which  the  battle- 
field requires  !  and  one  of  these  young  officers, 
a  slight  and  slender  lad,  as  frail  to  the  look  as 
the  other  was  powerful ;  and  yet  each  acting 
his  part  with  the  same  heroic  steadiness  and 
perseverance,  coolness  and  humanity  !  They 
had  no  irons  to  secure  a  single  man.  The  one 
hundred  and  seventy-three  French  were  loose 
in  the  lower  hold,  a  sentinel  only  at  each  gang- 
way ;  and  vigilance,  and  readiness  to  use  their 
arms,  the  only  resource  of  the  little  crew.  If 
history  has  a  parallel  to  this  deed  I  have  not 
seen  it;  and  to  value  it  in  all  its  extent,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  these  prisoners  were 
Frenchmen — their  inherent  courage  exalted  by 
the  frenzy  of  the  revolution — themselves  fresh 
from  a  murderous  conflict— the  decks  of  the 
ship  still  red  and  slippery  with  the  blood  of 
their  comrades  ;  and  they  with  a  right,  both 
legal  and  moral,  to  recover  their  liberty  if  they 
could.  These  three  days  and  nights,  still  more 
than  the  victory  which  preceded  them,  earned 
for  Rodgers  the  captaincy,  and  for  Porter  the 
lieutenancy,  with  which  they  were  soon  respec- 
tively honored. 

American  cruisers  had  gained  credit  in  the 
war  of  the  Revolution,  and  in  the  quasi  war  with 
the  French  Republic  ;  and  American  squadrons 

Vol.  II.— 10 


had  bearded  the  Barbary  Powers  in  their  dens, 
after  chasing  their  piratical  vessels  from  the 
seas :  but  a  war  with  Great  Britain,  with  her 
one  thousand  and  sixty  vessels  of  war  on  her 
naval  list,  and  above  seven  hundred  of  these  for 
service,  her  fleets  swelled  with  the  ships  of  all 
nations,  exalted  with  the  idea  of  invincibility, 
and  one  hundred  and  twenty  guns  on  the  decks 
of  her  first-class  men-of-war — any  naval  contest 
with  such  a  power,  with  seventeen  vessels  for 
the  sea,  ranging  from  twelve  to  forty-four  guns 
(which  was  the  totality  which  the  American 
naval  register  could  then  show),  seemed  an  in- 
sanity. And  insanity  it  would  have  been  with 
even  twenty  times  as  many  vessels,  and  double 
their  number  of  guns,  if  naval  battles  with  rival 
fleets  had  been  intended.  Fortunately  we  had 
naval  officers  at  that  time  who  understood  the 
virtue  of  cruising,  and  believed  they  could  do 
what  Paul  Jones  and  others  had  done  during 
the  war  of  the  Revolution. 

Political  men  believed  nothing  could  be  done 
at  sea  but  to  lose  the  few  vessels  which  we  had ; 
that  even  cruising  was  out  of  the  question.  Of 
our  seventeen  vessels,  the  whole  were  in  port 
but  one  ;  and  it  was  determined  to  keep  them 
there,  and  the  one  at  sea  with  them,  if  it  had 
the  luck  to  get  in.  I  am  under  no  obligation  to 
make  the  admission,  but  I  am  free  to  acknow- 
ledge, that  I  was  one  of  those  who  supposed 
that  there  was  no  salvation  for  our  seventeen 
men-of-war  but  to  run  them  as  far  up  the  creek 
as  possible,  place  them  under  the  guns  of  bat- 
teries, and  collect  camps  of  militia  about  them, 
to  keep  off  the  British.  This  was  the  policy  at 
the  day  of  the  declaration  of  the  war ;  and  I 
have  the  less  concern  to  admit  myself  to  have 
been  participator  in  the  delusion,  because  I 
claim  the  merit  of  having  profited  from  expe- 
rience— happy  if  I  could  transmit  the  lesson  to 
posterity.  Two  officers  came  to  Washington — 
Bainbridge  and  Stewart.  They  spoke  with  Mr. 
Madison,  and  urged  the  feasibility  of  cruising. 
One-half  of  the  whole  number  of  the  British 
men-of-war  were  under  the  class  of  frigates, 
consequently  no  more  than  matches  for  some 
of  our  seventeen ;  the  whole  of  her  merchant 
marine  (many  thousands)  were  subject  to  cap- 
ture. Here  was  a  rich  field  for  cruising ;  and 
the  two  officers,  for  themselves  and  brothers, 
boldly  proposed  to  enter  it. 

Mr.  Madison  had  seen  the  efficiency  of  cruis- 


146 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ing  and  privateering,  even  against  Great  Britain, 
and  in  our  then  infantile  condition,  during  the 
war  of  the  Revolution ;  and  besides  was  a  man 
of  sense,  and  amenable  to  judgment  and  reason. 
He  listened  to  the  two  experienced  and  valiant 
officers  ;  and,  without  consulting  Congress, 
which  perhaps  would  have  been  a  fatal  con- 
sultation (for  multitude  of  counsellors  is  not 
the  council  for  bold  decision),  reversed  the 
policy  which  had  been  resolved  upon ;  and,  in 
his  supreme  character  of  constitutional  com- 
mander of  the  army  and  navy,  ordered  every 
ship  that  could  cruise  to  get  to  sea  as  soon  as 
possible.  This  I  had  from  Mr.  Monroe,  and  it 
is  due  to  Mr.  Madison  to  tell  it,  who,  without 
pretending  to  a  military  character,  had  the 
merit  of  sanctioning  this  most  vital  war  meas- 
ure. 

Commodore  Rodgers  was  then  in  New  York, 
in  command  of  the  President  (44),  intended  for 
a  part  of  the  harbor  defence  of  that  city.  With- 
in one  hour  after  he  had  received  his  cruising 
orders,  he  was  under  way.  This  was  the  21st 
of  June.  That  night  he  got  information  of  the 
Jamaica  fleet  (merchantmen),  homeward  bound ; 
and  crowded  all  sail  in  the  direction  they  had 
gone,  following  the  Gulf  Stream  towards  the 
east  of  Newfoundland.  While  on  this  track,  on 
the  23d,  a  British  frigate  was  perceived  far  to 
the  northeast,  and  getting  further  off.  It  was  a 
nobler  object  than  a  fleet  of  merchantmen,  and 
chase  was  immediately  given  her,  and  she 
gained  upon ;  but  not  fast  enough  to  get  along- 
side before  night. 

It  was  four  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  the 
enemy  in  range  of  the  bow-chasers.  Commodore 
Rodgers  determined  to  cripple  her,  and  diminish 
her  speed ;  and  so  come  up  with  her.  He  point- 
ed the  first  gun  himself,  and  pointed  it  well. 
The  shot  struck  the  frigate  in  her  rudder  coat, 
drove  through  her  stern  frame,  and  passed  into 
the  gun-room.  It  was  the  first  gun  fired  during 
the  war;  and  was  no  waste  of  ammunition. 
Second  Lieutenant  Gamble,  commander  of  the 
battery,  pointed  and  discharged  the  second — 
hitting  and  damaging  one  of  the  enemy's  stern 
chasers.  Commodore  Rodgers  fired  the  third 
— hitting  the  stern  again,  and  killing  and  wound- 
ing six  men.  Mr.  Gamble  fired  again.  The  gun 
bursted !  killing  and  wounding  sixteen  of  her 
own  men,  blowing  up  the  Commodore — who  fell 
with  a  broken  leg  upon  the  deck.    The  pause 


in  working  the  guns  on  that  side,  occasioned  by 
this  accident,  enabled  the  enemy  to  bring  some 
stern  guns  to  bear,  and  to  lighten  his  vessel  to 
increase  her  speed.  He  cut  away  his  anchors, 
stove  and  threw  overboard  his  boats,  and  start- 
ed fourteen  tons  of  water.  Thus  lightened,  he 
escaped.  It  was  the  Belvidera,  36  guns,  Captain 
Byron.  The  President  would  have  taken  her 
with  all  ease  if  she  had  got  alongside ;  and  of 
that  the  English  captain  showed  himself  duly, 
and  excusably  sensible. 

The  frigate  having  escaped,  the  Commodore, 
regardless  of  his  broken  leg,  hauled  up  to  its 
course  in  pursuit  of  the  Jamaica  fleet,  and  soon 
got  information  that  it  consisted  of  eighty-five 
sail,  and  was  under  convoy  of  four  men-of-war ; 
one  of  them  a  two-decker,  another  a  frigate; 
and  that  he  was  on  its  track.  Passing  New- 
foundland and  finding  the  sea  well  sprinkled 
with  ths  signs  of  West  India  fruit — orange  peels, 
cocoanut  shells,  pine-apple  rinds,  &c. — the  Com- 
modore knew  himself  to  be  in  the  wake  of  the 
fleet,  and  made  every  exertion  to  come  up  with 
it  before  it  could  reach  the  chops  of  the  channel : 
but  in  vain.  When  almost  in  sight  of  the  Eng- 
lish coast,  and  no  glimpse  obtained  of  the  fleet, 
he  was  compelled  to  tack,  run  south  :  and, 
after  an  extended  cruise,  return  to  the  United 
States. 

The  Commodore  had  missed  the  two  great 
objects  of  his  ambition — the  fleet  and  the  frigate ; 
but  the  cruise  was  not  barren  either  in  material 
or  moral  results.  Seven  British  merchantmen 
were  captured — one  American  recaptured — the 
English  coast  had  been  approached.  With  im- 
punity an  American  frigate — one  of  those  in- 
sultingly styled  "  fir-built,  with  a  bit  of  striped 
bunting  at  her  mast-head," — had  almost  looked 
into  that  narrow  channel  which  is  considered 
the  sanctum  of  a  British  ship.  An  alarm  had 
been  spread,  and  a  squadron  of  seven  men-of- 
war  (four  of  them  frigates  and  one  a  sixty-four 
gun  ship)  were  assembled  to  capture  him ;  one 
of  them  the  Belvidera,  which  had  escaped  at  the 
bursting  of  the  President's  gun,  and  spread  the 
news  of  her  being  at  sea. 

It  was  a  great  honor  to  Commodore  Rodgers 
to  send  such  a  squadron  to  look  after  him ;  and 
became  still  greater  to  Captain  Hull,  in  the 
Constitution,  who  escaped  from  it  after  having 
been  almost  surrounded  by  it.  It  was  evening 
when  this  captain  began  to  fall  in  with  that 


ANNO  1839.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


147 


squadron,  and  at  daylight  found  himself  almost 
encompassed  by  it — three  ahead  and  four  astern. 
Then  began  that  chase  which  continued  seventy- 
two  hours,  in  which  seven  pursued  one,  and 
seemed  often  on  the  point  of  closing  on  their 
prize ;  in  which  every  means  of  progress,  from 
reefed  topsails  to  kedging  and  towing,  was  put 
into  requisition  by  either  party — the  one  to 
escape,  the  other  to  overtake;  in  which  the 
stern-chasers  of  one  were  often  replying  to  the 
bow-chasers  of  the  other ;  and  the  greatest  pre- 
cision of  manoeuvring  required  to  avoid  falling 
under  the  guns  of  some  while  avoiding  those  of 
others ;  and  which  ended  with  putting  an  escape 
on  a  level  with  a  great  victory.  Captain  Hull 
brought  his  vessel  safe  into  port,  and  without 
the  sacrifice  of  her  equipment — not  an  anchor 
having  been  cut  away,  boat  stove,  or  gun  thrown 
overboard  to  gain  speed  by  lightening  the  vessel. 
It  was  a  brilliant  result,  with  all  the  moral 
effects  of  victory,  and  a  splendid  vindication  of 
the  policy  of  cruising — showing  that  we  had 
seamanship  to  escape  the  force  which  we  could 
not  fight. 

Commodore  Rodgers  made  another  extended 
cruise  during  this  war,  a  circuit  of  eight  thou- 
sand miles,  traversing  the  high  seas,  coasting 
the  shores  of  both  continents,  searching  wher- 
ever the  cruisers  or  merchantmen  of  the  enemy 
were  expected  to  be  found ;  capturing  what  was 
within  his  means,  avoiding  the  rest.  A  British 
government  packet,  with  nearly  $300,000  in 
specie,  was  taken;  many  merchantmen  were 
taken  ;  and,  though  an  opportunity  did  not  offer 
to  engage  a  frigate  of  equal  or  nearly  equal  force, 
and  to  gain  one  of  those  electrifying  victories  for 
which  our  cruisers  were  so  remarkable,  yet  the 
moral  effect  was  great — demonstrating  the  am- 
ple capacity  of  an  American  frigate  to  go  where 
she  pleased  in  spite  of  the  "  thousand  ships  of 
war  "  of  the  assumed  mistress  of  the  seas  ;  car- 
rying damage  and  alarm  to  the  foe,  and  avoiding 
misfortune  to  itself. 

At  the  attempt  of  the  British  upon  Baltimore 
Commodore  Rodgers  was  in  command  of  the 
maritime  defences  of  that  city,  and,  having  no 
means  of  contending  with  the  British  fleet  in 
the  bay,  he  assembled  all  the  seamen  of  the 
ships-of-war  and  of  the  flotilla,  and  entered  judi- 
ciously into  the  combinations  for  the  land  de- 
fence. 

Humane  feeling  was  a  characteristic  of  this 


brave  officer,  and  was  verified  in  all  the  relations 
of  his  life,  and  in  his  constant  conduct.  Stand- 
ing on  the  bank  of  the  Susquehanna  river,  at 
Havre  de  Grace,  one  cold  winter  day,  the  river 
flooded  and  filled  with  floating  ice,  he  saw  (with 
others),  at  a  long  distance,  a  living  object — dis- 
cerned to  be  a  human  being — carried  down  the 
stream.  He  ventured  in,  against  all  remon- 
strance, and  brought  the  object  safe  to  shore. 
It  was  a  colored  woman — to  him  a  human  being, 
doomed  to  a  frightful  death  unless  relieved  ;  and 
heroically  relieved  at  the  peril  of  his  own  life. 
He  was  humane  in  battle.  That  was  shown  in 
the  affair  of  the  Little  Belt — chased,  hailed, 
fought  (the  year  before  the  war),  and  compelled 
to  answer  the  hail,  and  tell  who  she  was,  with 
expense  of  blood,  and  largely;  but  still  the 
smallest  possible  quantity  that  would  accom- 
plish the  purpose.  The  encounter  took  place  in 
the  night,  and  because  the  British  captain  would 
not  answer  the  American  hail.  Judging  from 
the  inferiority  of  her  fire  that  he  was  engaged 
with  an  unequal  antagonist,  the  American  Com- 
modore suspended  his  own  fire,  while  still  re- 
ceiving broadsides  from  his  arrogant  little  adver- 
sary ;  and  only  resumed  it  when  indispensable 
to  his  own  safety,  and  the  enforcement  of  the 
question  which  he  had  put.  An  answer  was 
obtained  after  thirty-one  had  been  killed  or 
wounded  on  board  the  British  vessel ;  and  this 
at  six  leagues  from  the  American  coast :  and, 
the  doctrine  of  no  right  to  stop  a  vessel  on  the 
high  seas  to  ascertain  her  character  not  having 
been  then  invented,  no  political  consequence 
followed  this  bloody  enforcement  of  maritime 
police — exasperated  against  each  other  as  the 
two  nations  were  at  the  time. 

At  the  death  of  Decatur,  killed  in  that  la- 
mentable duel,  I  have  heard  Mr.  Randolph  tell, 
and  he  alone  could  tell  it,  of  the  agony  of  Rod- 
gers as  he  stood  over  his  dying  friend,  in  bodily 
contention  with  his  own  grief — convulsed  with- 
in, calm  without ;  and  keeping  down  the  strug- 
gling anguish  of  the  soul  by  dint  of  muscular 
power. 

That  feeling  heart  was  doomed  to  suffer  a 
great  agony  in  the  untimely  death  of  a  heroic 
son,  emulating  the  generous  devotion  of  the 
father,  and  perishing  in  the  waves,  in  vain  efforts 
to  save  comrades  more  exhausted  than  himself; 
and  to  whom  he  nobly  relinquished  the  means 
of  his  own  safety.    It  was  spared  another  grief 


148 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  a  kindred  nature  (not  having  lived  to  see  it), 
in  the  death  of  another  heroic  son,  lost  in  the 
sloop-of-war  Albany,  in  one  of  those  calamitous 
founderings  M,  sea  in  which  the  mystery  of  an 
unseen  fate  deepens  the  shades  of  death,  and 
darkens  the  depths  of  sorrow — leaving  the 
hearts  of  far  distant  friends  a  prey  to  a  long 
agony  of  hope  and  fear — only  to  be  solved  in 
an  agony  still  deeper. 

Commodore  Rodgers  died  at  the  head  of  the 
American  navy,  without  having  seen  the  rank 
of  Admiral  established  in  our  naval  service,  for 
which  I  voted  when  senator,  and  hoped  to  have 
seen  conferred  on  him,  and  on  others  who  have 
done  so  much  to  exalt  the  name  of  their  coun- 
try ;  and  which  rank  I  deem  essential  to  the 
good  of  the  service,  even  in  the  cruising  system 
I  deem  alone  suitable  to  us. 


CHAPTER   XXXV. 

ANTI-DUELLING  ACT. 

The  death  of  Mr.  Jonathan  Cilley,  a  represen- 
tative in  Congress  from  the  State  of  Maine, 
killed  in  a  duel  with  rifles,  with  Mr.  Graves  of 
Kentucky,  led  to  the  passage  of  an  act  with 
severe  penalties  against  duelling,  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  or  out  of  it  upon  agreement  within 
the  District.  The  penalties  were — death  to  all 
the  survivors,  when  any  one  was  killed :  a  five 
years  imprisonment  in  the  penitentiary  for  giv- 
ing or  accepting  a  challenge.  Like  all  acts 
passed  under  a  sudden  excitement,  this  act  was 
defective,  and  more  the  result  of  good  intentions 
than  of  knowledge  of  human  nature.  Passions 
of  the  mind,  like  diseases  of  the  body,  are  liable 
to  break  out  in  a  different  form  when  suppressed 
in  the  one  they  had  assumed.  No  physician 
suppresses  an  eruption  without  considering  what 
is  to  become  of  the  virus  which  is  escaping,  if 
stopped  and  confined  to  the  body :  no  legisla- 
tor should  suppress  an  evil  without  considering 
whether  a  worse  one  is  at  the  same  time  planted. 
I  was  a  young  member  of  the  general  assembly 
of  Tennessee  (1809),  when  a  most  worthy  mem- 
ber (Mr.  Robert  C.  Foster),  took  credit  to  him- 
self for  having  put  down  billiard  tables  in  Nash- 
ville.   Another  most  worthy  member  (General 


Joseph  Dixon)  asked  him  how  many  card  tables 
he  had  put  up  in  their  place  ?  This  was  a  side  of 
the  account  to  which  the  suppressor  of  billiard 
tables  had  not  looked :  and  which  opened  up  a 
view  of  serious  consideration  to  every  person  in- 
trusted with  the  responsible  business  of  legisla- 
tion— a  business  requiring  so  much  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  and  so  seldom  invoking  the  little 
we  possess.  It  has  been  on  my  mind  ever  since ; 
and  I  have  had  constant  occasions  to  witness  its 
disregard — and  seldom  more  lamentably  than  in 
the  case  of  this  anti-duelling  act.  It  looked  to 
one  evil,  and  saw  nothing  else.  It  did  not  look 
to  the  assassinations,  under  the  pretext  of  self- 
defence,  which  were  to  rise  up  in  place  of  the 
regular  duel.  Certainly  it  is  deplorable  to  see 
a  young  man,  the  hope  of  his  father  and  mother — 
a  ripe  man,  the  head  of  a  family — an  eminent 
man,  necessary  to  his  country — struck  down  in 
the  duel ;  and  should  be  prevented  if  possible. 
Still  this  deplorable  practice  is  not  so  bad  as  the 
bowie  knife,  and  the  revolver,  and  their  pretext 
of  self-defence — thirsting  for  blood.  In  the 
duel,  there  is  at  least  consent  on  both  sides, 
with  a  preliminary  opportunity  for  settlement, 
with  a  chance  for  the  law  to  arrest  them,  and 
room  for  the  interposition  of  friends  as  the 
affair  goes  on.  There  is  usually  equality  of 
terms  ;  and  it  would  not  be  called  an  affair  of 
honor,  if  honor  was  not  to  pievail  all  round ; 
and  if  the  satisfying  a  point  of  honor,  and  not 
vengeance,  was  the  end  to  be  attained.  Finally, 
in  the  regular  duel,  the  principals  are  in  the 
hands  of  the  seconds  (for  no  man  can  be  made 
a  second  without  his  consent)  ;  and  as  both 
these  are  required  by  the  duelling  code  (for  the 
sake  of  fairness  and  humanity),  to  be  free  from 
ill  will  or  grudge  towards  the  adversary  prin- 
cipal, they  are  expected  to  terminate  the  affair 
as  soon  as  the  point  of  honor  is  satisfied — and, 
the  less  the  injury,  so  much  the  better.  The 
only  exception  to  these  rules  is,  where  the 
principals  are  in  such  relations  to  each  other  as 
to  admit  of  no  accommodation,  and  the  injury 
such  as  to  admit  of  no  compromise.  In  the 
knife  and  revolver  business,  all  this  is  different. 
There  is  no  preliminary  interval  for  settlement- 
no  chance  for  officers  of  justice  to  intervene — no 
room  for  friends  to  interpose.  Instead  of  equal- 
ity of  terms,  every  advantage  is  sought.  Instead 
of  consent,  the  victim  is  set  upon  at  the  most 
unguarded  moment.     Instead  of  satisfying  a 


ANNO  1839.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


149 


point  of  honor,  it  is  vengeance  to  be  glutted. 
Nor  does  the  difference  stop  with  death.  In 
the  duel,  the  unhurt  principal  scorns  to  continue 
the  combat  upon  his  disabled  adversary :  in  the 
knife  and  revolver  case,  the  hero  of  these  weap- 
ons continues  firing  and  stabbing  while  the 
prostrate  body  of  the  dying  man  gives  a  sign  of 
life.  In  the  duel  the  survivor  never  assails  the 
character  of  the  fallen  :  in  the  knife  and  revol- 
ver case,  the  first  movement  of  the  victor  is  to 
attack  the  character  of  his  victim — to  accuse 
him  of  an  intent  to  murder ;  and  to  make  out  a 
case  of  self-defence,  by  making  out  a  case  of 
premeditated  attack  against  the  other.  And  in 
such  false  accusation,  the  French  proverb  is 
usually  verified — the  dead  and  the  absent  are 
always  in  the  wrong. 

The  anti-duelling  act  did  not  suppress  the 
passions  in  which  duels  originate :  it  only  sup- 
pressed one  mode,  and  that  the  least  revolting,  in 
which  these  passions  could  manifest  themselves. 
It  did  not  suppress  the  homicidal  intent — but 
gave  it  a  new  form  :  and  now  many  members  of 
Congress  go  into  their  seats  with  deadly  weapons 
under  their  garments — ready  to  insult  with  foul 
language,  and  prepared  to  kill  if  the  language  is 
resented.  The  act  should  have  pursued  the 
homicidal  intent  into  whatever  form  it  might 
assume  ;  and,  therefore,  should  have  been  made 
to  include  all  unjustifiable  homicides. 

The  law  was  also  mistaken  in  the  nature  of 
its  penalties  :  they  are  not  of  a  kind  to  be  en- 
forced, if  incurred.  It  is  in  vain  to  attempt  to 
punish  more  ignominiously,  and  more  severely, 
a  duel  than  an  assassination.  The  offences, 
though  both  great,  are  of  very  different  degrees ; 
and  human  nature  will  recognize  the  difference 
though  the  law  may  not :  and  the  result  will 
be  seen  in  the  conduct  of  juries,  and  in  the  tem- 
per of  the  pardoning  power.  A  species  of  pen- 
alty unknown  to  the  common  law,  and  rejected 
by  it,  and  only  held  good  when  a  man  was  the 
vassal  of  his  lord— the  dogma  that  the  private 
injury  to  the  family  is  merged  in  the  public 
wrong— this  species  of  penalty  (amends  to  the 
family)  is  called  for  by  the  progress  of  homi- 
cides in  our  country;  and  not  as  a  substitute  for 
the  death  penalty,  but  cumulative.  Under  this 
dogma,  a  small  injury  to  a  man's  person  brings 
him  a  moneyed  indemnity  ;  in  the  greatest  of  all 
injuries,  that  of  depriving  a  family  of  its  sup- 
port and  protector,  no  compensation  is  allowed. 


This  is  preposterous,  and  leads  to  deadly  con- 
sequences. It  is  cheaper  now  to  kill  a  man, 
than  to  hurt  him  ;  and,  accordingly,  the  prep- 
aration is  generally  to  kill,  and  not  to  hurt. 
The  frequency,  the  wantonness,  the  barbarity, 
the  cold-blooded  cruelty,  and  the  demoniac  levi- 
ty with  which  homicides  are  committed  with 
us,  have  become  the  opprobrium  of  our  country. 
An  incredible  number  of  persons,  and  in  all  parts 
of  the  country,  seem  to  have  taken  the  code  of 
Draco  for  their  law,  and  their  own  will  for  its 
execution — kill  for  every  offence.  The  death 
penalty,  prescribed  by  divine  wisdom,  is  hardly 
a  scare-crow.  Some  States  have  abolished  it 
by  statute — some  communities,  virtually,  by  a 
mawkish  sentimentality :  and  every  where,  the 
jury  being  the  judge  of  the  law  as  well  as  of  the 
fact,  find  themselves  pretty  much  in  a  condition 
to  do  as  they  please.  And  unanimity  among 
twelve  being  required,  as  in  the  English  law, 
instead  of  a  concurrence  of  three-fifths  in  fif- 
teen, as  in  the  Scottish  law,  it  is  in  the  power 
of  one  or  two  men  to  prevent  a  conviction,  even 
in  the  most  flagrant  cases.  In  this  deluge  of 
bloodshed  some  new  remedy  is  called  for  in  ad- 
dition to  the  death  penalty  ;  and  it  may  be  best 
found  in  the  principle  of  compensation  to  the 
family  of  the  slain,  recoverable  in  every  case 
where  the  homicide  was  not  justifiable  under 
the  written  laws  of  the  land.  In  this  wide- 
spread custom  of  carrying  deadly  weapons,  often 
leading  to  homicides  where  there  was  no  pre- 
vious intent,  some  check  should  be  put  on  a 
practice  so  indicative  of  a  bad  heart — a  heart 
void  of  social  duty,  and  fatally  bent  on  mis- 
chief; and  this  check  may  be  found  in  making 
the  fact  of  having  such  arms  on  the  person  an 
offence  in  itself,  prima  facie  evidence  of  malice, 
and  to  be  punished  cumulatively  by  the  judge  ; 
and  that  without  regard  to  the  fact  whether 
used  or  not  in  the  affray. 

The  anti-duelling  act  of  1839  was,  there- 
fore, defective  in  not  pursuing  the  homicidal 
offence  into  all  the  new  forms  it  might  assume ; 
in  not  giving  damages  to  a  bereaved  family — 
and  not  punishing  the  carrying  of  the  weapon, 
whether  used  or  not — only  accommodating  the 
degree  of  punishment  to  the  more  or  less 
use  that  had  been  made  of  it.  In  the  Halls 
of  Congress  it  should  be  an  offence,  in  it- 
self, whether  drawn  or  not,  subjecting  the  of- 
fender to  all  the  penalties  for  a  high  misde- 


150 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


meanor — removal  from  office — disqualification 
to  hold  any  office  of  trust  or  profit  under  the 
United  States — and  indictment  at  law  besides. 


CHAPTER    XXXYI. 

SLAVEEY  AGITATION  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  EEPEE- 
SENTATIVES,  AND  EETIEING  OF  SOUTHEEN 
MEMBEES  FEOM  THE  HALL. 

The  most  angry  and  portentous  debate  which 
had  yet  taken  place  in  Congress,  occurred  at 
this  time  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  It 
was  brought  on  by  Mr.  "William  Slade,  of  Ver- 
mont, who,  besides  presenting  petitions  of  the 
usual  abolition  character,  and  moving  to  refer 
them  to  a  committee,  moved  their  reference  to  a 
select  committee,  with  instructions  to  report  a  bill 
in  conformity  to  their  prayer.  This  motion,  in- 
flammatory and  irritating  in  itself,  and  without 
practical  legislative  object,  as  the  great  majority 
of  the  House  was  known  to  be  opposed  to  it, 
was  rendered  still  more  exasperating  by  the 
manner  of  supporting  it.  The  mover  entered 
into  a  general  disquisition  on  the  subject  of 
slavery,  all  denunciatory,  and  was  proceeding  to 
speak  upon  it  in  the  State  of  Virginia,  and  other 
States,  in  the  same  spirit,  when  Mr.  Legare,  of 
South  Carolina,  interposed,  and — 

"  Hoped  the  gentleman  from  Vermont  would 
allow  him  to  make  a  few  remarks  before  he 
proceeded  further.  He  sincerely  hoped  that 
gentleman  would  consider  well  what  he  was 
about  before  he  ventured  on  such  ground,  and 
that  he  would  take  time  to  consider  what  might 
be  its  probable  consequences.  He  solemnly  en- 
treated him  to  reflect  on  the  possible  results  of 
such  a  course,  which  involved  the  interests  of  a 
nation  and  a  continent.  He  would  warn  him, 
not  in  the  language  of  defiance,  which  all  brave 
and  wise  men  despised,  but  he  would  warn  him 
in  the  language  of  a  solemn  sense  of  duty,  that 
if  there  was  '  a  spirit  aroused  in  the  North  in 
relation  to  this  subject,'  that  spirit  would  en- 
counter another  spirit  in  the  South  full  as 
stubborn.  He  would  tell  them  that,  when  this 
question  was  forced  upon  the  people  of  the 
South,  they  would  be  ready  to  take  up  the 
gauntlet.  He  concluded  by  urging  on  the  gen- 
tleman from  Vermont  to  ponder  well  on  his 
course  before  he  ventured  to  proceed." 

Mr.  Slade  continued  his  remarks  when  Mr. 
Dawson,  of  Georgia,  asked  him  for  the  floor, 


that  he  might  move  an  adjournment — evidently 
to  carry  off  the  storm  which  he  saw  rising.  Mr. 
Slade  refused  to  yield  it ;  so  the  motion  to  ad- 
journ could  not  be  made.  Mr.  Slade  continued, 
and  was  proceeding  to  answer  his  own  inquiry, 
put  to  himself — what  was  Slavery  ?  when  Mr. 
Dawson  again  asked  for  the  floor,  to  make 
his  motion  of  adjournment.  Mr.  Slade  refused 
it:  a  visible  commotion  began  to  pervade  the 
House  —  members  rising,  clustering  together, 
and  talking  with  animation.  Mr.  Slade  con- 
tinued, and  was  about  reading  a  judicial  opinion 
in  one  of  the  Southern  States  which  defined  a 
slave  to  be  a  chattel — when  Mr.  Wise  called 
him  to  order  for  speaking  beside  the  question — 
the  question  being  upon  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  Mr.  Slade's  re- 
marks going  to  its  legal  character,  as  property 
in  a  State.  The  Speaker,  Mr.  John  White,  of 
Kentucky,  sustained  the  call,  saying  it  was  not 
in  order  to  discuss  the  subject  of  slavery  in  any 
of  the  States.  Mr.  Slade  denied  that  he  was 
doing  so,  and  said  he  was  merely  quoting  a  South- 
ern judicial  decision  as  he  might  quote  a  legal 
opinion  delivered  in  Great  Britain.  Mr.  Robert- 
son, of  Virginia,  moved  that  the  House  adjourn. 
The  Speaker  pronounced  the  motion  (and  cor- 
rectly), out  of  order,  as  the  member  from  Ver- 
mont was  in  possession  of  the  floor  and  address- 
ing the  House.  He  would,  however,  suggest 
to  the  member  from  Vermont,  who  could  not 
but  observe  the  state  of  the  House,  to  confine 
himself  strictly  to  the  subject  of  his  motion. 
Mr.  Slade  went  on  at  great  length,  when  Mr. 
Petrikin,  of  Pennsylvania,  called  him  to  order ; 
but  the  Chair  did  not  sustain  the  call.  Mr. 
Slade  went  on,  quoting  from  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  the  constitutions  of  the  several 
States,  and  had  got  to  that  of  Virginia,  when 
Mr.  Wise  called  him  to  order  for  reading  papers 
without  the  leave  of  the  House.  The  Speaker 
decided  that  no  paper,  objected  to,  could  be  read 
without  the  leave  of  the  House.  Mr.  Wise 
then  said : 

"  That  the  gentleman  had  wantonly  discussed 
the  abstract  question  of  slavery,  going  back  to 
the  very  first  day  of  the  creation,  instead  of 
slavery  as  it  existed  in  the  District,  and  the 
powers  and  duties  of  Congress  in  relation  to  it. 
He  was  now  examining  the  State  constitutions 
to  show  that  as  it  existed  in  the  States  it  was 
against  them,  and  against  the  laws  of  God  and 
man.    This  was  out  of  order." 


ANNO  1839.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


151 


Mr.  Slade  explained,  and  argued  in  vindica- 
tion of  his  course,  and  was  about  to  read  a  me- 
morial of  Dr.  Franklin,  and  an  opinion  of  Mr. 
Madison  on  the  subject  of  slavery — when  the 
reading  was  objected  to  by  Mr.  Griffin,  of  South 
Carolina  ;  and  the  Speaker  decided  they  could 
not  be  read  without  the  permission  of  the  House. 
Mr.  Slade,  without  asking  the  permission  of  the 
House,  which  he  knew  would  not  be  granted, 
assumed  to  understand  the  prohibition  as  ex- 
tending only  to  himself  personally,  said  — 
"  Then  I  send  them  to  the  clerk:  let  him  read 
them."  The  Speaker  decided  that  this  was 
equally  against  the  rule.  Then  Mr.  Griffin 
withdrew  the  objection,  and  Mr.  Slade  proceed- 
ed to  read  the  papers,  and  to  comment  upon 
them  as  he  went  on,  and  was  about  to  go  back 
to  the  State  of  Virginia,  and  show  what  had 
been  the  feeling  there  on  the  subject  of  slavery 
previous  to  the  date  of  Dr.  Franklin's  memorial : 
*Mr.  Rhett,  of  South  Carolina,  inquired  of  the 
Chair  what  the  opinions  of  Virginia  fifty  years 
ago  had  to  do  with  the  case  ?  The  Speaker  was 
about  to  reply,  when  Mr.  Wise  rose  with 
warmth,  and  said  — "  He  has  discussed  the 
whole  abstract  question  of  slavery :  of  slavery 
in  Virginia :  of  slavery  in  my  own  district :  and 
I  now  ask  all  my  colleagues  to  retire  with  me 
from  this  hall."  Mr.  Slade  reminded  the 
Speaker  that  he  had  not  yielded  the  floor ;  but 
his  progress  was  impeded  by  the  condition  of 
the  House,  and  the  many  exclamations  of  mem- 
bers, among  whom  Mr.  Halsey,  of  Georgia,  was 
heard  calling  on  the  Georgia  delegation  to  with- 
draw with  him  ;  and  Mr.  Rhett  was  heard  pro- 
claiming, that  the  South  Carolina  members  had 
already  consulted  together,  and  agreed  to  have 
a  meeting  at  three  o'clock  in  the  committee 
room  of  the  District  of  Columbia.  Here  the 
Speaker  interposed  to  calm  the  House,  standing 
up  in  his  place  and  saying : 

"  The  gentleman  from  Vermont  had  been  re- 
minded by  the  Chair  that  the  discussion  of 
slavery,  as  existing  within  the  States,  was  not 
in  order  ;  when  he  was  desirous  to  read  a  paper 
and  it  was  objected  to,  the  Chair  had  stopped 
him ;  but  the  objection  had  been  withdrawn,  and 
Mr.  Slade  had  been  suffered  to  proceed ;  he  was 
now  about  to  read  another  paper,  and  objection 
was  made ;  the  Chair  would,  therefore,  take  the 
question  on  permitting  it  to  be  read." 

Many  members  rose,  all  addressing  the  Chair 
at  the  same  time,  and  many  members  leaving 


the  hall,  and  a  general  scene  of  noise  and  con- 
fusion prevailing.  Mr.  Rhett  succeeded  in  rais- 
ing his  voice  above  the  roar  of  the  tempest  which 
raged  in  the  House,  and  invited  the  entire  dele- 
gations from  all  the  slave  States  to  retire  from 
the  hall  forthwith,  and  meet  in  the  committee 
room  of  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  Speaker 
again  essayed  to  calm  the  House,  and  again 
standing  up  in  his  place,  he  recapitulated  his 
attempts  to  preserve  order,  and  vindicated  the 
correctness  of  his  own  conduct — seemingly  im- 
pugned by  many.  "  What  his  personal  feelings 
were  on  the  subject  (he  was  from  a  slave  State), 
might  easily  be  conjectured.  He  had  endeavor- 
ed to  enforce  the  rules.  Had  it  been  in  his  power 
to  restrain  the  discussion,  he  should  promptly 
have  exercised  the  power ;  but  it  was  not.  Mr. 
Slade,  continuing,  said  the  paper  which  he 
wished  to  read  was  of  the  continental  Congress 
of  1774.  The  Speaker  was  about  to  put  the 
question  on  leave,  when  Mr.  Cost  Johnson,  of 
Maryland,  inquired  whether  it  would  be  in 
order  to  force  the  House  to  vote  that  the  mem 
ber  from  Vermont  be  not  permitted  to  proceed? 
The  Speaker  replied  it  would  not.  Then  Mr. 
James  J.  McKay,  of  North  Carolina — a  clear, 
coolheaded,  sagacious  man — interposed  the  ob- 
jection which  headed  Mr.  Slade.  There  was  a 
rule  of  the  House,  that  when  a  member  was 
called  to  order,  he  should  take  his  seat ;  and  if 
decided  to  be  out  of  order,  he  should  not  be 
allowed  to  speak  again,  except  on  the  leave  of 
the  House.  Mr.  McKay  judged  this  to  be  a 
proper  occasion  for  the  enforcement  of  that  rule ; 
and  stood  up  and  said : 

"  That  the  gentleman  had  been  pronounced 
out  of  order  in  discussing  slavery  in  the  States  ; 
and  the  rule  declared  that  when  a  member  was 
so  pronounced  by  the  Chair,  he  should  take  his 
seat,  and  if  any  one  objected  to  his  proceeding 
again,  he  should  not  do  so,  unless  by  leave  of 
the  House.  Mr.  McKay  did  now  object  to  the 
gentleman  from  Vermont  proceeding  any  far- 
ther." 

Redoubled  noise  and  confusion  ensued — a 
crowd  of  members  rising  and  speaking  at  once 
—who  eventually  yielded  to  the  resounding 
blows  of  the  Speaker's  hammer  upon  the  lid 
of  his  desk,  and  his  apparent  desire  to  read 
something  to  the  House,  as  he  held  a  book  (re- 
cognized to  be  that  of  the  rules)  in  his  hand. 
Obtaining  quiet,  so  as  to  enable  himself  to  be 
heard,  he  read  the  rale  referred  to  by  Mr.  Mc- 


152 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Kay ;  and  said  that,  as  objection  had  now,  for 
the  first  time,  been  made  under  that  rule  to  the 
gentleman's  resuming  his  speech,  the  Chair 
decided  that  he  could  not  do  so  without  the 
leave  of  the  House.  Mr.  Slade  attempted  to  go 
on  :  the  Speaker  directed  him  to  take  his  seat 
until  the  question  of  leave  should  be  put. 
Then,  Mr.  Slade,  still  keeping  on  his  feet,  asked 
leave  to  proceed  as  in  order,  saying  he  would 
not  discuss  slavery  in  Virginia.  On  that  ques- 
tion Mr.  Allen,  of  Vermont,  asked  the  yeas  and 
nays.  Mr.  Rencher,  of  North  Carolina,  moved 
an  adjournment.  Mr.  Adams,  and  many  others, 
demanded  the  yeas  and  nays  on  this  motion, 
which  were  ordered,  and  resulted  in  106  yeas, 
and  63  nays — some  fifty  or  sixty  members  hav- 
ing withdrawn.  This  opposition  to  adjourn- 
ment was  one  of  the  worst  features  of  that  un- 
happy day's  work — the  only  effect  of  keeping 
the  House  together  being  to  increase  irritation, 
and  multiply  the  chances  for  an  outbreak. 
From  the  beginning  Southern  members  had 
been  in  favor  of  it,  and  essayed  to  accomplish  it, 
but  were  prevented  by  the  tenacity  with  which 
Mr.  Slade  kept  possession  of  the  floor:  and 
now,  at  last,  when  it  was  time  to  adjourn 
any  way — when  the  House  was  in  a  condition 
in  which  no  good  could  be  expected,  and  great 
harm  might  be  apprehended,  there  were  sixty- 
three  members — being  nearly  one-third  of  the 
House — willing  to  continue  it  in  session.  They 
were: 

"  Messrs.  Adams,  Alexander,  H.  Allen,  J.  W. 
Allen,  Aycrigg,  Bell,  Biddle,  Bond,  Borden, 
Briggs,  Wm.  B.  Calhoun,  Coffin,  Corwin,  Cran- 
ston, Curtis,  Cushing,  Darlington,  Davies,  Dunn, 
Evans,  Everett,  Ewing  I.  Fletcher,  Fillmore, 
Goode,  Grennell,  Haley,  Hall,  Hastings,  Henry, 
Herod,  Hoffman,  Lincoln,  Marvin,  S.  Mason, 
Maxwell,  McKennan,  Milligan,  M.  Morris,  C. 
Morris,  Naylor,  Noyes,  Ogle,  Parmenter,  Patter- 
son, Peck,  Phillips,  Potts,  Potter,  Rariden,  Ran- 
dolph, Reed,  Ridgway,  Russel,  Sheffer,  Sibley, 
Slade,  Stratton,  Tillinghast,  Toland,  A.  S.  White, 
J.  White,  E.  Whittlesey— 63." 

The  House  then  stood  adjourned ;  and  as  the 
adjournment  was  being  pronounced,  Mr.  Camp- 
bell of  South  Carolina,  stood  up  on  a  chair,  and 
calling  for  the  attention  of  members,  said : 

"  He  had  been  appointed,  as  one  of  the  Southern 
delegation,  to  announce  that  all  those  gentlemen 
who  represented  slaveholding  States,  were  in- 
vited to  attend  the  meeting  now  being  held  in 
the  District  committee  room." 


Members  from  the  slave-holding  States  had 
repaired  in  large  numbers  to  the  room  in  the 
basement,  where  they  were  invited  to  meet. 
Various  passions  agitated  them — some  violent. 
Extreme  propositions  were  suggested,  of  which 
Mr.  Rhett,  of  South  Carolina,  in  a  letter  to  his 
constituents,  gave  a  full  account  of  his  own — 
thus : 

"  In  a  private  and  friendly  letter  to  the  editor 
of  the  Charleston  Mercury,  amongst?  other  events 
accompanying  the  memorable  secession  of  the 
Southern  members  from  the  hall  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  I  stated  to  him,  that  I  had 
prepared  two  resolutions,  drawn  as  amendments 
to  the  motion  of  the  member  from  Vermont, 
whilst  he  was  discussing  the  institution  of 
slavery  in  the  South,  '  declaring,  that  the  con- 
stitution having  failed  to  protect  the  South  in 
the  peaceable  possession  and  enjoyment  of  their 
rights  and  peculiar  institutions,  it  was  expedient 
that  the  Union  should  be  dissolved;  and  the 
other,  appointing  a  committee  of  two  members 
from  each  State,  to  report  upon  the  best  means 
of  peaceably  dissolving  it.'  They  were  intended 
as  amendments  to  a  motion,  to  refer  with  in- 
structions to  report  a  bill,  abolishing  slavery  in 
the  District  of  Columbia.  I  expected  them  to 
share  the  fate,  which  inevitably  awaited  the 
original  motion,  so  soon  as  the  floor  could  have 
been  obtained,  viz.,  to  be  laid  upon  the  table. 
My  design  in  presenting  them,  was,  to  place 
before  Congress  and  the  people,  what,  in  my 
opinion,  was  the  true  issue  upon  this  great  and 
vital  question ;  and  to  point  out  the  course  of 
policy  by  which  it  should  be  met  by  the  South- 
ern States." 

But  extreme  counsels  did  not  prevail.  There 
were  members  present,  who  well  considered 
that,  although  the  provocation  was  great,  and 
the  number  voting  for  such  a  firebrand  motion 
was  deplorably  large,  yet  it  was  but  little  more 
than  the  one-fourth  of  the  House,  and  decidedly 
less  than  one  half  of  the  members  from  the  free 
States :  so  that,  even  if  left  to  the  free  State 
vote  alone,  the  motion  would  have  been  rejected. 
But  the  motion  itself,  and  the  manner  in  which 
it  was  supported,  was  most  reprehensible — 
necessarily  leading  to  disorder  in  the  House, 
the  destruction  of  its  harmony  and  capacity  for 
useful  legislation,  tending  to  a  sectional  segre- 
gation of  the  members,  the  alienation  of  feeling 
between  the  North  and  the  South ;  and  alarm 
to  all  the  slaveholding  States.  The  evil  required 
a  remedy,  but  not  the  remedy  of  breaking  up 
the  Union  ;  but  one  which  might  prevent  the 
like  in  future,  while  administering  a  rebuke 
upon  the  past.     That  remedy  was  found   in 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


153 


adopting  a  proposition  to  be  offered  to  the 
House,  which,  if  agreed  to,  would  close  the 
door  against  any  discussion  upon  abolition  peti- 
tions in  future,  and  assimilate  the  proceedings 
of  the  House,  in  that  particular,  to  those  of 
the  Senate.  This  proposition  was  put  into  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Patton,  of  Virginia,  to  be  offered 
as  an  amendment  to  the  rules  at  the  opening  of 
the  House  the  next  morning.  It  was  in  these 
words : 

"  Resolved,  That  all  petitions,  memorials,  and 
papers,  touching  the  abolition  of  slavery  or  the 
buying,  selling,  or  transferring  of  slaves,  in  any 
State,  District,  or  Territory,  of  the  United  States. 
be  laid  on  the  table,  without  being  debated, 
printed,  read,  or  referred,  and  that  no  further 
action  whatever  shall  be  had  thereon." 

Accordingly,  at  the  opening  of  the  House,  Mr. 
Patton  asked  leave  to  submit  the  resolution — 
which  was  read  for  information.  Mr.  Adams 
objected  to  the  grant  of  leave.  Mr.  Patton  then 
moved  a  suspension  of  the  rules — which  motion 
required  two-thirds  to  sustain  it ;  and,  unless 
obtained,  this  salutary  remedy  for  an  alarming 
evil  (which  was  already  in  force  in  the  Senate) 
could  not  be  offered.  It  was  a  test  motion,  and 
on  which  the  opponents  of  abolition  agitation  in 
the  House  required  all  their  strength  :  for 
unless  two  to  one,  they  were  defeated.  Happily 
the  two  to  one  were  ready,  and  on  taking  the 
yeas  and  nays,  demanded  by  an  abolition  member 
(to  keep  his  friends  to  the  track,  and  to  hold  the 
free  State  anti-abolitionists  to  their  responsi- 
bility at  home),  the  result  stood  135  yeas  to  60 
nays — the  full  two-thirds,  and  fifteen  over.  The 
yeas  on  this  important  motion,  were : 

Messrs.  Hugh  J.  Anderson,  John  T.  An- 
drews, Charles  G.  Atherton,  William  Beatty, 
Andrew  Beirne,  John  Bell,  Bennet  Bicknell, 
Richard  Biddle,  Samuel  Birdsall,  Ratliff  Boon, 
James  W.  Bouldin,  John  C.  Brodhead,  Isaac  H. 
Bronson,  Andrew  D.  W.  Bruyn,  Andrew  Bu- 
chanan, John  Calhoun,  C.  C.  Cambreleng,  Wm. 

B.  Campbell,  John  Campbell,  Timothy  J.  Car- 
ter, Wm.  B.  Carter,  Zadok  Casey,  John  Cham- 
bers, John  Chaney,  Reuben  Chapman,  Richard 
Cheatham,  Jonathan  Cilley,  John  F.  H.  Clai- 
borne, Jesse  F.  Cleaveland,  Wm.  K.  Clowney, 
Walter  Coles,  Thomas  Corwin,  Robert  CraigJ 
John  W.  Crocket,  Samuel  Cushman,  Edmund 
Deberry,  John  I.  De  Graff,  John  Dennis,  George 

C.  Dromgoole,  John  Edwards,  James  Farring- 
ton,  John  Fairfield,  Jacob  Fry,  jr.,  James  Gar- 
land, James  Graham,  Seaton  Grantland,  Abr'm 
P.  Grant,  William  J.  Graves,  Robert  H.  Ham- 


mond, Thomas  L.  Hamer,  James  Harlan,  Albert 
G.  Harrison,  Richard  Hawes,  Micajah  T.  Haw- 
kins, Charles  E.  Haynes,  Hopkins  Holsey,  Or- 
rin  Holt,  George  W.  Hopkins,  Benjamin  C. 
Howard,  Edward  B.  Hubley,  Jabez  Jackson, 
Joseph  Johnson,  Wm.  Cost  Johnson,  John  W. 
Jones,  Gouverneur  Kemble,  Daniel  Kilgore, 
John  Klingensmith,  jr.,  Joab  Lawler,  Hugh  S. 
Legare,  Henry  Logan,  Francis  S.  Lyon,  Francis 
Mallory,  James  M.  Mason,  Joshua  L.  Martin, 
Abram'P.  Maury,  Wm.  L.  May,  James  J.  Mc~ 
Kay,  Robert  McClellan,  Abraham  McClelland, 
Charles  McClure,  Isaac  McKim,  Richard  H. 
Menefee,  Charles  F.  Mercer,  Wm.  Montgomery, 
Ely  Moore,  Wm.  S.  Morgan,  Samuel  W.  Mor- 
ris, Henry  A.  Muhlenberg,  John  L.  Murray, 
Win.  H.  Noble,  John  Palmer,  Amasa  J.  Parker, 
John  M.  Patton,  Lemuel  Paynter,  Isaac  S. 
Pennybacker,  David  Petrikin,  Lancelot  Phelps, 
Arnold  Plumer,  Zadock  Pratt,  John  H.  Pren- 
tiss, Luther  Reily,  Abraham  Rencher,  John 
Robertson,  Samuel  T.  Sawyer,  Augustine  H. 
Shepperd,  Charles  Shepard,  Ebenezer  J. 
Shields,  Matthias  Sheplor,  Francis  0.  J.  Smith, 
Adam  W.  Snyder,  Wm.  W.  Southgate,  James 
B.  Spencer,  Edward  Stanly,  Archibald  Stuart, 
Wm.  Stone,  John  Taliaferro,  Wm.  Taylor,  Oba- 
diah  Titus,  Isaac  Toucey,  Hopkins  L.  Turney, 
Joseph  R.  Underwood,  Henry  Vail,  David  D. 
Wagener,  Taylor  Webster,  Joseph  Weeks,  Al- 
bert S.  White,  John  White,  Thomas  T.  Whittle- 
sey, Lewis  Williams,  Sherrod  Williams,  Jared 
W.  Williams,  Joseph  L.  Williams,  Christ'r  H. 
Williams,  Henry  A.  Wise,  Archibald  Yell. 

The  nays  were : 

Messrs.  John  Quincy  Adams,  James  Alex- 
ander, jr.,  Heman  Allen,  John  W.  Allen,  J. 
Banker  Aycrigg,  Wm.  Key  Bond,  Nathaniel  B. 
Borden,  George  N.  Briggs,  Wm.  B.  Calhoun, 
Charles  D.  Coffin,  Robert  B.  Cranston,  Caleb 
Cushing,  Edward  Darlington,  Thomas  Davee, 
Edward  Davies,  Alexander  Duncan,  George  H. 
Dunn,  George  Evans,  Horace  Everett,  John 
Ewing,  Isaac  Fletcher,  Millard  Filmore,  Henry 
A.  Foster,  Patrick  G.  Goode,  George  Grennell, 
jr.,  Elisha  Haley,  Hiland  Hall,  Alexander  Har- 
per, Wm.  S.  Hastings,  Thomas  Henry,  Wm. 
Herod,  Samuel  Ingham,  Levi  Lincoln,  Richard 
P.  Marvin,  Samson  Mason,  John  P.  B.  Maxwell, 
Thos.  M.  T.  McKennan,  Mathias  Morris,  Cal- 
vary Morris,  Charles  Nay  lor,  Joseph  C.  Noyes, 
Charles  Ogle,  Wm.  Parmenter,  Wm.  Patterson, 
Luther  C.  Peck,  Stephen  C.  Phillips,  David 
Potts,  jr.,  James  Rariden,  Joseph  F.  Randolph, 
John  Reed,  Joseph  Ridgway,  David  Russell, 
Daniel  Sheffer,  Mark  H.  Sibley,  Wm.  Slade, 
Charles  C.  Stratton,  Joseph  L.  Tillinghast, 
George  W.  Toland,  Elisha  Whittlesey,  Thomas 
Jones  Yorke. 

This  was  one  of  the  most  important  votes 
ever  delivered  in  the  House.  Upon  its  issue  de- 
pended the  quiet  of  the  House  on  one  hand,  or 


154 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW, 


on  the  other,  the  renewal,  and  perpetuation  of  the 
scenes  of  the  day  before — ending  in  breaking  up 
all  deliberation,  and  all  national  legislation.  It 
was  successful,  and  that  critical  step  being  safely 
over,  the  passage  of  the  resolution  was  secured — 
the  free  State  friendly  vote  being  itself  sufficient 
to  carry  it :  but,  although  the  passage  of  the  reso- 
lution was  secured,  yet  resistance  to  it  continued. 
Mr.  Patton  rose  to  recommend  his  resolution  as 
a  peace  offering,  and  to  prevent  further  agitation 
by  demanding  the  previous  question.     He  said : 

"  He  had  offered  this  resolution  in  the  spirit 
of  peace  and  harmony.  It  involves  (said  Mr. 
P.),  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  and  so  far  as  con- 
cerns some  portion  of  the  representatives  of  the 
slaveholding  States,  a  concession  ;  a  concession 
which  we  make  for  the  sake  of  peace,  harmony, 
and  union.  We  offer  it  in  the  hope  that  it 
may  allay,  not  exasperate  excitement ;  we  desire 
to  extinguish,  not  to  kindle  a  flame  in  the  coun- 
try. In  that  spirit,  sir,  without  saying  one 
word  in  the  way  of  discussion  ;  without  giving 
utterance  to  any  of  those  emotions  which  swell 
in  my  bosom  at  the  recollection  of  what  took 
place  here  yesterday,  I  shall  do  what  I  have 
never  yet  done  since  I  have  been  a  member  of 
this  House,  and  which  I  have  very  rarely  sus- 
tained, when  done  by  others :  I  move  the  pre- 
vious question." 

Then  followed  a  scene  of  disorder,  which  thus 
appears  in  the  Register  of  Debates : 

"  Mr.  Adams  rose  and  said :  Mr.  Speaker,  the 
gentleman  precedes  his  resolution — (Loud  cries 
of '  Order  !  order  ! '  from  all  parts  of  the  hall.) 
Mr.  A.  He  preceded  it  with  remarks — ('  Order ! 
order!') 

"  The  Chair  reminded  the  gentleman  that  it 
was  out  of  order  to  address  the  House  after  the 
demand  for  the  previous  question. 

"  Mr.  Adams.  I  ask  the  House — (continued 
cries  of '  Order ! '  which  completely  drowned  the 
honorable  member's  voice.)" 

Order  having  been  restored,  the  next  question 
was — "  Is  the  demand  for  the  previous  question 
seconded  ?  " — which  seconding  would  consist  of 
a  majority  of  the  whole  House — which,  on  a 
division,  quickly  showed  itself.  Then  came  the 
further  question — "  Shall  the  main  question  be 
now  put  ?  " — on  which  the  yeas  and  nays  were 
demanded,  and  taken;  and  ended  in  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  vote  of  the  same  63  against  it.  The 
main  question  was  then  put,  and  carried ;  but 
again,  on  yeas  and  nays,  to  hold  free  State  mem- 
bers to  their  responsibility ;  showing  the  same 
63  in  the  negative,  with  a  few  additional  votes 


from  free  State  members,  who,  having  staked 
themselves  on  the  vital  point  of  suspending  the 
rules,  saw  no  use  in  giving  themselves  further 
trouble  at  home,  by  giving  an  unnecessary  vote 
in  favor  of  stifling  abolition  debate.  In  this 
way,  the  ranks  of  the  63  were  increased  to  74. 

Thus  was  stifled,  and  in  future  prevented  in 
the  House,  the  inflammatory  debates  on  these 
disturbing  petitions.  It  was  the  great  session 
of  their  presentation — being  offered  by  hun- 
dreds, and  signed  by  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
persons — many  of  them  women,  who  forgot  their 
sex  and  their  duties,  to  mingle  in  such  inflam- 
matory work ;  some  of  them  clergymen,  who 
forgot  their  mission  of  peace,  to  stir  up  strife 
among  those  who  should  be  brethren.  Of  the 
pertinacious  63,  who  backed  Mr.  Slade  through- 
out, the  most  notable  were  Mr.  Adams,  who 
had  been  President  of  the  United  States — Mr. 
Fillmore,  who  became  so — and  Mr.  Caleb  Cush- 
ing,  who  eventually  became  as  ready  to  abolish 
all  impediments  to  the  general  diffusion  of 
slavery,  as  he  then  was  to  abolish  slavery  itself 
in  the  District  of  Columbia.  It  was  a  porten- 
tous contest.  The  motion  of  Mr.  Slade  was,  not 
for  an  inquiry  into  the  expediency  of  abolishing 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  (a  motion 
in  itself  sufficiently  inflammatory),  but  to  get 
the  command  of  the  House  to  bring  in  a  bill  for 
that  purpose — which  would  be  a  decision  of  the 
question.  His  motion  failed.  The  storm  sub- 
sided ;  and  very  few  of  the  free  State  members 
who  had  staked  themselves  on  the  issue,  lost  any 
thing  among  their  constituents  for  the  devotion 
which  they  had  shown  to  the  Union. 


CHAPTER    XXXVII. 

ABOLITIONISTS  CLASSIFIED  BY  ME.  CLAY:  UL- 
TRAS DENOUNCED:  SLAVERY  AGITATORS 
NORTH  AND  SOUTH  EQUALLY  DENOUNCED 
AS  DANGEROUS  TO  THE  UNION. 

"  It  is  well  known  to  the  Senate,  said  Mr.  Clay, 
that  I  have  thought  that  the  most  judicious 
course  with  abolition  petitions  has  not  been  of 
late  pursued  by  Congress.  I  have  believed  that 
it  would  have  been  wisest  to  have  received  and 
referred  them,  without  opposition,  and  to  have 
reported  against  their  object  in  a  calm  and  dis- 
passionate   and    argumentative  appeal  to  the 


ANNO  1838.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


155 


good  sense  of  the  whole  community.  It  has 
been  supposed,  however,  by  a  majority  of  Con- 
gress that  it  was  most  expedient  either  not  to 
receive  the  petitions  at  all,  or,  if  formally  re- 
ceived, not  to  act  definitively  upon  them. 
There  is  no  substantial  difference  between  these 
opposite  opinions,  since  both  look  to  an  abso- 
lute rejection  of  the  prayer  of  the  petitioners. 
But  there  is  a  great  difference  in  the  form  of 
proceeding;  and,  Mr.  President,  some  experi- 
ence in  the  conduct  of  human  affairs  has  taught 
me  to  believe  that  a  neglect  to  observe  estab- 
lished forms  is  often  attended  with  more  mis- 
chievous consequences  than  the  infliction  of  a 
positive  injury.  We  all  know  that,  even  in 
private  life,  a  violation  of  the  existing  usages 
and  ceremonies  of  society  cannot  take  place 
without  serious  prejudice.  I  fear,  sir,  that  the 
abolitionists  have  acquired  a  considerable  appa- 
rent force  by  blending  with  the  object  which 
they  have  in  view  a  collateral  and  totally  dif- 
ferent question  arising  out  of  an  alleged  viola- 
tion of  the  right  of  petition.  I  know  full  well, 
and  take  great  pleasure  in  testifying,  that 
nothing  was  remoter  from  the  intention  of  the 
majority  of  the  Senate,  from  which  I  differed, 
than  to  violate  the  right  of  petition  in  any  case 
in  which,  according  to  its  judgment,  that  right 
could  be  constitutionally  exercised,  or  where 
the  object  of  the  petition  could  be  safely  or 
properly  granted.  Still,  it  must  be  owned  that 
the  abolitionists  have  seized  hold  of  the  fact  of 
the  treatment  which  their  petitions  have  re- 
ceived in  Congress,  and  made  injurious  impres- 
sions upon  the  minds  of  a  large  portion  of  the 
community.  This,  I  think,  might  have  been 
avoided  by  the  course  which  I  should  have  been 
glad  to  have  seen  pursued. 

"  And  I  desire  now,  Mr.  President,  to  advert 
to  some  of  those  topics  which  I  think  might 
have  been  usefully  embodied  in  a  report  by  a 
committee  of  the  Senate,  and  which,  I  am  per- 
suaded, would  have  checked  the  progress,  if  it 
had  not  altogether  arrested  the  efforts  of  aboli- 
tion. I  am  sensible,  sir,  that  this  work  would 
have  been  accomplished  with  much  greater  abil- 
ity, and  with  much  happier  effect,  under  the 
auspices  of  a  committee,  than  it  can  be  by  me. 
But,  anxious  as  I  always  am  to  contribute 
whatever  is  in  my  power  to  the  harmony,  con- 
cord, and  happiness  of  this  great  people,  I  feel 
myself  irresistibly  impelled  to  do  whatever  is 
in  my  power,  incompetent  as  I  feel  myself  to 
be,  to  dissuade  the  public  from  continuing  to 
agitate  a  subject  fraught  with  the  most  direful 
consequences. 

"  There  are  three  classes  of  persons  opposed, 
or  apparently  opposed,  to  the  continued  exist- 
ence of  slavery  in  the  United  States.  The  first 
are  those  who,  from  sentiments  of  philanthropy 
and  humanity,  are  conscientiously  opposed  to 
the  existence  of  slavery,  but  who  are  no  less 
opposed,  at  the  same  time,  to  any  disturbance 
of  the  peace  and  tranquillity  of  the  Union,  or 
the  infringement  of  the  powers  of  the  States 


composing  the  confederacy.  In  this  class  may 
be  comprehended  that  peaceful  and  exemplary 
society  of  '  Friends,'  one  of  whose  established 
maxims  is,  an  abhorrence  of  war  in  all  its 
forms,  and  the  cultivation  of  peace  and  good- 
will amongst  mankind.  The  next  class  consist? 
of  apparent  abolitionists — that  is,  those  who, 
having  been  persuaded  that  the  right  of  peti- 
tion has  been  violated  by  Congress,  co-operate 
with  the  abolitionists  for  the  sole  purpose  of  as- 
serting and  vindicating  that  right.  And  the 
third  class  are  the  real  ultra-abolitionists,  who 
are  resolved  to  persevere  in  the  pursuit  of  their 
object  at  all  hazards,  and  without  regard  to  any 
p  consequences,  however  calamitous  they  may  be. 
"With  them  the  rights  of  property  are  nothing  ; 
the  deficiency  of  the  powers  of  the  general  gov- 
erment  is  nothing;  the  acknowledged  and  in- 
contestable powers  of  the  States  are  nothing ; 
civil  war,  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  and  the 
overthrow  of  a  government  in  which  are  con- 
centrated the  fondest  hopes  of  the  civilized 
world,  are  nothing.  A  single  idea  has  taken 
possession  of  their  minds,  and  onward  they  pur- 
sue it,  overlooking  all  barriers,  reckless  and  re- 
gardless of  all  consequences.  With  this  class, 
the  immediate  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia,  and  in  the  territory  of  Flori- 
da, the  prohibition  of  the  removal  of  slaves  from 
State  to  State,  and  the  refusal  to  admit  any  new 
State,  comprising  within  its  limits  the  institu- 
tion of  domestic  slavery,  are  but  so  many  means 
conducing  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  ulti- 
mate but  perilous  end  at  which  they  avowedly 
and  boldly  aim  ;  are  but  so  many  short  stages 
in  the  long  and  bloody  road  to  the  distant  goal 
at  which  they  would  finally  arrive.  Their  pur- 
pose is  abolition,  universal  abolition,  peaceably 
if  it  can,  forcibly  if  it  must.  Their  object  is  no 
longer  concealed  by  the  thinnest  veil ;  it  is 
avowed  and  proclaimed.  Utterly  destitute  of 
constitutional  or  other  rightful  power,  living 
in  totally  distinct  communities,  as  alien  to  the 
communities  in  which  the  subject  on  which 
they  would  operate  resides,  so  far  as  concerns 
political  power  over  that  subject,  as  if  they 
lived  in  Africa  or  Asia,  they  nevertheless  pro- 
mulgate to  the  world  their  purpose  to  be  to 
manumit  forthwith,  and  without  compensation, 
and  without  moral  preparation,  three  millions 
of  negro  slaves,  under  jurisdictions  altogether 
separated  from  those  under  which  they  live. 

"I  have  said  that  immediate  abolition  of 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  and  in  the 
territory  of  Florida,  and  the  exclusion  of  new 
States,  were  only  means  towards  the  attainment 
of  a  much  more  important  end.  Unfortunately, 
they  are  not  the  only  means.  Another,  and 
much  more  lamentable  one  is  that  which  this 
class  is  endeavoring  to  employ,  of  arraying  one 
portion  against  another  portion  of  the  Union. 
With  that  view,  in  all  their  leading  prints  and 
publications,  the  alleged  horrors  of  slavery  are 
depicted  in  the  most  glowing  and  exaggerated 
colors,  to  excite  the  imaginations  and  stimulate 


156 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  rage  of  the  people  in  the  free  States  against 
the  people  in  the  slave  States.  The  slaveholder 
is  held  up  and  represented  as  the  most  atrocious 
of  human  beings.  Advertisements  of  fugitive 
slaves  to  be  sold  are  carefully  collected  and 
blazoned  forth,  to  infuse  a  spirit  of  detestation 
and  hatred  against  one  entire  and  the  largest 
section  of  the  Union.  And  like  a  notorious 
agitator  upon  another  theatre  (Mr.  Daniel 
O'Connell),  they  would  hunt  down  and  pro- 
scribe from  the  pale  of  civilized  society  the  in- 
habitants of  that  entire  section.  Allow  me,  Mr. 
President,  to  say,  that  whilst  I  recognize  in  the 
justly  wounded  feelings  of  the  Minister  of  the 
United  States  at  the  court  of  St.  James  much  to 
excuse  the  notice  which  he  was  provoked  to 
take  of  that  agitator,  in  my  humble  opinion,  he 
would  better  have  consulted  the  dignity  of  his 
station  and  of  his  country  in  treating  him  with 
contemptuous  silence.  That  agitator  would  ex- 
clude us  from  European  society — he  who  himself 
can  only  obtain  a  contraband  admission,  and  is  re- 
ceived with  scornful  repugnance  into  it !  If  he 
be  no  more  desirous  of  our  society  than  we  are 
of  his,  he  may  rest  assured  that  a  state  of  eternal 
non-intercourse  will  exist  between  us.  Yes,  sir, 
I  think  the  American  Minister  would  have  best 
pursued  the  dictates  of  true  dignity  by  regard- 
ing the  language  of  that  member  of  the  British 
House  of  Commons  as  the  malignant  ravings  of 
the  plunderer  of  his  own  country,  and  the  libeller 
of  a  foreign  and  kindred  people. 

"  But  the  means  to  which  I  have  already  ad- 
verted are  not  the  only  ones  which  this  third 
class  of  ultra-Abolitionists  are  employing  to 
effect  their  ultimate  end.  They  began  their 
operations  by  professing  to  employ  only  per- 
suasive means  in  appealing  to  the  humanity, 
and  enlightening  the  understandings,  of  the 
slaveholdmg  portion  of  the  Union.  If  there 
were  some  kindness  in  this  avowed  motive,  it 
must  be  acknowledged  that  there  was  rather  a 
presumptuous  display  also  of  an  assumed  supe- 
riority in  intelligence  and  knowledge.  For  some 
time  they  continued  to  make  these  appeals  to 
our  duty  and  our  interest;  but  impatient  with 
the  slow  influence  of  their  logic  upon  our  stupid 
minds,  they  recently  resolved  to  change  their 
system  of  action.  To  the  agency  of  their  powers 
of  persuasion,  they  now  propose  to  substitute 
the  powers  of  the  ballot  box ;  and  he  must  be 
blind  to  what  is  passing  before  us,  who  does  not 
perceive  that  the  inevitable  tendency  of  their 
proceedings  is,  if  these  should  be  found  insuffi- 
cient, to  invoke,  finally,  the  more  potent  powers 
of  the  bayonet. 

"  Mr.  President,  it  is  at  this  alarming  stage  of 
the  proceedings  of  the  ultra- Abolitionists  that  I 
would  seriously  invite  every  considerate  man  in 
the  country  solemnly  to  pause,  and  deliberately 
to  reflect,  not  merely  on  our  existing  posture, 
but  upon  that  dreadful  precipice  down  which 
they  would  hurry  us.  It  is  because  these  ultra- 
Abolitionists  have  ceased  to  employ  the  instru- 
ments of  reason  and  persuasion,  have  made  their 


cause  political,  and  have  appealed  to  the  ballot 
box,  that  I  am  induced,  upon  this  occasion,  to 
address  you. 

"  There  have  been  three  epochs  in  the  history 
of  our  country  at  which  the  spirit  of  abolition 
displayed  itself.  The  first  was  immediately 
after  the  formation  of  the  present  federal  gov- 
ernment. When  the  constitution  was  about 
going  into  operation,  its  powers  were  not  well 
understood  by  the  community  at  large,  and  re- 
mained to  be  accurately  interpreted  and  defined. 
At  that  period  numerous  abolition  societies 
were  formed,  comprising  not  merely  the  Society 
of  Friends,  but  many  other  good  men.  Peti- 
tions were  presented  to  Congress,  praying  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery.  They  were  received 
without  serious  opposition,  referred,  and  report- 
ed upon  by  a  committee.  The  report  stated 
that  the  general  government  had  no  power  to 
abolish  slavery  as  it  existed  in  the  several 
States,  and  that  these  States  themselves  had  ex- 
clusive jurisdiction  over  the  subject.  The  re- 
port was  generally  acquiesced  in,  and  satisfac- 
tion and  tranquillity  ensued  ;  the  abolition 
societies  thereafter  limiting  their  exertions,  in 
respect  to  the  black  population,  to  offices  of 
humanity  within  the  scope  of  existing  laws. 

"  The  next  period  when  the  subject  of  slavery 
and  abolition,  incidentally,  was  brought  into 
notice  and  discussion,  was  on  the  memorable 
occasion  of  the  admission  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri into  the  Union.  The  struggle  was  long, 
strenuous,  and  fearful.  It  is  too  recent  to  make 
it  necessary  to  do  more  than  merely  advert  to 
it,  and  to  say,  that  it  was  finally  composed  by 
one  of  those  compromises  characteristic  of  our 
institutions,  and  of  which  the  constitution  itself 
is  the  most  signal  instance. 

"  The  third  is  that  in  which  we  now  find  our- 
selves, and  to  which  various  causes  have  con- 
tributed. The  principal  one,  perhaps,  is  British 
emancipation  in  the  islands  adjacent  to  our  con- 
tinent. Confounding  the  totally  different  cases 
of  the  powers  of  the  British  Parliament  and 
those  of  our  Congress,  and  the  totally  different 
conditions  of  the  slaves  in  the  British  West 
India  Islands  and  the  slaves  in  the  sovereign 
and  independent  States  of  this  confederacy, 
superficial  men  have  inferred  from  the  undecid- 
ed British  experiment  the  practicability  of  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  these  States.  All  these 
are  different.  The  powers  of  the  British  Parlia- 
ment are  unlimited,  and  often  described  to  be 
omnipotent.  The  powers  of  the  American  Con- 
gress, on  the  contrary,  are  few,  cautiously  limit- 
ed, scrupulously  excluding  all  that  are  not 
granted,  and  above  all,  carefully  and  absolutely 
excluding  all  power  over  the  existence  or  con- 
tinuance of  slavery  in  the  several  States.  The 
slaves,  too,  upon  which  British  legislation  ope- 
rated, were  not  in  the  bosom  of  the  kingdom, 
but  in  remote  and  feeble  colonies,  having  no 
voice  in  Parliament.  The  West  India  slave- 
holder was  neither  representative,  or  represented 
in  that  Parliament.  And  while  I  most  fervently 


ANNO  1839.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


157 


wish  complete  success  to  the  British  experiment 
of  the  West  India  emancipation,  I  confess  that 
I  have  fearful  forebodings  of  a  disastrous  ter- 
mination. Whatever  it  may  be,  I  think  it  must 
be  admitted  that,  if  the  British  Parliament 
treated  the  West  India  slaves  as  freemen,  it  also 
treated  the  West  India  freemen  as  slaves.  If 
instead  of  these  slaves  being  separated  by  a 
wide  ocean  from  the  parent  country,  three  or 
four  millions  of  African  negro  slaves  had  been 
dispersed  over  England,  Scotland,  Wales  and 
Ireland,  and  their  owners  had  been  members  of 
the  British  Parliament — a  case  which  would 
have  presented  some  analogy  to  our  own  coun- 
try— does  any  one  believe  that  it  would  have 
been  expedient  or  practical  to  have  emancipated 
them,  leaving  them  to  remain,  with  all  their 
embittered  feelings,  in  the  United  kingdom, 
boundless  as  the  powers  of  the  British  govern- 
ment are  ? 

"  Other  causes  have  conspired  with  the  Brit- 
ish example  to  produce  the  existing  excitement 
from  abolition.  I  say  it  with  profound  regret, 
and  with  no  intention  to  occasion  irritation 
here  or  elsewhere,  that  there  are  persons  in 
both  parts  of  the  Union  who  have  sought  to 
mingle  abolition  with  politics,  and  to  array  one 
portion  of  the  Union  against  the  other.  It  is 
the  misfortune  of  free  countries  that,  in  high 
party  times,  a  disposition  too  often  prevails  to 
seize  hold  of  every  thing  which  can  strengthen 
the  one  side  or  weaken  the  other.  Prior  to  the 
late  election  of  the  present  President  of  the 
United  States,  he  was  charged  with  being  an 
abolitionist,  and  abolition  designs  were  imputed 
to  many  of  his  supporters.  Much  as  I  was  op- 
posed to  his  election,  and  am  to  his  administra- 
tion, I  neither  shared  in  making  or  believing 
the  truth  of  the  charge.  He  was  scarcely  in- 
stalled in  office  before  the  same  charge  was  di- 
rected against  those  who  opposed  his  election. 

"  It  is  not  true — I  rejoice  that  it  is  not  true 
— that  either  of  the  two  great  parties  in  this 
country  has  any  design  or  aim  at  abolition.  I 
should  deeply  lament  if  it  were  true.  I  should 
consider,  if  it  were  true,  that  the  danger  to  the 
stability  of  our  system  would  be  infinitely 
greater  than  any  which  does,  I  hope,  actually 
exist.  Whilst  neither  party  can  be,  I  think, 
justly  accused  of  any  abolition  tendency  or  pur- 
pose, both  have  profited,, and  both  been  injured, 
in  particular  localities,  by  the  accession  or  ab- 
straction of  abolition  support.  If  the  account 
were  fairly  stated,  I  believe  the  party  to  which 
I  am  opposed  has  profited  much  more,  and  been 
injured  much  less,  than  that  to  which  I  belong. 
But  I  am  far,  for  that  reason,  from  being  dis- 
posed to  accuse  our  adversaries  of  abolitionism." 


CHAPTER    XXXVIII. 

BANK  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES :  EESIGNATION 
OF  ME.  BIDDLE  :  FINAL  SUSPENSION. 

On  the  first  of  January  of  this  year  this  Bank 
made  an  exposition  of  its  affairs  to  the  Gene- 
ral Assembly  of  Pennsylvania,  as  required  by 
its  charter,  in  which  its  assets  aggregated 
$66,180,396  ;  and  its  liabilities  aggregated 
$33,180,855  :  the  exposition  being  verified  by 
the  usual  oaths  required  on  such  occasious. 

On  the  30th  of  March  following  Mr.  Biddle 
resigned  his  place  as  president  of  the  Bank, 
giving  as  a  reason  for  it  that,  ;'  the  affairs  of 
the  institution  were  in  a  state  of  great  pros- 
perity, and  no  longer  needed  his  services." 

On  the  same  day  the  board  of  directors  in  ac- 
cepting the  resignation,  passed  a  resolve  declar- 
ing that  the  President  Biddle  had  left  the  insti- 
tution "prosperous  in  all  its  relations,  strong 
in  its  ability  to  promote  the  interest  of  the 
community,  cordial  with  other  banks,  and  se- 
cure in  the  esteem  and  respect  of  all  connected 
with  it  at  home  or  abroad." 

On  the  9th  of  October  the  Bank  closed  her 
doors  upon  her  creditors,  under  the  mild  name 
of  suspension — never  to  open  them  again. 

In  the  month  of  April  preceding,  when  leav- 
ing Washington  to  return  to  Missouri,  I  told  the 
President  there  would  be  another  suspension, 
headed  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  be- 
fore we  met  again  :  at  my  return  in  November 
it  was  his  first  expression  to  remind  me  of  that 
conversation ;  and  to  say  it  was  the  second  time 
I  had  foreseen  these  suspensions,  and  warned 
him  of  them.  He  then  jocularly  said,  don't 
predict  so  any  more.  I  answered  I  should  not ; 
for  it  was  the  last  time  this  Bank  would  sus- 
pend. 

Still  dominating  over  the  moneyed  systems 
of  the  South  and  West,  this  former  colossal  insti- 
tution was  yet  able  to  carry  along  with  her  near- 
ly all  the  banks  of  one-half  of  the  Union :  and 
using  her  irredeemable  paper  against  the  solid 
currency  of  the  New  York  and  other  Northern 
banks,  and  selling  fictitious  bills  on  Europe,  she 
was  able  to  run  them  hard  for  specie— curtail 
their  operations — and  make  panic  and  distress 
in  the  money  market.    At  the  same  time  by 


158 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


making  an  imposing  exhibition  of  her  assets, 
arranging  a  reciprocal  use  of  their  notes  with 
other  suspended  banks,  keeping  up  an  apparent 
par  value  for  her  notes  and  stocks  by  fictitious 
and  collusive  sales  and  purchases,  and  above  all, 
by  her  political  connection  with  the  powerful 
opposition — she  was  enabled  to  keep  the  field 
as  a  bank,  and  as  a  political  power :  and  as  such 
to  act  an  effective  part  in  the  ensuing  presiden- 
tial election.  She  even  pretended  to  have  be- 
come stronger  since  the  time  when  Mr.  Biddle 
left  her  so  prosperous  ;  and  at  the  next  exposi- 
tion of  her  affairs  to  the  Pennsylvania  legis- 
lature (Jan.  1,  1840),  returned  her  assets  at 
$74,603,142 ;  her  liabilities  at  $36,959,539,  and 
her  surplus  at  $37,643,603.  This  surplus,  after 
paying  all  liabilities,  showed  the  stock  to  be 
worth  a  premium  of  $2,643,603.  And  all  this 
duly  sworn  to. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

FIRST  SESSION  TWENTY-SIXTH  CONGRESS :  MEM- 
BERS :  ORGANIZATION :  POLITICAL  MAP  OF  THE 
HOUSE. 

Members  of  the  Senate. 

New  Hampshire. — Henry  Hubbard,  Franklin 
Pierce. 

Maine. — John  Ruggles,  Reuel  Williams. 

Massachusetts. — John  Davis,  Daniel  Web- 
ster. 

Vermont. — Sam'l  Prentiss,  Sam'l  S.  Phelps. 

Rhode  Island. — Nehemiah  R.  Knight,  N.  F. 
Dixon. 

Connecticut.  —  Thaddeus  Betts,  Perry 
Smith. 

New  York.— Silas  Wright,  N.  P.  Tallmadge. 

New  Jersey. — Sam'l  L.  Southard,  Garret 
D.  Wall. 

Pennsylvania. — James  Buchanan,  Daniel 
Sturgeon. 

Delaware. — Thomas  Clayton. 

Maryland. — John  S.  Spence,  Wm.  D.  Mer- 
rick. 

Virginia. — William  H.  Roane. 

North  Carolina. — Bedford  Brown,  R. 
Strange. 

South  Carolina. — John  C.  Calhoun,  Wm. 
Campbell  Preston. 

Georgia. — Wilson  Lumpkin,  Alfred  Cuth- 
bert. 

Kentucky.— Henry  Clay,  John  J.  Critten- 
den. 

Tennessee, — Hugh  L.  White,  Alex.  An- 
derson. 


Ohio. — William  Allen,  Benjamin  Tappan. 

Indiana. — Oliver  H.  Smith,  Albert  S.  White. 

Mississippi. — Robert  J.  Walker,  John  Hen- 
derson. 

Louisiana. — Robert  C.  Nicholas,  Alexander 
Mouton. 

Illinois. — John  M.  Robinson,  Richard  M. 
Young. 

Alabama. — Clement  C.  Clay,  Wm.  Rufus, 
King. 

Missouri. — Thomas  H.  Benton,  Lewis  F. 
Linn. 

Arkansas. — William  S.  Fulton,  Ambrose 
Sevier. 

Michigan. — John  Norvell,  Augustus  S.  Por- 
ter. 

Members  of  the  House  of  Representatives. 

Maine. — Hugh  J.  Anderson,  Nathan  Clifford, 
Thomas  Davee,  George  Evans,  Joshua  A.  Lowell, 
Virgil  D.  Parris,  Benjamin  Randall,  Albert 
Smith. 

New  Hampshire.  —  Charles  G.  Atherton, 
Edmund  Burke,  Ira  A.  Eastman,  Tristram  Shaw, 
Jared  W.  Williams. 

Connecticut. — Joseph  Trumbull,  William 
L.  Storrs,  Thomas  W.  Williams,  Thomas  B. 
Osborne,  Truman  Smith,  John  H.  Brockway. 

Vermont. — Hiland  Hall,  William  Slade, 
Horace  Everett,  John  Smith,  Isaac  Fletcher. 

Massachusetts. — Abbot  Lawrence,  Leverett 
Saltonstall,  Caleb  Cushing,  William  Parmenter, 
Levi  Lincoln,  [Vacancy,]  George  N.  Briggs, 
William  B.  Calhoun,  William  S.  Hastings,  Hen- 
ry Williams,  John  Reed,  John  Quincy  Adams. 

Rhode  Island. — Chosen  by  general  ticket. 
Joseph  L.  Tillinghast,  Robert  B.  Cranston. 

New  York. — Thomas  B.  Jackson,  James  de 
la  Montayne,  Ogden  Hoffman,  Edward  Curtis, 
Moses  H.  Grinnell,  James  Monroe,  Gouverneur 
Kemble,  Charles  Johnson,  Nathaniel  Jones, 
Rufus  Palen,  Aaron  Vanderpoel,  John  Ely, 
Hiram  P.  Hunt,  Daniel  D.  Barnard,  Anson 
Brown,  David  Russell,  Augustus  C.  Hand,  John 
Fine,  Peter  J.  Wagoner,  Andrew  W.  Doig, 
John  G.  Floyd,  David  P.  Brewster,  Thomas  C. 
Crittenden,  John  H.  Prentiss,  Judson  Allen, 
John  C.  Clark,  S.  B.  Leonard,  Amasa  Dana, 
Edward  Rogers,  Nehemiah  H.  Earl,  Christopher 
Morgan,  Theron  R.  Strong,  Francis  P.  Granger, 
Meredith  Mallory,  Seth  M.  Gates,  Luther  C. 
Peck,  Richard  P.  Marvin,  Millard  Fillmore, 
Charles  F.  Mitchell. 

New  Jersey. — Joseph  B.  Randolph,  Peter 
D.  Vroom,  Philemon  Dickerson,  William  R. 
Cooper,  Daniel  B.  Ryall,  Joseph  Kille. 

Pennsylvania. — William  Beatty,  Richard 
Biddle,  James  Cooper,  Edward  Davies,  John 
Davis,  John  Edwards,  Joseph  Fornance,  John 
Galbraith,  James  Gerry,  Robert  II.  Hammond, 
Thomas  Henry,  Enos  Hook,  Francis  James, 
George  M.  Keim,  Isaac  Leet,  Albert  G.  Mar- 
chand,  Samuel  W.  Morris,  George  McCulloch, 
Charles  Naylor,  Peter  Newhard,  Charles  Ogle, 


ANNO  1839.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


159 


Lemuel  Paynter,  David  Petrikin,  William  S. 
Ramsey,  John  Sergeant,  William  Simonton, 
George  W.  Toland,  David  D.  Wagener. 

Delaware. — Thomas  Robinson,  jr. 

Maryland. — James  Carroll,  John  Dennis, 
Solomon  Hillen,  jr.,  Daniel  Jenifer,  William 
Cost  Johnson,  Francis  Thomas,  Philip  F. 
Thomas,  John  T.  H.  Worthington. 

Virginia. — Linn  Banks,  Andrew  Beirne, 
John  M.  Botts,  Walter  Coles,  Robert  Craig, 
George  C.  Dromgoole,  James  Garland,  William 
L.  Goggin,  John  Hill,  Joel  Holleman,  George 
W.  Hopkins,  Robert  M.  T.  Hunter,  Joseph 
Johnson,  John  W.  Jones,  William  Lucas, 
Charles  F.  Mercer,  Francis  E.  Rives,  Green  B. 
Samuels,  Lewis  Steinrod,  John  Taliaferro,  Hen- 
ry A.  Wise. 

North  Carolina. — Jesse  A.  Bynum,  Henry 
W.  Connor,  Edmund  Deberry,  Charles  Fisher, 
James  Graham,  Micajah  T.  Hawkins,  John 
Hill,  James  J.  McKay,  William  Montgomery, 
Kenneth  Rayner,  Charles  Shepard,  Edward 
Stanly,  Lewis  Williams. 

South  Carolina. — Sampson  H.  Butler,  John 
Campbell,  John  K.  Griffin,  Isaac  E.  Holmes, 
Francis  W.  Pickens,  R.  Barnwell  Rhett,  James 
Rogers,  Thomas  B.  Sumter,  Waddy  Thomp- 
son, jr. 

Georgia. — Julius  C.  Alford,  Edward  J. 
Black,  Walter  T.  Colquitt,  Mark  A.  Cooper, 
William  C.  Dawson,  Richard  W.  Habersham, 
Thomas  B.  King,  Eugenius  A.  Nisbet,  Lott 
Warren. 

Alabama. — R.  II.  Chapman,  David  Hubbard, 
George  W.  Crabb,  Dixon  H.  Lewis,  James  Dil- 
lett. 

Louisiana. — Edward  D.  White,  Edward 
Chinn,  Rice  Garland. 

Mississippi. — A.  G.  Brown,  J.  Thompson. 

Missouri. — John  Miller,  John  Jameson. 

Arkansas. — Edward  Cross. 

Tennessee. — William  B.  Carter,  Abraham 
McClellan,  Joseph  L.  Williams,  Julius  W. 
Blackwell,  Hopkins  L.  Turney,  William  B. 
Campbell,  John  Bell,  Meredith  P.  Gentry, 
Harvey  M.  Waterson,  Aaron  V.  Brown,  Cave 
Johnson,  John  W.  Crockett,  Christopher  H. 
Williams. 

Kentucky.— Linn  Boyd,  Philip  Triplett,  Jo- 
seph Underwood,  Sherrod  Williams,  Simeon  W. 
Anderson,  Willis  Green,  John  Pope,  William  J. 
Graves,  John  White,  Richard  Hawes,  L.  W. 
Andrews,  Garret  Davis,  William  0.  Butler. 

Ohio.— Alexander  Duncan,  John  B.  Weller, 
Patrick  G.  Goode,  Thomas  Corwin,  William 
Doane,  Calvary  Morris,  William  K.  Bond,  Jo- 
seph Ridgway,  William  Medill,  Samson  Ma- 
son, Isaac  Parish,  Jonathan  Taylor,  D.  P.  Lead- 
better,  George  Sweeny,  John  W.  Allen,  Joshua 
R.  Giddings,  John  Hastings,  D.  A.  Stark- 
weather, Henry  Swearingen. 

Michigan. — Isaac  E.  Crary. 

Indiana- — Geo.  H.  Proffit,  John  Davis,  John 
Carr,  Thomas  Smith,  James  Rariden,  Wm.  W. 
Wick,  T.  A.  Howard. 


Illinois. — John  Reynolds,  Zadok  Casey, 
John  T.  Stuart. 

The  organization  of  the  House  was  delayed 
for  many  days  by  a  case  of  closely  and  earnest- 
ly contested  election  from  the  State  of  New 
Jersey.  Five  citizens,  to  wit :  John  B.  Ay- 
crigg,  John  B.  Maxwell,  William  Halsted, 
Thomas  C.  Stratton,  Thomas  Jones  Yorke,  had 
received  the  governor's  certificate  as  duly  elect- 
ed :  five  other  citizens,  to  wit :  Philemon  Dick- 
erson,  Peter  D.  Vroom,  Daniel  B.  Ryall,  Wil- 
liam R.  Cooper,  John  Kille,  claimed  to  have 
received  a  majority  of  the  lawful  votes  given  in 
the  election  :  and  each  set  demanded  admission 
as  representatives.  No  case  of  contested  election 
was  ever  more  warmly  disputed  in  the  House. 
The  two  sets  of  claimants  were  of  opposite  politi- 
cal parties :  the  House  was  nearly  divided :  five 
from  one  side  and  added  to  the  other  would  make 
a  difference  of  ten  votes :  and  these  ten  might 
determine  its  character.  The  first  struggle  was 
on  the  part  of  the  members  holding  the  certifi- 
cates claiming  to  be  admitted,  and  to  act  as  mem- 
bers, until  the  question  of  right  should  be  de- 
cided ;  and  as  this  would  give  them  a  right  to  vote 
for  speaker,  it  might  have  had  the  effect  of  decid- 
ing that  important  election :  and  for  this  point  a 
great  struggle  was  made  by  the  whig  party. 
The  democracy  could  not  ask  for  the  immediate 
admission  of  the  five  democratic  claimants,  as 
they  only  presented  a  case  which  required  to 
be  examined  before  it  could  be  decided.  Their 
course  was  to  exclude  both  sets,  and  send  them 
equally  before  the  committee  of  contested  elec- 
tions ;  and  in  the  mean  time,  a  resolution  to  pro- 
ceed with  the  organization  of  the  House  was 
adopted  after  an  arduous  and  protracted  struggle, 
in  which  every  variety  of  parliamentary  motion 
was  exhausted  by  each  side  to  accomplish  its  pur- 
pose ;  and,  at  the  end  of  three  months  it  was  re- 
ferred to  the  committee  to  report  which  five  of  the 
ten  contestants  had  received  the  greatest  number 
of  legal  votes.  This  was  putting  the  issue  on  the 
rights  of  the  voters— on  the  broad  and  popular 
ground  of  choice  by  the  people :  and  was  equiv- 
alent to  deciding  the  question  in  favor  of  the 
democratic  contestants,  who  held  the  certificate 
of  the  Secretary  of  State  that  the  majority  of 
votes  returned  to  his  office  was  in  their  favor, — 
counting  the  votes  of  some  precincts  which  the 
governor  and  council  had  rejected  for  illegality 
in  holding  the  elections.    As  the  constitutional 


160 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


judge  of  the  election,  qualifications  and  returns 
of  its  own  members,  the  House  disregarded  the 
decision  of  the  governor  and  council ;  and,  de- 
ferring to  the  representative  principle,  made  the 
decision  turn,  not  upon  the  conduct  of  the  offi- 
cers holding  the  election,  but  upon  the  rights 
of  the  voters. 

This  strenuous  contest  was  not  terminated 
until  the  10th  of  March — nearly  one  hundred 
days  from  the  time  of  its  commencement.  The 
five  democratic  members  were  then  admitted  to 
their  seats.  In  the  mean  time  the  election  for 
speaker  had  been  brought  on  by  a  vote  of  118 
to  110  —  the  democracy  having  succeeded  in 
bringing  on  the  election  after  a  total  exhaustion 
of  every  parliamentary  manoeuvre  to  keep  it  off. 
Mr.  John  W.  Jones,  of  Virginia,  was  the  demo- 
cratic nominee  :  Mr.  Jno.  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  was 
nominated  on  the  part  of  the  whigs.  The  whole 
vote  given  in  was  235,  making  118  necessary  to 
a  choice.  Of  these,  Mr.  Jones  received  118: 
Mr.  Bell,  102.  Twenty  votes  were  scattered, 
of  which  11,  on  the  whig  side,  wTent  to  Mr. 
Dawson  of  Georgia ;  and  9  on  the  democratic 
side  were  thrown  upon  three  southern  mem- 
bers. Had  any  five  of  these  nine  voted  for  Mr. 
Jones,  it  would  have  elected  him:  while  the 
eleven  given  to  Mr.  Dawson  would  not  have  ef- 
fected the  election  of  Mr.  Bell.  It  was  clear  the 
democracy  had  the  majority,  for  the  contested 
election  from  New  Jersey  having  been  sent  to  a 
committee,  and  neither  set  of  the  contestant  s 
allowed  to  vote,  the  question  became  purely  and 
simply  one  of  party :  but  there  was  a  fraction 
in  each  party  which  did  not  go  with  the  party 
to  which  it  belonged :  and  hence,  with  a  ma- 
jority in  the  House  to  bring  on  the  election, 
and  a  majority  voting  in  it,  the  democratic 
nominee  lacked  five  of  the  number  requisite  to 
elect  him.  The  contest  was  continued  through 
five  successive  ballotings  without  any  better  re- 
sult for  Mr.  Jones,  and  worse  for  Mr.  Bell ;  and 
it  became  evident  that  there  was  a  fraction  of 
each  party  determined  to  control  the  election. 
It  became  a  question  with  the  democratic  party 
what  to  do  ?  The  fraction  which  did  not  go 
with  the  party  were  the  friends  of  Mr.  Calhoun, 
and  although  always  professing  democratically 
had  long  acted  with  the  whigs,  and  had  just  re- 
turned to  the  body  of  the  party  against  which 
they  had  been  acting.  The  election  was  in  their 
hands,  and  they  gave  it  to  be  known  that  if  one 
of  their  number  was  taken,  they  would  vote  with 


the  body  of  the  party  and  elect  him :  and  Mr. 
Dixon  H.  Lewis,  of  Alabama,  was  the  person 
indicated.  The  extreme  importance  of  having  a 
speaker  friendly  to  the  administration  induced 
all  the  leading  friends  of  Mr.  Van  Buren  to  go 
into  this  arrangement,  and  to  hold  a  caucus  to 
cary  it  into  effect.  The  caucus  was  held :  Mr. 
Lewis  was  adopted  as  the  candidate  of  the 
party:  and,  the  usual  resolves  of  unanimity 
having  been  adopted,  it  was  expected  to  elect 
him  on  the  first  trial.  He  was  not,  however, 
so  elected  ;  nor  on  the  second  trial ;  nor  on  the 
third;  nor  on  any  one  up  to  the  seventh: 
when,  having  never  got  a  higher  vote  than  Mr. 
Jones,  and  falling  off  to  the  one-half  of  it,  he 
was  dropped ;  and  but  few  knew  how  the  balk 
came  to  pass.  It  was  thus  :  The  writer  of  this 
View  was  one  of  a  few  who  would  not  capitulate 
to  half  a  dozen  members,  known  as  Mr.  Cal- 
houn's friends,  long  separated  from  the  party, 
bitterly  opposing  it,  just  returning  to  it,  and 
undertaking  to  govern  it  by  constituting  them- 
selves into  a  balance  wheel  between  the  two 
nearly  balanced  parties.  He  preferred  a  clean 
defeat  to  any  victory  gained  by  such  capitula- 
tion. He  was  not  a  member  of  the  House,  but 
had  friends  there  who  thought  as  he  did ;  and 
these  he  recommended  to  avoid  the  caucus,  and 
remain  unbound  by  its  resolves  ;  and  when  the 
election  came  on,  vote  as  they  pleased :  which 
they  did :  and  enough  of  them  throwing  away 
their  votes  upon  those  who  were  no  candidates, 
thus  prevented  the  election  of  Mr.  Lewis  :  and 
so  returned  upon  the  little  fraction  of  pretenders 
the  lesson  which  they  had  taught. 

It  was  the  same  with  the  whig  party.  A 
fraction  of  its  members  refused  to  support  the 
regular  candidate  of  the  party ;  and  after  many 
fruitless  trials  to  elect  him,  he  was  abandoned 
— Mr.  Robert  M.  T.  Hunter,  of  Virginia,  taken 
up,  and  eventually  elected.  He  had  voted  with 
the  whig  party  in  the  New  Jersey  election  case 
— among  the  scattering  in  the  votes  for  speaker ; 
and  was  finally  elected  by  the  full  whig  vote, 
and  a  few  of  the  scattering  from  the  democratic 
ranks.  He  was  one  of  the  small  band  of  Mr. 
Calhoun's  friends  ;  so  that  that  gentleman  suc- 
ceeded in  governing  the  whig  election  of  speaker, 
after  failing  to  govern  that  of  the  democracy. 

In  looking  over  the  names  of  the  candidates 
for  speaker  it  will  be  seen  that  the  whole  were 
Southern  men — no  Northern  man  being  at  any 
time  put  in  nomination,  or  voted  for.     And  this 


ANNO  1839.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


161 


circumstance  illustrates  a  pervading  system  of 
action  between  the  two  sections  from  the 
foundation  of  the  government — the  southern 
going  for  the  honors,  the  northern  for  the  bene- 
fits of  the  government.  And  each  has  succeeded, 
but  with  the  difference  of  a  success  in  a  solid 
and  in  an  empty  pursuit.  The  North  has  be- 
come rich  upon  the  benefits  of  the  government : 
the  South  has  grown  lean  upon  its  honors. 

This  arduous  and  protracted  contest  for 
speaker,  and  where  the  issue  involved  the  vital 
party  question  of  the  organization  of  the  House, 
and  where  every  member  classified  himself  by  a 
deliberate  and  persevering  series  of  votes,  be- 
comes important  in  a  political  classification 
point  of  view,  and  is  here  presented  in  detail  as 
the  political  map  of  the  House — taking  the  first 
vote  as  showing  the  character  of  the  whole. 

1.  Members  voting  for  Mr.  Jones  :  113. 

Judson  Allen,  Hugh  J.  Anderson,  Charles  G. 
Atherton,  Linn  Banks,  William  Beatty,  Andrew 
Beirne,  Julius  W.  Blackwell,  Linn  Boyd,  David 
P.  Brewster,  Aaron  V.  Brown,  Albert  G.  Brown, 
Edmund  Burke,  Sampson  H.  Butler,  William 
0.  Butler,  Jesse  A.  Bynum,  John  Carr,  James 
Carroll,  Zadok  Casey,  Reuben  Chapman,  Nathan 
Clifford,  Walter  Coles,  Henry  W.  Connor,  Ro- 
bert Craig,  Isaac  E.  Crary,  Edward  Cross, 
Amasa  Dana,  Thomas  Davee,  John  Davis,  John 
W.  Davis,  William  Doan,  Andrew  W.  Doig, 
George  C.  Dromgoole,  Alexander  Duncan.  Ne- 
hemiah  H.  Earl,  Ira  A.  Eastman,  John  Ely, 
John  Fine,  Isaac  Fletcher,  John  G.  Floyd, 
Joseph  Fornance,  John  Galbraith,  James  Gerry, 
Robert  H.  Hammond,  Augustus  C.  Hand,  John 
Hastings,  Micajah  T.  Hawkins,  John  Hill  of 
North  Carolina,  Solomon  Hillen  jr.,  Joel  Holle- 
man,  Enos  Hook,  Tilghman  A.  Howard,  David 
Hubbard,  Thomas  B.  Jackson,  John  Jameson, 
Joseph  Johnson,  Cave  Johnson,  Nathaniel 
Jones,  George  M.  Keim,  Gouverneur  Kemble, 
Daniel  P.  Leadbetter,  Isaac  Leet,  Stephen  B. 
Leonard,  Dixon  H.  Lewis,  Joshua  A.  Lowell, 
William  Lucas,  Abraham  McLellan,  George 
McCulloch,  James  J.  McKay,  Meredith  Mallory, 
Albert  G.  Marchand,  William  Medill,  John 
Miller,  James  D.  L.  Montanya,  William  Mont- 
gomery, Samuel  W.  Morris,  Peter  Newhard, 
Isaac  Parrish,  William  Parmenter,  Virgil  D. 
Parris,  Lemuel  Paynter,  David  Petrikin,  Francis 
W.  Pickens,  John  H.  Prentiss,  William  S.  Ram- 
sey, John  Reynolds,  R.  Barnwell  Rhett,  Francis 
E.  Rives,  Thomas  Robinson  jr.,  Edward  Rod- 
gers,  Green  B.  Samuels,  Tristram  Shaw,  Charles 
Shepard,  Albert  Smith,  John  Smith,  Thomas 
Smith,  David  A.  Starkweather,  Lewis  Steenrod, 
Theron  R.  Strong,  Henry  Swearingen,  George 
Sweeny,  Jonathan  Taylor,  Francis  Thomas, 
Philip  F.  Thomas,  Jacob  Thompson,  Hopkins 
Vol.  II.— 11 


L.  Turney,  Aaron  Vanderpoel,  David  D.  Wagner, 
Harvey  M.  Watterson,  John  B.  Weller,  William 
W.  Wick,  Jared  W.  Williams,  Henry  Williams, 
John  T.  H.  Worthington. 

2.  Members  voting  for  Mr.  Bell:  102. 
John  Quincy  Adams,  John  W.  Allen,  Simeon 
H.  Anderson,  Landaff  W.  Andrews,  Daniel  D. 
Barnard,  Richard  Biddle,  William  K.  Bond, 
John  M.  Botts,  George  N.  Briggs,  John  H. 
Brockway,  Anson  Brown,  William  B.  Calhoun, 
William  B.  Campbell,  William  B.  Carter,  Thom- 
as W.  Chinn,  Thomas  C.  Chittenden,  John  C. 
Clark,  James  Cooper,  Thomas  Corwin,  George 
W.  Crabb,  Robt.  B.  Cranston,  John  W.  Crockett, 
Edward  Curtis,  Caleb  Cushing,  Edward  Davies, 
Garret  Davis,  William  C.  Dawson,  Edmund 
Deberry,  John  Dennis,  James  Dellet,  John  Ed- 
wards, George  Evans,  Horace  Everett,  Millard 
Fillmore,  Rice  Garland,  Seth  M.  Gates,  Meredith 
P.  Gentry,  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  William  L. 
Goggin,  Patrick  G.  Goode,  James  Graham, 
Francis  Granger,  Willis  Green,  William  J. 
Graves,  Moses  H.  Grinnell,  Hiland  Hall,  Wil- 
liam S.  Hastings,  Richard  Hawes,  Thomas  Hen- 
ry, John  Hill  of  Virginia,  Ogden  Hoffman, 
Hiram  P.  Hunt,  Francis  James,  Daniel  Jenifer, 
Charles  Johnston,  William  Cost  Johnson,  Ab- 
bott Lawrence,  Levi  Lincoln,  Richard  P.  Marvin, 
Samson  Mason,  Charles  F.  Mercer,  Charles  F. 
Mitchell,  James  Monroe,  Christopher  Morgan, 
Calvary  Morris,  Charles  Naylor,  Charles  Ogle, 
Thomas  B.  Osborne,  Rufus  Palen,  Luther  C. 
Peck,  John  Pope,  George  H.  Proffit,  Benjamin 
Randall,  Joseph  F.  Randolph,  James  Rariden, 
Kenneth  Rayner,  John  Reed,  Joseph  Ridgway, 
David  Russell,  Leverett  Saltonstall,  John  Ser- 
geant, William  Simonton,  William  Slade,  Tru- 
man Smith,  Edward  Stanly,  William  L.  Storrs, 
John  T.  Stuart,  John  Taliaferro,  Joseph  L.  Til- 
linghast,  George  W.  Toland,  Philip  Triplett, 
Joseph  Trumbull,  Joseph  R.  Underwood,  Peter 
J.  Wagner,  Edward  D.  White,  John  White, 
Thomas  W.  Williams,  Lewis  Williams,  Joseph 
L.  Williams,  Christopher  H.  Williams,  Sherrod 
Williams,  Henry  A.  Wise. 

3.  Scattering:  20. 

The  following  named  members  voted  for 
William  C.  Dawson,  of  Georgia. 

Julius  C.  Alford,  John  Bell,  Edward  J.  Black, 
Richard  W.  Habersham,  George  W.  Hopkins, 
Hiram  P.  Hunt,  William  Cost  Johnson,  Thomas 
B.  King,  Eugenius  A.  Nisbet,  Waddy  Thomp- 
son jr.,  Lott  Warren. 

The  following  named  members  voted  for  Dixon 
H.  Lewis,  of  Alabama : 

John  Campbell,  Mark  A.  Cooper,  John  K. 
Griffin,  John  W.  Jones,  Walter  T.  Colquitt. 

The  following  named  members  voted  for 
Francis  W.  Pickens,  of  South  Carolina : 

Charles  Fisher,  Isaac  E.  Holmes,  Robert  M. 
T.  Hunter,  James  Rogers,  Thomas  B.  Sumter. 

James  Garland  voted  for  George  W.  Hopkins, 
of  Virginia. 


162 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Charles  Ogle  voted  for  Robert  M.  T.  Hunter, 
of  Virginia. 


CHAPTER    XL. 

FIRST  SESSION  OF  THE  TWENTY-SIXTH  CON- 
GRESS :    PRESIDENT'S  MESSAGE. 

The  President  met  with  firmness  the  new  sus- 
pension of  the  banks  of  the  southern  and  west- 
ern half  of  the  Union,  headed  by  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States.  Far  from  yielding  to  it  he 
persevered  in  the  recommendation  of  his  great 
measures,  found  in  their  conduct  new  reasons 
for  the  divorce  of  Bank  and  State,  and  plainly 
reminded  the  delinquent  institutions  with  a  to- 
tal want  of  the  reasons  for  stopping  payment 
which  they  had  alleged  two  years  before.     He 


"  It  now  appears  that  there  are  other  motives 
than  a  want  of  public  confidence  under  which 
the  banks  seek  to  justify  themselves  in  a  refusal 
to  meet  their  obligations.  Scarcely  were  the 
country  and  government  relieved,  in  a  degree, 
from  the  difficulties  occasioned  by  the  general 
suspension  of  1837,  when  a  partial  one,  occur- 
ring within  thirty  months  of  the  former,  pro- 
duced new  and  serious  embarrassments,  though 
it  had  no  palliation  in  such  circumstances  as 
were  alleged  in  justification  of  that  which  had 
previously  taken  place.  There  was  nothing  in 
the  condition  of  the  country  to  endanger  a  well- 
managed  banking  institution ;  commerce  was 
deranged  by  no  foreign  war ;  every  branch  of 
manufacturing  industry  was  crowned  with  rich 
rewards ;  and  the  more  than  usual  abundance 
of  our  harvests,  after  supplying  our  domestic 
wants,  had  left  our  granaries  and  storehouses 
filled  with  a  surplus  for  exportation.  It  is  in 
the  midst  of  this,  that  an  irredeemable  and  de- 
preciated paper  currency  is  entailed  upon  the 
people  by  a  large  portion  of  the  banks.  They 
are  not  driven  to  it  by  the  exhibition  of  a  loss 
of  public  confidence ;  or  of  a  sudden  pressure 
from  their  depositors  or  note-holders,  but  they 
excuse  themselves  by  alleging  that  the  current 
of  business,  and  exchange  with  foreign  coun- 
tries, which  draws  the  precious  metals  from 
their  vaults,  would  require,  in  order  to  meet  it, 
a  larger  curtailment  of  their  loans  to  a  compar- 
atively small  portion  of  the  community,  than  it 
will  be  convenient  for  them  to  bear,  or  perhaps 
safe  for  the  banks  to  exact.  The  plea  has 
ceased  to  be  one  of  necessity.  Convenience 
and  policy  are  now  deemed  sufficient  to  war- 
rant these  institutions  in  disregarding  their 
solemn  obligations.    Such  conduct  is  not  mere- 


ly an  injury  to  individual  creditors,  but  it  is  a 
wrong  to  the  whole  community,  from  whose 
liberality  they  hold  most  valuable  privileges — 
whose  rights  they  violate,  whose  business  they 
derange,  and  the  value  of  whose  property  they 
render  unstable  and  insecure.  It  must  be  evi- 
dent that  this  new  ground  for  bank  suspen- 
sions, in  reference  to  which  their  action  is  not 
only  disconnected  with,  but  wholly  independent 
of,  that  of  the  public,  gives  a  character  to  their 
suspensions  more  alarming  than  any  which  they 
exhibited  before,  and  greatly  increases  the  im- 
propriety of  relying  on  the  banks  in  the  trans- 
actions of  the  government." 

The  President  also  exposed  the  dangerous 
nature  of  the  whole  banking  system  from  its 
chain  of  connection  and  mutual  dependence  of 
one  upon  another,  so  as  to  make  the  misfortune 
or  criminality  of  one  the  misfortune  of  all.  Our 
country  banks  were  connected  with  those  of 
New  York  and  Philadelphia :  they  again  with 
the  Bank  of  England.  So  that  a  financial  crisis 
commencing  in  London  extends  immediately  to 
our  great  Atlantic  cities  ;  and  thence  through- 
out the  Stites  to  the  most  petty  institutions 
of  the  most  remote  villages  and  counties :  so 
that  the  lever  which  raised  or  sunk  our  country 
banks  was  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia, 
while  they  themselves  were  worked  by  a  lever 
in  London ;  thereby  subjecting  our  system  to 
the  vicissitudes  of  English  banking,  and  espe- 
cially while  we  had  a  national  bank,  which,  by 
a  law  of  its  nature,  would  connect  itself  with 
the  Bank  of  England.  All  this  was  well  shown 
by  the  President,  and  improved  into  a  reason 
for  disconnecting  ourselves  from  a  moneyed 
system,  which,  in  addition  to  its  own  inherent 
vices  and  fallibilities,  was  also  subject  to  the 
vices,  fallibilities,  and  even  inimical  designs  of 
another,  and  a  foreign  system — belonging  to  a 
power,  always  our  competitor  in  trade  and 
manufactures — sometimes  our  enemy  in  open 
war. 

"Distant  banks  may  fail,  without  seriously 
affecting  those  in  our  principal  commercial 
cities  ;  but  the  failure  of  the  latter  is  felt  at  the 
extremities  of  the  Union.  The  suspension  at 
New  York,  in  1837,  was  every  where,  with 
very  few  exceptions,  followed,  as  soon  as  it  was 
known ;  that  recently  at  Philadelphia  imme- 
diately affected  the  banks  of  the  South  and  West 
in  a  similar  manner.  This  dependence  of  our 
whole  banking  system  on  the  institutions  in  a 
few  large  cities,  is  not  found  in  the  laws  of  their 
organization,  but  in  those  of  trade  and  exchange. 
The  banks  at  that  centre  to  which  currency 


ANNO  1839.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


163 


flows,  and  where  it  is  required  in  payments  for 
merchandise,  hold  the  power  of  controlling  those 
in  regions  whence  it  comes,  while  the  latter 
possess  no  means  of  restraining  them ;  so  that 
the  value  of  individual  property,  and  the  pros- 
perity of  trade,  through  the  whole  interior  of 
the  country,  are  made  to  depend  on  the  good  or 
bad  management  of  the  banking  institutions  in 
the  great  seats  of  trade  on  the  seaboard.  But 
this  chain  of  dependence  does  not  stop  here. 
It  does  not  terminate  at  Philadelphia  or  New 
York.  It  reaches  across  the  ocean,  and  ends  in 
London,  the  centre  of  the  credit  system.  The 
same  laws  of  trade,  which  give  to  the  banks  in 
our  principal  cities  power  over  the  whole  bank- 
ing system  of  the  United  States,  subject  the 
former,  in  their  turn,  to  the  money  power  in 
Great  Britain.  It  is  not  denied  that  the  sus- 
pension of  the  New  York  banks  in  1837,  which 
was  followed  in  quick  succession  throughout  the 
Union,  was  partly  produced  by  an  application 
of  that  power ;  and  it  is  now  alleged,  in  extenu- 
ation of  the  present  condition  of  so  large  a  por- 
tion of  our  banks,  that  their  embarrassments 
have  arisen  from  the  same  cause.  From  this 
influence  they  cannot  now  entirely  escape,  for 
it  has  its  origin  in  the  credit  currencies  of  the 
two  countries ;  it  is  strengthened  by  the  cur- 
rent of  trade  and  exchange,  which  centres  in 
London,  and  is  rendered  almost  irresistible  by 
the  large  debts  contracted  there  by  our  mer- 
chants, our  banks,  and  our  States.  It  is  thus 
that  an  introduction  of  a  new  bank  into  the 
most  distant  of  our  villages,  places  the  business 
of  that  village  within  the  influence  of  the  money 
power  in  England.  It  is  thus  that  every  new 
debt  which  we  contract  in  that  country,  seriously 
affects  our  own  currency,  and  extends  over  the 
pursuits  of  our  citizens  its  powerful  influence. 
We  cannot  escape  from  this  by  making  new 
banks,  great  or  small,  State  or  National.  The 
same  chains  which  bind  those  now  existing  to 
the  centre  of  this  system  of  paper  credit,  must 
equally  fetter  every  similar  institution  we  create. 
It  is  only  by  the  extent  to  which  this  system 
has  been  pushed  of  late,  that  we  have  been  made 
fully  aware  of  its  irresistible  tendency  to  sub- 
ject our  own  banks  and  currency  to  a  vast  con- 
trolling power  in  a  foreign  land  ;  and  it  adds  a 
new  argument  to  those  which  illustrate  their 
precarious  situation.  Endangered  in  the  first 
place  by  their  own  mismanagement,  and  again 
by  the  conduct  of  every  institution  which  con- 
nects them  with  the  centre  of  trade  in  our  own 
country,  they  are  yet  subjected,  beyond  all  this, 
to  the  effect  of  whatever  measures,  policy,  neces- 
sity, or  caprice,  may  induce  those  who  control 
the  credits  of  England  to  resort  to.  Is  an  argu- 
ment required  beyond  the  exposition  of  these 
facts,  to  show  the  impropriety  of  using  our 
banking  institutions  as  depositories  of  the  pub- 
lic money  ?  Can  we  venture  not  only  to  en- 
counter the  risk  of  their  individual  and  mutual 
mismanagement,  but,  at  the  same  time,  to  place 
our  foreign  and  domestic  policy  entirely  under 


the  control  of  a  foreign  moneyed  interest  ?  To 
do  so  is  to  impair  the  independence  of  our 
government,  as  the  present  credit  system  has 
already  impaired  the  independence  of  our  banks. 
It  is  to  submit  all  its  important  operations, 
whether  of  peace  or  war,  to  be  controlled  or 
thwarted  at  first  by  our  own  banks,  and  then 
by  a  power  abroad  greater  than  themselves.  I 
cannot  bring  myself  to  depict  the  humiliation 
to  which  this  government  and  people  might  be 
sooner  or  later  reduced,  if  the  means  for  defend- 
ing their  rights  are  to  be  made  dependent  upon 
those  who  may  have  the  most  powerful  of  mo- 
tives to  impair  them." 

These  were  sagacious  views,  clearly  and 
strongly  presented,  and  new  to  the  public. 
Few  had  contemplated  the  evils  of  our  paper 
system,  and  the  folly  and  danger  of  depending 
upon  it  for  currency,  under  this  extended  and 
comprehensive  aspect ;  but  all  saw  it  as  soon  as 
it  was  presented ;  and  this  actual  dependence 
of  our  banks  upon  that  of  England  became  a 
new  reason  for  the  governmental  dissolution  of 
all  connection  with  them.  Happily  they  were 
working  that  dissolution  themselves,  and  pro- 
ducing that  disconnection  by  their  delinquencies 
which  they  were  able  to  prevent  Congress  from 
decreeing.  An  existing  act  of  Congress  forbid 
the  employment  of  any  non-specie  paying  bank 
as  a  government  depository,  and  equally  forbid 
the  use  of  its  paper.  They  expected  to  coerce 
the  government  to  do  both :  it  did  neither  :  and 
the  disconnection  became  complete,  even  before 
Congress  enacted  it. 

The  President  had  recommended,  in  his  first 
annual  message,  the  passage  of  a  pre-emption 
act  in  the  settlement  of  the  public  lands,  and 
of  a  graduation  act  to  reduce  the  price  of  the 
lands  according  to  their  qualities,  governed  by 
the  length  of  time  they  had  been  in  market. 
The  former  of  these  recommendations  had  been 
acted  upon,  and  became  law  ;  and  the  President 
had  now  the  satisfaction  to  communicate  its 
beneficial  operation. 

"On  a  former  occasion  your  attention  was 
invited  to  various  considerations  in  support  of  a 
pre-emption  law  in  behalf  of  the  settlers  on  the 
public  lands  ;  and  also  of  a  law  graduating  the 
prices  for  such  lands  as  had  long  been  in  the 
market  unsold,  in  consequence  of  their  inferior 
quality.  The  execution  of  the  act  which  was 
passed  on  the  first  subject  has  been  attended 
with  the  happiest  consequences,  in  quieting 
titles,  and  securing  improvements  to  the  indus- 
trious j  and  it  has  also,  to  a  very  gratifying  ex- 
tent, been  exempt  from  the  frauds  which  were 


164 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


practised  under  previous  pre-emption  laws.  It 
has,  at  the  same  time,  as  was  anticipated,  con- 
tributed liberally  during  the  present  year  to 
the  receipts  of  the  Treasury.  The  passage  of  a 
graduation  law,  with  the  guards  before  recom- 
mended, would  also,  I  am  persuaded,  add  con- 
siderably to  the  revenue  for  several  years,  and 
prove  in  other  respects  just  and  beneficial. 
Your  early  consideration  of  the  subject  is,  there- 
fore, once  more  earnestly  requested." 

The  opposition  in  Congress,  who  blamed  the 
administration  for  the  origin  and  conduct  of  the 
war  with  the  Florida  Indians,  had  succeeded  in 
getting  through  Congress  an  appropriation  for 
a  negotiation  with  this  tribe,  and  a  resolve  re- 
questing the  President  to  negotiate.  He  did 
so — with  no  other  effect  than  to  give  an  oppor- 
tunity for  renewed  treachery  and  massacre. 
The  message  said : 

"  In  conformity  with  the  expressed  wishes  of 
Congress,  an  attempt  was  made  in  the  spring  to 
terminate  the  Florida  war  by  negotiation.  It  is 
to  be  regretted  that  these  humane  intentions 
should  have  been  frustrated,  and  that  the  efforts 
to  bring  these  unhappy  difficulties  to  a  satis- 
factory conclusion  should  have  failed.  But,  after 
entering  into  solemn  engagements  with  the  Com- 
manding General,  the  Indians,  without  any  pro- 
vocation, recommenced  their  acts  of  treachery 
and  murder.  The  renewal  of  hostilities  in  that 
Territory  renders  it  necessary  that  I  should 
recommend  to  your  favorable  consideration  the 
measure  proposed  by  the  Secretary  at  War  (the 
armed  occupation  of  the  Territory)." 

With  all  foreign  powers  the  message  had 
nothing  but  what  was  friendly  and  desirable  to 
communicate.  Nearly  every  question  of  dis- 
sension and  dispute  had  been  settled  under  the 
administration  of  his  predecessor.  The  accu- 
mulated wrongs  of  thirty  years  to  the  property 
and  persons  of  our  citizens,  had  been  redressed 
under  President  Jackson.  He  left  the  foreign 
world  in  peace  and  friendship  with  his  country  ; 
and  his  successor  maintained  the  amicable  rela- 
tions so  happily  established. 


CHAPTER   XLI. 

DIVOECE  OP  BANK  AND  STATE ;  DIVOECE  DE- 
CEEED. 

This  measure,  so  long  and  earnestly  contested, 
was  destined  to  be  carried  into  effect  at  this 
session  j  but  not  without  an  opposition  on  the 


part  of  the  whig  members  in  each  House,  which 
exhausted  both  the  powers  of  debate,  and 
the  rules  and  acts  of  parliamentary  warfare. 
Even  after  the  bill  had  passed  through  all  its 
forms — had  been  engrossed  for  the  third  read- 
ing, and  actually  been  read  a  third  time  and 
was  waiting  for  the  call  of  the  vote,  with  a  fixed 
majority  shown  to  be  in  its  favor — the  warfare 
continued  upon  it,  with  no  other  view  than  to 
excite  the  people  against  it :  for  its  passage  in 
the  Senate  was  certain.  It  was  at  this  last  mo- 
ment that  Mr.  Clay  delivered  one  of  his  impas- 
sioned and  glowing  speeches  against  it. 

"  Mr.  President,  it  is  no  less  the  duty  of  the 
statesman  than  the  physician,  to  ascertain  the 
exact  state  of  the  body  to  which  he  is  to  minis- 
ter before  he  ventures  to  prescribe  any  healing 
remedy.  It  is  with  no  pleasure,  but  with  pro- 
found regret,  that  I  survey  the  present  condition 
of  our  country.  I  have  rarely,  I  think  never, 
known  a  period  of  such  universal  and  intense  dis- 
tress. The  general  government  is  in  debt,  and  its 
existing  revenue  is  inadequate  to  meet  its  ordi- 
nary expenditure.  The  States  are  in  debt,  some 
of  them  largely  in  debt,  insomuch  that  they 
have  been  compelled  to  resort  to  the  ruinous 
expedient  of  contracting  new  loans  to  meet  the 
interest  upon  prior  loans ;  and  the  people  are 
surrounded  with  difficulties;  greatly  embar- 
rassed, and  involved  in  debt.  Whilst  this  is, 
unfortunately,  the  general  state  of  the  country, 
the  means  of  extinguishing  this  vast  mass  of 
debt  are  in  constant  diminution.  Property  is  fall- 
ing in  value — all  the  great  staples  of  the  coun- 
try are  declining  in  price,  and  destined,  I  fear, 
to  further  decline.  The  certain  tendency  of  this 
very  measure  is  to  reduce  prices.  The  banks 
are  rapidly  decreasing  the  amount  of  their  cir- 
culation. About  one-half  of  them,  extending 
from  New  Jersey  to  the  extreme  Southwest, 
have  suspended  specie  payments,  presenting  an 
image  of  a  paralytic,  one  moiety  of  whose  body 
is  stricken  with  palsy.  The  banks  are  without 
a  head ;  and,  instead  of  union,  concert,  and  co- 
operation between  them,  we  behold  jealousy, 
distrust,  and  enmity.  We  have  no  currency 
whatever  possessing  uniform  value  throughout 
the  whole  country.  That  which  we  have,  con- 
sisting almost  entirely  of  the  issues  of  banks,  is 
in  a  state  of  the  utmost  disorder,  insomuch  that 
it  varies,  in  comparison  with  the  specie  standard, 
from  par  to  fifty  per  cent,  discount.  Exchanges, 
too,  are  in  the  greatest  possible  confusion,  not 
merely  between  distant  parts  of  the  Union,  but 
between  cities  and  places  in  the  same  neighbor- 
hood. That  between  our  great  commercial 
marts  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  within 
five  or  six  hours  of  each  other,  vacillating  be- 
tween seven  and  ten  per  cent.  The  products 
of  our  agricultural  industry  are  unable  to  find 
their  way  to  market  from  the  want  of  means  in 


ANNO  1840.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


165 


the  hands  of  traders  to  purchase  them,  or  from 
the  want  of  confidence  in  the  stability  of  things. 
Many  of  our  manufactories  stopped  or  stopping, 
especially  in  the  important  branch  of  woollens ; 
and  a  vast  accumulation  of  their  fabrics  on  hand, 
owing  to  the  destruction  of  confidence  and  the 
wretched  state  of  exchange  between  different 
sections  of  the  Union.  Such  is  the  unexaggerated 
picture  of  our  present  condition.  And  amidst 
the  dark  and  dense  cloud  that  surrounds  us,  I 
perceive  not  one  gleam  of  light.  It  gives  me  no- 
thing but  pain  to  sketch  the  picture.  But  duty 
and  truth  require  that  existing  diseases  should 
be  fearlessly  examined  and  probed  to  the  bottom. 
We  shall  otherwise  be  utterly  incapable  of  con- 
ceiving or  applying  appropriate  remedies.  If 
the  present  unhappy  state  of  our  country  had 
been  brought  upon  the  people  by  their  folly 
and  extravagance,  it  ought  to  be  borne  with 
fortitude,  and  without  complaint,  and  without 
reproach.  But  it  is  my  deliberate  judgment 
that  it  has  not  been — that  the  people  are  not  to 
blame — and  that  the  principal  causes  of  existing 
embarrassments  are  not  to  be  traced  to  them. 
Sir,  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  waste  the  time  or 
excite  the  feelings  of  members  of  the  Senate  by 
dwelling  long  on  what  I  suppose  to  be  those 
causes.  My  object  is  a  better,  a  higher,  and  I 
hope  a  more  acceptable  one — to  consider  the 
remedies  proposed  for  the  present  exigency. 
Still,  I  should  not  fulfil  my  whole  duty  if  I  did 
not  briefly  say  that,  in  my  conscience,  I  believe 
our  pecuniary  distresses  have  mainly  sprung 
from  the  refusal  to  recharter  the  late  Bank  of 
the  United  States ;  the  removal  of  the  public 
deposits  from  that  institution ;  the  multiplica- 
tion of  State  banks  in  consequence ;  and  the 
Treasury  stimulus  given  to  them  to  extend  their 
operations ;  the  bungling  manner  in  which  the 
law,  depositing  the  surplus  treasure  with  the 
States,  was  executed ;  the  Treasury  circular ; 
and  although  last,  perhaps  not  least,  the  exer- 
cise of  the  power  of  the  veto  on  the  bill  for  dis- 
tributing, among  the  States,  the  net  proceeds 
of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands." 

This  was  the  opening  of  the  speech — the  con- 
tinuation and  conclusion  of  which  was  bound  to 
be  in  harmony  with  this  beginning ;  and  obliged 
to  fill  up  the  picture  so  pathetically  drawn.  It 
did  so,  and  the  vote  being  at  last  taken,  the  bill 
passed  by  a  fair  majority— 24  to  18.  But  it 
had  the  House  of  Representatives  still  to  en- 
counter, where  it  had  met  its  fate  before ;  and 
to  that  House  it  was  immediately  sent  for  its 
concurrence.  A  majority  were  known  to  be  for 
it ;  but  the  shortest  road  was  taken  to  its  pas- 
sage ;  and  that  was  under  the  debate-killing 
pressure  of  the  previous  question.  That  ques- 
tion was  freely  used;  and  amendment  after 
amendment  cut  off  j  motion  after  motion  stifled  j 


speech  after  speech  suppressed ;  the  bill  carried 
from  stage  to  stage  by  a  sort  of  silent  struggle 
(chiefly  interrupted  by  the  repeated  process  of 
calling  yeas  and  nays),  until  at  last  it  reached 
the  final  vote — and  was  passed — by  a  majority, 
not  large,  but  clear — 124  to  107.  This  was  the 
30th  of  June,  that  is  to  say,  within  twenty  days 
of  the  end  of  a  session  of  near  eight  months. 
The  previous  question,  so  often  abused,  now  so 
properly  used  (for  the  bill  was  an  old  measure, 
on  which  not  a  new  word  was  to  be  spoken,  or 
a  vote  to  be  changed,  the  only  effort  being  to 
stave  it  off  until  the  end  of  the  session),  accom- 
plished this  good  work — and  opportunely ;  for 
the  next  Congress  was  its  deadly  foe. 

The  bill  was  passed,  but  the  bitter  spirit  which 
pursued  it  was  not  appeased.  There  is  a  form 
to  be  gone  through  after  the  bill  has  passed  all 
its  three  readings — the  form  of  agreeing  to  its 
title.  This  is  as  much  a  matter  of  course  and 
form  as  it  is  to  give  a  child  a  name  after  it  is 
born :  and,  in  both  cases,  the  parents  having  the 
natural  right  of  bestowing  the  name.  But  in 
the  case  of  this  bill  the  title  becomes  a  question, 
which  goes  to  the  House,  and  gives  to  the  ene- 
mies of  the  measure  a  last  chance  of  showing 
their  temper  towards  it:  for  it  is  a  form  in 
which  nothing  but  temper  can  be  shown.  This 
is  sometimes  done  by  simply  voting  against  the 
title,  as  proposed  by  its  friends — at  others,  and 
where  the  opposition  is  extreme,  it  is  done  by  a 
motion  to  amend  the  title  by  striking  it  out,  and 
substituting  another  of  odium,  and  this  mode 
of  opposition  gives  the  party  opposed  to  it  an 
opportunity  of  expressing  an  opinion  on  the 
merits  of  the  bill  itself,  compressed  into  an 
essence,  and  spread  upon  the  journal  for  a  per- 
petual remembrance.  This  was  the  form  adopt- 
ed on  this  occasion.  The  name  borne  at  the 
head  of  the  bill  was  inoffensive,  and  descriptive. 
It  described  the  bill  according  to  its  contents, 
and  did  it  in  appropriate  and  modest  terms. 
None  of  the  phrases  used  in  debate,  such  as 
"  Divorce  of  Bank  and  State,"  "  Sub-treasury," 
"Independent  Treasury,"  &c,  and  which  had 
become  annoying  to  the  opposition,  were  em- 
ployed, but  a  plain  title  of  description  in  these 
terms:  "  An  act  to  provide  for  the  collection, 
safe-keeping,  and  disbursing  of  the  public 
money."  To  this  title  Mr.  James  Cooper,  of 
Pennsylvania,  moved  an  amendment,  in  the 
shape  of  a  substitute,  in  these  words :  "  An  act 


166 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


to  reduce  the  value  of  property,  the  products 
of  the  farmer,  and  the  wages  of  labor,  to  de- 
stroy the  indebted  portions  of  the  community, 
and  to  place  the  Treasury  of  the  nation  in  the 
hands  of  the  President.''''  Before  a  vote  could  be 
taken  upon  this  proposed  substitute,  Mr.  Caleb 
Cushing,  of  Massachusetts,  proposed  to  amend 
it  by  adding  "  to  enable  the  public  money  to  be 
drawn  from  the  public  Treasury  without  ap- 
propriation made  by  law"  and  having  proposed 
this  amendment  to  Mr.  Cooper's  amendment,  Mr. 
Cushing  began  to  speak  to  the  contents  of  the  bill. 
Then  followed  a  scene  in  which  the  parliamen- 
tary history  must  be  allowed  to  speak  for  itself. 

"  Mr.  Cushing  then  resumed,  and  said  he  had 
moved  the  amendment  with  a  view  of  making  a 
very  limited  series  of  remarks  pertinent  to  the 
subject.  He  was  then  proceeding  to  show  why, 
in  his  opinion,  the  contents  of  the  bill  did  not 
agree  with  its  title,  when 

"  Mr.  Petrikin,  of  Pennsylvania,  called  him 
to  order. 

"  The  Speaker  said  the  gentleman  from  Mas- 
sachusetts had  a  right  to  amend  the  title  of  the 
bill,  if  it  were  not  a  proper  title.  He  had, 
therefore,  a  right  to  examine  the  contents  of 
the  bill,  to  show  that  the  title  was  improper. 

"  Mr.  Petrikin  still  objected. 

"  The  Speaker  said  the  gentleman  from  Penn- 
sylvania would  be  pleased  to  reduce  his  point 
of  order  to  writing. 

"  Mr.  Proffit,  of  Indiana,  called  Mr.  Petrikin 
to  order  ;  and  after  some  colloquial  debate,  the 
objection  was  withdrawn. 

"Mr.  Cushing  then  resumed,  and  appeared 
very  indignant  at  the  interruption.  He  wished 
to  know  if  the  measure  was  to  be  forced  on  the 
country  without  affording  an  opportunity  to  say 
a  single  word.  He  said  they  were  at  the  last 
act  in  the  drama,  but  the  end  was  not  yet.  Mr. 
C.  then  proceeded  to  give  his  reasons  why  he 
considered  the  bill  as  an  unconstitutional  mea- 
sure, as  he  contended  that  it  gave  the  Secretary 
power  to  draw  on  the  public  money  without 
appropriations  by  law.  He  concluded  by  ob- 
serving that  he  had  witnessed  the  incubation 
and  hatching  of  this  cockatrice,  but  he  hoped 
the  time  was  not  far  distant  when  the  people 
would  put  their  feet  on  the  reptile  and  crush  it 
to  the  dust. 

"  Mr.  Pickens,  of  South  Carolina,  then  rose, 
and  in  a  very  animated  manner  said  he  had 
wished  to  make  a  few  remarks  upon  the  bill  be- 
fore its  passage,  but  be  was  now  compelled  to 
confine  himself  in  reply  to  the  very  extraordi- 
nary language  and  tone  assumed  by  the  gentle- 
man from  Massachusetts.  What  right  had  he 
to  speak  of  this  bill  as  being  forced  on  the  coun- 
try by  "brutal  numbers?"  That  gentleman 
had  denned  the  bill  according  to  his  conception 


of  it;  but  he  would  tell  the  gentleman,  that 
the  bill  would,  thank  God,  deliver  this  govern- 
ment from  the  hands  of  those  who  for  so  many 
years  had  lived  by  swindling  the  proceeds  of 
honest  labor.  Yes,  said  Mr.  P.,  I  thank  my 
God  that  the  hour  of  our  deliverance  is  now  so 
near,  from  a  system  which  has  wrung  the  hard 
earnings  from  productive  industry  for  the  bene- 
fit of  a  few  irresponsible  corporations. 

"  Sir,  I  knew  the  contest  would  be  fierce  and 
bitter.  The  bill,  in  its  principles,  draws  the 
line  between  the  great  ^laboring  and  landed 
interests  of  this  confederacy,  and  those  who  are 
identified  with  capitalists  in  stocks  and  live 
upon  incorporated  credit.  The  latter  class 
have  lived  and  fattened  upon  the  fiscal  action 
of  this  government,  from  the  funding  system 
down  to  the  present  day — and  now  they  feel 
like  wolves  who  have  been  driven  back  from 
the  warm  blood  they  have  been  lapping  for  for- 
ty years.  Well  may  the  gentleman  [Mr.  Cush- 
ing], who  represents  those  interests,  cry  out 
and  exclaim  that  it  is  a  bill  passed  in  force  by 
fraud  and  power — it  is  the  power  and  the  spirit 
of  a  free  people  determined  to  redeem  them- 
selves and  their  government. 

"  Here  the  calls  to  order  were  again  renewed 
from  nearly  every  member  of  the  opposition, 
and  great  confusion  prevailed. 

"  The  Speaker  with  much  difficulty  succeeded 
in  restoring  something  like  order,  and  as  none 
of  those  who  had  so  vociferously  called  Mr.  P. 
to  order,  raised  any  point, 

"Mr.  Pickens  proceeded  with  his  remarks, 
and  alluding  to  the  words  of  Mr.  Cushing,  that 
"  this  was  the  last  act  of  the  drama,"  said  this 
was  the  first,  and  not  the  last  act  of  the  drama. 
There  were  great  questions  that  lay  behind 
this,  connected  with  the  fiscal  action  of  the 
government,  and  which  we  will  be  called  on  to 
decide  in  the  next  few  years ;  they  were  all 
connected  with  one  great  and  complicated  sys- 
tem. This  was  the  commencement,  and  only  a 
branch  of  the  system. 

"  Here  the  cries  of  order  from  the  opposition 
were  renewed,  and  after  the  storm  had  some- 
what subsided, 

"  Mr.  P.  said,  rather  than  produce  confusion 
at  that  late  hour  of  the  day,  when  this  great 
measure  was  so  near  a  triumphant  consumma- 
tion, and,  in  spite  of  all  the  exertions  of  its 
enemies,  was  about  to  become  the  law  of  the 
land,  he  would  not  trespass  any  longer  on  the 
attention  of  the  House.  But  the  gentleman 
had  said  that  because  the  first  section  had  de- 
clared what  should  constitute  the  Treasury,  and 
that  another  section  had  provided  for  keeping 
portions  of  the  Treasury  in  other  places  than 
the  safes  and  vaults  in  the  Treasury  building 
of  this  place ;  that,  therefore,  it  was  to  be  in- 
ferred that  those  who  were  to  execute  it  would 
draw  money  from  the  Treasury  without  appro- 
priations by  law,  and  thus  to  perpetrate  a  fraud 
upon  the  constitution.     Mr.  P.  said,  let  those 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


167 


who  are  to  execute  this  bill  dare  to  commit  this 
outrage,  and  use  money  for  purposes  not  in- 
tended in  appropriations  by  law,  and  they 
would  be  visited  with  the  indignation  of  an 
outraged  and  wronged  people.  It  would  be 
too  gross  and  palpable.  Such  is  not  the  broad 
meaning  and  intention  of  the  bill.  The  con- 
struction given  by  the  gentleman  was  a  forced 
and  technical  one,  and  not  natural.  It  was 
too  strained  to  be  seriously  entertained  by 
any  one  for  a  moment.  He  raised  his  protest 
against  it. 

"Mr.  P.  regretted  the  motion  admitted  of 
such  narrow  and  confined  debate.  He  would 
not  delay  the  passage  of  the  bill  upon  so  small 
a  point.  He  congratulated  the  country  that  we 
had  approached  the  period  when  the  measure 
was  about  to  be  triumphantly  passed  into  a 
permanent  law  of  the  land.  It  is  a  great 
measure.  Considering  the  lateness  of  the  hour, 
the  confusion  in  the  House,  and  that  the  gen- 
tleman had  had  the  advantage  of  an  opening 
speech,  he  now  concluded  by  demanding  the 
previous  question. 

"  On  this  motion  the  disorder  among  the  op- 
position was  renewed  with  tenfold  fury,  and 
some  members  made  use  of  some  very  hard 
words,  accompanied  by  violent  gesticulation. 

"  It  was  some  minutes  before  any  thing  ap- 
proaching order  could  be  restored. 

"  The  Speaker  having  called  on  the  sergeant- 
at-arms  to  clear  the  aisles, 

"  The  call  of  the  previous  question  was  sec- 
onded, and  the  main  question  on  the  amend- 
ment to  the  amendment  ordered  to  be  put. 

"  The  motion  for  the  previous  question  hav- 
ing received  a  second,  the  main  question  was 
ordered. 

"  The  question  was  then  taken  on  Mr.  Cush- 
ing's  amendment  to  the  amendment,  and  disa- 
greed to  without  a  count. 

"  The  question  recurring  on  the  substitute  of 
Mr.  Cooper,  of  Pennsylvania,  for  the  original 
title  of  the  bill, 

"Mr.  R.  Garland,  of  Louisiana,  demanded 
the  yeas  and  nays,  which  having  been  ordered, 
were — yeas  87,  nays  128. 

Eighty-seven  members  voted,  on  yeas  and 
nays,  for  Mr.  Cooper's  proposed  title,  which 
was  a  strong  way  of  expressing  their  opinion  of 
it  For  Mr.  Cushing's  amendment  to  it,  there 
were  too  few  to  obtain  a  division  of  the  House  ; 
and  thus  the  bill  became  complete  by  getting  a 
name — but  only  by  the  summary,  silent,  and 
enforcing  process  of  the  previous  question. 
Even  the  title  was  obtained  by  that  process. 
The  passage  of  this  act  was  the  distinguishing 
glory  of  the  Twenty-sixth  Congress,  and  the 
"  crowning  mercy  "  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  admin- 
istration.  Honor  and  gratitude  to  the  members, 


and  all  the  remembrance  which  this  book  can 
give  them.     Their  names  were  : 

In  the  Senate  : — Messrs.  Allen  of  Ohio, 
Benton,  Brown  of  North  Carolina,  Buchanan, 
Calhoun,  Clay  of  Alabama,  Cuthbert  of  Geor- 
gia, Fulton  of  Arkansas,  Grundy,  Hubbard  of 
New  Hampshire,  King  of  Alabama,  Linn  of 
Missouri,  Lumpkin  of  Georgia,  Mouton  of  Loui- 
siana, Norvell  of  Michigan,  Pierce  of  New 
Hampshire,  Roane  of  Virginia,  Sevier  of  Ar- 
kansas, Smith  of  Connecticut,  Strange  of  North 
Carolina,  Tappan  of  Ohio,  "Walker  of  Missis- 
sippi, "Williams  of  Maine. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives:— Messrs. 
Judson  Allen,  Hugh  J.  Anderson,  Charles  G. 
Atherton,  "William  Cost  Johnson,  Cave  Johnson, 
Nathaniel  Jones,  John  W.  Jones,  George  ty* 
Keim,  Gouverneur  Kemble,  Joseph  Kille,  Daniel 
P.  Leadbetter,  Isaac  Leet,  Stephen  B.  Leonard, 
Dixon  H.  Lewis,  Joshua  A.  Lowell,  William 
Lucas,  Abraham  McClellan,  George  McCulloch, 
James  J.  McKay,  Meredith  Mallory,  Albert  G. 
Marchand,  William  Medill,  John  Miller,  James 
D.  L.  Montanya,  Linn  Banks,  William  Beatty, 
Andrew  Beirne,  William  Montgomery,  Samuel 
W.  Morris,  Peter  Newhard,  Isaac  Parrish,  Wil- 
liam Parmenter,  Virgil  D.  Parris,  Lemuel  Payn- 
ter,  David  Petrikin,  Francis  W.  Pickens,  John 
II.  Prentiss,  William  S.  Ramsey,  John  Reynolds, 
R.  Barnwell  Rhett,  Francis  E.  Rives,  Thomas 
Robinson,  Jr.,  Edward  Rogers,  James  Rogers, 
Daniel  B.  Ryall,  Green  B.  Samuels,  Tristram 
Shaw,  Charles  Shepard,  Edward  J.  Black, 
Julius  W.  Blackwell,  Linn  Boyd,  John  Smith, 
Thomas  Smith,  David  A.  Starkweather,  Lewis 
Steenrod,  Theron  R.  Strong,  Thomas  D.  Sum- 
ter, Henry  Swearingen,  George  Sweeney,  Jona- 
than Taylor,  Francis  Thomas,  Philip  F.  Thomas, 
Jacob  Thompson,  Hopkins  L.  Turney,  Aaron 
Vanderpoel,  Peter  D.  Vroom,  David  D.  Wagener, 
Harvey  M.  Watterson,  John  B.  Weller,  Jared 
W.  Williams,  Henry  Williams,  John  T.  H. 
Worthington. 


CHAPTER  XLII. 

FLORIDA  ARMED  OCCUPATION   BILL:   MR.  BEN- 
TON'S  SPEECH :  EXTRACTS. 

Armed  occupation,  with  land  to  the  occupant, 
is  the  true  way  of  settling  and  holding  a  con- 
quered country.  It  is  the  way  which  has  been 
followed  in  all  ages,  and  in  all  countries,  from 
the  time  that  the  children  of  Israel  entered  the 
promised  land,  with  the  implements  of  hus- 
bandry in  one  hand,  and  the  weapons  of  war  in 
the  other.   From  that  day  to  this,  all  conquered 


168 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


countries  had  been  settled  in  that  way.  Armed 
settlement,  and  a  homestead  in  the  soil,  was  the 
principle  of  the  Roman  military  colonies,  by 
which  they  consolidated  their  conquests.  The 
northern  nations  bore  down  upon  the  south  of 
Europe  in  that  way :  the  settlers  of  the  New 
World — our  pilgrim  fathers  and  all — settled 
these  States  in  that  way:  the  settlement  of 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee  was  effected  in  the 
same  way.  The  armed  settlers  went  forth  to 
fight,  and  to  cultivate.  They  lived  in  stations 
first — an  assemblage  of  blockhouses  (the  Roman 
presidium),  and  emerged  to  separate  settlements 
afterwards  ;  and  in  every  instance,  an  interest 
in  the  soil — an  inheritance  in  the  land — was  the 
reward  of  their  enterprise,  toil,  and  danger. 
The  peninsula  of  Florida  is  now  prepared  for 
this  armed  settlement :  the  enemy  has  been 
driven  out  of  the  field.  lie  lurks,  an  unseen 
foe,  in  the  swamps  and  hammocks.  He  no 
longer  shows  himself  in  force,  or  ventures  a 
combat ;  but,  dispersed  and  solitary,  commits 
individual  murders  and  massacres.  The  coun- 
try is  prepared  for  armed  settlement. 

It  is  the  fashion — I  am  sorry  to  say  it — to 
depreciate  the  services  of  our  troops  in  Florida — 
to  speak  of  them  as  having  done  nothing ;  as 
having  accomplished  no  object  for  the  country, 
and  acquired  no  credit  for  themselves.  This 
was  a  great  error.  The  military  had  done  an 
immensity  there ;  they  had  done  all  that  arms 
could  do,  and  a  great  deal  that  the  axe  and  the 
spade  could  do.  They  had  completely  conquered 
the  country  ;  that  is  to  say,  they  had  driven  the 
enemy  from  the  field ;  they  had  dispersed  the 
foe ;  they  had  reduced  them  to  a  roving  banditti, 
whose  only  warfare  was  to  murder  stragglers 
and  families.  Let  any  one  compare  the  present 
condition  of  Florida  with  what  it  was  at  the 
commencement  of  the  war,  and  see  what  a 
change  has  taken  place.  Then  combats  were 
frequent.  The  Indians  embodied  continually; 
fought  our  troops,  both  regulars,  militia,  and 
volunteers.  Those  hard  contests  cannot  be 
forgotten.  It  cannot  be  forgotten  how  often 
these  Indians  met  our  troops  in  force,  or  hung 
upon  the  flanks  of  marching  columns,  harassing 
and  attacking  them  at  every  favorable  point. 
Now  all  this  is  done.  For  two  years  past,  we 
have  heard  of  no  such  thing.  The  Indians,  de- 
feated in  these  encounters,  and  many  of  them 
removed  to  the  West,  have  now  retired  from 


the  field,  and  dispersed  in  small  parties  over  the 
whole  peninsula  of  Florida.  They  are  dispersed 
over  a  superficies  of  45,000  square  miles,  and 
that  area  sprinkled  all  over  with  haunts  adapted 
to  their  shelter,  to  which  they  retire  for  safety, 
like  wild  beasts,  and  emerge  again  for  new  mis- 
chief. Our  military  have  then  done  much ; 
they  have  done  all  that  military  can  do ;  they 
have  broken,  dispersed,  and  scattered  the  enemy. 
They  have  driven  them  out  of  the  field ;  they 
have  prepared  the  country  for  settlement,  that 
is  to  say,  for  armed  settlement.  There  has  been 
no  battle,  no  action,  no  skirmish,  in  Florida,  for 
upwards  of  two  years.  The  last  combats  were 
at  Okeechobee  and  Caloosahatchee,  above  two 
years  ago.  There  has  been  no  war  since  that 
time ;  nothing  but  individual  massacres.  The 
country  has  been  waiting  for  settlers  for  two 
years ;  and  this  bill  provides  for  them,  and 
offers  them  inducements  to  settle. 

Besides  their  military  labors,  our  troops  have 
done  an  immensity  of  labor  of  a  different  kind. 
They  have  penetrated  and  perforated  the  whole 
peninsula  of  Florida ;  they  have  gone  through 
the  Serbonian  bogs  of  that  peninsula;  they 
have  gone  where  the  white  man's  foot  never 
before  was  seen  to  tread ;  and  where  no  Indian 
believed  it  could  ever  come.  They  have  gone 
from  the  Okeefekonee  swamp  to  the  Everglades ; 
they  have  crossed  the  peninsula  backwards  and 
forwards,  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Atlan- 
tic Ocean.  They  have  sounded  every  morass, 
threaded  every  hammock,  traced  every  creek, 
examined  every  lake,  and  made  the  topography 
of  the  country  as  well  known  as  that  of  the 
counties  of  our  States.  The  maps  which  the 
topographical  officers  have  constructed,  and  the 
last  of  which  is  in  the  Report  of  the  Secretary 
at  War,  attest  the  extent  of  these  explorations, 
and  the  accuracy  and  minuteness  of  the  surveys 
and  examinations.  Besides  all  this,  the  troops 
have  established  some  hundreds  of  posts  ;  they 
have  opened  many  hundred  miles  of  wagon 
road;  and  they  have  constructed  some  thou- 
sands of  feet  of  causeways  and  bridges.  These 
are  great  and  meritorious  labors.  They  are 
labors  which  prepare  the  country  for  settle- 
ment ;  prepare  it  for  the  10,000  armed  cultiva- 
tors which  this  bill  proposes  to  send  there. 

Mr.  B.  said  he  paid  this  tribute  cheerfully  to 
the  merits  of  our  military,  and  our  volunteers 
and  militia  employed  in  Florida  ;    the  more 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


169 


cheerfully,  because  it  was  the  inconsiderate 
custom  of  too  many  to  depreciate  the  labors  of 
these  brave  men.  He  took  pleasure,  here  in 
his  place,  in  the  American  Senate,  to  do  them 
justice  ;  and  that  without  drawing  invidious 
comparisons — without  attempting  to  exalt  some 
at  the  expense  of  others.  He  viewed  with  a 
favorable  eye — with  friendly  feelings — with  pre- 
possessions in  their  favor — all  who  were  doing 
their  best  for  their  country ;  and  all  such — all 
who  did  their  best  for  their  country — should 
have  his  support  and  applause,  whether  fortune 
was  more  or  less  kind  to  them,  in  crowning 
their  meritorious  exertions  with  success.  He 
took  pleasure  in  doing  all  this  justice  ;  but  his 
tribute  would  be  incomplete,  if  he  did  not  add 
what  was  said  by  the  Secretary  at  War,  in  his 
late  report,  and  also  by  the  immediate  com- 
mander, General  Taylor. 

Mr.  B.  repeated,  that  the  military  had  done 
their  duty,  and  deserved  well  of  their  country. 
They  had  brought  the  war  to  that  point,  when 
there  was  no  longer  an  enemy  to  be  fought ; 
when  there  was  nothing  left  but  a  banditti  to 
be  extirpated.  Congress,  also,  had  tried  its 
policy — the  policy  of  peace  and  conciliation — 
and  the  effort  only  served  to  show  the  unparal- 
leled treachery  and  savageism  of  the  ferocious 
beasts  with  which  we  had  to  deal  He  alluded 
to  the  attempts  at  negotiation  and  pacification, 
tried  this  summer  under  an  intimation  from 
Congress.  The  House  of  Representatives,  at 
the  last  session,  voted  $5,000  for  opening  nego- 
tiations with  these  Indians.  When  the  appro- 
priation came  to  the  Senate,  it  was  objected  to 
by  himself  and  some  others,  from  the  know- 
ledge they  had  of  the  character  of  these  Indians, 
and  their  belief  that  it  would  end  in  treachery 
and  misfortune.  The  House  adhered ;  the  ap- 
propriation was  made  ;  the  administration  acted 
upon  it,  as  they  felt  bound  to  do  j  and  behold 
the  result  of  the  attempt  !  The  most  cruel 
and  perfidious  massacres  plotted  and  contrived 
while  making  the  treaty  itself !  a  particular 
officer  selected,  and  stipulated  to  be  sent  to  a 
particular  point,  under  the  pretext  of  establish- 
ing a  trading-post,  and  as  a  protector,  there  to 
be  massacred !  a  horrible  massacre  in  reality 
perpetrated  there ;  near  seventy  persons  since 
massacred,  including  families ;  the  Indians 
themselves  emboldened  by  our  offer  of  peace, 
and  their  success  in  treachery  j  and  the  whole 


aspect  of  the  war  made  worse  by  our  injudicious 
attempt  at  pacification. 

Lt.  Col.  Harney,  with  a  few  soldiers  and  some 
citizens,  was  reposing  on  the  banks  of  the  Ca- 
loosahatchee,  under  the  faith  of  treaty  negotia- 
tions, and  on  treaty  ground.  He  was  asleep. 
At  the  approach  of  daybreak  he  was  roused  by 
the  firing  and  yells  of  the  Indians,  who  had  got 
possession  of  the  camp,  and  killed  the  sergeant 
and  more  than  one-half  of  his  men.  Eleven 
soldiers  and  five  citizens  were  killed  ;  eight  sol- 
diers and  two  citizens  escaped.  Seven  of  the 
soldiers,  taking  refuge  in  a  small  sail-boat,  then 
lying  off  in  the  stream,  in  which  the  two  citi- 
zens fortunately  had  slept  that  night,  as  soon 
as  possible  weighed  anchor,  and  favored  by  a 
light  breeze,  slipped  off  unperceived  by  the  In- 
dians. The  Colonel  himself  escaped  with  great 
difficulty,  and  after  walking  fifteen  miles  down 
the  river,  followed  by  one  soldier,  came  to  a 
canoe,  which  he  had  left  there  the  evening  pre- 
vious, and  succeeded,  by  this  means,  in  getting 
on  board  the  sail-boat,  where  he  found  those 
who  had  escaped  in  her.  Before  he  laid  down 
to  sleep,  the  treacherous  Chitto  Tustenuggee, 
partaking  his  hospitality,  lavished  proofs  of 
friendship  upon  him.  Here  was  an  instance  of 
treachery  of  which  there  was  no  parallel  in  In- 
dian warfare.  With  all  their  treachery,  the 
treaty-ground  is  a  sacred  spot  with  the  In- 
dians ;  but  here,  in  the  very  articles  of  a  treaty 
itself,  they  plan  a  murderous  destruction  of  an 
officer  whom  they  solicited  to  be  sent  with 
them  as  their  protector  ;  and,  to  gratify  all 
their  passions  of  murder  and  robbery  at  once, 
they  stipulate  to  have  their  victims  sent  to  a 
remote  point,  with  settlers  and  traders,  as  well 
as  soldiers,  and  with  a  supply  of  goods.  All 
this  they  arranged ;  and  too  successfully  did 
they  execute  the  plan.  And  this  was  the  be- 
ginning of  their  execution  of  the  treaty.  Mas- 
sacres, assassinations,  robberies,  and  house-burn- 
ings, have  followed  it  up,  until  the  suburbs  of 
St.  Augustine  and  Tallahasse  are  stained  with 
blood,  and  blackened  with  fire.  About  seventy 
murders  have  since  taken  place,  including  the  de- 
struction of  the  shipwrecked  crews  and  passen- 
gers on  the  southern  extremity  of  the  peninsula. 

The  plan  of  Congress  has,  then,  been  tried ; 
the  experiment  of  negotiation  has  been  tried, 
and  has  ended  disastrously  and  cruelly  for  us, 
and  with  greatly  augmenting  the   confidence 


170 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


and  ferocity  of  the  enemy.  It  puts  an  end  to 
all  idea  of  finishing  the  war  there  by  peaceable 
negotiation.  Chastisement  is  what  is  due  to 
these  Indians,  and  what  they  expect.  They 
mean  to  keep  no  faith  with  the  government; 
and  henceforth  they  will  expect  no  faith  to  be 
reposed  in  them.  The  issue  is  now  made ;  we 
have  to  expel  them  by  force,  or  give  up  forty- 
five  thousand  square  miles  of  territory — much 
of  it  an  old  settled  country — to  be  ravaged  by 
this  banditti. 

The  plan  of  Congress  has  been  tried,  and  has 
ended  in  disaster;  the  military  have  done  all 
that  military  can  do ;  the  administration  have 
now  in  the  country  all  the  troops  which  can  be 
spared  for  the  purpose.  They  have  there  the 
one-half  of  our  regular  infantry,  to  wit :  four 
regiments  out  of  eight ;  they  have  there  the 
one-half  of  our  dragoons,  to  wit :  one  regiment ; 
they  even  have  there  a  part  of  our  artillery,  to 
wit:  one  regiment;  and  they  have  besides, 
there,  a  part  of  the  naval  force  to  scour  the 
coasts  and  inlets ;  and,  in  addition  to  all  this, 
ten  companies  of  Florida  volunteers.  Even  the 
marines  under  their  accomplished  commander 
(Col.  Henderson),  and  at  his  request,  have  been 
sent  there  to  perform  gallant  service,  on  an  ele- 
ment not  their  own.  No  more  of  our  troops  can 
be  spared  for  that  purpose ;  the  West  and  the 
North  require  the  remainder,  and  more  than  the 
remainder.  The  administration  can  do  no  more 
than  it  has  done  with  the  means  at  its  command. 
It  is  laid  under  the  necessity  of  asking  other 
means ;  and  the  armed  settlers  provided  for  in 
this  bill  are  the  principal  means  required.  One 
thousand  troops  for  the  war,  is  all  that  is  asked 
in  addition  to  the  settlers,  in  this  bill. 

This  then  is  the  point  we  are  at :  To  choose 
between  granting  these  means,  or  doing  nothing ! 
Yes,  sir,  to  choose  between  the  recommenda- 
tions of  the  administration,  and  nothing !  I 
say,  these,  or  nothing ;  for  I  presume  Congress 
will  not  prescribe  another  attempt  at  negotia- 
tion ;  no  one  will  recommend  an  increase  of 
ten  thousand  regular  troops ;  no  one  will  re- 
commend a  draft  of  ten  thousand  militia.  It 
is,  then,  the  plan  of  the  administration,  or 
nothing ;  and  this  brings  us  to  the  question, 
whether  the  government  can  now  fold  its  arms, 
leave  the  regulars  to  man  their  posts,  and  aban- 
don the  country  to  the  Indians  ?  This  is  now 
the  question ;  and  to  this  point  I  will  direct  the 


observations  which  make  it  impossible  for  us 
to  abdicate  our  duty,  and  abandon  the  country 
to  the  Indians. 

I  assume  it  then  as  a  point  granted,  that 
Florida  cannot  be  given  up — that  she  cannot 
be  abandoned — that  she  cannot  be  left  in  her 
present  state.  What  then  is  to  be  done? 
Raise  an  army  of  ten  thousand  men  to  go  there 
to  fight  ?  Why,  the  men  who  are  there  now 
can  find  nobody  to  fight !  It  is  two  years  since 
a  fight  has  been  had ;  it  is  two  years  since  we 
have  heard  of  a  fight.  Ten  men,  who  will  avoid 
surprises  and  ambuscades,  can  now  go  from  one 
end  of  Florida  to  the  other.  As  warriors,  these 
Indians  no  longer  appear ;  it  is  only  as  assas- 
sins, as  robbers,  as  incendiaries,  that  they  lurk 
about.  The  country  wants  settlers,  not  an 
army.  It  has  wanted  these  settlers  for  two 
years ;  and  this  bill  provides  for  them,  and 
offers  them  the  proper  inducements  to  go. 
And  here  I  take  the  three  great  positions,  that 
this  bill  is  the  appropriate  remedy ;  that  it  is 
the  efficient  remedy ;  that  it  is  the  cheap  reme- 
dy, for  the  cure  of  the  Florida  difficulties.  It 
is  the  appropriate  remedy;  for  what  is  now 
wanted,  is  not  an  army  to  fight,  but  settlers 
and  cultivators  to  retain  possession  of  the  coun- 
try, and  to  defend  their  possessions.  We  want 
people  to  take  possession,  and  keep  possession ; 
and  the  armed  cultivator  is  the  man  for  that 
The  blockhouse  is  the  first  house  to  be  built  in 
an  Indian  country ;  the  stockade  is  the  first 
fence  to  be  put  up.  Within  that  blockhouse,  and 
a  few  of  them  together — a  hollow  square  of 
blockhouses,  two  miles  long  on  each  side,  two 
hundred  yards  apart,  and  enclosing  a  good 
field — safe  habitations  are  found  for  families. 
The  faithful  mastiff,  to  give  notice  of  the  ap- 
proach of  danger,  and  a  few  trusty  rifles  in  brave 
hands,  make  all  safe.  Cultivation  and  defence 
then  goes  hand  in  hand.  The  heart  of  the  Indian 
sickens  when  he  hears  the  crowing  of  the  cock, 
the  barking  of  the  dog,  the  sound  of  the  axe,  and 
the  crack  of  the  rifle.  These  are  the  true  evi- 
dences of  the  dominion  of  the  white  man  ;  these 
are  the  proof  that  the  owner  has  come,  and  means 
to  stay ;  and  then  they  feel  it  to  be  time  for  them 
to  go.  While  soldiers  alone  are  in  the  country, 
they  feel  their  presence  to  be  temporary  ;  that 
they  are  mere  sojourners  in  the  land,  and  sooner 
or  later  must  go  away.  It  is  the  settler  alone, 
the  armed  settler,  whose  presence  announces  the 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


171 


dominion — the  permanent  dominion — of  the 
white  man. 

It  is  the  most  efficient  remedy.  On  this 
point  we  can  speak  with  confidence,  for  the 
other  remedies  have  been  tried,  and  have  failed. 
The  other  remedies  are  to  catch  the  Indians, 
and  remove  them  ;  or,  to  negotiate  with  them, 
and  induce  them  to  go  off.  Both  have  been 
tried ;  both  are  exhausted.  No  human  being 
now  thinks  that  our  soldiers  can  catch  these 
Indians  ;  no  one  now  believes  in  the  possibility 
of  removing  them  by  treaty.  No  other  course 
remains  to  be  tried,  but  the  armed  settlement ; 
and  that  is  so  obvious,  that  it  is  difficult  to  see 
how  any  one  that  has  read  history,  or  has 
heard  how  this  new  world  was  settled,  or  how 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee  were  settled,  can 
doubt  it. 

The  peninsula  is  a  desolation.  Five  counties 
have  been  depopulated.  The  inhabitants  of  five 
counties — the  survivors  of  many  massacres — 
have  been  driven  from  their  homes :  this  bill  is 
intended  to  induce  them  to  return,  and  to  induce 
others  to  go  along  with  them.  Such  induce- 
ments to  settle  and  defend  new  countries  have 
been  successful  in  all  ages  and  in  all  nations ; 
and  cannot  fail  to  be  effectual  with  us.  De- 
liberat  Boma,  perit  Saguntum,  became  the 
watchword  of  reproach,  and  of  stimulus  to  ac- 
tion in  the  Roman  Senate  when  the  Senate 
deliberated  while  a  colony  was  perishing. 
Saguntum  perishes  while  Rome  deliberates : 
and  this  is  truly  the  case  with  ourselves  and 
Florida.  That  beautiful  and  unfortunate  terri- 
tory is  a  prey  to  plunder,  fire,  and  murder.  The 
savages  kill,  burn  and  rob — where  they  find  a 
man,  a  house,  or  an  animal  in  the  desolation 
which  they  have  made.  Large  part  of  the  terri- 
tory is  the  empty  and  bloody  skin  of  an  im- 
molated victim. 


CHAPTER     XLIII. 

ASSUMPTION  OF  THE  STATE  DEBTS, 

About  one-half  of  the  States  had  contracted 
debts  abroad  which  they  were  unable  to  pay 
when  due,  and  in  many  instances  were  unable 
to  pay  the  current  annual  interest  These  debts 


at  this  time  amounted  to  one  hundred  and 
seventy  millions  of  dollars,  and  were  chiefly  due 
in  Great  Britain.  They  had  been  converted 
into  a  stock,  and  held  in  shares,  and  had  gone 
into  a  great  number  of  hands ;  and  from  de- 
faults in  payments  were  greatly  depreciated. 
The  Reverend  Sydney  Smith,  of  witty  memory, 
and  aimiable  withal,  was  accustomed  to  lose  all 
his  amiability,  but  no  part  of  his  wit,  when  he 
spoke  of  his  Pennsylvania  bonds — which  in  fact 
was  very  often.  But  there  was  another  class 
of  these  bond-holders  who  did  not  exhale  their 
griefs  in  wit,  caustic  as  it  might  be,  but  looked 
to  more  substantial  relief — to  an  assumption  in 
some  form,  disguised  or  open,  virtual  or  actual, 
of  these  debts  by  the  federal  government. 
These  British  capitalists,  connected  with  capital- 
ists in  the  United  States,  possessed  a  weight  on 
this  point  which  was  felt  in  the  halls  of  Con- 
gress. The  disguised  attempts  at  this  assump- 
tion, were  in  the  various  modes  of  conveying 
federal  money  to  the  States  in  the  shape  of  dis- 
tributing surplus  revenue,  of  dividing  the  public 
land  money,  and  of  bestowing  money  on  the 
States  under  the  fallacious  title  of  a  deposit. 
But  a  more  direct  provision  in  their  behalf  was 
wanted  by  these  capitalists,  and  in  the  course 
of  the  year  1839  a  movement  to  that  effect  was 
openly  made  through  the  columns  of  their  regu- 
lar organ  —  The  London  Bankers'  Circular, 
emanating  from  the  most  respectable  and  opu- 
lent house  of  the  Messrs.  Baring,  Brothers  and 
Company.  At  this  open  procedure  on  the  part 
of  these  capitalists,  it  was  deemed  expedient  to 
meet  the  attempt  in  limine  by  a  positive  de- 
claration in  Congress  against  the  constitution- 
ality, the  justice,  and  the  policy  of  any  such 
measure.  With  this  view  Mr.  Benton,  at  the 
commencement  of  the  first  session  of  Congress 
after  the  issuing  of  the  Bankers'  Circular,  sub- 
mitted a  series  of  resolutions  in  the  Senate, 
which,  with  some  modification,  and  after  an 
earnest  debate,  were  passed  in  that  body.  These 
were  the  resolutions : 

"  1.  That  the  assumption  of  such  debts  either 
openly,  by  a  direct  promise  to  pay  them,  or 
disguisedly  by  going  security  for  their  payment, 
or  by  creating  surplus  revenue,  or  applying  the 
national  funds  to  pay  them,  would  be  a  gross 
and  flagrant  violation  of  the  constitution,  wholly 
unwarranted  by  the  letter  or  spirit  of  that  in- 
strument, and  utterly  repugnant  to  all  the  ob- 


172 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


jects  and  purposes  for  which  the  federal  Union 
was  formed. 

"  2.  That  the  debts  of  the  States  being  now 
chiefly  held  by  foreigners,  and  constituting  a 
stock  in  foreign  markets  greatly  depreciated, 
any  legislative  attempt  to  obtain  the  assumption 
or  securityship  of  the  United  States  for  their 
payment,  or  to  provide  for  their  payment  out 
of  the  national  funds,  must  have  the  effect  of 
enhancing  the  value  of  that  stock  to  the  amount 
of  a  great  many  millions  of  dollars,  to  the  enor- 
mous and  undue  advantage  of  foreign  capitalists, 
and  of  jobbers  and  gamblers  in  stocks ;  thereby 
holding  out  inducement  to  foreigners  to  inter- 
fere in  our  affairs,  and  to  bring  all  the  influences 
of  a  moneyed  power  to  operate  upon  public 
opinion,  upon  our  elections,  and  upon  State 
and  federal  legislation,  to  produce  a  consumma- 
tion so  tempting  to  their  cupidity,  and  so  pro- 
fitable to  their  interest. 

"  3.  That  foreign  interference  and  foreign  in- 
fluence, in  all  ages,  and  in  all  countries,  have 
been  the  bane  and  curse  of  free  governments  ; 
and  that  such  interference  and  influence  are  far 
more  dangerous,  in  the  insidious  intervention 
of  the  moneyed  power,  than  in  the  forcible  in- 
vasions of  fleets  and  armies. 

"  4.  That  to  close  the  door  at  once  against  all 
applications  for  such  assumption,  and  to  arrest 
at  their  source  the  vast  tide  of  evils  which  would 
flow  from  it,  it  is  necessary  that  the  constituted 
authorities,  without  delay,  shall  resolve  and 
declare  their  utter  opposition  to  the  proposal 
contained  in  the  late  London  Bankers'  Circular  in 
relation  to  State  debts,  contracted  for  local  and 
State  purposes,  and  recommending  to  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  to  assume,  or  gua- 
rantee, or  provide  for  the  ultimate  payment  of 
said  debts." 

In  the  course  of  the  discussion  of  these  resolu- 
tions an  attempt  was  made  to  amend  them,  and 
to  reverse  their  import,  by  obtaining  a  direct 
vote  of  the  Senate  in  favor  of  distributing  the 
public  land  revenue  among  the  States  to  aid 
them  in  the  payment  of  these  debts.  This  pro- 
position was  submitted  by  Mr.  Crittenden,  of 
Kentucky ;  and  was  in  these  words  :  "  That  it 
would  be  just  and  proper  to  distribute  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands  among  the 
several  States  in  fair  and  ratable  proportions  ; 
and  that  the  condition  of  such  of  the  States  as 
have  contracted  debts  is  such,  at  the  present 
moment  of  pressure  and  difficulty,  as  to  render 
such  distribution  especially  expedient  and  im- 
portant." This  proposition  received  a  consider- 
able support,  and  was  rejected  upon  yeas  and 
nays — 28  to  17.  The  yeas  were  Messrs.  Betts 
of  Connecticut,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Crittenden, 
Davis  of  Massachusetts,  Dixon  of  Rhode  Island, 


Knight  of  Connecticut,  Merrick  of  Maryland, 
Phelps  of  Vermont,  Porter  of  Michigan,  Pren- 
tiss of  Vermont,  Ruggles  of  Maine,  Smith  of 
Indiana,  Southard  of  New  Jersey,  Spence  of 
Maryland,  Tallmadge,  Webster,  White  of  Indi- 
ana. The  nays  were :  Messrs.  Allen  of  Ohio, 
Anderson  of  Tennessee,  Benton,  Bedford  Brown 
Calhoun,  Clay  of  Alabama,  Alfred  Cuthbert, 
Grundy,  Henderson  of  Mississippi,  Hubbard, 
King  of  Alabama,  Linn  of  Missouri.  Lumpkin  of 
Georgia,  Mouton,  Nicholas  of  Louisiana,  Norvell 
of  Michigan,  Pierce,  Preston,  Roane,  Robinson, 
Sevier,  Strange,  Sturgeon,  Tappan  of  Ohio, 
Wall  of  New  Jersey,  Williams,  Wright.  As 
the  mover  of  the  resolutions  Mr.  Benton  sup- 
ported them  in  a  speech,  of  which  some  extracts 
are  given  in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTEE    XLIV. 

ASSUMPTION  OF  THE   STATE  DEBTS:   MR  BEN- 
TON'S SPEECH:   EXTRACTS. 

The  assumption  of  the  State  debts  contracted 
for  State  purposes  has  been  for  a  long  time  a 
measure  disguisedly,  and  now  is  a  measure 
openly,  pressed  upon  the  public  mind.  The 
movement  in  favor  of  it  has  been  long  going 
on ;  opposing  measures  have  not  yet  commenc- 
ed. The  assumption  party  have  the  start,  and 
the  advantage  of  conducting  the  case ;  and  they 
have  been  conducting  it  for  a  long  time,  and  in 
a  way  to  avoid  the  name  of  assumption  while 
accomplishing  the  thing  itself.  All  the  bills  for 
distributing  the  public  land  revenue — all  the 
propositions  for  dividing  surplus  revenue — all 
the  refusals  to  abolish  unnecessary  taxes — all 
the  refusals  to  go  on  with  the  necessary  defences 
of  the  country — were  so  many  steps  taken  in 
the  road  to  assumption.  I  know  very  well  that 
many  who  supported  these  measures  had  no 
idea  of  assumption,  and  would  oppose  it  as  soon 
as  discovered ;  but  that  does  not  alter  the  nature 
of  the  measures  they  supported,  and  which  were 
so  many  steps  in  the  road  to  that  assumption, 
then  shrouded  in  mystery  and  futurity,  now 
ripened  into  strength,  and  emboldened  into  a 
public  disclosure  of  itself.  Already  the  State 
legislatures  are  occupied  with  this  subject,  while 
we  sit  here,  waiting  its  approach. 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


173 


It  is  time  for  the  enemies  of  assumption  to 
take  the  field,  and  to  act.  It  is  a  case  in  which 
they  should  give,  and  not  receive,  the  attack. 
The  President  has  led  the  way ;  he  has  shown 
his  opinions.  He  has  nobly  done  his  duty.  He 
has  shown  the  evils  of  diverting  the  general 
funds  from  their  proper  objects — the  mischiefs 
of  our  present  connection  with  the  paper  sys- 
tem of  England — and  the  dangers  of  foreign  in- 
fluence from  any  further  connection  with  it.  In 
this  he  has  discharged  a  constitutional  and  a 
patriotic  duty.  Let  the  constituted  authorities, 
each  in  their  sphere,  follow  his  example,  and 
declare  their  opinions  also.  Let  the  Senate 
especially,  as  part  of  the  legislative  power — as 
the  peculiar  representative  of  the  States  in  their 
sovereign  capacity — let  this  body  declare  its 
sentiments,  and,  by  its  resolves  and  discussions, 
arrest  the  progress  of  the  measure  here,  and 
awaken  attention  to  it  elsewhere.  As  one  of 
the  earliest  opposers  of  this  measure — as,  in 
fact,  the  very  earliest  opposer  of  the  whole 
family  of  measures  of  which  it  is  the  natural 
offspring — as  having  denounced  the  assumption 
in  disguise  in  a  letter  to  my  constituents  long 
before  the  London  Bankers'  letter  revealed  it  to 
the  public :  as  such  early,  steadfast,  and  first 
denouncer  of  this  measure,  I  now  come  forward 
to  oppose  it  in  form,  and  to  submit  the  resolves 
which  may  arrest  it  here,  and  carry  its  discus- 
sion to  the  forum  of  the  people. 

I  come  at  once  to  the  point,  and  say  that  dis- 
guised assumption,  in  the  shape  of  land  revenue 
distribution,  is  the  form  in  which  we  shall  have 
to  meet  the  danger ;  and  I  meet  it  at  once  in 
that  disguise.  I  say  there  is  no  authority  in 
the  constitution  to  raise  money  from  any  branch 
of  the  revenue  for  distribution  among  the  States, 
or  to  distribute  that  which  had  been  raised  for 
other  purposes.  The  power  of  Congress  to 
raise  money  is  not  unlimited  and  arbitrary,  but 
restricted,  and  directed  to  the  national  objects 
named  in  the  constitution.  The  means,  the 
amount,  and  the  application,  are  all  limited. 
The  means  are  direct  taxes — duties  on  imports 
— and  the  public  lands  ;  the  objects  are  the 
support  of  the  government — the  common  de- 
fence— and  the  payment  of  the  debts  of  the 
Union :  the  amount  to  be  raised  is  of  course 
limited  to  the  amount  required  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  these  objects.  Consonant  to  the 
words  and  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  is  the 


title,  the  preamble  and  the  tenor  of  all  the  early 
statutes  for  raising  money ;  they  all  declare  the 
object  for  which  the  money  is  wanted;  they 
declare  the  object  at  the  head  of  the  act. 
Whether  it  be  a  loan,  a  direct  tax,  or  a  duty 
on  imports,  the  object  of  the  loan,  the  tax,  or 
the  duty,  is  stated  in  the  preamble  to  the  act ; 
Congress  thus  excusing  and  justifying  them- 
selves for  the  demand  in  the  very  act  of  making 
it,  and  telling  the  people  plainly  what  they 
wanted  with  the  money.  This  was  the  way  in 
all  the  early  statutes  ;  the  books  are  full  of  ex- 
amples ;  and  it  was  only  after  money  began  to 
be  levied  for  objects  not  known  to  the  constitu~ 
tion,  that  this  laudable  and  ancient  practice  was 
dropped.  Among  the  enumerated  objects  for 
which  money  can  be  raised  by  Congress,  is  that 
of  paying  the  debts  of  the  Union ;  and  is  it  not 
a  manifest  absurdity  to  suppose  that,  while  it 
requires  an  express  grant  of  power  to  enable  us 
to  pay  the  debts  of  the  Union,  we  can  pay 
those  of  the  States  by  implication  and  by  indi- 
rection ?  No,  sir,  no.  There  is  no  constitu- 
tional way  to  assume  these  State  debts,  or  to 
pay  them,  or  to  indorse  them,  or  to  smuggle  the 
money  to  the  States  for  that  purpose,  under 
the  pretext  of  dividing  land  revenue,  or  surplus 
revenue,  among  them.  There  is  no  way  to  do 
it.  The  whole  thing  is  constitutionally  impos- 
sible. It  was  never  thought  of  by  the  framers 
of  our  constitution.  They  never  dreamed  of 
such  a  thing.  There  is  not  a  word  in  their 
work  to  warrant  it.  and  the  whole  idea  of  it  is 
utterly  repugnant  and  offensive  to  the  objects 
and  purposes  for  which  the  federal  Union  was 
framed. 

We  have  had  one  assumption  in  our  country, 
and  that  in  a  case  which  was  small  in  amount, 
and  free  from  the  impediment  of  a  constitu- 
tional objection;  but  which  was  attended  by 
such  evils  as  should  deter  posterity  from  imi- 
tating the  example.  It  was  in  the  first  year  of 
the  federal  government ;  and  although  the  as- 
sumed debts  were  only  twenty  millions,  and 
were  alleged  to  have  been  contracted  for  gene- 
ral purposes,  yet  the  assumption  was  attended 
by  circumstances  of  intrigue  and  corruption, 
which  led  to  the  most  violent  dissension  in 
Congress,  suspended  the  business  of  the  two 
Houses,  drove  some  of  the  States  to  the  verge 
of  secession,  and  menaced  the  Union  with  in- 
stant dissolution.     Mr.  Jefferson,  who  was  a 


174 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


witness  of  the  scene,  and  who  was  overpowered 
by  General  Hamilton,  and  by  the  actual  dan- 
gers of  the  country,  into  its  temporary  support, 
thus  describes  it : 

"  This  game  was  over  (funding  the  soldiers' 
certificates),  and  another  was  on  the  carpet  at 
the  moment  of  my  arrival ;  and  to  this  I  was 
most  ignorantly  and  innocently  made  to  hold 
the  candle.  This  fiscal  manoeuvre  is  well 
known  by  the  name  of  the  assumption.  Inde- 
pendently of  the  debts  of  Congress,  the  States 
had,  during  the  war,  contracted  separate  and 
heavy  debts,  &c.  *  *  *  *  This  money, 
whether  wisely  or  foolishly  spent,  was  pretend- 
ed to  have  been  spent  for  general  purposes, 
and  ought  therefore  to  be  paid  from  the  gene- 
ral purse.  But  it  was  objected,  that  nobody 
knew  what  these  debts  were,  what  their 
amount,  or  what  their  proofs.  No  matter ;  we 
will  guess  them  to  be  twenty  millions.  But  of 
these  twenty  millions,  we  do  not  know  how 
much  should  be  reimbursed  to  one  State  or 
how  much  to  another.  No  matter;  we  will 
guess.  And  so  another  scramble  was  set  on 
foot  among  the  several  States,  and  some  got 
much,  some  little,  some  nothing.  *  *  *  * 
This  measure  produced  the  most  bitter  and  an- 
gry contests  ever  known  in  Congress,  before 
or  since  the  union  of  the  States.  *  *  *  * 
The  great  and  trying  question,  however,  was 
lost  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  So  high 
were  the  feuds  excited  by  this  subject,  that  on 
its  rejection  business  was  suspended.  Congress 
met  and  adjourned,  from  day  to  day,  without 
doing  any  thing,  the  parties  being  too  much  out 
of  temper  to  do  business  together.  The  East- 
ern members  particularly,  who,  with  Smith 
from  South  Carolina,  were  the  principal  gam- 
blers in  these  scenes,  threatened  a  secession 
and  dissolution.  *  *  *  *  But  it  was  final- 
ly agreed  that  whatever  importance  had  been 
attached  to  the  rejection  of  this  proposition,  the 
preservation  of  the  Union,  and  of  concord  among 
the  States,  was  more  important ;  and  that, 
therefore,  it  would  be  better  that  the  vote  of 
rejection  should  be  rescinded ;  to  effect  which, 
some  members  should  change  their  votes.  But 
it  was  observed  that  this  pill  would  be  pecu- 
liarly bitter  to  the  Southern  States,  and  that 
some  concomitant  measure  should  be  adopted 
to  sweeten  it  a  little  to  them.  There  had  be- 
fore been  propositions  to  fix  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment either  at  Philadelphia,  or  at  Georgetown, 
on  the  Potomac  ;  and  it  was  thought  that,  by 
giving  it  to  Philadelphia  for  ten  years,  and 
to  Georgetown  permanently  afterwards,  this 
might,  as  an  anodyne,  calm  in  some  degree  the 
ferment  which  might  be  excited  by  the  other 
measure  alone.  So  two  of  the  Potomac  mem- 
bers (White  and  Lee,  but  White  with  a  revul- 
sion of  stomach  almost  convulsive)  agreed  to 
change  their  votes,  and  Hamilton  undertook  to 
carry  the  other  point  j  and  so  the  assumption 


was  passed,  and  twenty  millions  of  stock  divid- 
ed among  the  favored  States,  and  thrown  in  as 
a  pabulum  to  the  stock-jobbing  herd.  *  *  * 
Still  the  machine  was  not  complete ;  the  effect 
of  the  funding  system  and  of  the  assumption 
would  be  temporary  j  it  would  be  lost  with  the 
loss  of  the  individual  members  whom  it  had  en- 
riched ;  and  some  engine  of  influence  more  per- 
manent must  be  contrived  while  these  myrmi- 
dons were  yet  in  place  to  carry  it  through. 
This  engine  was  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States." 

What  a  picture  is  here  presented !  Debts 
assumed  in  the  mass,  without  knowing  what 
they  were  in  the  gross,  or  what  in  detail — Con- 
gress in  a  state  of  disorganization,  and  all  busi- 
ness suspended  for  many  days — secession  and 
disunion  openly  menaced — compromise  of  in- 
terests— intrigue — buying  and  selling  of  votes 
— conjunction  of  parties  to  pass  two  measures 
together,  neither  of  which  could  be  passed  sep- 
arately— speculators  infesting  the  halls  of  legis- 
lation, and  openly  struggling  for  their  spoil — 
the  funding  system  a  second  time  sanctioned 
and  fastened  upon  the  country — jobbers  and 
gamblers  in  stocks  enriched — twenty  millions 
of  additional  national  debt  created — and  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  national  bank  insured.  Such 
were  the  evils  attending  a  small  assumption  of 
twenty  millions  of  dollars,  and  that  in  a  case 
where  there  was  no  constitutional  impediment 
to  be  evaded  or  surmounted.  For  in  that  case 
the  debts  assumed  had  been  incurred  for  the 
general  good — for  the  general  defence  during 
the  revolution :  in  this  case  they  have  been  in- 
curred for  the  local  benefit  of  particular  States. 
Half  the  States  have  incurred  none ;  and  are 
they  to  be  taxed  to  pay  the  debts  of  the  rest  ? 

These  stocks  are  now  greatly  depreciated. 
Many  of  the  present  holders  bought  them  upon 
speculation,  to  take  the  chance  of  the  rise.  A 
diversion  of  the  national  domain  to  their  pay- 
ment would  immediately  raise  them  far  above 
par — would  be  a  present  of  fifty  or  sixty  cents 
on  the  dollar,  and  of  fifty  or  sixty  millions  in 
the  gross — to  the  foreign  holders,  and,  virtual- 
ly, a  present  of  so  much  public  land  to  them. 
It  is  in  vain  for  the  bill  to  say  that  the  proceeds 
of  the  lands  are  to  be  divided  among  the  States. 
The  indebted  States  will  deliver  their  portion 
to  their  creditors  ;  they  will  send  it  to  Europe , 
they  will  be  nothing  but  the  receivers-general 
and  the  sub-treasurers  of  the  bankers  and 
stockjobbers  of  London,  Paris,  and  of  Amster- 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


175 


dam.  The  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  lands 
will  go  to  them.  The  hard  money,  wrung  from 
the  hard  hand  of  the  western  cultivator,  will 
go  to  these  foreigners ;  and  the  whole  influence 
of  these  foreigners  will  be  immediately  directed 
to  the  enhancement  of  the  price  of  our  public 
lands,  and  to  the  prevention  of  the  passage  of 
all  the  laws  which  go  to  graduate  their  price, 
or  to  grant  pre-emptive  rights  to  the  settlers. 

What  more  unwise  and  more  unjust  than  to 
contract  debts  on  long  time,  as  some  of  the 
States  have  done,  thereby  invading  the  rights 
and  mortgaging  the  resources  of  posterity,  and 
loading  unborn  generations  with  debts  not 
their  own  ?  What  more  unwise  than  all  this, 
which  several  of  the  States  have  done,  and 
which  the  effort  now  is  to  make  all  do  ?  Be- 
sides the  ultimate  burden  in  the  shape  of  final 
payment,  which  is  intended  to  fall  upon  pos- 
terity, the  present  burden  is  incessant  in  the 
shape  of  annual  interest,  and  falling  upon  each 
generation,  equals  the  principal  in  every  period- 
ical return  of  ten  or  a  dozen  years.  Few  have 
calculated  the  devouring  effect  of  annual  in- 
terest on  public  debts,  and  considered  how  soon 
it  exceeds  the  principal.  Who  supposes  that 
we  have  paid  near  three  hundred  millions  of  in- 
terest on  our  late  national  debt,  the  principal 
of  which  never  rose  higher  than  one  hundred 
and  twenty-seven  millions,  and  remained  but 
a  year  or  two  at  that  ?  Who  supposes  this  ? 
Yet  it  is  a  fact  that  we  have  paid  four  hundred 
and  thirty-one  millions  for  principal  and  in- 
terest of  that  debt ;  so  that  near  three  hundred 
millions,  or  near  double  the  maximum  amount 
of  the  debt  itself,  must  have  been  paid  in  in- 
terest alone;  and  this  at  a  moderate  interest 
varying  from  three  to  six  per  cent,  and  payable 
at  home.  The  British  national  debt  owes  its 
existence  entirely  to  this  policy.  It  was  but  a 
trifle  in  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  and 
might  have  been  easily  paid  during  the  reigns 
of  the  first  and  second  George ;  but  the  policy 
was  to  fund  it,  that  is  to  say,  to  pay  the  in- 
terest annually,  and  send  down  the  principal  to 
posterity ;  and  the  fruit  of  that  policy  is  now 
seen  in  a  debt  of  four  thousand  five  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  two  hundred  and  fifty  mil- 
lions of  annual  taxes,  with  some  millions  of 
people  without  bread ;  while  an  army,  a  navy 
and  a  police,  sufficient  to  fight  all  Europe,  is 
kept  under  pay,  to  hold  in  check  and  subordi- 


nation the  oppressed  and  plundered  ranks  of 
their  own  population.  And  this  is  the  example 
which  the  transferrers  of  the  State  debt  would 
have  us  to  imitate,  and  this  the  end  to  which 
they  would  bring  us  ! 

I  do  not  dilate  upon  the  evils  of  a  foreign  in- 
fluence. They  are  written  upon  the  historical 
page  of  every  free  government,  from  the  most 
ancient  to  the  most  modern  :  they  are  among 
those  most  deeply  dreaded,  and  most  sedulous- 
ly guarded  against  by  the  founders  of  the 
American  Union.  The  constitution  itself  con- 
tains a  special  canon  directed  against  them. 
To  prevent  the  possibility  of  this  foreign  influ- 
ence, every  species  of  foreign  connection,  de- 
pendence, or  employment,  is  constitutionally 
forbid  to  the  whole  list  of  our  public  functiona- 
ries. The  inhibition  is  express  and  fundamen- 
tal, that  "no  person  holding  any  office  of  profit 
or  trust  under  the  United  States  shall,  with- 
out the  consent  of  Congress,  accept  of  any 
present,  emolument,  office,  or  title,  of  any  kind 
whatever,  from  any  king,  prince,  or  foreign 
State"  All  this  was  to  prevent  any  foreign 
potentate  from  acquiring  partisans  or  influence 
in  our  government — to  prevent  our  own  citi- 
zens from  being  seduced  into  the  interests  of 
foreign  powers.  Yet,  to  what  purpose  all  these 
constitutional  provisions  against  petty  sove- 
reignties, if  we  are  to  invite  the  moneyed  power 
which  is  able  to  subsidize  kings,  princes,  and 
potentates — if  we  are  to  invite  this  new  and 
master  power  into  the  bosom  of  our  councils, 
give  it  an  interest  in  controlling  public  opinion, 
in  directing  federal  and  State  legislation,  and  in 
filling  our  cities  and  seats  of  government  with 
its  insinuating  agents,  and  its  munificent  and 
lavish  representatives  ?  To  what  purpose  all 
this  wise  precaution  against  the  possibility  of 
influence  from  the  most  inconsiderable  German 
or  Italian  prince,  if  we  are  to  invite  the  com- 
bined bankers  of  England,  France,  and  Holland, 
to  take  a  position  in  our  legislative  halls,  and 
by  a  simple  enactment  of  a  few  words,  to  con- 
vert their  hundreds  of  millions  into  a  thousand 
millions,  and  to  take  a  lease  of  the  labor  and 
property  of  our  citizens  for  generations  to  come  ? 
The  largest  moneyed  operation  which  we  ever 
had  with  any  foreign  power,  was  that  of  the 
purchase  of  Louisiana  from  the  Great  Emperor. 
That  was  an  affair  of  fifteen  millions.  It  was 
insignificant  and  contemptible,  compared  to  the 


176 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


hundreds  of  millions  for  which  these  bankers 
are  now  upon  us.  And  are  we,  while  guarded 
by  the  constitution  against  influence  from  an 
emperor  and  fifteen  millions,  to  throw  our- 
selves open  to  the  machinations  of  bankers, 
with  their  hundreds  of  millions  1 


CHAPTER    XLV. 

DEATH  OP  GENERAL  SAMUEL  SMITH,  OF  MARY- 
LAND ;  AND  NOTICE  OF  HIS  LIFE  AND  CHAR- 
ACTER. 

He  was  eighteen  years  a  senator,  and  nearly  as 
long  a  member  of  the  House — near  forty  years 
in  Congress :  which  speaks  the  estimation  in 
which  his  fellow-citizens  held  him.  He  was 
thoroughly  a  business  member,  under  all  the 
aspects  of  that  character :  intelligent,  well  in- 
formed, attentive,  upright ;  a  very  effective 
speaker,  without  pretending  to  oratory :  well 
read :  but  all  his  reading  subordinate  to  com- 
mon sense  and  practical  views.  At  the  age  of 
more  than  seventy  he  was  still  one  of  the  most 
laborious  members,  both  in  the  committee  room 
and  the  Senate  :  and  punctual  in  his  attendance 
in  either  place.  He  had  served  in  the  army  of 
the  Revolution,  and  like  most  of  the  men  of 
that  school,  and  of  that  date,  had  acquired  the 
habit  of  punctuality,  for  which  Washington  was 
so  remarkable — that  habit  which  denotes  a  well- 
ordered  mind,  a  subjection  to  a  sense  of  duty, 
and  a  considerate  regard  for  others.  He  had 
been  a  large  merchant  in  Baltimore,  and  was 
particularly  skilled  in  matters  of  finance  and 
commerce,  and  was  always  on  committees 
charged  with  those  subjects — to  which  his  clear 
head,  and  practical  knowledge,  lent  light  and 
order  in  the  midst  of  the  most  intricate  state- 
ments. He  easily  seized  the  practical  points  on 
these  subjects,  and  presented  them  clearly  and 
intelligibly  to  the  chamber.  Patriotism,  honor, 
and  integrity  were  his  eminent  characteristics  ; 
and  utilitarian  the  turn  of  his  mind  j  and  bene- 
ficial results  the  object  of  his  labors.  He  be- 
longed to  that  order  of  members  who,  without 
classing  with  the  brilliant,  are  nevertheless  the 
most  useful  and  meritorious.  He  was  a  work- 
ing member  ;  and  worked  diligently,  judicious- 
ly, and  honestly,  for  the  public  good.    In  poli- 


tics he  was  democratic,  and  greatly  relied  upon 
by  the  Presidents  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Mon- 
roe. He  was  one  of  the  last  of  the  revolutionary 
stock  that  served  in  the  Senate — remaining  there 
until  1833 — above  fifty  years  after  that  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  which  he  had  helped  to 
make  good,  with  his  sword.  Almost  octogena- 
rian, he  was  fresh  and  vigorous  to  the  last,  and 
among  the  most  assiduous  and  deserving  mem- 
bers. He  had  acquired  military  reputation  in 
the  war  of  the  Revolution,  and  was  called  by 
his  fellow-citizens  to  take  command  of  the  local 
troops  for  the  defence  of  Baltimore,  when  threat- 
ened by  the  British  under  General  Ross,  in 
1814 — and  commanded  successfully — with  the 
judgment  of  age  and  the  fire  of  youth.  At  his 
death,  his  fellow-citizens  of  Baltimore  erected  a 
monument  to  his  memory — well  due  to  him  as 
one  of  her  longest  and  most  respected  inhabit- 
ants, as  having  been  one  of  her  eminent  mer- 
chants, often  her  representative  in  Congress, 
besides  being  senator ;  as  having  defended  her 
both  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution  and  in  that  of 
1812;  and  as  having  made  her  welfare  and 
prosperity  a  special  object  of  his  care  in  all  the 
situations  of  his  life,  both  public  and  private. 


CHAPTER    XLVI. 

SALT;  THE  UNIVERSALITY  OF  ITS  SUPPLY;  MYS- 
TERY AND  INDISPENSABILITY  OF  ITS  USE; 
TYRANNY  AND  IMPIETY  OF  ITS  TAXATION; 
SPEECH  OF  MR.  BENTON :  EXTRACTS. 

It  is  probable  that  salt  is  the  most  abundant 
substance  of  our  globe — that  it  is  more  abun- 
dant than  earth  itself.  Like  other  necessaries  of 
life — like  air,  and  water,  and  food — it  is  univer- 
sally diffused,  and  inexhaustibly  supplied.  It 
is  found  in  all  climates,  and  in  a  great  variety 
of  forms.  The  waters  hold  it  in  solution ;  the 
earth  contains  it  in  solid  masses.  Every  sea 
contains  it.  It  is  found  in  all  the  boundless 
oceans  which  surround  and  penetrate  the  earth, 
and  through  all  their  fathomless  depths.  Many 
inland  seas,  lakes,  ponds,  and  pools  are  impreg- 
nated with  it.  Streams  of  saline  water,  in  in- 
numerable places,  emerging  from  the  bowels  of 
the  earth,  approach  its  surface,  and  either  issue 
from  it  in  perennial  springs,  or  are  easily  reached 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


177 


by  wells.  In  the  depths  of  the  earth  itself  it  is 
found  in  solid  masses  of  interminable  extent. 
Thus  inexhaustibly  abundant,  and  universally 
diffused,  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  Providence 
is  further  manifested  in  the  cheapness  and  fa- 
cility of  the  preparation  of  this  necessary  of  life, 
for  the  use  of  man.  In  all  the  warm  latitudes, 
and  especially  between  the  tropics,  nature  her- 
self performs  the  work.  The  beams  of  the  sun 
evaporate  the  sea  water  in  all  the  low  and  shal- 
low reservoirs,  where  it  is  driven  by  the  winds, 
or  admitted  by  the  art  of  man ;  and  this  evapo- 
ration leaves  behind  a  deposit  of  pure  salt, 
ready  for  use,  and  costing  very  little  more  than 
the  labor  of  gathering  it  up.  In  the  interior, 
and  in  the  colder  latitudes,  artificial  heat  is  sub- 
stituted for  the  beams  of  the  sun :  the  simplest 
process  of  boiling  is  resorted  to;  and  where 
fuel  is  abundant,  and  especially  coal,  the  pre- 
paration of  this  prime  necessary  is  still  cheap 
and  easy ;  and  from  six  to  ten  cents  the  real 
bushel  may  be  considered  as  the  ordinary  cost 
of  production.  Such  is  the  bountiful  and  cheap 
supply  of  this  article,  which  a  beneficent  Provi- 
dence has  provided  for  us.  The  Supreme  Ruler 
of  the  Universe  has  done  every  thing  to  supply 
his  creatures  with  it.  Man,  the  fleeting  shadow 
of  an  instant,  invested  with  his  little  brief  au- 
thority, has  done  much  to  deprive  them  of  it. 
In  all  ages  of  the  world,  and  in  all  countries, 
salt  has  been  a  subject,  at  different  periods,  of 
heavy  taxation,  and  sometimes  of  individual  or 
of  government  monopoly ;  and  precisely,  because 
being  an  article  that  no  man  could  do  without, 
the  government  was  sure  of  its  tax,  and  the 
monopolizer  of  his  price.  Almost  all  nations, 
in  some  period  of  their  history,  have  suffered 
the  separate  or  double  infliction  of  a  tax,  and  a 
monopoly  on  its  salt ;  and,  at  some  period,  all 
have  freed  themselves,  from  one  or  both.  At 
present,  there  remain  but  two  countries  which 
suffer  both  evils,  our  America,  and  the  British 
East  Indies.  All  others  have  got  rid  of  the 
monopoly;  many  have  got  rid  of  the  tax. 
Among  others,  the  very  country  from  which  we 
copied  it,  and  the  one  above  all  others  least  able 
to  do  without  the  product  of  the  tax.  England, 
though  loaded  with  debt,  and  taxed  in  every 
thing,  is  now  free  from  the  salt  tax.  Since 
1822,  it  has  been  totally  suppressed ;  and  this 
necessary  of  life  is  now  as  free  there  as  air 
and  water.  She  even  has  a  statute  to  guard 
Vol.  II.— 12 


its  price,  and  common  law  to  prevent  its  mo- 
nopoly. 

This  act  was  passed  in  1807.  The  common 
law  of  England  punishes  all  monopolizers,  fore^ 
stallers,  and  regraters.  The  Parliament,  in  1807, 
took  cognizance  of  a  reported  combination  to 
raise  the  price  of  salt,  and  examined  the  manu- 
facturers on  oath :  and  rebuked  them. 

Mr.  B.  said  that  a  salt  tax  was  not  only  politi- 
cally, but  morally  wrong :  it  was  a  species  of 
impiety.  Salt  stood  alone  amidst  the  produc- 
tions of  nature,  without  a  rival  or  substitute, 
and  the  preserver  and  purifier  of  all  things. 
Most  nations  had  regarded  it  as  a  mystic  and 
sacred  substance.  Among  the  heathen  nations 
of  antiquity,  and  with  the  Jews,  it  was  used  in 
the  religious  ceremony  of  the  sacrifices — the  head 
of  the  victim  being  sprinkled  with  salt  and  water 
before  it  was  offered.  Among  the  primitive 
Christians,  it  was  the  subject  of  Divine  allusions, 
and  the  symbol  of  purity,  of  incorruptibility, 
and  of  perpetuity.  The  disciples  of  Christ  were 
called  "  the  salt  of  the  earth  ; "  and  no  language, 
or  metaphor,  could  have  been  more  expressive 
of  their  character  and  mission — pure  in  them- 
selves, and  an  antidote  to  moral,  as  salt  was  to 
material  corruption.  Among  the  nations  of  the 
East  salt  always  has  been,  and  still  is,  the  sym- 
bol of  friendship,  and  the  pledge  of  inviolable 
fidelity.  He  that  has  eaten  another's  salt,  has 
contracted  towards  his  benefactor  a  sacred  obli- 
gation ;  and  cannot  betray  or  injure  him  there- 
after, without  drawing  upon  himself  (according 
to  his  religious  belief)  the  certain  effects  of  the 
Divine  displeasure.  While  many  nations  have 
religiously  regarded  this  substance,  all  have 
abhorred  its  taxation ;  and  this  sentiment,  so 
universal,  so  profound,  so  inextinguishable  in 
the  human  heart,  is  not  to  be  overlooked  by 
the  legislator. 

Mr.  B.  concluded  his  speech  with  declaring 
implacable  war  against  this  tax,  with  all  its  ap- 
purtenant abuses,  of  monopoly  in  one  quarter 
of  the  Union,  and  of  undue  advantages  in  an- 
other. He  denounced  it  as  a  tax  upon  the  en- 
tire economy  of  nature  and  of  art — a  tax  upon 
man  and  upon  beast — upon  life  and  upon  health 
— upon  comfort  and  luxury— upon  want  and 
superfluity — upon  food  and  upon  raiment — on 
washing,  and  on  cleanliness.  He  called  it  a 
heartless  and  tyrant  tax,  as  inexorable  as  it  was 
omnipotent  and  omnipresent ;  a  tax  which  no 


178 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


economy  could  avoid — no  poverty  could  shun — 
no  privation  escape — no  cunning  elude — no  force 
resist — no  dexterity  avert — no  curses  repulse — 
no  prayers  could  deprecate.  It  was  a  tax  which 
Invaded  the  entire  dominion  of  human  opera- 
tions, falling  with  its  greatest  weight  upon  the 
most  helpless,  and  the  most  meritorious  ;  and 
depriving  the  nation  of  benefits  infinitely  tran- 
scending in  value,  the  amount  of  its  own  pro- 
duct. I  devote  myself,  said  Mr.  B.,  to  the  extir- 
pation of  this  odious  tax,  and  its  still  more 
odious  progeny — the  salt  monopoly  of  the  West. 
I  war  against  them  while  they  exist,  and  while 
I  remain  on  this  floor.  Twelve  years  have  passed 
away — two  years  more  than  the  siege  of  Troy 
lasted — since  I  began  this  contest.  Nothing 
disheartened  by  so  many  defeats,  in  so  long  a 
time,  I  prosecute  the  war  with  unabated  vigor ; 
and,  relying  upon  the  goodness  of  the  cause, 
firmly  calculate  upon  ultimate  and  final  success. 


CHAPTEE    XLVII. 

PAIRING   OFF. 

At  this  time,  and  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, was  exhibited  for  the  first  time,  the  spec- 
tacle of  members  "pairing  off"  as  the  phrase 
was ;  that  is  to  say,  two  members  of  opposite 
political  parties  agreeing  to  absent  themselves 
from  the  duties  of  the  House,  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  House,  and  without  deducting  their 
per  diem  pay  during  the  time  of  such  voluntary 
absence.  Such  agreements  were  a  clear  breach 
of  the  rules  of  the  House,  a  disregard  of  the 
constitution,  and  a  practice  open  to  the  grossest 
abuses.  An  instance  of  the  kind  was  avowed 
on  the  floor  by  one  of  the  parties  to  the  agree- 
ment, by  giving  as  a  reason  for  not  voting  that 
be  had  "paired  off"  with  another  member, 
whose  affairs  required  him  to  go  home.  It  was 
a  strange  annunciation,  and  called  for  rebuke ; 
and  there  was  a  member  present  who  had  the 
spirit  to  administer  it ;  and  from  whom  it  came 
with  the  greatest  propriety  on  account  of  his 
age  and  dignity,  and  perfect  attention  to  all  his 
duties  as  a  member,  both  in  his  attendance  in 
the  House  and  in  the  committee  rooms.  That 
member  was  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,  who  im- 


mediately proposed  to  the  House  the  adoption 
of  this  resolution :  "  Resolved,  that  the  practice, 
first  openly  avowed  at  the  present  session  of 
Congress,  of  pairing  off,  involves,  on  the  part  of 
the  members  resorting  to  it,  the  violation  of  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States,  of  an  express 
rule  of  this  House,  and  of  the  duties  of  both 
parties  in  the  transaction  to  their  immediate 
constituents,  to  this  House,  and  to  their  coun- 
try." This  resolve  was  placed  on  the  calendar 
to  take  its  turn,  but  not  being  reached  during 
the  session,  was  not  voted  upon.  That  was  the 
first  instance  of  this  reprehensible  practice,  fifty 
years  after  the  government  had  gone  into  opera- 
tion ;  but  since  then  it  has  become  common, 
and  even  inveterate,  and  is  carried  to  great 
length.  Members  pair  off,  and  do  as  they  please 
— either  remain  in  the  city,  refusing  to  attend 
to  any  duty,  or  go  off  together  to  neighboring 
cities ;  or  separate  ;  one  staying  and  one  going ; 
and  the  one  that  remains  sometimes  standing 
up  in  his  place,  and  telling  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  that  he  had  paired  off  ;  and  so  refusing  to 
vote.  There  is  no  justification  for  such  conduct, 
and  it  becomes  a  facile  way  for  shirking  duty, 
and  evading  responsibility.  If  a  member  is  un- 
der a  necessity  to  go  away  the  rules  of  the  House 
require  him  to  ask  leave  ;  and  the  journals  of 
the  early  Congresses  are  full  of  such  applications. 
If  he  is  compelled  to  go,  it  is  his  misfortune, 
and  should  not  be  communicated  to  another. 
This  writer  had  never  seen  an  instance  of  it  in 
the  Senate  during  his  thirty  years  of  service 
there;  but  the  practice  has  since  penetrated 
that  body;  and"  pairing  off"  has  become  as 
common  in  that  House  as  in  the  other,  in  pro- 
portion to  its  numbers,  and  with  an  aggravation 
of  the  evil,  as  the  absence  of  a  senator  is  a  loss 
to  his  State  of  half  its  weight.  As  a  conse- 
quence, the  two  Houses  are  habitually  found 
voting  with  deficient  numbers — often  to  the  ex- 
tent of  a  third — often  with  a  bare  quorum. 

In  the  first  age  of  the  government  no  member 
absented  himself  from  the  service  of  the  House 
to  which  he  belonged  without  first  asking,  and 
obtaining  its  leave ;  or,  if  called  off  suddenly,  a 
colleague  was  engaged  to  state  the  circumstance 
to  the  House,  and  ask  the  leave.  In  the  journals 
of  the  two  Houses,  for  the  first  thirty  years  of 
the  government,  there  is,  in  the  index,  a  regular 
head  for  "  absent  without  leave ;  "  and,  turning 
to  the  indicated  page,  every  such  name  will  be 


ANNO  1840.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


179 


seen.  That  head  in  the  index  has  disappeared 
in  later  times.  I  recollect  no  instance  of  leave 
asked  since  the  last  of  the  early  members — 
the  Macons,  Randolphs,  Rufus  Kings,  Samuel 
Smiths,  and  John  Taylors  of  Caroline— disap- 
peared from  the  halls  of  Congress. 


CHAPTER   XLVIII. 

TAX  ON  BANK  NOTES :  ME.  BENTON'S  SPEECH : 
EXTRACTS: 

Mr.  Benton  brought  forward  his  promised 
motion  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  to  tax  the 
circulation  of  banks  and  bankers,  and  of  all  cor- 
porations, companies  or  individuals  which  issued 
paper  currency.  He  said  nothing  was  more 
reasonable  than  to  require  the  moneyed  interest 
which  was  employed  in  banking,  and  especially 
in  that  branch  of  banking  which  was  dedicated 
to  the  profitable  business  of  converting  lamp- 
black and  rags  into  money,  to  contribute  to  the 
support  of  the  government.  It  was  a  large  in- 
terest, very  able,  and  very  proper,  to  pay  taxes, 
and  which  paid  nothing  on  their  profitable  issues 
— profitable  to  them — injurious  to  the  country. 
It  was  an  interest  which  possessed  many  privi- 
leges over  the  rest  of  the  community  by  law ; 
which  usurped  many  others  which  the  laws  did 
not  grant ;  which,  in  fact,  set  the  laws  and  the 
government  at  defiance  whenever  it  pleased ;  and 
which,  in  addition  to  all  these  privileges  and  ad- 
vantages, was  entirely  exempt  from  federal  taxa- 
tion. While  the  producing  and  laboring  classes 
were  all  taxed ;  while  these  meritorious  classes, 
with  their  small  incomes,  were  taxed  in  their  com- 
forts and  necessaries — in  their  salt,  iron,  sugar, 
blankets,  hats,  coats  and  shoes,  and  so  many 
other  articles — the  banking  interest,  which  dealt 
in  hundreds  of  millions,  which  manufactured 
and  monopolized  money,  which  put  up  and  put 
down  prices,  and  held  the  whole  country  sub- 
ject to  its  power,  and  tributary  to  its  wealth, 
paid  nothing.  This  was  wrong  in  itself,  and 
unjust  to  the  rest  of  the  community.  It  was 
an  error  or  mistake  in  government  which  he  had 
long  intended  to  bring  to  the  notice  of  the  Sen- 
ate and  the  country ;  and  he  judged  the  present 
conjuncture  to  be  a  proper  time  for  doing  it. 
Revenue  is  wanted.     A  general  revision  of  the 


tariff  is  about  to  take  place.  An  adjustment  of 
the  taxes  for  a  long  period  is  about  to  be  made. 
This  is  the  time  to  bring  forward  the  banking 
interest  to  bear  their  share  of  the  public  bur- 
dens, and  the  more  so,  as  they  are  now  in  the 
fact  of  proving  themselves  to  be  a  great  burden 
on  the  public,  and  the  public  mind  is  beginning 
to  consider  whether  there  is  any  way  to  make 
them  amenable  to  law  and  government. 

In  other  countries,  Mr.  B^.  said,  the  banking 
interest  was  subject  to  taxation.  He  knew  of  no 
country  in  which  banking  was  tolerated,  except 
our  own,  in  which  it  was  not  taxed.  In  Great 
Britain — that  country  from  which  we  borrow 
the  banking  system — the  banking  interest  pays 
its  fair  and  full  proportion  of  the  public  taxes : 
it  pays  at  present  near  four  millions  of  dollars. 
It  paid  in  1836  the  sum  of  $3,725,400 :  in  1837 
it  paid  $3,594,300.  These  were  the  last  years 
for  which  he  had  seen  the  details  of  the  British 
taxation,  and  the  amounts  he  had  stated  com- 
prehended the  bank  tax  upon  the  whole  united 
kingdom :  upon  Scotland  and  Ireland,  as  well 
as  upon  England  and  Wales.  It  was  a  hand- 
some item  in  the  budget  of  British  taxation,  and 
was  levied  on  two  branches  of  the  banking 
business :  on  the  circulation,  and  on  bills  of  ex- 
change. In  the  bill  which  he  intended  to  bring 
forward,  the  circulation  alone  was  proposed  to 
be  taxed ;  and,  in  that  respect,  the  paper  sys- 
tem would  still  remain  more  favored  here  than 
it  was  in  Great  Britain. 

In  our  own  country,  Mr.  B.  said,  the  banking 
interest  had  formerly  been  taxed,  and  that  in  all 
its  branches;  in  its  circulation,  its  discounts, 
and  its  bills  of  exchange.  This  was  during  the 
late  war  with  Great  Britain}  and  though  the 
banking  business  was  then  small  compared  to 
what  it  is  now,  yet  the  product  of  the  tax  was 
considerable,  and  well  worth  the  gathering :  it 
was  about  $500,000  per  annum.  At  the  end  of 
the  war  this  tax  was  abolished  ;  while  most  of 
the  war  taxes,  laid  at  the  same  time,  for  the 
same  purpose,  and  for  the  same  period,  were 
continued  in  force ;  among  them  the  tax  on 
salt,  and  other  necessaries  of  life.  By  a  perver- 
sion of  every  principle  of  righteous  taxation,  the 
tax  on  banks  was  abolished,  and  that  on  salt 
was  continued.  This  has  remained  the  case  for 
twenty-five  years,  and  it  is  time  to  reverse  the 
proceeding.  It  is  time  to  make  the  banks  pay, 
and  to  let  salt  go  free. 


180 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Mr.  B.  next  stated  the  manner  of  levying  the 
bank  tax  at  present  in  Great  Britain,  which  he 
said  was  done  with  great  facility  and  simplicity. 
It  was  a  levy  of  a  fixed  sum  on  the  average  cir- 
culation of  the  year,  which  the  bank  was  re- 
quired to  give  in  for  taxation  like  any  other 
property,  and  the  amount  collected  by  a  distress 
warrant  if  not  paid.  This  simple  and  obvious 
method  of  making  the  levy,  had  been  adopted 
in  1815,  and  had  been  followed  ever  since.  Be- 
fore that  time  it  was  effected  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  a  stamp  duty ;  a  stamp  being  re- 
quired for  each  note,  but  with  the  privilege  of 
compounding  for  a  gross  sum.  In  1815  the  op- 
tion of  compounding  was  dropped:  a  gross 
amount  was  fixed  by  law  as  the  tax  upon  every 
million  of  the  circulation;  and  this  change  in 
the  mode  of  collection  has  operated  so  benefi- 
cially that,  though  temporary  at  first,  it  has  been 
made  permanent.  The  amount  fixed  was  at  the 
rate  of  £3,500  for  every  million.  This  was  for 
the  circulation  only :  a  separate,  and  much 
heavier  tax  was  laid  upon  bills  of  exchange,  to 
be  collected  by  a  stamp  duty,  without  the  privi- 
lege of  composition. 

Mr.  B.  here  read,  from  a  recent  history  of  the 
Bank  of  England,  a  brief  account  of  the  taxation 
of  the  circulation  of  that  institution  for  the  last 
fifty  years — from  1790  to  the  present  time.  It 
was  at  that  time  that  her  circulation  began  to 
be  taxed,  because  at  that  time  only  did  she 
begin  to  have  a  circulation  which  displaced  the 
specie  of  the  country.  She  then  began  to  issue 
notes  under  ten  pounds,  having  been  first  char- 
tered with  the  privilege  of  issuing  none  less  than 
one  hundred  pounds.  It  was  a  century — from 
1694  to  1790— before  she  got  down  to  £5,  and 
afterwards  to  £2,  and  to  £1 ;  and  from  that  time 
the  specie  basis  was  displaced,  the  currency 
convulsed,  and  the  banks  suspending  and  break- 
ing. The  government  indemnified  itself,  in  a 
small  degree,  for  the  mischiefs  of  the  pestiferous 
currency  which  it  had  authorized ;  and  the  ex- 
tract which  he  was  about  to  read  was  the  his- 
tory of  the  taxation  on  the  Bank  of  England 
notes  which,  commencing  at  the  small  composi- 
tion of  £12,000  per  annum,  now  amounts  to  a 
large  proportion  of  the  near  four  millions  of 
dollars  which  the  paper  system  pays  annually 
to  the  British  Treasury.    He  read  : 

"  The  Bank,  till  lately,  has  always  been  par- 
ticularly favored  in  the  composition  which  they 


paid  for  stamp  duties.  In  1791,  they  paid  a 
composition  of  £12,000  per  annum,  in  lieu  of  all 
stamps,  either  on  bill  or  notes.  In  1799,  on  an 
increase  of  the  stamp  duty,  their  composition 
was  advanced  to  £20,000 ;  and  an  addition  of 
£4,000  for  notes  issued  under  £5,  raised  the 
whole  to  £24,000.  In  1804,  an  addition  of  not 
less  than  fifty  per  cent,  was  made  to  the  stamp 
duty ;  but,  although  the  Bank  circulation  of 
notes  under  £5  had  increased  from  one  and  a 
half  to  four  and  a  half  millions,  the  whole 
composition  was  only  raised  from  £24,000  to 
£32,000.  In  1808,  there  was  a  further  increase 
of  thirty-three  per  cent,  to  the  stamp  duty,  at 
which  time  the  composition  was  raised  from 
£32,000  to  £42,000.  In  both  these  instances, 
the  increase  was  not  in  proportion  even  to  the 
increase  of  duty ;  and  no  allowance  whatever 
was  made  for  the  increase  in  the  amount  of  the 
bank  circulation.  It  was  not  till  the  session 
of  1815,  on  a  further  increase  of  the  stamp  duty, 
that  the  new  principle  was  established,  and  the 
Bank  compelled  to  pay  a  composition  in  some 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  their  circulation. 
The  composition  is  now  fixed  as  follows :  Upon 
the  average  circulation  of  the  preceding  year, 
the  Bank  is  to  pay  at  the  rate  of  £3,500  per 
million,  on  their  aggregate  circulation,  without 
reference  to  the  different  classes  and  value  of 
their  notes.  The  establishment  of  this  princi- 
ple, it  is  calculated,  caused  a  saving  to  the  pub- 
lic, in  the  years  1815  and  1816,  of  £70,000. 
By  the  neglect  of  this  principle,  which  ought  to 
have  been  adopted  in  1799,  Mr.  Ricardo  esti- 
mated the  public  to  have  been  losers,  and  the 
Bank  consequently  gainers,  of  no  less  a  sum 
than  half  a  million." 

Mr.  B.  remarked  briefly  upon  the  equity  of 
this  tax,  the  simplicity  of  its  levy  since  1815, 
and  its  large  product.  He  deemed  it  the  proper 
model  to  be  followed  in  the  United  States,  un- 
less we  should  go  on  the  principle  of  copying 
all  that  was  evil,  and  rejecting  all  that  was 
good  in  the  British  paper  system.  We  bor- 
rowed the  banking  system  from  the  English, 
with  all  its  foreign  vices,  and  then  added  others 
of  our  own  to  it.  England  has  suppressed  the 
pestilence  of  notes  under  £5  (near  $25)  j  we 
retain  small  notes  down  to  a  dollar,  and  thence 
to  the  fractional  parts  of  a  dollar.  She  has 
taxed  all  notes  ;  and  those  under  £5  she  taxed 
highest  while  she  had  them ;  we,  on  the  con- 
trary, tax  none.  The  additional  tax  of  £4,000 
on  the  notes  under  £5  rested  on  the  fair  prin- 
ciple of  taxing  highest  that  which  was  most 
profitable  to  the  owner,  and  most  injurious  to 
the  country.  The  small  notes  fell  within  that 
category,  and  therefore  paid  highest. 

Having  thus  shown  that  bank  circulation 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


181 


was  now  taxed  in  Great  Britain,  and  had  been 
for  fifty  years,  he  proceeded  to  show  that  it 
had  also  been  taxed  in  the  United  States. 
This  was  in  the  year  1813.  In  the  month  of 
August  of  that  year,  a  stamp-act  was  passed, 
applicable  to  banks  and  to  bankers,  and  taxing 
them  in  the  three  great  branches  of  their  busi- 
ness, to  wit :  the  circulation,  the  discounts,  and 
the  bills  of  exchange.  On  the  circulation,  the 
tax  commenced  at  one  cent  on  a  one  dollar 
note,  and  rose  gradually  to  fifty  dollars  on 
notes  exceeding  one  thousand  dollars  ;  with  the 
privilege  of  compounding  for  a  gross  sum  in 
lieu  of  the  duty.  On  the  discounts,  the  tax 
began  at  five  cents  on  notes  discounted  for  one 
hundred  dollars,  and  rose  gradually  to  five  dol- 
lars on  notes  of  eight  thousand  dollars  and  up- 
wards. On  bills  of  exchange,  it  began  at  five 
cents  on  bills  of  fifty  dollars,  and  rose  to  five 
dollars  on  those  of  eight  thousand  dollars  and 
upwards. 

Such  was  the  tax,  continued  Mr.  B.,  which 
the  moneyed  interest,  employed  in  banking, 
was  required  to  pay  in  1813.  and  which  it  con- 
tinued to  pay  until  1817.  In  that  year  the 
banks  were  released  from  taxation,  while  taxes 
were  continued  upon  all  the  comforts  and  ne- 
cessaries of  life.  Taxes  are  now  continued 
upon  articles  of  prime  necessity — upon  salt 
even — and  the  question  will  now  go  before  the 
Senate  and  country,  whether  the  banking  in- 
terest, which  has  now  grown  so  rich  and  pow- 
erful— which  monopolizes  the  money  of  the 
country — beards  the  government — makes  dis- 
tress or  prosperity  when  it  pleases — the  ques- 
tion is  now  come  whether  this  interest  shall 
continue  to  be  exempt  from  tax,  while  every 
thing  else  has  to  pay. 

Mr.  B.  said  he  did  not  know  how  the  bank- 
ing interest  of  the  present  day  would  relish  a 
proposition  to  make  them  contribute  to  the 
support  of  the  government.  He  did  not  know 
how  they  would  take  it ;  but  he  did  know  how 
a  banker  of  the  old  school — one  who  paid  on 
sight,  according  to  his  promise,  and  never  broke 
a  promise  to  the  holder  of  his  notes — he  did 
know  how  such  a  banker  viewed  the  act  of 
1813  ;  and  he  would  exhibit  his  behavior  to  the 
Senate ;  he  spoke  of  the  late  Stephen  Girard 
of  Philadelphia ;  and  he  would  let  him  speak 
for  himself  by  reading  some  passages  from  a  pe- 


tition which  he  presented  to  Congress  the  year 
after  the  tax  on  bank  notes  was  laid. 
Mr.  B.  read : 

"That  your  memorialist  has  established  a 
bank  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  upon  the  foun- 
dation of  his  own  individual  fortune  and  credit, 
and  for  his  own  exclusive  emolument,  and  that 
he  is  willing  most  cheerfully  to  contribute,  in 
common  with  his  fellow-citizens  throughout 
the  United  States,  a  full  proportion  of  the  taxes 
which  have  been  imposed  for  the  support  of  the 
national  government,  according  to  the  profits 
of  his  occupation  and  the  value  of  his  estate ; 
but  a  construction  has  been  given  to  the  acts 
of  Congress  laying  duties  on  notes  of  banks, 
&c,  from  which  great  difficulties  have  occurred, 
and  great  inequalities  daily  produced  to  the 
disadvantage  of  his  bank,  that  were  not,  it  is 
confidently  believed,  within  the  contemplation 
of  the  legislature.  And  your  memorialist  hav- 
ing submitted  these  considerations  to  the  wis- 
dom of  Congress,  respectfully  prays,  that  the  act 
of  Congress  may  be  so  amended  as  to  permit 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  enter  into  a 
composition  for  the  stamp  duty,  in  the  case  of 
private  bankers,  as  well  as  in  the  case  of  corpo- 
rations and  companies,  or  so  as  to  render  the 
duty  equal  in  its  operations  upon  every  deno- 
mination of  bankers." 

Mr.  B.  had  read  these  passages  from  Mr.  Gi- 
rard's  petition  to  Congress  in  1814,  jirst,  for 
the  purpose  of  showing  the  readiness  with 
which  a  banker  of  the  old  school  paid  the  taxes 
which  the  government  imposed  upon  his  busi- 
ness ;  and,  next,  to  show  the  very  considerable 
amount  of  that  tax,  which  on  the  circulation 
alone  amounted  to  ten  thousand  dollars  on  the 
million.  All  this,  with  the  additional  tax  on 
the  discounts,  and  on  the  bills  of  exchange,  Mr. 
Girard  was  entirely  willing  to  pay,  provided  all 
paid  alike.  All  he  asked  was  equality  of  taxa- 
tion, and  that  he  might  have  the  benefit  of  the 
same  composition  which  was  allowed  to  incor- 
porated banks.  This  was  a  reasonable  request, 
and  was  immediately  granted  by  Congress. 

Mr.  B.  said  revenue  was  one  object  of  his 
bill :  the  regulation  of  the  currency  by  the  sup- 
pression of  small  notes  and  the  consequent 
protection  of  the  constitutional  currency,  was 
another :  and  for  that  purpose  the  tax  was  pro- 
posed to  be  heaviest  on  notes  under  twenty 
dollars,  and  to  be  augmented  annually  until  it 
accomplished  its  object. 


182 


THTRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER    XLIX. 

LIBERATION  OF  SLAVES  BELONGING  TO  AMERI- 
CAN CITIZENS  IN  BRITISH  COLONIAL  PORTS. 

Up  to  this  time,  and  within  a  period  of  ten 
years,  three  instances  of  this  kind  had  occurred. 
First,  that  of  the  schooner  Comet.     This  ves- 
sel sailed  from  the  District  of  Columbia  in  the 
year  1830,  destined  for  New  Orleans,  having, 
among  other  things,  a  number  of  slaves  on 
board.     Her  papers  were  regular,  and  the  voy- 
age in  all  respects  lawful.     She  was  stranded 
on  one  of  the  false  keys  of  the  Bahama  Islands, 
opposite  to  the  coast  of  Florida,  and  almost  in 
sight  of  our  own  shores.     The  persons  on  board, 
including  the  slaves,  were  taken  by  the  wreck- 
ers, against  the  remonstrance  of  the  captain  and 
the  owners  of  the  slaves,  into  Nassau,  New 
Providence — one  of  the  Bahama  Islands ;  where 
the  slaves  were  forcibly  seized  and  detained  by 
the  local  authorities.     The  second  was  the  case 
of  the  Encomium.     She  sailed  from  Charleston 
in  1834,  destined  to  New  Orleans,  on  a  voyage 
lawful  and  regular,  and  was  stranded  near  the 
same  place,  and  with  the  same  fate  with  the 
Comet.     She  was  carried  into  Nassau,  where 
the  slaves  were  also  seized  and  detained  by  the 
local  authorities.      The  slaves  belonged  to  the 
Messrs.  "Waddell  of  North  Carolina,  among  the 
most  respectable  inhabitants  of  the  State,  and 
on  their  way  to  Louisiana  with  a  view  to  a  per- 
manent settlement  in  that  State.     The  third 
case  was  that  of  the  Enterprize,  sailing  from 
the  District  of  Columbia  in  1835,  destined  for 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  on  a  lawful  voyage, 
and  with  regular  papers.     She  was  forced  una- 
voidably, by  stress  of  weather,  into  Port  Ham- 
ilton,  Bermuda  Island,  where  the  slaves  on 
board  were  forcibly  seized  and  detained  by  the 
local  authorities.      The  owners  of  the  slaves, 
protesting  in  vain,  at  the  time,  and  in  every  in- 


stance, against  this  seizure  of  their  property, 
afterwards  applied  to  their  own  government  for 
redress ;  and  after  years  of  negotiation  with 
Great  Britain,  redress  was  obtained  in  the  two 
first  cases — the  full  value  of  the  slaves  being 
delivered  to  the  United  States,  to  be  paid  to  the 
owners.  This  was  accomplished  during  Mr. 
Van  Buren's    administration,  the   negotiation 


having  commenced  under  that  of  President 
Jackson.  Compensation  in  the  case  of  the  En- 
terprize had  been  refused ;  and  the  reason  given 
for  the  distinction  in  the  cases,  was,  that  the 
two  first  happened  during  the  time  that  slavery 
existed  in  the  British  West  India  colonies — the 
latter  after  its  abolition  there.  All  these  were 
coasting  voyages  between  one  port  of  the  United 
States  and  another,  and  involved  practical  ques- 
tions of  great  interest  to  all  the  slave  States. 
Mr.  Calhoun  brought  the  question  before  the 
Senate  in  a  set  of  resolutions  which  he  drew  up 
for  the  occasion;  and  which  were  in  these 
words : 

"  Resolved,  That  a  ship  or  a  vessel  on  the 
high  seas,  in  time  of  peace,  engaged  in  a  lawful 
voyage,  is,  according  to  the  laws  of  nations,  un- 
der the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  State  to 
which  her  flag  belongs  ;  as  much  so  as  if  con- 
stituting a  part  of  its  own  domain. 

"  Resolved,  That  if  such  ship  or  vessel  should 
be  forced  by  stress  of  weather,  or  other  una- 
voidable cause,  into  the  port  of  a  friendly 
power,  she  would,  under  the  same  laws,  lose 
none  of  the  rights  appertaining  to  her  on  the 
high  seas  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  she  and  her 
cargo  and  persons  on  board,  with  their  proper- 
ty, and  all  the  rights  belonging  to  their  per- 
sonal relations,  as  established  by  the  laws  of  the 
State  to  which  they  belong,  would  be  placed 
under  the  protection  which  the  laws  of  nations 
extend  to  the  unfortunate  under  such  circum- 
stances. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  brig  Enterprize,  which 
was  forced  unavoidably  by  stress  of  weather 
into  Port  Hamilton,  Bermuda  Island,  while  on 
a  lawful  voyage  on  the  high  seas  from  one  port 
of  the  Union  to  another,  comes  within  the  prin- 
ciples embraced  in  the  foregoing  resolutions ; 
and  that  the  seizure  and  detention  of  the  ne- 
groes on  board  by  the  local  authority  of  the 
island,  was  an  act  in  violation  of  the  laws  of 
nations,  and  highly  unjust  to  our  own  citizens 
to  whom  they  belong." 

It  was  in  this  latter  case  that  Mr.  Calhoun 
wished  to  obtain  the  judgment  of  the  Senate, 
and  the  point  he  had  to  argue  was,  whether  a 
municipal  regulation  of  Great  Britain  could  al- 
ter the  law  of  nations  ?  Under  that  law  she 
made  indemnity  for  the  slaves  liberated  in  the 
two  first  cases :  under  her  own  municipal  law 
she  denied  it  in  the  latter  case.  The  distinc- 
tion taken  by  the  British  minister  was,  that  in 
the  first  cases,  slavery  existing  in  this  British 
colony  and  recognized  by  law,  the  persons  com- 
ing in  with  their  slaves  had  a  property  in  them 
which  had  been  divested:   in  the  latter  case 


ANNO  1840.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


183 


that  slavery  being  no  longer  recognized  in  this 
colony,  there  was  no  property  in  them  after 
their  arrival ;  and  consequently  no  rights  di- 
vested. Mr.  Calhoun  admitted  that  would  be 
the  case  if  the  entrance  had  been  voluntary ; 
but  denied  it  where  the  entrance  was  forced ; 
as  in  this  case.     His  argument  was  : 

"  I  object  not  to  the  rule.  If  our  citizens  had 
no  right  to  their  slaves,  at  any  time  after  they 
entered  the  British  territory — that  is,  if  the 
mere  fact  of  entering  extinguished  all  right  to 
them  (for  that  is  the  amount  of  the  rule) — 
they  could,  of  course,  have  no  claim  on  the 
British  government,  for  the  plain  reason  that 
the  local  authority,  in  seizing  and  detaining  the 
negroes,  seized  and  detained  what,  by  supposi- 
tion, did  not  belong  to  them.  That  is  clear 
enough ;  but  let  us  see  the  application :  it  is 
given  in  a  few  words.  He  says :  '  Now  the 
owners  of  the  slaves  on  board  the  Enterprize 
never  were  lawfully  in  possession  of  those 
slaves  within  the  British  territory ; '  assigning 
for  reason,  '  that  before  the  Enterprize  arrived 
at  Bermuda,  slavery  had  been  abolished  in  the 
British  empire' — an  assertion  which  I  shall 
show,  in  a  subsequent  part  of  my  remarks,  to 
be  erroneous.  From  that,  and  that  alone,  he 
comes  to  the  conclusion,  '  that  the  negroes  on 
board  the  Enterprize  had,  by  entering  within 
the  British  jurisdiction,  acquired  rights  which 
the  local  courts  were  bound  to  protect.'  Such 
certainly  would  have  been  the  case  if  they  had 
been  brought  in,  or  entered  voluntarily.  He 
who  enters  voluntarily  the  territory  of  another 
State,  tacitly  submits  himself,  with  all  his 
rights,  to  its  laws,  and  is  as  much  bound  to 
submit  to  them  as  its  citizens  or  subjects.  No 
one  denies  that ;  but  that  is  not  the  present 
case.  They  entered  not  voluntarily,  but  from 
necessity ;  and  the  very  point  at  issue  is, 
whether  the  British  municipal  laws  could  di- 
vest their  owners  of  property  in  their  slaves  on 
entering  British  territory,  in  cases  such  as  the 
Enterprize,  when  the  vessel  has  been  forced 
into  their  territory  by  necessity,  through  an 
act  of  Providence,  to  save  the  lives  of  those  on 
board.  We  deny  they  can,  and  maintain  the 
opposite  ground: — that  the  law  of  nations  in 
such  cases  interposes  and  protects  the  vessel 
and  those  on  board,  with  their  rights,  against 
the  municipal  laws  of  the  State,  to  which  they 
have  never  submitted,  and  to  which  it  would 
be  cruel  and  inhuman,  as  well  as  unjust,  to  sub- 
ject them.  Such  is  clearly  the  point  at  issue 
between  the  two  governments ;  and  it  is  not 
less  clear,  that  it  is  the  very  point  assumed  by 
the  British  negotiator  in  the  controversy." 

This  is  fair  reasoning  upon  the  law  of  the 
case,  and  certainly  left  the  law  of  nations  in 
full  force  in  favor  of  the  American  owners. 


The  equity  of  the  case  was  also  fully  stated, 
and  the  injury  shown  to  be  of  a  practical  kind, 
which  self-protection  required  the  United  States 
to  prevent  for  the  future.  In  this  sense,  Mr. 
Calhoun  argued : 

"  To  us  this  is  not  a  mere  abstract  question, 
nor  one  simply  relating  to  the  free  use  of  the 
high  seas.  It  comes  nearer  home.  It  is  one 
of  free  and  safe  passage  from  one  port  to 
another  of  our  Union ;  as  much  so  to  us,  as  a 
question  touching  the  free  and  safe  use  of  the 
channels  between  England  and  Ireland  on  the 
one  side,  and  the  opposite  coast  of  the  continent 
on  the  other,  would  be  to  Great  Britain.  To 
understand  its  deep  importance  to  us,  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind,  that  the  island  of  Bermuda 
lies  but  a  short  distance  off  our  coast,  and  that 
the  channel  between  the  Bahama  islands  and 
Florida  is  not  less  than  two  hundred  miles  in 
length,  and  on  an  average  not  more  than  fifty 
wide ;  and  that  through  this  long,  narrow  and 
difficult  channel,  the  immense  trade  between 
our  ports  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  Atlan- 
tic coast  must  pass,  which,  at  no  distant  period, 
will  constitute  more  than  half  of  the  trade  of 
the  Union.  The  principle  set  up  by  the  British 
government,  if  carried  out  to  its  full  extent, 
would  do  much  to  close  this  all-important 
channel,  by  rendering  it  too  hazardous  for  use. 
She  has  only  to  give  an  indefinite  extension  to 
the  principle  applied  to  the  case  of  the  Enter- 
prize, and  the  work  would  be  done ;  and  why 
has  she  not  as  good  a  right  to  apply  it  to  a  car- 
go of  sugar  or  cotton,  as  to  the  slaves  who  pro- 
duced it." 

The  resolutions  were  referred  to  the  com- 
mittee on  foreign  relations,  which  reported 
them  back  with  some  slight  alteration,  not  af- 
fecting or  impairing  their  force;  and  in  that 
form  they  were  unanimously  adopted  by  the 
Senate.  Although  there  was  no  opposition  to 
them,  the  importance  of  the  occasion  justified  a 
record  of  the  vote :  and  they  were  accordingly 
taken  by  yeas  and  nays — or  rather,  by  yeas : 
for  there  were  no  nays.  This  was  one  of  the 
occasions  on  which  the  mind  loves  to  dwell, 
when,  on  a  question  purely  sectional  and 
Southern,  and  wholly  in  the  interest  of  slave 
property,  there  was  no  division  of  sentiment  in 
the  American  Senate. 


■ 


184 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER    L. 

RESIGN  ATION  OF  SENATOR  HUGH  LAWSON 
WHITE  OF  TENNESSEE:  HIS  DEATH:  SOME 
NOTICE  OF  HIS  LIFE  AND  CHARACTER. 

This  resignation  took  place  under  circumstances, 
not  frequent,  but  sometimes  occurring  in  the 
Senate — that  of  receiving  instructions  from  the 
General  Assembly  of  his  State,  which  either  op- 
erate as  a  censure  upon  a  senator,  or  require 
him  to  do  something  which  either  his  con- 
science, or  his  honor  forbids.  Mr.  White  at 
this  time — the  session  of  1839-40 — received 
instructions  from  the  General  Assembly  of  his 
State  which  affected  him  in  both  ways — con- 
demning past  conduct,  and  prescribing  a  future 
course  which  he  could  not  follow.  He  had 
been  democratic  from  his  youth — came  into  the 
Senate — had  grown  aged — as  such :  but  of  late 
years  had  voted  generally  with  the  whigs  on 
their  leading  measures,  and  classed  politically 
with  them  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Van  Buren.  In 
these  circumstances  he  received  instructions  to 
reverse  his  course  of  voting  on  these  leading 
measures — naming  them ;  and  requiring  him  to 
support  the  administration  of  Mr.  Van  Buren. 
He  consulted  his  self-respect,  as  well  as  obeyed 
a  democratic  principle  ;  and  sent  in  his  resigna- 
tion. It  was  the  conclusion  of  a  public  life 
which  disappointed  its  whole  previous  course. 
From  his  youth  he  had  been  a  popular  man, 
and  that  as  the  fair  reward  of  conduct,  without 
practising  an  art  to  obtain  it,  or  even  seeming  to 
know  that  he  was  winning  it.  Bred  a  lawyer, 
and  coming  early  to  the  bar,  he  was  noted  for  a 
probity,  modesty  and  gravity — with  a  learning, 
ability,  assiduity  and  patience — which  marked 
him  for  the  judicial  bench :  and  he  was  soon  pla- 
ced upon  it—  that  of  the  Superior  Court.  After- 
wards, when  the  judiciary  of  the  State  was  re- 
modelled, he  was  placed  on  the  bench  of  the  Su- 
preme Court.  It  was  considered  a  favor  to  the 
public  to  get  him  to  take  the  place.  That  is  well 
known  to  the  writer  of  this  View,  then  a  mem- 
ber of  the  General  Assembly  of  Tennessee,  and 
the  author  of  the  new  modelled  judiciary.  He 
applied  to  Judge  White,  who  had  at  that  time 
returned  to  the  bar,  to  know  if  he  would  take 


the  place ;  and  considered  the  new  system  ac- 
credited with  the  public  on  receiving  his  an- 
swer that  he  would.  That  was  all  that  he  had 
to  do  with  getting  the  appointment :  he  was 
elected  unanimously  by  the  General  Assembly, 
with  whom  the  appointment  rested.  That  is 
about  the  way  in  which  he  received  all  his  ap- 
pointments, either  from  his  State,  or  from  the 
federal  government — merely  agreeing  to  take 
the  office  if  it  was  offered  to  him ;  but  not  al- 
ways agreeing  to  accept :  often  refusing — as  in 
the  case  of  a  cabinet  appointment  offered  him 
by  President  Jackson,  his  political  and  perso- 
nal friend  of  forty  years'  standing.  It  was  long 
before  he  would  enter  a  political  career,  but 
finally  consented  to  become  senator  in  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States :  always  discharging 
the  duties  of  an  office,  when  accepted,  with  the 
assiduity  of  a  man  who  felt  himself  to  be  a  ma- 
chine in  the  hands  of  his  duty ;  and  with  an  in- 
tegrity of  purpose  which  left  his  name  without 
spot  or  stain.  It  is  beautiful  to  contemplate 
such  a  career ;  sad  to  see  it  set  under  a  cloud 
in  his  advanced  years.  He  became  alienated 
from  his  old  friends,  both  personally  and  politi- 
cally— even  from  General  Jackson ;  and  even- 
tually fell  under  the  censure  of  his  State,  as 
above  related — that  State  which,  for  more  than 
forty  years,  had  considered  it  a  favor  to  itself 
that  he  should  accept  the  highest  offices  in  her 
gift.  He  resigned  in  January,  and  died  in  May 
— his  death  accelerated  by  the  chagrin  of  his 
spirit;  for  he  was  a  man  of  strong  feelings, 
though  of  such  measured  and  quiet  deportment. 
His  death  was  announced  in  the  Senate  by  the 
senator  who  was  his  colleague  at  the  time  of 
his  resignation — Mr.  Alexander  Anderson  ;  and 
the  motion  for  the  usual  honors  to  his  memory 
was  seconded  by  Senator  Preston,  who  pro- 
nounced on  the  occasion  a  eulogium  on  the  de- 
ceased as  just  as  it  was  beautiful. 

"  I  do  not  know,  Mr.  President,  whether  I 
am  entitled  to  the  honor  I  am  about  to  assume 
in  seconding  the  resolutions  which  have  just 
been  offered  by  the  senator  from  Tennessee,  in 
honor  of  his  late  distinguished  colleague  ;  and 
yet,  sir,  I  am  not  aware  that  any  one  present  is 
more  entitled  to  this  melancholy  honor,  if  it 
belongs  to  long  acquaintance,  to  sincere  admi- 
ration, and  to  intimate  intercourse.  If  these 
circumstances  do  not  entitle  me  to  speak,  I  am 
sure  every  senator  will  feel,  in  the  emotions 
which  swell  his  own  bosom,  an  apology  for  my 
desire  to  relieve  my  own,  by  bearing  testimony 


ANNO  1840.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


185 


to  the  virtues  and  talents,  the  long  services  and 
great  usefulness,  of  Judge  White. 

"  My  infancy  and  youth  were  spent  in  a  re- 
gion contiguous  to  the  sphere  of  his  earlier 
fame  and  usefulness.    As  long  as  I  can  remem- 
ber any  thing,  I  remember  the  deep  confidence 
he  had  inspired  as  a  wise  and  upright  judge,  in 
which  station  no  man  ever  enjoyed  a  purer 
reputation,  or  established  a  more  implicit  reli- 
ance in  his  abilities  and  honesty.     There  was 
an  antique  sternness  and  justness  in  his  charac- 
ter.    By  a  general  consent  he  was  called  Cato. 
Subsequently,  at  a  period  of  our  public  affairs 
very  analogous  to  the  present,  he  occupied  a 
position  which  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the 
financial  institutions  of  East  Tennessee.     He 
sustained    them  by  his  individual    character. 
The  name  of  Hugh  L.  White  was  a  guarantee 
that  never  failed  to  attract  confidence.     Insti- 
tutions were  sustained  by  the  credit  of  an  indi- 
vidual, and  the  only  wealth  of  that  individual 
was   his  character.     From  this  more  limited 
sphere  of  usefulness  and  reputation,  he  was  first 
brought  to  this  more  conspicuous  stage  as  a 
member  of  an  important  commission  on  the 
Spanish  treaty,  in  which  he  was  associated  with 
Mr.  Tazewell  and  Mr.  King.     His  learning,  his 
ability,  his  firmness,  and  industry,  immediately 
extended  the  sphere  of  his  reputation  to  the 
boundaries  of  the  country.    Upon  the  comple- 
tion of  that  duty,  he  came  into  this  Senate. 
Of  his  career  here,  I  need  not  speak.     His  grave 
and  venerable  form  is  even  now  before  us — that 
air  of  patient  attention,  of  grave  deliberation,  of 
unrelaxed  firmness.     Here  his  position  was  of 
the  highest — beloved,  respected,  honored;   al- 
ways in  his   place — always  prepared  for  the 
business  in  hand — always  bringing  to  it  the 
treasured  reflections  of  a  sedate  and  vigorous 
understanding.      Over  one  department  of  our 
deliberations  he  exercised  a  very  peculiar  con- 
trol.   In  the  management  of  our  complex  and 
difficult  relations  with  the  Indians  we  all  de- 
ferred to  him,  and  to  this  he  addressed  himself 
with  unsparing  labor,  and  with  a  wisdom,  a  pa- 
tient benevolence,  that  justified  and  vindicated 
the  confidence  of  the  Senate. 

"  In  private  life  he  was  amiable  and  ardent. 
The  current  of  his  feelings  was  warm  and 
strong.  His  long  familiarity  with  public  af- 
fairs had  not  damped  the  natural  ardor  of  his 
^temperament.  We  all  remember  the  deep  feel- 
ing with  which  he  so  recently  took  leave  of  this 
body,  and  how  profoundly  that  feeling  was  re- 
ciprocated. The  good  will,  the  love,  the  respect 
which  we  bestowed  upon  him  then,  now  give 
depth  and  energy  to  the  mournful  feelings  with 
which  we  offer  a  solemn  tribute  to  his  memo- 
ry." 

And  here  this  notice  would  stop  if  it  was  the 
design  of  this  work  merely  to  write  on  the  out- 
side of  history — merely  to  chronicle  events; 
but  that  is  not  the  design.     Inside  views  are 


the  main  design  :   and  this  notice  of  Senator 
White's  life  and  character  would  be  very  im- 
perfect, and  vitally  deficient,  if  it  did  not  tell 
how  it  happened  that  a  man  so  favored  by  his 
State  during  a  long  life  should  have  lost  that 
favor  in  his  last  days — received  censure  from 
those  who  had  always  given  praise — and  gone 
to  his  grave  under  a  cloud  after  having  lived  in 
sunshine.     The  reason  is  briefly  told.     In  his 
advanced  age  he  did  the  act  which,  with  all  old 
men,  is  an  experiment ;  and,  with  most  of  them, 
an  unlucky  one.     He  married  again :  and  this 
new  wife  having  made  an  immense  stride  from 
the  head  of  a  boarding-house  table  to  the  head 
of  a  senator's  table,  could  see  no  reason  why 
she  should  not  take  one  step  more,  and  that 
comparatively  short,  and  arrive  at  the  head  of 
the  presidential  table.      This  was   before  the 
presidential  election  of  1836.     Mr.  Van  Buren 
was  the  generally  accepted  democratic  candi- 
date :   he  was  foremost  of  all  the  candidates : 
and  the  man  who  is  ahead  of  all  the  rest,  on 
such  occasions,  is  pretty  sure  to  have  a  com- 
bination of  all  the  rest  against  him.     Mr.  Van 
Buren  was  no   exception  to  this   rule.      The 
whole  whig  party  wished  to  defeat  him :  that 
was  a  fair  wish.    Mr.  Calhoun's  party  wished  to 
defeat  him  :  that  was  invidious  :  for  they  could 
not  elect  Mr.  Calhoun  by  it.     Many  professing 
democrats  wished  to  defeat  him,  though  for  the 
benefit  of  a  whig :    and  that  was  a  movement 
towards  the  whig  camp — where  most  of  them 
eventually  arrived.    All  these  parties  combined, 
and  worked  in  concert ;  and  their  line  of  opera- 
tions was  through  the  vanity  of  the  victim's 
wife.     They  excited  her  vain  hopes.     And  this 
modest,  unambitious  man,  who  had  spent  all  his 
life  in  resisting  office  pressed  upon  him  by  his 
real  friends,  lost  his  power  of  resistance  in  his 
old  age,  and  became  a  victim  to  the  combina- 
tion against  him — which  all  saw,  and  deplored, 
except  himself.     As  soon  as  he  was  committed, 
and  beyond  extrication,  one  of  the  co-operators 
against  him,  a  whig  member  of  Congress  from 
Kentucky — a  witty,  sagacious  man  of  good  tact 
— in  the  exultation  of  his  feelings  wrote  the 
news  to  a  friend  in  his  district,  who,  in  a  still 
higher  state  of  exultation,  sent  it  to  the  news- 
papers— thus :  "  Judge  White  is  on  the  track, 
running  gayly,  and  won't  come  off  ;  and  if  he 
would,  his  wife  wonH  let  himP     This  was  the 
whole  story,  briefly  and  cheerily  told — and  tru- 


186 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ly.  He  ran  the  race  !  without  prejudice  to  Mr. 
Van  Buren — without  benefit  to  the  whig  can- 
didates— without  support  from  some  who  had 
incited  him  to  the  trial :  and  with  great  politi- 
cal and  social  damage  to  himself. 

Long  an  inhabitant  of  the  same  State  with 
Judge  White — indebted  to  him  for  my  law  li- 
cense— moving  in  the  same  social  and  political 
circle — accustomed  to  respect  and  admire  him — 
sincerely  friendly  to  him,  and  anxious  for  his 
peace  and  honor,  I  saw  with  pain  the  progress 
of  the  movement  against  him,  and  witnessed 
with  profound  grief  its  calamitous  consumma- 
tion. 


CHAPTER    LI. 

DEATH  OF  EX-SENATOR  HAYNE  OF  SOUTH' CAR- 
OLINA:  NOTICE  OF  HIS  LIFE  AND  CHARAC- 
TER. 

Nature  had  lavished  upon  him  all  the  gifts 
which  lead  to  eminence  in  public,  and  to  happi- 
ness, in  private  life.  Beginning  with  the  person 
and  manners — minor  advantages,  but  never  to 
be  overlooked  when  possessed — he  was  entirely 
fortunate  in  these  accessorial  advantages.  His 
person  was  of  the  middle  size,  slightly  above  it 
in  height,  well  proportioned,  flexible  and  grace- 
ful. His  face  was  fine — the  features  manly, 
well  formed,  expressive,  and  bordering  on  the 
handsome :  a  countenance  ordinarily  thought- 
ful and  serious,  but  readily  lighting  up,  when 
accosted,  with  an  expression  of  kindness,  intel- 
ligence, cheerfulness,  and  an  inviting  amiability. 
His  face  was  then  the  reflex  of  his  head  and 
his  heart,  and  ready  for  the  artist  who  could 
seize  the  moment  to  paint  to  the  life.  His 
manners  were  easy,  cordial,  unaffected,  affable  ; 
and  his  address  so  winning,  that  the  fascinated 
stranger  was  taken  captive  at  the  first  saluta- 
tion. These  personal  qualities  were  backed  by 
those  of  the  mind — all  solid,  brilliant,  practical, 
and  utilitarian  :  and  always  employed  on  use- 
ful objects,  pursued  from  high  motives,  and  by 
fair  and  open  means.  His  judgment  was  good, 
and  he  exercised  it  in  the  serious  consideration 
of  whatever  business  he  was  engaged  upon, 
with  an  honest  desire  to  do  what  was  right, 
and  a  laudable  ambition  to  achieve  an  honora- 
ble fame.  He  had  a  copious  and  ready  elocu- 
tion, flowing  at  will  in  a  strong  and  steady  cur- 


rent, and  rich  in  the  material  which  constitutes 
argument.  His  talents  were  various,  and  shone 
in  different  walks  of  life,  not  often  united  :  em- 
inent as  a  lawyer,  distinguished  as  a  senator : 
a  writer  as  well  as  a  speaker  :  and  good  at  the 
council  table.  All*  these  advantages  were  en- 
forced by  exemplary  morals  ;  and  improved  by 
habits  of  study,  moderation,  temperance,  self- 
control,  and  addiction  to  business.  There  was 
nothing  holiday,  or  empty  about  him — no  lying 
in  to  be  delivered  of  a  speech  of  phrases.  Prac- 
tical was  the  turn  of  his  mind :  industry  an  at- 
tribute of  his  nature :  labor  an  inherent  impul- 
sion, and  a  habit :  and  during  his  ten  years  of 
senatorial  service  his  name  was  incessantly  con- 
nected with  the  business  of  the  Senate.  He 
was  ready  for  all  work — speaking,  writing,  con- 
sulting— in  the  committee-room  as  well  as  in 
the  chamber — drawing  bills  and  reports  in  pri- 
vate, as  well  as  shining  in  the  public  debate,  and 
ready  for  the  social  intercourse  of  the  evening 
when  the  label's  of  the  day  were  over  A  de- 
sire to  do  service  to  the  country,  and  to  earn 
just  fame  for  himself,  by  working  at  useful  ob- 
jects, brought  all  these  high  qualities  into  con- 
stant, active,  and  brilliant  requisition.  To  do 
good,  by  fair  means,  was  the  labor  of  his  sen- 
atorial life ;  and  I  can  truly  say  that,  in  ten 
years  of  close  association  with  him  I  never  saw 
him  actuated  by  a  sinister  motive,  a  selfish  cal- 
culation, or  an  unbecoming  aspiration. 

Thus,  having  within  himself  so  many  quali- 
ties and  requisites  for  insuring  advancement  in 
life,  he  also  had  extrinsic  advantages,  auxiliary 
to  talent,  and  which  contribute  to  success  in  a 
public  career.  He  was  well  descended,  and  bore 
a  name  dear  to  the  South — the  synonym  of  honor, 
courage,  and  patriotism — memorable  for  that 
untimely  and  cruel  death  of  one  of  its  revolu- 
tionary wearers,  which  filled  the  country  with 
pity  for  his  fate,  and  horror  for  his  British  exe- 
cutioners. The  name  of  Hayne,  pronounced 
any  where  in  the  South,  and  especially  in  South 
Carolina,  roused  a  feeling  of  love  and  respect, 
and  stood  for  a  passport  to  honor,  until  deeds 
should  win  distinction.  Powerfully  and  exten- 
sively connected  by  blood  and  marriage,  he  had 
the  generous  support  which  family  pride  and 
policy  extends  to  a  promising  scion  of  the  con- 
nection. He  had  fortune,  which  gave  him  the 
advantage  of  education,  and  of  social  position, 
and  left  free  to  cultivate  his  talents,  and  to  de- 


i 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


187 


vote  them  to  the  public  service.  Resident  in 
Charleston,  still  maintaining  its  colonial  reputa- 
tion for  refined  society,  and  high  and  various 
talent,  he  had  every  advantage  of  enlightened 
and  elegant  association.  Twice  happily  married 
in  congenial  families  (Pinckney  and  Alston), 
his  domestic  felicity  was  kept  complete,  his  con- 
nections extended,  and  fortune  augmented.  To 
crown  all,  and  to  give  effect  to  every  gift  with 
which  nature  and  fortune  had  endowed  him,  he 
had  that  further  advantage,  which  the  Grecian 
Plutarch  never  fails  to  enumerate  when  the 
case  permits  it,  and  which  he  considered  so  aux- 
iliary to  the  advancement  of  some  of  the  eminent 
men  whose  lives  he  commemorated — the  advan- 
tage of  being  born  in  a  State  where  native  talent 
was  cherished,  and  where  the  community  made 
it  a  policy  to  advance  and  sustain  a  promising 
young  man,  as  the  property  of  the  State,  and 
for  the  good  of  the  State.  Such  was,  and  is, 
South  Carolina ;  and  the  young  Hayne  had  the 
full  benefit  of  the  generous  sentiment.  As  fast 
as  years  permitted,  he  was  advanced  in  the  State 
government :  as  soon  as  age  and  the  federal  con- 
stitution permitted,  he  came  direct  to  the  Senate, 
without  passing  through  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives ;  and  to  such  a  Senate  as  the  body 
then  was — Rufus  King,  John  Taylor  of  Caro- 
line, Mr.  Macon,  John  Gaillard,  Edward  Lloyd 
of  Maryland,  James  Lloyd  of  Massachusetts, 
James  Barbour  of  Virginia,  General  Jackson, 
Louis  McLane  of  Delaware,  Wm.  Pinkney  of 
Maryland,  Littleton  Waller  Tazewell,  Webster, 
Nathan  Sandford,  of  New  York,  M.  Van  Buren, 
King  of  Alabama,  Samuel  Smith  of  Maryland, 
James  Brown,  and  Henry  Johnson  of  Louis- 
iana ;  and  many  others,  less  known  to  fame, 
but  honorable  to  the  Senate  from  personal  deco- 
rum, business  talent,  and  dignity  of  character. 
Hayne  arrived  among  them  ;  and  was  con- 
sidered by  such  men,  and  among  such  men,  as 
an  accession  to  the  talent  and  character  of  the 
chamber.  I  know  the  estimate  they  put  upon 
him,  the  consideration  they  had  for  him,  and  the 
future  they  pictured  for  him:  for  they  were 
men  to  look  around,  and  consider  who  were  to 
carry  on  the  government  after  they  were  gone. 
But  the  proceedings  of  the  Senate  soon  gave  the 
highest  evidence  of  the  degree  of  consideration 
in  which  he  was  held.  In  the  very  second  year 
of  his  service,  he  was  appointed  to  a  high  duty — 
6uch  as  would  belong  to  age  and  long  service, 


as  well  as  to  talent  and  elevated  character.  He 
was  made  chairman  of  the  select  committee — 
and  select  it  was — which  brought  in  the  bill  for 
the  grants  ($200,000  in  money,  and  24,000  acres 
of  land),  to  Lafayette  ;  and  as  such  became  the 
organ  of  the  expositions,  as  delicate  as  they 
were  responsible,  which  reconciled  such  grants 
to  the  words  and  spirit  of  our  constitution,  and 
adjusted  them  to  the  merit  and  modesty  of  the 
receiver :  a  high  function,  and  which  he  ful- 
filled to  the  satisfaction  of  the  chamber,  and  the 
country. 

Six  years  afterwards  he  had  the  great  debate 
with  Mr.  Webster — a  contest  of  many  days, 
sustained  to  the  last  without  losing  its  inter- 
est— (which  bespoke  fertility  of  resource,  as 
well  as  ability  in  both  speakers),  and  in  which 
his  adversary  had  the  advantage  of  a  more 
ripened  intellect  an  established  national  reputa- 
tion, ample  preparation,  the  choice  of  attack,  and 
the  goodness  of  the  cause.  Mr.  Webster  came 
into  that  field  upon  choice  and  deliberation,  well 
feeling  the  grandeur  of  the  occasion  ;  and  pro- 
foundly studying  his  part.  He  had  observed 
during  the  summer,  the  signs  in  South  Carolina, 
and  marked  the  proceedings  of  some  public 
meetings  unfriendly  to  the  Union ;  and  which 
he  ran  back  to  the  incubation  of  Mr.  Calhoun. 
He  became  the  champion  of  the  constitution 
and  the  Union,  choosing  his  time  and  occasion, 
hanging  his  speech  upon  a  disputed  motion  with 
which  it  had  nothing  to  do,  and  which  was  im- 
mediately lost  sight  of  in  the  blaze  and  expan- 
sion of  a  great  national  discussion  :  himself 
armed  and  equipped  for  the  contest,  glittering 
in  the  panoply  of  every  species  of  parliamentary 
and  forensic  weapon — solid  argument,  playful 
wit,  biting  sarcasm,  classic  allusion  ;  and  strik- 
ing at  a  new  doctrine  of  South  Carolina  origin, 
in  which  Hayne  was  not  implicated:  but  his 
friends  were — and  that  made  him  their  defender. 
The  speech  was  at  Mr.  Calhoun,  then  presiding 
in  the  Senate,  and  without  right  to  reply. 
Hayne  became  his  sword  and  buckler,  and  had 
much  use  for  the  latter  to  cover  his  friend — hit 
by  incessant  blows — cut  by  many  thrusts  :  but 
he  understood  too  well  the  science  of  defence  in 
wordy  as  well  as  military  digladiation  to  confine 
himself  to  fending  off.  He  returned,  as  well  as 
received  blows  ;  but  all  conducted  courteously ; 
and  stings  when  inflicted  gently  extracted  on 
either    side   by   delicate    compliments.      Each 


188 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


morning  he  returned  re-invigorated  to  the 
contest,  like  Antaeus  refreshed,  not  from  a 
fabulous  contact  with  mother  earth,  but  from 
a  real  communion  with  Mr.  Calhoun !  the  ac- 
tual subject  of  Mr.  "Webster's  attack  :  and  from 
the  well-stored  arsenal  of  his  powerful  and 
subtle  mind,  he  nightly  drew  auxiliary  supplies. 
Friends  relieved  the  combatants  occasionally ; 
but  it  was  only  to  relieve  ;  and  the  two  princi- 
pal figures  remained  prominent  to  the  last.  To 
speak  of  the  issue  would  be  superfluous ;  but 
there  was  much  in  the  arduous  struggle  to  con- 
sole the  younger  senator.  To  cope  with  Web- 
ster, was  a  distinction :  not  to  be  crushed  by 
him,  was  almost  a  victory :  to  rival  him  in 
copious  and  graceful  elocution,  was  to  establish 
an  equality  at  a  point  which  strikes  the  masses : 
and  Hayne  often  had  the  crowded  galleries  with 
him.  But,  equal  argument !  that  was  impos- 
sible. The  cause  forbid  it,  far  more  than  dis- 
parity of  force ;  and  reversed  positions  would 
have  reversed  the  issue. 

I  have  said  elsewhere  (Vol.  I.  of  this  work), 
that  I  deem  Mr.  Hayne  to  have  been  entirely 
sincere  in  professing  nullification  at  that  time 
only  in  the  sense  of  the  Virginia  resolutions  of 
'98-'99,  as  expounded  by  their  authors :  three 
years  afterwards  he  left  his  place  in  the  Senate 
to  become  Governor  of  South  Carolina,  to  en- 
force the  nullification  ordinance  which  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  the  State  had  passed,  and 
against  which  President  Jackson  put  forth  his 
impressive  proclamation.  Up  to  this  point,  in 
writing  this  notice,  the  pen  had  run  on  with 
pride  and  pleasure — pride  in  portraying  a  shin- 
ing American  character:  pleasure  in  recalling 
recollections  of  an  eminent  man,  whom  I  es- 
teemed— who  did  me  the  honor  to  call  me  friend ; 
and  with  whom  I  was  intimate.  Of  all  the 
senators  he  seemed  nearest  to  me — both  young 
in  the  Senate,  entering  it  nearly  together  ;  born 
in  adjoining  States;  not  wide  apart  in  age;  a 
similarity  of  political  principle  :  and,  I  may  add, 
some  conformity  of  tastes  and  habits.  Of  all 
the  young  generation  of  statesmen  coming  on, 
I  considered  him  the  safest — the  most  like  Wil- 
liam Lowndes ;  and  best  entitled  to  a  future 
eminent  lead.  He  was  democratic,  not  in  the 
modern  sense  of  the  term,  as  never  bolting  a 
caucus  nomination,  and  never  thinking  differ- 
ently from  the  actual  administration;  but  on 
principle,  as  founded  in  a  strict,  in  contradis- 


tinction to  a  latitudinarian  construction  of  the 
constitution ;  and  as  cherishing  simplicity  and 
economy  in  the  administration  of  the  federal 
government,  in  contradistinction  to  splendor  and 
extravagance. 

With  his  retiring  from  the  Senate,  Mr.  Hayne's 
national  history  ceases.  He  does  not  appear  af- 
terwards upon  the  theatre  of  national  affairs : 
but  his  practical  utilitarian  mind,  and  ardent 
industry,  found  ample  and  beneficent  employ- 
ment in  some  noble  works  of  internal  improve- 
ment. The  railroad  system  of  South  Carolina, 
with  its  extended  ramifications,  must  admit  him 
for  its  founder,  from  the  zeal  he  carried  into  it, 
and  the  impulsion  he  gave  it.  He  died  in  the 
meridian  of  his  life,  and  in  the  midst  of  his  use- 
fulness, and  in  the  field  of  his  labors — in  west- 
ern North  Carolina,  on  the  advancing  line  of  the 
great  iron  railway,  which  is  to  connect  the 
greatest  part  of  the  South  Atlantic  with  the 
noblest  part  of  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi. 

The  nullification  ordinance,  which  he  became 
Governor  of  South  Carolina  to  enforce,  was 
wholly  directed  against  the  tariff  system  of  the 
time — not  merely  against  a  protective  tariff,  but 
against  its  fruits — undue  levy  of  revenue,  ex- 
travagant expenditure  ;  and  expenditure  in  one 
quarter  of  the  Union  of  what  was  levied  upon 
the  other.  The  levy  and  expenditure  were  then 
some  twenty-five  millions  of  dollars :  they  are 
now  seventy-five  millions  :  and  the  South,  while 
deeply  agitated  for  the  safety  of  slave  property — 
(now  as  safe,  and  more  valuable  than  ever,  as 
proved  by  the  witness  which  makes  no  mistakes, 
the  market  price) — is  quiet  upon  the  evil  which 
produced  the  nullification  ordinance  of  1832 : 
quiet  under  it,  although  that  evil  is  three  times 
greater  now  than  then :  and  without  excuse,  as 
the  present  vast  expenditure  is  the  mere  effect 
of  mad  extravagance.  Is  this  quietude  a  con- 
demnation of  that  ordinance  ?  or,  is  it  of  the 
nature  of  an  imaginary  danger  which  inflames 
the  passions,  that  it  should  supersede  the  real 
evil  which  affects  the  pocket  ?  If  the  Hayne  of 
1824,  and  1832,  was  now  alive,  I  think  his  prac- 
tical and  utilitarian  mind  would  be  seeking  a 
proper  remedy  for  the  real  grievance,  now  so 
much  greater  than  ever;  and  that  he  would 
leave  the  fires  of  an  imaginary  danger  to  die  out 
of  themselves,  for  want  of  fuel. 


ANNO  1840.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


189 


CHAPTER    LII. 

ABOLITION  OF  SPECIFIC  DUTIES  BY  THE  COM- 
PKOMISE  ACT  OF  1833:  ITS  ERROR,  AND  LOSS 
TO  THE  REVENUE,  SHOWN  BY  EXPERIENCE. 

The  introduction  of  the  universal  ad  valorem 
system  in  1833  was  opposed  and  deprecated  by 
practical  men  at  the  time,  as  one  of  those  refined 
subtleties  which,  aiming  at  an  ideal  perfection, 
overlooks  the  experience  of  ages,  and  disregards 
the  warnings  of  reason.  Specific  duties  had 
been  the  rule^-ad  valorems  the  exception — 
from  the  beginning  of  the  collection  of  custom- 
house revenue.  The  specific  duty  was  a  ques- 
tion in  the  exact  sciences,  depending  upon  a 
mathematical  solution  by  weight,  count,  or  mea- 
sure: the  ad  valorem  presented  a  question  to 
the  fallible  judgment  of  men,  sure  to  be  different 
at  different  places ;  and  subject,  in  addition  to 
the  fallibility  of  judgment,  to  the  chances  of 
ignorance,  indifference,  negligence  and  corrup- 
tion. All  this  was  urged  against  the  act  at  the 
time,  but  in  vain.  It  was  a  piece  of  legislation 
arranged  out  of  doors — christened  a  compro- 
mise, which  was  to  save  the  Union — brought 
into  the  House  to  be  passed  without  alteration : 
and  was  so  passed,  in  defiance  of  all  judgment  and 
reason  by  the  aid  of  the  votes  of  those — always  a 
considerable  per  centum  in  every  public  body — 
to  whom  the  name  of  compromise  is  an  irresist- 
ible attraction :  amiable  men,  who  would  do  no 
wrong  of  themselves,  and  without  whom  the  de- 
signing could  do  but  little  wrong.  Objections 
to  this  pernicious  novelty  (of  universal  ad  valo- 
rems), were  in  vain  urged  then:  experience, 
with  her  enlightened  voice,  now  came  forward 
to  plead  against  them.  The  act  had  been  in 
force  seven  years :  it  had  had  a  long,  and  a  fair 
trial :  and  that  safest  of  all  juries — Time  and 
Experience — now  came  forward  to  deliver  their 
verdict.  At  this  session  ('39-'40)  a  message 
was  sent  to  the  House  of  Representatives  by 
the  President,  covering  reports  from  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  and  from  the  Comptroller 
of  the  Treasury,  with  opinions  from  the  late 
Attorneys-general  of  the  United  States  (Messrs. 
Benjamin  F.  Butler  and  Felix  Grundy),  and 
letters  from  the  collectors  of  the  customs  in  all 


the  principal  Atlantic  ports,  all  relating  to  the 
practical  operation  of  the  ad  valorem  system, 
and  showing  it  to  be  unequal,  uncertain,  unsafe 
— diverse  in  its  construction — injurious  to  the 
revenue — open  to  unfair  practices — and  greatly 
expensive  from  the  number  of  persons  required 
to  execute  it.  The  whole  document  may  be 
profitably  studied  by  all  who  deprecate  unwise 
and  pernicious  legislation ;  but  a  selection  of  a 
few  of  the  cases  of  injurious  operation  which  it 
presents  will  be  sufficient  to  give  an  idea  of  the 
whole.  Three  classes  of  goods  are  selected — 
silks,  linens,  and  worst  d:  all  staple  articles, 
and  so  well  known  as  to  be  the  least  susceptible 
of  diversity  of  judgment ;  and  yet  on  which,  in 
the  period  of  four  years,  a  fraction  over  five 
millions  of  dollars  had  been  lost  to  the  Treasury 
from  diversity  of  construction  between  the 
Treasury  officers  and  the  judiciary — with  the 
further  prospective  loss  of  one  million  and 
three-quarters  in  the  ensuing  three  years  if  the 
act  was  not  amended.  The  document,  at  page 
44,  states  the  annual  ascertained  loss  during  four 
years'  operation  of  the  act  on  these  classes  of 
goods,  to  be : 

"In  1835    -    $624,356    In  1837    -    $463,090 
1836    -       847,162         1838    -       428,237 

"  Making  in  the  four  years  $2,362,845 ;  and  the 
comptroller  computes  the  annual  prospective 
loss  during  the  time  the  act  may  remain  un- 
altered, at  $800,000.  So  much  for  silks  ;  now 
for  linens.  The  same  page,  for  the  same  four 
years,  represents  the  annual  loss  on  this  article 
to  be: 

In  1835    -    $370,785      In  1837    -    $303,241 
1836    -       516,988  1838    -       226,375 

"Making  the  sum  of  $1,411,389  on  this  article 
for  the  four  years ;  to  which  is  to  be  added  the 
estimated  sum  of  $400,000,  for  the  future  an- 
nual losses,  if  the  act  remains  unaltered. 

"  On  worsted  goods,  for  the  same  time,  and  on 
page  45,  the  report  exhibits  the  losses  thus : 

In  1835    -    $409,329      In  1837    -    $209,391 
1836    -       416,832  1838    -       249,590 

"  Making  a  total  of  ascertained  loss  on  this 
head,  in  the  brief  space  of  four  years,  amount  to 
the  sum  of  $1,285,142;  with  a  computation  of 
a  prospective  loss  of  $500,000  per  annum,  while 
the  compromise  act  remains  as  it  is." 

Such  were  the  losses  from  diversity  of  con- 
struction alone  on  three  classes  of  goods,  in  the 
short  space  of  four  years ;  and  these  classes  sta- 
I  pie  goods,  composed  of  a  single  material.  When 


190 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


it  came  to  articles  of  mixed  material,  the  diversi- 
ty became  worse.  Custom-house  officers  dis- 
agreed :  comptrollers  and  treasurers  disagreed : 
attorneys-general  disagreed.  Courts  were  re- 
ferred to,  and  their  decision  overruled  all.  Many 
importers  stood  suits ;  and  the  courts  and  juries 
overruled  all  the  officers  appointed  to  collect  the 
revenue.  The  government  could  only  collect 
what  they  are  allowed.  Often,  after  paying 
the  duty  assessed,  the  party  has  brought  his 
action  and  recovered  a  large  part  of  it  back. 
So  that  this  ad  valorem  system,  besides  its 
great  expense,  its  chance  for  diversity  of  opin- 
ions among  the  appraisers,  and  its  openness  to 
corruption,  also  gave  rise  to  differences  among 
the  highest  administrative  and  law  officers  of 
the  government,  with  resort  to  courts  of  law,  in 
nearly  all  which  the  United  States  was  the  loser. 


CHAPTER   LIII  . 

REFINED  SUGAR  AND  EUM  DRAWBACKS:  THEIR 
ABUSE  UNDER  THE  COMPROMISE  ACT  OF  1833: 
MR.  BENTON'S  SPEECH. 

Mr.  Benton  rose  to  make  the  motion  for  which 
he  had  given  notice  on  Friday  last,  for  leave  to 
bring  in  a  bill  to  reduce  the  drawbacks  allowed 
on  the  exportation  of  rum  and  refined  sugars ; 
and  the  bounties  and  allowances  to  fishing  ves- 
sels, in  proportion  to  the  reduction  which  had 
been  made,  and  should  be  made,  in  the  duties 
upon  imported  sugars,  molasses  and  salt,  upon 
which  these  bounties  and  allowances  were  re- 
spectively granted. 

Mr.  B.  said  that  the  bill,  for  the  bringing  in 
of  which  he  was  about  to  ask  leave,  proposed 
some  material  alteration  in  the  act  of  1833,  for 
the  modification  of  the  tariff,  commonly  called 
the  compromise  act ;  and  as  that  act  was  held 
by  its  friends  to  be  sacred  and  inviolable,  and 
entitled  to  run  its  course  untouched  and  un- 
altered, it  became  his  duty  to  justify  his  bill  in 
advance ;  to  give  reasons  for  it  before  he  ventur- 
ed to  submit  the  question  of  leave  for  its  intro- 
duction ;  and  to  show,  beforehand,  that  here  was 
great  and  just  cause  for  the  measure  he  pro- 


Mr.  B.  said  it  would  be  recollected,  by  those 


who  were  contemporary  with  the  event,  and 
might  be  seen  by  all  who  should  now  look  into 
our  legislative  history  of  that  day,  that  he  was 
thoroughly  opposed  to  the  passage  of  the  act  of 
1833  ;  that  he  preferred  waiting  the  progress  of 
Mr.  Verplanck's  bill ;  that  he  opposed  the  compro- 
mise act,  from  beginning  to  end ;  made  speeches 
against  it,  which  were  not  answered ;  uttered 
predictions  of  it,  which  were  disregarded ;  pro- 
posed amendments  to  it,  which  were  rejected ; 
showed  it  to  be  an  adjournment,  not  a  settle- 
ment, of  the  tariff  question ;  and  voted  against 
it,  on  its  final  passage,  in  a  respectable  minority 
of  eighteen.  It  was  not  his  intention  at  this 
time  to  recapitulate  all  the  objections  which  he 
then  made  to  the  act ;  but  to  confine  himself  to 
two  of  those  objections,  and  to  those  two  of 
them,  the  truth  and  evils  of  which  time  had 
developed ;  and  for  which  evils  the  public  good 
demands  an  immediate  remedy  to  be  applied. 
He  spoke  of  the  drawbacks  and  allowances 
founded  upon  duties,  which  duties  were  to  un- 
dergo periodical  reductions,  while  the  draw- 
backs and  allowances  remained  undiminished ; 
and  of  the  vague  and  arbitrary  tenor  of  the  act, 
which  rendered  it  incapable  of  any  regular,  uni- 
form, or  safe  execution.  He  should  confine  him- 
self to  these  two  objections ;  and  proceed  to  ex- 
amine them  in  the  order  in  which  they  were 
mentioned. 

At  page  208  of  the  Senate  journal,  session  of 
1832-33,  is  seen  this  motion :  "  Moved  by  Mr. 
Benton  to  add  to  the  bill  a  section  in  the  fol- 
lowing words  :  '  That  all  drawbacks  allowed 
on  the  exportation  of  articles  manufactured  in 
the  United  States  from  materials  imported 
from  foreign  countries ,  and  subject  to  duty, 
shall  be  reduced  in  proportion  to  the  reduction 
of  duties  provided  for  in  this  act?  "  The  par- 
ticular application  of  this  clause,  as  explained 
and  enforced  at  the  time,  was  to  sugar  and  mo- 
lasses, and  the  refined  sugar,  and  the  rum  man- 
ufactured from  them. 

As  the  laws  then  stood,  and  according  to  the 
principle  of  all  drawbacks,  the  exporters  of  these 
refined  sugars  and  rum  were  allowed  to  draw 
back  from  the  Treasury  precisely  as  much  money 
as  had  been  paid  into  the  Treasury  on  the  im- 
portation of  the  article  out  of  which  the  export- 
ed article  was  manufactured.  This  was  the 
principle,  and  this  was  the  law ;  and  so  rigidly 
was  this  insisted  upon  by  the  manufacturing 


ANNO  1840.    MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


191 


and  exporting  interest,  that  only  four  years  be- 
fore the  compromise  act,  namely,  in  1829,  the 
drawback  on  refined  sugars  exported  was  raised 
from  four  to  *ive  cents  a  pound  upon  the  motion 
of  General  Smith,  a  then  senator  from  Mary- 
land ;  and  this  upon  an  argument  and  a  calcula- 
tion made  by  him  to  show  that  the  quantity  of 
raw  sugar  contained  in  every  pound  of  refined 
sugar,  had,  in  reality,  paid  five  instead  of  four 
cents  duty.  My  motion  appeared  to  me  self- 
evidently  just,  as  the  new  act,  in  abolishing  all 
specific  duties,  and  reducing  every  thing  to  an 
ad  valorem  duty  of  twenty  per  centum,  would 
reduce  the  duties  on  sugar  and  molasses  eventu- 
ally to  the  one-third  or  the  one-fourth  of  their 
then  amount ;  and,  unless  the  drawback  should 
be  proportionately  reduced,  the  exporter  of  re- 
fined sugars  and  rum,  instead  of  drawing  back 
the  exact  amount  he  had  paid  into  the  Treasury, 
would  in  reality  draw  back  three  or  four  times 
as  much  as  had  been  paid  in.  This  would  be  un- 
just in  itself;  and,  besides  being  unjust,  would 
involve  a  breach  of  the  constitution,  for,  so  much 
of  the  drawback  as  was  not  founded  upon  the 
duty,  would  be  a  naked  bounty  paid  for  nothing 
out  of  the  Treasury.  I  expected  my  motion  to 
be  adopted  by  a  unanimous  vote ;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  was  rejected  by  a  vote  of  24  to  18 ;  * 
and  I  had  to  leave  it  to  Time,  that  slow,  but  sure 
witness,  to  develope  the  evils  which  my  argu- 
ments had  been  unable  to  show,  and  to  enforce 
the  remedies  which  the  vote  of  the  Senate  had 
rejected.  That  witness  has  come.  Time,  with 
his  unerring  testimony,  has  arrived.  The  act 
of  1833  has  run  the  greater  part  of  its  course, 
without  having  reached  its  ultimate  depression 
of  duties,  or  developed  its  greatest  mischiefs; 
but  it  has  gone  far  enough  to  show  that  it  has 
done  immense  injury  to  the  Treasury,  and  must 
continue  to  do  it  if  a  remedy  is  not  applied. 
Always  indifferent  to  my  rhetoric,  and  careful 
of  my  facts — always  leaving  oratory  behind,  and 
laboring  to  establish  a  battery  of  facts  in  front 
— I  have  applied  at  the  fountain  head  of  infor- 

*  The  following  was  the  vote : 

Yeas— Messrs.  Benton,  Buckner,  Calhonn,  Dallas,  Dicker- 
son,  Dudley,  Forsyth,  Johnston,  Kane,  King,  Rives,  Robin- 
son, Seymour,  Tomlinson,  Webster,  White,  Wilkins,  and 
Wright— 18. 

Nays— Messrs.  Bell,  Bibb,  Black,  Clay,  Clayton,  Ewiug, 
Foot,  Grundy,  Hendricks,  Holmes,  Knight,  Mangum,  Miller, 
Moore,  Naudain,  Polndexter,  Prentiss,  Bobbins,  Silsbee, 
Smith,  Sprague,  Tipton,  Troup,  Tyler- -24. 


mation— the  Treasury  Department— for  all  the 
statistics  connected  with  the  subject ;  and  the 
successive  reports  which  had  been  received  from 
that  department,  on  the  salt  duties  and  the  fish- 
ing bounties  and  allowances,  and  on  the  sugar 
and  molasses  duties,  and  the  drawbacks  on  ex- 
ported rum  and  refined  sugar,  and  which  had 
been  printed  by  the  order  of  the  Senate,  had 
supplied  the  information  which  constituted  the 
body  of  facts  which  must  carry  conviction  to 
the  mind  of  every  hearer. 

Mr.  B.  said  he  would  take  up  the  sugar  duties 
first,  and  show  what  had  been  the  operation  of 
the  act  of  1833,  in  relation  to  the  revenue  from 
that  article,  and  the  drawbacks  founded  upon  it. 
In  document  No.  275,  laid  upon  our  tables  on 
Friday  last,  we  find  four  tables  in  relation  to 
this  point,  and  a  letter  from  the  Register  of  the 
Treasury,  Mr.  T.  L.  Smith,  describing  their  con- 
tents. 

These  tables  are  all  valuable.  The  whole  of 
the  information  which  they  contain  is  useful, 
and  is  applicable  to  the  business  of  legislation, 
and  goes  to  enlighten  us  on  the  subject  under  con- 
sideration ;  but  it  is  not  in  my  power,  continued 
Mr.  B.,  to  quote  them  in  detail.  Results  and 
prominent  facts  only  can  be  selected ;  and,  pro- 
ceeding on  this  plan,  I  here  show  to  the  Senate, 
from  table  No.  1,  that  as  early  as  the  year  1837 — 
being  only  four  years  after  the  compromise  act — 
the  drawback  paid  on  the  exportation  of  refined 
sugar  actually  exceeded  the  amount  of  revenue 
derived  from  imported  sugar,  by  the  sum  of 
$861  71.  As  the  duties  continued  to  diminish, 
and  the  drawback  remained  the  same,  this  ex- 
cess was  increased  in  1838  to  $12,690 ;  and  in 
1839  it  was  increased  to  $20,154  37.  Thus  far 
the  results  are  mathematical ;  they  are  copied 
from  the  Treasury  books  ;  they  show  the  actual 
operation  of  the  compromise  act  on  this  article, 
down  to  the  end  of  the  last  year.  These  are 
facts  to  pause  at,  and  think  upon.  They  imply 
that  the  sugar  refiners  manufactured  more  sugar 
than  was  imported  into  the  United  States  for 
each  of  these  three  years — that  they  not  only 
manufactured,  but  exported,  in  a  refined  state, 
more  than  was  imported  into  the  United  States, 
about  400,000  lbs.  more  the  last  of  these  years — 
that  they  paid  duty  on  these  quantities,  not 
leaving  a  pound  of  imported  sugar  to  have  been 
used  or  duty  paid  on  it  by  any  other  person — 
and  not  leaving  a  pound  of  their  own  refined 


192 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


sugar  to  be  used  in  the  United  States.  In  other 
words,  the  whole  amount  of  the  revenue  from 
brown  and  clayed  sugars  was  paid  over  to  29 
sugar  refiners  from  1837:  and  not  only  the 
whole  amount,  but  the  respective  sums  of 
$861  71,  and  $12,690,  and  $20,154  37,  in  that 
and  the  two  succeeding  years,  over  and  above 
that  amount.  This  is  what  the  table  shows  as 
far  as  the  act  has  gone ;  and  as  we  know  that 
the  refiners  only  consumed  a  small  part  of  the 
sugar  imported,  and  only  exported  a  part  of 
what  they  refined,  and  consequently  only  paid 
duty  on  a  small  part,  it  stands  to  reason  that  a 
most  enormous  abuse  has  been  committed — the 
fault  of  the  law  allowing  them  to  "  draw  back  " 
out  of  the  Treasury  what  they  had  never  put 
into  it. 

The  table  then  goes  on  to  show  the  prospec- 
tive operation  of  the  act  for  the  remainder  of 
the  time  which  it  has  to  run,  and  which  will  in- 
clude the  great  reductions  of  duty  which  are  to 
take  place  in  1841  and  1842 ;  and  here  the  re- 
sults become  still  more  striking.  Assuming  the 
importation  of  each  succeeding  year  to  be  the 
same  that  it  was  in  1839,  and  the  excess  of  the 
drawback  over  the  duties  will  be,  for  1840, 
$37,343  38;  for  1841,  the  same;  for  1842 
$114,693  94 ;  and  for  1843,  the  sum  of  $140, 
477  45.  That  is  to  say,  these  refiners  will 
receive  the  whole  of  the  revenue  from  the  sugar 
tax,  and  these  amounts  in  addition,  for  these 
four  years ;  when  they  would  not  be  entitled, 
under  an  honest  law,  to  more  than  the  one  for- 
tieth part  of  the  revenue — which,  in  fact,  is  more 
than  they  received  while  the  law  was  honest. 
These  will  be  the  bounties  payable  out  of  the 
Treasury  in  the  present,  and  in  the  three  suc- 
ceeding years,  provided  the  importation  of  sugars 
shall  be  the  same  that  it  was  in  1839  ;  but  will 
it  be  the  same  ?  To  this  question,  both  reason 
and  experience  answer  in  the  negative.  They 
both  reply  that  the  importation  will  increase  in 
proportion  to  the  increased  profit  which  the  in- 
creasing difference  between  the  duty  and  the 
drawback  will  afford ;  and  this  reply  is  proved 
by  the  two  first  columns  in  the  table  under  con- 
sideration. These  columns  show  that,  under  the 
encouragement  to  importation  already  afforded 
by  the  compromise  act,  the  import  of  sugar  in- 
creased in  six  years  from  1,558,971  pounds, 
costing  $72,336,  to  11,308,561  pounds,  costing 
$554,119.     Here  was  an  enormous  increase  un- 


der a  small  inducement  compared  to  that  which 
is  to  follow ;  so  that  we  have  reason  to  conclude 
that  the  importations  of  the  present  and  ensuing 
years,  unless  checked  by  the  passage  of  the  bill 
which  I  propose  to  bring  in,  will  not  only  in- 
crease in  the  ratio  of  the  past  years,  but  far  be- 
yond it ;  and  will  in  reality  be  limited  only  by 
the  capacity  of  the  world  to  supply  the  demand : 
so  great  will  be  the  inducement  to  import  raw 
or  clayed  sugars,  and  export  refined.  The  effect 
upon  our  Treasury  must  be  great.  Several 
hundred  thousand  dollars  per  annum  must  be 
taken  from  it  for  nothing ;  the  whole  extracted 
from  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  hard 
money  ;  his  reports  having  shown  us  that,  while 
paper  money,  and  even  depreciated  paper,  is 
systematically  pressed  upon  the  government  in 
payment  of  duties,  nothing  but  gold  and  silver 
will  be  received  back  in  payment  of  drawbacks. 
But  it  is  not  the  Treasury  only  that  would 
suffer :  the  consumers  of  sugar  would  come  in 
for  their  share  of  the  burden:  the  drawback 
will  keep  up  the  price ;  and  the  home  consumer 
must  pay  the  drawback  as  well  as  the  govern- 
ment ;  otherwise  the  refined  sugar  will  seek  a 
foreign  market.  The  consumers  of  brown  sugar 
will  suffer  in  the  same  manner ;  for  the  manu- 
facturers will  monopolize  it,  and  refine  it,  and 
have  their  five  cents  drawback,  either  at  home 
or  abroad.  Add  to  all  this,  it  will  be  well  if 
enterprising  dealers  shall  not  impose  domestic 
sugars  upon  the  manufacturers,  and  thus  convert 
the  home  crop  into  an  article  entitled  to  draw- 
back. 

Such  are  the  mischiefs  of  the  act  of  1833  in 
relation  to  this  article  ;  they  are  great  already, 
and  still  greater  are  yet  to  come.  As  early  as 
1837,  the  whole  amount  of  the  sugar  revenue, 
and  $861,71  besides,  was  delivered  over  to  some 
twenty  odd  manufacturers  of  refined  sugars ! 
At  this  day,  the  whole  amount  of  that  revenue 
goes  to  these  few  individuals,  and  $37,343,38 
besides.  This  is  the  case  this  year.  Henceforth 
they  are  to  receive  the  whole  amount  of  this 
revenue,  with  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
dollars  besides,  to  be  drawn  from  other  branches 
of  revenue,  unless  this  bill  is  passed  which  I  pro- 
pose to  bring  in.  This  is  the  effect  of  the  act, 
dignified  with  the  name  of  compromise,  and  hal- 
lowed by  the  imputed  character  of  sacred  and 
inviolable !  It  turns  over  a  tax  levied  from 
seventeen  millions  of  people  on  an  article  of  es- 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


193 


sential  comfort,  and  almost  a  necessary ;  it  turns 
over  this  whole  tax  to  a  few  individuals ;  and 
that  not  being  enough  to  satisfy  their  demand, 
they  receive  the  remainder  from  the  National 
Treasury !  It  violates  the  constitution  to  the 
whole  extent  of  the  excess  of  the  drawback  over 
the  duty.  It  subjects  the  Treasury  to  an  un- 
foreseen amount  of  undue  demands.  It  deprives 
the  people  of  the  whole  benefit  of  the  reduction 
of  the  sugar  tax,  provided  for  by  the  act  itself ; 
and  subjects  them  to  the  mercies  of  those  who 
may  choose  to  monopolize  the  article  for  refine- 
ment and  exportation.  The  whole  number  of 
persons  into  whose  hands  all  this  money  and 
power  is  thrown,  is,  according  to  a  statement 
derived  from  Gov.  Wolf,  the  late  collector  of  the 
customs  at  Philadelphia,  no  more  than  own  the 
29  sugar  refineries ;  the  whole  of  which,  omit- 
ting some  small  ones  in  the  West,  and  three  in 
New  Orleans,  are  situate  on  the  north  side  of 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  Members  from  the 
South  and  West  complain  of  the  unequal  work- 
ing of  our  revenue  system — of  the  large  amounts 
expended  in  the  northeast — the  trifle  expended 
South  and  West.  But,  why  complain  ?  Their 
own  improvident  and  negligent  legislation  makes 
it  so.  This  bill  alone,  in  only  one  of  its  items — 
the  sugar  item — will  send  millions,  before  1842, 
to  the  north  side  of  that  famous  line  :  and  this 
bill  was  the  concoction,  and  that  out  of  doors, 
of  one  member  from  the  South  and  one  more 
from  the  West. 

Mr.  Benton  would  proceed  to  the  next  article 
to  the  effect  upon  which,  of  the  compromise  act, 
he  would  wish  to  call  their  attention  j  and  that 
article  was  imported  molasses,  and  its  manufac- 
ture, in  the  shape  of  exported  rum.  On  this 
article,  and  its  manufacture,  the  operation  of  the 
act  was  of  the  same  character,  though  not  to  the 
same  degree,  that  it  was  on  sugars  ;  the  duties 
were  reduced,  while  the  drawback  remained  the 
same.  This  was  constantly  giving  drawback 
where  no  duty  had  been  paid ;  and  in  1842  the 
whole  of  the  molasses  tax  will  go  to  these  rum 
distillers — giving  the  legal  implication  that  they 
had  imported  all  the  molasses  that  came  into 
the  United  States,  and  paid  duty  on  it — and 
then  exported  it  all  in  the  shape  of  rum — leav- 
ing not  a  gallon  to  have  been  consumed  by  the 
rest  of  the  community,  nor  even  a  gallon  of  their 
own  rum  to  have  been  drank  in  the  United 
States.   All  this  is  clear  from  the  regular  opera- 

Vol.  II.— 13 


tion  of  the  compromise  act,  in  reducing  duties 
without  making  a  corresponding  reduction  in 
the  drawbacks  founded  upon  them.  But  is 
there  not  to  be  cheating  in  addition  to  the  regu- 
lar operation  of  the  act  ?  If  not,  we  shall  be 
more  fortunate  than  we  have  been  heretofore, 
and  that  under  the  circumstances  of  greater 
temptation.  It  is  well  known  that  whiskey  can 
be  converted  into  New  England  rum,  and  ex 
ported  as  such,  and  receive  the  drawback  of  the 
molasses  duty ;  and  that  this  has  been  done  just 
as  often  as  the  price  of  whiskey  (and  the  mean- 
est would  answer  the  purpose)  was  less  than 
the  cost  of  molasses.  The  process  was  this. 
Purchase  base  whiskey  at  a  low  rate — filtrate  it 
through  charcoal,  to  deprive  it  of  smell  and 
taste — then  pass  it  through  a  rum  distillery,  in 
company  with  a  little  real  rum — and  the  whis- 
key would  come  out  rum,  very  fit  to  be  sold  as 
such  at  home,  or  exported  as  such,  with  the 
benefit  of  drawback.  All  this  has  been  done, 
and  has  been  proved  to  be  done  ;  and,  therefore, 
may  be  done  again,  and  certainly  will  be  done, 
under  the  increased  temptation  which  the  com- 
promise act  now  affords,  and  will  continue  to 
afford,  if  not  amended  as  proposed  by  the  bill  I 
propose  to  bring  in.  It  was  proved  before  a 
committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
the  session  of  1827-8.  Mr.  Jeromus  Johnson, 
then  a  member  of  Congress  from  the  city  of 
New  York,  now  a  custom-house  officer  in  that 
city,  testified  directly  to  the  fact.  To  the  ques- 
tion :  '•'  Are  there  not  large  quantities  of  whis- 
key used  with  molasses  in  the  distillation  of 
ichat  is  called  New  England  rum  ?  "  He  an- 
swered :  "  There  are : "  and  that  when  mixed  at 
the  rate  of  only  four  gallons  to  one,  and  the 
mixture  run  through  a  rum  distillery — the 
whiskey  previously  deprived  of  its  taste  and 
smell  by  filtration  through  charcoal — the  best 
practised  rum  drinker  could  not  tell  the  differ- 
ence— even  if  appealed  to  by  a  custom-house 
officer.  That  whiskey  is  now  used  for  that 
purpose,  is  clearly  established  by  the  table 
marked  B.  That  table  shows  that  the  impor- 
tation of  foreign  molasses  for  the  year  1839  was 
392,368  gallons ;  and  the  exportation  of  distil- 
led rum  for  that  quantity  was  356,699  gallons  ; 
that  is  to  say,  nearly  as  many  gallons  of  rum 
went  out  as  of  molasses  came  in  ;  and,  admitting 
that  a  gallon  of  good  molasses  will  make  a  gal- 
lon of  rum,  yet  the  average  is  below  it.    Infe- 


194 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


rior  or  common  molasses  falls  short  of  producing 
gallon  for  gallon  by  from  5  to  7^  per  cent.  Now 
make  an  allowance  for  this  deficiency ;  allow 
also  for  the  quantity  of  foreign  molasses  con- 
sumed in  the  United  States  in  other  ways  ;  al- 
low likewise  for  the  quantity  of  rum  made  from 
molasses,  and  not  exported,  but  consumed  at 
home  :  allow  for  these  three  items,  and  the  con- 
viction becomes  irresistible,  that  whiskey  was 
used  in  the  distillation  of  rum  in  the  year  1839, 
and  exported  with  the  benefit  of  drawback! 
and  that  such  will  continue  to  be  the  case  (if 
this  blunder  is  not  corrected),  as  the  duty  gets 
lower  and  the  temptation  to  export  whiskey, 
under  the  disguise  of  New  England  rum,  becomes 
greater.  After  1842,  this  must  be  a  great  busi- 
ness, and  the  molasses  drawback  a  good  profit 
on  mean  whiskey. 

Putting  these  two  items  together — the  sugar 
and  the  molasses  drawbacks — and  some  millions 
must  be  plundered  from  the  Treasury  under 
the  preposterous  provisions  of  this  compromise 
act. 


CHAPTER   LIV. 

FISHING  BOUNTIES  AND  ALLOWANCES,  AND 
THEIR  ABUSE:  ME.  BENTON'S  SPEECH:  EX- 
TRACTS. 

The  bill  which  I  am  asking  leave  to  introduce, 
proposes  to  reduce  the  fishing  bounties  and 
allowances  in  proportion  to  the  reduction  which 
the  salt  duty  has  undergone,  and  is  to  undergo  5 
and  at  the  threshold  I  am  met  by  the  question, 
whether  these  allowances  are  founded  upon  the 
salt  duty,  and  should  rise  and  fall  with  it,  or 
are  independent  of  that  duty,  and  can  be  kept 
up  without  it  ?  I  hold  the  affirmative  of  this 
question.  I  hold  that  the  allowances  rest  upon 
the  duty,  and  upon  nothing  else,  and  that  there 
is  neither  statute  law  nor  constitution  to  support 
them  on  any  other  foundation.  This  is  what  I 
hold :  but  I  should  not  have  noticed  the  ques- 
tion at  this  time  except  for  the  issue  joined 
upon  it  between  the  senator  from  Massachusetts 
who  sits  farthest  on  the  other  side  (Mr.  Davis), 
and  myself.  He  and  I  have  made  up  an  issue 
on  this  point ;  and  without  going  into  the  argu- 
ment at  this  time,  I  will  cite  him  to  the  original 
petition   from    the    Massachusetts  legislature, 


asking  for  a  drawback  of  the  duties,  or,  as  they 
styled  it,  "  a  remission  of  duties  on  all  the  duti- 
able articles  used  in  the  fisheries;  and  ako 
premiums  and  bounties:"  and  having  shown 
this  petition,  I  will  point  to  half  a  dozen  acts  of 
Congress  which  prove  my  position — hoping  that 
they  may  prove  sufficient,  but  promising  to 
come  down  upon  him  with  an  avalanche  of  au- 
thorities if  they  are  not. 

The  dutiable  articles  used  in  the  fisheries,  and 
of  which  a  remission  duty  was  asked  in  the  pe- 
tition, were:  salt,  rum,  tea,  sugar,  molasses, 
coarse  woollens,  lines  and  hooks,  sail-cloth, 
cordage,  iron,  tonnage.  This  petition,  present- 
ed to  Congress  in  the  year  1790,  was  referred 
to  the  Secretary  of  State  (Mr.  Jefferson),  for  a 
report  upon  it ;  and  his  report  was,  that  a  draw- 
back of  duties  ought  to  be  allowed,  and  that  the 
fisheries  are  not  to  draw  support  from  the  Treas- 
ury ;  the  words,  "  drawback  of  duty,"  only  ap- 
plying to  articles  exported,  was  confined  to  the 
salt  upon  that  part  of  the  fish  which  were  ship- 
ped to  foreign  countries  :  and  to  this  effect  was 
the  legislation  of  Congress.  1  briefly  review  the 
first  half  dozen  of  these  acts. 

1.  The  act  of  1789 — the  same  which  imposed 
a  duty  of  six  cents  a  bushel  on  salt,  and  which 
granted  a  bounty  of  five  cents  a  barrel  on  pickled 
fish  exported,  and  also  on  beef  and  pork  export- 
ed, and  five  cents  a  quintal  on  dried  fish  ex- 
ported— declared  these  bounties  to  be  "  in  lieu 
of  a  drawback  of  the  duties  imposed  on  the  im- 
portation of  the  salt  employed  and  expended 
thereon."  This  act  is  decisive  of  the  whole  ques- 
tion. In  the  first  place  it  declares  the  bounty 
to  be  in  lieu  of  a  drawback  of  the  salt  duty.  In 
the  second  place,  it  conforms  to  the  principle  of 
all  drawbacks,  and  only  grants  the  bounty  on 
the  part  of  the  fish  which  is  exported.  In  the 
third  place,  it  gives  the  same  bounty,  and  in  the 
same  words,  to  the  exporters  of  salted  beef  and 
pork  which  is  given  to  the  exporters  of  fish : 
and  certainly  mariners  were  not  expected  to  be 
created  among  the  raisers  of  swine  and  cattle — 
which  negatives  the  idea  of  this  being  an  en- 
couragement to  the  formation  of  seamen. 

2.  In  1790  the  duty  on  salt  was  doubled :  it 
was  raised  from  six  to  twelve  cents  a  bushel : 
by  the  same  act  the  fishing  bounties  and  allow- 
ances were  also  doubled :  they  were  raised  from 
five  to  ten  cents  the  barrel  and  the  quintal.  By 
this  act  the  bounties  and  allowances  both  to 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


195 


fish  and  provisions,  were  described  to  be  "  in 
lieu  of  drawback  of  the  duty  on  salt  used  in  cu- 
ring fish  and  provisions  exported." 

3.  The  act  of  1792  repeals  "the  bounty  in 
lieu  of  drawback  on  dried  fish ;  "  and,  "  in  lieu 
of  that,  and  as  commutation  thereof,  and  as  an 
equivalent  therefor,"  shifts  the  bounty  from  the 
"quintal"  of  dried  fish  to  the  "tonnage"  of 
the  fishing  vessel ;  and  changes  its  name  from 
"  bounty  "  to  "  allowance."  This  is  the  key  act 
to  the  present  system  of  tonnage  allowance  to 
the  fishing  vessel;  and  was  passed  upon  the 
petition  of  the  fishermen,  and  to  enable  the 
"  crew  "  of  the  vessel  to  draw  the  bounty  in- 
stead of  letting  it  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  ex- 
porting merchant.  It  was  done  upon  the  fisher- 
men's petition,  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  crew, 
interested  in  the  adventure,  and  who  had  paid 
the  duty  on  the  salt. which  they  used.  And  to 
exclude  all  idea  of  considering  this  change  as  a 
change  of  policy,  and  to  cut  off  all  inference  that 
the  allowance  was  now  to  become  a  bounty 
from  the  Treasury  as  an  encouragement  for  a 
seaman's  nursery,  the  act  went  on  to  make  this 
precise  and  explicit  declaration:  "  That  the 
allowance  so  granted  to  the  fishing  vessel  was 
a  commutation  of,  and  an  equivalent  for.  the 
bounty  in  lieu  of  drawback  of  the  duties  im- 
posed on  the  importation  of  the  salt  used,  in 
curing  the  fish  exported."  This  is  plain  lan- 
guage— the  plain  language  used  by  legislators 
of  that  day — and  defies  misconception,  misun- 
derstanding, or  cavil. 

4.  In  1797  the  duty  on  salt  was  raised  from 
twelve  cents  to  twenty  cents  a  bushel :  by  the 
same  act  a  corresponding  increase  was  made  in 
the  bounties  both  to  exported  salted  provisions 
and  pickled  fish,  and  in  the  allowance  to  the 
fishing  vessels.  The  salt  duty  was  raised  one- 
third  and  a  fraction:  and  these  bounties  and 
allowances  were  raised  one-third.  Thirty-three 
and  one-third  per  cent,  was  added  all  round ; 
and  the  act,  to  make  all  sure,  was  express  in 
again  declaring  the  bounties  and  allowances  to 
be  a  commutation  in  lieu  of  the  drawback  of  the 
salt  duty. 

5.  The  act  of  April  12th,  1800,  continues  the 
salt  duty,  and  with  it  all  the  bounties  to  salted 
provisions  and  pickled  fish  exported,  and  all  the 
allowances  to  fishing  vessels,  for  ten  years  ;  and 
then  adds  this  proviso  :  "  That  these  allowances 
shall  not  be  understood  to  be  continued  for  a 


longer  time  than  the  correspondent  duties  on 
salt,  respectively,  for  which  the  said  allowances 
were  granted,  shall  be  payable."  Such  are  the 
terms  of  the  act  of  the  year  1800.  It  is  a  clincher. 
It  nails  up,  and  crushes  every  thing.  It  shows 
that  Congress  was  determined  that  the  salt 
duty,  and  the  bounties  and  allowances,  should 
be  one  and  indivisible :  that  they  should  come, 
and  go  together — should  rise  and  fall  together— 
should  live  and  die  together. 

6.  In  1807,  Mr.  Jefferson  being  President, 
the  salt  tax  was  abolished  upon  his  recom- 
mendation: and  with  it  all  the  bounties  and 
allowances  to  fishing  vessels,  to  pickled  fish, 
and  to  salted  beef  and  pork  were  all  swept 
away.  The  same  act  abolished  the  whole.  The 
first  section  repealed  the  salt  duty  :  the  second 
repealed  the  bounties  and  allowances :  and  the 
repeal  of  both  was  to  take  effect  on  the  same 
day — namely,  on  the  first  day  of  January,  1808 : 
a  day  which  deserves  to  be  nationally  com- 
memorated, as  the  day  of  the  death  of  an  odi- 
ous, criminal  and  impious  tax.  The  beneficent 
and  meritorious  act  was  in  these  words  :  "That 
from  and  after  the  first  day  of  January  next, 
so  much  of  any  act  as  allows  a  bounty  on  ex- 
ported salt  provisions  and  pickled  fish,  in  lieu 
of  drawback  of  the  duties  on  the  salt  employed 
in  curing  the  same,  and  so  much  of  any  act  as 
makes  allowances  to  the  owners  and  crews  of 
fishing  vessels,  in  lieu  of  drawback  of  the 
duties  paid  on  the  salt  used  in  the  same,  shall 
be,  and  the  same  hereby  is  repealed."  This 
was  the  end  of  the  first  salt  tax  in  the  United 
States,  and  of  all  the  bounties  and  allowances 
built  upon  it.  It  fell,  with  all  its  accessories,  un- 
der the  republican  administration  of  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son— and  with  the  unanimous  vote  of  every  re- 
publican— and  also  with  the  vote  of  many  fede- 
ralists: so  much  more  favorable  were  the  old 
federalists  than  the  whigs  of  this  day,  to  the  in- 
terests of  the  people.  In  fact  there  were  only 
five  votes  against  the  repeal,  and  not  one  of  these 
upon  the  ground  that  the  bounties  and  allow- 
ances were  independent  of  the  salt  duty. 

7.  After  this,  and  for  six  years,  there  was  no 
salt  tax — no  fishing  bounties  or  allowances  in 
the  United  States.  The  tax,  and  its  progeny 
lay  buried  in  one  common  grave,  and  had  no 
resurrection  until  the  year  1813.  The  war  with 
Great  Britain  revived  them — the  tax  and  its  off- 
spring together ;  but  only  as  a  temporary  meas- 


196 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW 


lire — as  a  war  tax — to  cease  within  one  year  after 
the  termination  of  the  war.  Before  that  year  was 
out,  the  tax,  and  its  appendages  were  contin- 
ued— not  for  any  determinate  period,  but  until 
repealed  by  Congress.  They  have  not  been  re- 
pealed yet !  and  that  was  forty  years  ago !  No 
act  could  then  have  been  obtained  to  continue 
this  duty  for  the  short  space  of  three  years. 
The  continuance  could  only  be  obtained  on  the 
argument  that  Congress  could  then  repeal  it  at 
any  time ;  a  fallacious  reliance,  but  always 
seductive  to  men  of  easy  and  temporizing  tem- 
peraments. 

The  pretension  that  these  fishing  bounties 
and  allowances  were  granted  as  encouragement 
to  mariners,  is  rejected  by  every  word  of  the 
acts  which  grant  them,  and  by  the  striking  fact, 
that  no  part  of  them  goes  to  the  whale  fisheries. 
Not  a  cent  of  them  had  ever  gone  to  a  whale 
ship :  they  had  only  gone  to  the  cod  and  mack- 
erel fisheries.  The  noble  whaler  of  four  or  five 
hundred  tons,  with  her  ample  crew,  which  sailed 
twenty  thousand  miles,  doubling  a  most  tem- 
pestuous cape  before  she  arrived  at  the  field  of 
her  labors — which  remained  out  three  years, 
waging  actual  war  with  the  monsters  of  the 
deep — a  war  in  which  a  brave  heart,  a  steady 
eye,  and  an  iron  nerve  were  as  much  wanted  as 
in  any  battle  with  man ; — this  noble  whaler  got 
nothing.  It  all  went  to  the  hook-and-line  men 
— to  the  cod  and  mackerel  fisheries,  which  were 
carried  on  in  diminutive  vessels,  as  small  as  five 
tons,  and  in  the  rivers,  and  along  the  shores, 
and  on  the  shallow  banks  of  Newfoundland. 
Meritorious  as  these  hook-and-line  fishermen 
might  be,  they  cannot  compare  with  the  whalers : 
and  these  whalers  receive  no  bounties  and  al- 
lowances because  they  pay  no  duty  on  imported 
salt,  re-exported  by  them. 

I  now  come  to  the  clause  in  my  bill  which 
has  called  forth  these  preliminary  remarks ;  the 
third  clause,  which  proposes  the  reduction  of 
fishing  bounties  and  allowances  in  proportion  to 
the  reduction  which  the  salt  tax  has  undergone, 
and  shall  undergo.  And  here,  it  is  not  the  com- 
promise act  alone  that  is  to  be  blamed :  a  pre- 
vious act  shares  that  censure  with  it.  In  1830 
the  salt  duty  was  reduced  one-half,  to  take  effect 
in  1830  and  1831 ;  the  fishing  bounties  and 
allowances  should  have  been  reduced  one-half  at 
the  same  time.  I  made  the  motion  in  the  Sen- 
ate to  that  effect;   but  it  failed  of  success. 


When  the  compromise  act  was  passed  in  1833, 
and  provided  for  a  further  reduction  of  the  salt 
duty — a  reduction  which  has  now  reduced  it 
two-thirds,  and  in  1841  and  '42  will  reduce  it 
still  lower — when  this  act  was  passed,  a  reduc- 
tion of  the  fishing  bounties  and  allowances 
should  have  taken  place.  The  two  senators 
who  concocted  that  act  in  their  chambers,  and 
brought  it  here  to  be  registered  as  the  royal 
edicts  were  registered  in  the  times  of  the  old 
French  monarchy;  when  these  two  senators 
concocted  this  act,  they  should  have  inserted  a 
provision  in  it  for  the  correspondent  reduction 
of  the  fishing  bounties  and  allowances  with  the 
salt  tax :  they  should  have  placed  these  allow- 
ances, and  the  refined  sugar,  and  the  rum  draw- 
backs, all  on  the  same  footing,  and  reduced  them 
all  in  proportion  to  the  reduction  of  the  duties 
on  the  articles  on  which  they  Were  founded. 
They  did  not  do  this.  They  omitted  the  whole ; 
with  what  mischief  you  have  already  seen  in  the 
case  of  rum  and  refined  sugar,  and  shall  pre- 
sently see  in  the  case  of  the  fishing  bounties 
and  allowances.  I  attempted  to  supply  a  part 
of  their  omission  in  making  the  motion  in  rela- 
tion to  drawbacks,  which  was  read  to  you  at  the 
commencement  of  these  remaks.  Failing  in 
that  motion,  I  made  no  further  attempt,  but 
waited  for  time,  the  great  arbiter  of  all  ques- 
tions, to  show  the  mischief,  and  to  enforce  the 
remedy.  That  arbiter  is  now  here,  with  his 
proofs  in  his  hand,  in  the  shape  of  certain  re- 
ports from  the  Treasury  Department  in  relation 
to  the  salt  duty  and  the  fishing  bounties  and 
allowances,  which  have  been  printed  by  the 
order  of  the  Senate,  and  constitute  part  of  the 
salt  document,  No.  196.  From  that  document  I 
now  proceed  to  collect  the  evidences  of  one 
branch  of  the  mischief — the  pecuniary  branch 
of  it — which  the  omission  to  make  the  proper 
reductions  in  these  allowances  has  inflicted 
upon  the  country. 

The  salt  duty  was  reduced  one-fourth  in  the 
year  1831 ;  the  fishing  bounties  and  allowances 
that  year  were  $313,894;  they  should  have 
been  reduced  one-fourth  also,  which  would  have 
made  them  about  $160,000.  In  1832  the  duty 
was  reduced  one-half;  the  fishing  bounties  and 
allowances  were  paid  in  full,  and  amounted  to 
$234,137 ;  they  should  have  been  reduced  one- 
half;  and  then  $117,018  would  have  discharged 
them.    The  compromise  act  wa&  made  in  1833, 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


197 


and,  under  the  operation  of  that  act,  the  salt 
duty  has  undergone  biennial  reductions,  until  it 
is  now  reduced  to  about  one-third  of  its  original 
amount :  if  it  had  provided  for  the  correspond- 
ent reduction  of  the  fishing  bounties  and  allow- 
ances, there  would  have  been  saved  from  that 
year  to  the  year  1839 — the  last  to  which  the 
returns  have  been  made  up — an  annual  average 
sum  of  about  $150,000,  or  a  gross  sum  of  about 
$900,000.  The  prospective  loss  can  only  be 
estimated ;  but  it  is  to  increase  rapidly,  owing 
to  the  large  reductions  in  the  salt  duty  in  the 
years  1841  and  1842. 

The  present  year,  1840,  lacks  but  a  little  of 
exhausting  the  whole  amount  of  the  salt  reve- 
nue in  paying  the  fishing  bounties  and  allow- 
ances ;  the  next  year  will  take  more  than  the 
whole ;  and  the  year  after  will  require  about 
double  the  amount  of  the  salt  revenue  of  that 
year  to  be  taken  from  other  branches  of  the 
revenue  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  fishing 
vessels :  thus  producing  the  same  result  as  in 
the  case  of  the  sugar  duties — the  whole  amount 
of  the  salt  duty,  and  as  much  more  out  of  other 
duties,  being  paid  to  the  cod  and  mackerel  fish- 
ermen, as  the  whole  amount  of  the  sugar  tax, 
and  considerably  more,  is  paid  to  the  sugar- 
refiners.  The  results  for  the  present  year,  and 
the  ensuing  ones,  are  of  course  computed :  they 
are  computations  founded  upon  the  basis  of  the 
last  ascertained  year's  operations.  The  last 
3*ear  to  which  all  the  heads  of  this  branch  of 
business  is  made  up,  is  the  year  1838  ;  and  for 
that  year  they  stand  thus :  Salt  imported,  in 
round  numbers,  seven  millions  of  bushels ;  net 
revenue  from  it,  about  $430,000 ;  fishing  boun- 
ties and  allowances,  $320,000.  Assuming  the 
importation  of  the  present  year  to  be  the  same, 
and  the  bounties  and  allowances  to  be  the  same, 
the  loss  to  the  Treasury  will  be  $206,000 ;  for 
the  salt  duty  this  year  will  undergo  a  fur- 
ther reduction.  In  1842,  when  this  duty  has 
reached  its  lowest  point,  the  whole  amount  of 
revenue  derived  from  it  is  computed  at  about 
$170,000,  while  the  fishing  bounties  and  al- 
lowances continuing  the  same,  namely,  about 
$320,000,  the  salt  revenue  in  the  gross  will  be 
little  more  than  half  enough  to  pay  it;  and, 
after  deducting  the  weighers'  and  measurers' 
fees,  which  come  out  of  the  Treasury,  and 
amount  to  $52,500  on  an  importation  of  seven 
millions ;  after  deducting  this  item,  there  will 


be  a  deficiency  of  about  $200,000  in  the  salt 
revenue,  in  meeting  the  drawbacks,  in  the  shape 
of  bounties  and  allowances  founded  upon  it. 
Thus  two-thirds  of  the  whole  amount  of  the 
salt  revenue  is  at  this  time  paid  to  the  fishing 
vessels.  Next  year  it  will  all  go  to  them  ;  and 
after  1842,  we  shall  have  to  raise  money  from 
other  sources  to  the  amount  of  $200,000  per 
annum,  or  raise  the  salt  duty  itself  to  produce 
that  amount,  in  order  to  satisfy  these  draw- 
backs, which  were  permitted  to  take  the  form 
of  bounties  and  allowances  to  fishing  vessels. 
Such  is  the  operation  of  the  compromise  act  I 
that  act  which  is  styled  sacred  and  inviolable  ! 

Of  the  other  mischiefs  resulting  from  this 
compromise  act,  which  reduced  the  duties  on 
salt,  and  the  one  which  preceded  it  for  the  same 
purpose,  without  reducing  the  correspondent 
bounties  and  allowances  to  the  fishing  interest 
— of  these  remaining  mischiefs,  whereof  there 
are  many,  I  mean  to  mention  but  one ;  and 
merely  to  mention  that,  and  not  to  argue  it. 
It  is  the  constitutional  objection  to  the  pay- 
ment of  any  thing  beyond  the  duty  received — 
the  payment  of  any  thing  which  exceeds  the 
drawback  of  the  duty.  Up  to  that  point,  I  ad- 
mit the  constitutionality  of  drawbacks,  whether 
passing  under  that  name,  or  changed  to  the 
name  of  a  bounty,  or  an  allowance  in  lieu  of  a 
drawback.  I  admit  the  constitutional  right  of 
Congress  to  permit  a  drawback  of  the  amount 
paid  in  :  I  deny  the  constitutional  right  to  per- 
mit a  drawback  of  any  amount  beyond  what 
was  paid  in.  This  is  my  position,  which  I 
pledge  myself  to  maintain,  if  any  one  disputes 
it ;  and  applying  this  principle  to  the  fishing 
bounties  and  allowances,  and  also  to  the  draw- 
backs in  the  case  of  refined  sugars  and  rum : 
and  I  boldly  affirm  that  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States  has  been  in  a  state  of  flagrant 
violation,  under  the  compromise  act,  from  the 
day  of  its  passage  to  the  present  hour,  and  will 
continue  so  until  the  bill  is  passed  which  I  am 
about  to  ask  leave  to  bring  in. 

Sir,  I  quit  this  part  of  my  subject  with  pre- 
senting, in  a  single  picture,  the  condensed  view 
of  what  I  have  been  detailing.  It  is,  that  the 
whole  annual  revenue  derived  from  sugar,  salt, 
and  molasses,  is  delivered  over  gratuitously  to  a 
few  thousand  persons  in  a  particular  section  of 
the  Union,  and  is  not  even  sufficient  to  satisfy 
their  demands !     In  other  words,  that  a  tax 


198 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


upon  a  nation  of  seventeen  millions  of  people, 
upon  three  articles  of  universal  consumption, 
articles  of  necessity,  and  of  comfort,  is  laid  for 
the  benefit  of  a  few  dozen  rum  distillers  and 
sugar  refiners,  and  a  few  thousand  fishermen  ; 
and  not  being  sufficient  for  them,  the  deficit, 
amounting  to  many  hundred  thousand  dollars 
per  annum,  is  taken  from  other  branches  of  the 
revenue,  and  presented  to  them  !  and  all  this 
the  effect  of  an  act  which  was  made  out  of  doors, 
which  was  not  permitted  to  be  amended  on  its 
passage,  and  which  is  now  held  to  be  sacred 
and  inviolable  !  and  which  will  eventually  sink 
under  its  own  iniquities,  though  sustained  now 
by  a  cry  which  was  invented  by  knavery,  and 
is  repeated  by  ignorance,  folly,  and  faction — a 
cry  that  that  compromise  saved  the  Union. 
This  is  the  picture  I  present— which  I  prove  to 
be  true — and  the  like  of  which  is  not  to  be  seen 
in  the  legislation,  or  even  in  the  despotic  decrees, 
of  arbitrary  monarchs,  in  any  other  country 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth. 

About  five  millions  of  dollars  have  been 
taken  from  the  Treasury  under  these  bounties 
and  allowances — the  greater  part  of  it  most  un- 
duly and  abusefully.*  The  fishermen  are  only 
entitled  to  an  amount  equal  to  the  duty  paid  on 
the  imported  salt,  which  is  used  upon  that  part 
of  the  fish  which  is  exported ;  and  the  law  re- 
quires not  only  the  exportation  to  be  proved, 
but  the  landing  and  remaining  of  the  cargo  in 
a  foreign  country.  They  draw  back  this  year 
$355,000.  Do  they  pay  that  amount  of  duty  on 
the  salt  put  on  the  modicum  of  fish  which  they 
export  ?  Why,  it  is  about  the  entire  amount  of 
the  whole  salt  tax  paid  by  the  whole  United 
States  !  and  to  justify  their  right  to  it,  they 
must  consume  on  the  exported  part  of  their 
fish  the  whole  quantity  of  foreign  salt  now  im- 
ported into  the  United  States — leaving  not  a 
handful  to  be  used  by  the  rest  of  the  popula- 
tion, or  by  themselves  on  that  part  of  their  fish 
which  is  consumed  at  home — and  which  is  so 
much  greater  than  the  exported  part.  This 
shows  the  enormity  of  the  abuse,  and  that  the 
whole  amount  of  the  salt  tax  now  goes  to  a  few 
thousand  fishermen ;  and  if  this  compromise 
act  is  not  corrected,  that  whole  amount,  after 
1842,  will  not  be  sufficient  to  pay  this  small 

*  About  four  and  a  quarter  millions  taken  since ;  and  still 
taking. 


class — not  equal  in  number  to  the  farmers  in  a 
common  Kentucky  county ;  and  other  money 
must  be  taken  out  of  the  Treasury  to  make 
good  the  deficiency.  I  have  often  attempted  to 
get  rid  of  the  whole  evil,  and  render  a  great 
service  to  the  country,  by  repealing  in  toto  the 
tax  and  all  the  bounties  and  allowances  erected 
upon  it.  At  present  I  only  propose,  and  that 
without  the  least  prospect  of  success,  to  correct 
a  part  of  the  abuse,  by  reducing  the  payments 
to  the  fishermen  in  proportion  to  the  reduction 
of  the  duty  on  salt :  but  the  true  remedy  is  the 
one  applied  under  Mr.  Jefferson's  administra- 
tion— total  repeal  of  both. 


CHAPTER   LV. 

EXPENDITURES  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT. 

At  no  point  does  the  working  of  the  govern- 
ment more  seriously  claim  the  attention  of 
statesmen  than  at  that  of  its  expenses.  It  is 
the  tendency  of  all  governments  to  increase 
their  expenses,  and  it  should  be  the  care  of  all 
statesmen  to  restrain  them  within  the  limits  of 
a  judicious  economy.  This  obligation  was  felt 
as  a  duty  in  the  earty  periods  of  our  history, 
and  the  doctrine  of  economy  became  a  principle 
in  the  political  faith  of  the  party,  which,  whether 
called  Republican  as  formerly,  or  Democratic  as 
now,  is  still  the  same,  and  was  incorporated  in 
its  creed.  Mr.  Jefferson  largely  rested  the 
character  of  his  administration  upon  it ;  and 
deservedly  :  for  even  in  the  last  year  of  his 
administration,  and  after  the  enlargement  of 
our  territory  by  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana, 
the  expenses  of  the  government  were  but  about 
three  millions  and  a  half  of  dollars.  At  the  end 
of  Mr.  Monroe's  administration,  sixteen  years 
later,  they  had  risen  to  about  seven  millions  j 
and  in  the  last  year  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  (six- 
teen years  more),  they  had  risen  to  about  thir- 
teen millions.  At  the  same  time,  at  each  of 
these  epochs,  and  in  fact,  in  every  year  of  every 
administration,  there  were  payments  from  the 
Treasury  for  extraordinary  or  temporary  ob- 
jects, often  far  exceeding  in  amount  the  regular 
governmental  expenses.  Thus,  in  the  last  year 
of  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  whole  outlay  from  the 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


199 


Treasury,  was  about  twelve  millions  and  a  half ; 
of  which  eight  millions  went  to  the  payment  of 
principal  and  interest  on  the  public  debt,  and 
about  one  million  to  other  extra  objects.  And 
in  the  last  year  of  Mr.  Monroe,  the  whole  pay- 
ments were  about  thirty-two  millions  of  dollars, 
of  which  sixteen  millions  and  a  half  went  to  the 
liquidation  of  the  public  debt ;  and  above  eight 
millions  more  to  other  extraordinary  and  tem- 
porary objects.  Towards  the  close  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren's  administration,  this  aggregate  of  outlay 
for  all  objects  had  risen  to  about  thirty-seven 
millions,  which  the  opposition  called  thirty- 
nine  ;  and  presenting  this  gross  sum  as  the 
actual  expenses  of  the  government,  made  a  great 
outcry  against  the  extravagance  of  the  adminis- 
tration j  and  the  people,  not  understanding  the, 
subject,  were  seriously  impressed  with  the  force 
and  truth  of  that  accusation,  while  the  real  ex- 
penses were  but  about  the  one-third  of  that  sum. 
To  present  this  result  in  a  plain  and  authentic 
form,  the  author  of  this  View  obtained  a  call 
upon  the  Secretary  for  the  different  payments, 
ordinary  and  extraordinary,  from  the  Treasury 
for  a  series  of  years,  in  which  the  payments 
would  be  placed  under  three  heads — the  ordi- 
nary, the  extraordinary,  and  the  public  debt — 
specifying  the  items  of  each ;  and  extending 
from  Monroe's  time  (admitted  to  be  economi- 
cal), to  Mr.  Van  Buren's  charged  with  extrava- 
gance. This  return  was  made  by  the  Secretary, 
divided  into  three  columns,  with  specifications, 
as  required ;  and  though  obtained  for  a  tempo- 
rary and  transient  purpose,  it  possesses  a  per- 
manent interest  as  giving  a  complete  view  of  the 
financial  working  of  the  government,  and  fixing 
points  of  comparison  in  the  progress  of  expendi- 
ture—very proper  to  be  looked  back  upon  by 
those  who  would  hold  the  government  to  some 
degree  of  economy  in  the  use  of  the  public 
money.  There  has  been  no  such  examination 
since  the  year  1840:  there  would  seem  to  be 
room  for  it  now  (1855),  when  the  aggregate  of 
appropriations  exceed  seventy  millions  of  dol- 
lars. A  deduction  for  extraordinaries  would 
largely  reduce  that  aggregate,  but  still  leave 
enough  behind  to  astound  the  lovers  of  economy. 
Three  branches  of  expenditure  alone,  each  with- 
in itself,  exceeds  by  upwards  of  four  to  one,  the 
whole  ordinary  expenses  of  the  government  in 
the  time  of  Mr.  Jefferson ;  and  upwards  of 
double  of  such  expense  in  the  time  of  Mr.  Mon- 


roe ;  and  some  millions  more  than  the  same 
aggregate  in  the  last  year  of  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
These  three  branches  are,  1.  The  civil,  diplo- 
matic, and  miscellaneous,  $17,265,929  and  50 
cents.  2.  The  naval  service  (without  the  pen- 
sions and  "reserved"  list),  $15,012,091  and  53 
cents.  3.  The  army,  fortifications,  military 
academy  (without  the  pensions),  $12,571,496 
and  64  cents.  These  three  branches  of  expendi- 
ture alone  would  amount  to  about  forty-five 
millions  of  dollars — to  which  twenty-six  mil- 
lions more  are  to  be  added.  The  dormant  spirit 
of  economy — hoped  to  be  only  dormant,  not 
dead — should  wake  up  at  this  exhibition  of  the 
public  expenditure  :  and  it  is  with  that  view — 
with  the  view  of  engaging  the  attention  of  some 
economical  members  of  Congress,  that  the  ex- 
hibit is  now  made — that  this  chapter  is  writ- 
ten— and  some  regard  invoked  for  the  subject 
of  which  it  treats.  The  evils  of  extravagance 
in  the  government  are  great.  Besides  the  bur- 
den upon  the  people,  it  leads  to  corruption  in 
the  government,  and  to  a  janissary  horde  of 
office  holders  to  live  upon  the  people  while  pol- 
luting their  elections  and  legislation,  and  poison- 
ing the  fountains  of  public  information  in  mould- 
ing public  opinion  to  their  own  purposes.  More 
than  that.  It  is  the  true  source  of  the  just  dis- 
content of  the  Southern  States,  and  must  aggra- 
vate more  and  more  the  deep-seated  complaint 
against  the  unnecessary  levy  of  revenue  upon 
the  industry  of  one  half  of  the  Union  to  be 
chiefly  expended  in  the  other.  That  complaint 
was  great  enough  to  endanger  the  Union  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  when  the  levy  and  expenditure 
was  thirty  odd  millions  :  it  is  now  seventy  odd  ! 
At  the  same  time  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  writer, 
that  a  practical  man,  acquainted  with  the  objects 
for  which  the  federal  government  was  created, 
and  familiar  with  its  financial  working  from  the 
time  its  fathers  put  it  into  operation,  could  take 
his  pen  and  cross  out  nearly  the  one  half  of 
these  seventy  odd  millions,  and  leave  the  govern- 
ment in  full  vigor  for  all  its  proper  objects,  and 
more  pure,  by  reducing  the  number  of  those 
who  live  upon  the  substance  of  the  people.  To 
complete  the  effect  of  this  chapter,  some  extracts 
are  given  in  the  ensuing  one,  from  the  speech 
made  in  1840,  upon  the  expenditures  of  the 
government,  as  presenting  practical  views  upon 
a  subject  of  permanent  interest,  and  more  wor- 
thy of  examination  now  than  then. 


200 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER    LVI. 

EXPENSES  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT,  COMPAEATIVE 
AND  PROGRESSIVE,  AND  SEPARATED  FROM  EX- 
TRAORDINARIES. 

Mr.  Benton  moved  to  print  an  extra  number 
of  these  tabular  statements  received  from  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  proposed  to  give 
his  reasons  for  the  motion,  and  for  that  purpose, 
asked  that  the  papers  should  be  sent  to  him 
(which  was  done)  ;  and  Mr.  B.  went  on  to  say 
that  his  object  was  to  spread  before  the  country, 
in  an  authentic  form,  the  full  view  of  all  the 
government  expenses  for  a  series  of  years  past, 
going  back  as  far  as  Mr.  Monroe's  administra- 
tion ;  and  thereby  enabling  every  citizen,  in 
every  part  of  the  country,  to  see  the  actual,  the 
comparative,  and  the  classified  expenditures  of 
the  government  for  the  whole  period.  This 
proceeding  had  become  necessary,  Mr.  B.  said, 
from  the  systematic  efforts  made  for  some  years 
past,  to  impress  the  country  with  the  belief  that 
the  expenditures  had  increased  threefold  in  the 
last  twelve  years — that  they  had  risen  from 
thirteen  to  thirty-nine  millions  of  dollars  ;  and 
that  this  enormous  increase  was  the  effect  of 
the  extravagance,  of  the  corruption,  and  of  the 
incompetency  of  the  administrations  which  had 
succeeded  those  of  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Monroe. 
These  two  latter  administrations  were  held  up 
as  the  models  of  economy ;  those  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren  and  General  Jackson  were  stigmatized  as 
monsters  of  extravagance  ;  and  tables  of  figures 
were  so  arranged  as  to  give  color  to  the  charac- 
ters attributed  to  each.  These  systematic  efforts 
— this  reiterated  assertion,  made  on  this  floor, 
of  thirteen  millions  increased  to  thirty-nine — 
and  the  effect  which  such  statements  must  have 
upon  the  minds  of  those  who  cannot  see  the 
purposes  for  which  the  money  was  expended, 
appeared  to  him  (Mr.  B.),  to  require  some  more 
formal  and  authentic  refutation  than  any  one 
individual  could  give — something  more  impos- 
ing than  the  speech  of  a  solitary  member  could 
afford.  Familiar  with  the  action  of  the  govern- 
ment for  twenty  years  past — coming  into  the 
Senate  in  the  time  of  Mr.  Monroe — remaining 
in  it  ever  since — a  friend  to  economy  in  public 
and  in  private  life — and  closely  scrutinizing  the 


expenditures  of  the  government  during  tho 
whole  time — he  (Mr.  B.)  felt  himself  to  be  very 
able  at  any  time  to  have  risen  in  his  place,  and 
to  have  exposed  the  delusion  of  this  thirteen 
and  thirty-nine  million  bugbear ;  and,  if  he  did 
not  do  so,  it  was  because,  in  the  first  place,  he 
was  disinclined  to  bandy  contradictions  on  the 
floor  of  the  Senate ;  and,  in  the  second  place, 
because  he  relied  upon  the  intelligence  of  the 
country  to  set  all  right  whenever  they  obtained 
a  view  of  the  facts.  This  view  he  had  made 
himself  the  instrument  of  procuring,  and  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  had  now  presented  it. 
It  was  ready  for  the  contemplation  of  the 
American  people  ;  and  he  could  wish  every  citi- 
zen to  have  the  picture  in  his  own  hands,  that 
he  might  contemplate  it  at  his  own  fireside,  and 
at  his  full  leisure.  He  could  wish  every  citizen 
to  possess  a  copy  of  this  report,  now  received 
from  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  under  the 
call  of  the  Senate,  and  printed  by  its  order  ;  he 
could  wish  every  citizen  to  possess  one  of  these 
authentic  copies,  bearing  the  imprimatur  of  the 
American  Senate;  but  that  was  impossible; 
and,  limiting  his  action  to  what  was  possible, 
he  would  propose  to  print  such  number  of  extra 
copies  as  would  enable  some  to  reach  every 
quarter  of  the  Union. 

Mr.  B.  then  opened  the  tables,  and  explained 
their  character  and  contents.  The  first  one 
(marked  A)  consisted  of  three  columns,  and  ex- 
hibited the  aggregate,  and  the  classified  expen- 
ditures of  the  government  from  the  year  1824 
to  1839,  inclusive ;  the  second  one  (marked  B) 
contained  the  detailed  statement  of  the  pay- 
ments annually  made  on  account  of  all  tempo- 
rary or  extraordinary  objects,  including  the 
public  debt,  for  the  same  period.  The  second 
table  was  explanatory  of  the  third  column  of 
the  first  one  ;  and  the  two,  taken  together, 
would  enable  every  citizen  to  see  the  actual  ex- 
penditures, and  the  comparative  expendituresj 
of  the  government  for  the  whole  period  which 
he  had  mentioned. 

Mr.  B.  then  examined  the  actual  and  the 
comparative  expenses  of  two  of  the  years,  taken 
from  the  two  contrasted  periods  referred  to, 
and  invoked  the  attention  of  the  Senate  to  the 
results  which  the  comparison  would  exhibit. 
He  took  the  first  and  the  last  of  the  years  men- 
tioned in  the  tables— the  years  1824  and  1839 
— and  began  with  the  first  item  in  the  first 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


201 


column.  This  showed  the  aggregate  expendi- 
tures for  every  object  for  the  year  1824,  to  have 
been  $31,898,538  47— very  near  thirty-two  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  said  Mr.  B.,  and  if  stated  alone, 
and  without  explanation,  very  capable  of  aston- 
ishing the  public,  of  imposing  upon  the  igno- 
rant, and  of  raising  a  cry  against  the  dreadful 
extravagance,  the  corruption,  and  the  wicked- 
ness of  Mr.  Monroe's  administration.  Taken 
by  itself  (and  indisputably  true  it  is  in  itself), 
and  this  aggregate  of  near  thirty-two  millions 
is  very  sufficient  to  effect  all  this  surprise  and 
indignation  in  the  public  mind ;  but,  passing  on 
to  the  second  column  to  see  what  were  the  ex- 
penditures, independent  of  the  public  debt,  and 
this  large  aggregate  will  be  found  to  be  reduced 
more  than  one  half;  it  sinks  to  $15,330,144  71. 
This  is  a  heavy  deduction ;  but  it  is  not  all. 
Passing  on  to  the  third  column,  and  it  is  seen 
that  the  actual  expenses  of  the  government  for 
permanent  and  ordinary  objects,  independent 
of  the  temporary  and  extraordinary  ones,  for 
this  same  year,  were  only  $7,107,892  05 ;  be- 
ing less  than  the  one-fourth  part  of  the  aggre- 
gate of  near  thirty-two  millions.  This  looks 
quite  reasonable,  and  goes  far  towards  relieving 
Mr.  Monroe's  administration  from  the  imputa- 
tion to  which  a  view  of  the  aggregate  expendi- 
ture for  the  year  would  have  subjected  it. 
But,  to  make  it  entirely  satisfactory,  and  to 
enable  every  citizen  to  understand  the  impor- 
tant point  of  the  government  expenditures — a 
point  on  which  the  citizens  of  a  free  and  repre- 
sentative government  should  be  always  well 
informed — to  attain  this  full  satisfaction,  let  us 
pass  on  to  the  second  table  (marked  B),  and  fix 
our  eyes  on  its  first  column,  under  the  year 
1824.  We  shall  there  find  every  temporary 
and  extraordinary  object,  and  the  amount  paid 
on  account  of  it,  the  deduction  of  which  reduced 
an  aggregate  of  near  thirty-two  millions  to  a 
fraction  over  seven  millions.  We  shall  there 
find  the  explanation  of  the  difference  between 
the  first  and  third  columns.  The  first  item  is 
the  sum  of  $16,568,393  76,  paid  on  account  of 
the  principal  and  interest  of  the  public  debt. 
The  second  is  the  sum  of  $4,891,386  56,  paid 
to  merchants  for  indemnities  under  the  treaty 
with  Spain  of  1819,  by  which  we  acquired 
Florida.  And  so  on  through  nine  minor  items, 
amounting  in  the  whole,  exclusive  of  the  public 
debt,  to  about  eight  millions  and  a  quarter. 


This  total  added  to  the  sum  paid  on  account  of 
the  public  debt,  makes  close  upon  twenty-five 
millions  of  dollars ;  and  this,  deducted  from  the 
aggregate  of  near  thirty-two  millions,  leaves  a 
fraction  over  seven  millions  for  the  real  ex- 
penses of  the  government — the  ordinary  and 
permanent  expenses  —during  the  last  year  of 
Mr.  Monroe's  administration. 

This  is  certainly  a  satisfactory  result.  It  ex- 
empts the  administration  of  that  period  from 
the  imputation  of  extravagance,  which  the  un- 
explained exhibition  of  the  aggregate  expendi- 
tures might  have  drawn  upon  it  in  the  minds 
of  uninformed  persons.  It  clears  that  adminis- 
tration from  all  blame.  It  must  be  satisfactory 
to  every  candid  mind.  And  now  let  us  apply 
the  test  of  the  same  examination  to  some  year 
of  the  present  administration,  now  so  inconti- 
nently charged  with  ruinous  extravagance.  Let 
us  see  how  the  same  rule  will  work  when  ap- 
plied to  the  present  period ;  and,  for  that  pur- 
pose, let  us  take  the  last  year  in  the  table,  that 
of  1839.  Let  others  take  any  year  that  they 
please,  or  as  many  as  they  please  :  I  take  one, 
because  I  only  propose  to  give  an  example  ; 
and  I  take  the  last  one  in  the  table,  because  it 
is  the  last.  Let  us  proceed  with  this  examina- 
tion, and  see  what  the  results,  actual  and  com- 
parative, will  be. 

Commencing  with  the  aggregate  payments 
from  the  Treasury  for  all  objects,  Mr.  B.  said 
it  would  be  seen  at  the  foot  of  the  first 
column  in  the  first  table,  that  they  amounted 
to  $37,129,396  80  j  passing  to  the  second  col- 
umn, and  it  would  be  seen  that  this  sum  was 
reduced  to  $25,982,797  75  ;  and  passing  to  the 
third,  and  it  would  be  seen  that  this  latter  sum 
was  itself  reduced  to  $13,525,800  18  j  and,  re- 
ferring to  the  second  table,  under  the  year  1839, 
and  it  would  be  seen  how  this  aggregate  of 
thirty-seven  millions  was  reduced  to  thirteen 
and  a  half.  It  was  a  great  reduction  ;  a  reduc- 
tion of  nearly  two-thirds  from  the  aggregate 
amount  paid  out ;  and  left  for  the  proper  ex- 
penses of  the  government — its  ordinary  and 
permanent  expenses — an  inconceivably  small 
sum  for  a  great  nation  of  seventeen  millions 
of  souls,  covering  an  immense  extent  of  territo- 
ry, and  acting  a  part  among  the  great  powers 
of  the  world.  To  trace  this  reduction — to  show 
the  reasons  of  the  difference  between  the  first 
and  the  third  columns,  Mr.  B.  would  follow  the 


202 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


same  process  which  he  had  pursued  in  explain- 
ing the  expenditures  of  the  year  1824,  and  ask 
for  nothing  in  one  case  which  had  not  been 
granted  in  the  other. 

1.  The  first  item  to  be  deducted  from  the 
thirty-seven  million  aggregate,  was  the  sum  of 
$11,146,599  05,  paid  on  account  of  the  public 
debt.  He  repeated,  on  account  of  the  public 
debt ;  for  it  was  paid  in  redemption  of  Treasury 
notes  ;  and  these  Treasury  notes  were  so  much 
debt  incurred  to  supply  the  place  of  the  revenue 
deposited  with  the  States,  in  1836,  or  shut  up 
in  banks  during  the  suspension  of  1837,  or  due 
from  merchants,  to  whom  indulgence  had  been 
granted.  To  supply  the  place  of  these  unattain- 
able funds,  the  government  went  in  debt  by 
issuing  Treasury  notes  ;  but  faithful  to  the  sen- 
timent which  abhorred  a  national  debt,  it  paid 
off  the  debt  almost  as  fast  as  it  contracted  it. 
Above  eleven  millions  of  this  debt  was  paid  in 
1839,  amounting  to  almost  the  one-third  part 
of  the  aggregate  expenditure  of  that  year ;  and 
thus,  nearly  the  one-third  part  of  the  sum  which 
is  charged  upon  the  administration  as  extrava- 
gance and  corruption,  was  a  mere  payment  of 
debt  ! — a  mere  payment  of  Treasury  notes 
which  we  had  issued  to  supply  the  place  of  our 
misplaced  and  captured  revenue — our  three  in- 
stalments of  ten  millions  cash  presented  to  the 
States  under  the  false  and  fraudulent  name  of  a 
deposit,  and  our  revenue  of  1837  captured  by 
the  banks  when  they  shut  their  doors  upon 
their  creditors.  The  glorious  administration 
of  President  Jackson  left  the.  country  free  from 
public  debt :  its  worthy  successor  will  do  the 
same. 

Removal  of  Indians  from  the  Southern  and 
Western  States,  and  extinction  of  their  titles, 
and  numerous  smaller  items,  all  specified  in  the 
third  column  of  the  table,  amount  to  about 
twelve  millions  and  a  half  more ;  and  these 
added  to  the  payments  on  the  public  debt,  the 
remainder  is  the  expense  of  the  government, 
and  is  but  about  the  one-third  of  the  aggregate 
expenditure — to  be  precise,  about  thirteen  mil- 
lions and  a  half. 

With  this  view  of  the  tabular  statements  Mr. 
B.  closed  the  examination  of  the  items  of  ex- 
penditure, and  stated  the  results  to  be  a  reduc- 
tion of  the  thirty-seven  million  aggregate  in 
1839,  like  that  of  the  thirty-two  million  aggre- 
gate in  1824,  to  about  one-third  of  its  amount. 


The  very  first  item,  that  of  the  payment  of  pub- 
lic debt  in  the  redemption  of  Treasury  notes, 
reduced  it  eleven  millions  of  dollars  :  it  sunk  it 
from  thirty-seven  millions  to  twenty-six.  The 
other  eighteen  items  amounted  to  $12,656,977, 
and  reduced  the  twenty-six  millions  to  thirteen 
and  a  half.  Here  then  is  a  result  which  is  at- 
tained by  the  same  process  which  applies  to  the 
year  1824,  and  to  every  other  year,  and  which 
is  right  in  itself ;  and  which  must  put  to  flight 
and  to  shame  all  the  attempts  to  excite  the 
country  with  this  bugbear  story  of  extrava- 
gance. In  the  first  place  the  aggregate  expen- 
ditures have  not  increased  threefold  in  fifteen 
years;  they  have  not  risen  from  thirteen  to 
thirty-nine  millions,  as  incontinently  asserted 
by  the  opposition ;  but  from  thirty-two  millions 
to  thirty-seven  or  thirty-nine.  And  how  have 
they  risen  ?  By  paying  last  year  eleven  mil- 
lions for  Treasury  notes,  and  more  than  twelve 
millions  for  Indian  lands,  and  wars,  removals 
of  Indians,  and  increase  of  the  army  and  navy, 
and  other  items  as  enumerated.  The  result  is 
a  residuum  of  thirteen  and  a  half  millions  for 
the  real  expenses  of  the  government ;  a  sum 
one  and  a  half  millions  short  of  what  gentlemen 
proclaim  would  be  an  economical  expenditure. 
They  all  say  that  fifteen  millions  would  be  an 
economical  expenditure ;  very  well  !  here  is 
thirteen  and  a  half  !  which  is  a  million  and  a 
half  short  of  that  mark. 


CHAPTER    LVII. 

DEATH  OF  MR.  JUSTICE  BARBOUR  OP  THE  SU- 
PREME COURT,  AND  APPOINTMENT  OF  PETER 
V.  DANIEL,  ESQ.,  IN  HIS  PLACE. 

Mr.  Phillip  P.  Barbour  was  a  representative 
in  Congress  from  the  State  of  Virginia  when  I 
was  first  elected  to  the  Senate  in  1820.  I  had 
the  advantage — (for  advantage  I  truly  deemed 
it  for  a  young  member) — to  be  in  habitual  so- 
ciety with  such  a  man — one  of  the  same  mess 
with  him  the  first  session  of  my  service.  Nor 
was  it  accidental,  but  sought  for  on  my  part. 
It  was  a  talented  mess — among  others  the  bril- 
liant orator,  William  Pinkney  of  Maryland  ; 
and  the  eloquent  James  Barbour,  of  the  Senate, 
brother  to  the  representative  :  their  cousin,  the 


ANNO  1840.     MARTI X  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


203 


representative  John  S.  Barbour,  equal  to  either 
in  the  endowments  of  the  mind  :  Floyd  of  Vir- 
ginia :  Trimble  and  Clay  of  Kentucky.  I  knew 
the  advantage  of  such  association — and  cher- 
ished it.  From  that  time  I  was  intimate  with 
Mr.  Phillip  P.  Barbour  during  the  twenty-one 
winters  which  his  duties,  either  as  representa- 
tive in  Congress,  or  justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  required  him  to  be  at  Washington.  He 
was  a  man  worthy  of  the  best  days  of  the  re- 
public— modest,  virtuous,  pure  :  artless  as  a 
child  :  full  of  domestic  affections :  patriotic  : 
filially  devoted  to  Virginia  as  his  mother  State, 
and  a  friend  to  the  Union  from  conviction  and 
sentiment.  He  had  a  clear  mind — a  close,  log- 
ical and  effective  method  of  speaking — copious 
without  diffusion  ;  and,  always  speaking  to  the 
subject,  both  with  knowledge  and  sincerity,  he 
was  always  listened  to  with  favor.  He  was 
some  time  Speaker  of  the  House,  and  was  ap- 
pointed to  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  by 
President  Van  Buren  in  1837,  in  place  of  Mr. 
Justice  Duval,  resigned.  He  had  the  death 
which  knows  no  pain,  and  which,  to  the  body, 
is  sleep  without  waking.  He  was  in  attendance 
upon  the  Supreme  Court,  in  good  health  and 
spirits,  and  had  done  his  part  the  night  before 
in  one  of  the  conferences  which  the  labors  of 
the  Supreme  Bench  impose  almost  nightly  on 
the  learned  judges.  In  the  morning  he  was 
supposed  by  his  servant  to  be  sleeping  late,  and, 
finally  going  to  his  bedside,  found  him  dead — 
the  face  all  serene  and  composed,  not  a  feature 
or  muscle  disturbed,  the  body  and  limbs  in 
their  easy  natural  posture.  It  was  evident 
that  the  machinery  of  life  had  stopped  of  itself, 
and  without  a  shock.  Ossification  of  the  heart 
was  supposed  to  be  the  cause.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded on  the  Supreme  Bench  by  Peter  V. 
Daniel,  Esq.,  of  the  same  State,  also  appointed 
by  Mr.  Van  Buren— one  in  the  first,  the  other 
in  the  last  days  of  his  administration. 

A  beautiful  instance  in  Mr.  Barbour  of  self- 
denial,  and  of  fidelity  to  party  and  to  personal 
friendship,  and  regard  for  honor  and  decorum, 
occurred  while  he  was  a  member  of  the  House. 
Mr.  Randolph  was  in  the  Senate :  the  time  for 
his  re-election  came  round :  he  had  some  per- 
sonal enemies  in  his  own  party,  who,  joined  to 
the  whig  party,  could  defeat  him :  and  it  was  a 
high  object  with  the  administration  at  Wash- 
ington (that  of  Mr.  Adams),  to  have  him  de- 


feated. The  disaffected  and  the  opposition  com' 
bined  together,  counted  their  numbers,  ascer- 
tained their  strength,  and  saw  that  they  could 
dispose  of  the  election;  but  only  in  favor  of 
some  one  of  the  same  party  with  Mr.  Randolph. 
They  offered  the  place  to  Mr.  Barbour.  It  was 
the  natural  ascent  in  the  gradation  of  his  ap- 
pointments ;  and  he  desired  it ;  and,  it  may  be 
said,  the  place  desired  him  :  for  he  was  a  man  tc 
adorn  the  chamber  of  the  American  Senate.  But 
honor  forbid ;  for  with  him  Burns's  line  was  a 
law  of  his  nature  :  Where  you  feel  your  honor 
grip,  let  that  still  be  your  border.  He  was  the 
personal  and  political  friend  of  Mr.  Randolph, 
and  would  not  be  used  against  him  ;  and  sent  an 
answer  to  the  combined  parties  which  put  an 
end  to  their  solicitations.  Mr.  John  Tyler,  then 
governor  of  the  State,  and  standing  in  the  same 
relation  with  Mr.  Barbour  to  Mr.  Randolph,  was 
then  offered  the  place  :  and  took  it.  It  was  his 
first  step  in  the  road  to  the  whig  camp  ;  where 
he  arrived  eventually — and  lodged,  until  elected 
out  of  it  into  the  vice-presidential  chair. 

Judge  Barbour  was  a  Virginia  country  gen- 
tleman, after  the  most  perfect  model  of  that 
most  respectable  class — living  on  his  ample 
estate,  baronially,  with  his  family,  his  slaves, 
his  flocks  and  herds — all  well  cared  for  by  him- 
self, and  happy  in  his  care.  A  farmer  by  posi- 
tion, a  lawyer  by  profession,  a  politician  of 
course — dividing  his  time  between  his  estate, 
his  library,  his  professional,  and  his  public  du- 
ties— scrupulously  attentive  to  his  duties  in  all : 
and  strict  in  that  school  of  politics  of  which 
Mr.  Jefferson,  Mr.  Madison,  John  Taylor  of 
Caroline,  Mr.  Monroe,  Mr.  Macon,  and  others, 
were  the  great  exemplars.  A  friend  to  order 
and  economy  in  his  private  life,  he  carried  the 
same  noble  qualities  into  his  public  stations, 
and  did  his  part  to  administer  the  govern- 
ment with  the  simplicity  and  purity  which  its 
founders  intended  for  it. 


CHAPTER    LVIII. 

PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION. 

Mr.  Van  Buren  was  the  democratic  candidate. 
His  administration  had  been  so  acceptable  to 
his  party,  that  his  nomination  in  a  convention 


204 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


was  a  matter  of  form,  gone  through  according 
to  custom,  but  the  result  commanded  by  the 
party  in  the  different  States  in  appointing  their 
delegates.  Mr.  Richard  M.  Johnson,  the  actual 
Vice-President,  was  also  nominated  for  re-elec- 
tion ;  and  both  nominations  were  made  in  con- 
formity to  the  will  of  the  people  who  sent  the 
delegates.  On  the  part  of  the  whigs  the  same 
nominations  were  made  as  in  the  election  of 
1836 — General  William  Henry  Harrison  of 
Ohio,  for  President;  and  Mr.  John  Tyler  of 
Virginia,  for  Vice-President.  The  leading  states- 
men of  the  whig  party  were  again  passed  by  to 
make  room  for  a  candidate  more  sure  of  being 
elected.  The  success  of  General  Jackson  had* 
turned  the  attention  of  those  who  managed  the 
presidential  nominations  to  military  men,  and  an 
"  odor  of  gunpowder  "  was  considered  a  sufficient 
attraction  to  rally  the  masses,  without  the  civil 
qualifications,  or  the  actual  military  fame  which 
General  Jackson  possessed.  Availability,  to 
use  their  own  jargon,  was  the  only  ability 
which  these  managers  asked — that  is,  available 
for  the  purposes  of  the  election,  and  for  their 
own  advancement,  relying  on  themselves  to  ad- 
minister the  government.  Mr.  Clay,  the  prom- 
inent man,  and  the  undisputed  head  of  the  par- 
ty, was  not  deemed  available ;  and  it  was  deter- 
mined to  set  him  aside.  How  to  do  it  was  the 
question.  He  was  a  man  of  too  much  power 
and  spirit  to  be  rudely  thrust  aside.  Gentle, 
and  respectful  means  were  necessary  to  get  him 
out  of  the  way  ;  and  for  that  purpose  he  was 
concertedly  importuned  to  withdraw  from  the 
canvass.  He  would  not  do  so,  but  wrote  a  let- 
ter submitting  himself  to  the  will  of  the  con- 
vention. When  he  did  so  he  certainly  expected 
an  open  decision — a  vote  in  open  convention — 
every  delegate  acting  responsibly,  and  according 
to  the  will  of  his  constituents.  Not  so  the  fact. 
He  submitted  himself  to  the  convention :  the 
convention  delivered  him  to  a  committee :  the 
committee  disposed  of  him  in  a  back  chamber. 
It  devised  a  process  for  getting  at  a  result, 
which  is  a  curiosity  in  the  chapter  of  ingenious 
inventions — which  is  a  study  for  the  complica- 
tion of  its  machinery — a  model  contrivance  of 
the  few  to  govern  many — a  secure  way  to  pro- 
duce an  intended  result  without  showing  the 
design,  and  without  leaving  a  trace  behind  to 
show  what  was  done  :  and  of  which  none  but 


itself  can  be  its  own  delineator :  and,  therefore, 
here  it  is : 

"  Ordered,  That  the  delegates  from  each  State 
be  requested  to  assemble  as  a  delegation,  and 
appoint  a  committee,  not  exceeding  three  in 
number,  to  receive  the  views  and  opinions  of 
such  delegation,  and  communicate  the  same  to 
the  assembled  committees  of  all  the  delegations, 
to  be  by  them  respectively  reported  to  their 
principals ;  and  that  thereupon  the  delegates 
from  each  State  be  requested  to  assemble  as  a 
delegation,  and  ballot  for  candidates  for  the 
offices  of  President  and  Vice-President,  and  hav- 
ing done  so,  to  commit  the  ballot  designating 
the  votes  of  each  candidate,  and  by  whom  given, 
to.  its  committee ;  and  thereupon  all  the  com- 
mittees shall  assemble  and  compare  the  several 
ballots,  and  report  the  result  of  the  same  to 
their  several  delegations,  together  with  such 
facts  as  may  bear  upon  the  nomination;  and 
said  delegation  shall  forthwith  re-assemble  and 
ballot  again  for  candidates  for  the  above  offices, 
and  again  commit  the  result  to  the  above  com- 
mittees, and  if  it  shall  appear  that  a  majority 
of  the  ballots  are  for  any  one  man  for  candi- 
date for  President,  said  committee  shall  report 
the  result  to  the  convention  for  its  considera- 
tion ;  but  if  there  shall  be  no  such  majority, 
then  the  delegations  shall  repeat  the  balloting 
until  such  a  majority  shall  be  obtained,  and 
then  report  the  same  to  the  convention  for  its 
consideration.  That  the  vote  of  a  majority  of 
each  delegation  shall  be  reported  as  the  vote  of 
that  State ;  and  each  State  represented  here 
shall  vote  its  full  electoral  vote  by  such  delega- 
tion in  the  committee." 

As  this  View  of  the  Thirty  Years  is  intended 
to  show  the  working  of  our  political  system, 
and  how  things  were  done  still  more  than  what 
was  done ;  and  as  the  election  of  chief  magis- 
trate is  the  highest  part  of  that  working ;  and 
as  the  party  nomination  of  a  presidential  candi- 
date is  the  election  of  that  candidate  so  far  as 
the  party  is  concerned :  in  all  these  points  of 
view,  the  device  of  this  resolution  becomes  his- 
torical, and  commends  itself  to  the  commenta- 
tors upon  our  constitution.  The  people  are  to 
elect  the  President.  Here  is  a  process  through 
multiplied  nitrations  by  which  the  popular  sen- 
timent is  to  be  deduced  from  the  masses,  collected 
in  little  streams,  then  united  in  one  swelling  cur- 
rent, and  poured  into  the  hall  of  the  convention 
— no  one  seeing  the  source,  or  course  of  any 
one  of  the  streams.  Algebra  and  alchemy 
must  have  been  laid  under  contribution  to  work 
out  a  quotient  from  such  a  combination  of  signs 
and  symbols.    But  it  was  done.    Those  who 


ANNO  1840.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


205 


set  the  sum  could  work  it :  and  the  quotient 
was  political  death  to  Mr.  Clay.  The  result 
produced  was — for  General  Scott,  16  votes  : 
for  Mr.  Clay,  90  votes  :  for  General  Harrison, 
148  votes.  And  as  the  law  of  these  conventions 
swallows  up  all  minorities  in  an  ascertained 
majority,  so  the  majority  for  General  Harrison 
swallowed  up  the  106  votes  given  to  Mr.  Clay 
and  General  Scott,  made  them  count  for  the 
victor,  presenting  him  as  the  unanimity  can- 
didate of  the  convention,  and  the  defeated  can- 
didate and  all  their  friends  bound  to  join  in 
his  support.  And  in  this  way  the  election  of 
1840  was  effected  !  a  process  certainly  not 
within  the  purview  of  those  framers  of  the 
constitution,  who  supposed  they  were  giving  to 
a  nation  the  choice  of  its  own  chief  magistrate. 
From  the  beginning  it  had  been  foreseen  that 
there  was  to  be  an  embittered  contest — the  se- 
verest ever  known  in  our  country.  Two  powers 
were  in  the  field  against  Mr.  Van  Buren,  each 
strong  within  itself,  and  truly  formidable  when 
united — the  whole  whig  party,  and  the  large 
league  of  suspended  banks,  headed  by  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States — now  criminal  as  well  as 
bankrupt,  and  making  its  last  struggle  for  a 
new  national  charter  in  the  effort  to  elect  a 
President  friendly  to  it.  In  elections  as  in  war 
money  is  the  sinew  of  the  contest,  and  the 
broken  and  suspended  banks  were  in  a  condi- 
tion, and  a  temper,  to  furnish  that  sinew  with- 
out stint.  By  mutual  support  they  were  able 
to  make  their  notes  pass  as  money ;  and,  not 
being  subject  to  redemption,  it  could  be  fur- 
nished without  restraint,  and  with  all  the  good 
will  of  a  self-interest  in  putting  down  the  dem- 
ocratic party,  whose  hard-money  policy,  and  in- 
dependent treasury  scheme,  presented  it  as  an 
enemy  to  paper  money  and  delinquent  banks. 
The  influence  of  this  moneyed  power  over  its 
debtors,  over  presses,  over  travelling  agents, 
was  enormous,  and  exerted  to  the  uttermost, 
and  in  amounts  of  money  almost  fabulous  ;  and 
in  ways  not  dreamed  of.  The  mode  of  operat- 
ing divided  itself  into  two  general  classes,  one 
coercive — addressed  to  the  business  pursuits 
and  personal  interests  of  the  community :  the 
other  seductive,  and  addressed  to  its  passions. 
The  phrases  given  out  in  Congress  against  the 
financial  policy  of  the  administration  became 
texts  to  speak  upon,  and  hints  to  act  upon. 
Carrying  out  the  idea  that  the  re-election  of 


Mr.  Van  Buren  would  be  the  signal  for  the 
downfall  of  all  prices,  the  ruin  of  all  industry, 
and  the  destruction  of  all  labor,  the  newspapers 
in  all  the  trading  districts  began  to  abound 
with  such  advertisements  as  these  :  :'  The  sub- 
scriber will  pay  six  dollars  a  barrel  for  flour 
if  Harrison  is  elected,  and  three  dollars  if 
Van  Buren  is."  "  The  subscriber  will  pay  five 
dollars  a  hundred  for  pork  ij  Harrison  is 
elected,  and  two  and  a  half  if  Van  Buren  is." 
And  so  on  through  the  whole  catalogue  of  mar- 
ketable articles,  and  through  the  different  kinds 
of  labor :  and  these  advertisements  were  signed 
by  respectable  men,  large  dealers  in  the  arti- 
cles mentioned,  and  well  able  to  fix  the  market 
price  for  them.  In  this  way  the  result  of  the 
election  was  brought  to  bear  coercively  upon 
the  business,  the  property,  and  the  pecuniary 
interest  of  the  people.  The  class  of  induce- 
ments addressed  to  the  passions  and  imagina- 
tions of  the  people  were  such  as  history  blushes 
to  record.  Log-cabins,  coonskins,  and  hard 
cider  were  taken  as  symbols  of  the  party,  and 
to  show  its  identification  with  the  poorest  and 
humblest  of  the  people :  and  these  cabins  were 
actually  raised  in  the  most  public  parts  of  the 
richest  cities,  ornamented  with  coonskins  after 
the  fashion  of  frontier  huts,  and  cider  drank  in 
them  out  of  gourds  in  the  public  meetings 
which  gathered  about  them :  and  the  virtues 
of  these  cabins,  these  skins,  and  this  cider  were 
celebrated  by  travelling  and  stationary  orators. 
The  whole  country  was  put  into  commotion 
by  travelling  parties  and  public  gatherings. 
Steamboats  and  all  public  conveyances  were 
crowded  with  parties  singing  doggerel  ballads 
made  for  the  occasion,  accompanied  with  the 
music  of  drums,  fifes,  and  fiddles ;  and  incited 
by  incessant  speaking.  A  system  of  public 
gatherings  was  got  up  which  pervaded  every 
State,  county  and  town — which  took  place  by 
day  and  by  night,  accompanied  by  every  pre- 
paration to  excite  ;  and  many  of  which  gather- 
ings were  truly  enormous  in  their  numbers — 
only  to  be  estimated  by  the  acre ;  attempts  at 
counting  or  computing  such  masses  being  out 
of  the  question.  The  largest  of  these  gather- 
ings took  place  at  Dayton,  in  the  State  of  Ohio, 
the  month  before  the  election ;  and  the  descrip- 
tion of  it,  as  given  by  its  enthusiastic  friends, 
will  give  a  vivid  idea  of  that  monster  assem- 
blage, and  of  the  myriads  of  others  of  which  it 


206 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


was  only  the  greatest — differing  in  degree  only, 
not  in  kind : 

"  Dayton,  the  whole  body  there  assembled  in 
convention  covered  ten  acres  by  actual  meas- 
urement !  And  at  no  time  were  there  more 
than  two-thirds  of  the  people  on  the  ground. 
Every  house  with  a  flag  was  a  hotel  without 
price — the  strings  of  every  door  being  out,  and 
every  latch  unfastened!  One  hundred  thou- 
sand !  It  were  useless  to  attempt  any  thing 
like  a  detailed  description  of  this  grand  gath- 
ering of  the  people.  We  saw  it  &\\—felt  it  all — 
and  «hall  bear  to  our  graves,  live  we  yet  half  a 
century,  the  impression  it  made  upon  our  hearts. 
But  we  cannot  describe  it.  No  eye  that  wit- 
nessed it,  can  convey  to  the  mind  of  another, 
even  a  faint  semblance  of  the  things  it  there 
beheld.  The  bright  and  glorious  day — the 
beautiful  and  hospitable  city — the  green-clad 
and  heaven-blessed  valley — the  thousand  flags, 
fluttering  in  every  breeze  and  waving  from 
every  window — the  ten  thousand  banners  and 
badges,  with  their  appropriate  devices  and  pa- 
triotic inscriptions— ^and,  more  than  all,  the 
hundred  thousand  human  hearts  beating  in  that 
dense  and  seething  mass  of  people — are  things 
which  those  alone  can  properly  feel  and  appre- 
ciate, who  beheld  this  grandest  spectacle  of 
time.  The  number  of  persons  present  was, 
during  the  whole  of  the  morning,  variously  es- 
timated at  from  seventy-five  to  ninety  thousand. 
Conjecture,  however,  was  put  to  rest  in  the  af- 
ternoon, at  the  speakers'  stand.  Here,  while 
the  crowd  was  compact,  as  we  have  elsewhere 
described  it,  and  during  the  speech  of  General 
Harrison,  the  ground  upon  which  it  stood  was 
measured  by  three  different  civil  engineers,  and 
allowing  to  the  square  yard  four  persons,  the 
following  results  were  arrived  at :  the  first 
made  it  77,600,  the  second  75,000,  and  the  third 
80,000.  During  the  time  of  making  three  meas- 
urements, the  number  of  square  yards  of  sur- 
face covered  was  continually  changing,  by  pres- 
sure without  and  resistance  from  within.  Mr. 
Van  Buren  and  his  wiseacre  assistants,  have  so 
managed  currency  matters,  that  we  have  very 
little  to  do  business  with.  We  can,  therefore, 
be  away  from  home,  a  portion  of  the  time,  as 
well  as  at  home.  And  with  respect  to  our 
families,  when  we  leave  upon  a  rally,  we  take 
them  with  us  !  Our  wives  and  daughters,  we 
are  proud  to  say,  have  the  blood  of  their  revo- 
lutionary mothers  and  grandmothers  coursing 
through  their  veins.  There  is  no  man  among 
us  whose  heart  is  more  filled  and  animated 
than  theirs,  by  the  spirit  of  seventy-six.  Look 
at  the  three  hundred  and  fifty  at  Nashville,  who 
invited  Henry  Clay,  the  nation's  pride,  to  be 
with  them  and  their  husbands  and  brothers  on 
the  15th  of  August !  Look  at  the  four  hundred 
at  St.  Louis,  the  nine  hundred  at  the  Tippeca- 
noe battle-ground,  the  five  thousand  at  Dayton  ! 
What  now,  but  the  spirit  of  seventy-six,  does 


all  this  manifest  ?  Ay,  and  what  tale  does  it 
all  tell?  Does  it  not  say,  that  the  wicked 
charlatanry,  and  mad  ambition,  and  selfish 
schemings,  of  the  leading  members  of  this  ad- 
ministration of  the  general  government,  have 
made  themselves  felt  in  the  very  sanctum  sanc- 
torum of  domestic  life  ?  Does  it  not  speak  of 
the  cheerless  hearth,  where  willing  hands  sit 
without  employment?  Does  it  not  speak  of 
the  half-recompensed  toil  of  the  worn  laborer, 
who  finds,  now  and  then,  a  week's  hard  work, 
upon  the  scant  proceeds  of  which  he  must  sub- 
sist himself  and  his  family  for  a  month  !  Does 
it  not  speak  of  empty  larders  in  the  town,  while 
the  garners  of  the  country  are  overflowing? 
Does  it  not  speak  of  want  here  and  abundance 
there,  without  any  medium  of  exchange  to 
equalize  the  disparity?  Does  it  not  speak  of  a 
general  disorganization  of  conventional  opera- 
tions— of  embarrassment,  stagnation,  idleness, 
and  despondency — whose  'malign  influences' 
have  penetrated  the  inner  temples  of  man's 
home,  and  aroused,  to  indignant  speech  and 
unusual  action,  her  who  is  its  peace,  its  gentle- 
ness, its  love,  its  all  but  divinity  ?  The  truth 
is — and  it  should  be  told — the  women  are  the 
very  life  and  soul  of  these  movements  of  the 
people.  Look  at  their  liberal  preparations  at 
Nashville.  Look  at  their  boundless  hospitality 
at  Dayton.  Look  at  their  ardor  and  activity 
every  where.  And  last,  though  far  from  the 
least  important,  look  at  their  presence,  in  hun- 
dreds and  by  thousands,  wherever  there  is  any 
good  to  be  done,  to  animate  and  encourage,  and 
urge  on  their  fathers,  husbands  and  brothers. 
Whence  those  six  hundred  and  forty-four  flags, 
whose  stars  and  stripes  wave  in  the  morning 
breeze,  from  nearly  every  house-top,  as  we  en- 
ter the  beautiful  little  city  of  Dayton  ?  From 
the  hand  of  woman.  Whence  the  decorations 
of  these  porticoes  and  balconies,  that  gleam  in 
the  rising  sun,  as  we  ride  through  the  broad 
and  crowded  streets  ?  From  the  hand  of  wo- 
man. Whence  this  handsome  and  proudly 
cherished  banner,  under  which  the  Ohio  dele- 
gation returned  from  Nashville,  and  which  now 
marks  the  head-quarters  of  the  Cincinnati  dele- 
gation of  one  thousand  to  Dayton  ?  From  the 
hand  of  woman.  Whence  yon  richly  wrought 
and  surpassingly  beautiful  standard,  about 
which  cluster  the  Tippecanoe  hosts,  and  whose 
production  has  cost  many  weeks  of  incessant 
labor  ?  From  the  hand  of  woman.  And  to 
come  down  to  less  poetical  but  more  substan- 
tial things,  whence  all  the  wholesome  viands 
prepared  in  the  six  hundred  and  forty-four 
flag-houses  around  us,  for  our  refreshment,  and 
all  the  pallets  spread  for  our  repose  ?  from 
the  hand  of  woman." 

By  arts  like  these  the  community  was  worked 
up  into  a  delirium,  and  the  election  was  carried 
by  storm.  Out  of  294  electoral  votes  Mr.  Van 
Buren  received  but  60 :  out  of  twenty-six  States 


ANNO  1841.     MARTIN  VAN  BUREN,  PRESIDENT. 


207 


he  received  the  votes  of  only  seven.  He  seemed 
to  have  been  abandoned  by  the  people !  On  the 
contrary  he  had  been  unprecedentedly  support' 
ed  by  them — had  received  a  larger  popular  vote 
than  ever  had  been  given  to  any  President  be- 
fore !  and  three  hundred  and  sixty-four  thou- 
sand votes  more  than  he  himself  had  received  at 
the  previous  presidential  election  when  he  beat 
the  same  General  Harrison  fourteen  thousand 
votes.  Here  was  a  startling  fact,  and  one  to 
excite  inquiry  in  the  public  mind.  How  could 
there  be  such  overwhelming  defeat  with  such 
an  enormous  increase  of  strength  on  the  de- 
feated side  ?  This  question  pressed  itself  upon 
every  thinking  mind  ;  and  it  was  impossible  to 
give  it  a  solution  consistent  with  the  honor  and 
purity  of  the  elective  franchise.  For,  after  mak- 
ing all  allowance  for  the  greater  number  of 
voters  brought  out  on  this  occasion  than  at  the 
previous  election  by  the  extraordinary  exertions 
now  made  to  bring  them  out,  yet  there  would 
still  be  required  a  great  number  to  make  up  tiie 
five  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  votes  which 
General  Harrison  received  over  and  above  his 
vote  of  four  years  before.  The  belief  of  false 
and  fraudulent  votes  was  deep-seated,  and  in 
fact  susceptible  of  proof  in  many  instances. 
Many  thought  it  right,  for  the  sake  of  vindi- 
cating the  purity  of  elections,  to  institute  a 
scrutiny  into  the  votes;  but  nothing  of  the 
kind  was  attempted,  and  on  the  second  Wed- 
nesday in  February,  1841,  all  the  electoral  votes 
were  counted  without  objection — General  Har- 
rison found  to  have  a  majority  of  the  whole 
number  of  votes  given — and  Messrs.  Wise  and 
Gushing  on  the  part  of  the  House  and  Mr. 
Preston  on  the  part  of  the  Senate,  were  ap- 
pointed to  give  him  the  formal  notification  of 
his  election.  Mr.  Tyler  received  an  equal  num- 
ber of  votes  with  him,  and  became  Vice-presi- 
dent :  Mr.  Richard  M.  Johnson  fell  twelve  votes 
behind  Mr.  Van  Buren,  receiving  but  48  elec- 
toral votes.  It  was  a  complete  rout  of  the  de- 
mocratic party,  but  without  a  single  moral 
effect  of  victory.  The  spirit  of  the  party  ran  as 
high  as  ever,  and  Mr.  Van  Buren  was  immedi- 
ately, and  generally,  proclaimed  the  democratic 
candidate  for  the  election  of  1844. 


CHAPTER    LIX. 

CONCLUSION  OF  MK.  VAN  BUKEN'S  ADMINISTRA- 
TION. 

The  last  session  of  the  Twenty-sixth  Congress 
was  barren  of  measures,  and  necessarily  so,  as 
being  the  last  of  an  administration  superseded 
by  the  popular  voice,  and  soon  to  expire ;  and 
therefore  restricted  by  a  sense  of  propriety, 
during  the  brief  remainder  of  its  existence,  to 
the  details  of  business  and  the  routine  of  service. 
But  his  administration  had  not  been  barren  of 
measures,  nor  inauspicious  to  the  harmony  of 
the  Union.  It  had  seen  great  measures  adopted, 
and  sectional  harmony  conciliated.  The  divorce 
of  Bank  and  State,  and  the  restoration  of  the 
constitutional  currency,  were  illustrious  meas- 
ures, beneficial  to  the  government  and  the  peo- 
ple ;  and  the  benefits  of  which  will  continue  to 
be  felt  as  long  as  they  shall  be  kept.  One  of 
them  dissolved  a  meretricious  connection,  disad- 
vantageous to  both  parties,  and  most  so  to  the 
one  that  should  have  suffered  least,  and  was 
made  to  suffer  most.  The  other  carried  back 
the  government  to  what  it  was  intended  to  be — 
re-established  it  as  it  was  in  the  first  year  of 
Washington's  administration — made  it  in  fact  a 
hard-money  government,  giving  solidity  to  the 
Treasury,  and  freeing  the  government  and  the 
people  from  the  revulsions  and  vicissitudes  of 
the  paper  system.  No  more  complaints  about 
the  currency  and  the  exchanges  since  that  time. 
Unexampled  prosperity  has  attended  the  peo- 
ple ;  and  the  government,  besides  excess  of  solid 
money  in  time  of  peace,  has  carried  on  a  foreign 
war,  three  thousand  miles  from  home,  with  its 
securities  above  par  during  the  whole  time :  a 
felicitous  distinction,  never  enjoyed  by  our  coun- 
try before,  and  seldom  by  any  country  of  the 
world.  These  two  measures  constitute  an  era 
in  the  working  of  our  government,  entitled  to  a 
proud  place  in  its  history,  on  which  the  eye  of 
posterity  may  look  back  with  gratitude  and 
admiration. 

His  administration  was  auspicious  to  the 
general  harmony,  and  presents  a  period  of  re- 
markable exemption  from  the  sectional  bitter- 
ness whioh  had  so  much  afflicted  the  Union  for 


208 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


some  years  before — and  so  much  more  sorely 
since.  Faithful  to  the  sentiments  expressed  in 
his  inaugural  address,  he  held  a  firm  and  even 
course  between  sections  and  parties,  and  passed 
through  his  term  without  offence  to  the  North  or 
the  South  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  He  recon- 
ciled South  Carolina  to  the  Union — received  the 
support  of  her  delegation  in  Congress — saw  his 
administration  receive  the  approving  vote  of  her 
general  assembly — and  counted  her  vote  among 
those  which  he  received  for  the  presidency — the 
first  presidential  vote  which  she  had  given  in 
twelve  years.  No  President  ever  had  a  more 
difficult  time.  Two  general  suspensions  of  the 
banks — one  at  the  beginning,  and  the  other  to- 
wards the  close  of  his  administration — the  delin- 
quent institutions  in  both  instances  allying  them- 
selves with  a  great  political  party — were  power- 
ful enough  to  derange  and  distress  the  business 
of  the  country,  and  unscrupulous  enough  to 
charge  upon  his  administration  the  mischiefs 
which  themselves  created.  Meritorious  at  home, 
and  in  his  internal  policy,  his  administration  was 
equally  so  in  its  foreign  relations.  The  insurrec- 
tion in  Canada,  contemporaneous  with  his  acces- 
sion to  the  presidency,  made  a  crisis  between  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain,  in  which  he  dis- 
charged his  high  duties  with  equal  firmness, 
skill,  and  success.  The  border  line  of  the  United 
States,  for  a  thousand  miles,  was  in  commotion  to 
join  the  insurgent  Canadians.  The  laws  of  neu- 
trality, the  duties  of  good  neighborhood,  our  own 
peace  (liable  to  be  endangered  by  lawless  expe- 
ditions from  our  shores),  all  required  him  to  re- 
press this  commotion.  And  faithfully  he  did 
so,  using  all  the  means— judicial  and  military — 
which  the  laws  put  in  his  hands ;  and  successfully 
for  the  maintenance  of  neutrality,  but  with  some 


personal  detriment,  losing  much  popular  favor  in 
the  border  States  from  his  strenuous  repression 
of  aid  to  a  neighboring  people,  insurging  for 
liberty,  and  militarily  crushed  in  the  attempt. 
He  did  his  duty  towards  Great  Britain  by  pre- 
venting succor  from  going  to  her  revolted  sub- 
jects ;  and  when  the  scene  was  changed,  and  her 
authorities  did  an  injury  to  us  by  the  murder 
of  our  citizens,  and  the  destruction  of  a  vessel 
on  our  own  shore — the  case  of  the  Caroline  at 
Schlosser — he  did  his  duty  to  the  United  States 
by  demanding  redress  ;  and  when  one  of  the  al- 
leged perpetrators  was  caught  in  the  State  where 
the  outrage  had  been  committed,  he  did  his  duty 
to  that  State  by  asserting  her  right  to  punish 
the  infraction  of  her  own  laws.  And  although 
he  did  not  obtain  the  redress  for  the  outrage  at 
Schlosser,  yet  it  was  never  refused  to  him,  nor 
the  right  to  redress  denied,  nor  the  outrage  it- 
self assumed  by  the  British  government  as  long 
as  his  administration  lasted.  Respected  at 
home,  his  administration  was  equally  so  abroad. 
Cordially  supported  by  his  friends  in  Congress, 
he  was  equally  so  by  his  cabinet,  and  his  lead- 
ing newspaper,  the  Washington  Globe.  Messrs. 
Forsyth,  Secretary  of  State — Woodbury  of  the 
Treasury — Poinsett  of  War — Paulding  of  the 
Navy — Kendall  and  John  M.  Niles,  Postmas- 
ters-general— and  Butler3  Grundy  and  Gilpin, 
successive  Attorneys-general — were  all  har- 
monious and  efficient  co-operators.  With  every 
title  to  respect,  and  to  public  confidence,  he  was 
disappointed  of  a  second  election,  but  in  a  can- 
vass which  had  had  no  precedent,  and  has  had 
no  imitation;  and  in  which  an  increase  of 
364,000  votes  on  his  previous  election,  attests 
an  increase  of  strength  which  fair  means  could 
not  have  overcome. 


ANNO  1841.    WILLIAM  HENRY  HARRISON,  PRESIDENT. 


209 


ADMINISTRATION  OF  WILLIAM  HENRY  HARRISON. 


CHAPTER    LX. 

INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  HARRISON:  HIS 
CABINET— CALL  OF  CONGRESS— AND  DEATH. 

March  the  4th,  at  twelve  o'clock,  the  Senate 
met  in  its  chamber,  as  summoned  to  do  by  the 
retiring  President,  to  be  ready  for  the  inaugura- 
tion of  the  President  elect,  and  the  transaction 
of  such  executive  business  as  he  should  bring 
before  it.  The  body  was  quite  full,  and  was 
called  to  order  by  the  secretary,  Mr.  Asbury 
Dickens;  and  Mr.  King,  of  Alabama,  being 
elected  temporary  President  of  the  Senate,  ad- 
ministered the  oath  of  office  to  the  Vice-presi- 
dent elect.  John  Tyler,  Esq.,  who  immediately 
took  the  chair  as  President  of  the  Senate.  The 
scene  in  the  chamber  was  simple  and  impressive. 
The  senators  were  in  their  seats :  members  of 
the  House  in  chairs.  The  justices  of  the  Su- 
preme Court,  and  the  foreign  diplomatic  corps 
were  in  the  front  semicircle  of  chairs,  on  the 
floor  of  the  Senate.  Officers  of  the  army  and 
navy  were  present — many  citizens — and  some 
ladies.  Every  part  of  the  chamber  and  galleries 
were  crowded,  and  it  required  a  vigilant  police 
to  prevent  the  entrance  of  more  than  the  allot- 
ted number.  After  the  Vice-president  elect  had 
taken  his  seat,  and  delivered  to  the  Senate  over 
which  he  was  to  preside  a  well-conceived,  well- 
expressed,  and  well-delivered  address,  appropri- 
ately brief,  a  short  pause  and  silence  ensued. 
The  President  elect  entered,  and  was  conducted 
to  the  seat  prepared  for  him  in  front  of  the  sec- 
retary's table.  The  procession  was  formed  and 
proceeded  to  the  spacious  eastern  portico,  where 

Vol.  II.— 14 


seats  were  placed,  and  the  ceremony  of  the  in- 
auguration was  to  take  place.  An  immense 
crowd,  extending  far  and  wide,  stood  closely 
wedged  on  the  pavement  and  enclosed  grounds 
in  front  of  the  portico.  The  President  elect 
read  his  inaugural  address,  with  animation  and 
strong  voice,  and  was  well  heard  at  a  distance. 
As  an  inaugural  address,  it  was  confined  to  a 
declaration  of  general  principles  and  sentiments ; 
and  it  breathed  a  spirit  of  patriotism  which  ad- 
versaries, as  well  as  friends,  admitted  to  be 
sincere,  and  to  come  from  the  heart.  After  the 
conclusion  of  the  address,  the  chief  justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  Mr. 
Taney,  administered  the  oath  prescribed  by  the 
constitution  :  and  the  ceremony  of  inauguration 
was  at  an  end. 

The  Senate  returned  to  its  chamber,  and  hav- 
ing received  a  message  from  the  President  with 
the  nominations  for  his  cabinet,  immediately  pro- 
ceeded to  their  consideration ;  and  unanimously 
confirmed  the  whole.  They  were  :  Daniel  Web- 
ster, Secretary  of  State  ;  Thomas  E  wing,  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury ;  John  Bell,  Secretary  at 
War  ;  George  E.  Badger,  Secretary  of  the  Navy ; 
Francis  Granger,  Postmaster-general;  John  J. 
Crittenden,  Attorney-general. 

On  the  17th  of  March,  the  President  issued  a 
proclamation,  convoking  the  Congress  in  ex- 
traordinary session  for  the  31st  day  of  May  en- 
suing. The  proclamation  followed  the  usual 
form  in  not  specifying  the  immediate,  or  direct, 
cause  of  the  convocation.  It  merely  stated. 
"  That  sundry  and  weighty  matters,  principally 
growing  out  of  the  condition  of  the  revenue  and 
finances  of  the  country,  appear  to  call  for  the 


210 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


convocation  of  Congress  at  an  earlier  day  than 
its  next  annual  session,  and  thus  form  an  extra- 
ordinary occasion  which,  in  the  judgment  of  the 
President,  rendered  it  necessary  for  the  two 
Houses  to  convene  as  soon  as  practicable." 

President  Harrison  did  not  live  to  meet  the 
Congress  which  he  had  thus  convoked.  Short 
as  the  time  was  that  he  had  fixed  for  its  meet- 
ing, his  own  time  upon  earth  was  still  shorter. 
In  the  last  days  of  March  he  was  taken  ill :  on 
the  fourth  day  of  April  he  was  dead — at  the  age 
of  69 ;  being  one  year  under  the  limit  which 
the  psalmist  fixed  for  the  term  of  manly  life. 
There  was  no  failure  of  health  or  strength  to 
indicate  such  an  event,  or  to  excite  apprehension 
that  he  would  not  go  through  his  term  with  the 
vigor  with  which  he  commenced  it.  His  attack 
was  sudden,  and  evidently  fatal  from  the  begin- 
ning. A  public  funeral  was  given  him,  most 
numerously  attended,  and  the  body  deposited 
in  the  Congress  vault — to  wait  its  removal  to 
his  late  home  at  North  Bend,  Ohio ; — whither 
it  was  removed  in  the  summer.  He  was  a  man 
of  infinite  kindness  of  heart,  affectionate  to  the 
human  race, —  of  undoubted  patriotism,  irre- 
proachable integrity  both  in  public  and  private 
life ;  and  of  a  hospitality  of  disposition  which 
received  with  equal  welcome  in  his  house  the 
humblest  and  the  most  exalted  of  the  land. 

The  public  manifestations  of  respect  to  the 
memory  of  the  deceased  President,  were  appro- 
priate and  impressive,  and  co-extensive  with  the 
bounds  of  the  Union.  But  there  was  another 
kind  of  respect  which  his  memory  received, 
more  felt  than  expressed,  and  more  pervading 
than  public  ceremonies :  it  was  the  regret  of  the 
nation,  without  distinction  of  party :  for  it  was 
a  case  in  which  the  heart  could  have  fair  play, 
and  in  which  political  opponents  could  join  with 
their  adversaries  in  manifestations  of  respect 
and  sorrow.  Both  the  deceased  President,  and 
the  Vice-president,  were  of  the  same  party, 
elected  by  the  same  vote,  and  their  administra- 
tions expected  to  be  of  the  same  character.  It 
was  a  case  in  which  no  political  calculation  could 
interfere  with  private  feeling ;  and  the  national 
regret  was  sincere,  profound,  and  pervading. 
Gratifying  was  the  spectacle  to  see  a  national 
union  of  feeling  in  behalf  of  onj  who  had  been 
so  lately  the  object  of  so  much  political  division. 
It  was  a  proof  that  there  can  be  political  opposi- 
tion without  personal  animosity. 


General  Harrison  was  a  native  of  Virginia, 
son  of  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, and  a  descendant  of  the  "  regicide  "  Harri- 
son who  sat  on  the  trial  of  Charles  I. 

In  the  course  of  the  first  session  of  Congress 
after  the  death  of  General  Harrison — that  ses- 
sion which  convened  under  his  call — the  oppor- 
tunity presented  itself  to  the  author  of  this  View 
to  express  his  personal  sentiments  with  respect 
to  him.  President  Tyler,  in  his  message,  re- 
commended a  grant  of  money  to  the  family  of 
the  deceased  President  "  in  consideration  of  his 
expenses  in  removing  to  the  seat  of  government, 
and  the  limited  means  which  he  had  left  be- 
hind ; "  and  a  bill  had  been  brought  into  the 
Senate  accordingly,  taking  one  year's  presiden- 
tial salary  ($25,000)  as  the  amount  of  the  grant. 
Deeming  this  proceeding  entirely  out  of  the 
limits  of  the  constitution — against  the  policy  of 
the  government — and  the  commencement  of  the 
monarchical  system  of  providing  for  families,  Mr. 
Benton  thus  expressed  himself  at  the  conclusion 
of  an  argument  against  the  grant : 

"  Personally  I  was  friendly  to  General  Harri- 
son, and  that  at  a  time  when  his  friends  were 
not  so  numerous  as  in  his  last  days ;  and  if  I 
had  needed  any  fresh  evidences  of  the  kindness 
of  his  heart,  I  had  them  in  his  twice  mentioning 
to  me,  during  the  short  period  of  his  presidency, 
that,  which  surely  I  should  never  have  men- 
tioned to  him — the  circumstance  of  my  friend- 
ship to  him  when  his  friends  were  fewer.  I 
would  gladly  now  do  what  would  be  kind  and 
respectful  to  his  memory — what  would  be  libe- 
ral and  beneficial  to  his  most  respectable  widow ; 
but,  to  vote  for  this  bill!  that  I  cannot  do. 
High  considerations  of  constitutional  law  and 
public  policy  forbid  me  to  do  so,  and  command 
me  to  make  this  resistance  to  it,  that  a  mark 
may  be  made — a  stone  set  up — at  the  place 
where  this  new  violence  was  done  to  the  consti- 
tution— this  new  page  opened  in  the  book  of  our 
public  expenditures;  and  this  new  departure 
taken,  which  leads  into  the  bottomless  gulf  of 
civil  pensions  and  family  gratuities." 

The  deceased  President  had  been  closely  pre- 
ceded, and  was  rapidly  followed,  by  the  deaths 
of  almost  all  his  numerous  family  of  sons  and 
daughters.  A  worthy  son  survives  (John  Scott 
Harrison,  Esq.),  a  most  respectable  member  of 
Congress  from  the  State  of  Ohio. 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


211 


ADMINISTRATION  OF  JOHN  TYLER. 


CHAPTER    LXI. 

ACCESSION    OF    THE   VICE-PEESIDENT   TO    THE 
PRESIDENCY. 

The  Vice-president  was  not  in  Washington 
when  the  President  died :  he  was  at  his  resi- 
dence in  lower  Virginia :  some  days  would  ne- 
cessarily elapse  before  he  could  arrive.  Presi- 
dent Harrison  had  not  been  impressed  with  the 
probable  fatal  termination  of  his  disease,  and 
the  consequent  propriety  of  directing  the  Vice- 
president  to  be  sent  for.  His  cabinet  could  not 
feel  themselves  justified  in  taking  such  a  step 
while  the  President  lived.  Mr.  Tyler  would 
feel  it  indelicate  to  repair  to  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment, of  his  own  will,  on  hearing  the  report  of 
the  President's  illness.  The  attending  physi- 
cians, from  the  most  proper  considerations,  held 
out  hopes  of  recovery  to  near  the  last ;  but,  for 
four  days  before  the  event,  there  was  a  pervad- 
ing feeling  in  the  city  that  the  President  would 
not  survive  his  attack.  His  death  left  the  ex- 
ecutive government  for  some  days  in  a  state  of 
interregnum.  There  was  no  authority,  or  per- 
son present,  legally  empowered  to  take  any 
step  ;  and  so  vital  an  event  as  a  change  in  the 
chief  magistrate,  required  the  fact  to  be  formally 
and  publicly  verified.  In  the  absence  of  Con- 
gress, and  the  Vice-president,  the  members  of 
the  late  cabinet  very  properly  united  in  announ- 
cing the  event  to  the  country,  and  in  despatch- 
ing a  messenger  of  state  to  Mr.  Tyler,  to  give 
him  the  authentic  information  which  would 
show  the  necessity  of  his  presence  at  the  seat 


of  government.  He  repaired  to  it  immediately, 
took  the  oath  of  office,  before  the  Chief  Judge 
of  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
William  Cranch,  Esquire ;  and  appointed  the 
late  cabinet  for  his  own.  Each  was  retained  in 
the  place  held  under  his  predecessor,  and  with 
the  strongest  expressions  of  regard  and  confi- 
dence. 

Four  days  after  his  accession  to  the  presi- 
dency, Mr.  Tyler  issued  an  address,  in  the  na- 
ture of  an  inaugural,  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  the  first  paragraph  of  which  was  very 
appropriately  devoted  to  his  predecessor,  and 
to  the  circumstances  of  his  own  elevation  to  the 
presidential  chair.  That  paragraph  was  in  these 
words : 

"  Before  my  arrival  at  the  seat  of  government, 
the  painful  communication  was  made  to  you,  by 
the  officers  presiding  over  the  several  depart- 
ments, of  the  deeply  regretted  death  of  William 
Henry  Harrison,  late  President  of  the  United 
States.  Upon  him  you  had  conferred  your  suf- 
frages for  the  first  office  in  your  gift,  and  had 
selected  him  as  your  chosen  instrument  to  cor- 
rect and  reform  all  such  errors  and  abuses  as 
had  manifested  themselves  from  time  to  time, 
in  the  practical  operations  of  the  government. 
While  standing  at  the  threshold  of  this  great 
work;  he  has,  by  the  dispensation  of  an  all-wise 
Providence,  been  removed  from  amongst  us,  and 
by  the  provisions  of  the  constitution,  the  efforts 
to  be  directed  to  the  accomplishing  of  this  vi- 
tally important  task  have  devolved  upon  myself. 
This  same  occurrence  has  subjected  the  wisdom 
and  sufficiency  of  our  institutions  to  a  new  test. 
For  the  first  time  in  our  history,  the  person 
elected  to  the  Vice-presidency  of  the  United 
States,  by  the  happening  of  a  contingency  pro- 
vided for  in  the  constitution,  has  had  devolved 


212 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


upon  him  the  presidential  office.  The  spirit  of 
faction,  which  is  directly  opposed  to  the  spirit 
of  a  lofty  patriotism,  may  find  in  this  occasion 
for  assaults  upon  my  administration.  And  in 
succeeding,  under  circumstances  so  sudden  and 
unexpected,  and  to  responsibilities  so  greatly 
augmented,  to  the  administration  of  public 
affairs,  I  shall  place  in  the  intelligence  and  pa- 
triotism of  the  people,  my  only  sure  reliance. — 
My  earnest  prayer  shall  be  constantly  addressed 
to  the  all-wise  and  all-powerful  Being  who  made 
me,  and  by  whose  dispensation  I  am  called  to 
the  high  office  of  President  of  this  confederacy, 
understandingly  to  carry  out  the  principles  of 
that  constitution  which  I  have  sworn  "to  pro- 
tect, preserve,  and  defend." 

Two  blemishes  were  seen  in  this  paragraph, 
the  first  being  in  that  sentence  which  spoke  of 
the  "errors  and  abuses"  of  the  government 
which  his  predecessor  had  been  elected  to  "  cor- 
rect and  reform ; "  and  the  correction  and  refor- 
mation of  which  now  devolved  upon  himself. 
These  imputed  errors  and  abuses  could  only 
apply  to  the  administrations  of  General  Jackson 
and  Mr.  Van  Buren,  of  both  which  Mr.  Tyler 
had  been  a  zealous  opponent;  and  therefore 
might  not  be  admitted  to  be  an  impartial  judge. 
Leaving  that  out  of  view,  the  bad  taste  of  such 
a  reference  was  palpable  and  repulsive.  The 
second  blemish  was  in  that  sentence  in  which 
he  contrasted  the  spirit  of  "  faction  "  with  the 
spirit  of  "  lofty  patriotism,"  and  seemed  to  refer 
in  advance  all  the  "  assaults  "  which  should  be 
made  upon  his  administration,  to  this  factious 
spirit,  warring  upon  elevated  patriotism.  Little 
did  he  think  when  he  wrote  that  sentence,  that 
within  three  short  months — within  less  time 
than  a  commercial  bill  of  exchange  usually  has 
to  run,  the  great  party  which  had  elected  him, 
and  the  cabinet  officers  which  he  had  just  ap- 
pointed with  such  warm  expressions  of  respect 
and  confidence,  should  be  united  in  that  assault ! 
should  all  be  in  the  lead  and  van  of  a  public 
outcry  against  him  !  The  third  paragraph  was 
also  felt  to  be  a  fling  at  General  Jackson  and 
Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  therefore  unfit  for  a  place 
in  a  President's  message,  and  especially  in  an 
inaugural  address.  It  was  the  very  periphrasis 
of  the  current  party  slang  against  General  Jack- 
son, plainly  visible  through  the  transparent  hy- 
pothetical guise  which  it  put  on;  and  was  in 
these  words : 

"  In  view  of  the  fact,  well  avouched  by  history, 
that  the  tendency  of  all  human  institutions  is  to 


concentrate  power  in  the  hands  of  a  single  man, 
and  that  their  ultimate  downfall  has  proceeded 
from  this  cause,  I  deem  it  of  the  most  essential 
importance  that  a  complete  separation  should 
take  place  between  the  sword  and  the  purse. 
No  matter  where  or  how  the  public  moneys 
shall  be  deposited,  so  long  as  the  President  can 
exert  the  power  of  appointing  and  removing,  at 
his  pleasure,  the  agents  selected  for  their  cus- 
tody, the  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and 
navy  is  in  fact  the  treasurer.  A  permanent  and 
radical  change  should  therefore  be  decreed. 
The  patronage  incident  to  the  presidential  office, 
already  great,  is  constantly  increasing.  Such  in- 
crease is  destined  to  keep  pace  with  the  growth 
of  our  population,  until,  without  a  figure  of 
speech,  an  army  of  officeholders  may  be  spread 
over  the  land.  The  unrestrained  power  exerted 
by  a  selfishly  ambitious  man,  in  order  either  to 
perpetuate  his  authority  or  to  hand  it  over  to 
some  favorite  as  his  successor,  may  lead  to  the 
employment  of  all  the  means  within  his  control 
to  accomplish  his  object.  The  right  to  remove 
from  office,  while  subjected  to  no  just  restraint, 
is  inevitably  destined  to  produce  a  spirit  of 
crouching  servility  with  the  official  corps,  which 
in  order  to  uphold  the  hand  which  feeds  them, 
would  lead  to  direct  and  active  interference  in 
the  elections,  both  State  and  federal,  thereby 
subjecting  the  course  of  State  legislation  to  the 
dictation  of  the  chief  executive  officer,  and  mak- 
ing the  will  of  that  officer  absolute  and  su- 
preme." 

This  phrase  of  "purse  and  sword,"  once  so 
appropriately  used  by  Patrick  Henry,  in  de- 
scribing.the  powers  of  the  federal  government, 
and  since  so  often  applied  to  General  Jackson, 
for  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  could  have  no 
other  aim  than  a  fling  at  him ;  and  the  abuse  of 
patronage  in  removals  and  appointments  to  per- 
petuate power,  or  hand  it  over  to  a  favorite,  was 
the  mere  repetition  of  the  slang  of  the  presiden- 
tial canvass,  in  relation  to  General  Jackson  and 
Mr.  Van  Buren. 

Departing  from  the  usual  reserve  and  gener- 
alization of  an  inaugural,  this  address  went  into 
a  detail  which  indicated  the  establishment  of  a 
national  bank,  or  the  re-charter  of  the  defunct 
one,  masked  and  vitalized  under  a  Pennsylvania 
State  charter.    That  paragraph  ran  thus : 

"The  public  interest  also  demands  that,  if 
any  war  has  existed  between  the  government 
and  the  currency,  it  shall  cease.  Measures  of  a 
financial  character,  now  having  the  sanction  of 
legal  enactment,  shall  be  faithfully  enforced 
until  repealed  by  the  legislative  authority.  But 
I  owe  it  to  myself  to  declare  that  I  regard  exist- 
ing enactments  as  unwise  and  impolitic,  and  in  j 
a  high  degree  oppressive.     I  shall  promptly   i 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


213 


give  my  sanction  to  any  constitutional  measure 
which,  originating  in  Congress,  shall  have  for 
its  object  the  restoration  of  a  sound  circulating 
medium,  so  essentially  necessary  to  give  confi- 
dence in  all  the  transactions  of  life,  to  secure  to 
industry  its  just  and  adequate  rewards,  and  to 
re-establish  the  public  prosperity.  In  deciding 
upon  the  adaptation  of  any  such  measure  to  the 
end  proposed,  as  well  as  its  conformity  to  the 
constitution,  I  shall  resort  to  the  fathers  of  the 
great  republican  school  for  advice  and  instruc- 
tion, to  be  drawn  from  their  sage  views  of  our 
system  of  government,  and  the  light  of  their 
ever  glorious  example." 

The  concluding  part  of  this  paragraph,  in 
which  the  new  President  declares  that,  in  look- 
ing to  the  constitutionality  and  expediency  of  a 
national  bank,  he  should  look  for  advice  and 
instruction  to  the  example  of  the  fathers  of  the 
Republic,  he  was  understood  as  declaring  that 
he  would  not  be  governed  by  his  own  former 
opinions  against  a  national  bank,  but  by  the 
example  of  Washington,  a  signer  of  the  consti- 
tution (who  signed  the  charter  of  the  first  na- 
tional bank)  ;  and  by  the  example  of  Mr.  Madi- 
son, another  signer  of  the  constitution,  who, 
yielding  to  precedent  and  the  authority  of  ju- 
dicial decisions,  had  signed  the  charter  for  the 
second  bank,  notwithstanding  his  early  consti- 
tutional objections  to  it.  In  other  parts  of  the 
paragraph  he  was  considered  as  declaring  in 
favor  of  the  late  United  States  Bank,  as  in  the 
previous  part  of  the  paragraph  where  he  used 
the  phrases  which  had  become  catch-words  in 
the  long  contest  with  that  bank — "war  upon 
the  currency  " — "  sound  circulating  medium  " — 
"  restoration  of  national  prosperity  j "  &c,  &c. 
He  was  understood  to  express  a  preference  for 
the  re-charter  of  that  institution.  And  this 
impression  was  well  confirmed  by  other  circum- 
stances— his  zealous  report  in  favor  of  that 
bank  when  acting  as  volunteer  chairman  to  the 
Senate's  committee  which  was  sent  to  examine 
it — his  standing  a  canvass  in  a  presidential  elec- 
tion in  which  the  re-charter  of  that  bank,  though 
concertedly  blinked  in  some  parts  of  the  Union, 
was  the  understood  vital  issue  every  where — 
his  publicly  avowed  preference  for  its  notes  over 
gold,  at  Wheeling,  Virginia — the  retention  of  a 
cabinet,  pledged  to  that  bank,  with  expressions 
of  confidence  in  them,  and  in  terms  that  prom- 
ised a  four  years'  service  together — and  his 
utter  condemnation  in  other  parts  of  his  inau- 
gural, and  in  all  his  public  speeches,  of  every 


other  plan  (sub-treasury,  state  banks,  revival 
of  the  gold  currency),  which  had  been  presented 
as  remedies  for  the  financial  and  currency  dis- 
orders. All  these  circumstances  and  declara- 
tions left  no  doubt  that  he  was  not  only  in 
favor  of  a  national  bank,  but  of  re-chartering 
the  late  one  ;  and  that  he  looked  to  it,  and  to 
it  alone,  for  the  "sound  circulating  medium" 
which  he  preferred  to  the  constitutional  cur- 
rency— for  the  keeping  of  those  deposits  which 
he  had  condemned  Jackson  for  removing  from 
it — and  for  the  restoration  of  that  national  pros- 
perity, which  the  imputed  war  upon  the  bank 
had  destroyed. 


CHAPTER    LXII. 

TWENTY-SEVENTH  CONGKESS :  FIRST  SESSION: 
LIST  OF  MEMBERS,  AND  ORGANIZATION  OF 
THE    HOUSE. 

Members  of  the  Senate. 

Maine. — Reuel  Williams,  George  Evans. 

New  Hampshire. — Franklin  Pierce,  Levi 
Woodbury. 

Vermont. — Samuel  Prentis,  Samuel  Phelps. 

Massachusetts. — Rufus  Choate,  Isaac  C. 
Bates. 

Rhode  Island. — Nathan  F.  Dixon,  James  F. 
Simmons. 

Connecticut. — Perry  Smith,  Jaz.  W.  Hunt- 
ington. 

New  York. — Silas  Wright,  N.  P.  Tallmadge. 

New  Jersey. — Sam.  L.  Southard,  Jacob  W. 
Miller. 

Pennsylvania. — James  Buchanan,  D.  W. 
Sturgeon. 

Delaware. — Richard  H.  Bayard,  Thomas 
Clayton. 

Maryland. — John  Leeds  Kerr,  Wm.  D.  Mer- 
rick. 

Virginia. — Wm.  C.  Rives,  Wm.  S.  Archer. 

North  Carolina. — Wm.  A.  Graham,  Wil- 
lie P.  Mangum. 

South  Carolina. — Wm.  C.  Preston,  John 
C.  Calhoun. 

Georgia. — Alfred  Cuthbert,  John  M.  Ber- 
rien. 

Alabama. — Clement  C.  Clay,  William  R. 
King. 

Mississippi. — John  Henderson,  Robert  J. 
Walker.  \ 

Louisiana. — Alexander  Mouton,  Alexander 
Barrow. 

Tennessee. — A.  O.  P.  Nicholson,  Spencer 
Jarnagin,  executive  appointment.  Ephraim  H. 
Foster. 

Kentucky. — Henry  Clay,  J.  J.  Morehead. 


214 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Ohio. — "William  Allen,  Benjamin  Tappan. 

Indiana. — Oliver  H.  Smith,  Albert  S.  White. 

Illinois. — Richard  M.  Young,  Sam'l  McRob- 
erts. 

Missouri. — Lewis  F.  Linn,  Thomas  II.  Ben- 
ton. 

Arkansas. — Ambrose  H.  Sevier,  William  S. 
Fulton. 

Michigan. — Augustus  S.  Porter,  William 
Woodbridge. 


Members  of  the  House. 

Maine. — Nathaniel  Clifford,  Wm.  P.  Fessen- 
den,  Benj.  Randall,  David  Bronson,  Nathaniel 
Littlefield,  Alfred  Marshall,  Joshua  A.  Lowell, 
Elisha  H.  Allen. 

New  Hampshire. — Tristram  Shaw,  Ira  A. 
Eastman,  Charles  G.  Atherton,  Edmund  Burke, 
John  R.  Reding. 

Vermont. — Hiland  Hall,  William  Slade, 
Horace  Everett,  Augustus  Young,  John  Mat- 
tocks. 

Massachusetts. — Robert  C.  Winthrop,  Lev- 
erett  Saltonstall,  Caleb  Cushmg,  Wm.  Parmen- 
ter,  Charles  Hudson,  Osmyn  Baker,  Geo.  N. 
Briggs,  William  B.  Calhoun,  Wm.  S.  Hastings, 
Nathaniel  B.  Borden,  Barker  Burnell,  John 
Quincy  Adams. 

Rhode  Island. — Joseph  L.  Tillinghast,  Wil- 
liam B.  Cranston. 

Connecticut. — Joseph  Trumbull,  Wm.  W. 
Boardman,  Thomas  W.  Williams,  Thos.  B.  Os- 
borne, Truman  Smith,  John  H.  Brockway. 

New  York.— Chas.  A.  Floyd,  Joseph  Egbert, 
John  McKeon,  James  J.  Roosevelt,  Fernando 
Wood,  Chas.  G.  Ferris,  Aaron  Ward,  Richard 
D.  Davis,  James  G.  Clinton,  John  Van  Buren, 
R.  McClellan,  Jacob  Hauck,  jr.,  Hiram  P.  Hunt, 
Daniel  D.  Barnard,  Archibald  L.  Lin,  Bernard 
Blair,  Thos.  A.  Tomlinson,  H.  Van  Rensselaer, 
John  Sanford,  Andrew  W.  Doig,  John  G.  Floyd, 
David  P.  Brewster,  T.  C.  Chittenden,  Sam.  S. 
Bowne,  Samuel  Gordon,  John  C.  Clark,  Lewis 
Riggs,  Sam.  Partridge,  Victory  Birdseye,  A.  L. 
Foster,  Christopher  Morgan,  John  Maynard, 
John  Greig,  Wm.  M.  Oliver,  Timothy  Childs, 
Seth  M.  Gates,  John  Young,  Stanley  N.  Clark, 
Millard  Fillmore, Babcock. 

New  Jersey. — John  B.  Aycrigg,  John  P. 
B.  Maxwell,  William  Halsted,  Joseph  F.  Ran- 
dolph, Joseph  F.  Stratton,  Thos.  Jones  Yorke. 

Pennsylvania. — Charles  Brown,  John  Ser- 
geant, George  W.  Tolland,  Charles  Ingersoll, 
John  Edwards,  Jeremiah  Brown,  Francis 
James,  Joseph  Fornance,  Robert  Ramsay, 
John  Westbrook,  Peter  Newhard,  George  M. 
Keim,  Wm.  Simonton,  James  Gerry,  James 
Cooper,  Amos  Gustine,  James  Irvine,  Benj. 
Bidlack,  John  Snyder,  Davis  Dimock,  Albert 
G.  Marchand,  Joseph  Lawrence,  Wm.  W.  Ir- 
win, William  Jack,  Thomas  Henry,  Arnold 
Plumer. 

Delaware. — George  B.  Rodney. 


Maryland. — Isaac  D.  Jones,  Jas.  A.  Pearce, 
James  W.  Williams,  J,  P.  Kennedy,  Alexan- 
der Randall,  Wm.  Cost  Johnson,  John  T.  Ma- 
son, Augustus  R.  Sollers. 

Virginia.— Henry  A.  Wise,  Francis  Mallory, 
George  B.  Cary,  John  M.  Botts,  R.  M.  T.  Hun- 
ter, John  Taliaferro,  Cuthbert  Powell,  Linn 
Banks,  Wm.  O.  Goode,  John  W.  Jones,  E.  W. 
Hubbard,  Walter  Coles,  Thomas  W.  Gilmer, 
Wm.  L.  Goggin,  R.  B.  Barton,  Wm.  A.  Harris, 
A.  H.  H.  Stuart,  Geo.  W.  Hopkins,  Geo.  W. 
Summers,  S.  L.  Hays,  Lewis  Steinrod. 

North  Carolina. — Kenneth  Rayner,  John 
R.  J.  Daniel,  Edward  Stanly,  Wm.  H.  Wash- 
ington, James  J.  McKay,  Archibald  Arrington, 
Edmund  Deberry,  R.  M.  Saunders,  Aug'e  H. 
Shepherd,  Abraham  Rencher,  Green  C.  Cald- 
well, James  Graham,  Lewis  Williams. 

South  Carolina. — Isaac  E.  Holmes,  Wil- 
liam Butler,  F.  W.  Pickens,  John  Campbell, 
James  Rogers,  S.  H.  Butler,  Thomas  D.  Sum- 
ter, R.  Barnwell  Rhett,  C.  P.  Caldwell. 

Georgia. — Rich'd  W.  Habersham,  Wm.  C. 
Dawson,  Julius  C.  Alvord,  Eugenius  A.  Nisbet, 
Lott  Warren,  Thomas  Butler  King,  Roger  L. 
Gamble,  Jas.  A.  Merriwether,  Thos.  F.  Foster. 

Alabama. — Reuben  Chapman,  Geo.  S.  Hous- 
ton, Dixon  H.  Lewis,  Benj.  G.  Shields. 

Mississippi. — A.  L.  Bingaman,  W.  R.  Harley. 

Louisiana. — Edward  D.  White,  J.  B.  Daw- 
son, John  Moore. 

Arkansas. — Edward  Cross. 

Tennessee. — Thomas  D.  Arnold,  Abraham 
McClellan,  Joseph  L.  Williams,  Thomas  J. 
Campbell,  Hopkins  L.  Turney,  Wm.  B.  Camp- 
bell, Robert  L.  Caruthers,  Meredith  P.  Gentry, 
Harvey  M.  Watterson,  Aaron  V.  Brown,  Cave 
Johnson,  Milton  Brown,  Christopher  H.  Wil- 
liams. 

Kentucky. — Linn  Boyd,  Philip  Triplet,  Jo- 
seph R.  Underwood,  Bryan  W.  Owsley,  John  B. 
Thompson,  Willis  Green,  John  Pope,  James  C. 
Sprigg,  John  White,  Thomas  F.  Marshall,  Lan- 
doff  W.  Andrews,  Garret  Davis,  William  0. 
Butler. 

Ohio.— N.  G.  Pendleton,  John  B.  Weller, 
Patrick  G.  Goode,  Jeremiah  Morrow,  William 
Doane,  Calvary  Morris,  Wm.  Russell,  Joseph 
Ridgeway,  Wm.  Medill,  Samson  Mason,  B.  S. 
Cowan,  Joshua  Matheot,  James  Matthews, 
Geo.  Sweeney,  S.  J.  Andrews,  Joshua  R.  Gid- 
dings,  John  Hastings,  Ezra  Dean,  Sam.  Stock- 
ley. 

Indiana.— George  W.  Promt,  Richard  W. 
Thompson,  Joseph  L.  White,  James  H.  Cra- 
vens, Andrew  Kennedy,  David  Wallace,  Henry 
S.  Lane. 

Missouri. — John  Miller,  John  C.  Edwards. 

Michigan. — Jacob  M.  Howard. 

Mr.  John  White  of  Kentucky  (whig),  was 
elected  Speaker  of  the  House  over  Mr.  John  W. 
Jones  of  Virginia,  democratic.  Mr.  Matthew 
St.  Clair  Clarke  of  Pennsylvania  (whig),  was 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


215 


elected  clerk  over  Mr.  Hugh  A.  Garland  of  Vir- 
ginia, democratic.  The  whigs  had  a  majority 
of  near  fifty  in  the  House,  and  of  seven  in  the 
Senate ;  so  that  all  the  legislative,  and  the  ex- 
ecutive department  of  the  government — the  two 
Houses  of  Congress  and  the  President  and  cab- 
inet— were  of  the  same  political  party,  present- 
ing a  harmony  of  aspect  frequently  wanting 
during  the  three  previous  administrations. 
Notwithstanding  their  large  majority,  the  whig 
party  proceeded  slowly  in  the  organization  of 
the  House  in  the  adoption  of  rules  for  its  pro- 
ceeding. A  fortnight  had  been  consumed  in 
vain  when  Mr.  Cushing,  urgently,  and  success- 
fully exhorted  his  whig  friends  to  action  : 

"  I  say  (continued  Mr.  Cushing)  that  it  is  our 
fault  if  this  House  be  disorganized.  We  are  in 
the  majority — we  have  a  majority  of  forty — and 
we  are  responsible  to  our  country,  to  the  con- 
stitution, and  to  our  God,  for  the  discharge  of 
our  duty  here.  It  is  our  duty  to  proceed  to 
the  organization  of  the  House,  to  the  transac- 
tion of  the  business  for  which  the  country  sent 
us  here.  And  I  appeal  to  the  whig  party  on 
this  floor  that  they  do  their  duty — that  they 
act  manfully  and  expeditiously,  and  that,  how- 
soever the  House  may  organize,  under  what- 
ever rules,  or  under  no  rules  at  all ;  for  I  am 
prepared,  if  this  resolution  be  not  adopted,  to 
call  upon  the  Speaker  for  the  second  reading  of 
a  bill  from  the  Senate,  now  upon  the  table,  and 
to  move  that  we  proceed  with  it  under  the  par- 
liamentary law.  We  can  go  on  under  that. 
We  are  a  House,  with  a  speaker,  clerk,  and 
officers ;  and  whether  we  have  rules  or  not  is 
immaterial.  We  can  proceed  as  the  Commons 
in  England  do.  We  can  act  upon  bills  by  re- 
ferring them  to  a  Committee  of  the  Whole  on 
the  state  of  the  Union,  or  to  select  committees, 
if  there  are  no  standing  committees.  And  I 
am  prepared,  if  the  House  cannot  be  organized 
under  the  proposition  now  before  us,  for  the 
purpose  of  testing  the  question  and  enabling 
the  country  to  see  whose  fault  it  is  that  we  do 
not  go  on  with  its  business,  to  call  at  once  for 
the  action  of  the  House  upon  that  bill  under  the 
parliamentary  law.  Once  more  I  appeal  to  the 
whig  party,  for  party  lines,  I  see,  are  now  about 
to  be  drawn  ;  I  appeal  to  the  whig  party,  to  the 
friends  of  the  administration — and  I  recognize 
but  one,  and  that  is  the  administration  of  John 
Tyler — that  is  the  administration,  and  I  recog- 
nize no  other  in  the  United  States  at  this  time ; 
I  appeal  to  the  administration  party,  to  the 
friends  of  the  administration  of  John  Tyler, 
that  at  this  hour  they  come  to  the  rescue  of 
their  country,  and  organize  the  House,  under 
whatever  rules :  because,  if  we  do  not,  we  shall 
become,  as  we  are  now  becoming,  the  laughing- 
stock, the  scorn,  the  contempt  of  the  people  of 
these  United  States." 


The  bill  from  the  Senate,  for  action  on  which 
Mr.  Cushing  was  so  impatient,  and  so  ready  to 
act  without  rules,  was  the  one  for  the  repeal 
of  the  sub-treasury ;  whilom  characterized  by 
him  as  a  serpent  hatched  of  a  fowl's  egg,  (cock- 
atrice) ;  which  the  people  would  trample  into 
the  dust.  Under  his  urgent  exhortation  the 
House  soon  organized,  and  made  the  repeal. 
Passed  so  promptly,  this  repealing  bill,  with 
equal  celerity,  was  approved  and  signed  by  the 
President — leaving  him  in  the  first  quarter  of 
his  administration  in  full  possession  of  that  for- 
midable sword  and  long  purse,  the  imputed 
union  of  which  in  the  hands  of  General  Jack- 
son had  been  his  incontinent  deprecation,  even 
in  his  inaugural  address.  For  this  repeal  of 
the  sub-treasury  provided  no  substitute  for 
keeping  the  public  moneys,  and  left  them  with- 
out law  in  the  President's  hands. 


CHAPTEE    LXIII. 

FIRST  MESSAGE  OF    MR.    TYLER    TO    CONGRESS, 
AND  MR.  CLAY'S  PROGRAMME  OF  BUSINESS. 

The  first  paragraph  in  the  message  related  to 
the  death  of  President  Harrison,  and  after  a 
proper  expression  of  respect  and  regret,  it  went 
on  to  recommend  a  grant  of  money  to  his  family, 
grounded  on  the  consideration  of  his  expenses 
in  removing  to  the  seat  of  government,  and  the 
limited  means  of  his  private  fortune  : 

"  With  this  public  bereavement  are  connected 
other  considerations  which  will  not  escape  the 
attention  of  Congress.  The  preparations  neces- 
sary for  his  removal  to  the  seat  of  government, 
in  view  of  a  residence  of  four  years,  must  have 
devolved  upon  the  late  President  heavy  expen- 
ditures, which,  if  permitted  to  burden  the 
limited  resources  of  his  private  fortune,  may 
tend  to  the  serious  embarrassment  of  his  sur- 
viving family ;  and  it  is  therefore  respectfully 
submitted  to  Congress,  whether  the  ordinary 
principles  of  justice  would  not  dictate  the  pro- 
priety of  its  legislative  interposition." 

This  recommendation  was  considered  by  many 
as  being  without  the  pale  of  the  constitution, 
and  of  dangerous  precedent.  With  respect  to 
the  limited  means  of  which  he  spoke,  the  fact 
was  alike  true  and  honorable  to  the  late  Presi- 
dent.   In  public  employment  from  early  life. 


216 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


and  during  the  greatest  part  of  his  life,  no  pecu- 
niary benefit  had  resulted  to  him.  In  situations 
to  afford  opportunities  for  emolument,  he  availed 
himself  of  none.  With  immense  amounts  of 
public  money  passing  through  his  hands,  it  all 
went,  not  only  faithfully  to  its  objects,  but 
without  leaving  any  profit  behind  from  its  use. 
He  lived  upon  his  salaries,  liberally  dispensing 
hospitality  and  charities,  and  with  simplicity 
and  economy  in  all  his  habits.  He  used  all  that 
he  received,  and  came  out  of  office  as  he  entered 
it,  and  died  poor.  This,  among  the  ancient  Ro- 
mans was  a  commendable  issue  of  a  public  ca- 
reer, to  be  mentioned  with  honor  at  the  funeral 
of  an  illustrious  man :  and  should  be  so  held 
by  all  republican  people. 

The  message  showed  that  President  Tyler 
would  not  have  convoked  the  Congress  in  extra 
session  had  it  not  been  done  by  his  predecessor ; 
but  being  convoked  he  would  not  disturb  the 
arrangement ;  and  was  most  happy  to  find  him- 
self so  soon  surrounded  by  the  national  repre- 
sentation : 

"  In  entering  upon  the  duties  of  this  office,  I 
did  not  feel  that  it  would  be  becoming  in  me  to 
disturb  what  had  been  ordered  by  my  lamented 
predecessor.  Whatever,  therefore,  may  have 
been  my  opinion  originally  as  to  the  propriety 
of  convening  Congress  at  so  early  a  day  from 
that  of  its  late  adjournment,  I  found  a  new  and 
controlling  inducement  not  to  interfere  with  the 
patriotic  desires  of  the  late  President,  in  the 
novelty  of  the  situation  in  which  I  was  so  unex- 
pectedly placed.  My  first  wish,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, would  necessarily  have  been  to  have 
called  to  my  aid  in  the  administration  of  public 
affairs,  the  combined  wisdom  of  the  two  Houses 
of  Congress,  in  order  to  take  their  counsel  and 
advice  as  to  the  best  mode  of  extricating  the 
government  and  the  country  from  the  embar- 
rassments weighing  heavily  on  both.  I  am  then 
most  happy  in  finding  myself  so  soon,  after  my 
accession  to  the  presidency,  surrounded  by  the 
immediate  representatives  of  the  States  and 
people." 

The  state  of  our  foreign  relations  claimed  but 
a  brief  paragraph.  The  message  stated  that  no 
important  change  had  taken  place  in  them  since 
the  last  session  of  Congress,  and  that  the  Presi- 
dent saw  nothing  to  make  him  doubt  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  peace  with  which  the  country 
was  blessed.    He  passed  to  home  affairs  : 

"  In  order  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  govern- 
ment, an  intelligent  constituency,  in  view  of 
their  best  interests,  will  without  hesitation,  sub- 


mit to  all  necessary  burdens.  But  it  is,  never- 
theless, important  so  to  impose  them  as  to  avoid 
defeating  the  just  expectations  of  the  country 
growing  out  of  pre-existing  laws.  The  act  of 
the  2d  March,  1833,  commonly  called  the  com- 
promise act,  should  not  be  altered,  except  under 
urgent  necessities,  which  are  not  believed  at 
this  time  to  exist.  One  year  only  remains  to 
complete  the  series  of  reductions  provided  for 
by  that  law,  at  which  time  provisions  made  by 
the  same,  and  which  law  then  will  be  brought 
actively  in  aid  of  the  manufacturing  interest  of 
the  Union,  will  not  fail  to  produce  the  most 
beneficial  results." 

This  compromise  act  of  1833,  was  drawing 
towards  the  close  of  its  career,  and  was  proving 
itself  to  have  been  a  complete  illusion  in  all  the 
good  it  had  promised,  and  a  sad  reality  in  all 
the  ill  that  had  been  predicted  of  it.  It  had 
been  framed  on  the  principle  of  helping  manu- 
factures for  nine  years,  and  then  to  be  a  free 
trade  measure  for  ever  after.  The  first  part 
succeeded,  and  so  well,  in  keeping  up  high  duties 
as  to  raise  far  more  revenue  than  the  govern- 
ment needed :  the  second  part  left  the  govern- 
ment without  revenue  for  its  current  uses,  and 
under  the  necessity  of  giving  up  that  uniform 
twenty  per  centum  duty  on  the  value  of  imports, 
which  was  to  have  been  the  permanent  law  of 
our  tariff  j  and  which  never  became  law  at  all. 
In  the  meanwhile,  the  compromise  having  pro- 
vided for  periodical  reductions  in  the  duties  on 
imported  sugars  and  molasses,  made  no  provi- 
sion for  proportionate  reductions  of  the  draw- 
back upon  these  articles  when  exported  in  the 
changed  shape  of  rum  and  refined  sugars :  and 
enormous  sums  were  drawn  from  the  treasury 
by  this  omission  in  the  compromise  act — the 
great  refiners  and  rum  distillers  driving  an  im- 
mense capital  into  their  business  for  the  mere 
purpose  of  getting  the  gratuitous  drawbacks. 
The  author  of  this  View  endeavored  to  supply 
the  omission  at  the  time,  and  repeatedly  after- 
wards ;  but  these  efforts  were  resisted  by  the 
advocates  of  the  compromise  until  these  gratui- 
ties becoming  enormous,  rising  from  $2,000  per 
annum,  to  hundreds  of  thousands  per  annum, 
and  finally  reaching  five  hundred  thousand, 
they  roused  the  alarm  of  the  government,  and 
sunk  under  the  enormity  of  their  abuse.  Yet  it 
was  this  compromise  which  was  held  too  sacred 
to  have  its  palpable  defects  corrected,  and  the 
inviolability  of  which  was  recommended  to  be 
preserved,  that  in  addition  to  its  other  faults, 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


217 


was  making  an  annual  present  of  some  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  dollars  to  two  classes  of  manu- 
facturers. 

A  bank  of  some  kind  was  recommended,  under 
the  name  of  fiscal  agent,  as  necessary  to  facili- 
tate the  operations  of  the  Treasury,  to  promote 
the  collection  and  disbursement  of  the  public 
revenue,  and  to  supply  a  currency  of  uniform 
value.    The  message  said : 

"  In  intimate  connection  with  the  question  of 
revenue,  is  that  which  makes  provision  for  a 
suitable  fiscal  agent,  capable  of  adding  increased 
facilities  in  the  collection  and  disbursement  of 
the  public  revenues,  rendering  more  secure  their 
custody,  and  consulting  a  true  economy  in  the 
great  multiplied  and  delicate  operations  of  the 
Treasury  department.  Upon  such  an  agent  de- 
pends in  an  eminent  degree,  the  establishment 
of  a  currency  of  uniform  value,  which  is  of  so 
great  importance  to  all  the  essential  interests 
of  society  j  and  on  the  wisdom  to  be  manifested 
in  its  creation,  much  depends." 

These  are  the  reasons  which  General  Hamil- 
ton gave  for  asking  the  establishment  of  the 
first  national  bank,  in  1791,  and  which  have 
been  given  ever  since,  no  matter  with  what 
variation  of  phraseology,  for  the  creation  of  a 
similar  institution.  This  preference  for  a  bank, 
under  a  new  name,  was  confirmed  by  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  sub-treasury  and  hard-money  cur- 
rency, assumed  by  the  message  to  have  been 
condemned  by  the  people  in  the  result  of  the 
presidential  election.  Speaking  of  this  system, 
it  said :  "  If  carried  through  all  the  stages  of 
its  traris  mutation,  from  paper  and  specie  to 
nothing  out  the  precious  metals,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  insecurity  of  the  public  moneys,  its  inju- 
rious effects  have  been  anticipated  by  the  coun- 
try, in  its  unqualified  condemnation.''''  The 
justice  and  wisdom  of  this  condemnation,  thus 
inferred  from  the  issue  of  the  presidential  elec- 
tion, and  carried  as  that  election  was  (and  as 
has  been  described),  has  been  tested  by  the  ex- 
perience of  many  years,  without  finding  that  in- 
security of  the  public  moneys,  and  those  inju- 
rious effects  which  the  message  assumed.  On 
the  contrary  those  moneys  have  been  safely 
kept,  and  the  public  prosperity  never  as  great 
as  under  the  Independent  Treasury  and  the 
gold  and  silver  currency  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment :  and  long  has  it  been  since  any  politician 
has  allowed  himself  to  be  supposed  to  be  against 
them.    Up  to  the  date  of  that  message  then— 


up  to  the  first  day  of  the  extra  session,  1841 — 
Mr.  Tyler  may  be  considered  as  in  favor  of  a 
national  bank,  with  its  paper  currency,  and  op- 
posed to  the  gold  and  silver  currency,  and  the 
sub-treasury.  A  distribution  of  the  proceeds 
of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands  was  recommended 
as  a  means  of  assisting  the  States  in  the  pay- 
ment of  their  debts,  and  raising  the  price  of  their 
stocks  in  foreign  markets.  Repudiating  as  un- 
constitutional, the  federal  assumption  of  the 
State  debts,  he  still  recommended  a  grant  of 
money  from  the  public  funds  to  enable  them  to 
meet  these  debts.  In  this  sense  the  message 
said: 

"  And  while  I  must  repudiate,  as  a  measure 
founded  in  error,  and  wanting  constitutional 
sanction,  the  slightest  approach  to  an  assump- 
tion by  this  government  of  the  debts  of  the 
States,  yet  I  can  see  in  the  distribution  adverted 
to  much  to  recommend  it.  The  compacts  be- 
tween the  proprietor  States  and  this  government 
expressly  guarantee  to  the  States  all  the  bene- 
fits which  may  arise  from  the  sales.  The  mode 
by  which  this  is  to  be  effected  addresses  itself 
to  the  discretion  of  Congress  as  the  trustee  for 
the  States,  and  its  exercise,  after  the  most  bene- 
ficial manner,  is  restrained  by  nothing  in  the 
grants  or  in  the  constitution  so  long  as  Congress 
shall  consult  that  equality  in  the  distribution 
which  the  compacts  require.  In  the  present 
condition  of  some  of  the  States,  the  question  of 
distribution  may  be  regarded  as  substantially  a 
question  between  direct  and  indirect  taxation. 
If  the  distribution  be  not  made  in  some  form  or 
other,  the  necessity  will  daily  become  more 
urgent  with  the  debtor  States  for  a  resort  to  an 
oppressive  system  of  direct  taxation,  or  their 
credit,  and  necessarily  their  power  and  influence, 
will  be  greatly  diminished.  The  payment  of 
taxes,  often  the  most  inconvenient  and  oppres- 
sive mode,  will  be  exacted  in  place  of  contri- 
butions for  the  most  part  voluntarily  made, 
and  therefore  comparatively  unoppressive.  The 
States  are  emphatically  the  constituents  of  this 
government,  and  we  should  be  entirely  regard- 
less of  the  objects  held  in  view  by  them,  in  the 
creation  of  this  government,  if  we  could  be  in- 
different to  their  good.  The  happy  effects  of 
such  a  measure  upon  all  the  States,  would  im- 
mediately be  manifested.  With  the  debtor 
States  it  would  effect  the  relief  to  a  great  extent 
of  the  citizens  from  a  heavy  burden  of  direct 
taxation,  which  presses  with  severity  on  the 
laboring  classes,  and  eminently  assist  in  restor- 
ing the  general  prosperity.  An  immediate  ad- 
vance would  take  place  in  the  price  of  the  State 
securities,  and  the  attitudes  of  the  States  would 
become  once  more,  as  it  should  ever  be,  lofty 
and  erect.  Whether  such  distribution  should 
be  made  directly  to  the  States  in  the  proceeds 
of  the  sales,  or  in  the  form  of  profits  by  virtue 


218 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  the  operations  of  any  fiscal  agency  having 
those  proceeds  as  its  basis,  should  such  measure 
be  contemplated  by  Congress,  would  well  de- 
serve its  consideration." 

Mr.  Tyler,  while  a  member  of  the  democratic 
party,  had  been  one  of  the  most  strict  in  the 
construction  of  the  constitution,  and  one  of  the 
most  vigilant  and  inflexible  in  bringing  pro- 
posed measures  to  the  test  of  that  instrument — 
repulsing  the  most  insignificant  if  they  could 
not  stand  it.  He  had  been  one  of  the  foremost 
against  the  constitutionality  of  a  national  bank, 
and  voting  for  a  scire  facias  to  vacate  the  char- 
ter of  the  last  one  soon  after  it  was  established. 
Now,  in  recommending  the  grant  of  money  to 
the  family  of  General  Harrison — in  recommend- 
ing a  bank  under  the  name  of  fiscal  agent — in 
preferring  a  national  paper  currency — in  con- 
demning the  currency  of  the  constitution — in 
proposing  a  distribution  of  the  land  revenue — 
in  providing  for  the  payment  of  the  State  debts : 
in  all  these  recommendations  he  seemed  to  have 
gone  far  beyond  any  other  President,  however 
latitudinarian.  Add  to  this,  he  had  instituted 
an  inquisition  to  sit  upon  the  conduct  of  officers, 
to  hear  and  adjudge  in  secret ;  to  the  encourage- 
ment of  informers  and  debaters,  and  to  the  in- 
fringement of  the  liberty  of  speech,  and  the 
freedom  of  opinion  in  the  subordinates  of  the 
government.  In  view  of  all  this,  the  author  of 
this  work  immediately  exclaimed  : 

"  What  times  we  have  fallen  upon  !  what 
wonders  we  witness  !  how  strange  are  the  scenes 
of  the  day  !  We  have  a  President,  who  has  been 
the  foremost  in  the  defence  of  the  constitution, 
and  in  support  of  the  rights  of  the  States — 
whose  walk  has  been  on  the  outward  wall  of 
the  constitution — his  post  in  the  front  line  of 
its  defenders — his  seat  on  the  topmost  branches 
of  the  democratic  tree.  I  will  not  disparage  the 
President  by  saying  that  he  fought  side  by  side 
with  me  in  defence  of  the  constitution  and  the 
States,  and  against  the  latitudinarians.  It  would 
be  to  wrong  him  to  place  him  by  my  side.  His 
position,  as  guard  of  the  constitution,  was  far 
ahead,  and  far  above  mine.  He  was  always  in 
the  advance — on  the  look-out — listening  and 
watching — snuffing  danger  in  the  first  tainted 
breeze,  and  making  anticipated  battle  against 
the  still  invisible  invader.  Hardly  any  thing 
was  constitutional  enough  for  him.  This  was 
but  a  few  brief  years  ago.    Now  we  see  the 


measures  brought  forward  in  the  very  bud  and 
first  blossom  of  this  administration,  which  leave 
all  former  unconstitutional  measures  far  in  the 
rear — which  add  subterfuge  and  evasion  to  open 
violence,  and  aim  more  deadly  wounds  at  the 
constitution  than  the  fifty  previous  years  of  its 
existence  had  brought  upon  it.  I  know  not  the 
sentiment  of  the  President  upon  these  measures, 
except  as  disclosed  by  himself,  and  say  nothing 
to  reach  him  ;  but  I  know  the  measures  them- 
selves— their  desperate  character,  and  fatal 
issues  :  and  I  am  free  to  say,  if  such  things  can 
come  to  pass — if  they  can  survive  the  double 
ordeal  of  the  House  and  the  Senate — then  there 
is  an  end  of  all  that  our  fathers  contended  for  in 
the  formation  of  the  federal  government.  To 
be  sure,  the  machinery  of  government  would 
still  stand.  We  should  still  have  President, 
Congress,  and  a  Judiciary — an  army,  a  navy — 
a  taxing  power,  the  tax-payers,  the  tax-gather- 
ers, and  the  tax-consumers.  But,  if  such  mea- 
sures as  these  are  to  pass — a  bill  to  lavish  the 
public  lands  on  the  (indebted)  States  in  order 
to  pay  their  debts,  supply  their  taxes,  and  raise 
the  market  price  of  their  stock — a  contrivance 
to  defraud  the  constitution,  and  to  smuggle  and 
bribe  a  bank,  though  a  national  bank,  through 
Congress,  under  the  alius  dictus  of  fiscal  agent 
— the  bill  to  commence  the  career  of  civil  pen- 
sions and  family  gratuities — the  inquisitorial 
committee,  modelled  on  the  plan  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole's  committees  of  secrecy,  now  sitting  in 
the  custom-house  of  New  York,  the  terror  of 
the  honest  and  the  hope  of  the  corrupt — the 
ex  post  facto  edict  for  the  creation  of  political 
offences,  to  be  punished  on  suspicion  in  exparie 
trials — the  schemes  for  the  infringement  of  the 
liberty  of  speech,  and  for  the  suppression  of 
freedom  of  opinion,  and  for  the  encouragement 
and  reward  of  debaters  and  informers  :  if  such 
schemes  and  measures  as  these  are  to  come  to 
pass,  then  do  I  say  that  all  the  guards  and  limi- 
tations upon  our  government  are  broken  down  1 
that  our  limited  government  is  gone !  and  a 
new,  wild,  and  boundless  authority,  substituted 
in  its  place.  The  new  triumvirate — Bank,  Con- 
gress, and  President — will  then  be  supreme. 
Fraud  and  corruption,  more  odious  than  arms 
and  force,  will  rule  the  land.  The  constitution 
will  be  covered  with  a  black  veil :  and  that 
derided  and  violated  instrument  will  never  be 
referred  to,  except  for  the  mock  sanction  of  a 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


219 


fraudulent  interpretation,  or  the  insulting  cere- 
mony of  a  derisory  adjuration." 

Mr.  Tyler  had  delivered  a  message  :  Mr.  Clay 
virtually  delivered  another.  In  the  first  week 
of  the  session,  he  submitted  a  programme  of  mea- 
sures, in  the  form  of  a  resolve,  to  be  adopted  by 
the  Senate,  enumerating  and  declaring  the  par- 
ticular subjects,  to  which  he  thought  the  atten- 
tion of  Congress  should  be  limited  at  this  extra 
session.     The  following  was  his  programme  : 

"  Resolved,  as  the  opinion  of  the  Senate,  That 
at  the  present  session  of  Congress,  no  business 
ought  to  be  transacted,  but  such  as  being  of  an 
important  or  urgent  nature,  may  be  supposed  to 
have  influenced  the  extraordinary  convention 
of  Congress,  or  such  as  that  the  postponement 
of  it  might  be  materially  detrimental  to  the 
public  interest. 

"  Resolved,  therefore,  as  the  opinion  of  the 
Senate,  That  the  following  subjects  ought  first, 
if  not  exclusively,  to  engage  the  deliberation  of 
Congress,  at  the  present  session — 

"  1st.  The  repeal  of  the  sub-treasury. 

"  2d.  The  incorporation  of  a  bank  adapted  to 
the  wants  of  the  people  and  of  the  government. 

"3d.  The  provision  of  an  adequate  revenue 
for  the  government  by  the  imposition  of  duties, 
and  including  an  authority  to  contract  a  tempo- 
rary loan  to  cover  the  public  debt  created  by 
the  last  administration. 

"  4th.  The  prospective  distribution  of  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  public  lands. 

"  5  th.  The  passage  of  necessary  appropriation 
bills ;  and 

"  6th.  Some  modification  of  the  banking  sys- 
tem of  the  District  of  Columbia,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  people  of  the  District. 

"  Resolved,  That  it  is  expedient  to  distribute 
the  business  proper  to  be  done  this  session,  be- 
tween the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives, 
so  as  to  avoid  both  Houses  acting  on  the  same 
subject,  and  at  the  same  time." 

It  was,  probably,  to  this  assumption  over  the 
business  of  Congress — this  recommendation  of 
measures  which  Mr.  Clay  thought  ought  to 
be  adopted — that  Mr.  Cushing  alluded  in  the 
House,  when,  in  urging  the  instant  repeal  of 
the  sub-treasury  act,  he  made  occasion  to  say 
that  he  recognized  no  administration  but  that 
of  John  Tyler.  As  for  the  "  public  debt,"  here 
mentioned  as  being  "created  by  the  last  ad- 
ministration," it  consisted  of  the  treasury  notes 
and  loans  resorted  to  to  supply  the  place  of  the 
revenue  lost  under  the  descending  scale  of  the 
compromise,  and  the  amount  taken  from  the 
Treasury  to  bestow  upon  the  States,  under  the 
fraudulent  name  of  a  deposit. 


CHAPTER   LXIY. 

KEPEAL  OF  THE  INDEPENDENT  TREASUEY  ACT. 

This  was  the  first  measure  of  the  new  dominant 
party,  and  pursued  with  a  zeal  that  bespoke  a 
resentment  which  required  gratification,  and  in- 
dicated a  criminal  which  required  punishment. 
It  seemed  to  be  considered  as  a  malefactor  which 
had  just  fallen  into  the  hands  of  justice,  and 
whose  instant  death  was  necessary  to  expiate 
his  offences.  Mr.  Clay  took  the  measure  into 
his  own  charge.  It  was  No.  1,  in  his  list  of  bills 
to  be  passed;  and  the  bill  brought  in  by  him- 
self, was  No.  1,  on  the  Senate's  calendar ;  and 
it  was  rapidly  pushed  on  to  immediate  decision. 
The  provisions  of  the  bill  were  as  summary  as 
the  proceedings  upon  it  were  rapid.  It  provided 
for  instant  repeal — to  take  effect  as  soon  as 
passed,  although  it  was  in  full  operation  all  over 
the  United  States,  and  the  officers  at  a  distance, 
charged  with  its  execution,  could  not  know  of 
the  repeal  until  ten  or  twelve  days  after  the 
event,  and  during  all  which  time  they  would  be 
acting  without  authority ;  and,  consequently, 
without  official  liabilit}^  for  accident  or  miscon- 
duct. No  substitute  was  provided ;  and  when 
passed,  the  public  moneys  were  to  remain  with- 
out legal  guardianship  until  a  substitute  should 
be  provided — intended  to  be  a  national  bank ; 
but  a  substitute  which  would  require  time  to 
pass  it,  whether  a  bank  or  some  other  measure. 
These  considerations  were  presented,  but  pre- 
sented in  vain  to  an  impatient  majority.  A 
respite  of  a  few  days,  for  the  act  to  be  known 
before  it  took  effect,  was  in  vain  urged.  In  vain 
was  it  urged  that  promulgation  was  part  of  a 
law :  that  no  statute  was  to  take  effect  until  it 
was  promulgated ;  and  that  time  must  be  allow- 
ed for  that  essential  formality.  The  delay  of 
passing  a  substitute  was  urged  as  certain :  the 
possibility  of  not  passing  one  at  all,  was  sug- 
gested :  and  then  the  reality  of  that  alarm  of 
danger  to  the  Treasury — the  union  of  the  purse 
and  the  sword — which  had  so  haunted  the 
minds  of  senators  at  the  time  of  the  removal  of 
the  deposits ;  and  which  alarm,  groundless  then, 
was  now  to  have  a  real  foundation.  All  in  vain. 
The  days  of  the  devoted  act  were  numbered: 


220 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  sun  was  not  to  set  upon  it  alive :  and  late 
in  the  evening  of  a  long  and  hot  day  in  June, 
the  question  was  called,  with  a  refusal  upon 
yeas  and  nays  by  the  majority,  to  allow  a  post- 
ponement until  the  next  day  for  the  purpose  of 
debate.  Thus,  refused  one  night's  postpone- 
ment, Mr.  Benton,  irritated  at  such  unparlia- 
mentary haste,  and  at  the  unmeasured  terms  of 
abuse  which  were  lavished  upon  the  doomed 
act,  rose  and  delivered  the  speech,  of  which 
some  extracts  are  given  in  the  next  chapter. 

In  the  progress  of  this  bill  a  clause  was  pro- 
posed by  Mr.  Benton  to  exclude  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  from  becoming  a  depository  of 
public  moneys,  under  the  new  order  of  things 
which  the  repeal  of  the  Sub-treasury  system 
would  bring  about ;  and  he  gave  as  a  reason,  her 
criminal  and  corrupt  conduct,  and  her  insolvent 
condition.  The  clause  was  rejected  by  a  strict 
party  vote,  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Archer — 
who  voted  for  the  exclusion.  The  repeal  bill 
was  carried  in  the  Senate  by  a  strict  party 
vote: 

Yeas — Messrs.  Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Bay- 
ard, Berrien,  Choate,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clay- 
ton, Dixon,  Evans,  Graham,  Henderson,  Hunt- 
ington, Ker,  Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller,  More- 
head.  Phelps,  Porter,  Prentiss,  Preston,  Rives, 
Simmons,  Smith  of  Indiana,  Southard,  Tall- 
madge,  White,  and  Woodbridge — 29. 

Nays — Messrs.  Allen,  Benton,  Calhoun,  Clay 
of  Alabama,  Fulton,  King,  McRoberts,  Nichol- 
son, Pierce,  Sevier,  Smith  of  Connecticut,  Stur- 
geon, Tappan,  Walker,  Williams,  Woodbury, 
Wright,  and  Young — 18. 

In  the  House  the  repeal  was  carried  by  a 
decided  vote — 134  to  87.  The  negative  voters 
were: 

Messrs.  Archibald  H.  Arrington,  Charles  G. 
Atherton,  Linn  Banks,  Henry  W.  Beeson,  Ben- 
jamin A.  Bidlack,  Samuel  S.  Bowne,  Linn  Boyd, 
Aaron  V.  Brown,  Charles  Brown,  Edmund 
Burke,  Sampson  H.  Butler,  William  0.  Butler, 
Green  W.  Caldwell,  Patrick  C.  Caldwell,  George 
B.  Cary,  Reuben  Chapman,  Nathan  Clifford, 
James  G.  Clinton,  Walter  Coles,  Edward  Cross, 
John  R.  J.  Daniel,  Richard  D.  Davis,  John  B. 
Dawson,  Ezra  Dean,  William  Doan,  Andrew 
W.  Doig,  John  C.  Edwards,  Joseph  Egbert, 
Charles  G.  Ferris,  John  G.  Floyd,  Charles  A. 
Floyd,  Joseph  Fornance,  William  0.  Goode, 
Samuel  Gordon,  Amos  Gustine,  William  A. 
Harris,  John  Hastings,  Samuel  L.  Hays,  Isaac 
E.  Holmes,  George  W.  Hopkins,  Jacob  Houck, 
jr.,  George  S.  Houston,  Edmund  W.  Hubard, 
Robert  M.   T.   Hunter,  Charles  J.  Ingersoll, 


Wiliam  Jack,  Cave  Johnson,  John  W.  Jones, 
George  M.  Keim,  Andrew  Kennedy,  Dixon  H. 
Lewis,  Nathaniel  S.  Littlefied,  Joshua  A.  Lowell, 
Abraham  McClellan,  Robert  McClellan,  James 
J.  McKay,  Albert  G.  Marchand,  Alfred  Marshall, 
John  Thompson  Mason,  James  Mathews,  Wil- 
liam Medill,  John  Miller,  William  M.  Oliver, 
William  Parmenter,  Samuel  Patridge,  William 
W.  Payne,  Francis  W,  Pickens,  Arnold  Plumer, 
John  R.  Reding,  Lewis  Riggs,  James  Rogers, 
James  I.  Roosevelt,  John  Sanford,  Romulus  M. 
Saunders,  Tristram  Shaw,  Benjamin  G.  Shields, 
John  Snyder,  C.  Sprigg,  Lewis  Steenrod,  Hop- 
kins L.  Turney,  John  Van  Buren,  Aaron  Ward, 
Harvey  M.  Watterson,  John  B.  Weller,  John 
Westbrook,  James  W.  Williams,  Fernando 
Wood. 


CHAPTEB    LXV. 

KEPEAL  OF  THE  INDEPENDENT  TREASURY  ACT: 
MR.  BENTON'S  SPEECH. 

The  lateness  of  the  hour,  the  heat  of  the  day. 
the  impatience  of  the  majority,  and  the  deter- 
mination evinced  to  suffer  no  delay  in  gratify- 
ing the  feeling  which  demanded  the  sacrifice  of 
the  Independent  Treasury  system,  shall  not  pre- 
vent me  from  discharging  the  duty  which  I  owe 
to  the  friends  and  authors  of  that  system,  and 
to  the  country  itself,  by  defending  it  from  the 
unjust  and  odious  character  which  clamor  and 
faction  have  fastened  upon  it.  A  great  and  sys- 
tematic efibrt  has  been  made  to  cry  down  the  sub- 
treasury  by  dint  of  clamor,  and  to  render  it  odious 
by  unfounded  representations  and  distorted  de- 
scriptions. It  seems  to  have  been  selected  as 
a  subject  for  an  experiment  at  political  bam- 
boozling; and  nothing  is  too  absurd,  too  pre- 
posterous, too  foreign  to  the  truth,  to  be  urged 
against  it,  and  to  find  a  lodgment,  as  it  is  be- 
lieved, in  the  minds  of  the  uninformed  and  cre- 
dulous part  of  the  community.  It  is  painted 
with  every  odious  color,  endowed  with  every 
mischievous  attribute,  and  made  the  source  and 
origin  of  every  conceivable  calamity.  Not  a 
vestige  of  the  original  appears;  and,  instead 
of  the  old  and  true  system  which  it  revives  and 
enforces,  nothing  is  seen  but  a  new  and  hide- 
ous monster,  come  to  devour  the  people,  and  to 
destroy  at  once  their  liberty,  happiness  and  pro- 
perty. In  all  this  the  opponents  of  the  system 
copy  the  conduct  of  the  French  jacobins  of  the 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN 
* 


TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


221 


year  '89,  in  attacking  the  veto  power  reserved 
to  the  king.  The  enlightened  historian,  Thiers, 
has  given  us  an  account  of  these  Jacobinical  ex- 
periments upon  French  credulity  j  and  we  are 
almost  tempted  to  believe  he  was  describing, 
with  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  what  we  have  seen 
taking  place  among  ourselves.  He  says  that,  in 
some  parts  of  the  country,  the  people  were 
taught  to  believe  that  the  veto  was  a  tax,  which 
ought  to  be  abolished ;  in  others,  that  it  was  a 
criminal,  which  ought  to  be  hung ;  in  others 
again,  that  it  was  a  monster,  which  ought  to  be 
killed ;  and  in  others,  that  it  was  a  power  in  the 
king  to  prevent  the  people  from  eating  or  drink- 
ing. As  a  specimen  of  this  latter  species  of 
imposition  which  was  attempted  upon  the 
ignorant,  the  historian  gives  a  dialogue  which 
actually  took  place  between  a  jacobin  politician 
and  a  country  peasant  in  one  of  the  remote  de- 
partments of  France,  and  which  ran  in  about 
these  terms :  "  My  friend,  do  you  know  what 
the  veto  is?"  '; /  do  not."  Then  I  will  tell 
you  what  it  is.  It  is  this:  You  have  some 
soup  in  your  porringer  ;  you  are  going  to  eat 
it;  the  king  commands  you  to  empty  it  on  the 
ground,  and  you  must  instantly  empty  it  on  the 
ground :  that  is  the  veto  !  "  This,  said  Mr.  B. 
is  the  account  which  an  eminent  historian  gives 
us  of  the  means  used  to  bamboozle  ignorant 
peasants  and  to  excite  them  against  a  constitu- 
tional provision  in  France,  made  for  their  bene- 
fit, and  which  only  arrested  legislation  till  the 
people  could  speak ;  and  I  may  say  that  means 
little  short  of  such  absurdity  and  nonsense  have 
been  used  in  our  country  to  mislead  and  deceive 
the  people,  and  to  excite  them  against  the  sub- 
treasury  here. 

It  is  my  intention,  said  Mr.  B.,  to  expose  and 
to  explode  these  artifices ;  to  show  the  folly 
and  absurdity  of  the  inventions  which  were  used 
to  delude  the  people  in  the  country,  and  which 
no  senator  of  the  opposite  party  will  so  far  for- 
get himself  as  to  repeat  here ;  and  to  exhibit 
the  independent  treasury  as  it  is — not  as  a  new 
and  hurtful  measure  just  conceived ;  but  as  an 
old  and  salutary  law,  fallen  into  disuse  in  evil 
times,  and  now  revived  and  improved  for  the 
safety  and  advantage  of  the  country. 

What  is  it,  Mr.  President,  which  constitutes 
the  system  called  and  known  by  the  name  of 
the  sub-treasury,  or  the  independent  treasury  ? 
It  is  two  features,  and  two  features  alone,  which 


constitute  the  system — all  the  rest  is  detail — 
and  these  two  features  are  borrowed  and  taken 
from  the  two  acts  of  Congress  of  September 
first,  and  September  the  second,  1789  ;  the  one 
establishing  a  revenue  system,  and  the  other 
establishing  a  treasury  department  for  the 
United  States.  By  the  first  of  these  acts,  and 
by  its  30th  section,  gold  and  silver  coin  alone 
was  made  receivable  in  payments  to  the  United 
States  ;  and  by  the  second  of  them,  section  four, 
the  treasurer  of  the  United  States  is  made  the 
receiver,  the  keeper,  and  the  payer,  of  the 
moneys  of  the  United  States,  to  the  exclusion 
of  banks,  of  which  only  three  then  existed.  By 
these  two  laws,  the  first  and  the  original  finan- 
cial system  of  the  United  States  was  established  ; 
and  they  both  now  stand  upon  the  statute 
book,  unrepealed,  and  in  full  legal  force,  except 
in  some  details.  By  these  laws,  made  in  the 
first  days  of  the  first  session  of  the  first  Con- 
gress, which  sat  under  the  constitution,  gold 
and  silver  coin  only  was  made  the  currency  of 
the  federal  treasury,  and  the  treasurer  of  the 
United  States  was  made  the  fiscal  agent  to  re- 
ceive, to  keep,  and  to  pay  out  that  gold  and  sil- 
ver coin.  This  was  the  system  of  "Washington's 
administration ;  and  as  such  it  went  into  effect. 
All  payments  to  the  federal  government  were 
made  in  gold  and  silver  j  all  such  money  paid 
remained  in  the  hands  of  the  treasurer  himself, 
until  he  paid  it  out ;  or  in  the  hands  of  the  col- 
lectors of  the  customs,  or  the  receivers  of  the 
land  offices,  until  he  drew  warrants  upon  them 
in  favor  of  those  to  whom  money  was  due  from 
the  government.  Thus  it  was  in  the  beginning 
— in  the  first  and  happy  years  of  Washington's 
administration.  The  money  of  the  government 
was  hard  money  ;  and  nobody  touched  that 
money  but  the  treasurer  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  officers  who  collected  it  j  and  the  whole 
of  these  were  under  bonds  and  penalties  for 
their  good  behavior,  subject  to  the  lawful  or- 
ders and  general  superintendence  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  and  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  who  was  bound  to  see  the  laws 
faithfully  executed.  The  government  was  then 
what  it  was  made  to  be — a  hard-money  govern- 
ment. It  was  made  by  hard-money  men,  who 
had  seen  enough  of  the  evils  of  paper  money, 
and  wished  to  save  their  posterity  from  such 
evils  in  future.  The  money  was  hard,  and  it 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  officers  of  the  govern- 


222 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ment — those  who  were  subject  to  the  orders  of 
the  government — and  not  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  were  only  subject  to  requisitions — who 
could  refuse  to  pay,  protest  a  warrant,  tell  the 
government  to  sue,  and  thus  go  to  law  with  the 
government  for  its  own  money.  The  framers 
of  the  constitution,  and  the  authors  of  the  two 
acts  of  1789,  had  seen  enough  of  the  evils  of  the 
system  of  requisitions  under  the  confederation 
to  warn  them  against  it  under  the  constitution. 
They  determined  that  the  new  government 
should  keep  its  own  hard  money,  as  well  as  col- 
lect it ;  and  thus  the  constitution,  the  law,  the 
practice  under  the  law,  and  the  intentions  of 
the  hard-money  and  independent  treasury  men, 
were  all  in  harmony,  and  in  full,  perfect,  and 
beautiful  operation,  under  the  first  years  of 
General  Washington's  administration.  All  was 
right,  and  all  was  happy  and  prosperous,  at  the 
commencement. 

But  the  spoiler  came !  General  Hamilton 
was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  He  was  the 
advocate  of  the  paper  system,  the  banking  sys- 
tem, and  the  funding  system,  which  were  fast- 
ened upon  England  by  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  in 
his  long  and  baneful  administration  under  the 
first  and  second  George.  General  Hamilton 
was  the  advocate  of  these  systems,  and  wished 
to  transplant  them  to  our  America.  He  exerted 
his  great  abilities,  rendered  still  more  potent 
by  his  high  personal  character,  and  his  glori- 
ous revolutionary  services,  to  substitute  paper 
money  for  the  federal  currency,  and  banks  for 
the  keepers  of  the  public  money ;  and  he  suc- 
ceeded to  the  extent  of  his  wishes.  The  hard- 
money  currency  prescribed  by  the  act  of  Sep- 
tember 1st,  1789,  was  abolished  by  construction, 
and  by  a  Treasury  order  to  receive  bank  notes  j 
the  fiscal  agent  for  the  reception,  the  keeping, 
and  the  disbursement  of  the  public  moneys,  con- 
sisting of  the  treasurer,  and  his  collectors  and 
receivers,  was  superseded  by  the  creation  of  a 
national  bank,  invested  with  the  privilege  of 
keeping  the  public  moneys,  paying  them  out, 
and  furnishing  supplies  of  paper  money  for  the 
payment  of  dues  to  the  government.  Thus,  the 
two  acts  of  1789  were  avoided,  or  superseded ; 
not  repealed,  but  only  avoided  and  superseded 
by  a  Treasury  order  to  receive  paper,  and  a  bank 
to  keep  it  and  pay  it  out.  From  this  time  paper 
money  became  the  federal  currency,  and  a  bank 
the  keeper  of  the  federal  money.    It  is  needless 


to  pursue  this  departure  farther.  The  bank 
had  its  privileges  for  twenty  years — was  suc- 
ceeded in  them  by  local  banks — they  superseded 
by  a  second  national  bank — it  again  by  local 
banks — and  these  finally  by  the  independent 
treasury  system — which  was  nothing  but  a 
return  to  the  fundamental  acts  of  1789. 

This  is  the  brief  history — the  genealogy 
rather — of  our  fiscal  agents ;  and  from  this  it 
results,  that  after  more  than  forty  years  of  de- 
parture from  the  system  of  our  forefathers — 
after  more  than  forty  years  of  wandering  in 
the  wilderness  of  banks,  local  and  national — 
after  more  than  forty  years  of  wallowing  in  the 
slough  of  paper  money,  sometimes  sound,  some- 
times rotten — we  have  returned  to  the  point 
from  which  we  sat  out — hard  money  for  our 
Federal  Treasury ;  and  our  own  officers  to  keep 
it.  We  returned  to  the  acts  of '89,  not  sud- 
denly and  crudely,  but  by  degrees,  and  with 
details,  to  make  the  return  safe  and  easy.  The 
specie  clause  was  restored,  not  by  a  sudden  and 
single  step,  but  gradually  and  progressively,  to 
be  accomplished  in  four  years.  The  custody  of 
the  public  moneys  was  restored  to  the  treasurer 
and  his  officers ;  and  as  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  take  manual  possession  of  the  moneys 
every  where,  a  few  receivers-general  were  given 
to  him  to  act  as  his  deputies,  and  the  two  mints 
in  Philadelphia  and  New  Orleans  (proper  places 
to  keep  money,  and  their  keys  in  the  hands  of 
our  officers),  were  added  to  his  means  of  receiv- 
ing and  keeping  them.  This  return  to  the  old 
acts  of  '89  was  accomplished  in  the  summer  of 
1840.  The  old  system,  with  a  new  name,  and 
a  little  additional  organization,  has  been  in  force 
near  one  year.  It  has  worked  well.  It  has 
worked  both  well  and  easy,  and  now  the  ques- 
tion is  to  repeal  it,  and  to  begin  again  where 
General  Hamilton  started  us  above  forty  years 
ago,  and  which  involved  us  so  long  in  the  fate 
of  banks  and  in  the  miseries  and  calamities  of 
paper  money.  The  gentlemen  on  the  other  side 
of  the  House  go  for  the  repeal ;  we  against  it ; 
and  this  defines  the  position  of  the  two  great 
parties  of  the  day — one  standing  on  ground  oc- 
cupied by  General  Hamilton  and  the  federalists 
in  the  year  '91  j  the  other  standing  on  the  ground 
occupied  at  the  same  time  by  Mr.  Jefferson  and 
the  democracy. 

The  democracy  oppose  the  repeal,  because 
this  system  is  proved  by  experience  to  be  the 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


223 


safest,  the  cheapest,  and  the  best  mode  of  col- 
lecting the  revenues,  and  keeping  and  disburs- 
ing the  public  moneys,  which  the  wisdom  of  man 
has  yet  invented.  It  is  the  safest  mode  of  col- 
lecting, because  it  receives  nothing  but  gold  and 
silver,  and  thereby  saves  the  government  from 
loss  by  paper  money,  preserves  the  standard  of 
value,  and  causes  a  supply  of  specie  to  be  kept 
in  the  country  for  the  use  of  the  people  and  for 
the  support  of  the  sound  part  of  the  banks.  It 
is  the  cheapest  mode  of  keeping  the  moneys ; 
for  the  salaries  of  a  few  receivers  are  nothing 
compared  to  the  cost  of  employing  banks ;  for 
banks  must  be  paid  either  by  a  per  centum,  or 
by  a  gross  sum,  or  by  allowing  them  the  gra- 
tuitous use  of  the  public  money.  This  latter 
method  has  been  tried,  and  has  been  found  to 
be  the  dearest  of  all  possible  modes.  The  sub- 
treasury  is  the  safest  mode  of  keeping,  for  the 
receivers-general  are  our  officers — subject  to 
our  orders — removable  at  our  will — punishable 
criminally — suable  civilly — and  bound  in  heavy 
securities.  It  is  the  best  mode ;  for  it  has  no 
interest  in  increasing  taxes  in  order  to  increase 
the  deposits.  Banks  have  this  interest.  A  na- 
tional bank  has  an  interest  in  augmenting  the 
revenue,  because  thereby  it  augmented  the  pub- 
lic deposits.  The  late  bank  had  an  average  de- 
posit for  near  twenty  years  of  eleven  millions 
and  a  half  of  public  money  in  the  name  of  the 
treasurer  of  the  United  States,  and  two  mil- 
lions and  a  half  in  the  names  of  public  officers. 
It  had  an  annual  average  deposit  of  fourteen  mil- 
lions, and  was  notoriously  in  favor  of  all  taxes, 
and  of  the  highest  tariffs,  and  was  leagued  with 
the  party  which  promoted  these  taxes  and 
tariffs.  A  sub-treasury  has  no  interest  of  this 
kind,  and  in  that  particular  alone  presents  an 
immense  advantage  over  any  bank  depositories, 
whether  a  national  institution  or  a  selection  of 
local  banks.  Every  public  interest  requires 
the  independent  treasury  to  be  continued.  It 
is  the  old  system  of  '89.  The  law  for  it  has 
been  on  our  statute-book  for  fifty-two  years. 
Every  citizen  who  is  under  fifty- two  years  old 
has  lived  all  his  life  under  the  sub-treasury  law, 
although  the  law  itself  has  been  superseded  or 
avoided  during  the  greater  part  of  the  time. 
Like  the  country  gentleman  in  Moliere's  come- 
dy, who  had  talked  prose  all  his  life  without 
knowing  it,  every  citizen  who  is  under  fifty-two 
has  lived  his  life  under  the  sub-treasury  law — 


under  the  two  acts  of  '89  which  constitute  it, 
and  which  have  not  been  repealed. 

We  are  against  the  repeal ;  and  although  un- 
able to  resist  it  here,  we  hope  to  show  to  the 
American  people  that  it  ought  not  to  be  re- 
pealed, and  that  the  time  will  come  when  its 
re-establishment  will  be  demanded  by  the  pub- 
lic voice. 

Independent  of  our  objections  to  the  merits 
of  this  repeal,  stands  one  of  a  preliminary  char- 
acter, which  has  been  too  often  mentioned  to 
need  elucidation  or  enforcement,  but  which  can- 
not be  properly  omitted  in  any  general  exami- 
nation of  the  subject.  We  are  about  to  repeal 
one  system  without  having  provided  another, 
and  without  even  knowing  what  may  be  sub- 
stituted, or  whether  any  substitute  whatever 
shall  be  agreed  upon.  Shall  we  have  any.  and 
if  any,  what  ?  Shall  it  be  a  national  bank,  after 
the  experience  we  have  just  had  of  such  insti- 
tutions ?  Is  it  to  be  a  nondescript  invention — 
a  fiscality — or  fiscal  agent — to  be  planted  in 
this  District  because  we  have  exclusive  juris- 
diction here,  and  which,  upon  the  same  argu- 
ment, may  be  placed  in  all  the  forts  and  arse- 
nals, in  all  the  dock-yards  and  navy- yards,  in 
all  the  lighthouses  and  powder  magazines,  and 
in  all  the  territories  which  the  United  States 
now  possess,  or  may  hereafter  acquire  ?  We 
have  exclusive  jurisdiction  over  all  these  ;  and 
if,  with  this  argument,  we  can  avoid  the  consti- 
tution in  these  ten  miles  square,  we  can  also 
avoid  it  in  every  State,  and  in  every  territory 
of  the  Union.  Is  it  to  be  the  pet  bank  system 
of  1836,  which,  besides  being  rejected  by  all 
parties,  is  an  impossibility  in  itself?  Is  it  to 
be  the  lawless  condition  of  the  public  moneys, 
as  gentlemen  denounced  it,  which  prevailed 
from  October,  1833,  when  the  deposits  were 
removed  from  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
till  June,  1836,  when  the  State  bank  deposit 
system  was  adopted ;  and  during  all  which  time 
we  could  hear  of  nothing  but  the  union  of  the 
purse  and  the  sword,  and  the  danger  to  our 
liberties  from  the  concentration  of  all  power  in 
the  hands  of  one  man  ?  Is  it  to  be  any  one  of 
these,  and  which  ?  And  if  neither,  then  are  the 
two  acts  of  '89,  which  have  never  been  repealed 
— which  have  only  been  superseded  by  tempo- 
rary enactments,  which  have  ceased,  or  by  trea- 
sury constructions  which  no  one  can  now  de- 
fend— are  these  two  acts  to  recover  their  vitali- 


224 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ty  and  vigor,  and  again  become  the  law  of  the 
land,  as  they  were  in  the  first  years  of  General 
Washington's  administration,  and  before  Gen- 
eral Hamilton  overpowered  them  ?  If  so,  we 
are  still  to  have  the  identical  system  which  we 
now  repeal,  with  no  earthly  difference  but  the 
absence  of  its  name,  and  the  want  of  a  few  of  its 
details.  Be  all  this  as  it  may — let  the  substi- 
tute be  any  thing  or  nothing — we  have  still  ac- 
complished a  great  point  by  the  objection  we 
have  taken  to  the  repeal  before  the  substitute 
was  produced,  and  by  the  vote  which  we  took 
upon  that  point  yesterday.  We  have  gained 
the  advantage  of  cutting  gentlemen  off  from  all 
plea  for  adopting  their  baneful  schemes,  found- 
ed upon  the  necessity  of  adopting  something, 
because  we  have  nothing.  By  their  own  vote 
they  refuse  to  produce  the  new  system  before 
they  abolish  the  old  one.  By  their  own  vote 
they  create  the  necessity  which  they  deprecate ; 
and  having  been  warned  in  time,  and  acting 
with  their  eyes  open,  they  cannot  make  their 
own  conduct  a  plea  for  adopting  a  bad  measure 
rather  than  none.  If  Congress  adjourns  with- 
out any  system,  and  the  public  moneys  remain 
as  they  did  from  1833  to  1836,  the  country  will 
know  whose  fault  it  is ;  and  gentlemen  will 
know  what  epithets  to  apply  to  themselves,  by 
recollecting  what  they  applied  to  General  Jack- 
son from  the  day  the  deposits  were  removed 
until  the  deposit  act  of  '36  was  passed. 

Who  demands  the  repeal  of  this  system? 
Not  the  people  of  the  United  States  ;  for  there 
is  not  a  solitary  petition  from  the  farmers,  the 
mechanics,  the  productive  classes,  and  the  busi- 
ness men,  against  it.  Politicians  who  want  a 
national  bank,  to  rule  the  country,  and  mil- 
lionary  speculators  who  want  a  bank  to  plun- 
der it — these,  to  be  sure,  are  clamorous  for  the 
repeal ;  and  for  the  obvious  reasons  that  the 
present  system  stands  in  the  way  of  their  great 
plans.  But  who  else  demands  it?  Who  else 
objects  to  either  feature  of  the  sub-treasury — 
the  hard-money  feature,  or  the  deposit  of  our 
own  moneys  with  our  own  officers  ?  Make  the 
inquiry — pursue  it  through  its  details — exam- 
ine the  community  by  classes,  and  see  who  ob- 
jects. The  hard-money  feature  is  in  full  force. 
It  took  full  effect  at  once  in  the  South  and 
West,  because  there  were  no  bank-notes  in 
those  quarters  of  the  Union  of  the  receivable 
description:   it  took  full  effect  in  New  York 


and  New  England,  because,  having  preserved 
specie  payments,  specie  was  just  as  plenty  in 
that  quarter  as  paper  money ;  and  all  payments 
were  either  actually  or  virtually  in  hard  money. 
It  was  specie,  or  its  equivalent.  The  hard- 
money  clause  then  went  into  operation  at  once, 
and  who  complained  of  it  ?  The  payers  of  the 
revenue  ?  No,  not  one  of  them.  The  mer- 
chants who  pay  the  duties  have  not  com- 
plained ;  the  farmers  who  buy  the  public  lands 
have  not  complained.  On  the  contrary,  they 
rejoice  ;  for  hard-money  payments  keep  off  the 
speculator,  with  his  bales  of  notes  borrowed 
from  banks,  and  enable  the  farmer  to  get  his 
land  at  a  fair  price.  The  payers  of  the  revenue 
then  do  not  complain.  How  stands  it  with  the 
next  most  interested  class — the  receivers  of 
money  from  the  United  States  ?  Are  they  dis- 
satisfied at  being  paid  in  gold  and  silver  ?  And 
do  they  wish  to  go  back  to  the  depreciated  pa- 
per— the  shinplasters — the  compound  of  lamp- 
black and  rags — which  they  received  a  few 
years  ago  ?  Put  this  inquiry  to  the  merito- 
rious laborer  who  is  working  in  stone,  in  wood, 
earth,  and  in  iron  for  you  at  this  moment. 
Ask  him  if  he  is  tired  of  hard-money  payments, 
and  wishes  the  independent  treasury  system  re- 
pealed, that  he  may  get  a  chance  to  receive  his 
hard-earned  wages  in  broken  bank-notes  again. 
Ask  the  soldier  and  the  mariner  the  same  ques- 
tion. Ask  the  salaried  officer  and  the  con- 
tractor the  same  question.  Ask  ourselves  here 
if  we  wish  it — we  who  have  seen  ourselves  paid 
in  gold  for  years  past,  after  having  been  for 
thirty  years  without  a  sight  of  that  metal. 
No,  sir,  no.  Neither  the  payers  of  money  to 
the  government,  nor  the  receivers  of  money 
from  the  government,  object  to  the  hard-money 
clause  in  the  sub-treasury  act.  How  is  it  then 
with  the  body  of  the  people — the  great  mass  of 
the  productive  and  business  classes  ?  Do  they 
object  to  the  clause  ?  Not  at  all.  They  rejoice 
at  it :  for  they  receive,  at  second-hand,  all  that 
comes  from  the  government.  No  officer,  con- 
tractor, or  laborer,  eats  the  hard  money  which 
he  receives  from  the  government,  but  pays  it 
out  for  the  supplies  which  support  his  family : 
it  all  goes  to  the  business  and  productive 
classes :  and  thus  the  payments  from  the  gov- 
ernment circulate  from  hand  to  hand,  and  go 
through  the  whole  body  of  the  people.  Thus 
the  whole  body  of  the  productive  classes  receive 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


225 


the  benefit  of  the  whole  amount  of  the  govern- 
ment hard-money  payments.  Who  is  it  then 
that  objects  to  it  ?  Broken  banks,  and  their 
political  confederates,  are  the  clamorers  against 
it.  Banks  which  wish  to  make  their  paper  a 
public  currency :  politicians  who  wish  a  na- 
tional bank  as  a  machine  to  rule  the  country. 
These  banks,  and  these  politicians,  are  the  sole 
clamorers  against  the  hard-money  clause  in  the 
sub-treasury  system :  they  alone  clamor  for 
paper  money.  And  how  is  it  with  the  other 
clause — the  one  which  gives  the  custody  of  the 
public  money  to  the  hands  of  our  own  officers, 
bound  to  fidelity  by  character,  by  official  posi- 
tion, by  responsibility,  by  ample  securityship — 
and  makes  it  felony  in  them  to  touch  it  for 
their  own  use  ?  Here  is  a  clear  case  of  con- 
tention between  the  banks  and  the  government, 
or  between  the  clamorers  for  a  national  bank 
and  the  government.  These  banks  want  the 
custody  of  the  public  money.  They  struggle 
and  strive  for  it  as  if  it  was  their  own.  They 
fight  for  it :  and  if  they  get  it,  they  will  use  it 
as  their  own — as  we  all  well  know  ;  and  refuse 
to  render  back  when  they  choose  to  suspend. 
Thus,  the  whole  struggle  for  the  repeal  resolves 
itself  into  a  contest  between  the  government, 
and  all  the  productive  and  business  classes  on 
one  side,  and  the  federal  politicians,  the  rotten 
part  of  the  local  banks,  and  the  advocates  of  a 
national  bank  on  the  other. 

Sir,  the  independent  treasury  has  been  organ- 
ized :  I  say,  organized !  for  the  law  creating  it 
is  fifty-two  years  old — has  been  organized  in 
obedience  to  the  will  of  the  people,  regularly 
expressed  through  their  representatives  after 
the  question  had  been  carried  to  them,  and  a 
general  election  had  intervened.  The  sub- 
treasury  system  was  proposed  by  President 
Van  Buren  in  1837,  at  the  called  session:  it 
was  adopted  in  1840,  after  the  question  had 
been  carried  to  the  people,  and  the  elections 
made  to  turn  upon  it.  It  was  established,  and 
clearly  established,  by  the  will  of  the  people. 
Have  the  people  condemned  it  ?  Have  they 
expressed  dissatisfaction  ?  By  no  means.  The 
presidential  election  was  no  test  ot  this  ques- 
tion ;  nor  of  any  question.  The  election  of 
General  Harrison  was  effected  by  the  combi- 
nation of  all  parties  to  pull  down  one  party, 
without  any  unity  among  the  assailants  on 
the  question  of  measures.     A  candidate  was 

Vol.  II.-— 15 


agreed  upon  by  the  opposition  for  whom  all 
could  vote.  Suppose  a  different  selection  had 
been  made,  and  an  eminent  whig  candidate 
taken,  and  he  had  been  beaten  two  to  one 
(as  would  probably  have  been  the  case) : 
what  then  would  have  been  the  argument? 
Why,  that  the  sub-treasury,  and  every  other 
measure  of  the  democracy,  had  been  approved, 
two  to  one.  The  result  of  the  election  admits 
of  no  inference  against  this  system  ;  and  could 
not,  without  imputing  a  heedless  versatility  to 
the  people,  which  they  do  not  possess.  Theii 
representatives,  in  obedience  to  their  will,  and 
on  full  three  years'  deliberation,  established  the 
system — established  it  in  July,  1840  :  is  it  pos- 
sible that,  within  four  months  afterwards — in 
the  month  of  November  following — the  same 
people  should  condemn  their  own  work  ? 

But  the  system  is  to  be  abolished ;  and 
we  are  to  take  our  chance  for  something,  or 
nothing,  in  place  of  it.  The  abolition  is  to 
take  place  incontinently — incessantly — upon 
the  instant  of  the  passage  of  the  bill !  such  is 
the  spirit  which  pursues  it !  such  the  revenge- 
ful feeling  which  burns  against  it !  And  the 
system  is  still  to  be  going  on  for  a  while  after 
its  death — for  some  days  in  the  nearest  parts, 
and  some  weeks  in  the  remotest  parts  of  the 
Union.  The  receiver-general  in  St.  Louis  will 
not  know  of  his  official  death  until  ten  days 
after  he  shall  have  been  killed  here.  In  the 
mean  time,  supposing  himself  to  be  alive,  he  is 
acting  under  the  law  ;  and  all  he  does  is  with- 
out law,  and  void.  So  of  the  rest.  Not  only 
must  the  system  be  abolished  before  a  substi- 
tute is  presented,  but  before  the  knowledge  of 
the  abolition  can  reach  the  officers  who  carry 
it  on ;  and  who  must  continue  to  receive,  and  pay 
out  public  moneys  for  days  and  weeks  after 
their  functions  have  ceased,  and  when  all  their 
acts  have  become  illegal  and  void. 

Such  is  the  spirit  which  pursues  the  measure 
— such  the  vengeance  against  a  measure  which 
has  taken  the  money  of  the  people  from  the 
moneyed  corporations.  It  is  the  vengeance  of 
the  banking  spirit  against  its  enemy — against  a 
system  which  deprives  soulless  corporations  of 
their  rich  prey.  Something  must  rise  up  in 
the  place  of  the  abolished  system  until  Con- 
gress provides  a  substitute;  and  that  some- 
thing will  be  the  nest  of  local  banks  which  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  may  choose  to  select. 


226 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Among  these  local  banks  stands  that  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States.  The  repeal  of  the 
sub-treasury  has  restored  that  institution  to 
its  capacity  to  become  a  depository  of  the  pub- 
lic moneys  :  and  well,  and  largely  has  she  pre- 
pared herself  to  receive  them.  The  Merchants' 
Bank  in  New  Orleans,  her  agent  there;  her 
branch  in  New  York  under  the  State  law ;  and 
her  branches  and  agencies  in  the  South  and  in 
the  West :  all  these  subordinates,  already  pre- 
pared, enable  her  to  take  possession  of  the  pub- 
lic moneys  in  all  parts  of  the  Union.  That  she 
expected  to  do  so  we  learn  from  Mr.  Biddle, 
who  considered  the  attempted  resumption  in 
January  last  as  unwise,  because,  in  showing  the 
broken  condition  of  his  bank,  her  claim  to  the 
deposits  would  become  endangered.  Mr.  Bid- 
die  shows  that  the  deposits  were  to  have  been 
restored ;  that,  while  in  a  state  of  suspension, 
his  bank  was  as  good  as  any.  Be  noche  todas 
los  gatos  son  pardos.  So  says  the  Spanish 
proverb.  In  the  dark,  all  the  cats  are  grey — all 
of  one  color :  the  same  of  banks  in  a  state  of 
suspension.  And  in  this  darkness  and  assimi- 
lation of  colors,  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
has  found  her  safety  and  security — her  equality 
with  the  rest,  and  her  fair  claim  to  recover  the 
keeping  of  the  long-lost  deposits.  The  attempt 
at  resumption  exposed  her  emptiness,  and  her 
rottenness — showed  her  to  be  the  whited  sepul- 
chre, filled  with  dead  men's  bones.  Liquida- 
tion was  her  course — the  only  honest — the  only 
justifiable  course.  Instead  of  that  she  accepts 
new  terms  (just  completed)  from  the  Penn- 
sylvania legislatures — affects  to  continue  to 
exist  as  a  bank :  and  by  treating  Mr.  Biddle  as 
the  Jonas  of  the  ship,  when  the  whole  crew 
were  Jonases,  expects  to  save  herself  by  throw- 
ing him  overboard.  That  bank  is  now,  on  the 
repeal  of  the  sub-treasury,  on  a  level  with  the 
rest  for  the  reception  of  the  public  moneys. 
She  is  legally  in  the  category  of  a  public  de- 
pository, under  the  act  of  1836,  the  moment 
she  resumes :  and  when  her  notes  are  shaved 
in — a  process  now  in  rapid  movement — she 
may  assert  and  enforce  her  right.  She  may 
resume  for  a  week,  or  a  month,  to  get  hold  of 
the  public  moneys.  By  the  repeal,  the  public 
deposits,  so  far  as  law  is  concerned,  are  restored 
to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  When  the 
Senate  have  this  night  voted  the  repeal,  they 
have  also  voted  the  restoration  of  the  deposits ; 


and  they  will  have  done  it  wittingly  and  know- 
ingly, with  their  eyes  open,  and  with  a  full  per- 
ception of  what  they  were  doing.  When  they 
voted  down  my  proposition  of  yesterday — a 
vote  in  which  the  whole  opposition  concurred, 
except  the  senator  from  Virginia  who  sits 
nearest  me  (Mr.  Archer) — when  they  voted 
down  that  proposition  to  exclude  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States  from  the  list  of  future  de- 
posit banks,  they  of  course  declared  that  she 
ought  to  remain  upon  the  list,  with  the  full 
right  to  avail  herself  of  her  privilege  under  the 
revived  act  of  1836.  In  voting  down  that  pro- 
position, they  voted  up  the  prostrate  bank  of 
Mr.  Biddle,  and  accomplished  the  great  object 
of  the  panic  of  1833-'34 — that  of  censuring 
General  Jackson,  and  of  restoring  the  deposits. 
The  act  of  that  great  man — one  of  the  most  pa- 
triotic and  noble  of  his  life — the  act  by  which 
he  saved  forty  millions  of  dollars  to  the  Ameri- 
can people — is  reversed.  The  stockholders  and 
creditors  of  the  institution  lose  above  forty  mil- 
lions,, which  the  people  otherwise  would  have 
lost.  They  lose  the  whole  stock,  thirty-five 
millions — for  it  will  not  be  worth  a  straw  to 
those  who  keep  it :  and  the  vote  of  the  bank  re- 
fusing to  show  their  list  of  debtors — suppressing, 
hiding  and  concealing — the  rotten  list  of  debts — 
(in  which  it  is  mortifying  to  see  a  Southern 
gentleman  concurring) — is  to  enable  the  in- 
itiated jobbers  and  gamblers  to  shove  off  their 
stock  at  some  price  on  ignorant  and  innocent 
purchasers.  The  stockholders  lose  the  thirty- 
five  millions  capital :  they  lose  the  twenty  per 
centum  advance  upon  that  capital,  at  which 
many  of  the  later  holders  purchased  it ;  and 
which  is  near  seven  millions  more  :  they  lose 
the  six  millions  surplus  profits  which  were  re- 
ported on  hand :  but  which,  perhaps,  was  only 
a  bank  report :  and  the  holders  of  the  notes 
lose  the  twenty  to  thirty  per  centum,  which  is 
now  the  depreciation  of  the  notes  of  the  bank — 
soon  to  be  much  more.  These  losses  make 
some  fifty  millions  of  dollars.  They  now  fall 
on  the  stockholders,  and  note-holders :  where 
would  they  have  fallen  if  the  deposits  had  not 
been  removed  ?  They  would  have  fallen  upon 
the  public  treasury — upon  the  people  of  the 
United  States:  for  the  public  is  always  the 
goose  that  is  to  be  first  plucked.  The  public 
money  would  have  been  taken  to  sustain  the 
bank:  taxes  would  have  been  laid  to  uphold 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


227 


her :  the  high  tariff  would  have  been  revived 
for  her  benefit.  Whatever  her  condition  re- 
quired would  have  been  done  by  Congress. 
The  bank,  with  all  its  crimes  and  debts — with 
all  its  corruptions  and  plunderings — would 
have  been  saddled  upon  the  country — its  char- 
ter renewed — and  the  people  pillaged  of  the  more 
than  forty  millions  of  dollars  which  have  been 
lost.  Congress  would  have  been  enslaved :  and 
a  new  career  of  crime,  corruption,  and  plunder 
commenced.  The  heroic  patriotism  of  Presi- 
dent Jackson  saved  us  from  this  shame  and 
loss  :  but  we  have  no  Jackson  to  save  us  now  ; 
and  millionary  plunderers — devouring  harpies 
— foul  birds,  and  voracious  as  foul — are  again 
to  seize  the  prey  which  his  brave  and  undaunted 
arm  snatched  from  their  insatiate  throats. 

The  deposits  are  restored,  so  far  as  the  vote 
of  the  Senate  goes  ;  and  if  not  restored  in  fact, 
it  will  be  because  policy,  and  new  schemes  for- 
bid it.  And  what  new  scheme  can  we  have  ? 
A  nondescript,  hermaphrodite,  Janus-faced  fis- 
cality  1  or  a  third  edition  of  General  Hamil- 
ton's bank  of  1791  ?  or  a  bastard  compound, 
the  unclean  progeny  of  both  ?  Which  will  it 
be  ?  Hardly  the  first  named.  It  comes  forth 
with  the  feeble  and  rickety  symptoms  which 
announce  an  unripe  conception,  and  an  untime- 
ly death.  Will  it  be  the  second  ?  It  will  be 
that,  or  worse.  And  where  will  the  late  flat- 
terers— the  present  revilers  of  Mr.  Biddle— the 
authors  equally  of  the  bank  that  is  ruined,  and 
of  the  one  that  is  to  be  created :  where  will 
they  find  better  men  to  manage  the  next  than 
they  had  to  manage  the  last  ?  I  remember  the 
time  when  the  vocabulary  of  praise  was  ex- 
hausted on  Mr.  Biddle — when  in  this  chamber, 
and  out  of  it,  the  censer,  heaped  with  incense, 
was  constantly  kept  burning  under  his  nose : 
when  to  hint  reproach  of  him  was  to  make,  if 
not  a  thousand  chivalrous  swords  leap  from 
their  scabbards,  at  least  to  make  a  thousand 
tongues,  and  ten  thousand  pens,  start  up  to  de- 
fend him.  I  remember  the  time  when  a  sena- 
tor on  this  floor,  and  now  on  it  (Mr.  Preston 
of  South  Carolina),  declared  in  his  place  that 
the  bare  annunciation  of  Mr.  Biddle's  name  as 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  would  raise  the 
value  of  the  people's  property  one  hundred 
millions  of  dollars.  My  friend,  here  on  my 
right   (pointing   to  Senator   Woodbury)   was 


the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury ;  and  the  mere 
transposition  of  names  and  places — the  mere 
substitution  of  Biddle  for  Woodbury — was  to 
be  worth  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars  to 
the  property  of  the  country  !  What  flattery 
could  rise  higher  than  that  ?  Yet  this  man, 
once  so  lauded — once  so  followed,  flattered,  and 
courted — now  lies  condemned  by  all  his  former 
friends.  They  cannot  now  denounce  sufficient- 
ly the  man  who,  for  ten  years  past,  they  could 
not  praise  enough :  and,  after  this,  what  confi- 
dence are  we  to  have  in  their  judgments  ? 
What  confidence  are  we  to  place  in  their  new 
bank,  and  their  new  managers,  after  seeing  such 
mistakes  about  the  former  ? 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  this  bank  went  to 
ruin  since  it  became  a  State  institution.  The 
State  charter  made  no  difference  in  its  charac- 
ter, or  in  its  management :  and  Mr.  Biddle  de- 
clared it  to  be  stronger  and  safer  without  the 
United  States  for  a  partner  than  with  it.  The 
mortal  wounds  were  all  given  while  it  was  a 
national  institution  ;  and  the  late  report  of  the 
stockholders  shows  not  one  species  of  offence, 
the  cotton  speculations  alone  excepted,  which 
was  not  shown  by  Mr.  Clayton's  report  of 
1832 ;  and  being  shown,  was  then  defended  by 
the  whole  power  of  those  who  are  now  cutting 
loose  from  the  old  bank,  and  clamoring  for  a 
new  one.  Not  an  act  now  brought  to  fight, 
save  and  except  the  cotton  operation,  not  even 
that  for  which  Reuben  M.  Whitney  was  crushed 
to  death,  and  his  name  constituted  the  syno- 
nyme  of  perjury  and  infamy  for  having  told  it ; 
not  an  act  now  brought  to  light  which  was  not 
shown  to  exist  ten  years  ago,  and  which  was 
not  then  defended  by  the  whole  federal  party ; 
so  that  the  pretension  that  this  institution  did 
well  as  a  national  bank,  and  ill  as  a  State  one, 
is  as  unfounded  in  fact,  as  it  is  preposterous  and 
absurd  in  idea.  The  bank  was  in  the  high  road 
to  ruin' — in  the  gulf  of  insolvency — in  the  slough 
of  crime  and  corruption — when  the  patriot  Jack- 
son signed  the  veto,  and  ordered  the  removal 
of  the  deposits ;  and  nothing  but  these  two 
great  acts  saved  the  people  from  the  loss  of  the 
forty  millions  of  dollars  which  have  now  fallen 
upon  the  stockholders  and  the  note  holders, 
and  from  the  shame  of  seeing  their  government 
the  slave  and  instrument  of  the  bank.  Jack- 
son saved  the  people  from  this  loss,  and  their 


228 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


government  from  this  degradation ;  and  for  this 
he  is  now  pursued  with  the  undying  vengeance 
of  those  whose  schemes  of  plunder  and  ambi- 
tion were  balked  by  him. 

Wise  and  prudent  was  the  conduct  of  those 
who  refused  to  recharter  the  second  Bank  of 
the  United  States.  They  profited  by  the  error 
of  their  friends  who  refused  to  recharter  the 
first  one.  These  latter  made  no  preparations 
for  the  event — did  nothing  to  increase  the  con- 
stitutional currency — and  did  not  even  act  until 
the  last  moment.  The  renewed  charter  was 
only  refused  a  few  days  before  the  expiration 
of  the  existing  charter,  and  the  federal  govern- 
ment fell  back  upon  the  State  banks,  which  im- 
mediately sunk  under  its  weight.  The  men  of 
1832  acted  very  differently.  They  decided  the 
question  of  the  renewal  long  before  the  expira- 
tion of  the  existing  charter.  They  revived  the 
gold  currency,  which  had  been  extinct  for  thir- 
ty years.  They  increased  the  silver  currency 
by  repealing  the  act  of  1819  against  the  circula- 
tion of  foreign  silver.  They  branched  the 
mints.  In  a  word,  they  raised  the  specie  cur- 
rency from  twenty  millions  to  near  one  hun- 
dred millions  of  dollars  ;  and  thus  supplied  the 
country  with  a  constitutional  currency  to  take 
the  place  of  the  United  States  Bank  notes. 
The  supply  was  adequate,  being  nearly  ten 
times  the  average  circulation  of  the  national 
bank.  That  average  circulation  was  but  eleven 
millions  of  dollars ;  the  gold  and  silver  was 
near  one  hundred  millions.  The  success  of  our 
measures  was  complete.  The  country  was  hap- 
py and  prosperous  under  it ;  but  the  architects 
of  mischief— the  political,  gambling,  and  rotten 
part  of  the  banks,  headed  by  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  and  aided  by  a  political  party — 
set  to  work  to  make  panic  and  distress,  to 
make  suspensions  and  revulsions,  to  destroy 
trade  and  business,  to  degrade  and  poison  the 
currency  ;  to  harass  the  country  until  it  would 
give  them  another  national  bank :  and  to  charge 
all  the  mischief  they  created  upon  the  demo- 
cratic administration.  This  has  been  their  con- 
duct j  and  having  succeeded  in  the  last  presi- 
dential election,  they  now  come  forward  to 
seize  the  spoils  of  victory  in  creating  another 
national  bank,  to  devour  the  substance  of  the 
people,  and  to  rule  the  government  of  their 
country.  Sir,  the  suspension  of  1837,  on  the 
part  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  its 


confederate  banks  and  politicians,  was  a  con- 
spiracy and  a  revolt  against  the  government. 
The  preatent  suspension  is  a  continuation  of  the 
same  revolt  by  the  same  parties.  Many  good 
banks  are  overpowered  by  them,  and  forced 
into  suspension  ;  but  with  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  its  affiliated  banks,  and  its  con- 
federate politicians,  it  is  a  revolt  and  a  con- 
spiracy against  the  government. 

Sir,  it  is  now  nightfall.  We  are  at  the  end  of 
a  long  day  when  the  sun  is  more  than  fourteen 
hours  above  the  horizon,  and  when  a  suffocat- 
ing heat  oppresses  and  overpowers  the  Senate. 
My  friends  have  moved  adjournments:  they 
have  been  refused.  I  have  been  compelled  to 
speak  now,  or  never,  and  from  this  commence- 
ment we  may  see  the  conclusion.  Discussion  is 
to  be  stifled ;  measures  are  to  be  driven  through ; 
and  a  mutilated  Congress,  hastily  assembled, 
imperfectly  formed,  and  representing  the  census 
of  1830,  not  of  1840,  is  to  manacle  posterity 
with  institutions  which  are  as  abhorent  to  the 
constitution  as  they  are  dangerous  to  the  liber- 
ties, the  morals,  and  the  property  of  the  people. 
A  national  bank  is  to  be  established,  not  even  a 
a  simple  and  strong  bank  like  that  of  General 
Hamilton,  but  some  monstrous  compound,  born 
of  hell  and  chaos,  more  odious,  dangerous,  and 
terrible  than  any  simple  bank  could  be.  Pos- 
terity is  to  be  manacled,  and  delivered  up  in 
chains  to  this  deformed  monster ;  and  by  whom  ? 
By  a  rump  Congress,  representing  an  expired 
census  of  the  people,  in  the  absence  of  mem- 
bers from  States  which,  if  they  had  their  mem- 
bers here,  would  still  have  but  the  one-third 
part  of  their  proper  weight  in  the  councils  of  the 
Union.  The  census  of  1840  gives  many  States, 
and  Missouri  among  the  rest,  three  times  their 
present  relative  weight;  and  no  permanent 
measure  ought  to  be  discussed  until  this  new 
relative  weight  should  appear  in  Congress. 
Why  take  the  census  every  ten  years,  if  an  ex- 
piring representation  at  the  end  of  the  term 
may  reach  over,  and  bind  the  increased  num- 
bers by  laws  which  claim  immunity  from  re- 
peal, and  which  are  rushed  through  without  de- 
bate ?  Am  I  to  submit  to  such  work  ?  No, 
never !  I  will  war  against  the  bank  you  may 
establish,  whether  a  simple  or  a  compound 
monster ;  I  will  war  against  it  by  every  means 
known  to  the  constitution  and  the  laws.  I  will 
vote  for  the  repeal  of  its  charter,  as  General 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


229 


Harrison  and  others  voted  for  the  repeal  of  the 
late  bank  charter  in  1819.  I  will  promote  quo 
warrantors  and  sci.fa.'s  against  it.  I  will  op- 
pose its  friends  and  support  its  enemies,  and 
work  at  its  destruction  in  every  legal  and  con- 
stitutional way.  I  will  war  upon  it  while  I 
have  breath  ;  and  if  I  incur  political  extinction 
in  the  contest,  I  shall  consider  my  political  life 
well  sold — sold  for  a  high  price — when  lost  in 
such  a  cause. 

But  enough  for  the  present.  The  question 
now  before  us  is  the  death  of  the  sub-treasury. 
The  discussion  of  the  substitute  is  a  fair  inquiry 
in  this  question.  "We  have  a  right  to  see  what 
is  to  follow,  and  to  compare  it  with  what  we 
have.  But  gentlemen  withhold  their  schemes, 
and  we  strike  in  the  dark.  My  present  purpose 
is  to  vindicate  the  independent  treasury  sys- 
tem— to  free  it  from  a  false  character — to  show 
it  to  be  what  it  is,  nothing  but  the  revival  of  the 
two  great  acts  of  September  the  1st  and  Sep- 
tember the  2d,  1789,  for  the  collection,  safe 
keeping,  and  disbursement  of  the  public  moneys, 
under  which  this  government  went  into  opera- 
tion; and  under  which  it  operated  safely  and 
successfully  until  General  Hamilton  overthrew 
it  to  substitute  the  bank  and  state  system  of 
Sir  Robert  Walpole,  which  has  been  the  curse 
of  England,  and  towards  which  we  are  now 
hurrying  again  with  headlong  steps  and  blind- 
fold eyes. 


CHAPTER    LXVI. 

THE  BANKRUPT  ACT:  WHAT  IT  WAS:  AND  HOW 
IT  WAS  PASSED. 

It  has  been  seen  in  Mr.  Tyler's  message  that,  as 
a  measure  of  his  own  administration,  he  would 
not  have  convened  Congress  in  extraordinary 
session ;  but  this  having  been  done  by  his  pre- 
decessor, he  would  not  revoke  his  act.  It  was 
known  that  the  call  had  been  made  at  the 
urgent  instance  of  Mr.  Clay.  That  ardent 
statesman  had  so  long  seen  his  favorite  meas- 
ures baffled  by  a  majority  opposition  to  them 
in  one  House  or  the  other,  and  by  the  twelve 
years  presidency  of  General  Jackson  and  Mr. 
Van  Buren,  that  he  was  naturally  now  impatient 
to  avail  himself  of  the  advantage  of  having  all 


the  branches  of  the  government  in  their  favor. 
He  did  so  without  delay.     Mr.  Tyler  had  de- 
livered his  message,  recommending  the  measures 
which  he  deemed  proper  for  the  consideration 
of  Congress :  Mr.  Clay  did  the  same— that  is  to 
say,  recommend  his  list  of  measures  to  Congress 
also,  not  in  the  shape  of  a  message,  but  in  the 
form  of  a  resolve,  submitted  to  the  Senate ;  and 
which  has  been  given.     A  bankrupt  act  was  not 
in  his  programme,  nor  in  the  President's  mes- 
sage ;  and  it  was  well  known,  and  that  by  evi- 
dence less  equivocal  than  its  designed  exclusion 
from  his  list  of  measures,  that  Mr.  Clay  was 
opposed  to  such  a  bill.     But  parties  were  so 
nearly  balanced  in  the  Senate,  a  deduction  of 
two  or  three  from  the  one  side  and  added  to  the 
other  would  operate  the  life  or  death  of  most 
important  measures,  in  the  event  that  a  few 
members  should  make  the  passage  of  a  favorite 
measure  the  indispensable   condition   of  their 
vote  for  some  others  which  could  not  be  carried 
without  it.     This  was  the  case  with  the  bank 
bill,  and  the  distribution  bill.     A  bank  was  the 
leading  measure  of  Mr.  Clay's  policy — the  cor- 
ner stone  of  his  legislative  edifice.   It  was  num- 
ber two  in  his  list :  it  was  number  one  in  his 
affections  and  in  his  parliamentary  movement. 
He  obtained  a  select  committee  on  the  second 
day  of  the  session,  to  take  into  consideration  the 
part  of  the  President's  message  which  related  to 
the  currency  and  the  fiscal  agent  for  the  man- 
agement of  the  finances  ;  but  before  that  select 
committee  could  report  a  bill,  Mr.  Henderson, 
of  Mississippi,  taking  the  shortest  road  to  get  at 
his  object,  asked  and  obtained  leave  to  bring  in 
a  bill  to  establish  a  system  of  bankruptcy.   This 
measure,  then,  which  had  no  place  in  the  Pre- 
sident's message,  or  in  Mr.  Clay's  schedule,  and 
to  which  he  was  averse,  took  precedence  on  the 
calendar  of  the  vital   measure  for  which  the 
extra  session  was  chiefly  called ;  and  Mr.  Hen- 
derson being  determinedly  supported  by  his 
colleague,  Mr.  Walker,  and  a  few  other  resolute 
senators  with  whom  the  bankrupt  act  was  an 
overruling  consideration,  he  was  enabled  to  keep 
it  ahead,  and  coerce  support  from  as  many 
averse  to  it  as  would  turn  the  scale  in  its  favor. 
It  passed  the  Senate,  July  24th,  by  a  close  vote, 
26  to  23.     The  yeas  were : 

"  Messrs.  Barrow,  Bates,  Berrien,  Choate, 
Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clayton,  Dixon,  Evans,  Hen- 
derson,   Huntington,    Kerr,    Merrick,  Miller, 


230 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Morehead,  Mouton,  Phelps,  Porter,  Simmons, 
Smith  of  Indiana,  Southard,  Tallmadge,  Walker, 
White,  Williams,  Woodbridge,  Young.' 

"  Nays — Messrs,  Allen,  Archer,  Bayard,  Ben- 
ton, Buchanan,  Calhoun,  Clay  of  Alabama,  Cuth- 
bert,  Fulton,  Graham,  King,  Linn,  McRoberts, 
Nicholson,  Pierce,  Prentiss,  Rives,  Sevier,  Smith 
of  Connecticut,  Sturgeon,  Tappan,  Woodbury, 
Wright." 

The  distribution  bill  was  a  leading  measure 
in  Mr.  Clay's  policy :  it  ranked  next  after  the 
national  bank.  He  had  also  taken  it  into  his 
own  care,  and  had  introduced  a  bill  on  leave  for 
the  purpose  at  an  early  day.  A  similar  bill  was 
also  introduced  in  the  House  of  Representatives. 
There  was  no  willing  majority  for  the  bankrupt 
bill  in  either  House ;  but  the  bank  bill  and  the 
land  bill  were  made  to  pass  it.  The  ardent 
friends  of  the  bankrupt  bill  embargoed  both  the 
others  until  their  favorite  measure  was  secure. 
They  were  able  to  defeat  the  other  two,  and  de- 
termined to  do  so  if  they  did  not  get  their  own 
measure;  and  they  did  get  it — presenting  the 
spectacle  of  a  bill,  which  had  no  majority  in 
either  House,  forcing  its  own  passage,  and  con- 
trolling the  fate  of  two  others — all  of  them  mea- 
sures of  great  national  concern. 

The  bankrupt  bill  had  passed  the  Senate 
ahead  of  the  bank  bill,  and  also  of  the  distribu- 
tion bill,  and  went  to  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, where  the  majority  was  against  it.  It 
seemed  doomed  in  that  House.  The  same  bill 
had  originated  in  that  body ;  but  lay  upon  the 
table  without  consideration.  The  President, 
beset  by  a  mass  of  debtors  who  had  repaired  to 
Washington  to  promote  the  passage  of  the  bill, 
sent  in  a  special  message  in  its  favor ;  but  with- 
out effect.  The  House  bill  slept  on  the  table : 
the  Senate  bill  arrived  there,  and  was  soon  put 
to  rest  upon  the  same  table.  Mr.  Underwood, 
of  Kentucky,  a  friend  of  Mr.  Clay,  had  moved 
to  lay  it  on  the  table ;  and  the  motion  prevailed 
by  a  good  majority — 110  to  97.  Information 
of  this  vote  instantly  flew  to  the  Senate.  One  of 
the  senators,  intent  upon  the  passage  of  the  bill, 
left  his  seat  and  went  down  to  the  House ;  and 
when  he  returned  he  informed  the  writer  of  this 
View  that  the  bill  would  pass — that  it  would  be 
taken  off  the  table,  and  put  through  immedi- 
ately :  and  such  was  the  fact.  The  next  day 
the  bill  was  taken  up  and  passed— the  meagre 
majority  of  only  six  for  it.  The  way  in  which 
this  was  done  was  made  known  to  the  writer 


of  this  View  by  the  senator  who  went  down  to 
attend  to  the  case  when  the  bill  was  laid  on  the 
table:  it  was  simply  to  let  the  friends  of  the 
bank  and  distribution  bills  know  that  these 
measures  would  be  defeated  if  the  bankrupt  bill 
was  not  passed — that  there  were  enough  de- 
termined on  that  point  to  make  sure :  and,  for 
the  security  of  the  bankrupt  bill,  it  was  required 
to  be  passed  first. 

The  bill  had  passed  the  House  with  an  amend- 
ment, postponing  the  commencement  of  its  ope- 
ration from  November  to  February;  and  this 
amendment  required  to  be  communicated  to  the 
Senate  for  its  concurrence — which  was  immedi- 
ately done.  This  amendment  was  a  salvo  to  the 
consciences  of  members  for  their  forced  votes :  it 
was  intended  to  give  Congress  an  opportunity 
of  repealing  the  act  before  it  took  effect;  but 
the  friends  of  the  bill  were  willing  to  take  it 
that  way — confident  that  they  could  baffle  the 
repeal  for  some  months,  and  until  those  most 
interested,  had  obtained  the  relief  they  wanted. 

At  the  time  that  this  amendment  was  coming 
up  to  the  Senate  that  body  was  engaged  on  the 
distribution  bill,  the  debate  on  the  bank  veto 
message  having  been  postponed  by  the  friends 
of  the  bank  to  make  way  for  it.  August  the 
18th  had  been  fixed  for  that  day — 12  o'clock 
the  hour.  The  day  and  the  hour,  had  come ; 
and  with  them  an  immense  crowd,  and  an  ex- 
cited expectation.  For  it  was  known  that  Mr. 
Clay  was  to  speak — and  to  speak  according  to 
his  feelings — which  were  known  to  be  highly 
excited  against  Mr.  Tyler.  In  the  midst  of  this 
expectation  and  crowd,  and  to  the  disappoint- 
ment of  every  body,  Mr.  Berrien  rose  and  said 
that — "  Under  a  sense  of  duty,  he  was  induced 
to  move  that  the  consideration  of  the  executive 
veto  message  on  the  fiscal  bank  bill  be  post- 
poned until  to-morrow,  12  o'clock." — Mr.  Cal- 
houn objected  to  this  postponement.  "  The  day, 
he  said,  had  been  fixed  by  the  friends  of  the 
bank  bill.  The  President's  message  contain- 
ing his  objections  to  it  had  now  been  in  posses- 
sion of  the  Senate,  and  on  the  tables  of  mem- 
bers for  two  days.  Surely  there  had  been  suffi- 
cient time  to  reflect  upon  it :  yet  now  it  was 
proposed  still  longer  to  defer  action  upon  it. 
He  asked  the  senator  from  Georgia,  who  had 
made  the  motion,  to  assign  some  reason  for  the 
proposed  delay."  The  request  of  Mr.  Calhoun 
for  a  reason,  was  entirely  parliamentary  and 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


231 


proper ;  and  in  fact  should  have  been  anticipated 
by  giving  the  reason  with  the  motion — as  it  was 
not  deferential  to  the  Senate  to  ask  it  to  do  a 
thing  without  a  reason,  especially  when  the 
thing  to  be  done  was  contrary  to  an  expressed 
resolve  of  the  Senate,  and  took  members  by 
surprise  who  came  prepared  to  attend  to  the 
appointed  business,  and  not  prepared  to  attend 
to  another  subject.  Mr.  Berrien  declined  to 
give  a  reason,  and  said  that — "  When  the  sen- 
ator from  South  Carolina  expressed  his  personal 

conviction  that  time  enough  had  been  allowed 

i 
for  reflection  on  the  message,  he  expressed  what 

would  no  doubt  regulate  his  personal  conduct ; 
but  when  he  himself  stated  that,  under  a  sense 
of  duty,  he  had  asked  for  further  time,  he  had 
stated  his  own  conviction  in  regard  to  the 
course  which  ought  to  be  pursued.  Senators 
would  decide  for  themselves  which  opinion  was 
to  prevail." — Mr.  Calhoun  rejoined  in  a  way  to 
show  his  belief  that  there  was  a  secret  and 
sinister  cause  for  this  reserve,  so  novel  and  ex- 
traordinary in  legislative  proceedings.  He  said 
— "  Were  the  motives  such  as  could  not  be  pub- 
licly looked  at  ?  were  they  founded  on  move- 
ments external  to  that  chamber  ?  It  was  cer- 
tainly due  to  the  Senate  that  a  reason  should 
be  given.  It  was  quite  novel  to  refuse  it.  Some 
reason  was  always  given  for  a  postponement. 
He  had  never  known  it  to  be  otherwise." — Mr. 
Berrien  remained  unmoved  by  this  cogent  ap- 
peal, and  rejoined — "  The  senator  from  South 
Carolina  was  at  liberty  to  suggest  whatever  he 
might  think  proper;  but  that  he  should  not 
conclude  him  (Mr.  Berrien),  as  having  made  a 
motion  here  for  reasons  which  he  could  not  dis- 
close."— Mr.  Calhoun  then  said  that,  "  this  was 
a  very  extraordinary  motion,  the  votes  of  sen- 
ators upon  it  ought  to  be  recorded :  he  would 
therefore  move  for  the  yeas  and  nays,"—  which 
were  ordered,  and  stood  thus  :  Yeas :  Messrs. 
Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Bayard,  Berrien,  C  ho  ate, 
Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clayton  (Thomas  of  Dela- 
ware), Dixon,  Evans,  Graham,  Henderson,  Hunt- 
ingdon, Kerr,  Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller,  More- 
head,  Phelps,  Porter,  Prentiss,  Preston,  Rives, 
Simmons,  Smith  of  Indiana,  Southard,  Tallmadge, 
White,  and  Woodbridge,  29 — the  supporters  of 
the  bank  all  voting  for  the  postponement,  their 
numbers  swelled  a  little  beyond  their  actual 
strength  by  the  votes  of  Mr.  Rives,  and  a  few 
other  whigs.     The  nays  were :  Messrs.  Allen, 


Benton,  Buchanan,  Calhoun,  Clay  of  Alabama, 
Cuthbert,  Fulton,  King,  Linn,  McRoberts,  Mou- 
ton,  A.  0.  P.  Nicholson,  Pierce,  Sevier,  Stur- 
geon, Tappan,  Walker,  Williams,  Woodbury, 
Wright,  and  Young — 21.  It  was  now  apparent 
that  the  postponement  of  the  bank  question  was 
a  concerted  measure  of  the  whig  party — that 
Mr.  Berrien  was  its  organ  in  making  the  motion 
—and  that  the  reason  for  it  was  a  party  secret 
which  he  was  not  at  liberty  to  disclose.  Events, 
however,  were  in  progress  to  make  the  dis- 
closure. 

The  distribution  bill  was  next  in  order,  and 
during  its  consideration  Mr.  White,  of  Indiana, 
made  a  remark  which  attracted  the  attention  of 
Mr.  Benton.  Deprecating  further  debate,  as  a 
useless  waste  of  time,  Mr.  White  wished  discus- 
sion to  cease,  and  the  vote  be  taken — "  as  he 
hoped,  as  well  as  believed,  that  the  bill  would 
pass,  and  not  alone,  but  be  accompanied  by 
other  measures."  This  remark  from  Mr.  White 
gave  Mr.  Benton  something  to  go  upon ;  and 
he  immediately  let  out  what  was  on  his  mind. 

He  thanked  the  senator  from  Indiana  for  his 
avowal ;  it  was  a  confirmation  of  what  he  well 
knew  before — that  measures,  at  this  extraordi- 
nary session,  were  not  passed  or  rejected  upon 
their  merits,  but  made  to  depend  one  upon  an- 
other, and  the  whole  upon  a  third  !  It  was  all 
bargain  and  sale.  All  was  conglomerated  into 
one  mass,  and  must  go  together  or  fall  together. 
This  was  the  decree  out  of  doors.  When  the 
sun  dips  below  the  horizon,  a  private  Congress 
is  held,  the  fate  of  the  measure  is  decided ;  a 
vbundle  are  tied  together;  and  while  one  goes 
ahead  as  a  bait,  another  is  held  back  as  a  rod. 

Mr.  Linn,  of  Missouri,  still  more  frank  than 
his  colleague,  stigmatized  the  motive  for  post- 
ponement, and  the  means  that  were  put  in  prac- 
tice to  pass  momentous  bills  which  could  not 
pass  on  their  own  merits  ;  and  spoke  out  with- 
out disguise : 

"These  artifices  grow  out  of  the  system 
adopted  for  carrying  through  measures  that 
never  could  be  carried  through  other  than  by 
trick  and  art.  The  majority  which  by  force, 
not  by  argument,  have  to  carry  their  measures, 
must  meet  in  secret — concoct  their  measures  in 
conclave — and  then  hold  every  member  of  the 
party  bound  to  support  what  is  thus  agreed 
upon — a  master  spirit  leading  all  the  while. 
There  had  been  enough  of  falsehood,  misrepre- 
sentation and  delusion.  The  presidential  elec- 
tion had  contained  enough  of  it,  without  adding 


232 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


to  the  mass  at  this  session.  The  country  was 
awake  to  these  impositions,  and  required  only 
to  be  informed  of  the  movements  of  the  wire- 
workers  to  know  how  to  appreciate  their  mea- 
sures. And  the  people  should  be  informed. 
As  far  as  it  was  possible  for  him  and  his  friends 
to  lay  that  information  before  the  country,  it 
should  be  done.  Every  man  in  the  community 
must  be  told  how  this  bank  bill,  which  was  in- 
tended to  rule  the  country  with  a  moneyed  des- 
potism for  years  to  come,  had  been  passed — how 
a  national  debt  was  entailed  upon  the  country — 
how  this  bankrupt  bill  was  forced  through,  as 
he  (Mr.  Linn)  now  understood  it  was,  by  a 
majority  of  five  votes,  in  the  other  end  of  the 
Capitol,  many  of  its  whig  opponents  dodging 
behind  the  columns  ;  and  how  this  land  distri- 
bution bill  was  now  in  the  course  of  being 
passed,  and  the  tricks  resorted  to  to  effect  its 
passage.  It  was  all  part  and  parcel  of  the  same 
system  which  was  concocted  in  Harrisburg, 
wrought  with  such  blind  zeal  at  the  presiden- 
tial election,  and  perfected  by  being  compressed 
into  a  congressional  caucus,  at  an  extraordinary 
called,  but  uncalled-for,  session." 

The  distribution  bill  had  been  under  debate 
for  an  hour,  and  Mr.  King,  of  Alabama,  was  on 
the  floor  speaking  to  it,  when  the  clerk  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  appeared  at  the  door 
of  the  Senate  Chamber  with  the  bankrupt  bill, 
and  the  amendments  made  by  the  House — and 
asking  the  concurrence  of  the  Senate.  Still 
standing  on  his  feet,  but  dropping  the  line  of 
his  argument,  Mr.  King  exclaimed  : 

"  That,  sir,  is  the  bill.  There  it  is  sir.  That 
is  the  bill  which  is  to  hurry  this  land  distri- 
bution bill  to  its  final  passage,  without  either 
amendments  or  debate.  Did  not  the  senator 
know  that  yesterday,  when  the  bankrupt  bill 
was  laid  on  the  table  by  a  decided  vote  in  the 
other  House,  the  distribution  bill  could  not,  by 
any  possibility  then  existing,  be  passed  in  this 
House  ?  But  now  the  case  was  altered.  A  re- 
consideration of  the  vote  of  yesterday  had  taken 
place  in  the  other  House,  and  the  bankrupt  bill 
was  now  returned  to  the  Senate  for  concurrence ; 
after  which  it  would  want  but  the  signature  of 
the  Executive  to  become  a  law.  But  how  had 
this  change  been  so  suddenly  brought  about  ? 
How,  but  by  putting  on  the  screws  ?  Gentle- 
men whose  States  cried  aloud  for  the  relief  of  a 
bankrupt  law,  were  told  they  could  not  have  it 
unless  they  would  pay  the  price — they  must 
pass  the  distribution  bill,  or  they  should  have 
no  bankrupt  bill.  One  part  of  the  bargain  was 
already  fulfilled :  the  bankrupt  bill  was  passed. 
The  other  part  of  the  bargain  is  now  to  be  con- 
summated: the  distribution  bill  can  pass  now 
without  further  delay.  He  (Mr.  King)  had 
had  the  honor  of  a  seat  in  this  chamber  for 
many  years,  but  never  during  that  time  had  he 


seen  legislation  so  openly  and  shamefully  dis- 
graced by  a  system  of  bargain  and  sale.  This 
extra  session  of  Congress  would  be  long  remem- 
bered for  the  open  and  undisguised  extent  to 
which  this  system  had  been  carried." 

Incontinently  the  distribution  bill  was  laid 
upon  the  table,  and  the  bankrupt  bill  was  taken 
up.  This  was  done  upon  the  motion  of  Mr. 
Walker,  who  gave  his  reasons,  thus  : 

"  He  rose  not  to  prolong  the  debate  on  the 
distribution  bill,  but  to  ask  that  it  might  be 
laid  on  the  table,  that  the  bill  to  establish  a 
general  bankrupt  law,  which  had  just  been  re- 
ceived from  the  House,  might  be  taken  up,  and 
the  amendment,  which  was  unimportant,  might 
be  concurred  in  by  the  Senate.  He  expressed 
his  ardent  joy  at  the  passage  of  this  bill  by  this 
House,  which  was  so  imperiously  demanded  as 
a  measure  of  great  relief  to  a  suffering  commu- 
nity, which  he  desired  should  not  be  held  in 
suspense  another  night ;  but  that  they  should 
immediately  take  up  the  amendments,  and  act 
on  them.  For  this  purpose  he  moved  to  lay  the 
distribution  bill  on  the  table." 

Mr.  Linn  asked  for  the  yeas  and  nays,  that  it 
might  be  seen  how  senators  voted  in  this  riga- 
doon  legislation,  in  which  movements  were  so 
rapid,  so  complicated,  and  so  perfectly  per- 
formed. They  were  ordered,  and  stood :  Yeas 
— Messrs.  Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Bayard,  Ber- 
rien, Choate,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Dixon,  Evans, 
Henderson,  Huntington,  Kerr,  Mangum,  Mer- 
rick, Miller,  Morehead,  Phelps,  Porter,  Preston, 
Simmons,  Smith  of  Indiana,  Southard,  Tall- 
madge,  Walker,  White,  and  Woodbridge — 26. 
Nays — Messrs.  Allen,  Benton,  Buchanan,  Cal- 
houn, Clay  of  Alabama,  Clayton,  Cuthbert,  Ful- 
ton, Graham,  King,  Linn,  McRoberts,  Mouton, 
Pierce,  Sevier,  Sturgeon,  Tappan,  Williams, 
Woodbury,  Wright,  and  Young— 21.  So  that 
the  whole  body  of  the  friends  to  the  distribution 
bill,  voted  to  lay  it  down  to  take  up  the  bank- 
rupt bill,  as  they  had  just  voted  to  lay  down  the 
bank  bill  to  take  up  the  distribution.  The  three 
measures  thus  travelled  in  company,  but  bank- 
rupt in  the  lead — for  the  reason,  as  one  of  its 
supporters  told  Mr.  Benton,  that  they  were 
afraid  it  would  not  get  through  at  all  if  the  other 
measures  got  through  before  it.  The  bankrupt 
bill  having  thus  superseded  the  distribution  bill, 
as  itself  had  superseded  the  bank  bill,  Mr.  Wal- 
ker moved  a  concurrence  in  the  amendment. 
Mr.  Buchanan  intimated  to  Mr.  Walker  that  he 
was  taken  in— that  the  postponement  was  to 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


233 


enable  Congress  to  repeal  the  bill  before  it  took 
effect ;  and,  speaking  in  this  sense,  said : 

"  From  the  tone  of  the  letters  he  had  received 
from  politicians  differing  with  him,  he  should 
advise  his  friend  from  Mississippi  [Mr.  Walker], 
not  to  be  quite  so  soft  as,  in  his  eagerness  to  pass 
this  bill,  to  agree  to  this  amendment,  postponing 
the  time  for  it  to  take  effect  to  February,  as  it 
would  be  repealed  before  its  operation  com- 
menced ;  although  it  was  now  made  a  price  of 
the  passage  of  the  distribution  bill.  He  felt  not 
a  particle  of  doubt  but  there  would  be  a  violent 
attempt  to  repeal  it  next  session." 

Mr.  Walker  did  not  defend  the  amendment, 
but  took  it  rather  than,  by  a  non-concurrence, 
to  send  the  bill  back  to  the  House,  where  its 
friends  could  not  trust  it  again.  He  said — 
"  When  his  friend  from  Pennsylvania  spoke  of 
his  being  '  soft,'  he  did  not  know  whether  he 
referred  to  his  head  or  his  heart ;  but  he  could 
assure  him  he  was  not  soft  enough  to  run  the 
chance  of  defeating  the  bill  by  sending  it  back 
to  the  House." — Mr.  Calhoun  did  not  concur 
with  his  friend  from  Pennsylvania,  that  there 
would  be  any  effort  to  repeal  this  bill.  It  would 
be  exceedingly  popular  at  its  first  "  go  off,"  and 
if  this  bill  passed,  he  hoped  that  none  of  his 
friends  would  attempt  to  repeal  it.  It  would, 
if  permitted  to  work,  produce  its  legitimate 
effects  ;  and  was  enough  to  destroy  any  adminis- 
tration. He  saw  that  this  was  a  doomed  ad- 
ministration. It  would  not  only  destroy  them, 
but  blow  them  "  sky  high." 

This  was  the  only  instance  in  which  Mr.  Cal- 
houn was  known  to  express  a  willingness  that 
a  bad  measure  should  stand  because  it  would 
be  the  destruction  of  its  authors ;  and  on  this 
occasion  it  was  merely  the  ebullition  of  an  excited 
feeling,  as  proved  when  the  question  of  repeal 
came  on  at  the  next  session — in  which  he  cor- 
dially gave  his  assistance.  The  amendment  was 
concurred  in  without  a  division,  the  adversaries 
of  the  bill  being  for  the  postponement  in  good 
faith,  and  its  friends  agreeing  to  it  for  fear  of 
something  worse.  There  had  been  an  agree- 
ment that  the  three  measures  were  to  pass,  and 
upon  that  agreement  the  bank  bill  was  allowed 
to  go  down  to  the  House  before  the  bankrupt 
bill  was  out  of  it ;  but  the  laying  that  bill  on 
the  table  raised  an  alarm,  and  the  friends  of  the 
bankrupt  required  the  others  to  be  stopped  until 
their  cherished  measure  was  finished :  and  that 
was  one  of  the  reasons  for  postponing  the  debate 


on  the  bank  veto  message  which  could  not  be 
disclosed  to  the  Senate.  The  amendment  of  the 
House  being  agreed  to,  there  was  no  further 
vote  to  be  taken  on  the  bill ;  but  a  motion  was 
made  to  suppress  it  by  laying  it  on  the  table. 
That  motion  brought  out  a  clean  vote  for  and 
against  the  bill — 23  to  2G.  The  next  day  it  re- 
ceived the  approval  of  the  President,  and  became 
a  law. 

The  act  was  not  a  bankrupt  law,  but  prac- 
tically an  insolvent  law  for  the  abolition  of  debts 
at  the  will  of  the  debtor.  It  applied  to  all  per- 
sons in  debt — allowed  them  to  commence  their 
proceedings  in  the  district  of  their  own  resi- 
dence, no  matter  how  lately  removed  to  it — al- 
lowed constructive  notice  to  creditors  in  news- 
papers— declared  the  abolition  of  the  debt  where 
effects  were  surrendered  and  fraud  not  proved. 
It  broke  down  the  line  between  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  federal  courts  and  the  State  courts  in  the 
whole  department  of  debtors  and  creditors  ;  and 
bringing  all  local  debts  and  dealings  into  the 
federal  courts,  at  the  will  of  the  debtor,  to  be 
settled  by  a  federal  jurisdiction,  with  every  ad- 
vantage on  the  side  of  the  debtor.  It  took 
away  from  the  State  courts  the  trials  between 
debtor  and  creditor  in  the  same  State — a  thing 
which  under  the  constitution  can  only  be  done 
between  citizens  of  different  States.  Jurisdic- 
tion over  bankruptcies  did  not  include  the  mass 
of  debtors,  but  only  that  class  known  to  legis- 
lative and  judicial  proceedings  as  bankrupts. 
To  go  beyond,  and  take  in  all  debtors  who  could 
not  pay  their  debts,  and  bring  them  into  the 
federal  courts,  was  to  break  down  the  line  be- 
tween federal  and  State  jurisdictions,  and  sub- 
ject all  persons — all  neighbors — to  have  their 
dealings  settled  in  the  federal  courts.  It  vio- 
lated the  principle  of  all  bankrupt  systems — that 
of  a  proceeding  on  the  part  of  the  creditors  for 
their  own  benefit — and  made  it  entirely  a  pro- 
ceeding for  the  benefit  of  the  debtor,  at  his  own 
will.  It  was  framed  upon  the  model  of  the 
English  insolvent  debtor's  act  of  George  the 
Fourth ;  and  after  closely  paraphrasing  eighteen 
provisions  out  of  that  act,  most  flagrantly  de- 
parted from  its  remedy  in  the  conclusion,  in  sub- 
stituting a  release  from  the  debt  instead  of  a 
release  from  imprisonment.  In  that  feature, 
and  in  applying  to  all  debts,  and  in  giving  the 
initiative  to  the  debtor,  and  subjecting  the  whole 
proceeding  to  be  carried  on  at  his  will,  it  ceased 


234 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


to  be  a  bankrupt  act,  and  became  an  insolvent 
act ;  but  with  a  remedy  which  no  insolvent  act, 
or  bankrupt  system,  had  ever  contained  before — 
that  of  a  total  abolition  of  the  debt  by  the  act 
of  the  debtor  alone,  unless  the  creditor  could 
prove  fraud ;  which  the  sort  of  trial  allowed 
would  render  impossible,  even  where  it  actually 
existed.  It  was  the  same  bill  which  had  been 
introduced  at  the  previous  session,  and  sup- 
ported by  Mr.  Webster  in  an  argument  which 
confounded  insolvency  with  bankruptcy,  and 
assumed  every  failure  to  pay  a  debt  to  be  a 
bankruptcy.  The  pressure  for  the  passing  of 
the  act  was  immense.  The  long  disorders  of 
the  currency,  with  the  expansions,  contractions, 
suspensions,  and  breaking  of  banks  had  filled 
the  country  with  men  of  ruined  fortunes,  who 
looked  to  the  extinction  of  their  debts  by  law 
as  the  only  means  of  getting  rid  of  their  incum- 
brances, and  commencing  business  anew.  This 
unfortunate  class  was  estimated  by  the  most 
moderate  observers  at  an  hundred  thousand 
men.  They  had  become  a  power  in  the  State. 
Their  numbers  and  zeal  gave  them  weight: 
their  common  interest  gave  them  unity :  the 
stake  at  issue  gave  them  energy.  They  worked 
in  a  body  in  the  presidential  election,  and  on 
the  side  of  the  whigs :  and  now  attended  Con- 
gress, and  looked  to  that  party  for  the  legisla- 
tive relief  for  which  they  had  assisted  in  the 
election.  Nor  did  they  look  in  vain.  They  got 
all  they  asked — but  most  unwillingly,  and  under 
a  moral  duresse — and  as  the  price  of  passing 
two  other  momentous  bills.  Such  is  legislation 
in  high  party  times !  selfish  and  sinistrous, 
when  the  people  believe  it  to  be  honest  and 
patriotic  !  people  at  home,  whose  eyes  should  be 
opened  to  the  truth,  if  they  wish  to  preserve 
the  purity  of  their  government.  Here  was  a 
measure  which,  of  itself,  could  not  have  got 
through  either  House  of  Congress :  combined 
with  others,  it  carried  itself,  and  licensed  the 
passing  of  two  more  !  And  all  this  was  done — 
so  nicely  were  parties  balanced — by  the  zeal 
and  activity  (more  than  the  numbers)  of  a  single 
State,  and  that  a  small  one,  and  among  the  most 
indebted.  In  brief,  the  bankrupt  act  was  passed, 
and  the  passage  of  the  bank  and  distribution 
bills  were  licensed  by  the  State  of  Mississippi, 
dominated  by  the  condition  of  its  population. 

Mr.  Buchanan,  Mr.  Wright,  Mr.  Woodbury, 
were  the  principal  speakers  against  the  bill  in 


the  Senate.  Mr.  Benton  addressed  himself 
mainly  to  Mr.  Webster's  position,  confounding 
insolvency  and  bankruptcy,  as  taken  at  the  pre- 
vious session  ;  and  delivered  a  speech  of  some 
research  in  opposition  to  that  assumption — of 
which  some  extracts  are  given  in  the  next 
chapter. 


CHAPTER   LXVII. 

BANKEUPT  BILL:    ME.    BENTON'S   SPEECH:   EX- 
TEACTS. 

The  great  ground  which  we  occupy  in  relation 
to  the  character  of  this  bill  (said  Mr.  B.)  is  this : 
that  it  is  not  a  bankrupt  system,  but  an  insol- 
vent law,  perverted  to  a  discharge  from  debts, 
instead  of  a  discharge  from  imprisonment.  As 
such,  it  was  denounced  from  the  moment  it 
made  its  appearance  in  this  chamber,  at  the  last 
session,  and  I  am  now  ready  to  prove  it  to  be 
such.  I  have  discovered  its  origin,  and  hold  the 
evidence  in  my  hand.  It  is  framed  upon  the 
English  insolvent  debtor's  act  of  the  1st  of 
George  IV.,  improved  and  extended  by  the  act 
of  the  7th  of  George  IV.,  and  by  the  1st  of  Vic- 
toria. From  these  three  insolvent  acts  our  fa- 
mous bankrupt  system  of  1841  is  compiled ; 
and  it  follows  its  originals  with  great  fidelity, 
except  in  a  few  particulars,  until  it  arrives  at 
the  conclusion,  where  a  vast  and  terrible  altera- 
tion is  introduced  !  Instead  of  discharging  the 
debtor  from  imprisonment,  as  the  English  acta 
do,  our  American  copy  discharges  him  from  his 
debts  !  But  this  is  a  thing  rather  to  be  proved 
than  told ;  and  here  is  the  proof.  I  have  a  copy 
of  the  British  statutes  on  my  table,  containing 
the  three  acts  which  I  have  mentioned,  and  shall 
quote  from  the  first  one,  in  the  first  year  of  the 
reign  of  George  IV.,  and  is  entitled  "  An  act  for 
the  relief  of  insolvent  debtors  in  England" 
The  preamble  recites  that  it  is  expedient  to 
make  permanent  provision  for  the  relief  of  in- 
solvent debtors  in  England  confined  in  jail,  and 
who  shall  be  willing  to  surrender  their  property 
to  their  creditors,  and  thereby  obtain  a  discharge 
from  imprisonment.  For  this  purpose  the  act 
creates  a  new  court,  to  be  called  the  insolvent 
debtors  coitrt,  which  was  to  sit  in  London,  and 
send  commissioners  into  the  counties.    The  first 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


235 


sections  are  taken  up  with  the  organization  of 
the  court.  Then  come  its  powers  and  duties, 
its  modes  of  proceeding,  and  the  rights  of  insol- 
vents in  it :  and  in  these  enactments,  as  in  a 
mirror,  and  with  a  few  exceptions  (the  effect  of 
design,  of  accident,  or  of  necessity,  from  the 
difference  of  the  two  forms  of  government),  we 
perceive  the  original  of  our  bankrupt  act.  I 
quote  partly  from  the  body  of  the  statute,  but 
chiefly  from  the  marginal  notes,  as  being  a  suffi- 
cient index  to  the  contents  of  the  sections. 
(Here  the  speaker  quoted  eighteen  separate 
clauses  in  which  the  bill  followed  the  English 
act,  constituting  the  whole  essence  of  the  bill, 
and  its  mode  of  proceeding.) 

This  is  the  bill  which  we  call  bankrupt — a 
mere  parody  and  perversion  of  the  English  in- 
solvent debtor's  act.  And  now,how  came  such 
a  bill  to  be  introduced  ?  Sir,  it  grew  out  of  the 
contentions  of  party ;  was  brought  forward,  as 
a  party  measure ;  and  was  one  of  the  bitter 
fruits  of  the  election  of  1840.  The  bill  was 
brought  forward  in  the  spring  of  that  year, 
passed  in  the  Senate,  and  lost  in  the  House. 
It  was  contested  in  both  Houses  as  a  party 
measure,  and  was  taken  up  as  a  party  topic  in 
the  presidential  canvass.  The  debtor  class — 
those  irretrievably  in  debt,  and  estimated  by  the 
most  moderate  at  a  hundred  thousand  men — 
entered  most  zealously  into  the  canvass,  and  on 
the  side  of  the  party  which  favored  the  act. 
The  elections  were  carried  by  that  party — the 
Congress  as  well  as  the  presidential.  All  power 
is  in  the  hands  of  that  party ;  and  an  extra 
session  of  the  legislature  was  impatiently  called 
to  realize  the  benefits  of  the  victory.  But  the 
opening  of  the  session  did  not  appear  to  be  aus- 
picious to  the  wishes  of  the  bankrupts.  The 
President's  message  recommended  no  bankrupt 
bill ;  and  the  list  of  subjects  enumerated  for  the 
action  of  Congress,  and  designated  in  a  paper 
drawn  by  Mr.  Clay,  and  placed  on  our  journal 
for  our  guidance,  was  equally  silent  upon  that 
subject.  To  all  appearance,  the  bankrupt  bill 
was  not  to  come  before  us  at  the  extra  session. 
It  was  evidently  a  deferred  subject.  The  friends 
and  expectants  of  the  measure  took  the  alarm — 
flocked  to  Congress — beset  the  President  and 
the  members — obtained  from  him  a  special  mes- 
sage recommending  a  bankrupt  law ;  and  pre- 
vailed on  members  to  bring  in  the  bill.  It  was 
brought  into  the  Senate — the  same  which  had 


been  defeated  in  1840 — and  it  was  soon  seen 
that  its  passage  was  not  to  depend  upon  its  own 
merits  ;  that  its  fate  was  indissolubly  connected 
with  another  bill ;  and  that  one  must  carry  the 
other. 

This  is  an  insolvent  bill :  it  is  so  proved,  and 
so  admitted  :  and  to  defend  it  the  argument  is, 
that  insolvency  and  bankruptcy  are  the  same — 
a  mere  inability  or  failure  to  pay  debts.  This 
is  the  corner  stone  of  the  argument  for  the  bill, 
and  has  been  firmly  planted  as  such,  by  its 
ablest  supporter  (Mr.  Webster).     He  says  : 

"  Bankruptcies,  in  the  general  use  and  accep- 
tation of  the  term,  mean  no  more  than  failures. 
A  bankruptcy  is  a  fact.  It  is  an  occurrence  in 
the  life  and  fortunes  of  an  individual.  When  a 
man  cannot  pay  his  debts,  we  say  that  he  has 
become  bankrupt,  or  has  failed.  Bankruptcy  is 
not  merely  the  condition  of  a  man  who  is  insol- 
vent, and  on  whom  a  bankrupt  law  is  already 
acting.  This  would  be  quite  too  technical  an 
interpretation.  According  to  this,  there  never 
could  be  bankrupt  laws  j  because  every  law,  if 
this  were  the  meaning,  would  suppose  the  ex- 
istence of  a  previous  law.  Whenever  a  man's 
means  are  insufficient  to  meet  his  engagements 
and  pay  his  debts,  the  fact  of  bankruptcy  has 
taken  place — a  case  of  bankruptcy  has  arisen, 
whether  there  be  a  law  providing  for  it  or  not. 
A  learned  judge  has  said,  that  a  law  on  the  sub- 
ject of  bankruptcies  is  a  law  making  provision 
for  cases  of  persons  failing  to  pay  their  debts. 
Over  the  whole  subject  of  these  failures,  or 
these  bankruptcies,  the  power  of  Congress,  as 
it  stands  on  the  face  of  the  constitution,  is  full 
and  complete." 

This  is  an  entire  mistake.  There  is  no  foun- 
dation for  confounding  bankruptcy  and  insol- 
vency. A  debtor  may  be  rich,  and  yet  be  a 
bankrupt.  Inability  to  pay  does  not  even  en- 
ter as  an  ingredient  into  bankruptcy.  The 
whole  system  is  founded  on  ability  and  fraud. 
The  bankrupt  is  defined  in  Blackstone's  com- 
mentaries— a  work  just  issued  and  known  to 
all  our  statesmen  at  the  time  of  our  Revolution 
— "  to  be  a  trader ,  who  secretes  himself,  or  does 
certain  other  acts  to  defraud  his  creditors." 
So  far  from  making  insolvency  a  test  of  bank- 
ruptcy the  whole  system  supposes  ability  and 
fraud — ability  to  pay  part  or  all,  and  a  fraudu- 
lent intent  to  evade  payment.  And  every 
British  act  upon  the  subject  directs  the  surplus 
to  be  restored  to  the  debtor  if  his  effects  sell 
for  more  than  pays  the  debts— a  proof  that  in- 
solvency was  no  ingredient  in  the  acts. 

The  eminent  advocate  of  the  bill,  in  con- 


236 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


founding  insolvency  and  bankruptcy,  has  gone 
to  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  to  Scotland,  to 
quote  the  cessio  bonorum  of  the  civil  law,  and 
to  confound  it  with  bankruptcy.  He  says  : 
;;  That  bankrupt  laws,  properly  so  called,  or 
laws  providing-  for  the  cessio  bonorum,  on  the 
continent  of  Europe  and  Scotland,,  were  never 
confined  to  traders."  That  is  true.  This  ces- 
sio was  never  confined  to  traders  :  it  applied  to 
debtors  who  could  not  pay.  It  was  the  ces- 
sion, or  surrender  of  his  property  by  the  debtor 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  freedom  for  his 
person — leaving  the  debt  in  full  force — and  all 
future  acquisitions  bound  for  it.  I  deal  in  au- 
thority, and  read  from  Professor  BelPs  Com- 
mentaries upon  the  Laws  of  Scotland — an  ele- 
gant an  instructive  work,  which  has  made  the 
reading  of  Scottish  law  almost  as  agreeable  to 
the  law  reader  as  the  writings  of  Scott  have 
made  Scottish  history  and  manners  to  the  gen- 
eral reader.  Mr.  Bell  treats  of  the  cessio  and 
of  bankruptcy,  and  treats  of  them  under  dis- 
tinct heads  ;  and  here  is  what  he  says  of  them : 

"  The  law  of  cessio  bonorum  had  its  origin  in 
Rome.  It  was  introduced  by  Julius  Caesar,  as 
a  remedy  against  the  severity  of  the  old  Roman 
laws  of  imprisonment ;  and  his  law — which  in- 
cluded only  Rome  and  Italy — was,  before  the 
time  of  Diocletian,  extended  to  the  provinces. 
The  first  law  of  the  code  respecting  the  cessio 
bonorum  expresses,  in  a  single  sentence,  the 
whole  doctrine  upon  the  subject :  '  Qui  bonis 
cesserint,^  says  the  Emperor  Alexander  Seve- 
rus,  '  nisi  solidum  creditor  receperit,  non  sunt 
liberati.  In  eo  enim  tanlummodo  hoc  benefi- 
cium  eis  prodest,  ne  judicati  detrahantur  in 
carcerem?  This  institution,  having  been  great- 
ly improved  in  the  civil  law,  was  adopted  by 
those  of  the  European  nations  who  followed 
that  system  of  jurisprudence.  In  France,  the 
institution  was  adopted  very  nearly  as  it  was 
received  with  us.  Perhaps,  indeed,  it  was  from 
France  that  our  system  received  its  distinguish- 
ing features.  The  law  in  that  country  was, 
during  the  seventeenth  century,  extremely  se- 
vere— not  only  against  bankrupts  (which  name 
they  applied  to  fraudulent  debtors  alone),  but 
against  debtors  innocently  insolvent.  *  *  * 
The  short  digest  of  the  law  of  cessio  in  Scot- 
land, then,  is : 

"  1.  That  a  debtor  who  has  been  a  month  in 
prison,  for  a  civil  debt,  may  apply  to  the  court 
of  session — calling  all  his  creditors  before  that 
court,  by  a  summons  in  the  king's  name ;  and 
concluding  that  he  should  be  freed  from  prison 
on  surrendering  to  his  creditors  all  his  funds 
and  effects. 

"  2.  That  he  is  entitled  to  this  benefit  without 


any  mark  of  disgrace,  if  (proving  his  insolven- 
cy) he  can  satisfy  the  court,  in  the  face  of  his 
creditors,  that  his  insolvency  has  arisen  from 
innocent  misfortune,  and  is  willing  to  surrender 
all  his  property  and  effects  to  his  creditors. 

"  3.  That,  though  he  may  clear  himself  from 
any  imputation  of  fraud,  still,  if  he  has  been 
extravagant,  and  guilty  of  sporting  with  the 
money  of  his  creditors,  he  is,  in  strict  law,  not 
entitled  to  the  cessio,  but  on  the  condition  of 
wearing  the  habit  (mark  of  disgrace)  ;  but 
which  is  now  exchanged  for  a  prolongation  of 
his  imprisonment. 

"4.  That,  if  his  creditors  can  establish  a 
charge  of  fraud  against  him,  he  is  not  entitled 
to  the  cessio  at  all ;  but  must  lie  in  prison,  at 
the  mercy  of  his  creditors,  till  the  length  of  his 
imprisonment  may  seem  to  have  sufficiently 
punished  his  crime  ;  when,  on  a  petition,  the 
court  may  admit  him  to  the  benefit. 

"  5.  That,  if  he  has  not  given  a  fair  account 
of  his  funds,  and  shall  still  be  liable  to  the  sus- 
picion of  concealment,  the  court  will,  in  the 
meanwhile,  refuse  the  benefit  of  the  cessio — 
leaving  it  to  him  to  apply  again,  when  he  is  able 
to  present  a  clearer  justification,  or  willing  to 
make  a  full  discovery." 

This  is  the  cessio,  and  its  nature  and  origin 
are  both  given.  Its  nature  is  that  of  an  insol- 
vent law,  precisely  as  it  exists  at  this  day  in  the 
United  States  and  in  England.  Its  origin  is 
Roman,  dating  from  the  dictatorship  of  Julius 
Caesar.  That  great  man  had  seen  the  evils  of 
the  severity  of  the  Roman  law  against  debtors. 
He  had  seen  the  iniquity  of  the  law  itself,  in 
the  cruel  condemnation  of  the  helpless  debtor 
to  slavery  and  death  at  the  will  of  the  creditor ; 
and  he  had  seen  its  impolicy,  in  the  disturbances 
to  which  it  subjected  the  republic — the  sedi- 
tions, commotions,  and  conspiracies,  which,  from 
the  time  of  the  secession  of  the  people  to  the 
Mons  Sacer  to  the  terrible  conspiracy  of  Cati- 
line, were  all  built  upon  the  calamities  of  the 
debtor  class,  and  had  for  their  object  an  aboli- 
tion of  debts.  Caesar  saw  this,  and  determined 
to  free  the  commonwealth  from  a  deep-seated 
cause  of  commotion,  while  doing  a  work  of  in- 
dividual justice.  He  freed  the  person  of  the 
debtor  upon  the  surrender  of  his  property ;  and 
this  equitable  principle,  becoming  ingrafted  in 
the  civil  law,  spread  over  all  the  provinces  of 
the  Roman  world — has  descended  to  our  times, 
and  penetrated  the  new  world — and  now  forms 
the  principle  of  the  insolvent  laws  of  Europe 
and  America.  The  English  made  it  permanent 
by  their  insolvent  law  of  the  first  of  George  the 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


237 


Fourth— that  act  from  which  our  bankrupt  sys- 
tem is  compiled ;  and  in  two  thousand  years, 
and  among  all  nations,  there  has  been  no  de- 
parture from  the  wise  and  just  principles  of 
Caesar's  edict,  until  our  base  act  of  Congress 
has  undertaken  to  pervert  it  into  an  abolition 
debt  law,  by  substituting  a  release  from  the 
debt  for  a  release  from  jail ! 

This  is  the  cessio  omnium  bonorum  of  Scot- 
land, to  which  we  are  referred  as  being  the 
same  thing  with  bankruptcy  (properly  so 
called),  and  which  is  quoted  as  an  example  for 
our  act  of  1841.  And,  now,  what  says  Profes- 
sor Bell  of  bankruptcy  ?  Does  he  mention  that 
subject?  Does  he  treat  of  it  under  a  separate 
head — as  a  different  thing  from  the  cessio — and 
as  requiring  a  separate  consideration  ?  In  fact, 
he  does.  He  happens  to  do  so ;  and  gives  it 
about  300  pages  of  his  second  volume,  under 
the  title  of  "System  of  the  Bankrupt  Laws;" 
which  system  runs  on  all- fours  with  that  of  the 
English  system,  and  in  the  main  point — that  of 
discharge  from  his  debts — it  is  identical  with 
the  English ;  requiring  the  concurrence  of  four- 
fifths  of  the  creditors  to  the  discharge ;  and  that 
bottomed  on  the  judicial  attestation  of  the  bank- 
rupt's integrity.  Here  it  is,  at  page  441  of  the 
second  volume : 

c;  The  concurrence  of  the  creditors,  without 
which  the  bankrupt  cannot  apply  to  the  court 
for  a  discharge,  must  be  not  that  of  a  mere  ma- 
jority, but  a  majority  of  four-fifths  in  number 
and  value.  *  *  *  *  The  creditors  are  sub- 
ject to  no  control  in  respect  to  their  concur- 
rence. Against  their  decision  there  is  no  appeal, 
nor  are  they  bound  to  account  for  or  explain 
the  grounds  of  it.  They  are  left  to  proceed  upon 
the  whole  train  of  the  bankrupt's  conduct,  as 
they  may  have  seen  occasion  to  judge  of  him ; 
and  the  refusal  of  their  concurrence  is  an  abso- 
lute bar  until  the  opposition  be  overcome.  *  * 
*  *  The  statute  requires  the  concurrence  of 
the  trustee,  as  well  as  of  the  creditors.  There 
appears,  however,  to  be  this  difference  between 
them:  that  the  creditors  are  entirely  uncon- 
trolled in  giving  or  withholding  their  concur- 
rence ;  while,  on  the  part  of  the  trustee,  it  is 
debitum  justilice  either  to  the  bankrupt  or  to 
the  creditors  to  give  or  withhold  his  concur- 
rence. He  acts  not  as  a  creditor,  but  as  a  judge. 
To  his  jurisdiction  the  bankrupt  is  subjected  by 
the  choice  of  his  creditors  ;  and,  on  deciding  on 
the  bankrupt's  conduct,  he  is  not  entitled  to 
proceed  on  the  same  undisclosed  motives  or 
evidence  on  which  a  creditor  may  act,  but  on 
the  ground  of  legal  objection  alone — as  fraud, 
concealment,  nonconformity  with  the  statute. 


In  England,  the  commissioners  are  public 
officers — not  the  mere  creatures  of  the  creditors. 
They  are  by  statute  invested  with  a  judicial  dis- 
cretion, which  they  exercise  under  the  sanction 
of  an  oath.  Their  refusal  is  taken  as  if  they 
swore  they  could  not  grant  the  certificate ;  and 
no  mandamus  lies  to  force  them  to  sign." 

So  much  for  bankruptcy  and  cessio — two 
things  very  different  in  their  nature,  though  at- 
tempted to  be  confounded  ;  and  each  of  them 
still  more  different  from  our  act,  for  which  they 
are  quoted  as  precedents.  But  the  author  of 
our  act  says  that  bankrupt  laws  in  Scotland  are 
not  confined  to  traders,  but  take  in  all  persons 
whatsoever ;  and  he  might  have  added — though, 
perhaps,  it  did  not  suit  his  purpose  at  the  mo- 
ment—that those  laws,  in  Scotland,  were  not 
confined  to  natural  persons,  but  also  included 
corporations  and  corporate  bodies.  Bell  ex- 
pressly says : 

"  Corporate  bodies  are,  in  law,  considered  as 
persons,  when  associated  by  royal  authority  or 
act  of  Parliament.  When  a  community  is  thus 
established  by  public  authority,  it  has  a  legal 
existence  as  a  person,  with  power  to  hold  funds, 
to  sue  and  to  defend.  It  is,  of  consequence,  sub- 
ject to  diligence;  and  although  personal  exe- 
cution cannot  proceed  against  this  ideal-legal 
person,  and  so  the  requisites  of  imprisonment, 
&c,  cannot  be  complied  with,  there  seems  to 
be  no  reason  to  doubt  that  a  corporation  may 
now  be  made  bankrupt  by  the  means  recently 
provided  for  those  cases  in  which  imprisonment 
is  incompetent." — vol.  2,  p.  167. 

The  gentleman  might  have  quoted  this  pas- 
sage from  the  Scottish  law;  and  then  what 
would  have  become  of  his  argument  against  in- 
cluding corporations  in  the  bankrupt  act  ?  But 
he  acts  the  advocate,  and  quotes  what  suits  him; 
and  which,  even  if  it  were  applicable,  would 
answer  but  a  small  part  of  his  purpose.  The  Scot- 
tish system  differs  from  the  English  in  its  appli- 
cation to  persons  not  traders  ;  but  agrees  with  it 
in  the  great  essentials  of  perfect  security  for 
creditors,  by  giving  them  the  initiative  in  the 
proceedings,  discriminating  between  innocent 
and  culpable  bankruptcy,  and  making  the  dis- 
charge from  debt  depend  upon  their  consent, 
bottomed  upon  an  attestation  of  integrity  from 
the  officer  that  tries  the  case.  It  answers  no 
purpose  to  the  gentleman,  then,  to  carry  us  to 
Scotland  for  the  meaning  of  a  term  in  our  con- 
stitution. It  is  to  no  purpose  that  he  suggests 
that  the  framers  of  the  constitution  might  have 


238 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW 


been  looking  to  Scotland  for  an  example  of  a 
bankrupt  system.  They  were  no  more  looking 
to  it  in  that  case,  than  they  were  in  speaking  of 
juries,  and  in  guarantying  the  right  of  jury 
trials — a  jury  of  twelve,  with  unanimit}',  as  in 
England  ;  and  not  of  fifteen,  with  a  majority  of 
eight  to  give  the  verdict,  as  in  Scotland.  In  all 
its  emplo}rment  of  technical,  legal,  and  political 
phrases,  the  constitution  used  them  as  used  in 
England — the  country  from  which  we  received 
our  birth,  our  language,  our  manners,  and  cus- 
toms, and  all  our  systems  of  law  and  politics. 
We  got  all  from  England ;  and,  this  being  the 
case,  there  is  no  use  in  following  the  gentleman 
to  the  continent  of  Europe,  after  dislodging  him 
from. Scotland;  but  as  he  has  quoted  the  con- 
tinent for  the  effect  of  the  cessio  in  abolishing 
debts,  and  for  its  identity  with  bankruptcy,  I 
must  be  indulged  with  giving  him  a  few  cita- 
tions from  the  Code  Napoleon,  which  embodies 
the  principles  of  the  civil  law,  and  exemplifies 
the  systems  of  Europe  on  the  subject  of  bank- 
ruptcies and  insolvencies.     Here  they  are : 

Mr.  B.  here  read  copiously  from  the  Code 
Napoleon,  on  the  subjects  of  bankruptcies  and 
cession  of  property ;  the  former  contained  in  the 
commercial  division  of  the  code,  the  latter  in  the 
civil.  Bankruptcy  was  divided  into  two  classes 
— innocent  and  fraudulent ;  both  confined  to 
traders  (commercants)  ;  the  former  were  treated 
with  lenity,  the  latter  with  criminal  severity. 
The  innocent  bankrupt  was  the  trader  who  be- 
came unable  to  pay  his  debts  by  the  casualties 
of  trade,  and  who  had  not  lived  beyond  his 
means,  nor  gambled,  nor  engaged  in  speculations 
of  pure  hazard  ;  who  kept  fair  books,  and  satis- 
fied his  creditors  and  the  judge  of  his  integrity. 
The  fraudulent  bankrupt  was  the  trader  who 
had  lived  prodigally,  or  gambled,  or  engaged  in 
speculations  of  pure  hazard,  or  who  had  not 
kept  books,  or  not  kept  them  fairly,  or  misap- 
plied deposits,  or  violated  trusts,  or  been  guilty 
of  any  fraudulent  practice.  He  was  punished 
by  imprisonment  and  hard  labor  for  a  term  of 
years,  and  could  not  be  discharged  from  his 
debts  by  any  majority  of  his  creditors  what- 
ever. Cession  of  property — in  French,  la  ces- 
sion de  Mens — was  precisely  the  cessio  omnium 
bonorum  of  the  Romans,  as  established  by 
Julius  Caesar.  It  applied  to  all  persons,  and 
obtained  for  them  freedom  from  imprisonment, 
and  from  suits,  on  the  surrender  of  all  their 


present  property  to  their  creditors;  leaving 
their  future  acquisitions  liable  for  the  remainder 
of  the  debt.  It  was  the  insolvent  law  of  the 
civil  law ;  and  thus  bankruptcy  and  insolvency 
were  as  distinct  on  the  continent  of  Europe  as 
in  England  and  Scotland,  and  governed  by  the 
same  principles. 

Having  read  these  extracts  from  the  civil  law, 
Mr.  B.  resumed  his  speech,  and  went  on  to  say 
that  the  gentleman  was  as  unfortunate  in  his 
visit  to  the  continent  as  in  his  visit  to  Scotland. 
In  the  first  place  he  had  no  right  to  go  there 
for  exemplification  of  the  terms  used  in  our  con- 
stitution. The  framers  of  the  constitution  did 
not  look  to  other  countries  for  examples.  They 
looked  to  England  alone.  In  the  second  place, 
if  we  sought  them  elsewhere,  we  found  pre- 
cisely the  same  thing  that  we  found  in  Eng- 
land: we  found  bankruptcy  and  insolvency 
everywhere  distinct  and  inconvertible.  They 
were,  and  are,  distinct  everywhere;  here  and 
elsewhere — at  home  and  abroad — in  England, 
Scotland,  France,  and  all  over  Europe.  They 
have  never  been  confounded  anywhere,  and  can- 
not be  confounded  here,  without  committing  a 
double  offence :  first,  violating  our  own  consti- 
tution; secondly,  invading  the  States.  And 
with  this,  I  dismiss  the  gentleman's  first  funda- 
mental position,  affirming  that  he  has  utterly 
failed  in  his  attempt  to  confound  bankruptcy 
with  insolvency;  and,  therefore,  has  utterly 
failed  to  gain  jurisdiction  for  Congress  over  the 
general  debts  of  the  community,  by  the  pretext 
of  the  bankrupt  power. 

I  have  said  that  this  so-called  bankrupt  bill 
of  ours  is  copied  from  the  insolvent  law  of  the 
first  year  of  George  IV.,  and  its  amendments ; 
and  so  it  is,  all  except  section  13  of  that  act, 
which  is  omitted,  and  for  the  purpose  of  keep- 
ing out  the  distinction  between  bankrupts  and 
insolvents.  That  section  makes  the  distinction. 
The  act  permits  all  debtors  to  petition  for  the 
benefit  of  the  insolvent  law,  that  is  to  say,  dis- 
charge from  imprisonment  on  surrendering  their 
property ;  yet,  in  every  case  in  which  traders, 
merchants,  &c,  petition,  the  proceedings  stop 
until  taken  up,  and  proceeded  upon  by  the 
creditors.  The  filing  the  petition  by  a  person 
subject  to  the  bankrupt  law,  is  simply  held  to 
be  an  act  of  bankruptcy,  on  which  the  creditors 
may  proceed,  or  not,  as  on  any  other  act  of 
bankruptcy,  precisely  as  they  please.   And  thus 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


239 


insolvency  and  bankruptcy  are  kept  distinct; 
double  provisions  on  the  same  subject  are  pre- 
vented;  and  consistency  is  preserved  in  the 
administration  of  the  laws.  Not  so  under  our 
bill.  The  omission  to  copy  this  13th  section 
has  nullified  all  that  relates  to  involuntary  bank- 
ruptcy ;  puts  it  into  the  power  of  those  who  are 
subject  to  that  proceeding  to  avoid  it.  at  their 
pleasure,  by  the  simple  and  obvious  process  of 
availing  themselves  of  their  absolute  right  to 
proceed  voluntarily.  And  now  a  word  upon 
volunteer  bankruptcy.  It  is  an  invention  and  a 
crudity  in  our  bill,  growing  out  of  the  confound- 
ing of  bankruptcy  and  insolvency.  There  is  no 
such  thing  in  England,  or  in  any  bankrupt  sys- 
tem in  the  world ;  and  cannot  be,  without  re- 
versing all  the  rules  of  right,  and  subjecting  the 
creditor  to  the  mercy  of  his  debtor.  The  Eng- 
lish bankrupt  act  of  the  6th  George  IV.,  and 
the  insolvent  debtors'  act  of  the  1st  of  the  same 
reign,  admit  the  bankrupt,  as  an  insolvent,  to 
file  his  declaration  of  insolvency,  and  petition 
for  relief;  but  there  it  stops.  His  voluntary 
action  goes  no  further  than  the  declaration  and 
petition.  Upon  that,  his  creditors,  if  they  please, 
may  proceed  against  him  as  a  bankrupt,  taking 
the  declaration  as  an  act  of  bankruptcy.  If 
they  do  not  choose  to  proceed,  the  case  stops. 
The  bankrupt  cannot  bring  his  creditors  into 
court,  and  prosecute  his  claim  to  bankruptcy, 
whether  they  will  or  not.  This  is  clear  from  the 
6th  section  of  the  bankrupt  act  of  George  IV., 
and  the  13th  section  of  the  insolvent  debtors' 
act  of  the  1st  year  of  the  same  reign  ;  and  thus 
our  act  of  1841  has  the  honor  of  inventing  vol- 
unteer bankruptcy,  and  thus  putting  the  aboli- 
tion of  debts  in  the  hands  of  every  person !  for 
these  volunteers  have  a  right  to  be  discharged 
from  their  debts,  without  the  consent  of  their 
creditors ! 

Mr.  Benton  then  read  the  two  sections  of  the 
two  acts  of  George  IV.  to  which  he  had  referred, 
and  commented  upon  them  to  sustain  his  posi- 
tions. And  first  the  6th  section  of  the  act  of 
George  IV.  (1826)  for  the  amendment  of  the 
bankrupt  laws : 

"  Sec.  6.  That  if  any  such  trader  shall  file  in  the 
oifice  of  the  Lord  Chancellor's  secretary  of  bank- 
rupts, a  declaration  in  writing,  signed  by  such 
trader,  and  attested  by  an  attorney  or  solicitor, 
that  he  is  insolvent  or  unable  to  meet  his  en- 
gagements, the  said  secretary  of  bankrupts,  or 


his  deputy,  shall  sign  a  memorandum  that  such 
declaration  hath  been  filed ;  which  memorandum 
shall  be  authority  for  the  London  Gazette  to  in- 
sert an  advertisement  of  such  declaration  there- 
in ;  and  every  such  declaration  shall,  after  such 
advertisement  inserted  as  aforesaid,  be  an  act 
of  bankruptcy  committed  by  such  trader  at 
the  time  when  such  declaration  was  filed  :  but 
no  commission  shall  issue  thereupon,  unless  it 
be  sued  out  within  two  calendar  months  next 
after  the  insertion  of  such  advertisement,  and 
unless  such  advertisement  shall  have  been  in- 
serted in  the  London  Gazette  within  eight  days 
after  such  declaration  filed.  And  no  docket 
shall  be  struck  upon  such  act  of  bankruptcy  be- 
fore the  expiration  of  four  days  next  after  such 
insertion  of  such  advertisement,  in  case  such 
commission  is  to  be  executed  in  London ;  or  be- 
fore the  expiration  of  eight  days  next  after  such 
insertion,  in  case  such  commission  is  to  be  exe- 
cuted in  the  country ;  and  the  Gazette  contain- 
ing such  advertisement  shall  be  evidence  to  be 
received  of  such  declaration  having  been  filed." 

Having  read  this  section,  Mr.  B.  said  it  was 
explicit,  and  precluded  argument.  The  volun- 
tary action  of  the  debtor,  which  it  authorized, 
was  limited  to  the  mere  filing  of  the  declaration 
of  insolvency.  It  went  no  further ;  and  it  was 
confined  to  traders — to  the  trading  classes — 
who,  alone,  were  subject  to  the  laws  of  bank- 
ruptcy. 

Mr.  B.  said  that  the  English  had,  as  we  all 
know,  an  insolvent  system,  as  well  as  a  bank- 
rupt system.  They  had  an  insolvent  debtors' 
court,  as  well  as  a  bankrupt  court;  and  both 
these  were  kept  separate,  although  there  were 
no  States  in  England  to  be  trodden  under  foot 
by  treading  down  the  insolvent  laws.  Not  so 
with  us.  Our  insolvent  laws,  though  belonging 
to  States  called  sovereign,  are  all  trampled  un- 
der foot !  There  would  be  a  time  to  go  into 
this.  At  present,  Mr.  B.  would  only  say  that, 
in  England,  bankruptcy  and  insolvency  were 
still  kept  distinct ;  and  no  insolvent  trader  was 
allowed  to  proceed  as  a  bankrupt.  On  the  con- 
trary, an  insolvent,  applying  in  the  insolvent 
debtors'  court  for  the  release  of  his  person, 
could  not  proceed  one  step  beyond  filing  his 
declaration.  At  that  point  the  creditors  took 
up  the  declaration,  if  they  pleased,  transferred 
the  case  to  the  bankrupt  court,  and  prosecuted 
the  case  in  that  court.  This  is  done  by  virtue 
of  the  13th  section  of  the  insolvent  debtors'  act 
of  7th  George  IV.  (1827).  Mr.  B.  read  the 
section,  as  follows : 


240 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"Insolvent  debtors*  act  of  7th  year  of  George 
IV.  (1827). 

"Sec.  13.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That 
the  filing  of  the  petition  of  every  person  in  ac- 
tual custody,  who  shall  be  subject  to  the  laws 
concerning  bankrupts,  and  who  shall  apply  by 
petition  to  the  said  court  for  his  or  her  discharge 
from  custody,  according  to  this  act,  shall  be  ac- 
counted and  adjudged  an  act  of  bankruptcy 
from  the  time  of  filing  such  petition  ;  and  that 
any  commission  issuing  against  such  person, 
and  under  which  he  or  she  shall  be  declared 
bankrupt  before  the  time  appointed  by  the  said 
court,  and  advertised  in  the  London  Gazette, 
for  hearing  the  matters  of  such  petition,  or  at 
any  time  within  two  calendar  months  from  the 
time  of  filing  such  petition,  shall  have  effect  to 
avoid  any  conveyance  and  assignment  of  the 
estate  and  effects  of  such  person,  which  shall 
have  been  made  in  pursuance  of  the  provisions 
of  this  act :  Provided,  always,  That  the  filing 
of  such  petition  shall  not  be  deemed  an  act  of 
bankruptcjr,  unless  such  person  be  so  declared 
bankrupt  before  the  time  so  advertised  as  afore- 
said, or  within  such  two  calendar  months  as 
aforesaid ;  but  that  every  such  conveyance  and 
assignment  shall  be  good  and  valid,  notwith- 
standing any  commission  of  bankruptcy  under 
which  such  person  shall  be  declared  bankrupt 
after  the  time  so  advertised  as  aforesaid,  and 
after  the  expiration  of  such  two  calendar  months 
as  aforesaid." 

This  (said  Mr.  B.)  accords  with  the  section 
of  the  year  before  in  the  bankrupt  act.  The 
two  sections  are  accordant,  and  identical  in 
their  provisions.  They  keep  up  the  great  dis- 
tinction between"  insolvency  and  bankruptcy, 
which  some  of  our  judges  have  undertaken  to 
abrogate ;  they  keep  up.  also,  the  great  distinc- 
tion between  the  proper  subjects  of  bankrupt- 
cy— to  wit :  traders,  and  those  who  are  not 
traders ;  and  they  keep  up  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  release  of  the  person  (which  is  the 
object  of  insolvent  laws)  and  the  extinction  of 
the  debt  with  the  consent  of  creditors,  which  is 
the  object  of  bankrupt  systems.  By  this  sec- 
tion, if  the  "person"  in  custody  who  files  a 
declaration  of  insolvency  shall  be  a  trader,  sub- 
ject to  the  laws  of  bankruptcy,  it  only  operates 
as  an  act  of  bankruptcy — upon  which  the  cred- 
itors may  proceed,  or  not,  as  they  please.  If 
they  proceed,  it  is  done  by  suing  out  a  commis- 
sion of  bankruptcy  j  which  carries  the  case  to 
the  bankrupt  court.  If  the  creditors  do  not 
proceed,  the  petition  of  the  insolvent  trader 
only  releases  his  person.  Being  subject  to 
bankruptcy,  his  creditors  may  call  him  into  the 


bankrupt  court,  if  they  please ;  if  they  do  not, 
he  cannot  take  it  there,  nor  claim  the  benefit 
of  bankruptcy  in  the  insolvent  court :  he  can 
only  get  his  person  released.  This  is  clear 
from  the  section ;  and  our  bill  of  1841  commit- 
ted something  worse  than  a  folly  in  not  copying 
this  section.  That  bill  creates  two  sorts  of 
bankruptcy — voluntary  and  involuntary — and, 
by  a  singular  folly,  makes  them  convertible ! 
so  that  all  may  be  volunteers,  if  they  please. 
It  makes  merchants,  traders,  bankers,  and  some 
others  of  the  trading  classes,  subject  to  invol- 
untary bankruptcy :  then  it  gives  all  persons 
whatever  the  right  to  proceed  voluntarily. 
Thus  the  involuntary  subjects  of  bankruptcy 
may  become  volunteers;  and  the  distinction 
becomes  ridiculous  and  null.  Our  bill,  which 
is  compiled  from  the  English  Insolvent  Debtors' 
Act,  and  is  itself  nothing  but  an  insolvent  law 
perverted  to  the  abolition  of  debts  at  the  will 
of  the  debtor,  should  have  copied  the  13  th  sec- 
tion of  the  English  insolvent  law :  for  want  of 
copying  this,  it  annihilated  involuntary  bank- 
ruptcy— made  all  persons,  traders  or  not,  vol- 
unteers who  chose  to  be  so — released  all  debts, 
at  the  will  of  the  debtor,  without  the  consent 
of  a  single  creditor ;  and  committed  the  most 
daring  legislative  outrage  upon  the  rights  of 
property,  which  the  world  ever  beheld  1 


CHAPTER    LXVIII. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  THE  PUBLIC  LAND  EEVENUE, 
AND  ASSUMPTION  OF  THE  STATE  DEBTS. 


About  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  were 
due  from  States  and  corporations  to  creditors 
in  Europe.  These  debts  were  in  stocks,  much 
depreciated  by  the  failure  in  many  instances  to 
pay  the  accruing  interest — in  some  instances, 
failure  to  provide  for  the  principal.  These 
creditors  became  uneasy,  and  wished  the  fed- 
eral government  to  assume  their  debts.  As 
early  as  the  year  1838  this  wish  began  to  be 
manifested :  in  the  year  1839  it  was  openly  ex- 
pressed: in  the  year  1840,  it  became  a  regular 
question,  mixing  itself  up  in  our  presidential 
election ;  and  openly  engaging  the  active  exer- 
tions of  foreigners.    Direct  assumption  was  not 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


241 


urged :  indirect,  by  giving  the  public  land  rev- 
enue to  the  States,  was  the  mode  pursued,  and 
the  one  recommended  by  Mr.  Tyler.  In  his 
first  regular  message,  he  recommended  this  dis- 
position of  the  public  lands,  and  with  the  ex- 
pressed view  of  enabling  the  States  to  pay  their 
debts,  and  also  to  raise  the  value  of  the  stock. 
It  was  a  vicious  recommendation,  and  a  flagrant 
and  pernicious  violation  of  the  constitution.  It 
was  the  duty  of  Congress  to  provide  for  the  pay- 
ment of  the  federal  debts  :  that  was  declared  in 
the  constitution.  There  was  no  prohibition 
upon  the  payment  of  the  State  debts  :  that  was 
a  departure  from  the  objects  of  the  Union  too 
gross  to  require  prohibition :  and  the  absence 
of  any  authority  to  do  so  was  a  prohibition  as 
absolute  as  if  expressed  in  the  eyes  of  all  those 
who  held  to  the  limitations  of  the  constitution, 
and  considered  a  power,  not  granted,  as  a  power 
denied.  Mr.  Calhoun  spoke  with  force  and 
clearness,  and  with  more  than  usual  animation, 
against  this  proposed  breach  in  the  constitu- 
tion.   He  said : 

"  If  the  bill  should  become  a  law,  it  would 
make  a  wider  breach  in  the  constitution,  and  be 
followed  by  changes  more  disastrous,  than  any 
other  measure  which  has  ever  been  adopted. 
It  would,  in  its  violation  of  the  constitution, 
go  far  beyond  the  general  welfare  doctrine  of 
former  days,  which  stretched  the  power  of  the 
government  as  far  as  it  was  then  supposed  was 
possible  by  construction,  however  bold.  But 
as  wide  as  were  the  limits  which  it  assigned  to 
the  powers  of  the  government,  it  admitted  by 
implication  that  there  were  limits  ;  while  this 
bill,  as  I  shall  show,  rests  on  principles  which, 
if  admitted,  would  supersede  all  limits.  Ac- 
cording to  the  general  welfare  doctrine,  Con- 
gress had  power  to  raise  money  and  appro- 
priate it  to  all  objects  which  might  seem  calcu- 
lated to  promote  the  general  welfare — that  is, 
the  prosperity  of  the  States,  regarded  in  their 
aggregate  character  as  members  of  the  Union : 
or,  to  express  it  more  briefly,  and  in  language 
once  so  common,  to  national  objects :  thus  ex- 
cluding, by  necessary  implication,  all  that  were 
not  national,  as  falling  within  the  sphere  of  the 
separate  States.  It  takes  in  what  is  excluded 
under  the  general  welfare  doctrine,  and  assumes 
for  Congress  the  right  to  raise  money,  to  give 
by  distribution  to  the  States :  that  is,  to  be  ap- 
plied by  them  to  those  very  local  State  objects 
to  which  that  doctrine,  by  necessary  implica- 
tion, denied  that  Congress  had  a  right  to  appro- 
priate money ;  and  thus  superseding  all  the 
limits  of  the  constitution — as  far,  at  least,  as 
the  money  power  is  concerned.  Such,  and  so 
overwhelming,  are  the  constitutional  difficulties 

JVol.  IL— 16 


which  beset  this  measure.  No  one  who  can 
overcome  them — who  can  bring  himself  to  vote 
for  this  bill — need  trouble  himself  about  consti- 
tutional scruples  hereafter.  He  may  swallow 
without  hesitation  bank,  tariff,  and  every  other 
unconstitutional  measure  which  has  ever  been 
adopted  or  proposed.  Yes ;  it  would  be  easier 
to  make  a  plausible  argument  for  the  constitu- 
tionality of  the  measures  proposed  by  the  aboli- 
tionists— for  abolition  itself — than  for  this  de- 
testable bill.  And  yet  we  find  senators  from 
slaveholding  States,  the  very  safety  of  whose 
constituents  depends  upon  a  strict  construction 
of  the  constitution,  recording  their  names  in  fa- 
vor of  a  measure  from  which  they  have  nothing 
to  hope,  and  every  thing  to  fear.  To  what  is  a 
course  so  blind  to  be  attributed,  but  to  that  fa- 
naticism of  party  zeal,  openly  avowed  on  this 
floor,  which  regards  the  preservation  of  the 
power  of  the  whig  party  as  the  paramount  con- 
sideration ?  It  has  staked  its  existence  on  the 
passage  of  this,  and  the  other  measures  for 
which  this  extraordinary  session  was  called ; 
and  when  it  is  brought  to  the  alternative  of 
their  defeat  or  success,  in  their  anxiety  to  avoid 
the  one  and  secure  the  other,  constituents,  con- 
stitution, duty,  country, — all  are  forgotten." 

Clearly  unconstitutional,  the  measure  itself 
was  brought  forward  at  the  most  inauspicious 
time — when  the  Treasury  was  empty,  a  loan 
bill,  and  a  tax  bill  actually  depending;  and 
measures  going  on  to  raise  money  from  the  cus- 
toms, not  only  to  support  the  government,  but 
to  supply  the  place  of  this  very  land  money 
proposed  to  be  given  to  the  States.  Mr.  Ben- 
ton exposed  this  aggravation  in  some  pointed 
remarks : 

What  a  time  to  choose  for  squandering  this 
patrimony  !  We  are  just  in  the  midst  of  loans, 
and  taxes,  and  new  and  extravagant  expendi- 
tures, and  scraping  high  and  low  to  find  money 
to  support  the  government.  Congress  was 
called  together  to  provide  revenue ;  and  we  be- 
gin with  throwing  away  what  we  have.  We 
have  just  passed  a  bill  to  borrow  twelve  mil- 
lions, which  will  cost  the  people  sixteen  mil- 
lions to  pay.  We  have  a  bill  on  the  calendar — 
the  next  one  in  order — to  tax  every  thing  now 
free,  and  to  raise  every  tax  now  low,  to  raise 
eight  or  ten  millions  for  the  government,  at  the 
cost  of  eighteen  or  twenty  to  the  people.  Six- 
teen millions  of  deficit  salute  the  commence- 
ment of  the  ensuing  year.  A  new  loan  of 
twelve  millions  is  announced  for  the  next  ses- 
sion. All  the  articles  of  consumption  which 
escape  taxation  now,  are  to  be  caught  and  taxed 


242 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


then.  Such  are  the  revelations  of  the  chairman 
of  the  Finance  Committee ;  and  they  corres- 
pond with  our  own  calculations  of  their  con- 
duct. In  addition  to  all  this,  we  have  just 
commenced  the  national  defences — neglected 
when  we  had  forty  millions  of  surplus,  now 
obliged  to  he  attended  to  when  we  have 
nothing  :  these  defences  are  to  cost  above  a 
hundred  millions  to  create  them,  and  above  ten 
millions  annually  to  sustain  them.  A  new  and 
frightful  extravagance  has  broken  out  in  the 
Indian  Department.  Treaties  which  cannot  be 
named,  are  to  cost  millions  upon  millions.  Wild 
savages,  who  cannot  count  a  hundred  except  by 
counting  their  fingers  ten  times  over,  are  to 
have  millions ;  and  the  customs  to  pay  all ;  for 
the  lands  are  no  longer  to  pay  for  themselves, 
or  to  discharge  the  heavy  annuities  which  have 
grown  out  of  their  acquisition.  The  chances 
of  a  war  ahead  :  the  ordinary  expenses  of  the 
government,  under  the  new  administration,  not 
thirteen  millions  as  was  promised,  but  above 
thirty,  as  this  session  proves.  To  crown  all, 
the  federal  party  in  power !  that  party  whose 
instinct  is  debt  and  tax — whose  passion  is  waste 
and  squander — whose  cry  is  that  of  the  horse- 
leech, give  !  give  !  give  ! — whose  call  is  that  of 
the  grave,  more  !  more  !  more !  In  such  cir- 
cumstances, and  with  such  prospects  ahead,  we 
are  called  upon  to  throw  away  the  land  revenue, 
and  turn  our  whole  attention  to  taxing  and  bor- 
rowing. The  custom-house  duties — that  is  to 
say,  foreign  commerce,  founded  upon  the  labor 
of  the  South  and  West,  is  to  pay  all.  The 
farmers  and  planters  of  the  South  and  West  are 
to  take  the  chief  load,  and  to  carry  it.  Well 
may  the  senator  from  Kentucky  [Mr.  Clay] 
announce  the  forthcoming  of  new  loans  and 
taxes — the  recapture  of  the  tea  and  coffee  tax, 
if  they  escape  us  now — and  the  increase  and 
perpetuity  of  the  salt  tax.  All  this  must  come, 
and  more  too,  if  federalism  rules  a  few  years 
longer.  A  few  years  more  under  federal  sway, 
at  the  rate  things  have  gone  on  at  this  session 
— this  sweet  little  session  called  to  relieve  the 
people — and  our  poor  America  would  be  ripe 
for  the  picture  for  which  England  now  sits,  and 
which  has  been  so  powerfully  drawn  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review.  Listen  to  it,  and  hear 
what  federalism  would  soon  bring  us  to,  if  not 
stopped  in  its  mad  career : 


"  Taxes  upon  every  article  which  enters  into 
the  mouth,  or  covers  the  back,  or  is  placed  un- 
der the  foot.  Taxes  upon  every  thing  which  it 
is  pleasant  to  see,  hear,  feel,  smell,  or  taste. 
Taxes  upon  warmth,  light,  and  locomotion. 
Taxes  on  every  thing  on  earth,  and  the  waters 
under  the  earth ;  on  every  thing  that  comes 
from  abroad,  or  is  grown  at  home.  Taxes  on 
the  raw  material;  taxes  on  every  fresh  value 
that  is  added  to  it  by  the  industry  of  man 
Taxes  on  the  sauce  which  pampers  a  man's  ap- 
petite, and  the  drug  that  restores  him  to  health ; 
on  the  ermine  which  decorates  the  judge,  and 
the  rope  which  hangs  the  criminal ;  on  the  brass 
nails  of  the  coffin,  and  the  ribbons  of  the  bride. 
At  bed  or  board,  couchant  or  levant,  we  must 
pay.  The  schoolboy  whips  his  taxed  top ;  the 
beardless  youth  manages  his  taxed  horse  with 
a  taxed  bridle,  on  a  taxed  road.  The  dying 
Englishman  pours  his  medicine,  which  has  paid 
seven  per  cent.,  into  a  spoon  that  has  paid  fif- 
teen per  cent.;  flings  himself  back  upon  his 
chintz  bed,  which  has  paid  twenty-two  per 
cent. ;  makes  his  will  on  an  eight-pound  stamp, 
and  expires  in  the  arms  of  an  apothecary,  who 
has  paid  a  license  of  a  hundred  pounds  for  the 
privilege  of  putting  him  to  death.  His  whole 
property  is  then  immediately  taxed  from  two 
to  ten  per  cent.  Besides  the  probate,  large 
fees  are  demanded  for  burying  him  in  the  chan- 
cel ;  his  virtues  handed  down  to  posterity  on 
taxed  marble,  and  he  is  then  gathered  to  {lis 
fathers,  to  be  taxed  no  more." 

This  is  the  way  the  English  are  now  taxed, 
and  so  it  would  be  with  us  if  the  federalists 
should  remain  a  few  years  in  power. 

Execrable  as  this  bill  is  in  itself,  and  for  its 
objects,  and  for  the  consequences  which  it  draws 
after  it,  it  is  still  more  abominable  for  the  time 
and  manner  in  which  it  is  driven  through  Con- 
gress, and  the  contingencies  on  which  its  pas- 
sage is  to  depend.  What  is  the  time  ? — when 
the  new  States  are  just  read}7"  to  double  their 
representation,  and  to  present  a  front  which 
would  command  respect  for  their  rights,  and 
secure  the  grant  of  all  their  just  demands. 
They  are  pounced  upon  in  this  nick  of  time, 
before  the  arrival  of  their  full  representation 
under  the  new  census,  to  be  manacled  and  fet- 
tered by  a  law  which  assumes  to  be  a  perpetual 
settlement  of  the  land  question,  and  to  bind 
their  interests  for  ever.  This  is  the  time  !  what 
is  the  manner  ? — gagged  through  the  House  of 
Representatives  by  the  previous  question,  and 
by  new  rules  fabricated  from  day  to  day,  to 
stifle  discussion,  prevent  amendments,  suppress 
yeas  and  nays,  and  hide  the  deeds  which  shun- 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


243 


ned  the  light.  This  was  the  manner !  What 
was  the  contingency  on  which  its  passage  was 
to  depend  ? — the  passage  of  the  bankrupt  bill ! 
So  that  this  execrable  bill,  baited  as  it  was  with 
douceurs  to  old  States,  and  bribes  to  the  new 
ones,  and  pressed  under  the  gag,  and  in  the  ab- 
sence of  the  new  representation,  was  still  un- 
able to  get  through  without  a  bargain  for  pass- 
ing the  bankrupt  bill  at  the  same  time.  Can 
such  legislation  stand  ?  Can  God,  or  man,  re- 
spect such  work  ? 

But  a  circumstance  which  distinguished  the 
passage  of  this  bill  from  all  others — which  up 
to  that  day  was  without  a  precedent — was  the 
open  exertion  of  a  foreign  interest  to  influence 
our  legislation.  This  interest  had  already  ex- 
erted itself  in  our  presidential  election  :  it  now 
appeared  in  our  legislation.  Victorious  in  the 
election,  they  attended  Congress  to  see  that 
their  expectations  were  not  disappointed.  The 
lobbies  of  the  House  contained  them:  the 
boarding-houses  of  the  whig  members  were 
their  resort :  the  democracy  kept  aloof,  though 
under  other  circumstances  they  would  have 
been  glad  to  have  paid  honor  to  respectable 
strangers,  only  avoided  now  on  account  of  in- 
terest and  exertions  in  our  elections  and  legis- 
lation. Mr.  Fernando  Wood  of  New  York 
brought  this  scandal  to  the  full  notice  of  the 
House.  "  In  connection  with  this  point  I  will 
add  that,  at  the  time  this  cheat  was  in  prepara- 
tion— the  merchants'  petition  being  drawn  up 
by  the  brokers  and  speculators  for  the  con- 
gressional market — there  were  conspicuous 
bankers  in  Wall  street,  anxious  observers,  if 
not  co-laborers  in  the  movement.  Among 
them  might  be  named  Mr.  Bates,  partner  of  the 
celebrated  house  of  Baring,  Brothers  &  Com- 
pany ;  Mr.  Cryder,  of  the  equally  celebrated 
house  of  Morrison,  Cryder  &  Company ;  Mr. 
Palmer,  junior,  son  of  Mr.  Horsley  Palmer,  now, 
or  lately,  the  governor  of  the  Bank  of  England. 
Nor  were  these  'allies'  seen  only  in  Wall 
street.  Their  visits  were  extended  to  the  capi- 
tol ;  and  since  the  commencement  of  the  debate 
upon  this  bill  in  the  other  House,  they  have 
been  in  the  lobbies,  attentive,  and  apparently 
interested  listeners.  I  make  no  comment. 
Comment  is  unnecessary.  I  state  facts — unde- 
niable facts :  and  it  is  with  feelings  akin  to  hu- 
miliation and  shame  that  I  stand  up  here  and 
state  them."     These  respectable  visitors  had  a 


twofold  object  in  their  attention  to  our  legisla- 
tion— the  getting  a  national  bank  established, 
as  well  as  the  State  debts  provided  for.  Mr. 
Benton  also  pointed  out  this  outrage  upon  our 
legislation : 

He  then  took  a  rapid  view  of  the  bill — its 
origin,  character,  and  effects  ;  and  showed  it  to 
be  federal  in  its  origin,  associated  with  all  the 
federal  measures  of  the  present  and  past  ses- 
sions ;  with  bank,  tariff,  assumption  of  State 
debts,  dependent  upon  the  bankrupt  bill  for  its 
passage  ;  violative  of  the  constitution  and  the 
compacts  with  the  new  States  ;  and  crowning  all 
its  titles  to  infamy  by  drawing  capitalists  from 
London  to  attend  this  extra  session  of  Congress, 
to  promote  the  passage  of  this  bill  for  their  own 
benefit.  He  read  a  paragraph  from  the  money 
article  in  a  New  York  paper,  reciting  the  names 
and  attendance,  on  account  of  this  bill,  of  the 
foreign  capitalists  at  Washington.  The  passage 
was  in  these  words  : 

"  At  the  commencement  of  the  session,  almost 
every  foreign  house  had  a  representative  here. 
Wilson,  Palmer,  Cryder,  Bates,  Willinck,  Hope, 
Jaudon,  and  a  host  of  others,  came  over  on  va- 
rious pretences  ;  all  were  in  attendance  at  Wash-' 
ington,  and  all  seeking  to  forward  the  proposed 
measures.  The  land  bill  was  to  give  them  three 
millions  per  annum  from  the  public  Treasury, 
or  thirty  millions  in  ten  years,  and  to  raise  the 
value  of  the  stock  at  least  thirty  millions  more. 
The  revenue  bill  was  to  have  supplied  the  defi- 
ciency in  the  Treasury.  The  loan  bill  was  to 
have. been  the  basis  of  an  increase  of  importa- 
tions and  of  exchange  operations ;  and  the  new 
bank  was  the  instrument  of  putting  the  whole 
in  operation." 

This  Mr.  Benton  accompanied  by  an  article 
from  a  London  paper,  showing  that  the  capitalists 
in  that  city  were  counting  upon  the  success  of 
their  emissaries  at  Washington,  and  that  the 
passage  of  this  land  bill  was  the  first  and  most 
anxious  wish  of  their  hearts — that  they  con- 
sidered it  equivalent  to  the  assumption  of  the 
State  debts — and  that  the  benefit  of  the  bill 
would  go  to  themselves.  This  established  the 
character  of  the  bill,  and  showed  that  it  had 
been  the  means  of  bringing  upon  the  national 
legislation  the  degrading  and  corrupting  in- 
fluences of  a  foreign  interference.  For  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  our  government,  foreign- 
ers have  attended  our  Congress,  to  promote  the 
passage  of  laws  for  their  own  benefit.  For  the 
first  time  we  have  had  London  capitalists  for 


244 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


lobby  members  ;  and,  mortifying  to  be  told,  in- 
stead of  being  repulsed  by  defeat,  they  have 
been  encouraged  by  success ;  and  their  future 
attendance  may  now  be  looked  for  as  a  matter 
of  course,  at  our  future  sessions  of  Congress, 
when  they  have  debts  to  secure,  stocks  to  en- 
hance, or  a  national  bank  to  establish.  - 

Mr.  Benton  also  denounced  the  bill  for  its 
unconstitutionality,  its  demagogue  character,  its 
demoralizing  tendencies,  its  bid  for  popularity, 
and  its  undaunted  attempt  to  debauch  the  people 
with  their  own  money. 

The  gentleman  from  Virginia  [Mr.  Archer], 
to  whose  speech  I  am  now  replying,  in  allusion 
to  the  frequent  cry  of  breach  of  the  constitution, 
when  there  is  no  breach,  says  he  is  sick  and 
weary  of  the  cry,  wolf !  wolf !  when  there  is  no 
wolf.  I  say  so  too.  The  constitution  should 
not  be  trifled  with — should  not  be  invoked  on 
every  petty  occasion — should  not  be  proclaimed 
in  danger  when  there  is  no  danger.  Granting 
that  this  has  been  done  sometimes — that  too 
often,  and  with  too  little  consideration,  the  grave 
question  of  constitutionality  has  been  pressed 
.into  trivial  discussions,  and  violation  proclaimed 
where  there  was  none:  granting  this,  I  must 
yet  be  permitted  to  say  that  such  is  not  the  case 
now.  It  is  not  now  a  cry  of  wolf !  when  there 
is  no  wolf.  It  is  no  false  or  sham  cry  now. 
The  boy  cries  in  earnest  this  time.  The  wolf 
has  come  !  Long,  lank,  gaunt,  hungry,  vora- 
cious, and  ferocious,  the  beast  is  here  !  howling, 
for  its  prey,  and  determined  to  have  it  at  the 
expense  of  the  life  of  the  shepherd.  The  politi- 
cal stockjobbers  and  gamblers  raven  for  the 
public  lands,  and  tear  the  constitution  to  pieces 
to  get  at  them.  They  seize,  pillage,  and  plunder 
the  lands.  It  is  not  a  case  of  misconstruction, 
but  of  violation.  It  is  not  a  case  of  misunder- 
standing the  constitution,  but  of  assault  and 
battery — of  maim  and  murder — of  homicide  and 
assassination — committed  upon  it.  Never  has 
such  a  daring  outrage  been  perpetrated — never 
such  a  contravention  of  the  object  of  a  confedera- 
tion— never  such  a  total  perversion,  and  bare- 
faced departure,  from  all  the  purposes  for  which 
a  community  of  States  bound  themselves  to- 
gether for  the  defence,  and  not  for  the  plunder 
of  each  other.  No,  sir  !  no  !  The  constitution 
was  not  made  to  divide  money.  This  confede- 
racy was  not  framed  for  a  distribution  among 
its  members  of  lands,  money,  property,  or  effects 


of  any  kind.  It  contains  rules  and  directions 
for  raising  money — for  levying  duties  equally, 
which  the  new  tariff  will  violate  ;  and  for  raising 
direct  taxes  in  proportion  to  federal  population ; 
but  it  contains  no  rule  for  dividing  money ;  and 
the  distributors  have  to  make  one  as  they  go, 
and  the  rule  they  make  is  precisely  the  one  that 
is  necessary  to  carry  the  bill ;  and  that  varies 
with  the  varying  strength  of  the  distributing 
party.  In  1836,  in  the  deposit  act,  it  was  the 
federal  representation  in  the  two  Houses  of 
Congress  :  in  this  bill,  as  it  came  from  the  House 
of  Representatives,  it  was  the  federal  numbers. 
We  have  put  in  representation:  it  will  come 
back  to  us  with  numbers ;  and  numbers  will 
prevail ;  for  it  is  a  mere  case  of  plunder — the 
plunder  of  the  young  States  by  the  old  ones — 
of  the  weak  by  the  strong.  Sir,  it  is  sixteen 
years  since  these  schemes  of  distribution  were 
brought  into  this  chamber,  and  I  have  viewed 
them  all  in  the  same  light,  and  given  them  all 
the  same  indignant  opposition.  I  have  opposed 
all  these  schemes  as  unconstitutional,  immoral, 
fatal  to  the  Union,  degrading  to  the  people,  de- 
bauching to  the  States  ;  and  inevitably  tending 
to  centralism  on  one  hand  or  to  disruption  on 
the  other.  I  have  opposed  the  whole,  begin- 
ning with  the  first  proposition  of  a  senator  from 
New  Jersey  [Mr.  Dickerson],  to  divide  five 
millions  of  the  sinking  fund,  and  following  the 
baneful  scheme  through  all  its  modifications  for 
the  distribution  of  surplus  revenue,  and  finally 
of  land  revenue.  I  have  opposed  the  whole,  ad- 
hering to  the  constitution,  and  to  the  objects 
of  the  confederacy,  and  scorning  the  ephemeral 
popularity  which  a  venal  system  of  plunder 
could  purchase  from  the  victims,  or  the  dupes, 
of  a  false  and  sordid  policy. 

I  scorn  the  bill:  I  scout  its  vaunted  popu- 
larity :  I  detest  it.  Nor  can  I  conceive  of  an 
object  more  pitiable  and  contemptible  than  that 
of  the  demagogue  haranguing  for  votes,  and  ex- 
hibiting his  tables  of  dollars  and  acres,  in  order 
to  show  each  voter,  or  each  State,  how  much 
money  they  will  be  able  to  obtain  from  the 
Treasury  if  the  land  bill  passes.  Such  haran- 
guing, and  such  exhibition,  is  the  address  of  im- 
pudence and  knavery  to  supposed  ignorance, 
meanness,  and  folly.  It  is  treating  the  people 
as  if  they  were  penny  wise  and  pound  foolish  ; 
and  still  more  mean  than  foolish.  Why,  the 
land  revenue,  after  deducting  the  expenses,  if 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


245 


fairly  divided  among  the  people,  would  not  ex- 
ceed ninepence  a  head  per  annum  ;  if  fairly  di- 
vided among  the  States,  and  applied  to  their 
debts,  it  would  not  supersede  above  ninepence 
per  annum  of  taxation  upon  the  units  of  the 
population.  The  day  for  land  sales  have  gone 
by.  The  sales  of  this  year  do  not  exceed  a  mil- 
lion and  a  half  of  dollars,  which  would  not  leave 
more  than  a  million  for  distribution ;  which, 
among  sixteen  millions  of  people  would  be  ex- 
actly fourpence  half  penny,  Virginia  money,  per 
head  !  a  Jip  in  New  York,  and  a  picaillon  in 
Louisiana.  At  two  millions,  it  would  be  nine- 
pence  a  head  in  Virginia,  equivalent  to  a  levy  in 
New  York,  and  a  bit  in  Louisiana !  precisely 
the  amount  which,  in  specie  times,  a  gentleman 
gives  to  a  negro  boy  for  holding  his  horse  a 
minute  at  the  door.  And  for  this  miserable 
doit — this  insignificant  subdivision  of  a  shilling 
— a  York  shilling — can  the  demagogue  suppose 
that  the  people  are  base  enough  to  violate  their 
constitution,  mean  enough  to  surrender  the  de- 
fence of  their  country,  and  stupid  enough  to  be 
taxed  in  their  coffee,  tea,  salt,  sugar,  coats,  hats, 
blankets,  shoes,  shirts ;  and  every  article  of  com- 
fort, decency,  or  necessity,  which  they  eat,  drink, 
or  wear ;  or  on  which  they  stand,  sit,  sleep,  or  lie  ? 

The  bill  was  bound  to  pass.  Besides  being 
in  the  same  boat  with  the  other  cardinal  whig 
measures— bank,  bankrupt,  repeal  of  independent 
treasury — and  all  arranged  to  pass  together ;  and 
besides  being  pushed  along  and  supported  by 
the  London  bankers — it  contained  within  itself 
the  means  of  success.  It  was  richly  freighted 
with  inducements  to  conciliate  every  interest. 
To  every  new  State  it  made  a  preliminary  dis- 
tribution of  ten  per  centum  (in  addition  to  the 
five  per  centum  allowed  by  compact),  on  the 
amount  of  the  sales  within  the  State :  then  it 
came  in  for  a  full  share  of  all  the  rest  in  propor- 
tion to  its  population.  To  the  same  new  States 
it  gave  also  five  hundred  thousand  acres  of  land ; 
or  a  quantity  sufficient  to  make  up  that  amount 
where  less  had  been  granted.  To  the  settlers 
in  the  new  States,  including  foreigners  who  had 
made  the  declaration  of  their  intentions  to  be- 
come naturalized  citizens,  it  gave  a  pre-emption 
right  in  the  public  lands,  to  the  amount  of  one 
quarter  section  :  1G0  acres.  Then  it  distributed 
the  whole  amount  of  the  land  revenue,  after  de- 
duction of  the  ten  and  the  five  per  centum  to 


the  new  States,  to  all  the  old  States  and  new 
States  together,  in  proportion  to  their  popula- 
tion: and  included  all  the  States  yet  to  be 
created  in  this  scheme  of  distribution.  And 
that  no  part  of  the  people  should  go  without 
their  share  in  these  largesses,  the  Territories, 
though  not  States,  and  the  District  of  Columbia, 
though  not  a  Territory,  were  also  embraced  in 
the  plan — each  to  receive  in  proportion  to  its 
numbers.  So  many  inducements  to  all  sections 
of  the  country  to  desire  the  bill,  and  such  a 
chance  for  popularity  to  its  authors,  made  sure, 
not  only  of  its  passage,  but  of  its  claim  to  the 
national  gratitude.  To  the  eye  of  patriotism,  it 
was  all  a  venal  proceeding — an  attempt  to  buy 
up  the  people  with  their  own  money — having 
the  money  to  borrow  first.  For  it  so  happened 
that  while  the  distribution  bill  was  passing  in 
one  House,  to  divide  out  money  among  the 
States  and  the  people,  there  was  a  loan  bill  de- 
pending in  the  other  House,  to  borrow  twelve 
millions  of  dollars  for  three  years ;  and  also,  a 
tax  bill  to  produce  eighteen  millions  a  year  to 
reimburse  that  loan,  and  to  defray  the  current 
expenses  of  the  government.  To  make  a  gra- 
tuitous distribution  of  the  land  revenue  (equal 
to  several  millions  per  annum),  looked  like 
fatuity ;  and  was  so  in  a  financial  or  govern- 
mental point  of  view.  But  it  was  supposed  that 
the  distribution  scheme  would  be  irresistibly 
popular — that  it  would  chain  the  people  and 
the  States  to  the  party  which  passed  it — and 
insure  them  success  in  the  ensuing  presidential 
elections.  Baseless  calculation,  as  it  applied 
to  the  people  !  Vain  hope,  as  it  applied  to  them- 
selves !  The  very  men  that  passed  the  bill  had 
to  repeal  it,  under  the  sneaking  term  of  suspen- 
sion, before  their  terms  of  service  were  out — 
within  less  than  one  year  from  the  time  it  was 
passed  !  to  be  precise,  within  eleven  calendar 
months  and  twelve  days,  from  the  day  of  its 
passage — counting  from  the  days,  inclusive  of 
both,  on  which  John  Tyler,  President,  approved 
and  disapproved  it — whereof,  hereafter.  But  it 
passed  !  and  was  obliged  to  pass.  It  was  a  case 
of  mutual  assurance  with  the  other  whig  mea- 
sures, and  passed  the  Senate  by  a  party  vote — 
Mr.  Preston  excepted — who  "  broke  ranks,"  and 
voted  with  the  democracy,  making  the  negative 
vote  23.     The  yeas  and  nays  were : 

Yeas — Messrs.  Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Bay- 
ard, Berrien,  Choate,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clayton, 


246 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Dixon,  Evans,  Graham,  Henderson,  Huntington, 
Kerr.  Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead, 
Phelps,  Porter,  Prentiss,  Hives,  Simmons,  Smith 
of  Indiana,  Southard,  Tallmadge,  White,  Wood- 
bridge. 

Nays — Messrs.  Allen,  Benton,  Buchanan,  Cal- 
houn, Clay  of  Alabama,  Cuthbert,  Fulton,  King, 
Linn,  McRoberts,  Mouton,  Nicholson,  Pierce, 
Preston,  Sevier,  Smith  of  Connecticut,  Sturgeon, 
Tappan,  Walker,  Williams,  Woodbury,  Wright, 
Young. 

In  the  House  the  vote  was  close — almost 
even — 116  to  108.     The  yeas  and  nays  were : 

Yeas — Messrs.  John  Quincy  Adams,  Elisha 
H.  Allen,  Landaff  W.  Andrews,  Sherlock  J.  An- 
drews, Thomas  D.  Arnold,  John  B.  Aycrigg, 
Alfred  Babcock,  Osmyn  Baker,  Daniel  D.  Bar- 
nard, Victory  Birdseye,  Henry  Black,  Bernard 
Blair,  William  W.  Boardman,  Nathaniel  B.  Bor- 
den, John  M.  Botts,  George  N.  Briggs,  John  H. 
Brockway,  David  Bronson,  Jeremiah  Brown, 
Barker  Burnell,  William  B.  Calhoun,  Thomas 
J.  Campbell,  Robert  L.  Caruthers,  Thomas  C. 
Chittenden,  John  C.  Clark,  Staley  N.  Clarke, 
James  Cooper,  Benjamin  S.  Co  wen,  Robert  B. 
Cranston,  James  H.  Cravens,  Caleb  Cushing, 
Edmund  Deberry,  John  Edwards,  Horace  Eve- 
rett, William  P.  Fessenden,  Millard  Fillmore, 

A.  Lawrence  Foster,  Seth  M.  Gates,  Meredith 
P.  Gentry,  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  William  L. 
Goggin,  Patrick  G.  Goode,  Willis  Green,  John 
Greig,  Hiland  Hall,  William  Halstead,  William 
S.  Hastings,  Thomas  Henry,  Charles  Hudson, 
Hiram  P.  Hunt,  James  Irvin,  William  W.  Irvin, 
Francis  James,  William  Cost  Johnson,  Isaac  D. 
Jones,  John  P.  Kennedy,  Henry  S.  Lane,  Joseph 
Lawrence,  Archibald  L.  Linn,  Thomas  F.  Mar- 
shall, Samson  Mason,  Joshua  Mathiot,  John 
Mattocks,  John  P.  B.  Maxwell,  John  Maynard, 
John  Moore,  Christopher  Morgan,  Calvary  Mor- 
ris, Jeremiah  Morrow,  Thomas  B.  Osborne, 
Bryan  Y.  Owsley,  James  A.  Pearce,  Nathaniel 
G.  Pendleton,  John  Pope,  Cuthbert  Powell. 
George  H.  Proffit,  Robert  Ramsey,  Benjamin 
Randall,  Alexander  Randall,  Joseph  F.  Ran- 
dolph, Kenneth  Rayner,  Joseph  Ridgway,  George 

B.  Rodney,  William  Russel,  Leverett  Salton- 
stall,  John  Sergeant,  William  Simonton,  Wil- 
liam Slade,  Truman  Smith,  Augustus  R.  Sollers, 
James  C.  Sprigg,  Edward  Stanly,  Samuel  Stoke- 
ly,  Charles  C,  Stratton,  Alexander  H.  H.  Stuart, 
George  W.  Summers,  John  Taliaferro,  John  B. 
Thompson,  Richard  W.  Thompson,  Joseph  L. 
Tillinghast,  George  W.  Toland,  Thomas  A.  Tom- 
linson,  Philip  Triplett,  Joseph  Trumbull,  Joseph 
R.  Underwood,  Henry  Van  Rensselaer,  David 
Wallace,  William  H.  Washington,  Edward  D. 
White,  Joseph  L.  White,  Thomas  W.  Williams, 
Lewis  Williams,   Joseph  L.  Williams,   Robert 

C.  Winthrop,  Thomas  Jones  Yorke,  Augustus 
Young,  John  Young. 

1  hose  who  voted  in  the  negative,  are : 


Nays — Messrs.  Julius  C.  Alford,  Archibald 
H.  Arrington,  Charles  G.  Atherton,  Linn  Banks, 
Henry  W.  Beeson,  Benjamin  A.  Bidlack,  Samuel 
S.  Bowne,  Linn  Boyd,  David  P.  Brewster,  Aaron 
V.  Brown,  Milton  Brown,  Joseph  Egbert,  Charles 
G.  Ferris,  John  G.  Floyd,  Joseph  Fornance, 
Thomas  F.  Foster,  Roger  L.  Gamble,  Thomas 
W.  Gilmer,  William  0.  Goode,  Samuel  Gordon, 
James  Graham,  Amos  Gustine,  Richard  W.  Ha- 
bersham, William  A.  Harris,  John  Hastings, 
Samuel  L.  Hays,  Isaac  E.  Holmes,  George  W. 
Hopkins,  Jacob  Houck,  jr.,  George  S.  Houston, 
Edmund  W.  Hubard,  Robert  M.  T.  Hunter,  Wil- 
liam Jack,  Cave  Johnson.  John  W.  Jones,  George 
M.  Keim,  Edmund  Burke,  Sampson  H.  Butler, 
William  Butler,  William  0.  Butler,  Green  W. 
Caldwell,  Patrick  C.  Caldwell,  John  Campbell, 
William  B.  Campbell,  George  B.  Cary,  Reuben 
Chapman,  Nathan  Clifford,  Andrew  Kennedy, 
Thomas  Butler  King,  Dixon  H.  Lewis,  Nathaniel 
S.  Littlefield,  Joshua  A.  Lowell,  Abraham  Mc- 
Clellan,  Robert  McClellan,  James  J.  McKay, 
John  McKeon,  Francis  Mallory,  Albert  G.  Mar- 
chand,  Alfred  Marshall,  John  Thompson  Mason, 
James  Mathews,  William  Med  ill,  James  A.  Me- 
riwether^John  Miller,  Peter  Newhard,  Eugenius 
A.  Nisbet,  William  M.  Oliver,  William  Parmen- 
ter,  Samuel  Patridge,  William  W.  Payne,  Fran- 
cis  W.  Pickens,  Arnold  Plumer,  James  G.  Clin- 
ton, Walter  Coles,  John  R.  J.  Daniel,  Richard 
D.  Davis,  John  B.  Dawson,  Ezra  Dean,  Davis 
Dimock,  jr.,  William  Doan,  Andrew  W.  Doig,  Ira 
A.  Eastman,  John  C.  Edwards,  John  R.  Reding, 
Abraham  Rencher,  R.  Barnwell  llhett,  Lewis 
Biggs,  James  Rogers,  James  I.  Roosevelt,  John 
Sanford,  Romulus  M.  Saunders,  Tristram  Shaw, 
Augustine  H.  Shepperd,  Benjamin  G.  Shields, 
John  Snyder,  Lewis  Steenrod,  Thomas  D.  Sum- 
ter, George  Sweney,  Hopkins  L.  Turney,  John 
Van  Buren,  Aaron  Ward,  Lott  Warren,  Harvey 
M.  Watterson,  John  B.  Weller,  John  Westbrook, 
James  W.  Williams,  Henry  A.  Wise,  Fernando 
Wood. 

The  progress  of  the  abuse  inherent  in  a 
measure  so  vicious,  was  fully  illustrated  in  the 
course  of  these  distribution-bills.  First,  they 
were  merely  to  relieve  the  distresses  of  the  peo- 
ple :  now  they  were  to  make  payment  of  State 
debts,  and  to  enhance  the  price  of  State  stocks 
in  the  hands  of  London  capitalists.  In  the  be- 
ginning they  were  to  divide  a  surplus  on  hand, 
for  which  the  government  had  no  use,  and 
which  ought  to  be  returned  to  the  people  who 
had  paid  it,  and  who  now  needed  it :  afterwards 
it  was  to  divide  the  land-money  years  ahead 
without  knowing  whether  there  would  be  any 
surplus  or  not :  now  they  are  for  dividing 
money  when  there  is  none  to  divide — when 
there  is  a  treasury  deficit — and  loans  and  taxes 
required  to  supply  it.      Originally,  they  were 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


247 


for  short  and  limited  terms — first,  for  one  year 
— afterwards  for  five  years  :  now  for  perpetui- 
ty. This  bill  provides  for  eternity.  It  is  a  cu- 
riosity in  human  legislation,  and  contained  a 
clause  which  would  be  ridiculous  if  it  had  not 
been  impious — an  attempt  to  manacle  future 
Congresses,  and  to  bind  posterity  through  un- 
born generations.  The  clause  ran  in  these 
words :  That  if,  at  any  time  during  the  exist- 
ence of  this  act,  duties  on  imported  goods 
should  be  raised  above  the  rate  of  the  twenty 
per  centum  on  the  value  as  provided  in  the 
compromise  act  of  1833,  then  the  distribution 
of  the  land  revenue  should  be  suspended,  and 
continue  so  until  reduced  to  that  rate ;  and 
then  be  resumed.  Fallacious  attempt  to  bind 
posterity  !  It  did  not  even  bind  those  who 
made  it :  for  the  same  Congress  disregarded  it. 
But  it  shows  to  what  length  the  distribution 
spirit  had  gone  ;  and  that  even  protective  tariff 
— that  former  sovereign  remedy  for  all  the 
wants  of  the  people — was  sacrificed  to  it.  Mr. 
Clay  undertaking  to  bind  all  the  Congresses 
for  ever  to  uniform  twenty  per  centum  ad  valo- 
rem duties.  And  while  the  distribution-bill 
thus  undertook  to  protect  and  save  the  compro- 
mise of  1833,  the  new  tariff-bill  of  this  session, 
undertook  to  return  the  favor  by  assuming  to 
protect  and  save  the  distribution-bill.  Its 
second  section  contained  this  proviso  :  That  if 
any  duty  exceeding  twenty  per  centum  on  the 
value  shall  be  levied  before  the  30th  day  of 
June,  1842,  it  should  not  stop  the  distribution 
of  the  land  revenue,  as  provided  for  in  the  dis- 
tribution act  of  the  present  session.  Thus,  the 
two  acts  were  made  mutual  assurers,  each  stip- 
ulating for  the  life  of  the  other,  and  connecting 
things  which  had  no  mutual  relation  except  in 
the  coalitions  of  politicians  ;  but,  like  other 
assurers,  not  able  to  save  the  lives  they  assured. 
Both  acts  were  gone  in  a  year  !  And  the  mar- 
vel is  how  such  flimsy  absurdities  could  be  put 
into  a  statute  ?  And  the  answer,  from  the  ne- 
cessity of  conciliating  some  one's  vote,  without 
which  the  bills  could  not  pass.  Thus,  some 
Southern  anti-tariff  men  would  not  vote  for  the 
distribution  bill  unless  the  compromise  of  1833 
was  protected ;  and  some  distribution  men  of 
the  West  would  not  vote  for  the  anti-tariff  act 
unless  the  distribution  bill  was  protected.  And 
hence  the  ridiculous,  presumptuous,  and  idle 
expedient  of  mutually  insuring  each  other. 


CHAPTER    LXIX. 

INSTITUTION  OP  THE  HOUR  EULE  IN  DEBATE 
IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES:  ITS 
ATTEMPT,  AND  REPULSE  IN  THE  SENATE. 

This  session  is  remarkable  for  the  institution 
of  the  hour  rule  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives— the  largest  limitation  upon  the  freedom 
of  debate  which  any  deliberative  assembly  ever 
imposed  upon  itself,  and  presents  an  eminent 
instance  of  permanent  injury  done  to  free  insti- 
tutions in  order  to  get  rid  of  a  temporary  an- 
noyance. It  was  done  at  a  time  when  the  par- 
ty, called  whig,  was  in  full  predominance  in 
both  Houses  of  Congress,  and  in  the  impatience 
of  delay  in  the  enactment  of  their  measures. 
It  was  essentially  a  whig  measure — though 
with  exceptions  each  way — the  body  of  the 
whigs  going  for  it ;  the  body  of  the  democracy 
against  it — several  eminent  whigs  voting  with 
them  :  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,  William  C. 
Dawson,  James  A.  Pearce,  Kenneth  Rayner, 
Edward  Stanly,  Alexander  H.  H.  Stuart,  Ed- 
ward D.  White  and  others.  Mr.  Lott  Warren 
moved  the  rule  as  an  amendment  to  the  body 
of  the  rules ;  and,  in  the  same  moment,  moved 
the  previous  question :  which  was  carried.  The 
vote  was  immediately  taken,  and  the  rule  estab- 
lished by  a  good  majority — only  seventy-five 
members  voting  against  it.     They  were  : 

Messrs.  John  Quincy  Adams,  Archibald  H. 
Arrington,  Charles  G.  Atherton,  Linn  Banks, 
Daniel  D.  Barnard,  John  M.  Botts,  Samuel  S. 
Bowne,  Linn  Boyd,  David  P.  Brewster,  Aaron 
V.  Brown,  Edmund  Burke,  Barker  Burnell, 
Green  W.  Caldwell,  John  Campbell,  Robert  L. 
Caruthers,  George  B.  Cary,  Reuben  Chapman, 
James  G.  Clinton,  Walter  Coles,  John  R.  J. 
Daniel,  Wm.  C.  Dawson,  Ezra  Dean,  Andrew  W. 
Doig,  Ira  A.  Eastman,  Horace  Everett,  Charles 
G.  Ferris,  John  G.  Floyd,  Charles  A.  Floyd, 
William  0.  Goode,  Samuel  Gordon,  Samuel  L. 
Hays,  George  W.  Hopkins,  Jacob  Houck,  jr., 
Edmund  W.  Hubard,  Charles  Hudson,  Hiram 
P.  Hunt,  William  W.  Irwin,  William  Jack. 
Cave  Johnson,  John  W.  Jones,  George  M. 
Keim,  Andrew  Kennedy,  Thomas  Butler  King, 
Dixon  H.  Lewis,  Nathaniel  S.  Littlefield,  Joshua 
A.  Lowell,  Abraham  McClellan,  Robert  McClel- 
lan,  James  J.  McKay,  Francis  Mallory,  Alfred 
Marshall,  Samson  Mason,  John  Thompson  Ma- 
son, John  Miller,  Peter  Newhard,  William  Par- 
menter,  William  W.  Payne,  James  A.  Pearce, 


248 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Francis  TV.  Pickens,  Kenneth  Rayner,  John  R. 
Reding,  Lewis  Riggs,  Romulus  M.  Saunders, 
William  Slade,  John  Snyder,  Augustus  R.  Sol- 
lers,  James  C.  Sprigg,  Edward  Stanly,  Lewis 
Steenrod,  Alexander  II.  H.  Stuart,  Hopkins  L. 
Turney,  Aaron  Ward,  John  Westbrook,  Edward 
D.  White.  Joseph  L.  Williams. 

The  Roman  republic  had  existed  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years,  and  was  verging  towards 
its  fell  under  the  first  triumvirate — (Caesar, 
Pompey,  and  Crassus) — before  pleadings  were 
limited  to  two  hours  before  the  Judices  Se- 
lecti.  In  the  Senate  the  speeches  of  senators 
were  never  limited  at  all ;  but  even  the  partial 
limitation  then  placed  upon  judicial  pleadings, 
but  which  were,  in  fact,  popular  orations,  drew 
from  Cicero  an  aifecting  deprecation  of  its  effect 
upon  the  cause  of  freedom,  as  well  as  upon  the 
field  of  eloquence.  The  reader  of  the  admired 
treatise  on  oratory,  and  notices  of  celebrated 
orators,  will  remember  his  lamentation — as 
wise  in  its  foresight  of  evil  consequences  to  free 
institutions,  as  mournful  and  affecting  in  its 
lamentation  over  the  decline  of  oratory.  Little 
could  he  have  supposed  that  a  popular  assem- 
bly should  ever  exist,  and  in  a  country  where 
his  writings  were  read,  which  would  voluntari- 
ly impose  upon  itself  a  far  more  rigorous  limit- 
ation than  the  one  over  which  he  grieved.  Cer- 
tain it  is,  that  with  our  incessant  use  of  the 
previous  question,  which  cuts  off  all  debate,  and 
the  hour  rule  which  limits  a  speech  to  sixty 
minutes  (constantly  reduced  by  interruptions) ; 
and  the  habit  of  fixing  an  hour  at  which  the 
question  shall  be  taken,  usually  brief,  and  the 
intermediate  little  time  not  secure  for  that 
question :  with  all  these  limitations  upon  the 
freedom  of  debate  in  the  House,  certain  it  is 
that  such  an  anomaly  was  never  seen  in  a  de- 
liberative assembly,  and  the  business  of  a  peo- 
ple never  transacted  in  the  midst  of  such  igno- 
rance of  what  they  are  about  by  those  who  are 
doing  it. 

No  doubt  the  license  of  debate  has  been 
greatly  abused  in  our  halls  of  Congress — as  in 
those  of  the  British  parliament :  but  this  sup- 
pression of  debate  is  not  the  correction  of  the 
abuse,  but  the  destruction  of  the  liberty  of 
speech :  and  that,  not  as  a  personal  privilege, 
but  as  a  representative  right,  essential  to  the 
welfare  of  the  people.  For  fifty  years  of  our 
government  there  was  no  such  suppression  : 


in  no  other  country  is  there  the  parallel  to  it. 
Yet  in  all  popular  assemblies  there  is  an  abuse 
in  the  liberty  of  speech,  inherent  in  the  right 
of  speech,  which  gives  to  faction  and  folly  the 
same  latitude  as  to  wisdom  and  patriotism. 
The  English  have  found  the  best  corrective :  it 
is  in  the  House  itself— its  irregular  power :  its 
refusal  to  hear  a  member  further  when  they  are 
tired  of  him.     A  significant  scraping  and  cough- 
ing warns  the  annoying  speaker  when  he  should 
cease :  if  the  warning  is  not  taken,  a  tempest 
drowns  his  voice  :    when  he   appeals  to  the 
chair,  the  chair  recommends  him  to  yield  to  the 
temper  of  the  House.     A  few  examples  reduce 
the  practice  to  a  rule — insures  its  observance ; 
and  works  the  correction  of  the  abuse  without 
the  destruction  of  debate.     No  man  speaking 
to  the  subject,  and  giving  information  to  the 
House,  was  ever  scraped  and  coughed  down,  in 
the  British  House  of  Commons.     No  matter 
how  plain  his  language,  how  awkward  his  man- 
ner, how  confused  his  delivery,  so  long  as  he 
gives  information  he  is  heard  attentively ;  while 
the  practice  falls  with  just,  and  relentless  effect 
upon  "the    loquacious  members,   who  mistake 
volubility  for  eloquence,  who  delight    them- 
selves while  annoying  the  House — who  are  in- 
sensible to  the  proprieties  of  time  and  place, 
take  the  subject  for  a  point  to  stand  on :  and 
then   speak   off  from  it  in  all  directions,  and 
equally  without  continuity  of  ideas  or  discon- 
nection of  words.     The  practice  of  the  British 
House  of  Commons  puts  an  end  to  all  such  an- 
noyance, while   saving   every  thing  profitable 
that  any  member  can  utter. 

The  first  instance  of  enforcing  this  new  rule 
stands  thus  recorded  in  the  Register  of  De- 
bates : 

"  Mr.  Pickens  proceeded,  in  the  next  place, 
to  point  out  the  items  of  expenditure  which 
might,  without  the  least  injury  to  the  interests 
of  the  government  or  to  the  public  service,  suf- 
fer retrenchment.  He  quoted  the  report  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  of  December  9, 1840 ; 
from  it  he  took  the  several  items,  and  then 
stated  how  much,  in  his  opinion,  each  might  be 
reduced.  The  result  of  the  first  branch  of  this 
reduction  of  particulars  was  a  sum  to  be  re- 
trenched amounting  to  $852,000.  He  next 
went  into  the  items  of  pensions,  the  Florida 
war,  and  the  expenditures  of  Congress  ;  on 
these,  with  a  few  minor  ones  in  addition,  he  es- 
timated that  there  might,  without  injury,  be  a 
saving  of  four  millions.     Mr.  P.  had  gotten  thus 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


249 


far  in  his  subject,  and  was  just  about  to  enter 
into  a  comparison  of  the  relative  advantages  of 
a  loan  and  of  Treasury  notes,  when 

"  The  Chair  here  reminded  Mr.  Pickens  that 
his  hour  had  expired. 

•'  Mr.  Pickens.  The  hour  out  ? 

"The  Chair.     Yes,  sir. 

"  Mr.  Pickens.  [Looking  at  his  watch.] 
Bless  my  soul !     Have  I  run  my  race  ? 

"Mr.  Holmes  asked  whether  his  colleague 
had  not  taken  ten  minutes  for  explanations  ? 

"Mr.  Warren  desired  that  the  rule  be  en- 
forced. 

"  Mr.  Pickens  denied  that  the  House  had 
any  constitutional  right  to  pass  such  a  rule. 

"The  Chair  again  reminded  Mr.  Pickens 
that  he  had  spoken  an  hour. 

"  Mr.  Pickens  would,  then,  conclude  by  say- 
ing it  was  the  most  infamous  rule  ever  passed 
by  any  legislative  body. 

"  Mr.  J.  G.  Floyd  of  New  York,  said  the  gen- 
tleman had  been  frequently  interrupted,  and 
had,  therefore,  a  right  to  continue  his  remarks. 

"The  Chair  delivered  a  contrary  opinion. 

"  Mr.  Floyd  appealed  from  his  decision. 

"  The  Chair  then  rose  to  put  the  question, 
whether  the  decision  of  the  Chair  should  stand 
as  the  judgment  of  the  House  ?  when 

"Mr.  Floyd  withdrew  his  appeal. 

"  Mr.  Dawson  suggested  whether  the  Chair 
had  not  possibly  made  a  mistake  with  respect 
to  the  time. 

"  The  Chair  said  there  was  no  mistake. 

"  Mr.  Pickens  then  gave  notice  that  he  would 
oner  an  amendment. 

"The  Chair  remarked  that  the  gentleman 
was  not  in  order. 

"Mr.  Pickens  said  that  if  the  motion  to 
strike  out  the  enacting  clause  should  prevail, 
he  would  move  to  amend  the  bill  by  introduc- 
ing a  substitute,  giving  ample  means  to  the 
Treasury,  but  avoiding  the  evils  of  which  he 
complained  in  the  bill  now  under  consider- 
ation." 

The  measure  having  succeeded  in  the  House 
which  made  the  majority  master  of  the  body, 
and  enabled  them  to  pass  their  bills  without 
resistance  or  exposure,  Mr.  Clay  undertook  to 
do  the  same  thing  in  the  Senate.  He  was  im- 
patient to  pass  his  bills,  annoyed  at  the  resist- 
ance they  met,  and  dreadfully  harassed  by  the 
species  of  warfare  to  which  thej  were  subject- 
ed ;  and  for  which  he  had  no  turn.  The  demo- 
cratic senators  acted  upon  a  system,  and  with  a 
thorough  organization,  and  a  perfect  under- 
standing. Being  a  minority,  and  able  to  do 
nothing,  they  became  assailants,  and  attacked 
incessantly ;  not  by  formal  orations  against  the 
whole  body  of  a  measure,  but  by  sudden,  short, 
and  pungent  speeches,  directed  against  the  vul- 


nerable parts ;  and  pointed  by  proffered  amend- 
ments. Amendments  were  continually  offered 
— a  great  number  being  prepared  every  night, 
and  placed  in  suitable  hands  for  use  the  next 
day — always  commendably  calculated  to  expose 
an  evil,  and  to  present  a  remedy.  Near  forty 
propositions  of  amendment  were  offered  to  the 
first  fiscal  agent  bill  alone — the  yeas  and  nays 
taken  upon  them  seven  and  thirty  times.  All 
the  other  prominent  bills — distribution,  bank- 
rupt, fiscal  corporation — new  tariff  act,  called 
revenue — were  served  the  same  way.  Every 
proposed  amendment  made  an  issue,  which 
fixed  public  attention,  and  would  work  out  in 
our  favor — end  as  it  might.  If  we  carried  it, 
which  was  seldom,  there  was  a  good  point 
gained  :  if  we  lost  it,  there  was  a  bad  point  ex- 
posed. In  either  event  we  had  the  advantage  of 
discussion,  which  placed  our  adversaries  in  the 
wrong ;  and  the  speaking  fact  of  the  yens  and 
nays — which  told  how  every  man  was  upon  every 
point.  We  had  in  our  ranks  every  variety  of 
speaking  talent,  from  plain  and  calm  up  to  fiery 
and  brilliant — and  all  matter-of-fact  men — their 
heads  well  stored  with  knowledge.  There  were 
but  twenty-two  of  us  ;  but  every  one  a  speaker, 
and  effective.  We  kept  their  measures  upon  the 
anvil,  and  hammered  them  continually :  we  im- 
paled them  against  the  wall,  and  stabbed  them 
incessantly.  The  Globe  newspaper  was  a  pow- 
erful ally  (Messrs.  Blair  and  Rives) ;  setting 
off  all  we  did  to  the  best  advantage  in  strong 
editorials— and  carrying  out  our  speeches,  fresh 
and  hot,  to  the  people :  and  we  felt  victorious 
in  the  midst  of  unbroken  defeats.  Mr.  Clay's 
temperament  could  not  stand  it,  and  he  was  de- 
termined to  silence  the  troublesome  minority, 
and  got  the  acquiescence  of  his  party,  and  the 
promise  of  their  support :  and  boldly  com- 
menced his  operations — avowing  his  design,  at 
the  same  time,  in  open  Senate. 

It  was  on  the  12th  day  of  July— just  four 
days  after  the  new  rule  had  been  enforced  in 
the  House,  and  thereby  established  (for  up  to 
that  day,  it  was  doubtful  whether  it  could  be 
enforced) — that  Mr.  Clay  made  his  first  move- 
ment towards  its  introduction  in  the  Senate; 
and  in  reply  to  Mr.  Wright  of  New  York — one 
of  the  last  men  in  the  world  to  waste  time  in 
the  Senate,  or  to  speak  without  edification  to 
those  who  would  listen.  It  was  on  the  famous 
fiscal  bank  bill,  and  on  a  motion  of  Mr.  Wright 


250 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


to  strike  out  the  large  subscription  reserved  for 
the  government,  so  as  to  keep  the  government 
unconnected  with  the  business  of  the  bank. 
The  mover  made  some  remarks  in  favor  of  his 
motion — to  which  Mr.  Clay  replied :  and  then 
went  on  to  say : 

"  He  could  not  help  regarding  the  opposition 
to  this  measure  as  one  eminently  calculated  to 
delay  the  public  business,  with  no  other  object 
that  he  could  Fee  than  that  of  protracting  to  the 
last  moment  the  measures  for  which  this  ses- 
sion had  been  expressly  called  to  give  to  the 
people.  This  too  was  at  a  time  when  the  whole 
country  was  crying  out  in  an  agony  of  distress 
for  relief." 

These  remarks,  conveying  a  general  imputa- 
tion upon  the  minority  senators  of  factious  con- 
duct in  delaying  the  public  business,  and  thwart- 
ing the  will  of  the  people,  justified  an  answer 
from  any  one  of  them  to  whom  it  was  appli- 
cable :  and  first  received  it  from  Mr%  Calhoun. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  was  not  surprised  at  the  impa- 
tience of  the  senator  from  Kentucky,  though  he 
was  at  his  attributing  to  this  side  of  the  cham- 
ber the  delays  and  obstacles  thrown  in  the  way 
of  his  favorite  measure.  How  many  days  did 
the  senator  himself  spend  in  amending  his  own 
bill  ?  The  bill  had  been  twelve  days  before  the 
Senate,  and  eight  of  those  had  been  occupied  by 
the  friends  of  the  bill.  That  delay  did  not 
originate  on  this  side  of  the  House ;  but  now 
that  the  time  which  was  cheerfully  accorded  to 
him  and  his  friends  is  to  be  reciprocated,  before 
half  of  it  is  over,  the  charge  of  factious  delay  is 
raised.  Surely  the  urgency  and  impatience  of 
the  senator  and  his  friends  cannot  be  so  very 
great  that  the  minority  must  not  be  allowed  to 
employ  as  many  days  in  amending  their  bill  as 
they  took  themselves  to  alter  it.  The  senator 
from  Kentucky  says  he  is  afraid,  if  we  go  on  in 
this  way,  we  will  not  get  through  the  measures 
of  this  session  till  the  last  of  autumn.  Is  not 
the  fault  in  himself,  and  in  the  nature  of  the 
measures  he  urges  so  impatiently  ?  These  mea- 
sures are  such  as  the  senators  in  the  minority 
are  wholly  opposed  to  on  principle — such  as 
they  conscientiously  believe  are  unconstitu- 
tional— and  is  it  not  then  right  to  resist  them, 
and  prevent,  if  they  can,  all  invasions  of  the  con- 
stitution ?  "Why  does  he  build  upon  such  un- 
reasonable expectations  as  to  calculate  on  carry- 
ing measures  of  this  magnitude  and  importance 
with  a  few  days  of  hasty  legislation  on  each  ? 
What  are  the  measures  proposed  by  the  sen- 
ator? They  comprise  the  whole  federal  sys- 
tem, which  it  took  forty  years,  from  1789  to 
1829,  to  establish— but  which  are  now,  happily 
for  the  country,  prostrate  in  the  dust.  And  it 
is  these  measures^  fraught  with  such  important 


results  that  are  now  sought  to  be  hurried 
through  in  one  extra  session ;  measures  which, 
without  consuming  one  particle  of  useless  time 
to  discuss  fully,  would  require,  instead  of  an 
extra  session  of  Congress,  four  or  five  regular 
sessions.  The  senator  said  the  country  was  in 
agony,  crying  for  "  action,"  "  action."  He  un- 
derstood whence  that  cry  came — it  came  from 
the  holders  of  State  stocks,  the  men  who  ex- 
pected another  expansion,  to  relieve  themselves 
at  the  expense  of  government.  "  Action  " — 
"  action."  meant  nothing  but  "  plunder,"  "  plun- 
der," "  plunder ;"  and  he  assured  the  gentleman, 
that  he  could  not  be  more  anxious  in  urging  on 
a  system  of  plunder  than  he  (Mr.  Calhoun) 
would  be  in  opposing  it.  He  so  understood  the 
senator,  and  he  inquired  of  him,  whether  he 
called  this  an  insidious  amendment  ? 

This  was  a  sharp  reply,  just  in  its  retort, 
spirited  in  its  tone,  judicious  in  expanding  the 
basis  of  the  new  debate  that  was  to  come 
on ;  and  greatly  irritated  Mr.  Clay.  He  im- 
mediately felt  that  he  had  no  right  to  impeach 
the  motives  of  senators,  and  catching  up  Mr. 
Calhoun  on  that  point,  and  strongly  contesting 
it,  brought  on  a  rapid  succession  of  contradic- 
tory asseverations :  Thus : 

"  Mr.  Clay.  I  said  no  such  thing,  sir ;  I  did 
not  say  any  thing  about  the  motives  of  sena- 
tors. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  said  he  understood  the  sena- 
tor's meaning  to  be  that  the  motives  of  the  op- 
position were  factious  and  frivolous. 

"Mr.  Clay.     I  said  no  such  thing,  sir. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun.    It  was  so  understood. 

"  Mr.  Clay.     No,  sir;  no,  sir. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun.  Yes,  sir,  yes ;  it  could  be 
understood  in  no  other  way. 

"  Mr.  Clay.  What  I  did  say,  was,  that  the 
effect  of  such  amendments,  and  of  consuming 
time  in  debating  them,  would  be  a  waste  of  that 
time  from  the  business  of  the  session ;  and,  conse- 
quently, would  produce  unnecessary  delay  and 
embarrassment.  I  said  nothing  of  motives — I 
only  spoke  of  the  practical  effect  and  result. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  said  he  understood  it  had  been 
repeated  for  the  second  time  that  there  could 
be  no  other  motive  or  object  entertained  by  the 
senators  in  the  opposition,  in  making  amend- 
ments and  speeches  on  this  bill,  than  to  em- 
barrass the  majority  by  frivolous  and  vexatious 
delay. 

"  Mr.  Clay  insisted  that  he  made  use  of  no  as- 
sertions as  to  motives. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun.  If  the  senator  means  to  say 
that  he  does  not  accuse  this  side  of  the  House 
of  bringing  forward  propositions  for  the  sake  of 
delay,  he  wished  to  understand  him. 

"  Mr.  Clay.    I  intended  that. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  repeated  that  he  understood 
the  senator  to  mean  that  the  senators  in  the  op- 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


251 


position  were  spinning  out  the  time  for  no  other 
purpose  but  that  of  delaying  and  embarrassing 
the  majority. 

"  Mr.  Clay  admitted  that  was  his  meaning, 
though  not  thus  expressed." 

So  ended  this  keen  colloquy  in  which  the  perti- 
nacity, and  clear  perceptions  of  Mr.  Calhoun 
brought  out  the  admission  that  the  impeachment 
of  motives  was  intended,  but  not  expressed. 
Having  got  this  admission  Mr.  Calhoun  went  on 
to  defy  the  accusation  of  faction  and  frivolity, 
and  to  declare  a  determination  in  the  minority 
to  continue  in  their  course;  and  put  a  per- 
emptory question  to  Mr.  Clay. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  observed  that  to  attempt,  by 
such  charges  of  factious  and  frivolous  motives, 
to  silence  the  opposition,  was  wholly  useless. 
He  and  his  friends  had  principles  to  contend  for 
that  were  neither  new  nor  frivolous,  and  they 
would  here  now,  and  at  all  times,  and  in  all 
places,  maintain  them  against  those  measures,  in 
whatever  way  they  thought  most  efficient.  Did 
the  senator  from  Kentucky  mean  to  apply  to  the 
Senate  the  gag  law  passed  in  the  other  branch 
of  Congress  ?  If  he  did,  it  was  time  he  should 
know  that  he  (Mr.  Calhoun),  and  his  friends 
were  ready  to  meet  him  on  that  point." 

This  question,  and  the  avowed  readiness  to 
meet  the  gagging  attempt,  were  not  spoken  with- 
out warrant.  The  democratic  senators  having 
got  wind  of  what  was  to  come,  had  consulted 
together  and  taken  their  resolve  to  defy  and  to 
dare  it — to  resist  its  introduction,  and  trample 
upon  the  rule,  if  voted :  and  in  the  mean  time  to 
gain  an  advantage  with  the  public  by  rendering 
odious  their  attempt.  Mr.  Clay  answered  argu- 
mentatively  for  the  rule,  and  that  the  people 
were  for  it : 

"  Let  those  senators  go  into  the  country,  and 
they  will  find  the  whole  body  of  the  people 
complaining  of  the  delay  and  interruption  of  the 
national  business,  by  their  long  speeches  in  Con- 
gress ;  and  if  they  will  be  but  admonished  by 
the  people,  they  will  come  back  with  a  lesson  to 
cut  short  their  debating,  and  give  their  atten- 
tion more  to  action  than  to  words.  Who  ever 
heard  that  the  people  would  be  dissatisfied  with 
the  abridgment  of  speeches  in  Congress  ?  He 
had  never  heard  the  shortness  of  speeches  com- 
plained of.  Indeed,  he  should  not  be  surprised 
if  the  people  would  get  up  remonstrances  against 
lengthy  speeches  in  Congress." 

With  respect  to  the  defiance,  Mr.  Clay  re- 
turned it,  and  declared  his  determination  to 
bring  forward  the  measure. 

"  With  regard  to  the  intimation  of  the  gentle- 
man from  South  Carolina  [Mr.  Calhoun],  he 


understood  him  and  his  course  perfectly  well, 
and  told  him  and  his  friends  that,  for  himself, 
he  knew  not  how  his  friends  would  act ;  he  was 
ready  at  any  moment  to  bring  forward  and  sup- 
port a  measure  which  should  give  to  the  ma- 
jority the  control  of  the  business  of  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States.  Let  them  denounce  it  as 
much  as  they  pleased  in  advance  :  unmoved  by 
any  of  their  denunciations  and  threats,  standing 
firm  in  the  support  of  the  interests  which  he 
believed  the  country  demands,  for  one,  he  was 
ready  for  the  adoption  of  a  rule  which  would 
place  the  business  of  the  Senate  under  the  con- 
trol of  a  majority  of  the  Senate." 

Mr.  Clay  was  now  committed  to  bring  for- 
ward the  measure  ;  and  was  instantly  and  defy- 
ingly  invited  to  do  so. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  said  there  was  no  doubt  of 
the  senator's  predilection  for  a  gag  law.  Let 
him  bring  on  that  measure  as  soon  as  ever  he 
pleases. 

"  Mr.  Benton.     Come  on  with  it." 

Without  waiting  for  any  thing  further  from 
Mr.  Clay,  Mr.  Calhoun  proceeded  to  show  him, 
still  further,  how  little  his  threat  was  heeded ; 
and  taunted  him  with  wishing  to  revive  the 
spirit  of  the  alien  and  sedition  laws : 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  said  it  must  be  admitted  that, 
if  the  senator  was  not  acting  on  the  federal  side, 
he  would  find  it  hard  to  persuade  the  American 
people  of  the  fact,  by  showing  them  his  love  of 
gag  laws,  and  strong  disposition  to  silence  both 
the  national  councils  and  the  press.  Did  he  not 
remember  something  about  an  alien  and  sedition 
law,  and  can  he  fail  to  perceive  the  relationship 
with  the  measure  he  contemplates  to  put  down 
debate  here  ?  What  is  the  difference,  in  prin- 
ciple, between  his  gag  law  and  the  alien  and 
sedition  law  ?  We  are  gravely  told  that  the 
speaking  of  the  representatives  of  the  people, 
which  is  to  convey  to  them  full  information  on 
the  subjects  of  legislation  in  their  councils,  is 
worse  than  useless,  and  must  be  abated.  Who 
consumed  the  time  of  last  Congress  in  long 
speeches,  vexatious  and  frivolous  attempts  to 
embarrass  and  thwart  the  business  of  the  coun- 
try, and  useless  opposition,  tending  to  no  end 
but  that  out  of  doors,  the  presidential  election  ? 
Who  but  the  senator  and  his  party,  then  in  the 
minority  ?  But  now,  when  they  are  in  the  ma- 
jority, and  the  most  important  measures  ever 
pressed  forward  together  in  one  session,  he  is 
the  first  to  threaten  a  gag  law,  to  choke  off  de- 
bate, and  deprive  the  minority  even  of  the  poor 
privilege  of  entering  their  protest." 

Of  all  the  members  of  the  Senate,  one  of  the 
mildest  and  most  amicable — one  of  the  gentlest 
language,  and  firmest  purpose — was  Dr.  Linn, 
of  Missouri.    The  temper  of  the  minority  sena- 


252 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


be  judged  by  the  tone  and  tenor  of  his 


tors  may- 
remarks. 

"  He  (Mr.  Linn)  would  for  his  part,  make  a 
few  remarks  here,  and  in  doing  so  he  intended 
to  be  as  pointed  as  possible,  for  he  had  now,  he 
found,  to  contend  for  liberty  of  speech ;  and 
while  any  of  that  liberty  was  left,  he  would 
give  his  remarks  the  utmost  bounds  consistent 
with  his  own  sense  of  what  was  due  to  himself, 
his  constituents,  and  the  country.  The  whigs, 
during  the  late  administration,  had  brought  to 
bear  a  system  of  assault  against  the  majority  in 
power,  which  might  justly  be  characterized  as 
frivolous  and  vexatious,  and  nothing  else ;  yet 
they  had  always  been  treated  by  the  majority 
with  courtesy  and  forbearance  ;  and  the  utmost 
latitude  of  debate  had  been  allowed  them  with- 
out interruption.  In  a  session  of  six  months, 
they  consumed  the  greater  part  of  the  time  in 
speeches  for  electioneering  effect,  so  that  only 
twenty-eight  bills  were  passed.  These  election- 
eering speeches,  on  all  occasions  that  could  be 
started,  whether  the  presentation  of  a  petition, 
motion,  or  a  resolution,  or  discussion  of  a  bill, 
were  uniformly  and  studiously  of  the  most  in- 
sulting character  to  the  majority,  whose  mildest 
form  of  designation  was  "  collar  men ;"  and  other 
epithets  equally  degrading.  How  often  had  it 
been  said  of  the  other  branch  of  Congress, 
"  What  could  be  expected  from  a  House  so  con- 
stituted ?  "  Trace  back  the  course  of  that  party, 
step  by  step,  to  1834,  and  it  may  be  tracked  in 
blood.  The  outrages  in  New  York  in  that  year 
are  not  forgotten.  The  fierce  and  fiendish  spirit 
of  strife  and  usurpation  which  prompted  the 
seizure  of  public  arms,  to  turn  them  against 
tho^e  who  were  their  fellow-citizens,  is  yet  fresh 
as  ever,  and  ready  to  win  its  way  to  what  it 
aims  at.  What  was  done  then,  under  the  influ- 
ence and  shadow  of  the  great  money  power, 
may  be  done  again.  He  (Mr.  Linn)  had  mark- 
ed them,  and  nothing  should  restrain  him  from 
doing  his  duty  and  standing  up  in  the  front 
rank  of  opposition  to  keep  them  from  the  in- 
novations they  meditated.  Neither  the  frown 
nor  menace  of  any  leader  of  that  party — no  lofty 
bearing,  or  shaking  of  the  mane — would  deter 
him  from  the  fearless  and  honest  discharge  of 
those  obligations  which  were  due  to  his  consti- 
tuents and  to  the  country.  He  next  adverted 
to  the  conduct  of  the  whig  party  when  the  sub- 
treasury  was  under  discussion,  and  reminded 
the  present  party  in  power  of  the  forbearance 
with  which  they  had  been  treated,  contrasting 
that  treatment  with  the  manifestations  now 
made  to  the  minority.  We  are  now,  said  Mr. 
Linn  in  conclusion,  to  be  checked ;  but  I  tell 
the  senator  from  Kentucky,  and  any  other  sen- 
ator who  chooses  to  tread  in  his  steps,  that  he 
is  about  to  deal  a  double  handed  game  at  which 
two  can  play.  He  is  welcome  to  try  his  skill. 
But  I  would  expect  that  some  on  that  side  are 
not  prepared  to  go  quite  so  far  ;  and  that  there 
is  yet  among  them  sufficient  liberality  to  coun- 


terbalance political  feeling,  and  induce  them  not 
to  object  to  our  right  of  spending  as  much  time 
in  trying  to  improve  their  bill  as  they  have 
taken  themselves  to  clip  and  pare  and  shape  it 
to  their  own  fancies." 

Here  this  irritating  point  rested  for  the  day 
— and  for  three  days,  when  it  was  revived  by 
the  reproaches  and  threats  of  Mr.  Clay  against 
the  minority. 

"  The  House  (he  said)  had  been  treading  on 
the  heels  of  the  Senate,  and  at  last  had  got  the 
start  of  it  a  long  way  in  advance  of  the  business 
of  this  session.  The  reason  was  obvious.  The 
majority  there  is  for  action,  and  has  secured  it. 
Some  change  was  called  for  in  this  chamber. 
The  truth  is  that  the  minority  here  control  the 
action  of  the  Senate,  and  cause  all  the  delay  of 
the  public  business.  They  obstruct  the  majority 
in  the  dispatch  of  all  business  of  importance  to 
the  country,  and  particularly  those  measures 
which  the  majority  is  bound  to  give  to  the 
country  without  further  delay.  Did  not  this 
reduce  the  majority  to  the  necessity  of  adopting 
some  measure  which  would  place  the  control  of 
the  business  of  the  session  in  their  hands  %  It 
was  impossible  to  do  without  it:  it  must  be  re- 
sorted to." 

To  this  Mr.  Calhoun  replied : 

"  The  senator  from  Kentucky  tells  the  Senate 
the  other  House  has  got  before  it.  How  has 
the  other  House  got  before  the  Senate  ?  By  a 
despotic  exercise  of  the  power  of  a  majority. 
By  destroj- ing  the  liberties  of  the  people  in  gag- 
ging their  representatives.  By  preventing  the 
minority  from  its  free  exercise  of  its  right  of  re- 
monstrance. This  is  the  way  the  House  has  got 
before  the  Senate.  And  now  there  was  too 
much  evidence  to  doubt  that  the  Senate  was  to 
be  made  to  keep  up  with  the  House  by  the  same 
means." 

Mr.  Clay,  finding  such  undaunted  opposition 
to  the  hour  rule,  replied  in  a  way  to  let  it  be 
seen  that  the  threat  of  that  rule  was  given  up, 
and  that  a  measure  of  a  different  kind,  but 
equally  effective,  was  to  be  proposed;  and 
would  be  certainly  adopted.     He  said : 

"  If  he  did  not  adopt  the  same  means  which 
had  proved  so  beneficial  in  the  other  House,  he 
would  have  something  equally  efficient  to  offer. 
He  had  no  doubt  of  the  cheerful  adoption  of 
such  a  measure  when  it  should  come  before  the 
Senate.  So  far  from  the  rule  being  condemned, 
he  would  venture  to  say  that  it  would  be  gene- 
rally approved.  It  was  the  means  of  controlling 
the  business,  abridging  long  and  unnecessary 
speeches,  and  would  be  every  way  hailed  as  one 
of  the  greatest  improvements  of  the  age." 

This  glimpse  of  another  measure,  confirmed 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


253 


the  minority  in  the  belief  of  what  they  had 
heard — that  several  whig  senators  had  refused 
to  go  with  Mr.  Clay  for  the  hour  rule,  and  forced 
him  to  give  it  up ;  but  they  had  agreed  to  go  for 
the  previous  question,  which  he  held  to  be  equally 
effective  ;  and  was,  in  fact,  more  so — as  it  cut 
off  debate  at  any  moment.  It  was  just  as  offen- 
sive as  the  other.  Mr.  King,  of  Alabama,  was 
the  first  to  meet  the  threat,  under  this  new 
form,  and  the  Register  of  Debates  shows  this 
scene : 

"  Mr.  King  said  the  senator  from  Kentucky 
complained  of  three  weeks  and  a  half  having 
been  lost  in  amendments  to  his  bill.  Was  not 
the  senator  aware  that  it  was  himself  and  his 
friends  had  consumed  most  of  that  time  ?  But 
now  that  the  minority  had  to  take  it  up,  the 
Senate  is  told  there  must  be  a  gag  law.  Did 
he  understand  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the 
senator  to  introduce  that  measure  ? 

"  Mr.  Clay.    I  will,  sir ;  I  will ! 

"  Mr.  King.  I  tell  the  senator,  then,  that  he 
may  make  his  arrangements  at  his  boarding- 
house  for  the  winter. 

"Mr.  Clay.     Very  well,  sir. 

"Mr.  King  was  truly  sorry  to  see  the  honor- 
able senator  so  far  forgetting  what  is  due  to  the 
Senate,  as  to  talk  of  coercing  it  by  any  possible 
abridgment  of  its  free  action.  The  freedom  of 
debate  had  never  yet  been  abridged  in  that  body, 
since  the  foundation  of  this  government.  Was 
it  fit  or  becoming,  after  fifty  years  of  unre- 
strained liberty,  to  threaten  it  with  a  gag  law  1 
He  could  tell  the  senator  that,  peaceable  a  man 
as  he  (Mr.  King)  was,  whenever  it  was  at- 
tempted to  violate  that  sanctuary,  he,  for  one, 
would  resist  that  attempt  even  unto  the  death." 

The  issue  was  now  made  up,  and  the  determi- 
nation on  both  sides  declared — on  the  part  of 
Mr.  Clay,  speaking  in  the  name  of  his  party,  to 
introduce  the  previous  question  in  the  Senate, 
for  the  purpose  of  cutting  off  debate  and  amend- 
ments ;  on  the  part  of  the  minority,  to  resist 
the  rule — not  only  its  establishment,  but  its 
execution.  This  was  a  delicate  step,  and  re- 
quired justification  before  the  public,  before  a 
scene  of  resistance  to  the  execution — involving 
disorder,  and  possibly  violence — should  come 
on.  The  scheme  had  been  denounced,  and  de- 
fied ;  but  the  ample  reasons  against  it  had  not 
been  fully  stated ;  and  it  was  deemed  best  that 
a  solid  foundation  of  justification  for  whatever 
might  happen,  should  be  laid  beforehand  in  a 
reasoned  and  considered  speech.  The  author 
of  this  View,  was  required  to  make  that  speech ; 
and  for  that  purpose  followed  Mr.  King. 


"  Mr.  Benton  would  take  this  opportunity  to 
say  a  word  on  this  menace,  so  often  thrown  out, 
of  a  design  to  stifle  debate,  and  stop  amend- 
ments to  bills  in  this  chamber.  He  should  con- 
sider such  an  attempt  as  much  a  violation  of  the 
constitution,  and  of  the  privileges  of  the  cham- 
ber, as  it  would  be  for  a  military  usurper  to 
enter  upon  us,  at  the  head  of  his  soldiery,  and 
expel  us  from  our  seats. 

"  It  is  not  in  order,  continued  Mr.  B. — it  is  not 
in  order,  and  would  be  a  breach  of  the  privilege 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  to  refer  to  any 
thing  which  may  have  taken  place  in  that  House. 
My  business  is  with  our  own  chamber,  and  with 
the  threat  which  has  so  often  been  uttered  on 
this  floor,  during  this  extra  session,  of  stifling 
debate,  and  cutting  oft'  amendments,  by  the  in- 
troduction of  the  previous  question. 

"  With  respect  to  debates,  senators  have  a  con- 
stitutional right  to  speak  ;  and  while  they  speak 
to  the  subject  before  the  House,  there  is  no 
power  any  where  to  stop  them.  It  is  a  consti- 
tutional right.  When  a  member  departs  from 
the  question,  he  is  to  be  stopped  :  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  Chair — your  duty,  Mr.  President,  to  stop 
him — and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Senate  to  sustain 
you  in  the  discharge  of  this  duty.  We  have 
rules  for  conducting  the  debates,  and  these  rules 
only  require  to  be  enforced  in  order  to  make 
debates  decent  and  instructive  in  their  import, 
and  brief  and  reasonable  in  their  duration.  The 
government  has  been  in  operation  above  fifty 
years,  and  the  freedom  of  debate  has  been  some- 
times abused,  especially  during  the  last  twelve 
years,  when  those  out  of  power  made  the  two 
houses  of  Congress  the  arena  of  political  and 
electioneering  combat  against  the  democratic 
administration  in  power.  The  liberty  of  debate 
was  abused  during  this  time ;  but  the  demo- 
cratic majority  would  not  impose  gags  and  muz- 
zles on  the  mouths  of  the  minority  ;  they  would 
not  stop  their  speeches  ;  considering,  and  justly 
considering,  that  the  privilege  of  speech  was  in- 
estimable and  inattackable — that  some  abuse  of 
it  was  inseparable  from  its  enjoyment — and  that 
it  was  better  to  endure  a  temporary  abuse  than 
to  incur  a  total  extinction  of  this  great  privi- 
lege. 

"  But,  sir,  debate  is  one  thing,  and  amendments 
another.  A  long  speech,  wandering  off  from  the 
bill,  is  a  very  different  thing  from  a  short  amend- 
ment, directed  to  the  texture  of  the  bill  itself, 
and  intended  to  increase  its  beneficial,  or  to 
diminish  its  prejudicial  action.  These  amend- 
ments are  the  point  to  which  I  now  speak,  and 
to  the  nature  of  which  I  particularly  invoke  the 
attention  of  the  Senate. 

"  By  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  each 
bill  is  to  receive  three  readings,  and  each  reading 
represents  a  different  stage  of  proceeding,  and  a 
different  mode  of  action  under  it.  The  first 
reading  is  for  information  only  ;  it  is  to  let  the 
House  know  what  the  bill  is  for,  what  its  con- 
tents are  ;  and  then  neither  debate  nor  amend- 
ment is  expected,  and  never  occurs,  except  in 


254 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


extraordinary  cases.  The  second  reading  is  for 
amendments  and  debate,  and  this  reading  usually 
takes  place  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  and  in  quasi  com- 
mittee in  the  Senate.  The  third  reading,  after 
the  bill  is  engrossed,  is  for  passage  ;  and  then 
it  cannot  be  amended,  and  is  usually  voted  upon 
with  little  or  no  debate.  Now,  it  is  apparent 
that  the  second  reading  of  the  bill  is  the  impor- 
tant one — that  it  is  the  legislative — the  law- 
making— reading  ;  the  one  at  which  the  collec- 
tive wisdom  of  the  House  is  concentrated  upon 
it,  to  free  it  from  defects,  and  to  improve  it  to 
the  utmost — to  illustrate  its  nature,  and  trace  its 
consequences.  The  bill  is  drawn  up  in  a  com- 
mittee ;  or  it  is  received  from  a  department  in 
the  form  of  a  projet  de  loi,  and  reported  by  a 
committee  ;  or  it  is  the  work  of  a  single  member, 
and  introduced  on  leave.  The  bill,  before  per- 
fected by  amendments,  is  the  work  of  a  com- 
mittee, or  of  a  head  of  a  department,  or  of  a 
single  member ;  and  if  amendments  are  pre- 
vented, then  the  legislative  power  of  the  House 
is  annihilated ;  the  edict  of  a  secretary,  of  a 
committee,  or  of  a  member,  becomes  the  law ; 
and  the  collected  and  concentrated  wisdom  and 
experience  of  the  House  has  never  been  brought 
to  bear  upon  it. 

"  The  previous  question  cuts  off  amendments  ; 
and,  therefore,  neither  in  England  nor  in  the 
United  States,  until  now,  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, has  that  question  ever  been  applied 
to  bills  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  on  the 
second  reading.  This  question  annihilates  legis- 
lation, sets  at  nought  the  wisdom  of  the  House, 
and  expunges  the  minority.  It  is  always  an 
invidious  question,  but  seldom  enforced  in  Eng- 
land, and  but  little  used  in  the  earlier  periods 
of  our  own  government.  It  has  never  been  used 
in  the  Senate  at  all,  never  at  any  stage  of  the 
bill ;  in  the  House  of  Representatives  it  has 
never  been  used  on  the  second  reading  of  a  bill, 
in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  until  the  present 
session — this  session,  so  ominous  in  its  call  and 
commencement,  and  which  gives  daily  proof  of 
its  alarming  tendencies,  and  of  its  unconsti- 
tutional, dangerous,  and  corrupting  measures. 
The  previous  question  has  never  yet  been  ap- 
plied in  this  chamber ;  and  to  apply  it  now,  at 
this  ominous  session,  when  all  the  old  federal 
measures  of  fifty  years  ago  are  to  be  conglom- 
erated into  one  huge  and  frightful  mass,  and 
rushed  through  by  one  convulsive  effort ;  to  ap- 
ply it  now,  under  such  circumstances,  is  to  muz- 
zle the  mouths,  to  gag  the  jaws,  and  tie  up  the 
tongues  of  those  whose  speeches  would  expose 
the  enormities  which  cannot  endure  the  light, 
and  present  to  the  people  these  ruinous  meas- 
ures in  the  colors  in  which  they  ought  to  be  seen. 

"  The  opinion  of  the  people  is  invoked — they 
are  said  to  be  opposed  to  long  speeches,  and  in 
favor  of  action.  But,  do  they  want  action  with- 
out deliberation,  without  consideration,  without 
knowing  what  we  are  doing  1  Do  they  want 
bills  without  amendments — without  examina- 


tion of  details — without  a  knowledge  of  their 
effect  and  operation  when  they  are  passed  ? 
Certainly  the  people  wish  no  such  thing.  They 
want  nothing  which  will  not  bear  discussion. 
The  people  are  in  favor  of  discussion,  and  never 
read  our  debates  with  more  avidity  than  at 
this  ominous  and  critical  extraordinary  session. 
But  I  can  well  conceive  of  those  who  are  against 
those  debates,  and  want  them  stifled.  Old  se- 
dition law  federalism  is  against  them  :  the  cor- 
morants who  are  whetting  their  bills  for  the 
prey  which  the  acts  of  this  session  are  to  give 
them,  are  against  them :  and  the  advocates  of 
these  acts,  who  cannot  answer  these  arguments, 
and  who  shelter  weakness  under  dignified  si- 
lence, they  are  all  weary,  sick  and  tired  of  a 
contest  which  rages  on  one  side  only,  and  which 
exposes  at  once  the  badness  of  their  cause  and 
the  defeat  of  its  defenders.  Sir,  this  call  for 
action  !  action  !  action  !  (as  it  was  well  said  yes- 
terday), comes  from  those  whose  cry  is,  plun- 
der !  plunder  !  plunder  ! 

"  The  previous  question,  and  the  old  sedition 
law,  are  measures  of  the  same  character,  and 
children  of  the  same  parents,  and  intended  for 
the  same  purposes.  They  are  to  hide  light — to 
enable  those  in  power  to  work  in  darkness — to 
enable  them  to  proceed  unmolested — and  to 
permit  them  to  establish  ruinous  measures  with- 
out stint,  and  without  detection.  The  introduc- 
tion of  this  previous  question  into  this  body,  I 
shall  resist  as  I  would  resist  its  conversion  into 
a  bed  of  justice — Lit  de  Justice — of  the  old 
French  monarchy,  for  the  registration  of  royal 
edicts.  In  these  beds  of  justice — the  Parliament 
formed  into  a  bed  of  justice — the  kings  before 
the  revolution,  caused  their  edicts  to  be  regis- 
tered without  debate,  and  without  amendment. 
The  king  ordered  it,  and  it  was  done — his  word 
became  law.  On  one  occasion,  when  the  Par- 
liament was  refractory,  Louis  XIV.  entered  the 
chamber,  booted  and  spurred — a  whip  in  his 
hand — a  horsewhip  in  his  hand— ^and  stood  on 
his  feet  until  the  edict  was  registered.  This  is 
what  has  been  done  in  the  way  of  passing  bills 
without  debate  or  amendment,  in  France.  But, 
in  extenuation  of  this  conduct  of  Louis  the  XIV., 
it  must  be  remembered  that  he  was  a  very  young 
man  when  he  committed  this  indiscretion,  more 
derogatory  to  himself  than  to  the  Parliament 
which  was  the  subject  of  the  indignity.  He 
never  repeated  it  in  his  riper  age,  for  he  was  a 
gentleman  as  well  as  a  king,  and  in  a  fifty  years' 
reign  never  repeated  that  indiscretion  of  his 
youth.  True,  no  whips  may  be  brought  into 
our  legislative  halls  to  enforce  the  gag  and  the 
muzzle,  but  I  go  against  the  things  themselves — 
against  the  infringement  of  the  right  of  speech — 
and  against  the  annihilation  of  our  legislative 
faculties  by  annihilating  the  right  of  making 
amendments.  I  go  against  these ;  and  say  that 
we  shall  be  nothing  but  a  bed  of  justice  for  the 
registration  of  presidential,  or  partisan,  or  civil 
chieftain  edicts,  when  debates  and  amendments 
I  are  suppressed  in  this  body. 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


255 


"Sir,  when  the  previous  question  shall  be 
brought  into  this  chamber — when  it  shall  be 
applied  to  our  bills  in  our  quasi  committee — I 
am  ready  to  see  my  legislative  life  terminated. 
I  want  no  seat  here  when  that  shall  be  the  case. 
As  the  Romans  held  their  natural  lives,  so  do 
I  hold  my  political  existence.  The  Roman  car- 
ried his  life  on  the  point  of  his  sword;  and 
when  that  life  ceased  to  be  honorable  to  himself, 
or  useful  to  his  country,  he  fell  upon  his  sword, 
and  died.  This  made  of  that  people  the  most 
warlike  and  heroic  nation  of  the  earth.  What 
they  did  with  their  natural  lives.  I  am  willing 
to  do  with  my  legislative  and  political  existence : 
I  am  willing  to  terminate  it,  either  when  it  shall 
cease  to  be  honorable  to  myself,  or  useful  to  my 
country ;  and  that  I  feel  would  be  the  case  when 
this  chamber,  stripped  of  its  constitutional  free- 
dom, shall  receive  the  gag  and  muzzle  of  the 
previous  question." 

Mr.  Clay  again  took  the  floor.  He  spoke 
mildly,  and  coaxingly — reminded  the  minority 
of  their  own  course  when  in  power — gave  a  hint 
about  going  into  executive  business — but  still 
felt  it  his  duty  to  give  the  majority  the  control 
of  the  public  business,  notwithstanding  the 
threatened  resistance  of  the  minority. 

"He  (Mr.  Clay)  would,  however,  say  that 
after  all,  he  thought  the  gentlemen  on  the  other 
side  would  find  it  was  better  to  go  on  with  the 
public  business  harmoniously  and  good  humor- 
edly  together,  and  all  would  get  along  better. 
He  would  remind  the  gentlemen  of  their  own 
course  when  in  power,  and  the  frequent  occa- 
sions on  which  the  minority  then  acted  with 
courtesy  in  allowing  their  treasury  note  bills  to 
pass,  and  on  various  other  occasions.  He  thought 
it  was  understood  that  they  were  to  go  into 
executive  session,  and  afterwards  take  up  the 
loan  bill.  He  should  feel  it  his  duty  to  take 
measures  to  give  the  majority  the  control  of  the 
business,  maugre  all  the  menaces  that  had  been 
made." 

Here  was  a  great  change  of  tone,  and  the  hint 
about  going  into  executive  business  was  a  sign 
of  hesitation,  faintly  counterbalanced  by  the 
reiteration  of  his  purpose  under  a  sense  of  duty. 
It  was  still  the  morning  hour — the  hour  for 
motions,  before  the  calendar  was  called :  the 
hour  for  the  motion  he  had  been  expected  to 
make.  That  motion  was  evidently  deferred. 
The  intimation  of  going  into  executive  business, 
was  a  surprise.  Such  business  was  regularly 
gone  into  towards  the  close  of  the  day's  session 
— after  the  day's  legislative  work  was  done; 
and  this  course  was  never  departed  from  except 
in  emergent  cases — cases  which  would  consume 
a  whole  day,  or  could  not  wait  till  evening: 


and  no  such  cases  were  known  to  exist  at  present. 
This  was  a  pause,  and  losing  a  day  in  the  carry- 
ing along  of  those  very  measures,  for  Hastening 
which  the  new  rule  was  wanted.  Mr.  Calhoun, 
to  take  advantage  of  the  hesitation  which  he 
perceived,  and  to  increase  it,  by  daring  the 
threatened  measure,  instantly  rose.  He  was 
saluted  with  cries  that  "  the  morning  hour  was 
out : "  "  not  yet ! "  said  he :  "  it  lacks  one  minute 
of  it ;  and  I  avail  myself  of  that  minute  : "  and 
then  went  on  for  several  minutes. 

"  He  thought  this  business  closely  analogous 
to  the  alien  and  sedition  laws.  Here  was  a  pal- 
pable attempt  to  infringe  the  right  of  speech. 
He  would  tell  the  senator  that  the  minority  had 
rights  under  the  constitution  which  they  meant 
to  exercise,  and  let  the  senator  try  when  he 
pleased  to  abridge  those  rights,  he  would  find 
it  no  easy  job.  When  had  that  (our)  side  of  the 
Senate  ever  sought  to  protract  discussion  unne- 
cessarily ?  [Cries  of 'never  !  never  !']  Where 
was  there  a  body  that  had  less  abused  its  privi- 
leges 1  If  the  gag-law  was  attempted  to  be  put 
in  force,  he  would  resist  it  to  the  last.  As  judg- 
ment had  been  pronounced,  he  supposed  submis- 
sion was  expected.  The  unrestrained  liberty 
of  speech,  and  freedom  of  debate,  had  been  pre- 
served in  the  Senate  for  fifty  years.  But  now 
the  warning  was  given  that  the  yoke  was  to  be 
put  on  it  which  had  already  been  placed  on  the 
other  branch  of  Congress.  There  never  had  been 
a  body  in  this  or  any  other  country,  in  which, 
for  such  a  length  of  time,  so  much  dignity  and 
decorum  of  debate  had  been  maintained.  It  was 
remarkable  for  the  fact,  the  range  of  discussion 
was  less  discursive  than  in  any  other  similar 
body  known.  Speeches  were  uniformly  con- 
fined to  the  subject  under  debate.  There  could 
be  no  pretext  for  interference.  There  was  none 
but  that  of  all  despotisms.  He  would  give  the 
senator  from  Kentucky  notice  to  bring  on  his 
gag  measure  as  soon  as  he  pleased.  He  would 
find  it  no  such  easy  matter  as  he  seemed  to 
think." 

Mr.  Linn,  of  Missouri,  rose  the  instant  Mr. 
Calhoun  stopped,  and  inquired  of  the  Chair  if 
the  morning  hour  was  out.  The  president  pro 
tempore  answered  that  it  was.  Mr.  Linn  said, 
he  desired  to  say  a  few  words.  The  chair  re- 
ferred him  to  the  Senate,  in  whose  discretion  it 
was,  to  depart  from  the  rule.  Mr.  Linn  appealed 
to  the  Senate  :  it  gave  him  leave :  and  he  stood 
up  and  said : 

"  It  was  an  old  Scottish  proverb,  that  threat- 
ened people  live  longest.  He  hoped  the  liberties 
of  the  Senate  would  yet  outlive  the  threats  of 
the  senator  from  Kentucky.  But,  if  the  lash 
was  to  be  applied,  he  would  rather  it  was  ap- 


256 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


plied  at  once,  than  to  be  always  threatened  with 
it.  There  is  great  complaint  of  delay  ;  but  who 
was  causing  the  delay  now  growing  out  of  this 
threat  ?  Had  it  not  been  made,  there  would  be 
no  necessity  for  repelling  it.  He  knew  of  no 
disposition  on  the  part  of  his  friends  to  consume 
the  time  that  ought  to  be  given  to  the  public 
business.  He  had  never  known  his  friends, 
while  in  the  majority,  to  complain  of  discussion. 
He  knew  very  well,  and  could  make  allowances, 
that  the  senator  from  Kentucky  was  placed  in 
a  very  trying  situation.  He  knew,  also,  that 
his  political  friends  felt  themselves  to  be  in  a 
very  critical  condition.  If  he  brought  forward 
measures  that  were  questionable,  he  had  to  en- 
counter resistance.  But  he  was  in  the  predica- 
ment that  he  had  pledged  himself  to  carry  those 
measures,  and,  if  he  did  not,  it  would  be  his 
political  ruin.  He  had  every  thing  on  the  issue, 
hence  his  impatience  to  pronounce  judgment 
against  the  right  of  the  minority  to  discuss  his 
measures." 

Mr.  Clay  interrupted  Mr.  Linn,  to  say  that  he 
had  not  offered  to  pronounce  judgment.  Mr. 
Linn  gave  his  words  "that  if  the  Senate  was 
disposed  to  do  as  he  thought  it  ought  to  do, 
they  would  adopt  the  same  rule  as  the  other 
House."  Mr.  Clay  admitted  the  words;  and 
Mr.  Linn  claimed  their  meaning  as  pronouncing 
judgment  on  the  duty  of  the  Senate,  and  said : 

"  Very  well ;  if  the  senator  was  in  such  a  criti- 
cal condition  as  to  be  obliged  to  say  he  cannot 
get  his  measures  through  without  cutting  off 
debates,  why  does  he  not  accept  the  proposition 
of  taking  the  vote  on  his  bank  bill  on  Monday  ? 
If  he  brings  forward  measures  that  have  been 
battled  against  successfully  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  is  it  any  wonder  that  they  should  be 
opposed,  and  time  should  be  demanded  to  dis- 
cuss them  ?  The  senator  is  aware  that  whiggery 
is  dying  off  in  the  country,  and  that  there  is  no 
time  to  be  lost :  unless  he  and  his  friends  pass 
these  measures  they  are  ruined.  All  he  should 
say  to  him  was,  pass  them  if  he  could.  If,  in 
order  to  do  it,  he  is  obliged  to  come  on  with  his 
gag  law,  he  (Mr.  Linn)  would  say  to  his  friends, 
let  them  meet  him  like  men.  He  was  not  for 
threatening,  but  if  he  was  obliged  to  meet  the 
crisis,  he  would  do  it  as  became  him." 

Mr.  Berrien,  apparently  acting  on  the  hint  of 
Mr.  Clay,  moved  to  go  into  the  consideration  of 
executive  business.  A  question  of  order  was 
raised  upon  that  motion  by  Mr.  Calhoun.  The 
Chair  decided  in  its  favor.  Mr.  Calhoun  de- 
manded what  was  the  necessity  for  going  into 
executive  business  ?  Mr.  Berrien  did  not  think 
it  proper  to  discuss  that  point :  so  the  executive 
session  was  gone  into :  and  when  it  was  over, 
the  Senate  adjourned  for  the  day. 


Here,  then,  was  a  day  lost  for  such  pressing 
business — the  bill,  which  was  so  urgent,  and  the 
motion,  which  was  intended  to  expedite  it 
Neither  of  them  touched :  and  the  omission 
entirely  the  fault  of  the  majority.  There  was 
evidently  a  balk.  This  was  the  15th  of  July. 
The  16th  came,  and  was  occupied  with  the 
quiet  transaction  of  business  :  not  a  word  said 
about  the  new  rules.  The  17th  came,  and  as 
soon  as  the  Senate  met,  Mr.  Calhoun  took  the 
floor;  and  after  presenting  some  resolutions 
from  a  public  meeting  in  Virginia,  condemning 
the  call  of  the  extra  session,  and  all  its  measures, 
he  passed  on  to  correct  an  erroneous  idea  that 
had  got  into  the  newspapers,  that  he  himself,  in 
1812,  at  the  declaration  of  war  against  Great 
Britain,  being  acting  chairman  of  the  committee 
of  foreign  relations,  who  had  reported  the  war 
bill,  had  stifled  discussion — had  hurried  the  bill 
through,  and  virtually  gagged  the  House.  He 
gave  a  detail  of  circumstances,  which  showed 
the  error  of  this  report — that  all  the  causes  of 
war  had  been  discussed  before — that  there  was 
nothing  new  to  be  said,  nor  desire  to  speak : 
and  that,  for  one  hour  before  the  vote  was  taken, 
there  was  a  pause  in  the  House,  waiting  for  a 
paper  from  the  department ;  and  no  one  choosing 
to  occupy  any  part  of  it  with  a  speech,  for  or 
against  the  war,  or  on  any  subject.  He  then 
gave  a  history  of  the  introduction  of  the  pre- 
vious question  into  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives. 

"  It  had  been  never  used  before  the  11th  Con- 
gress (1810-12).  It  was  then  adopted,  as  he 
always  understood,  in  consequence  of  the  abuse 
of  the  right  of  debate  by  Mr.  Gardinier  of  New 
York,  remarkable  for  his  capacity  for  making 
long  speeches.  He  could  keep  the  floor  for  days. 
The  abuse  was  considered  so  great,  that  the 
previous  question  was  introduced  to  prevent  it ; 
but  so  little  was  it  in  favor  with  those  who  felt 
themselves  forced  to  adopt  it,  that  he  would 
venture  to  say  without  having  looked  at  the 
journals,  that  it  was  not  used  half  a  dozen  times 
during  the  whole  war,  with  a  powerful  and  un- 
scrupulous opposition,  and  that  in  a  body  nearly 
two-thirds  the  size  of  the  present  House.  He 
believed  he  might  go  farther,  and  assert  that  it 
was  never  used  but  twice  during  that  eventful 
period.  And  now,  a  measure  introduced  under 
such  pressing  circumstances,  and  so  sparingly 
used,  is  to  be  made  the  pretext  for  introducing 
the  gag-law  into  the  Senate,  a  body  so  much 
smaller,  and  so  distinguished  for  the  closeness 
of  its  debate  and  the  brevity  of  its  discussion. 
He  would  add  that  from  the  first  introduction 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


257 


of  the  previous  question  into  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, his  impression  was  that  it  was  not 
used  but  four  times  in  seventeen  years,  that  is 
from  1811  to  1828,  the  last  occasion  on  the  pas- 
sage of  the  tariff  bill.  He  now  trusted  that  he 
had  repelled  effectually  the  attempt  to  prepare 
the  country  for  the  effort  to  gag  the  Senate,  by 
a  reference  to  the  early  history  of  the  previous 
question  in  the  other  House." 

Mr.  Calhoun  then  referred  to  a  decision  made 
by  Mr.  Clay  when  Speaker  of  the  House, 
and  the  benefit  of  which  he  claimed  argumen- 
tatively.  Mr.  Clay  disputed  his  recollection: 
Mr.  Calhoun  reiterated,  The  senators  became 
heated,  Mr.  Clay  calling  out  from  his  seat — 
"  No,  sir,  No  ! " — and  Mr.  Calhoun  answering 
back  as  he  stood — "  Yes,  sir,  yes  : "  and  each 
giving  his  own  version  of  the  circumstance 
without  convincing  the  other.  He  then  return- 
ed to  the  point  of  irritation — the  threatened 
gag ; — and  said : 

"  The  senator  from  Kentucky  had  endeavored 
to  draw  a  distinction  between  the  gag  law  and 
the  old  sedition  law.  He  (Mr.  Calhoun)  ad- 
mitted there  was  a  distinction — the  modern  gag 
law  was  by  far  the  most  odious.  The  sedition 
law  was  an  attempt  to  gag  the  people  in  their 
individual  character,  but  the  senator's  gag  was 
an  attempt  to  gag  the  representatives  of  the 
people,  selected  as  their  agents  to  deliberate, 
discuss,  and  decide  on  the  important  subjects 
intrusted  by  them  to  this  government." 

This  was  a  taunt,  and  senators  looked  to  see 
what  would  follow.  Mr.  Clay  rose,  leisurely, 
and  surveying  the  chamber  with  a  pleasant  ex- 
pression of  countenance,  said : 

"  The  morning  had  been  spent  so  very  agree- 
ably, that  he  hoped  the  gentlemen  were  in  a 
good  humor  to  go  on  with  the  loan  bill,  and 
afford  the  necessary  relief  to  the  Treasury." 

The  loan  bill  was  then  taken  up,  and  pro- 
ceeded with  in  a  most  business  style,  and  quite 
amicably.  And  this  was  the  last  that  was 
heard  of  the  hour  rule,  and  the  previous  ques- 
tion in  the  Senate:  and  the  secret  history  of 
their  silent  abandonment  was  aftewards  fully 
learnt.  Several  whig  senators  had  yielded  as- 
sent to  Mr.  Clay's  desire  for  the  hour  rule  un- 
der the  belief  that  it  would  only  be  resisted 
parliamentarily  by  the  minority ;  but  when 
they  saw  its  introduction  was  to  produce  ill 
blood,  and  disagreeable  scenes  in  the  chamber, 
they  withdrew  their  assent  j  and  left  him  with- 
out the  votes  to  carry  it :  and  that  put  an  end  I 
Vol.  II.— 17 


to  the  project  of  the  hour  rule.  The  previous 
question  was  then  agreed  to  in  its  place,  sup- 
posing the  minority  would  take  it  as  a  "  com- 
promise ;  "  but  when  they  found  this  measure 
was  to  be  resisted  like  the  former,  and  was 
deemed  still  more  odious,  hurtful  and  degrading, 
they  withdrew  their  assent  again :  and  then  Mr. 
Clay,  brought  to  a  stand  again  for  want  of  voters, 
was  compelled  to  forego  his  design ;  and  to  re- 
treat from  it  in  the  manner  which  has  been 
shown.  He  affected  a  pleasantry,  but  was 
deeply  chagrined,  and  the  more  so  for  having 
failed  in  the  House  where  he  acted  in  person, 
after  succeeding  in  the  other  where  he  acted 
vicariously.  Many  of  his  friends  were  much 
dissatisfied.  One  of  them  said  to  me :  "  He 
gives  your  party  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  and  his 
own  a  great  deal  more."  Thus,  the  firmness  of 
the  minority  in  the  Senate — it  may  be  said, 
their  courage,  for  their  intended  resistance  con- 
templated any  possible  extremity — saved  the 
body  from  degradation — constitutional  legisla- 
tion from  suppression — the  liberty  of  speech 
from  extinction,  and  the  honor  of  republican 
government  from  a  disgrace  to  which  the  peo- 
ple's representatives  are  not  subjected  in  any 
monarchy  in  Europe.  The  previous  question 
has  not  been  called  in  the  British  House  of 
Commons  in  one  hundred  years — and  never  in 
the  House  of  Peers. 


CHAPTER    LXX. 

BILL  FOE  THE  EELIEF  OF  MES.  HAEEISON,  WIDOW 
OF    THE   LATE    PRESIDENT   OF   THE   UNITED 

STATES. 

Such  was  the  title  of  the  bill  which  was  brought 
into  the  House  of  Representatives  for  an  in- 
demnity, as  it  was  explained  to  be,  to  the  family 
of  the  late  President  for  his  expenses  in  the 
presidential  election,  and  in  removing  to  the 
seat  of  government.  The  bill  itself  was  in  these 
words :  "  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
pay,  out  of  any  money  in  the  Treasury  not 
otherwise  appropriated,  to  Mrs.  Harrison, 
widow  of  William  Henry  Harrison,  late  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  or  in  the  event  of 
her  death  before  payment,  to  the  legal  rapre- 


258 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


sentatives  of  the  said  William  Henry  Harrison, 
the  sum  of  $25,000.  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams, 
as  reporter  of  the  bill  from  the  select  committee 
to  which  had  been  referred  that  portion  of  the 
President's  message  relating  to  the  family  of 
his  predecessor,  explained  the  motives  on  which 
the  bill  had  been  founded ;  and  said : 

"  That  this  sum  ($25,000),  as  far  as  he  under- 
stood, was  in  correspondence  with  the  prevail- 
ing sentiment  of  the  joint  committee  raised  on 
this  subject,  and  of  which  the  gentleman  now 
in  the  chair  had  been  a  member.  There  had 
been  ^some  difference  of  opinion  among  the 
members  of  the  committee  as  to  the  sum  which 
it  would  be  proper  to  appropriate,  and,  also,  on 
the  part  of  one  or  two  gentlemen  as  to  the  con- 
stitutionality of  the  act  itself  in  any  shape. 
There  had  been  more  objection  to  the  constitu- 
tionality than  there  had  been  as  to  the  sum 
proposed.  So  far  as  there  had  been  any  dis- 
cussion in  the  committee,  it  seemed  to  be  the 
general  sense  of  those  composing  it,  that  some 
provision  ought  to  be  made  for  the  family  of 
the  late  President,  not  in  the  nature  of  a  grant, 
but  as  an  indemnity  for  actual  expenses  incurred 
by  himself  first,  when  a  candidate  for  the  presi- 
dency. It  had  been  observed  in  the  committee, 
and  it  must  be  known  to  all  members  of  the 
House,  that,  in  the  situation  in  which  General 
Harrison  had  been  placed — far  from  the  seat  of 
government,  and  for  eighteen  months  or  two 
years,  while  a  candidate  for  the  presidency,  ex- 
posed to  a  heavy  burden  of  expense  which  he 
could  not  possibly  avoid — it  was  no  more  than 
equitable  that  he  should,  to  a  reasonable  de- 
gree, be  indemnified.  He  had  been  thus  bur- 
dened while  in  circumstances  not  opulent ;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  it  had  been  one  ground  on 
which  he  had  received  so  decided  proof  of  the 
people's  favor,  that  through  a  long  course  of 
public  service  he  remained  poor,  which  was  in 
itself  a  demonstrative  proof  that  he  had  remain- 
ed pure  also.  Such  had  been  his  condition  be- 
fore leaving  home  to  travel  to  the  seat  of  gov- 
ernment. After  his  arrival  here,  he  had  been 
exposed  to  another  considerable  burden  of  ex- 
pense, far  beyond  any  amount  he  had  received 
from  the  public  purse  during  the  short  month 
he  had  continued  to  be  President.  His  decease 
had  left  his  family  in  circumstances  which  would 
be  much  improved  by  this  act  of  justice  done  to 
him  by  the  people,  through  their  representa- 
tives. The  feeling  was  believed  to  be  very 
general  throughout  the  country,  and  without 
distinction  of  party,  in  favor  of  such  a  meas- 
ure." 

This  bill,  on  account  of  its  principle,  gave  rise 
to  a  vehement  opposition  on  the  part  of  some 
members  who  believed  they  saw  in  it  a  de- 
parture from  the  constitution,  and  the  establish- 


ment of  a  dangerous  precedent.     Mr.  Payne,  of 
Alabama,  said : 

"  As  he  intended  to  vote  against  this  proposi- 
tion it  was  due  to  himself  to  state  the  reasons 
which  would  actuate  him.  In  doing  so  he  was 
not  called  to  examine  either  the  merits  or  de- 
merits of  General  Harrison.  They  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  question.  The  question  before 
the  House  was,  not  whether  General  Harrison 
was  or  was  not  a  meritorious  individual,  but 
whether  that  House  would  make  an  appropri- 
ation to  his  widow  and  descendants.  That  being 
the  question,  the  first  inquiry  was,  had  the 
House  a  right  to  vote  this  money,  and,  if  they 
had,  was  it  proper  to  do  so  ?  Mr.  P.  was  one 
of  those  who  believed  that  Congress  had  no 
constitutional  right  to  appropriate  the  public 
money  for  such  an  object.  He  quoted  the  lan- 
guage of  the  constitution,  and  then  inquired 
whether  this  was  an  appropriation  to  pay  the 
debts  of  the  Union,  to  secure  the  common  de- 
fence, or  to  promote  the  general  welfare  ?  He 
denied  that  precedents  ever  ought  to  be  con- 
sidered as  settling  a  constitutional  question.  If 
they  could,  then  the  people  had  no  remedy.  It 
was  not  pretended  that  this  money  was*  to  be 
given  as  a  reward  for  General  Harrison's  public 
services,  but  to  reimburse  him  for  the  expense 
of  an  electioneering  campaign.  This  was  in- 
finitely  worse." 

Mr.  Gilmer,  of  Virginia,  said : 

"  When  he  had  yesterday  moved  for  the  rising 
of  the  committee,  he  had  not  proposed  to  him- 
self to  occupy  much  of  the  time  of  the  House  in 
debate,  nor  was  such  his  purpose  at  present. 
With  every  disposition  to  vote  for  this  bill,  he 
had  then  felt,  and  he  still  felt,  himself  unable  to 
give  it  his  sanction,  and  that  for  reasons  which 
had  been  advanced  by  many  of  the  advocates  in 
its  favor.  This  was  not  a  place  to  indulge  feel- 
ing and  sympathy :  if  it  were,  he  presumed 
there  would  be  but  one  sentiment  throughout 
that  House  and  throughout  the  country,  and 
that  would  be  in  favor  of  the  bill.  If  this  were 
an  act  of  generosity,  if  the  object  were  to  vote  a 
bounty,  a  gratuity,  to  the  widow  or  relatives  of 
the  late  President,  it  seemed  to  Mr.  G.  that  they 
ought  not  to  vote  it  in  the  representative  capa- 
city, out  of  the  public  funds,  but  privately  from 
their  own  personal  resources.  They  had  no 
right  to  be  generous  with  the  money  of  the  peo- 
ple. Gentlemen  might  bestow  as  much  out  of 
their  own  purses  as  they  pleased ;  but  they 
were  here  as  trustees  for  the  property  of  others, 
and  no  public  agent  was  at  liberty  to  disregard 
the  trust  confided  to  him  under  the  theory  of  our 
government.  It  was  quite  needless  here  to  at- 
tempt an  eulogy  on  the  character  of  the  illustri- 
ous dead :  history  has  done  and  would  hereafter 
do  ample  justice  to  the  civil  and  military  charac- 
ter of  William  Henry  Harrison.  The  result  of 
the  recent  election,  a  result  unparalleled  in  the 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


259 


annals  of  this  country,  spoke  the  sentiment  of 
the  nation  in  regard  to  his  merits,  while  the 
drapery  of  death  which  shrouded  the  legislative 
halls,  the  general  gloom  which  overspread  the 
nation,  spoke  that  sentiment  in  accents  mourn- 
fully impressive.  But  those  rhapsodies  in  which 
gentlemen  had  indulged,  might,  he  thought,  bet- 
ter be  deferred  for  some  Fourth  of  July  oration, 
or  at  least  reserved  for  other  theatres  than  this. 
They  had  come  up  here  not  to  be  generous,  but 
to  be  just.  His  object  now  was  to  inquire 
whether  they  could  not  place  this  bill  on  the 
basis  of  indisputable  justice,  so  that  it  might 
not  be  carried  by  a  mere  partial  vote,  bat  might 
conciliate  the  support  of  gentlemen  of  all  parties, 
and  from  every  quarter  of  the  Union.  He  wish- 
ed, if  possible,  to  see  the  whole  House  united, 
so  as  to  give  to  their  act  the  undivided  weight 
of  public  sentiment.  Mr.  G.  said  he  could  not 
bow  to  the  authority  of  precedent ;  he  should 
ever  act  under  the  light  of  the  circumstances 
which  surrounded  him.  His  wish  was,  not  to 
furnish  an  evil  precedent  to  others  by  his  ex- 
ample. He  thought  the  House  in  some  danger 
of  setting  one  of  that  character;  a  precedent 
which  might  hereafter  be  strained  and  tortured 
to  apply  to  cases  of  a  very  different  kind,  and 
objects  of  a  widely  different  character.  He 
called  upon  the  advocates  of  the  bill  to  enable 
all  the  members  of  the  House,  or  as  nearly  all 
as  was  practicable  (for,  after  what  had  trans- 
pired yesterday,  he  confessed  his  despair  of  see- 
ing the  House  entirely  united),  to  agree  in  voting 
for  the  bill." 

There  was  an  impatient  majority  in  the  House 
in  favor  of  the  passage  of  the  bill,  and  to  that 
impatience  Mr.  Gilmer  referred  as  making  de- 
spair of  any  unanimity  in  the  House,  or  of  any 
considerate  deliberation.  The  circumstances 
were  entirely  averse  to  any  such  deliberation — 
a  victorious  party,  come  into  power  after  a  most 
heated  election,  seeing  their  elected  candidate 
dying  on  the  threshold  of  his  administration, 
poor,  and  beloved  :  it  was  a  case  for  feeling 
more  than  of  judgment,  especially  with  the  po- 
litical friends  of  the  deceased — but  few  of  whom 
could  follow  the  counsels  of  the  head  against 
the  impulsions  of  the  heart.  Amongst  these 
few  Mr.  Gilmer  was  one,  and  Mr.  Underwood 
of  Kentucky,  another ;  who  said : 

"  His  heart  was  on  one  side  and  his  judgment 
upon  the  other.  If  this  was  a  new  case,  he  might 
be  led  away  by  his  heart ;  but  as  he  had  here- 
tofore, in  his  judgment,  opposed  all  such  claims 
he  should  do  so  now.  He  gave  his  reasons  thus 
at  large,  because  a  gentleman  from  Indiana,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  House,  denounced  those 
who  should  vote  against  the  bill.  He  objected, 
because  it  was  retroactive  in  its  provisions  and 


because  it  called  into  existence  legislative  dis- 
cretion, and  applied  it  to  past  cases — because  it 
provided  for  the  widow  of  a  President  for  ser- 
vices rendered  by  her  husband  while  in  office, 
thus  increasing  the  President's  compensation 
after  his  death.  If  it  applied  to  the  widow  of 
the  President,  it  applied  to  the  widows  of  mili- 
tary officers.  He  considered  if  this  bill  passed, 
that  Mr.  Jefferson's  heirs  might  with  equal 
propriety  claim  the  same  compensation." 

If  the  House  had  been  in  any  condition  for 
considerate  legislation  there  was  an  amendment 
proposed  by  Mr.  Gordon  of  New  York,  which 
might  have  brought  it  forth.  He  proposed  an 
indemnity  equal  to  the  amount  of  one  quarter's 
salary,  $6,250.  He  proposed  it,  but  got  but 
little  support  for  his  proposition,  the  majority 
calling  for  the  question,  and  some  declaring 
themselves  for  $50,000,  and  some  for  $100,000. 
The  vote  was  taken,  and  showed  66  negatives, 
comprehending  the  members  who  were  best 
known  to  the  country  as  favorable  to  a  strict 
construction  of  the  constitution,  and  an  econom- 
ical administration  of  the  government.  The 
negatives  were : 

Archibald  H.  Arrington,  Charles  G.  Ather- 
ton,  Linn  Banks,  Henry  W.  Beeson,  Linn  Boyd, 
David  P.  Brewster,  Aaron  V.  Brown,  Charles 
Brown,  Edmund  Burke,  William  O.  Butler, 
Green  W.  Caldwell,  Patrick  C.  Caldwell,  John 
Campbell,  George  B.  Cary,  Reuben  Chapman, 
Nathan  Clifford,  James  G.  Clinton,  Walter 
Coles,  John  R.  J.  Daniel,  Richard  D.  Davis, 
William  Doan,  Andrew  W.  Doig,  Ira  A.  East- 
man, John  C.  Edwards,  Joseph  Egbert,  John 
G.  Floyd,  Charles  A.  Floyd,  James  Gerry,  Wil- 
liam O.  Goode,  Samuel  Gordon,  Amos  Gustine, 
William  A.  Harris,  Samuel  L.  Hays,  George  W. 
Hopkins,  Jacob  Houck,  jr.,  Edmund  W.  Hub- 
ard,  Robert  M.  T.  Hunter,  Cave  Johnson,  John 
W.  Jones,  George  M.  Keim,  Andrew  Kennedy, 
Joshua  A.  Lowell,  Abraham  McClellan,  Robert 
McClellan,  James  J.  McKay,  Albert  G.  Mar- 
chand,  Alfred  Marshal],  John  Thompson  Ma- 
son, James  Mathews,  William  Medill,  John 
Miller,  Peter  Newhard,  William  W.  Payne, 
Francis  W.  Pickens,  Arnold  Plumer,  John  R. 
Reding,  James  Rogers,  Romulus  M.  Saunders, 
Tristram  Shaw,  John  Snyder,  Lewis  Steenrod, 
Hopkins  L.  Turney,  Joseph  R.  Underwood, 
Harvey  M.  Watterson,  John  B.  Weller,  James 
W.  Williams. 

Carried  to  the  Senate  for  its  concurrence,  the 
bill  continued  to  receive  there  a  determined  op- 
position from  a  considerable  minority.  Mr.  Cal- 
houn said : 

"  He  believed  no  government  on  earth  leane4 


260 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


more  than  ours  towards  all  the  corruptions  of 
an  enormous  pension  list.  Not  even  the  aris- 
tocratic government  of  Great  Britain  has  a 
stronger  tendency  to  it  than  this  government. 
This  is  no  new  thing.  It  was  foreseen  from 
the  beginning,  and  the  great  struggle  then  was, 
to  keep  out  the  entering  wedge.  He  recollected 
very  well,  when  he  was  at  the  head  of  the 
War  Department,  and  the  military  pension  bill 
passed,  that  while  it  was  under  debate,  it  was 
urged  as  a  very  small  matter — only  an  appro- 
priation of  something  like  $150,000  to  poor  and 
meritorious  soldiers  of  the  Revolution,  who 
would  not  long  remain  a  burden  on  the  Treas- 
ury. Small  as  the  sum  was,  and  indisputable 
as  were  the  merits  of  the  claimants,  it  was  with 
great  difficulty  the  bill  passed.  Why  was  this 
difficulty — this  hesitation  on  such  an  apparent- 
ly irresistible  claim  ?  Because  it  was  wisely 
argued,  and  with  a  spirit  of  prophecy  since  ful- 
filled, that  it  would  prove  an  entering  wedge, 
which,  once  admitted,  would  soon  rend  the  pil- 
lar of  democracy.  And  what  has  been  the  re- 
sult of  that  trifling  grant  1  It  is  to  be  found 
in  the  enormous  pension  list  of  this  govern- 
ment at  the  present  day. 

"  He  asked  to  have  any  part  of  the  Consti- 
tution pointed  out  in  which  there  was  authori- 
ty for  making  such  an  appropriation  as  this. 
If  the  authority  exists  in  the  Constitution  at 
all,  it  exists  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  has 
yet  been  acted  upon,  and  it  is  time  to  have  the 
fact  known.  If  the  Constitution  authorizes 
Congress  to  make  such  an  appropriation  as  this 
for  a  President  of  the  United  States,  it  surely 
authorizes  it  to  make  an  appropriation  of  like 
nature  for  a  doorkeeper  of  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  or  for  any  other  officer  of  the 
government.  There  can  be  no  distinction 
drawn.  Pass  this  act,  and  the  precedent  is 
established  for  the  family  of  every  civil  officer 
in  the  government  to  be  placed  on  the  pension 
list.  Is  not  this  the  consummation  of  the  ten- 
dency so  long  combated  ?  But  the  struggle  is 
in  vain — there  is  not,  he  would  repeat,  a  gov- 
ernment on  the  face  of  the  earth,  in  which  there 
is  such  a  tendency  to  all  the  corruptions  of  an 
aristocratic  pension  list  as  there  is  in  this." 

Mr.  Woodbury  said : 

"  This  was  the  first  instance  within  his  (Mr. 
W.'s)  knowledge,  of  an  application  to  pension  a 
civil  officer  being  likely  to  succeed ;  and  a  dan- 
gerous innovation,  he  felt  convinced,  it  would 
prove.  Any  civil  officer,  by  the  mere  act  of 
taking  possession  of  his  office  for  a  month, 
ought  to  get  his  salary  for  a  year,  on  the  rea- 
soning adopted  by  the  senator  from  Delaware, 
though  only  performing  a  month's  service.  If 
that  can  be  shown  to  be  right,  he  (Mr.  W.) 
would  go  for  this,  and  all  bills  of  the  kind. 
But  it  must  first  be  shown  satisfactorily.  If 
this  lady  was  really  poor,  there  would  be  some 
plea  for  sympathy,  at  least.     But  he  could 


point  to  hundreds  who  have  that  claim,  and  not 
on  account  of  civil,  but  military  service,  who 
yet  have  obtained  no  such  grant,  and  never 
will.  He  could  point  to  others  in  the  civil  ser- 
vice, who  had  gone  to  great  expense  in  taking 
possession  of  office  and  then  died,  but  no  claim 
of  this  kind  was  encouraged,  though  their 
widows  were  left  in  most  abject  poverty.  All 
analogy  in  civil  cases  was  against  going  beyond 
the  death  of  the  incumbent  in  allowing  either 
salary  or  gratuity." 

Mr.  Pierce  said : 

"  Without  any  feelings  adverse  to  this  claim, 
political  or  otherwise,  he  protested  against  any 
legislation  based  upon  our  sympathies — he  pro- 
tested against  the  power  and  dominion  of  that 
'  inward  arbiter,''  which  in  private  life  was  al- 
most sure  to  lead  us  right ;  but,  as  public  men, 
and  as  the  dispensers  of  other  men's  means — 
other  men's  contributions — was  quite  as  sure 
to  lead  us  wrong.  It  made  a  vast  difference 
whether  we  paid  the  inorfey  from  our  own 
pockets,  or  drew  it  from  the  pockets  of  our  con- 
stituents. He  knew  his  weakness  on  this  point, 
personally,  but  it  would  be  his  steady  purpose, 
in  spite  of  taunts  and  unworthy  imputations,  to 
escape  from  it,  as  the  representative  of  others. 
But  he  was  departing  from  the  object  which  in- 
duced him,  for  a  moment,  to  trespass  upon  the 
patience  of  the  Senate.  This  claim  did  not 
come  from  the  family.  No  gentleman  under- 
stood on  what  ground  it  was  placed.  The  indi- 
gence of  the  family  had  not  even  been  urged : 
he  believed  they  were  not  only  in  easy  circum- 
stances, but  affluent.  It  was  not  for  loss  of 
limb,  property,  or  life,  in  the  military  service. 
If  for  any  thing  legitimate,  in  any  sense,  or  by 
any  construction,  it  was  for  the  civil  services 
of  the  husband ;  and,  in  this  respect,  was  a 
broad  and  dangerous  precedent. 

In  saying  that  the  claim  did  not  come  from  the 
family  of  General  Harrison,  Mr.  Pierce  spoke 
the  words  which  all  knew  to  be  true.  Where 
then  did  it  come  from  ?  It  came,  as  was  well 
known  at  the  time,  from  persons  who  had  ad- 
vanced moneys  to  the  amount  of  about  $22,000, 
for  the  purposes  mentioned  in  the  bill  j  and  who 
had  a  claim  upon  the  estate  to  that  amount. 

Mr.  Benton  moved  to  recommit  the  bill  with 
instructions  to  prefix  a  preamble,  or  insert  an 
amendment  showing  upon  what  ground  the 
grant  was  motived.  The  bill  itself  showed  no 
grounds  for  the  grant.  It  was,  on  its  face,  a 
simple  legislative  donation  of  money  to  a  lady, 
describing  her  as  the  widow  of  the  late  Presi- 
dent ;  but  in  no  way  connecting  either  herself, 
or  her  deceased  husband,  with  any  act  or  fact 
as  the  alleged  ground  of  the  grant.    The  grant 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


261 


is  without  consideration :  the  donee  is  merely- 
described,  to  prevent  the  donation  from  going  to 
a  wrong  person.  It  was  to  go  to  Mrs.  Harri- 
son. "What  Mrs.  Harrison  ?  Why,  the  widow 
of  the  late  President  Harrison.  This  was  de- 
scriptive, and  sufficiently  descriptive  ;  for  it 
would  carry  the  money  to  the  right  person. 
But  why  carry  it?  That  was  the  question 
which  the  bill  had  not  answered ;  for  there  is 
nothing  in  the  mere  fact  of  being  the  widow  of 
a  President  which  could  entitle  the  widow  to  a 
sum  of  public  money.  This  was  felt  by  the  re- 
porter of  the  bill,  and  endeavored  to  be  sup- 
plied by  an  explanation,  that  it  was  not  a 
"grant"  but  an  " indemnity  ; "  and  an  indem- 
nity for  "  actual  expenses  incurred  when  he  was 
a  candidate  for  the  presidency;"  and  for  ex- 
penses incurred  after  his  "arrival  at  the  seat 
of  government  j "  and  as  "some  provision  for 
his  family  ; "  and  because  he  was  "  poor." 
Now  why  not  put  these  reasons  into  the  bill  ? 
Was  the  omission  oversight,  or  design?  If 
oversight,  it  should  be  corrected ;  if  design,  it 
should  be  thwarted.  The  law  should  be  com- 
plete in  itself.  It  cannot  be  helped  out  by  a 
member's  speech.  It  was  not  oversight  which 
caused  the  omission.  The  member  who  re- 
ported the  bill  is  not  a  man  to  commit  over- 
sights. It  was  design !  and  because  such  rea- 
sons could  not  be  put  on  the  face  of  the  bill ! 
could  not  be  voted  upon  by  yeas  and  nays  !  and 
therefore  must  be  left  blank,  that  every  member 
may  vote  upon  what  reasons  he  pleases,  with- 
out being  committed  to  any.  This  is  not  the 
way  to  legislate ;  and,  therefore,  the  author  of 
this  View  moved  the  re-commitment,  with  in- 
structions to  put  a  reason  on  the  face  of  the  bill 
itself,  either  in  the  shape  of  a  preamble,  or  of  an 
amendment — leaving  the  selection  of  the  rea- 
sons to  the  friends  of  the  bill,  who  constituted 
the  committee  to  which  it  would  be  sent.  Mr. 
Calhoun  supported  the  motion  for  re-commit- 
ment, and  said : 

"Is  it  an  unreasonable  request  to  ask  the 
committee  for  a  specific  report  of  the  grounds 
on  which  they  have  recommended  this  appropri- 
ation ?  No ;  and  the  gentlemen  know  it  is  not 
unreasonable ;  but  they  will  oppose  it  not  on 
that  account  ;  they  will  oppose  it  because  they 
know  such  a  report  would  defeat  their  bill.  It 
could  not  be  sustained  in  the  face  of  their  own 
report.  Not  that  there  would  be  no  ground  as- 
sumed, but  because  those  who  now  support  the 


bill  do  so  on  grounds  as  different  as  any  possibly 
can  be ;  and,  if  the  committee  was  fastened  down 
to  one  ground,  those  who  support  the  others 
would  desert  the  standard." 

The  vote  was  taken  on  the  question,  and  ne- 
gatived. The  yeas  were :  Messrs.  Allen,  Ben- 
ton, Calhoun,  Clay  of  Alabama,  Fulton,  King 
of  Alabama,  Linn,  McRoberts,  Pierce,  Sevier, 
Smith  of  Connecticut,  Tappan,  Williams  of 
Maine,  Woodbury,  Wright,  Young  of  Illinois. 
To  the  argument  founded  on  the  alleged  poverty 
of  General  Harrison,  Mr.  Benton  replied : 

"  Look  at  the  case  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  a  man 
than  whom  no  one  that  ever  existed  on  God's 
earth  were  the  human  family  more  indebted  to. 
His  furniture  and  his  estate  were  sold  to  satisfy 
his  creditors.  His  posterity  was  driven  from 
house  and  home,  and  his  bones  now  lay  in  soil 
owned  by  a  stranger.  His  family  are  scattered ; 
some  of  his  descendants  are  married  in  foreign 
lands.  Look  at  Monroe — the  amiable,  the  pa- 
triotic Monroe,  whose  services  were  revolution- 
ary, whose  blood  was  spilt  in  the  war  of  Inde- 
pendence, whose  life  was  worn  out  in  civil  ser- 
vice, and  whose  estate  has  been  sold  for  debt, 
his  family  scattered,  and  his  daughter  buried  in 
a  foreign  land.  Look  at  Madison,  the  model  of 
every  virtue,  public  or  private,  and  he  would 
only  mention  in  connection  with  this  subject, 
his  love  of  order,  his  economy,  and  his  sys- 
tematic regularity  in  all  his  habits  of  business. 
He,  when  his  term  of  eight  years  had  expired, 
sent  a  letter  to  a  gentleman  (a  son  of  whom  is 
now  upon  this  floor)  [Mr.  Preston],  enclosing 
a  note  for  five  thousand  dollars,  which  he  re- 
quested him  to  endorse,  and  raise  the  money  in 
Virginia,  so  as  to  enable  him  to  leave  this  city, 
and  return  to  his  modest  retreat — his  patrimo- 
nial inheritance — in  that  State.  General  Jackson 
drew  upon  the  consignee  of  his  cotton  crop  in 
New  Orleans  for  six  thousand  dollars  to  enable 
him  to  leave  the  seat  of  government  without 
leaving  creditors  behind  him.  These  were 
honored  leaders  of  the  republican  party.  They 
had  all  been  Presidents.  They  had  made  great 
sacrifices,  and  left  the  presidency  deeply  embar- 
rassed ;  and  yet  the  republican  party  who  had 
the  power  and  the  strongest  disposition  to  re- 
lieve their  necessities,  felt  they  had  no  right  to 
do  so  by  appropriating  money  from  the  public 
Treasury.  Democracy  would  not  do  this.  It 
was  left  for  the  era  of  federal  rule  and  federal 
supremacy — who  are  now  rushing  the  country 
with  steam  power  into  all  the  abuses  and  cor- 
ruptions of  a  monarchy,  with  its  pensioned 
aristocracy — and  to  entail  upon  the  country  a 
civil  pension  list. 

"  To  the  argument  founded  on  the  expense  of 
removing  to  the  seat  of  government,  Mr.  Ben- 
ton replied  that  there  was  something  in  it,  and 


262 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


if  the  bill  was  limited  to  indemnity  for  that  ex- 
pense, and  a  rule  given  to  go  by  in  all  cases,  it 
might  find  claims  to  a  serious  consideration. 
Such  a  bill  would  have  principle  and  reason  in 
it — the  same  principle  and  the  same  reason 
which  allows  mileage  to  a  member  going  to  and 
returning  from  Congress.  The  member  was 
supposed  during  that  time  to  be  in  the  public 
service  (he  was  certainly  out  of  his  own  ser- 
vice) :  he  was  at  expense :  and  for  these  reasons 
he  was  allowed  a  compensation  for  his  journeys. 
But,  it  was  by  a  uniform  rule,  applicable  to  all 
members,  and  the  same  at  each  session.  The 
same  reason  and  principle  with  foreign  mi- 
nisters. They  received  an  out-fit  before  they 
left  home,  and  an  in-fit  to  return  upon.  A 
quarter's  salary,  was  the  in-fit :  the  out-fit  was 
a  year's  salary,  because  it  included  the  expense 
of  setting  up  a  house  after  the  minister  arrived  at 
his  post.  The  President  finds  a  furnished  house 
on  his  arrival  at  the  seat  of  government,  so  that 
the  principle  and  reason  of  the  case  would  not 
give  to  him,  as  to  a  minister  to  a  foreign  court,  a 
full  year's  salary.  The  in-fit  would  be  the  proper 
measure ;  and  that  rule  applied  to  the  coming  of 
the  President  elect,  and  to  his  going  when  he 
retires,  would  give  him  $6,250  on  each  occasion. 
For  such  an  allowance  he  felt  perfectly  clear 
that  he  could  vote  as  an  act  of  justice;  and 
nearly  as  clear  that  he  could  do  it  constitution- 
ally. But  it  would  have  to  be  for  a  general  and 
permanent  act." 

The  bill  was  passed  by  a  bare  quorum,  28 
affirmatives  out  of  52.  The  negatives  were  16  : 
so  that  18  senators — being  a  greater  number 
than  voted  against  the  bill — were  either  absent, 
or  avoided  the  vote.  The  absentees  were  con- 
sidered mostly  of  that  class  who  were  willing 
to  see  the  bill  pass,  but  not  able  to  vote  for 
it  themselves.     The  yeas  and  nays  were : 

Yeas — Messrs.  Barrow,  Bates,  Bayard,  Ber- 
rien, Buchanan,  Choate,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clay- 
ton, Dixon,  Evans,  Graham,  Huntington,  Man- 
gum,  Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead,  Phelps,  Porter, 
Prentiss,  Preston,  Rives,  Simmons,  Smith  of 
Indiana,  Southard,  Tallmadge,  Walker,  White, 
Woodbridge. 

Nays — Messrs.  Allen,  Benton,  Calhoun,  Clay 
of  Alabama,  Fulton,  King,  Linn,  McRoberts, 
Nicholson,  Sevier,  Smith  of  Connecticut,  Sur- 
geon, Tappan,  Williams,  Woodbury,  Wright, 
Young. 

It  was  strenuously  opposed  by  the  stanch 
members  of  the  democratic  party,  and  elabo- 
rately resisted  in  a  speech  from  the  writer  of 
this  View — of  which  an  extract  is  given  in  the 
next  chapter. 


CHAPTER    LXXI. 

MRS.  HAEEISONS  BILL:  SPEECH  OF  ME.  BENTON: 
EXTEACTS. 

Mr.  Benton  said  he  was  opposed  to  this  bill — 
opposed  to  it  on  high  constitutional  grounds, 
and  upon  grounds  of  high  national  policy — and 
could  not  suffer  it  to  be  carried  through  the 
Senate  without  making  the  resistance  to  it 
which  ought  to  be  made  against  a  new,  dan- 
gerous, and  unconstitutional  measure. 

It  was  a  bill  to  make  a  grant  of  money — 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars — out  of  the  com- 
mon Treasury  to  the  widow  of  a  gentleman  who 
had  died  in  a  civil  office,  that  of  President  of  the 
United  States ;  and  was  the  commencement  of 
that  system  of  civil  pensions,  and  support  for 
families,  which,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Jefferson, 
has  divided  England,  and  other  European  coun- 
tries into  two  classes — the  tax  payers  and  the 
tax  consumers — and  which  sends  the  laboring 
man  supperless  to  bed. 

It  is  a  new  case — the  first  of  the  kind  upon 
our  statute  book — and  should  have  been  accom- 
panied by  a  report  from  a  committee,  or  pre- 
ceded by  a  preamble  to  the  bill,  or  interjected 
with  a  declaration,  showing  the  reason  for  which 
this  grant  is  made.  It  is  a  new  case,  and  should 
have  carried  its  justification  along  with  it.  But 
nothing  of  this  is  done.  There  is  no  report 
from  a  committee — from  the  two  committees  in 
fact — which  sat  upon  the  case.  There  is  no 
preamble  to  it,  setting  forth  the  reason  for  the 
grant.  There  is  no  declaration  in  the  body  of 
the  bill,  showing  the  reason  why  this  money  is 
voted  to  this  lady.  It  is  simply  a  bill  granting 
to  Mrs.  Harrison,  widow  of  William  H.  Harri- 
son, late  President  of  the  United  States,  the  sum 
of  $25,000.  Now,  all  this  is  wrong,  and  con- 
trary to  parliamentary  practice.  Reason  tells 
us  there  should  be  a  report  from  a  committee 
in  such  a  case.  In  fact,  we  have  reports  every 
day  in  every  case,  no  matter  how  inconsiderable, 
which  even  pays  a  small  sum  of  money  to  an 
individual.  It  is  our  daily  practice,  and  yet 
two  committees  have  shrunk  from  that  practice 
in  this  new  and  important  case.  They  would 
not  make  a  report,  though  urged  to  do  it.  I 
speak  advisedly,  for  I  was  of  the  committee,  and 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


263 


know  what  was  done.  No  report  could  be  ob- 
tained ;  and  why  ?  because  it  was  difficult,  if 
not  impossible,  for  any  committee  to  agree  upon 
a  reason  which  would  satisfy  the  constitution, 
and  satisfy  public  policy,  for  making  this  grant. 
Gentlemen  could  agree  to  give  the  money — they 
could  agree  to  vote — but  they  could  not  agree 
upon  the  reason  which  was  to  be  left  upon  the 
record  as  a  justification  for  the  gift  and  the  vote. 
Being  no  report,  the  necessity  became  apparent 
for  a  preamble ;  but  we  have  none  of  that.  And, 
worse  than  all,  in  the  absence  of  report  and  pre- 
amble, the  bill  itself  is  silent  on  the  motive  of 
the  grant.  It  does  not  contain  the  usual  clause 
in  money  bills  to  individuals,  stating,  in  a  few 
words,  for  what  reason  the  grant  or  payment  is 
made.  All  this  is  wrong;  and  I  point  it  out 
now,  both  as  an  argument  against  the  bill,  and 
as  a  reason  for  having  it  recommitted,  and  re- 
turned with  a  report,  or  a  preamble,  or  a  de- 
claratory clause. 

We  were  told  at  the  last  session  that  a  new 
set  of  books  were  to  be  opened — that  the  new 
administration  would  close  up  the  old  books, 
and  open  new  ones ;  and  truly  we  find  it  to  be 
the  case.  New  books  of  all  kinds  are  opened, 
as  foreign  to  the  constitution  and  policy  of  the 
country,  as  they  are  to  the  former  practice  of 
the  government,  and  to  the  late  professions  of 
these  new  patriots.  Many  new  books  are  open- 
ed, some  by  executive  and  some  by  legislative 
authority ;  and  among  them  is  this  portentous 
volume  of  civil  pensions,  and  national  recom- 
penses, for  the  support  of  families.  Military 
pensions  we  have  always  had,  and  they  are 
founded  upon  a  principle  which  the  mind  can  un- 
derstand, the  tongue  can  tell,  the  constitution 
can  recognize,  and  public  policy  can  approve. 
They  are  founded  upon  the  principle  of  personal 
danger  and  suffering  in  the  cause  of  the  country 
— upon  the  loss  of  life  or  limb  in  war.  This  is 
reasonable.  The  man  who  goes  forth,  in  his 
country's  cause,  to  be  shot  at  for  seven  dollars 
a  month,  or  for  forty  dollars  a  month,  or  even 
for  one  or  two  hundred,  and  gets  his  head  or  his 
limbs  knocked  off,  is  in  a  very  different  case 
from  him  who  serves  the  same  country  at  a 
desk  or  a  table,  with  a  quill  or  a  book  in  his 
hand,  who  may  quit  his  place  when  he  sees  the 
enemy  coming ;  and  has  no  occasion  to  die  ex- 
cept in  his  tranquil  and  peaceful  bed.     The  case 


of  the  two  classes  is  wholly  different,  and  thus 
far  the  laws  of  our  country  have  recognized  and 
maintained  the  difference.  Military  pensions 
have  been  granted  from  the  foundation  of  the 
government — civil  pensions,  never;  and  now, 
for  the  first  time,  the  attempt  is  to  be  made  to 
grant  them.  A  grant  of  money  is  to  be  made 
to  the  widow  of  a  gentleman  who  has  not  been 
in  the  army  for  near  thirty  years — who  has, 
since  that  time,  been  much  employed  in  civil 
service,  and  has  lately  died  in  a  civil  office.  A 
pension,  or  a  grant  of  a  gross  sum  of  money, 
under  such  circumstances,  is  a  new  proceeding 
under  our  government,  and  which  finds  no  war- 
rant in  the  constitution,  and  is  utterly  con- 
demned by  high  considerations  of  public  policy. 

The  federal  constitution  differs  in  its  nature 
— and  differs  fundamentally  from  those  of  the 
States.  The  States,  being  original  sovereignties, 
may  do  what  they  are  not  prohibited  from  do- 
ing ;  the  federal  government,  being  derivative, 
and  carved  out  of  the  States,  is  like  a  corpora- 
tion, the  creature  of  the  act  which  creates  it, 
and  can  only  do  what  it  can  show  a  grant  for 
doing.  Now  the  moneyed  power  of  the  federal 
government  is  contained  in  a  grant  from  the 
States,  and  that  grant  authorizes  money  to  be 
raised  either  by  loans,  duties  or  taxes,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  paying  the  debts,  supporting  the  govern- 
ment, and  providing  for  the  common  defence  of 
the  Union.  These  are  the  objects  to  which  mo- 
ney may  be  applied,  and  this  grant  to  Mrs.  Har- 
rison can  come  within  neither  of  them. 

But,  gentlemen  say  this  is  no  pension — it  is 
not  an  annual  payment,  but  a  payment  in  hand. 
I  say  so,  too,  and  that  it  is  so  much  the  more 
objectionable  on  that  account.  A  pension  must 
have  some  rule  to  go  by — so  much  a  month — 
and  generally  a  small  sum,  the  highest  on  our 
pension  roll  being  thirty  dollars — and  it  termi- 
nates in  a  reasonable  time,  usually  five  years, 
and  at  most  for  life.  A  pension  granted  to  Mrs. 
Harrison  on  this  principle,  could  amount  to  no 
great  sum — to  a  mere  fraction,  at  most,  of  these 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars.  It  is  not  a  pen- 
sion, then,  but  a  gift — a  gratuity — a  large  pres- 
ent— a  national  recompense  ;  and  the  more  ob- 
jectionable for  being  so.  Neither  our  constitu- 
tion, nor  the  genius  of  our  government,  admits 
of  such  benefactions.  National  recompenses  are 
high  rewards,  and  require  express  powers  to 


264 


THIRTY  YEARS*  VIEW 


grant  them  in  every  limited  government.  The 
French  Consular  Constitution  of  the  year  1799, 
authorized  such  recompenses ;  ours  does  not, 
and  it  has  not  yet  been  attempted,  even  in  mili- 
tary cases.  "We  have  not  yet  voted  a  fortune  to 
an  officer's  or  a  soldier's  family,  to  lift  them 
from  poverty  to  wealth.  These  recompenses 
are  worse  than  pensions  :  they  are  equally  un- 
founded in  the  constitution,  more  incapable  of 
being  governed  by  any  rule,  and  more  suscep- 
tible of  great  and  dangerous  abuse.  We  have 
no  rule  to  go  by  in  fixing  the  amount.  Every 
one  goes  by  feeling — by  his  personal  or  political 
feeling — or  by  a  cry  got  up  at  home,  and  sent 
here  to  act  upon  him.  Hence  the  diversity  of 
the  opinions  as  to  the  proper  sum  to  be  given. 
Some  gentlemen  are  for  the  amount  in  the  bill ; 
some  are  for  double  that  amount ;  and  some  are 
for  nothing.  This  diversity  itself  is  an  argu- 
ment against  the  measure.  It  shows  that  it  has 
no  natural  foundation — nothing  to  rest  upon — 
nothing  to  go  by ;  no  rule,  no  measure,  no  stand- 
ard, by  which  to  compute  or  compare  it.  It  is 
all  guess-work — the  work  of  the  passions  or 
policy — of  faction  or  of  party. 

By  our  constitution,  the  persons  who  fill 
offices  are  to  receive  a  compensation  for  their 
services  ;  and,  in  many  cases,  this  compensation 
is  neither  to  be  increased  nor  diminished  during 
the  period  for  which  the  person  shall  have  been 
elected  ;  and  in  some  there  is  a  prohibition 
against  receiving  presents  either  from  foreign 
States,  or  from  the  United  States,  or  from  the 
States  of  the  Union.  The  office  of  President 
comes  under  all  these  restrictions,  and  shows 
how  jealous  the  framers  of  the  constitution  were, 
of  any  moneyed  influence  being  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  Union.  All 
these  limitations  are  for  obvious  and  wise  rea- 
sons. The  President's  salary  is  not  to  be  di- 
minished during  the  time  for  which  he  was 
elected,  lest  his  enemies,  if  they  get  the  upper 
hand  of  him  in  Congress,  should  deprive  him  of 
his  support,  and  starve  him  out  of  office.  It  is 
not  to  be  increased,  lest  his  friends,  if  they  get 
the  upper  hand,  should  enrich  him  at  the  public 
expense ;  and  he  is  not  to  receive  "  any  other 
emolument,"  lest  the  provision  against  an  in- 
crease of  salary  should  be  evaded  by  the  grant 
of  gross  sums.  These  are  the  constitutional  pro- 
visions ;  but  to  what  effect  are  they,  if  the  sums 


can  be  granted  to  the  officer's  family,  which 
cannot  be  granted  to  himself? — if  his  widow — 
his  wife — his  children  can  receive  what  he  can- 
not 7  In  this  case,  the  term  for  which  General 
Harrison  was  elected,  is  not  out.  It  has  not 
expired  ;  and  Congress  cannot  touch  his  salary, 
or  bestow  upon  him  or  his,  any  emolument  with- 
out a  breach  of  the  constitution. 

It  is  in  vain  to  look  to  general  clauses  of  the 
constitution.  Besides  the  general  spirit  of  the 
instrument,  there  is  a  specific  clause  upon  the 
subject  of  the  President's  salary  and  emolu- 
ments. It  forbids  him  any  compensation,  ex- 
cept at  stated  times,  for  services  rendered ;  it 
forbids  increase  or  diminution;  and  it  forbids 
all  emolument.  To  give  salary  or  emolument 
to  his  family,  is  a  mere  evasion  of  this  clause. 
His  family  is  himself— so  far  as  property  is  con- 
cerned, a  man's  family  is  himself.  And  many 
persons  would  prefer  to  have  money  or  property 
conveyed  to  his  family,  or  some  member  of  it, 
because  it  would  then  receive  the  destination 
which  his  will  would  give  it,  and  would  be  free 
from  the  claims  or  contingencies  to  which  his  own 
property — that  in  his  own  name — would  be  sub- 
ject. There  is  nothing  in  the  constitution  to  war- 
rant this  proceeding,  and  there  is  much  in  it  to 
condemn  it.  It  is  condemned  by  all  the  clauses 
which  relate  to  the  levy,  and  the  application  of 
money ;  and  it  is  specially  condemned  by  the 
precise  clause  which  regulates  the  compensation 
of  the  President,  and  which  clause  would  control 
any  other  part  of  the  constitution  which  might 
come  in  conflict  with  it.  Condemned  upon  the 
constitutional  test,  how  stands  this  bill  on  the 
question  of  policy  and  expediency  ?  It  is  con- 
demned— utterly  condemned,  and  reprobated, 
upon  that  test !  The  view  which  I  have  already 
presented  of  the  difference  between  military  and 
naval  services  (and  I  always  include  the  naval 
when  I  speak  of  the  military)  shows  that  the 
former  are  proper  subjects  for  pensions — the 
latter  not.  The  very  nature  of  the  service 
makes  the  difference.  Differing  in  principle,  as 
the  military  and  civil  pensions  do,  they  differ 
quite  as  much  when  you  come  to  details,  and 
undertake  to  administer  the  two  classes  of  re- 
wards. The  military  has  something  to  go  by — 
some  limit  to  it — and  provides  for  classes  of  in- 
dividuals— not  for  families  or  for  individuals — 
one  by  one.    Though  subject  to  great  abuse,  yet 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


265 


the  military  pensions  have  some  limit — some 
boundary — to  their  amount  placed  upon  them. 
They  are  limited  at  least  to  the  amount  of  ar- 
mies, and  the  number  of  wars.  Our  armies  are 
small;  and  our  wars  few  and  far  between.  We 
have  had  but  two  with  a  civilized  power  in  sixty 
years.  Our  navy,  also,  is  limited ;  and  compared 
to  the  mass  of  the  population,  the  army  and  navy 
must  be  always  small.  Confined  to  their  proper 
subjects,  and  military  and  naval  pensions  have 
limits  and  boundaries  which  confine  them  within 
some  bounds  ;  and  then  the  law  is  the  same  for 
all  persons  of  the  same  rank.  The  military  and 
naval  pensioners  are  not  provided  for  individu- 
ally, and  therefore  do  not  become  a  subject  of 
favoritism,  of  party,  or  of  faction.  Not  so  with 
civil  pensions.  There  is  no  limit  upon  them. 
They  may  apply  to  the  family  of  every  person 
civilly  employed — that  is,  to  almost  every  body 
— and  this  without  intermission  of  time ;  for 
civil  services  go  on  in  peace  and  war,  and  the 
claims  for  them  will  be  eternal  when  once  begun. 
Then  again  civil  pensions  and  grants  of  money 
are  given  individually,  and  not  by  classes,  and 
every  case  is  governed  by  the  feeling  of  the  mo- 
ment, and  the  predominance  of  the  party  to 
which  the  individual  belonged.  Every  case  is 
the  sport  of  party,  of  faction,  of  favoritism ;  and 
of  feelings  excited  and  got  up  for  the  occasion. 
Thus  it  is  in  England,  and  thus  it  will  be  here. 
The  English  civil  pension  list  is  dreadful,  both 
for  the  amount  paid,  and  the  nature  of  the  ser- 
vices rewarded;  but  it  required  centuries  for 
England  to  ripen  her  system.  Are  we  to  begin 
it  in  the  first  half  century  of  our  existence  ? 
and  begin  it  without  rule  or  principle  to  go  by  ? 
Every  thing  to  be  left  to  impulse  and  favor — by 
the  politics  of  the  individual,  his  party  affinities, 
and  the  political  complexion  of  the  party  in 
power. 

Gentlemen  refuse  to  commit  themselves  on 
the  record  ;  but  they  have  reasons  ;  and  we  have 
heard  enough,  here  and  elsewhere,  to  have  a 
glimpse  of  what  they  are.  First,  poverty :  as  if 
that  was  any  reason  for  voting  a  fortune  to  a 
family,  even  if  it  was  true  !  If  it  was  a  reason, 
one  half  of  the  community  might  be  packed 
upon  the  backs  of  the  other.  Most  of  our  pub- 
lic men  die  poor ;  many  of  them  use  up  their 
patrimonial  inheritances  in  the  public  service ; 
yet,  until  now,  the  reparation  of  ruined  fortune 
has  not  been  attempted  out  of  the  public  Treas- 


ury. Poverty  would  not  do,  if  it  was  true ; 
but  here  it  is  not  true  :  the  lady  in  question  has 
a  fine  estate,  and  certainly  has  not  applied  for 
this  money.  No  petition  of  hers  is  here  !  No 
letter,  even,  that  we  have  heard  of  !  So  far  as 
we  know,  she  is  ignorant  of  the  proceeding ! 
Certain  it  is,  she  has  not  applied  for  this  grant, 
either  on  the  score  of  poverty,  or  any  thing  else. 
Next,  election  expenses  are  mentioned;  but 
that  would  seem  to  be  a  burlesque  upon  the 
character  of  our  republican  institutions.  Cer- 
tainly nc  candidate  for  the  presidency  ought  to 
electioneer  for  it — spend  money  for  it — and  if  he 
did,  the  public  Treasury  ought  not  to  indemnify 
him.  Travelling  expenses  coming  on  to  the  seat 
of  government,  are  next  mentioned ;  but  these 
could  be  but  a  trifle,  even  if  the  President  elect 
came  at  his  own  expense.  But  we  know  to 
the  contrary.  We  know  that  the  contest  is 
for  the  honor  of  bringing  him ;  that  convey- 
ances and  entertainments  are  prepared ;  and 
that  friends  dispute  for  precedence  in  the  race 
of  lifting  and  helping  along,  and  ministering  to 
every  want  of  the  man  who  is  so  soon  to  be  the 
dispenser  of  honor  and  fortune  in  the  shape  of 
office  and  contracts.  Such  a  man  cannot  travel 
at  his  own  expense.  Finally,  the  fire  in  the 
roof  of  the  west  wing  of  the  North  Bend  man- 
sion has  been  mentioned  ;  but  Jackson  had  the 
whole  Hermitage  burnt  to  the  ground  when  he 
was  President,  and  would  have  scorned  a  gift 
from  the  public  Treasury  to  rebuild  it.  Such 
are  the  reasons  mentioned  in  debate,  or  else- 
where, for  this  grant.  Their  futility  is  apparent 
on  their  face,  and  is  proved  by  the  unwillingness 
of  gentlemen  to  state  them  in  a  report,  or  a  pre- 
amble, or  in  the  body  of  the  bill  itself. 


CHAPTEK    LXXII. 

ABUSE  OF  THE  NAVAL  PENSION  SYSTEM :    VAIN 
ATTEMPT  TO  CORRECT  IT. 

The  annual  bill  for  these  pensions  being  on  its 
passage,  an  attempt  was  made  to  correct  the 
abuse  introduced  by  the  act  of  1837.  That  act 
had  done  four  things : — 1.  It  had  carried  back 
the  commencement  of  invalid  naval  pensions  to 
the  time  of  receiving  the  inability,  instead  of 
the  time  of  completing  the  proof.     2.  It  ex- 


266 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


tended  the  pensions  for  death  to  all  cases  of 
death,  whether  incurred  in  the  line  of  duty  or 
not.  3.  It  extended  the  widows'  pensions  for 
life,  when  five  years  had  been  the  law  both  in 
the  army  and  the  navy.  4.  It  pensioned  chil- 
dren until  twenty-one  years  of  age,  thereby 
adopting  the  English  pension  system.  The  ef- 
fects of  these  changes  were  to  absorb  and  bank- 
rupt the  navy  pension  fund — a  meritorious  fund 
created  out  of  the  government  share  of  prize 
money,  relinquished  for  that  purpose  ; — and  to 
throw  the  pensions,  the  previous  as  well  as  the 
future,  upon  the  public  treasury — where  it  was 
never  intended  they  were  to  be.  This  act,  so 
novel  in  its  character — so  plundering  in  its  ef- 
fects— and  introducing  such  fatal  principles  into 
the  naval  pension  system,  and  which  it  has 
been  found  so  difficult  to  get  rid  of — was  one 
of  the  deplorable  instances  of  midnight  legisla- 
tion, on  the  last  night  of  the  session  ;  when,  in 
the  absence  of  many,  the  haste  of  all,  the  sleep- 
iness of  some,  and  a  pervading  inattention,  an 
enterprising  member  can  get  almost  any  thing 
passed  through — and  especially  as  an  amend- 
ment. It  was  at  a  time  like  this  that  this  pen- 
sion act  was  passed,  the  night  of  March  3d, 
1837 — its  false  and  deceptive  title  (;c  An  act  for 
the  more  equitable  administration  of  the  Navy 
Pension  Fund)  being  probably  as  much  of  it 
as  was  heard  by  the  few  members  who  heard 
any  thing  about  it ;  and  the  word  "  equitable," 
so  untruly  and  deceptiously  inserted,  probably 
the  only  part  of  it  which  lodged  on  their  minds. 
And  in  that  way  was  passed  an  act  which  in- 
stantly pillaged  a  sacred  fund  of  one  million 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars — which  has 
thrown  the  naval  pensioners  upon  the  Treas- 
ury, instead  of  the  old  navy  pension  fund,  for 
their  support — which  introduced  the  English 
pension  system — which  was  so  hard  to  repeal ; 
and  which  has  still  all  its  burdens  on  our 
finances,  and  some  of  its  principles  in  our  laws. 
It  is  instructive  to  learn  the  history  of  such 
legislation,  and  to  see  its  power  (a  power  inhe- 
rent in  the  very  nature  of  an  abuse,  and  the 
greater  in  proportion  to  the  greatness  of  the 
abuse)  to  resist  correction :  and  with  this  view 
the  brief  debate  on  an  ineffectual  attempt  in  the 
Senate  to  repeal  the  act  of  this  session  is  here 
given — Mr.  Reuel  Williams,  of  Maine,  having  the 
honor  to  commence  the  movement. 

"  The  naval  pension  appropriation  bill  being 


under  consideration,  Mr.  Williams  offered  an 
amendment,  providing  for  the  repeal  of  the  act 
of  1837  ;  and  went  at  some  length  into  the  rea- 
sons in  favor  of  the  adoption  of  the  amendment. 
He  said  all  admitted  the  injurious  tendency  of 
the  act  of  1837,  by  which  the  fund  which  had 
been  provided  by  the  bravery  of  our  gallant 
sailors  for  the  relief  of  the  widows  and  orphans 
of  those  who  had  been  killed  in  battle,  or  had 
died  from  wounds  which  had  been  received 
while  in  the  line  of  their  duty,  had  been  utter- 
ly exhausted  ;  and  his  amendment  went  to  the 
repeal  of  that  law." 

"  Mr.  Mangum  hoped  the  amendment  would 
not  be  adopted — that  the  system  would  be  al- 
lowed to  remain  as  it  was  until  the  next  ses- 
sion. It  was  a  subject  of  great  complexity,  and 
if  this  amendment  passed  it  would  be  equivalent 
to  the  repeal  of  all  the  naval  pension  acts." 

"  Mr.  Williams  understood  the  senator  from 
North  Carolina  as  saying,  that  if  they  passed 
this  amendment,  and  thus  repealed  the  act  of 
1837,  they  repeal  all  acts  which  grant  a  pension 
for  disability." 

"  Mr.  Mangum  had  said,  if  they  repealed  the 
law  of  '37,  they  would  cut  off  every  widow  and 
orphan  now  on  the  pension  list,  and  leave  none 
except  the  seamen,  officers,  and  marines,  enti- 
tled to  pensions  under  the  act  of  1800." 

"  Mr.  Williams  said  the  senator  was  entirely 
mistaken ;  and  read  the  law  of  1813,  which  was 
still  in  full  force,  and  could  not  be  affected  by 
the  repeal  of  the  law  of  1837.  The  law  of  1813 
gives  a  pension  to  the  widows  and  orphans  of 
all  who  are  killed  in  battle,  or  who  die  from 
wounds  received  in  battle  ;  and  also  gives  pen- 
sions to  those  who  are  disabled  while  in  the 
line  of  their  duty.  This  law  was  now  in  force. 
The  additional  provisions  of  the  law  of  1837, 
were  to  carry  back  the  pensions  to  the  time 
when  the  disability  was  incurred,  and  to  extend 
it  to  the  widows  and  children  of  those  who  died, 
no  matter  from  what  cause,  while  they  were  in 
the  naval  service.  Thus,  if  an  officer  or  seaman 
died  from  intoxication,  or  even  committed  sui- 
cide, his  widow  received  a  pension  for  life,  and 
his  children  received  pensions  until  they  were 
twenty-one  years  of  age. 

;<  Again  :  if  officers  or  seamen  received  a 
wound  which  did  not  disable  them,  they  con- 
tinued in  the  service,  receiving  their  full  pay  for 
years.  When  they  thought  proper  they  retired 
from  the  service,  and  applied  for  a  pension  for 
disability,  which,  by  the  law  of  1837,  they  were 
authorized  to  have  carried  back  to  the  time  the 
disability  was  incurred,  though  they  had,  dur- 
ing the  whole  series  of  years  subsequent  to  re- 
ceiving the  disability,  and  prior  to  the  applica- 
tion for  a  pension,  been  receiving  their  full  pay 
as  officers  or  seamen.  It  was  to  prevent  the 
continuance  of  such  abuses,  that  the  amendment 
was  offered." 

"Mr.  Walker  must  vote  against  this  amend- 
ment, repealing  the  act  of  1837,  because  an 
amendment  which  had  been  offered  by  him, 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


267 


and  adopted,  provided  for  certain  pensions  un- 
der this  very  act,  and  which  ought,  in  justice, 
to  be  given." 

"  Mr.  Williams  thought  differently,  as  the 
specific  provision  in  the  amendment  of  the  sen- 
ator from  Mississippi,  would  except  the  cases 
included  in  it  from  the  operation  of  the  repeal- 
ing clause." 

"  Mr.  Evans  opposed  the  amendment,  on  the 
ground  that  it  cut  off  all  the  amendments 
adopted,  and  brought  back  again  the  law  of 
1800." 

The  proposed  amendment  of  Mr.  Williams 
was  then  put  to  the  vote — and  negatived — only 
nineteen  senators  voting  for  it.  The  yeas  and 
nays  were : 

Yeas — Messrs.  Allen,  Benton,  Calhoun,  Clay 
of  Alabama,  Fulton,  King,  Linn,  McRoberts, 
Mouton,  Nicholson,  Pierce,  Sevier,  Smith  of 
Connecticut,  Sturgeon,  Tappan,  Williams, 
Woodbury,  Wright,  Young — 19. 

Nays — Messrs.  Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Bay- 
ard, Berrien,  Choate,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clay- 
ton, Dixon,  Evans,  Graham,  Huntington,  Kerr, 
Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead,  Phelps, 
Porter,  Prentiss,  Preston,  Simmons,  Smith  of 
Indiana,  Southard,  Tallmadge,  Walker,  White, 
Woodbridge— 28. 

It  is  remarkable  that  in  this  vote  upon  a  pal- 
pable and  enormous  abuse  in  the  navy,  there 
was  not  a  whig  vote  among  the  democracy  for 
correcting  it,  nor  a  democratic  vote,  except  one, 
among  the  negatives.  A  difference  about  a 
navy — on  the  point  of  how  much,  and  of  what 
kind — had  always  been  a  point  of  difference  be- 
tween the  two  great  political  parties  of  the 
Union,  which,  under  whatsoever  names,  are  al- 
ways the  same — each  preserving  its  identity  in 
principles  and  policy  :  but  here  the  two  parties 
divided  upon  an  abuse  which  no  one  could  de- 
ny, or  defend.  The  excuse  was  to  put  it  off  to 
another  time,  which  is  the  successful  way  of 
perpetuating  abuses,  as  there  are  always  in 
every  public  assembly,  as  in  every  mass  of  indi- 
viduals, many  worthy  men  whose  easy  temper- 
aments delight  in  temporizations  ;  and  who  are 
always  willing  to  put  off,  temporarily,  the  re- 
peal of  a  bad  law,  or  even  to  adopt  temporarily, 
the  enactment  of  a  doubtful  one.  Mr.  Williams' 
proposed  amendment  was  not  one  of  repeal  only, 
but  of  enactment  also.  It  repealed  the  act  of 
1837,  and  revived  that  of  1832,  and  corrected 
some  injurious  principles  interjected  into  the 
naval  pension  code — especially  the  ante-dating 
of  pensions,  and  the  abuse  of  drawing  pay  and 


pension  at  the  same  time.  This  amendment 
being  rejected,  and  some  minor  ones  adopted, 
the  question  came  up  upon  one  offered  by  Mr. 
Walker — providing  that  all  widows  or  children 
of  naval  officers,  seamen,  or  marines,  now  de- 
ceased, and  entitled  to  pensions  under  the  act 
of  1837,  should  receive  the  same  until  otherwise 
directed  by  law  ;  and  excluding  all  cases  from 
future  deaths.  Mr.  Calhoun  proposed  to  amend 
this  amendment  by  striking  out  the  substantive 
part  of  Mr.  Walker's  amendment,  and  after  pro- 
viding for  those  now  on  the  pension-roll  under 
the  act  of  1837,  confining  all  future  pensioners 
to  the  acts  of  April  23d,  1800— January  24th, 
1813 — and  the  second  section  of  the  act  of  the 
3d  of  March,  1814.  In  support  of  his  motion 
Mr.  Calhoun  spoke  briefly,  and  pointedly,  and 
unanswerably  ;  but  not  quite  enough  so  to  save 
his  proposed  amendment.  It  was  lost  by  one 
vote,  and  that  the  vote  of  the  president  pro  tem- 
pore, Mr.  Southard.  The  substance  of  Mr. 
Calhoun's  brief  speech  is  thus  preserved  in  the 
register  of  the  Congress  debates : 

"Mr.  Calhoun  said  that,  among  the  several 
objections  to  this,  there  was  one  to  which  he 
did  hope  the  Senate  would  apply  the  correction. 
The  amendment  not  only  kept  alive  the  act  of 
1837,  as  to  the  pensioners  now  on  the  list,  un- 
der that  act,  but  also  kept  it  alive  for  all  future 
applications  which  might  be  made  under  it,  until 
it  should  be  hereafter  repealed,  if  it  ever  should 
be.     To  this  he  strongly  objected. 

"  There  was  one  point  on  which  all  were 
agreed,  that  the  act  in  question  was  not  only 
inexpedient,  but  something  much  wrorse — that 
it  committed  something  like  a  fraud  upon  the 
pension  fund.  It  is  well  known  to  the  Senate 
that  that  fund  was  the  result  of  prize  money 
pledged  to  the  use  of  meritorious  officers  and 
sailors  who  might  be  disabled  in  the  service  of 
their  country.  The  whole  of  this  fund,  amount- 
ing to  nearly  a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars,  was 
swept  away  by  this  iniquitous  act,  that  passed 
on  the  third  of  March — the  very  last  day  of  the 
session — introduced  and  carried  through  by  no- 
body knows  who,  and  for  which  nobody  seems 
responsible.  He  ventured  nothing  in  asserting, 
that  if  such  an  act  was  now  under  discussion 
for  the  first  time,  it  would  not  receive  a  single 
vote  with  the  present  knowledge  which  the 
Senate  has  of  the  subject,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
would  be  cast  from  it  with  universal  scorn  and 
indignation.  He  went  further:  it  would  now 
be  repealed  with  like  unanimity,  were  it  not 
that  many  persons  had  been  placed  upon  the 
list  under  the  act,  which  was  still  in  force, 
which  was  felt  by  many  to  be  a  sort  of  a  pledge 
to  pay  them  until  the  act  was  formally  repealed. 
But  why  should  we  go  further?     Why  should 


268 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW*. 


we  keep  it  alive  to  let  in  those  who  are  not  yet 
put  upon  the  list  ?  But  one  answer  could  be 
given,  and  that  one  stated  by  the  two  senators 
from  Massachusetts,  that  the  act  partook  of  the 
nature  of  a  contract  between  the  government 
and  the  officers,  sailors  and  marines,  compre- 
hended within  its  provisions.  There  might  be 
some  semblance  of  reason  for  the  few  cases 
which  have  occurred  since  the  passage  of  the 
act ;  but  not  the  slightest  as  far  as  it  relates  to 
that  more  numerous  class  which  occurred  be- 
fore its  passage.  And  yet  the  amendment  keeps 
the  act  open  for  the  latter  as  well  as  the  for- 
mer. As  strong  as  this  objection  is  to  the 
amendment  as  it  stands,  there  are  others  not 
less  so. 

"It  introduces  new  and  extraordinary  prin- 
ciples into  our  pension  list.  It  gives  pensions 
for  life — yes,  beyond — to  children  for  twenty- 
one  years,  as  well  as  the  widows  of  the  deceased 
officer,  sailor  or  marine,  who  may  die  while  in 
service.  It  makes  no  distinction  between  the 
death  of  the  gallant  and  brave  in  battle,  or  him 
who  may  die  quietly  in  his  hammock  or  his  bed 
on  shore,  or  even  him  who  commits  suicide. 
Nor  does  it  even  distinguish  between  those 
who  have  served  a  long  or  a  short  time.  The 
widows  and  children  of  all,  however  short  the 
service,  even  for  a  single  day,  whatever  might 
be  the  cause  of  death,  are  entitled,  under  this 
fraudulent  act,  to  receive  pensions,  the  widow 
for  life,  and  the  children  for  twenty-one  years. 
To  let  in  this  undeserving  class,  to  this  un- 
measured liberality  of  public  bounty,  this  act  is 
to  be  kept  alive  for  an  indefinite  length  of  time 
— till  the  Congress  may  hereafter  choose  to  re- 
peal it. 

';  The  object  of  my  amendment,  said  Mr.  C, 
is  to  correct  this  monstrous  abuse ;  and,  for  this 
purpose,  he  proposed  so  to  modify  the  amend- 
ment of  the  senator  from  Mississippi,  as  to  ex- 
clude all  who  are  not  now  on  the  pension  roll 
from  receiving  pensions  under  the  act  of  1837, 
and  also  to  prevent  any  one  from  being  put  on 
the  navy  pension  roll  hereafter  under  any  act, 
except  those  of  April  23, 1800,  January  20, 1813, 
and  the  second  section  of  the  act  of  30th  March, 
1814.  These  acts  limit  the  pensions  to  the  case 
of  officers,  sailors  and  marines,  being  disabled  in 
the  line  of  their  duty,  and  limit  the  pensions  to 
their  widows  and  children  to  five  years,  even  in 
those  meritorious  cases.  Mr.  C.  then  sent  his 
amendment  to  the  chair.  It  proposed  to  strike 
out  all  after  the  word  '  now,'  and  insert,  '  the 
pension  roll,  under  the  act  of  1837,  shall  receive 
their  pension  till  otherwise  decided  by  law,  but 
no  one  shall  hereafter  be  put  on  the  navy  pen- 
sion roll,  under  the  said  act,  or  any  other  act, 
except  that  of  April  23,  1800,  and  the  act  of 
January  24,  1813,  and  the  second  section  of  the 
act  of  3d  March,  1814.'  The  question  was  then 
taken  on  the  amendment  by  a  count,  and  the 
Chair  announced  the  amendment  was  lost — ayes 
20,  noes  21.    Mr.  Calhoun  inquired  if  the  Chair 


had  voted.  The  Chair  said  he  had  voted  with 
the  majority.  Mr.  Buchanan  then  said  he 
would  offer  an  amendment  which  he  had  at- 
tempted to  get  an  opportunity  of  offering  in 
committee.  It  was  to  strike  out  the  words 
'  until  otherwise  directed  by  law,'  and  insert  the 
words  '  until  the  close  of  the  next  session  of 
Congress,'  so  as  to  limit  the  operations  of  the 
bill  to  that  period.  The  amendment  was  adopt- 
ed, and  the  amendments  to  the  bill  were  ordered 
to  be  engrossed,  and  the  bill  ordered  to  a  third 
reading." 

Mr.  Pierce  having  been  long  a  member  of  the 
Pension  Committee  had  seen  the  abuses  to  which 
our  pension  laws  gave  rise,  and  spoke  decidedly 
against  their  abuse— and  especially  in  the  naval 
branch  of  the  service.     He  said : 

"  There  were  cases  of  officers  receiving  pay 
for  full  disability,  when  in  command  of  line-of- 
battle  ships.  The  law  of  1837  gave  pay  to 
officers  from  the  time  of  their  disability.  He 
had  been  long  enough  connected  with  the  Pen- 
sion Committee  to  understand  something  of  it. 
He  had  now  in  his  drawer  more  than  fifty  let- 
ters from  officers  of  the  army,  neither  begging 
nor  imploring,  but  demanding  to  be  placed  on 
the  same  footing  with  the  navy  in  regard  to 
pensions.  He  thought,  on  his  conscience,  that 
the  pension  system  of  this  country  was  the 
worst  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  that  they 
could  never  have  either  an  army  or  a  navy  until 
there  were  reforms  of  more  things  than  pen- 
sions. He  pointed  to  the  military  academy,  ap- 
pointments to  which  rested  on  the  influence 
that  could  be  brought  to  bear  by  both  Houses 
of  Congress.  He  had  looked  on  that  scientific 
institution,  from  which  no  army  would  ever 
have  a  commander  while  West  Point  was  in  the 
ascendency  ;  and  he  would  tell  why.  The  prin- 
ciples on  which  Frederick  the  Great  and  Napo- 
leon acted  were  those  to  make  soldiers — where 
merit  was,  reward  always  followed,  but  had 
they  not  witnessed  cases  of  men  of  character, 
courage,  and  capacity,  asking,  from  day  to  day, 
in  vain  for  the  humble  rank  of  third  lieutenant 
in  your  army,  who  would  be  glad  to  have  such 
appointments  ?  I  know  (said  Mr.  P.)  a  man 
who,  at  the  battle  of  the  Withlacoochie,  had  he 
performed  the  same  service  under  Napoleon, 
would  have  received  a  baton.  But  in  ours  what 
did  he  get  1  Three  times  did  that  gallant  fel- 
low, with  his  arm  broken  and  hanging  at  his 
side,  charge  the  Indians,  and  drive  them  from 
their  hammocks,  where  they  were  intrenched. 
The  poor  sergeant  staid  in  the  service  until  his 
time  expired,  and  that  was  all  he  got  for  his 
gallantry  and  disinterestedness.  Such  instances 
of  neglect  would  upset  any  service,  destroy  all 
emulation,  and  check  all  proper  pride  and  ambi- 
tion in  subordinates.  If  ever  they  were  to  have 
a  good  army  or  navy,  they  must  promote  merit 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


269 


in  both  branches  of  service,  as  every  truly  great 
general  had  done,  and  every  wise  government 
ought  to  do." 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  an  instruc- 
tive debate  took  place,  chiefly  between  Mr. 
Adams,  and  Mr.  Francis  Thomas,  of  Maryland, 
in  which  the  origin  and  course  of  the  act  was 
somewhat  traced — enough  to  find  out  that  it 
was  passed  in  the  Senate  upon  the  faith  of  a 
committee,  without  any  discussion  in  the  body ; 
and  in  the  House  by  the  previous  question,  cut- 
ting off  all  debate ;  and  so  quietly  and  rapidly  as 
to  escape  the  knowledge  of  the  most  vigilant 
members — the  knowledge  of  Mr.  Adams  him- 
self, proverbially  diligent.  In  the  course  of  his 
remarks  he  (Mr.  Adams)  said : 

"  Upwards  of  $1,200,000  in  the  year  1837, 
constituting  that  fund,  had  been  accumulating 
for  a  number  of  years.  What  had  become  of  it, 
if  the  fund  was  exhausted?  It  was  wasted — it 
was  gone.  And  what  was  it  gone  for  ?  Gen- 
tlemen would  tell  the  House  that  it  had  gone  to 
pay  those  pensioners  not  provided  for  by  the  8th 
and  9th  sections  of  the  act  which  had  been  read 
— the  act  of  1800;  but  to  provide  for  the  pay- 
ment of  others,  their  wives  and  children ;  and 
their  cousins,  uncles  and  aunts,  for  aught  he 
knew — provided  for  by  the  act  of  1837.  It  was 
gone.  Now,  he  wished  gentlemen  who  were  so 
much  attached  to  the  economies  of  the  present 
administration,  to  make  a  little  comparison  be- 
tween the  condition  of  the  fund  now  and  its  condi- 
tion in  1837,  when  the  sum  of  $1,200,000  had  ac- 
cumulated— from  the  interest  of  which  all  the 
pensions  designated  in  the  act  of  1800  were  to 
have  been  paid.  In  the  space  of  three  little  years, 
this  fund  of  $1,200,000  (carrying  an  interest  of 
$70,000)  was  totally  gone — absorbed — not  a 
dollar  of  it  left.  Yes :  there  were  some  State 
stocks,  to  be  sure;  about  $18,000  or  less  ;  but 
they  were  unsaleable ;  and  it  was  because  they 
wrere  unsaleable  that  this  appropriation,  in  part, 
was  wanted.  How  came  this  act  of  1837  to 
have  passed  Congress  ?  Because  he  saw,  from 
the  ground  taken  by  the  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee on  naval  affairs,  that  it  was  Congress 
that  had  been  guilty  of  this  waste  of  the  public 
money ;  the  President  had  nothing  to  do  with 
it — the  administration  had  nothing  to  do  with 
it.  How,  he  asked,  was  this  law  of  1837  pass- 
ed ?  Would  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Naval  Affairs  tell  the  House  how  it  had  been 
passed ;  by  whom  it  had  been  brought  in  and 
supported ;  and  in  what  manner  it  had  been  car- 
ried through  both  Houses  of  Congress  ?  If  he 
would,  we  should  then  hear  whether  it  came 
from  whigs ;  or  from  economists,  retrenchers, 
and  reformers." 

Mr.  Francis  Thomas,  now  the  Chairman  of 


the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs,  in  answer  to 
Mr.  Adams's  inquiry,  as  to  who  were  the  authors 
of  this  act  of  1837,  stated  that 

"  It  had  been  reported  to  the  Senate  by  the 
honorable  Mr.  Robinson,  of  Illinois,  and  sent  to 
the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs,  of  which  Mr. 
Southard  was  a  member,  and  he  had  reported 
the  bill  to  the  Senate,  by  whom  it  had  been 
passed  without  a  division.  The  Senate  bill 
coming  into  the  House,  had  been  referred  to  the 
Committee  on  Naval  Affairs,  in  the  House.  Mr. 
T.  read  the  names  of  this  committee,  among 
which  that  of  Mr.  Wise  was  one.  The  bill  had 
been  ordered  to  its  third  reading  without  a  di- 
vision, and  passed  by  the  House  without  amend- 
ment. 

"Mr.  Wise  explained,  stating  that,  though 
his  name  appeared  on  the  naval  committee,  he 
was  not  responsible  for  the  bill.  He  was  at  that 
time  but  nominally  one  of  the  committee — his 
attention  was  directed  elsewhere — he  had  other 
fish  to  fry — and  could  no  longer  attend  to  the 
business  of  that  committee  [of  which  he  had 
previously  been  an  active  member],  being  ap- 
pointed on  another,  which  occupied  his  time  and 
thoughts." 

Mr.  Adams,  while  condemning  the  act  of  1837, 
would  not  now  refuse  to  pay  the  pensioners  out 
of  the  Treasury.     He  continued  : 

"When  the  act  of  1837  was  before  Congress, 
then  was  the  time  to  have  inquired  whether 
these  persons  were  fairly  entitled  to  such  a  pen- 
sion— whether  Congress  was  bound  to  provide 
for  widows  and  children,  and  for  relatives  in  the 
seventh  degree  (for  aught  he  knew).  But  that 
was  not  now  the  inquiry.  He  thought  that,  by 
looking  at  the  journals,  gentlemen  would  see 
that  the  bill  was  passed  through  under  the  pre- 
vious question,  or  something  of  that  kind.  He 
was  in  the  House,  but  he  could  not  say  how  it 
passed.  He  was  not  conscious  of  it ;  and  the 
discussion  must  have  been  put  down  in  the  way 
in  which  such  things  were  usually  done  in  this 
House — by  clapping  the  previous  question  upon 
it.  No  questions  were  asked ;  and  that  was  the 
way  in  which  the  bill  passed.  He  did  not  think 
he  could  tell  the  whole  story ;  but  he  thought  it 
very  probable  that  there  were  those  in  this  House 
who  could  tell  if  they  would,  and  who  could  tell 
what  private  interests  were  provided  for  in  it. 
He  had  not  been  able  to  look  quite  far  enough 
behind  the  curtain  to  know  these  things,  but  he 
knew  that  the  bill  was  passed  in  a  way  quite 
common  since  the  reign  of  reform  commenced  in 
squandering  away  the  public  treasure.  That 
he  affirmed,  and  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Naval  Affairs  would  not,  he  thought,  under- 
take to  contradict  it.     So  much  for  that." 

Mr.  Adams  showed  that  a  further  loss  had 
been  sustained  under  this  pension  act  of  1837, 


270 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


under  the  conduct  of  the  House  itself,  at  the 
previous  session,  in  refusing  to  consider  a  mes- 
sage from  the  President,  and  in  refusing  to  intro- 
duce a  resolution  to  show  the  loss  which  was 
about  to  be  sustained.  At  that  time  there  was 
a  part  of  this  naval  pension  fund  ($153,000) 
still  on  hand,  but  it  was  in  stocks,  greatly  de- 
preciated ;  and  the  President  sent  in  a  report 
from  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  that  $50,000 
was  wanted  for  the  half-3-early  payments  due 
the  first  of  July ;  and,  if  not  appropriated  by 
Congress,  the  stocks  must  be  sold  for  what  they 
would  bring.     On  this  head,  he  said  : 

"  Towards  the  close  of  the  last  session  of  Con- 
gress, a  message  was  transmitted  by  the  Presi- 
dent, covering  a  communication  from  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Navy,  suggesting  that  an  appropria- 
tion of  $50,000  was  necessary  to  meet  the  pay- 
ment of  pensions  coming  due  on  the  1st  of  July 
last.  The  message  was  sent  on  the  19th  of  June, 
and  there  was  in  it  a  letter  from  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy,  stating  that  the  sum  of  $50,000  was 
required  to  pay  pensions  coming  due  on  the  then 
1st  of  July,  and  that  it  was  found  impracticable 
to  effect  a  sale  of  the  stocks  belonging  to  the 
fund,  even  at  considerable  loss,  in  time  to  meet 
the  payment.  What  did  the  House  do  with  that 
message  ?  It  had  no  time  to  consider  it ;  and 
then  it  was  that  he  had  offered  his  resolutions. 
But  the  House  would  not  receive  them — would 
not  allow  them  to  be  read.  The  time  of  pay- 
ment came — and  sacrifices  of  the  stocks  were 
made,  which  were  absolutely  indispensable  so 
long  as  the  House  would  not  make  the  pay- 
ment. And  that  $50,000  was  one  of  the  demon- 
strations and  reductions  from  the  expenditures 
of  1840,  about  which  the  President  and  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  were  congratulating 
themselves  and  the  country.  They  called  for 
the  $50,000.  They  told  the  House  that  if  that 
sum  was  not  appropriated,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  make  great  sacrifices.  Yet  the  House  refused 
to  consider  the  subject  at  all. 

"  He  had  desired  a  long  time  to  say  this  much 
to  the  House ;  and  he  said  it  now,  although  a 
little  out  of  order,  because  he  had  never  been 
allowed  to  say  it  in  order.  At  the  last  ses- 
sion the  House  would  not  hear  him  upon  any 
thing  ;  and  it  was  that  consideration  which  in- 
duced him  to  offer  the  resolutions  he  had  read, 
and  which  gave  something  like  a  sample  of 
these  things.  He  offered  them  after  the  very 
message  calling  for  $50,000  for  this  very  ob- 
ject, had  come  in.  But  no,  it  was  not  in  order, 
and  there  was  a  gentleman  here  who  cried  out 
"  /  object ! "  He  (Mr.  A.)  was  not  heard  by 
the  House,  but  he  had  now  been  heard ;  and 
he  hoped  that  when  he  should  again  offer  these 
resolutions,  as  he  wished  to  do,  they  might  at 
least  be  allowed  to  go  on  the  journal  as  a  record, 
to  show  that  such  propositions  had  been  offered. 


Those  resolutions  went  utterly  and  entirely 
against  the  system  of  purchasing  State  bonds 
above  par,  and  selling  them  fifty  or  sixty  per 
cent,  below  par." 

These  debates  are  instructive,  as  showing  in 
what  manner  legislation  can  be  carried  on,  under 
the  silencing  process  of  the  previous  question. 
Here  was  a  bill,  slipped  through  the  House,  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  its  vigilant  members,  by 
which  a  fund  of  one  million  two  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  was  squandered  at  once,  and  a 
charge  of  about  $100,000  per  annum  put  upon 
the  Treasury  to  supply  the  place  of  the  squan- 
dered fund,  to  continue  during  the  lives  of  the 
pensioners,  so  far  as  they  were  widows  or  in- 
valids, and  until  twenty-one  years  of  age,  so  far 
as  they  were  children.  And  it  is  remarkable 
that  no  one  took  notice  of  the  pregnant  insinua- 
tion of  Mr.  Adams,  equivalent  to  an  affirmation, 
that,  although  he  could  not  tell  the  whole  story 
of  the  passage  of  the  act  of  1837,  there  were 
others  in  the  House  who  could,  if  they  would ; 
and  also  could  tell  what  private  interests  were 
provided  for. 

No  branch  of  the  public  service  requires  the 
reforming  and  retrenching  hand  of  Congress 
more  than  the  naval,  now  costing  (ocean  steam 
mail  lines  included)  above  eighteen  millions  of 
dollars  :  to  be  precise— $18,586,547,  and  41 
cents  ;  and  exclusive  of  the  coast  survey,  about 
$400,000  more  ;  and  exclusive  of  the  naval 
pensions.  The  civil,  diplomatic,  and  miscella- 
neous branch  is  frightful,  now  amounting  to 
$17,255,929  and  59  cents:  and  the  military, 
also,  now  counting  $12,571,496  and  64  cents 
(not  including  the  pensions).  Both  these 
branches  cry  aloud  for  retrenchment  and  re- 
form ;  but  not  equally  with  the  naval — which 
stands  the  least  chance  to  receive  it.  The  navy, 
being  a  maritime  establishment,  has  been  con- 
sidered a  branch  of  service  with  which  members 
from  the  interior  were  supposed  to  have  but 
little  acquaintance  ;  and,  consequently,  but  little 
right  of  interference.  I  have  seen  many  eyes 
open  wide,  when  a  member  from  the  interior 
would  presume  to  speak  upon  it.  By  conse- 
quence, it  has  fallen  chiefly  under  the  manage- 
ment of  members  from  the  sea-coast — the  tide- 
water districts  of  the  Atlantic  coast:  where 
there  is  an  interest  in  its  growth,  and  also  in 
its  abuses.  Seven  navy  yards  (while  Great 
Britain  has  but  two)  j  the  constant  building, 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT 


271 


and  equally  constant  repairing  and  altering  ves- 
sels ;  their  renewed  equipment ;  the  enlistment 
and  discharge  of  crews ;  the  schools  and  hos- 
pitals ;  the  dry  docks  and  wet  docks  ;  the  con- 
gregation of  officers  ashore  ;  and  the  ample  pen- 
sion list:  all  these  make  an  expenditure,  pe- 
rennial and  enormous,  and  always  increasing, 
creates  a  powerful  interest  in  favor  of  every 
proposition  to  spend  money  on  the  navy — espe- 
cially in  the  north-east,  where  the  bulk  of  the 
money  goes;  and  an  interest  not  confined  to 
the  members  of  Congress  from  those  districts, 
but  including  a  powerful  lobby  force,  supplied 
with  the  arguments  which  deceive  many,  and 
the  means  which  seduce  more.  While  this 
management  remains  local,  reform  and  retrench- 
ment are  not  to  be  expected ;  nor  could  any 
member  accomplish  any  thing  without  the  sup- 
port and  countenance  of  an  administration.  Be- 
sides a  local  interest,  potential  on  the  subject, 
against  reform,  party  spirit,  or  policy,  opposes 
the  same  obstacle.  The  navy  has  been,  and  still 
is,  to  some  degree,  a  party  question — one  party 
assuming  to  be  its  guardian  and  protector ;  and 
defending  abuses  to  sustain  that  character.  So 
far  as  this  question  goes  to  the  degree,  and  kind 
of  a  navy — whether  fleets  to  fight  battles  for  the 
dominion  of  the  seas,  or  cruisers  to  protect  com- 
merce— it  is  a  fair  question,  on  which  parties 
may  differ :  but  as  to  abuse  and  extravagance, 
there  should  be  no  difference.  And  yet  what 
but  abuse — what  but  headlong,  wilful,  and  irre- 
sponsible extravagance,  could  carry  up  our  naval 
expenditure  to  18  millions  of  dollars,  in  time  of 
peace,  without  a  ship  of  the  line  afloat !  and 
without  vessels  enough  to  perform  current  ser- 
vice, without  hiring  and  purchasing  ! 


CHAPTER   LXXIII. 

HOME  SQUADRON,  AND  AID  TO  PRIVATE  STEAM 
LINES. 

Great  Britain  has  a  home  squadron,  and  that 
results  from  her  geographical  structure  as  a 
cluster  of  islands,  often  invaded,  more  frequently 
threatened,  and  always  liable  to  sudden  descents 
upon  some  part  of  her  coast,  resulting  from  her 
proximity  to  continental  Europe,  and  engaged 


as  principal  or  ally  in  almost  all  the  wars  of  that 
continent.  A  fleet  for  home  purposes,  to  cruise 
continually  along  her  coasts,  and  to  watch  the 
neighboring  coasts  of  her  often  enemies,  was, 
then,  a  necessity  of  her  insular  position.  Not 
so  with  the  United  States.  We  are  not  an 
island,  but  a  continent,  geographically  remote 
from  Europe,  and  politically  still  more  so — un- 
connected with  the  wars  of  Europe — having  but 
few  of  our  own  ;  having  but  little  cause  to  ex- 
pect descents  and  invasions,  and  but  little  to 
fear  from  them,  if  they  came.  Piracy  had  dis- 
appeared from  the  West  Indies  twenty  years 
before.  We  had  then  no  need  for  a  home  squad- 
ron. But  Great  Britain  had  one  ;  and  therefore 
we  must.  That  was  the  true  reason,  with  the 
desire  for  a  great  navy,  cherished  by  the  party 
opposed  to  the  democracy  (no  matter  under 
what  name),  and  now  dominant  in  all  the  de- 
partments of  the  government,  for  the  creation 
of  a  home  squadron  at  this  session.  The  Secre- 
tary of  the  Navy  and  the  navy  board  recom- 
mended it :  Mr.  Thomas  Butler  King,  from  the 
Naval  Committee  of  the  House,  reported  a  bill 
for  it,  elaborately  recommended  in  a  most  ample 
report :  the  two  Houses  passed  it :  the  Presi- 
dent approved  it :  and  thus,  at  this  extra  ses- 
sion, was  fastened  upon  the  country  a  supernu- 
merary fleet  of  two  frigates,  two  sloops,  two 
schooners,  and  two  armed  steamers:  for  the 
annual  subsistence  and  repairs  of  which,  about 
nine  hundred  thousand  dollars  were  appropri- 
ated. This  was  fifteen  years  ago ;  and  the 
country  has  yet  to  hear  of  the  first  want,  the 
first  service,  rendered  by  this  domestic  squad- 
ron. In  the  mean  time,  it  furnishes  comfortable 
pay  and  subsistence,  and  commodious  living 
about  home,  to  some  considerable  number  of 
officers  and  men. 

But  the  ample  report  which  was  drawn  up, 
and  of  which  five  thousand  extra  copies  were 
printed,  and  the  speeches  delivered  in  its  favor, 
were  bound  to  produce  reasons  for  this  new 
precaution  against  the  danger  of  invasion,  now 
to  be  provided  after  threescore  years  of  exist- 
ence without  it,  and  when  we  had  grown  too 
strong,  and  too  well  covered  our  maritime  cities 
with  fortresses,  to  dread  the  descent  of  any 
enemy.  Reasons  were  necessary  to  be  given, 
and  were  ;  in  which  the  British  example,  of 
course,  was  omitted.  But  reasons  were  given 
(in  addition  to  the  main  object  of  defence),  as 


272 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


that  it  would  be  a  school  for  the  instruction 
of  the  young  midshipmen ;  and  that  it  would 
give  employment  to  many  junior  officers  then 
idle  in  the  cities.  With  respect  to  the  first  of 
these  reasons  it  was  believed  by  some  that  the 
merchant  service  was  the  best  school  in  which 
a  naval  officer  was  ever  trained ;  and  with  re- 
spect to  the  idle  officers,  that  the  true  remedy 
was  not  to  create  so  many.  The  sum  appro- 
priated by  the  bill  was  in  gross — so  much  for 
all  the  different  objects  named  in  the  bill,  with- 
out saying  how  much  for  each.  This  was  ob- 
jected to  by  Mr.  McKay  of  North  Carolina,  as 
being  contrary  to  democratic  practice,  which 
required  specific  appropriations;  also  as  being 
a  mere  disguise  for  an  increase  of  the  navy; 
and  further  that  it  was  not  competent  for  Con- 
gress to  limit  the  employment  of  a  navy.  He 
said  : 

"  That  the  bill  before  the  committee  proposed 
to  appropriate  a  gross  sum  to  effect  the  object 
in  view,  which  he  deemed  a  departure  from  the 
wholesome  rule  heretofore  observed  in  making 
appropriations.  It  was  known  to  all  that  since 
the  political  revolution  of  1800,  which  placed 
the  democratic  party  in  power,  the  doctrine  had 
generally  prevailed,  that  all  our  appropriations 
should  be  specific.  Now  he  would  suggest  to 
the  chairman  whether  it  would  not  be  better  to 
pursue  that  course  in  the  present  instance. 
Here  Mr.  McKay  enumerated  the  different  items 
of  expenditure  to  be  provided  for  in  the  bill, 
and  named  the  specific  sum  for  each.  This  was 
the  form,  he  said,  in  which  all  our  naval  appro- 
priation bills  had  heretofore  passed.  He  saw 
no  reason  for  a  departure  from  this  wholesome 
practice  in  this  instance — a  practice  which  was 
the  best  and  most  effectual  means  of  securing 
the  accountability  of  our  disbursing  officers. 
There  was  another  suggestion  he  would  throw 
out  for  the  consideration  of  the  chairman,  and 
he  thought  it  possessed  some  weight.  This  bill 
purported  to  be  for  the  establishment  of  a  home 
squadron,  but  he  looked  upon  it  as  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  for  the  increase  of  the  navy. 
Again,  could  Congress  be  asked  to  direct  the 
manner  in  which  this  squadron,  after  it  was  fit- 
ted out,  should  be  employed  ?  It  was  true  that 
by  the  constitution,  Congress  alone  was  author- 
ized to  build  and  fit  out  a  navy,  but  the  Presi- 
dent was  the  commander-in-chief,  and  had  alone 
the  power  to  direct  how  and  where  it  should  be 
employed.  The  title  of  this  bill,  therefore, 
should  be  f  a  bill  to  increase  the  navy,'  for  it 
would  not  be  imperative  on  the  President  to  em- 
ploy this  squadron  on  our  coasts.  Mr.  M.  said 
he  did  not  rise  to  enter  into  a  long  discussion, 
but  merely  to  suggest  to  the  consideration  of 
the  chairman  of  the  committee,  the  propriety 


of  making  the  appropriations  in  the  bill  spe- 
cific." 

"  Mr.  Wise  said  that  he  agreed  entirely  with 
the  gentleman  from  North  Carolina  as  to  the 
doctrine  of  specific  appropriations;  and  if  he 
supposed  that  this  bill  violated  that  salutary 
principle  he  should  be  willing  to  amend  it. 
But  it  did  not ;  it  declared  a  specific  object,  for 
which  the  money  was  given.  He  did  not  see 
the  necessity  of  going  into  all  the  items  which 
made  up  the  sum.  That  Congress  had  no 
power  to  ordain  that  a  portion  of  the  navy 
should  be  always  retained  upon  the  coast  as  a 
home  squadron,  was  to  him  a  new  doctrine. 
The  bill  did  not  say  that  these  vessels  should 
never  be  sent  any  where  else." 

"  Mr.  McKay  insisted  on  the  ground  he  had 
taken,  and  went  into  a  very  handsome  eulogy 
on  the  principle  of  specific  appropriations  of  the 
public  money,  as  giving  to  the  people  the  only 
security  they  had  for  the  proper  and  the  eco- 
nomical use  of  their  money ;  but  this,  by  the 
present  shape  of  the  bill,  they  would  entirely  be 
deprived  of.  The  bill  might  be  modified  with 
the  utmost  ease,  but  he  should  move  no  amend- 
ments." 

Mr.  Thomas  Butler  King,  the  reporter  of  the 
bill,  entered  largely  into  its  support,  and  made 
some  comparative  statements  to  show  that 
much  money  had  been  expended  heretofore  on 
the  navy  with  very  inadequate  results  in  get- 
ting guns  afloat,  going  as  high  as  eight  millions 
of  dollars  in  a  year  and  floating  but  five  hun- 
dred and  fifty  guns  ;  and  claimed  an  improve- 
ment now,  as,  for  seven  millions  and  a  third 
they  would  float  one  thousand  and  seventy 
guns.    Mr.  King  then  said  : 

"He  had  heard  much  about  the  abuse  and 
misapplication  of  moneys  appropriated  for  the 
navy,  and  he  believed  it  all  to  be  true.  To 
illustrate  the  truth  of  the  charge,  he  would  re- 
fer to  the  table  already  quoted,  snowing  on  one 
hand  the  appropriations  made,  and  on  the  other 
the  results  thereby  obtained.  In  1800  there 
had  been  an  appropriation  of  $2,704,148,  and 
we  had  then  876  guns  afloat ;  while  in  1836, 
with  an  appropriation  of  $7,011,055,  we  had 
but  462  guns  afloat.  In  1841,  with  an  appro- 
priation of  a  little  over  three  millions,  we  had 
836  guns  afloat ;  and  in  1838,  with  an  appro- 
priation of  over  eight  millions,  we  had  but  554 
guns  afloat.  These  facts  were  sufficient  to  show 
how  enormous  must  have  been  the  abuses  some- 
where." 

Mr.  King  also  gave  a  statement  of  the  French 
and  British  navies,  and  showed  their  great 
strength,  in  order  to  encourage  our  own  build- 
ing of  a  great  navy  to  be  able  to  cope  with 
them  on  the  ocean.    He 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


273 


"  Alluded  to  the  change  which  had  manifest- 
ed itself  in  the  naval  policy  of  Great  Britain,  in 
regard  to  a  substitution  of  steam  power  for  or- 
dinary ships  of  war.  He  stated  the  enumera- 
tion of  the  British  fleet,  in  1840,  to  be  as  fol- 
lows :  ships  of  the  line,  105 ;  vessels  of  a  lower 
grade,  in  all,  403 ;  and  war  steamers,  87.  The 
number  of  steamers  had  since  then  been  stated 
at  300.  The  French  navy,  in  1840,  consisted 
of  23  ships  of  the  line,  180  lesser  vessels,  and  36 
steamers  ;  besides  which,  there  had  been,  at 
that  time,  eight  more  steamers  on  the  stocks. 
These  vessels  could  be  propelled  by  steam 
across  the  Atlantic  in  twelve  or  fourteen  days. 
What  would  be  the  condition  of  the  lives  and 
property  of  our  people,  if  encountered  by  a 
force  of  this  description,  without  a  gun  to  de- 
fend themselves  ?  " 

Lines  of  railroad,  with  their  steam-cars,  had 
not,  at  that  time,  taken  such  extension  and 
multiplication  as  to  be  taken  into  the  account 
for  national  defence.  Now  troops  can  come 
from  the  geographical  centre  of  Missouri  in 
about  sixty  hours  (summoned  by  the  electric 
telegraph  in  a  few  minutes),  and  arrive  at  al- 
most any  point  on  the  Atlantic  coast ;  and  from 
all  the  intermediate  States  in  a  proportionately 
less  time.  The  railroad,  and  the  electric  tele- 
graph, have  opened  a  new  era  in  defensive  war, 
and  especially  for  the  United  States,  supersed- 
ing old  ideas,  and  depriving  invasion  of  all 
alarm.  But  the  bill  was  passed — almost  unan- 
imously— only  eight  votes  against  it  in  the 
House ;  namely :  Linn  Boyd  of  Kentucky ; 
Walter  Coles  of  Virginia ;  John  G.  Floyd  of 
New  York ;  William  O.  Goode  of  Virginia  ; 
Cave  Johnson,  Abraham  McClelland,  and 
Hopkins  L.  Turney  of  Tennessee;  and  John 
Thompson  Mason  of  Maryland.  It  passed  the 
Senate  without  yeas  and  nays. 

A  part  of  the  report  in  favor  of  the  home 
squadron  was  also  a  recommendation  to  extend 
assistance  out  of  the  public  treasury  to  the  es- 
tablishment of  private  lines  of  ocean  steamers, 
adapted  to  war  purposes ;  and  in  conformity  to 
it  Mr.  King  moved  this  resolution : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
is  hereby  directed  to  inquire  into  the  expe- 
diency of  aiding  individuals  or  companies  in  our 
establishment  of  lines  of  armed  steamers  be- 
tween some  of  our  principal  Northern  and 
Southern  ports,  and  to  foreign  ports  ;  to  adver- 
tise for  proposals  for  the  establishment  of  such 
lines  as  he  may  deem  most  important  and  prac- 
ticable ;  and  to  report  to  this  House  at  the  next 
session  of  Congress." 

Vol.  II.— 18 


This  resolution  was  adopted,  and  laid  the 
foundation  for  those  annual  enormous  appro- 
priations for  private  lines  of  ocean  steamers 
which  have  subjected  many  members  of  Con- 
gress to  such  odious  imputations,  and  which 
has  taken,  and  is  taking,  so  many  millions  of 
the  public  money  to  enable  individuals  to  break 
down  competition,  and  enrich  themselves  at 
the  public  expense.  It  was  a  measure  worthy 
to  go  with  the  home  squadron,  and  the  worst 
of  the  two — each  a  useless  waste  of  money; 
and  each  illustrating  the  difficulty,  and  almost 
total  impossibility,  of  getting  rid  of  bad  meas- 
ures when  once  passed,  and  an  interest  created 
for  them. 


CHAPTER    LXXIV. 

EECHARTER  OP  THE  DISTRICT  BANKS  :  ME.  BEN- 
TON'S SPEECH :  EXTRACTS. 

Mr.  Benton  then  proposed  the  following 
amendment : 

"  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  each  and 
every  of  said  banks  be,  and  they  are  hereby, 
expressly  prohibited  from  issuing  or  paying 
out,  under  any  pretence  whatever,  any  bill, 
note,  or  other  paper,  designed  or  intended  to  be 
used  and  circulated  as  money,  of  a  less  denomi- 
nation than  five  dollars,  or  of  any  denomination 
between  five  and  ten  dollars,  after  one  year 
from  the  passage  of  this  bill ;  or  between  ten 
and  twenty  dollars,  after  two  years  from  the 
same  time ;  and  for  any  violation  of  the  pro- 
visions of  this  section,  or  for  issuing  or  paying 
out  the  notes  of  any  bank  in  a  state  of  suspen- 
sion, its  own  inclusive,  the  offending  bank  shall 
incur  all  the  penalties  and  forfeitures  to  be  pro- 
vided and  directed  by  the  first  section  of  this 
act  for  the  case  of  supension  or  refusal  to  pay 
in  specie ;  to  be  enforced  in  like  manner  as  is 
directed  by  that  section." 

Mr.  Benton.  The  design  of  the  amendment 
is  to  suppress  two  great  evils  in  our  banking  sys- 
tem :  the  evil  of  small  notes,  and  that  of  banks 
combining  to  sustain  each  other  in  a  state  of 
suspension.  Small  notes  are  a  curse  in  them- 
selves to  honest,  respectable  banks,  and  lead  to 
their  embarrassment,  whether  issued  by  them- 
selves or  others.  They  go  into  hands  of  labor- 
ing people,  and  become  greatly  diffused,  and 
give  rise  to  panics  ;  and  when  a  panic  is  raised 
it  cannot  be  stopped  among  the  holders  of  these 


274 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


small  notes.  Their  multitudinous  holders  can- 
not go  into  the  counting-room  to  examine 
assets,  and  ascertain  an  ultimate  ability.  They 
rush  to  the  counter,  and  demand  pay.  They 
assemble  in  crowds,  and  spread  alarm.  When 
started,  the  alarm  becomes  contagious — makes 
a  run  upon  all  banks  ;  and  overturns  the  good 
as  well  as  the  bad.  Small  notes  are  a  curse  to 
all  good  banks.  They  are  the  cause  of  suspen- 
sions. When  the  Bank  of  England  commenced 
operations,  she  issued  no  notes  of  a  less  denom- 
ination than  one  hundred  pounds  sterling ;  and 
when  the  notes  were  paid  into  the  Bank,  they 
were  cancelled  and  destroyed.  But  in  the 
course  of  one  hundred  and  three  years,  she 
worked  down  from  one  hundred  pound  notes 
to  one  pound  notes.  And  when  did  they  com- 
mence reducing  the  amount  of  their  notes? 
During  the  administration  of  Sir  Robert  Wal- 
pole.  When  the  notes  got  down  to  one  pound, 
specie  was  driven  from  circulation,  and  went  to 
France  and  Holland,  and  a  suspension  of  six 
and  twenty  years  followed. 

They  are  a  curse  to  all  good  banks  in  another 
way:  they  banish  gold  and  silver  from  the 
country :  and  when  that  is  banished  the  foun- 
dation which  supports  the  bank  is  removed : 
and  the  bank  itself  must  come  tumbling  down. 
While  there  is  gold  and  silver  in  the  country — 
in  common  circulation — banks  will  be  but  little 
called  upon  for  it :  and  if  pressed  can  get  assist- 
ance from  their  customers.  But  when  it  is 
banished  the  country,  they  alone  are  called 
upon,  and  get  no  help  if  hard  run.  All  good 
banks  should  be  against  small  notes  on  their 
own  account. 

These  small  notes  are  a  curse  to  the  public. 
They  are  the  great  source  of  counterfeiting. 
Look  at  any  price  current,  and  behold  the  cata- 
logue of  the  counterfeits.  They  are  almost  all 
on  the  small  denominations — under  twenty  dol- 
lars. And  this  counterfeiting,  besides  being  a 
crime  in  itself,  leads  to  crimes — to  a  general 
demoralization  in  passing  them.  Holders  can- 
not afford  to  lose  them  :  they  cannot  trace  out 
the  person  from  whom  they  got  them.  They 
gave  value  for  them ;  and  pass  them  to  some- 
body— generally  the  most  meritorious  and  least 
able  to  bear  the  loss — the  day-laborer.  Final- 
ly, they  stop  in  somebody's  hands — generally 
in  the  hands  of  a  working  man  or  woman. 

Why  are  banks  so  fond  of  issuing  these  small 


notes  ?  Why,  in  the  first  place,  banks  of  high 
character  are  against  them  :  it  is  only  the  pred- 
atory class  that  are  for  them:  and,  unfortu- 
nately, they  are  a  numerous  progen}^.  It  is  in 
vain  they  say  they  issue  them  for  public  ac- 
commodation. The  public  would  be  much  bet- 
ter accommodated  with  silver  dollars,  gold  dol- 
lars— with  half,  whole,  double,  and  quarter 
eagles — whereof  they  would  have  enough  if 
these  predatory  notes  were  suppressed.  No! 
they  are  issued  for  profit — for  dishonest  profit 
— for  the  shameful  and  criminal  purpose  of  get- 
ting something  for  nothing.  It  is  for  the  wear 
and  tear  of  these  little  pilfering  messengers ! 
for  their  loss  in  the  hands  of  somebody  !  which 
loss  is  the  banker's  gain !  the  gain  of  a  day's  or 
a  week's  work  from  a  poor  man,  or  woman,  for 
nothing.  Shame  on  such  a  spirit,  and  criminal 
punishment  on  it  besides.  But  although  the 
gains  are  small  individually,  and  in  the  petty  lar- 
ceny spirit,  yet  the  aggregate  is  great ;  and  en- 
ters into  the  regular  calculation  of  profit  in  these 
paper  money  machines  ;  and  counts  in  the  end. 
There  is  always  a  large  per  centum  of  these 
notes  outstanding — never  to  come  back.  When, 
at  the  end  of  twenty-five  years,  Parliament  re- 
pealed the  privilege  granted  to  the  Bank  of 
England  to  issue  notes  under  five  pounds,  a 
large  amount  were  outstanding ;  and  though  the 
repeal  took  place  more  than  twenty  years  ago, 
yet  every  quarterly  return  of  the  Bank  now 
shows  that  millions  of  these  notes  are  still  out- 
standing, which  are  lost  or  destroyed,  and  never 
will  be  presented.  The  Bank  of  England  does 
not  now  issue  any  note  under  five  pounds  ster- 
ling: nor  any  other  bank  in  England.  The 
large  banks  repulsed  the  privilege  for  them- 
selves, and  got  it  denied  to  all  the  small  class. 
To  carry  the  iniquity  of  these  pillaging  little 
notes  to  the  highest  point,  and  to  make  them 
open  swindlers,  is  to  issue  them  at  one  place, 
redeemable  at  another.  That  is  to  double  the 
cheat — to  multiply  the  chance  of  losing  the  little 
plunderer  by  sending  him  abroad,  and  to  get  a 
chance  of  "shaving"  him  in  if  he  does  not  go. 

The  statistics  of  crime  in  Great  Britain  show, 
that  of  all  the  counterfeiting  of  bank  bills  and 
paper  securities  in  that  kingdom,  more  is  coun- 
terfeited on  notes  under  five  pounds  than  over, 
and  it  is  the  same  in  this  country.  On  whom 
does  the  loss  of  these  counterfeit  notes  fall  1  On 
the  poor  and  the  ignorant — the  laborer  and  the 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


275 


mechanic.  Hence  these  banks  inflict  a  double 
injury  on  the  poorer  classes  ;  and  of  all  the  evils 
of  the  banking  system,  the  most  revolting  is  its 
imposing  unequal  burdens  on  that  portion  of  the 
people  the  least  able  to  bear  them. 

Mr.  B.  then  instanced  a  case  in  point  of  an 
Insurance  Company  in  St.  Louis,  which,  in  vio- 
lation of  law,  assumed  banking  privileges,  and 
circulated  to  a  large  extent  the  notes  of  a  sus- 
pended bank.  Up  to  Saturday  night  these  notes 
were  paid  out  from  its  counter,  and  the  working 
man  and  mechanics  of  St.  Louis  were  paid  their 
week's  wages  in  them.  "Well,  when  Monday 
morning  came,  the  Insurance  Company  refused 
to  receive  one  of  them,  and  they  fell  at  once  to 
fifty  cents  on  the  dollar.  Thus  the  laborer  and 
the  mechanic  had  three  days  of  their  labor  an- 
nihilated, or  had  worked  three  days  for  the  ex- 
clusive benefit  of  those  who  had  swindled  them ; 
and  all  this  by  a  bank  having  power  to  receive 
or  refuse  what  paper  they  please,  and  when  they 
please.  And  the  Senate  are  now  called  upon  to 
confer  the  same  privilege  upon  the  banks  of  this 
district. 

Mr.  B.  said  it  was  against  the  immutable  prin- 
ciples of  justice — in  opposition  to  God's  most 
holy  canon,  to  make  a  thing  of  value  to-day, 
which  will  be  of  none  to-morrow.  You  might 
as  well  permit  the  dry  goods  merchant  to  call 
his  yard  measure  three  yards,  or  the  grocer  to 
call  his  quart  three  quarts,  as  to  permit  the 
banker  to  call  his  dollar  three  dollars.  There 
is  no  difference  in  principle,  though  more  subtle 
in  the  manner  of  doing  it.  Money  is  the  stand- 
ard of  value,  as  the  yard,  and  the  gallon,  and 
the  pound  weight,  were  the  standards  of  meas- 
ure. 

When  he  proposed  the  amendment,  he  con- 
sidered it  a  proper  opportunity  to  bring  before 
the  people  of  the  United  States  the  great  ques- 
tion, whether  they  should  have  an  exclusive 
paper  currency  or  not.  He  wished  to  call  their 
attention  to  this  war  upon  the  currency  of  the 
constitution — a  war  unremitting  and  merciless 
— to  establish  in  this  country  an  exclusive  paper 
currency.  This  war  to  subvert  the  gold  and 
silver  currency  of  the  constitution,  is  waged  by 
that  party  who  vilify  your  branch  mints,  ridicule 
gold,  ridicule  silver,  go  for  banks  at  all  times 
and  at  all  places  ;  and  go  for  a  paper  circulation 
down  to  notes  of  six  and  a  quarter  cents.  He 
rejoiced  that  this  question  was  presented  in  that 


body,  on  a  platform  so  high  that  every  American 
can  see  it — the  question  of  a  sound  or  depreciated 
currency.  He  was  glad  to  see  the  advocates  of 
banks,  State  and  national,  show  their  hand  on 
this  question. 

To  hear  these  paper-money  advocates  cele- 
brate their  idols — for  they  really  seem  to  wor- 
ship bank  notes — and  the  smaller  and  meaner 
the  better — one  would  be  tempted  to  think  that 
bank  notes  were  the  ancient  and  universal  cur- 
rency of  the  world,  and  that  gold  and  silver 
were  a  modern  invention — an  innovation — an 
experiment — the  device  of  some  quack,  who  de- 
served no  better  answer  than  to  be  called  hum- 
bug. To  hear  them  discoursing  of  "sound 
banks,"  and  "  sound  circulating  medium,"  one 
would  suppose  that  they  considered  gold  and 
silver  unsound,  and  subject  to  disease,  rotten- 
ness, and  death.  But,  why  do  they  apply  this 
phrase  "  sound  "  to  banks  and  their  currency  ? 
It  is  a  phrase  never  applied  to  any  thing  which 
is  not  subject  to  unsoundness — to  disease — to 
rottenness — to  death.  The  very  phrase  brings 
up  the  idea  of  something  subject  to  unsound- 
ness ;  and  that  is  true  of  banks  of  circulation 
and  their  currency :  but  it  is  not  true  of  gold 
and  silver :  and  the  phrase  is  never  applied  to 
them.  No  one  speaks  of  the  gold  or  silver  cur- 
rency as  being  sound,  and  for  the  reason  that  no 
one  ever  heard  of  it  as  rotten. 

Young  merchants,  and  some  old  ones,  think 
there  is  no  living  without  banks — no  transact- 
ing business  without  a  paper  money  currency. 
Have  these  persons  ever  heard  of  Holland,  where 
there  are  merchants  dealing  in  tens  of  millions, 
and  all  of  it  in  gold  and  silver  ?  Have  they  ever 
heard  of  Liverpool  and  Manchester,  where  there 
was  no  bank  of  circulation,  not  even  a  branch  of 
the  Bank  of  England ;  and  whose  immense  ope- 
rations were  carried  on  exclusively  upon  gold 
and  the  commercial  bill  of  exchange?  Have 
they  ever  heard  of  France,  where  the  currency 
amounts  to  four  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of 
dollars,  and  it  all  hard  money  ?  For,  although 
the  Bank  of  France  has  notes  of  one  hundred, 
and  five  hundred,  and  one  thousand  francs,  they 
are  not  used  as  currency  but  as  convenient  bills 
of  exchange,  for  remittance,  or  travelling.  Have 
they  ever  heard  of  the  armies,  and  merchants, 
and  imperial  courts  of  antiquity?  Were  the 
Roman  armies  paid  with  paper  ?  did  the  mer- 
chant princes  deal  in  paper?     Was  Nineveh 


276 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


and  Babylon  built  on  paper?  Was  Solomon's 
temple  so  built  ?  And  yet,  according  to  these 
paper-money  idolaters,  we  cannot  pay  a  hand- 
ful of  militia  without  paper  !  cannot  open  a  dry 
goods  store  in  a  shanty  without  paper !  cannot 
build  a  house  without  paper!  cannot  build  a 
village  of  log  houses  in  the  woods,  or  a  street  of 
shanties  in  a  suburb,  without  a  bank  in  their 
midst !  This  is  real  humbuggery ;  and  for 
which  the  industrial  classes — the  whole  work- 
ing population,  have  to  pay  an  enormous  price. 
Does  any  one  calculate  the  cost  to  the  people  of 
banking  in  our  country  ?  how  many  costly  edi- 
fices have  to  be  built  ?  what  an  army  of  officers 
have  to  be  maintained  ?  what  daily  expenses 
have  to  be  incurred?  how  many  stockholders 
must  get  profits  ?  in  a  word,  what  a  vast  sum  a 
bank  lays  out  before  it  begins  to  make  its  half 
yearly  dividen  I  of  four  or  five  per  centum,  leav- 
ing a  surplus—  all  to  come  out  of  the  productive 
classes  of  the  people  ?  And  after  that  comes 
the  losses  by  the  wear  and  tear  of  small  notes 
— by  suspensions  and  breakings — by  expansions 
and  contractions  —  by  making  money  scarce 
when  they  want  to  buy,  and  plenty  when 
they  want  to  sell.  We  talk  of  standing 
armies  in  Europe,  living  on  the  people :  we 
have  an  army  of  bank  officers  here  doing  the 
same.  We  talk  of  European  taxes ;  the  banks 
tax  us  here  as  much  as  kings  tax  their  subjects. 
And  this  district  is  crying  out  for  banks.  It 
has  six,  and  wants  them  rechartered — Congress 
all  the  time  spending  more  hard  money  among 
them  than  they  can  use.  They  had  twelve 
banks :  and  what  did  they  have  to  do  1  Send 
to  Holland,  where  there  is  not  a  single  bank  of 
circulation,  to  borrow  one  million  of  dollars  in 
gold,  which  they  got  at  five  per  centum  per  an- 
num ;  and  then  could  not  pay  the  interest.  At 
the  end  of  the  third  year  the  interest  could  not 
be  paid ;  and  Congress  had  to  pay  it  to  save  the 
whole  corporate  effects  of  the  city  from  being 
sold — sold  to  the  Dutch,  because  the  Dutch  had 
no  banks.  And  sold  it  would  have  been  if  Con- 
gress had  not  put  up  the  money :  for  the  dis- 
tress warrant  was  out.  and  was  to  be  levied  in 
thirty  days.  Then  what  does  this  city  want 
with  banks  of  circulation  ?  She  has  no  use  for 
them  j  but  I  only  propose  to  make  them  a  little 
safer  by  suppressing  their  small  notes,  and  pre- 
venting them  from  dealing  in  the  depreciated 
notes  of  suspended,  or  broken  banks. 


CHAPTER    LXXV. 

KEVOLT  IN  CANADA:  BOEDER  SYMPATHY:  FIRM- 
NESS OF  MR.  VAN  BUREN:  PUBLIC  PEACE  EN- 
DANGEEED— AND  PRESERVED  :— CASE  OF  MC- 
LEOD. 

The  revolt  which  took  place  in  Canada  in  the 
winter  of  1837-8  led  to  consequences  which 
tried  the  firmness  of  the  administration,  and 
also  tried  the  action  of  our  duplicate  form  of 
government  in  its  relations  with  foreign  powers. 
The  revolt  commenced  imposingly,  with  a  large 
show  of  disjointed  forces,  gaining  advantages  at 
the  start ;  but  was  soon  checked  by  the  regular 
local  troops.  The  French  population,  being  the 
majority  of  the  people,  were  chiefly  its  pro- 
moters, with  some  emigrants  from  the  United 
States ;  and  when  defeated  they  took  refuge  on 
an  island  in  the  Niagara  River  on  the  British 
side,  near  the  Canadian  coast,  and  were  collect- 
ing men  and  supplies  from  the  United  States  to 
renew  the  contest.  From  the  beginning  an  in- 
tense feeling  in  behalf  of  the  insurgents  mani- 
fested itself  all  along  the  United  States  border, 
upon  a  line  of  a  thousand  miles — from  Vermont 
to  Michigan.  As  soon  as  blood  began  to  flow 
on  the  Canadian  side,  this  feeling  broke  out  into 
acts  on  the  American  side,  and  into  organization 
for  the  assistance  of  the  revolting  party — the 
patriots,  as  they  were  called.  Men  assembled 
and  enrolled,  formed  themselves  into  companies 
and  battalions,  appointed  officers — even  gene- 
rals— issued  proclamations — forced  the  public 
stores  and  supplied  themselves  with  arms  and 
ammunition :  and  were  certainly  assembling  in 
sufficient  numbers  to  have  enabled  the  insur- 
gents to  make  successful  head  against  any  Brit- 
ish forces  then  in  the  provinces.  The  whole 
border  line  was  in  a  state  of  excitement  and 
commotion — many  determined  to  cross  over,  and 
assist — many  more  willing  to  see  the  assistance 
given:  the  smaller  part  only  discountenanced 
the  proceeding  and  wished  to  preserve  the  rela- 
tions which  the  laws  of  the  country,  and  the 
duties  of  good  neighborhood,  required.  To  the 
Canadian  authorities  these  movements  on  the 
American  side  were  the  cause  of  the  deepest 
solicitude;  and  not  without  reason:  for  the 
numbers,  the  inflamed  feeling,  and  the  de- 
termined temper  of  these  auxiliaries,  presented  a 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


277 


force  impossible  for  the  Canadian  authorities  to 
resist,  if  dashing  upon  them,  and  difficult  for 
their  own  government  to  restrain.  From  the 
first  demonstration,  and  without  waiting  for 
any  request  from  the  British  minister  at  Wash- 
ington (Mr.  Fox),  the  President  took  the  steps 
which  showed  his  determination  to  have  the  laws 
of  neutrality  respected.  A  proclamation  was 
immediately  issued,  admonishing  and  command- 
ing all  citizens  to  desist  from  such  illegal  pro- 
ceedings, and  threatening  the  guilty  with  the 
utmost  penalties  of  the  law.  But  the  President 
knew  full  well  that  it  was  not  a  case  in  which 
a  proclamation,  and  a  threat,  were  to  have  effi- 
cacy ;  and  he  took  care  to  add  material  means 
to  his  words.  Instructions  were  issued  to  all 
the  federal  law  officers  along  the  border,  the 
marshals  and  district  attorneys,  to  be  vigilant 
in  making  arrests :  and  many  were  made,  and 
prosecutions  instituted.  He  called  upon  the 
governors  of  the  border  States  to  aid  in  sup- 
pressing the  illegal  movement :  which  they  did. 
And  to  these  he  added  all  the  military  and  naval 
resources  which  could  be  collected.  Major-gen- 
eral Scott  was  sent  to  the  line,  with  every  dis- 
posable regular  soldier,  and  with  authority  to 
call  on  the  governors  of  New  York  and  Michi- 
gan for  militia  and  volunteers :  several  steam- 
boats were  chartered  on  Lake  Erie,  placed  un- 
der the  command  of  naval  officers,  well  manned 
with  regular  soldiers,  and  ordered  to  watch  the 
lake. 

The  fidelity,  and  even  sternness  with  which 
all  these  lawless  expeditions  from  the  United 
States,  were  repressed  and  rebuked  by  Presi- 
dent Van  Buren,  were  shown  by  him  in  his  last 
communication  to  Congress  on  the  subject ;  in 
which  he  said : 

"  Information  has  been  given  to  me,  derived 
from  official  and  other  sources,  that  many  citi- 
zens of  the  United  States  have  associated  to- 
gether to  make  hostile  incursions  from  our 
territory  into  Canada,  and  to  aid  and  abet  insur- 
rection there,  in  violation  of  the  obligations  and 
laws  of  the  United  States,  and  in  open  disregard 
of  their  own  duties  as  citizens. 

"  The  results  of  these  criminal  assaults  upon 
the  peace  and  order  of  a  neighboring  country 
have  been,  as  was  to  be  expected,  fatally  de- 
structive to  the  misguided  or  deluded  persons 
engaged  in  them,  and  highly  injurious  to  those 
in  whose  behalf  they  are  professed  to  have  been 
undertaken.  The  authorities  in  Canada,  from 
intelligence  received  of  such   intended  move- 


ments among  our  citizens,  have  felt  themselves 
obliged  to  take  precautionary  measures  against 
them ;  have  actually  embodied  the  militia,  and 
assumed  an  attitude  to  repel  the  invasion  to 
which  they  believed  the  colonies  were  exposed 
from  the  United  States.  A  state  of  feeling  on 
both  sides  of  the  frontier  has  thus  been  pro- 
duced, which  called  for  prompt  and  vigorous  in- 
terference. If  an  insurrection  existed  in  Canada, 
the  amicable  dispositions  of  the  United  States 
towards  Great  Britain,  as  well  as  their  duty  to 
themselves,  would  lead  them  to  maintain  a  strict 
neutrality,  and  to  restrain  their  citizens  from  all 
violations  of  the  laws  which  have  been  passed 
for  its  enforcement.  But  this  government  re- 
cognizes a  still  higher  obligation  to  repress  all 
attempts  on  the  part  of  its  citizens  to  disturb 
the  peace  of  a  country  where  order  prevails,  or 
has  been  re-established.  Depredations  by  our 
citizens  upon  nations  at  peace  with  the  United 
States,  or  combinations  for  committing  them, 
have  at  all  times  been  regarded  by  the  American 
government  and  people  with  the  greatest  abhor- 
rence. Military  incursions  by  our  citizens  into 
countries  so  situated,  and  the  commission  of  acts 
of  violence  on  the  members  thereof,  in  order  to 
effect  a  change  in  its  government,  or  under  any 
pretext  whatever,  have,  from  the  commencement 
of  our  government,  been  held  equally  criminal 
on  the  part  of  those  engaged  in  them,  and  as 
much  deserving  of  punishment  as  would  be  the 
disturbance  of  the  public  peace  by  the  perpetra- 
tion of  similar  acts  within  our  own  territory." 

By  these  energetic  means,  invasions  from  the 
American  side  were  prevented ;  and  in  a  contest 
with  the  British  regulars  and  the  local  troops, 
the  disjointed  insurgents,  though  numerous, 
were  overpowered — dispersed — subjected — or 
driven  out  of  Canada.  Mr.  Van  Buren  had  dis- 
charged the  duties  of  neutrality  most  faithfully, 
not  merely  in  obedience  to  treaties  and  the  law 
of  nations,  but  from  a  high  conviction  of  what 
was  right  and  proper  in  itself,  and  necessary  to 
the  well-being  of  his  own  country  as  well  as 
that  of  a  neighboring  power.  Interruption  of 
friendly  intercourse  with  Great  Britain,  would 
be  an  evil  itself,  even  if  limited  to  such  inter- 
ruption: but  the  peace  of  the  United  States 
might  be  endangered:  and  it  was  not  to  be 
tolerated  that  bands  of  disorderly  citizens  should 
bring  on  war.  He  had  done  all  that  the  laws, 
and  all  that  a  sense  of  right  and  justice  required 
— and  successfully,  to  the  repression  of  hostile 
movements — and  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Brit- 
ish authorities.  Faithfully  and  ably  seconded 
by  his  Secretary  of  State  (Mr.  Forsyth),  and 
by  his  Attorney-general  (Mr.  Gilpin),  he  sue- 


278 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ceeded  in  preserving  our  neutral  relations  in  the 
most  trying  circumstances  to  which  they  had 
ever  been  exposed,  and  at  large  cost  of  personal 
popularity  to  himself:  for  the  sympathy  of  the 
border  States  resented  his  so  earnest  interfer- 
ence to  prevent  aid  to  the  insurgents. 

The  whole  affair  was  over,  and  happily,  when 
a  most  unexpected  occurrence  revived  the  diffi- 
culty— gave  it  a  new  turn — and  made  the  soil 
of  the  United  States  itself,  the  scene  of  inva- 
sion— of  bloodshed — of  conflagration — and  of 
abduction.  Some  remnant  of  the  dispersed  in- 
surgents had  taken  refuge  on  Navy  Island,  near 
the  Canadian  shore ;  and  reinforced  by  some 
Americans,  were  making  a  stand  there,  and 
threatening  a  descent  upon  the  British  colonies. 
Their  whole  number  has  been  ascertained  to 
have  been  no  more  than  some  five  hundred — 
but  magnified  by  rumor  at  the  time  to  as  many 
thousands.  A  small  steamboat  from  the  Ameri- 
can side,  owned  by  a  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
was  in  the  habit  of  carrying  men  and  supplies 
to  this  assemblage  on  the  island.  Her  practices 
became  known  to  the  British  military  authori- 
ties, encamped  with  some  thousand  men  at  Chip- 
pewa, opposite  the  island ;  and  it  was  deter- 
mined to  take  her  in  the  fact,  and  destroy  her. 
It  was  then  the  last  of  December.  A  night  ex- 
pedition of  boats  was  fitted  out  to  attack  this 
vessel,  moored  to  the  island ;  but  not  finding 
her  there,  the  vessel  was  sought  for  in  her  own 
waters — found  moored  to  the  American  shore  ; 
and  there  attacked  and  destroyed.  The  news 
of  this  outrage  was  immediately  communicated 
to  the  President,  and  by  him  made  known  to 
Congress  in  a  special  message — accompanied  by 
the  evidence  on  which  the  information  rested, 
and  by  a  statement  of  the  steps  which  the  Presi- 
dent had  taken  in  consequence.  The  principal 
evidence  was  from  the  master  of  the  boat — her 
name,  the  Caroline — and  Schlosser,  on  the 
American  shore,  her  home  and  harbor.  After 
admitting  that  the  boat  had  been  employed  in 
carrying  men  and  supplies  to  the  assemblage  on 
Navy  Island,  his  affidavit  continues : 

"That  from  this  point  the  Caroline  ran  to 
Schlosser,  arriving  there  at  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon;  that,  between  this  time  and  dark, 
the  Caroline  made  two  trips  to  Navy  Island, 
landing  as  before.  That,  at  about  six  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  this  deponent  caused  the  said  Caroline 
to  be  landed  at  Schlosser,  and  made  fast  with 


chains  to  the  dock  at  that  place.  That  the  crew 
and  officers  of  the  Caroline  numbered  ten,  and 
that,  in  the  course  of  the  evening,  twenty-three 
individuals,  all  of  whom  were  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  came  on  board  of  the  Caroline, 
and  requested  this  deponent  and  other  officers 
of  the  boat  to  permit  them  to  remain  on  board 
during  the  night,  as  they  were  unable  to  get 
lodgings  at  the  tavern  near  by ;  these  requests 
were  acceded  to,  and  the  persons  thus  coming  on 
board  retired  to  rest,  as  did  also  all  of  the  crew 
and  officers  of  the  Caroline,  except  such  as  were 
stationed  to  watch  during  the  night.  That, 
about  midnight,  this  deponent  was  informed  by 
one  of  the  watch,  that  several  boats  filled  with 
men,  were  making  towards  the  Caroline  from 
the  river,  and  this  deponent  immediately  gave 
the  alarm  ;  and  before  he  was  able  to  reach  the 
deck,  the  Caroline  was  boarded  by  some  70  or 
80  men,  all  of  whom  were  armed.  That  they 
immediately  commenced  a  warfare  with  muskets, 
swords,  and  cutlasses,  upon  the  defenceless  crew 
and  passengers  of  the  Caroline,  under  a  fierce 
cry  of  G — d  damn  them,  give  them  no  quarter ; 
kill  every  man :  fire  !  fire  !  That  the  Caroline 
was  abandoned  without  resistance,  and  the  only 
effort  made  by  either  the  crew  or  passengers 
seemed  to  be  to  escape  slaughter.  That  this 
deponent  narrowly  escaped  ;  having  received 
several  wounds,  none  of  which,  however,  are  of 
a  serious  character.  That  immediately  after  the 
Caroline  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  armed  force 
who  boarded  her,  she  was  set  on  fire,  cut  loose 
from  the  dock,  was  towed  into  the  current  of 
the  river,  there  abandoned,  and  soon  after  de- 
scended the  Niagara  Falls  :  that  this  deponent 
has  made  vigilant  search  after  the  individuals, 
thirty-three  in  number,  who  are  known  to  have 
been  on  the  Caroline  at  the  time  she  was 
boarded,  and  twenty-one  only  are  to  be  found, 
one  of  whom,  to  wit,  Amos  Durfee,  of  Buffalo, 
was  found  dead  upon  the  dock,  having  received 
a  shot  from  a  musket,  the  ball  of  which  pene- 
trated the  back  part  of  the  head,  and  came  out 
at  the  forehead.  James  H.  King,  and  Captain 
C.  F.  Harding,  were  seriously,  though  not  mor- 
tally wounded.  Several  others  received  slight 
wounds.  The  twelve  individuals  who  are  miss- 
ing, this  deponent  has  no  doubt,  were  either 
murdered  upon  the  steamboat,  or  found  a  watery 
grave  in  the  cataract  of  the  falls.  And  this  de- 
ponent further  says,  that  immediately  after  the 
Caroline  was  got  into  the  current  of  the  stream 
and  abandoned,  as  before  stated,  beacon  lights 
were  discovered  upon  the  Canada  shore,  near 
Chippewa ;  and  after  sufficient  time  had  elapsed 
to  enable  the  boats  to  reach  that  shore,  this  de- 
ponent distinctly  heard  loud  and  vociferous 
cheering  at  that  point.  That  this  deponent  has 
no  doubt  that  the  individuals  who  boarded  the 
Caroline,  were  a  part  of  the  British  forces  now 
stationed  at  Chippewa." 

Ample  corroborative  testimony  confirmed  this 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


279 


affidavit — for  which,  in  fact,  there  was  no  neces- 
sity, as  the  officer  in  command  of  the  boats  made 
his  official  report  to  his  superior  (Col.  Mc- 
Nab),  to  the  same  effect — who  published  it  in 
general  orders  ;  and  celebrated  the  event  as  an 
exploit.  This  report  varied  but  little  from  the 
American  in  any  respect,  and  made  it  worse  in 
others.  After  stating  that  he  did  not  find  the 
Caroline  at  Navy  Island,  "  as  expected,"  he  went 
in  search  of  her,  and  found  her  at  Grand  Island, 
and  moored  to  the  shore.  The  report  pro- 
ceeds : 

"  I  then  assembled  the  boats  off  the  point  of 
the  Island,  and  dropped  quietly  down  upon  the 
steamer ;  we  were  not  discovered  until  within 
twenty  yards  of  her,  when  the  sentry  upon  the 
gangway  hailed  us,  and  asked  for  the  counter- 
sign, which  I  told  him  we  would  give  when  we 
got  on  board ;  he  then  fired  upon  us,  when  we 
immediately  boarded  and  found  from  twenty  to 
thirty  men  upon  her  decks,  who  were  easily 
overcome,  and  in  two  minutes  she  was  in  our 
possession.  As  the  current  was  running  strong, 
and  our  position  close  to  the  Falls  of  Niagara,  I 
deemed  it  most  prudent  to  burn  the  vessel ;  but 
previously  to  setting  her  on  fire,  we  took  the 
precaution  to  loose  her  from  her  moorings,  and 
turn  her  out  into  the  stream,  to  prevent  the 
possibility  of  the  destruction  of  anything  like 
American  property.  In  short,  all  those  on  board" 
the  steamer  who  did  not  resist,  were  quietly  put 
on  shore,  as  I  thought  it  possible  there  might 
be  some  American  citizens  on  board.  Those  who 
assailed  us,  were  of  course  dealt  with  according 
to  the  usages  of  war. 

"  I  beg  to  add,  that  we  brought  one  prisoner 
away,  a  British  subject,  in  consequence  of  his  ac- 
knowledging that  he  had  belonged  to  Duncombe's 
army,  and  was  on  board  the  steamer  to  join 
Mackenzie  upon  Navy  Island.  Lieutenant  Mc- 
Cormack,  of  the  Royal  Navy,  and  two  others 
were  wounded,  and  I  regret  to  add  that  five  or 
six  of  the  enemy  were  killed." 

This  is  the  official  report  of  Captain  Drew, 
and  it  adds  the  crimes  of  impressment  and  ab- 
duction to  all  the  other  enormities  of  that  mid- 
night crime.  The  man  carried  away  as  a  British 
subject,  and  because  he  had  belonged  to  the  in- 
surgent forces  in  Canada,  could  not  (even  if  these 
allegations  had  been  proved  upon  him),  been  de- 
livered up  under  any  demand  upon  our  govern- 
ment :  yet  he  was  carried  off  by  violence  in  the 
night. 

This  outrage  on  the  Caroline,  reversed  the 
condition  of  the  parties,  and  changed  the  tenor 
of  their  communications.  It  now  became  the 
part  of  the  United  States  to  complain,  and  to 


demand  redress ;  and  it  was  immediately  done 
in  a  communication  from  Mr.  Forsyth,  the  Sec- 
retary of  State,  to  Mr.  Fox,  the  British  minis- 
ter, at  Washington.  Under  date  of  January  5th, 
1838,  the  Secretary  wrote  to  him  : 

"  The  destruction  of  the  property,  and  assas- 
sination of  citizens  of  the  United  States  on  the 
soil  of  New  York,  at  the  moment  when,  as  is 
well  known  to  you,  the  President  was  anxiously 
endeavoring  to  allay  the  excitement,  and  earnestly 
seeking  to  prevent  any  unfortunate  occurrence 
on  the  frontier  of  Canada,  has  produced  upon 
his  mind  the  most  painful  emotions  of  surprise 
and  regret.  It  will  necessarily  form  the  subject 
of  a  demand  for  redress  upon  her  majesty's 
government.  This  communication  is  made  to 
you  under  the  expectation  that,  through  your 
instrumentality,  an  early  explanation  may  be 
obtained  from  the  authorities  of  Upper  Canada, 
of  all  the  circumstances  of  the  transaction  ;  and 
that,  by  your  advice  to  those  authorities,  such 
decisive  precautions  may  be  used  as  will  render 
the  perpetration  of  similar  acts  hereafter  im- 
possible. Not  doubting  the  disposition  of  the 
government  of  Upper  Canada  to  do  its  duty  in 
punishing  the  aggressors  and  preventing  future 
outrage,  the  President,  notwithstanding,  has 
deemed  it  necessary  to  order  a  sufficient  force 
on  the  frontier  to  repel  any  attempt  of  a  like 
character,  and  to  make  known  to  you  that  if  it 
should  occur,  he  cannot  be  answerable  for  the 
effects  of  the  indignation  of  the  neighboring 
people  of  the  United  States." 

In  communicating  this  event  to  Congress,  Mr. 
Van  Buren  showed  that  he  had  already  taken 
the  steps  which  the  peace  and  honor  of  the 
country  required.  The  news  of  the  outrage, 
spreading  through  the  border  States,  inflamed 
the  repressed  feeling  of  the  people  to  the  highest 
degree,  and  formidable  retaliatory  expeditions 
were  immediately  contemplated.  The  President 
called  all  the  resources  of  the  frontier  into  in- 
stant requisition  to  repress  these  expeditions, 
and  at  the  same  time  took  measures  to  obtain 
redress  from  the  British  government.  His  mes- 
sage to  the  two  Houses  said : 

"  I  regret,  however,  to  inform  you  that  an 
outrage  of  a  most  aggravated  character  has  been 
committed,  accompanied  by  a  hostile,  though 
temporary  invasion  of  our  territory,  producing 
the  strongest  feelings  of  resentment  on  the  part 
of  our  citizens  in  the  neighborhood,  and  on  the 
whole  border  line  ;  and  that  the  excitement  pre- 
viously existing,  has  been  alarmingly  increased. 
To  guard  against  the  possible  recurrence  of  any 
similar  act,  I  have  thought  it  indispensable  to 
call  out  a  portion  of  the  militia  to  be  posted  on 
that  frontier.     The  documents  herewith  pre- 


280 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


sented  to  Congress  show  the  character  of  the 
outrage  committed,  the  measures  taken  in  con- 
sequence of  its  occurrence,  and  the  necessity  for 
resorting  to  them.  It  will  also  be  seen  that  the 
subject  was  immediately  brought  to  the  notice 
of  the  British  minister  accredited  to  this  coun- 
try, and  the  proper  steps  taken  on  our  part  to 
obtain  the  fullest  information  of  all  the  circum- 
stances leading  to  and  attendant  upon  the  trans- 
action, preparatory  to  a  demand  for  reparation." 

The  feeling  in  Congress  was  hardly  less  strong 
than  in  the  border  States,  on  account  of  this  out- 
rage, combining  all  the  crimes  of  assassination, 
arson,  burglary,  and  invasion  of  national  terri- 
tory. An  act  of  Congress  was  immediately 
passed,  placing  large  military  means,  and  an  ap- 
propriation of  money  in  the  President's  hands, 
for  the  protection  of  our  frontier.  His  demand 
for  redress  was  unanimously  seconded  by  Con- 
gress ;  and  what  had  been  so  earnestly  depre- 
cated from  the  beginning,  as  a  consequence  of 
this  border  trouble — a  difficulty  between  the 
two  nations — had  now  come  to  pass ;  but  en- 
tirely from  the  opposite  side  from  which  it  had 
been  expected.  The  British  government  delayed 
the  answer  to  the  demand  for  redress — avoided 
the  assumption  of  the  criminal  act — excused  and 
justified  it — but  did  not  assume  it :  and  in  fact 
could  not,  without  contradicting  the  official  re- 
ports of  her  own  officers,  all  negativing  the  idea 
of  any  intention  to  violate  the  territory  of  the 
United  States.  The  orders  to  the  officer  com- 
manding the  boats,  was  to  seek  the  Caroline  at 
Navy  Island,  where  she  had  been  during  the 
day,  and  was  expected  to  be  at  night.  In  pur- 
suance of  this  order,  the  fleet  of  boats  went  to 
the  island,  near  midnight ;  and  not  finding  the 
offending  vessel  there,  sought  her  elsewhere. 
This  is  the  official  report  of  Capt.  Drew,  of  the 
Royal  Navy,  commanding  the  boats  :  "  I  imme- 
mediately  directed  five  boats  to  be  armed,  and 
manned  with  forty-five  volunteers;  and,  at 
about  eleven  o'clock,  p.  m.,  we  pushed  off  from 
the  shore  for  Navy  Island,  when  not  finding  her 
there,  as  expected,  we  went  in  search,  and  found 
her  moored  between  the  island  and  the  main 
shore."  The  island  here  spoken  of  as  the  one 
between  which  and  the  main  shore,  the  Caroline 
was  found,  was  the  American  island,  called 
Grand  Island,  any  descent  upon  which,  Colonel 
McNab  had  that  day  officially  disclaimed,  be- 
cause it  was  American  territory.  The  United 
States  Attorney  for  the  District  of  New  York, 


(Mr.  Rodgers),  then  on  the  border  to  enforce 
the  laws  against  the  violators  of  our  neutrality, 
hearing  that  there  was  a  design  to  make  a  de- 
scent upon  Grand  Island,  addressed  a  note  to 
Col.  McNab.  commanding  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  river,  to  learn  its  truth ;  and  received 
this  answer : 

"  With  respect  to  the  report  in  the  city  of 
Buffalo,  that  certain  forces  under  my  command 
had  landed  upon  Grand  Island — an  island  with- 
in the  territory  of  the  United  States — I  can  as- 
sure you  that  it  is  entirely  without  foundation ; 
and  that  so  far  from  my  having  any  intention 
of  the  kind,  such  a  proceeding  would  be  in  di- 
rect opposition  to  the  wishes  and  intentions  of 
her  Britannic  majesty's  government,  in  this 
colony,  whose  servant  I  have  the  honor  to  be. 
Entering  at  once  into  the  feeling  which  induced 
you  to  address  me  on  this  subject,  I  beg  leave 
to  call  your  attention  to  the  following  facts : 
That  so  far  from  occupying  or  intending  to  oc- 
cupy, that  or  any  other  portion  of  the  Ameri- 
can territorjr,  aggressions  of  a  serious  and  hos- 
tile nature  have  been  made  upon  the  forces  un- 
der my  command  from  that  island.  Two  affi- 
davits are  now  before  me,  stating  that  a  volley 
of  musketry  from  Grand  Island  was  yesterday 
fired  upon  a  party  of  unarmed  persons,  some 
of  whom  were  females,  without  the  slightest 
provocation  having  been  offered.  That  on  the 
same  day,  one  of  my  boats,  unarmed,  manned  by 
British  subjects,  passing  along  the  American 
shore,  and  without  any  cause  being  given,  was 
fired  upon  from  the  American  side,  near  Fort 
Schlosser,  by  cannon,  the  property,  I  am  told, 
of  the  United  States." 

This  was  written  on  the  29th  day  of  Decem- 
ber, and  it  was  eleven  o'clock  of  the  night  of 
that  day  that  the  Caroline  was  destroyed  on 
the  American  shore.  It  was  Col.  McNab, 
commanding  the  forces  at  Chippewa,  that  gave 
the  order  to  destroy  the  Caroline.  The  letter 
and  the  order  were  both  written  the  same  day 
— probably  within  the  same  hour,  as  both  were 
written  in  the  afternoon :  and  they  were  coin- 
cident in  import  as  well  as  in  date.  The  order 
was  to  seek  the  offending  vessel  at  Navy  Island, 
being  British  territory,  and  where  she  was  seen 
at  dark  :  the  letter  disclaimed  both  the  fact,  and 
the  intent,  of  invading  Grand  Island,  because  it 
was  American  territory:  and  besides  the  dis- 
claimer for  himselfj  Col.  McNab  superadded 
another  equally  positive  in  behalf  of  her  Majes- 
ty's government  in  Canada,  declaring  that  such 
a  proceeding  would  be  in  direct  opposition  to 
the  wishes  and  intentions  of  the  colonial  gov- 
ernment.   In  the  face  of  these  facts  the  British 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


281 


government  found  it  difficult,  and  for  a  long 
time  impossible,  to  assume  this  act  of  destroy- 
ing the  Caroline  as  a  government  proceeding. 
It  was  never  so  assumed  during  the  administra- 
tion of  Mr.  Van  Buren — a  period  of  upwards 
of  three  years — to  be  precise — (and  this  is  a 
case  which  requires  precision) — three  years  and 
two  months  and  seven  days :  that  is  to  say, 
from  the  29th  of  December,  1837,  to  March  3d, 
1841. 

When  this  letter  of  Col.  McNab  was  read  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  (which  it  was 
within  a  few  days  after  it  was  written),  Mr. 
Fillmore  (afterwards  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  then  a  representative  from  the  State 
of  New  York,  and,  from  that  part  of  the  State 
which  included  the  most  disturbed  portion  of 
the  border),  stood  up  in  his  place,  and  said : 

"  The  letter  just  read  by  the  clerk,  at  his  col- 
league's request,  was  written  in  reply  to  one 
from  the  district  attorney  as  to  the  reported 
intention  of  the  British  to  invade  Grand  Island  ; 
and  in  it  is  the  declaration  that  there  was  no 
such  intention.  Now,  Mr.  F.  would  call  the  at- 
tention of  the  House  to  the  fact  that  that  letter 
was  written  on  the  29th  December,  and  that  it 
was  on  the  very  night  succeeding  the  date  of  it 
that  this  gross  outrage  was  committed  on  the 
Caroline.  Moreover,  he  would  call  the  atten- 
tion of  the  House  to  the  well-authenticated  fact, 
that,  after  burning  the  boat,  and  sending  it  over 
the  falls,  the  assassins  were  lighted  back  to 
McNab's  camp,  where  he  was  in  person,  by  bea- 
cons lighted  there  for  that  purpose.  Mr.  F. 
certainly  deprecated  a  war  with  Great  Britain 
as  sincerely  as  any  gentleman  on  that  floor 
could  possibly  do :  and  hoped,  as  earnestly,  that 
these  difficulties  would  be  amicably  adjusted 
between  the  two  nations.  Yet,  he  must  say, 
that  the  letter  of  McNab,  instead  of  aifording 
grounds  for  a  palliation,  was,  in  reality,  a  great 
aggravation  of  the  outrage.  It  held  out  to  us 
the  assurance  that  there  was  nothing  of  the 
kind  to  be  apprehended ;  and  yet,  a  few  hours 
afterwards,  this  atrocity  was  perpetrated  by  an 
officer  sent  directly  from  the  camp  of  that 
McNab." 

At  the  time  that  this  was  spoken  the  order 
of  Col.  McNab  to  Captain  Drew  had  not  been 
seen,  and  consequently  it  was  not  known  that 
the  letter  and  the  order  were  coincident  in  their 
character,  and  that  the  perfidy,  implied  in  Mr. 
Fillmore's  remarks,  was  not  justly  attributable 
to  Col.  McNab :  but  it  is  certain  he  applauded 
the  act  when  done :  and  his  letter  will  stand 
for  a  condemnation  of  it,  and  for  the  disavowal 
of  authority  to  do  it. 


The  invasion  of  New  York  was  the  invasion 
of  the  United  States,  and  the  President  had  im- 
mediately demanded  redress,  both  for  the  pub- 
lic outrage,  and  for  the  loss  of  property  to  the 
owners  of  the  boat.  Mr.  Van  Buren's  entire 
administration  went  off  without  obtaining  an 
answer  to  these  demands.  As  late  as  January, 
1839 — a  year  after  the  event — Mr.  Stevenson, 
the  United  States  minister  in  London,  wrote : 
"  I  regret  to  say  that  no  answer  has  yet  been 
given  to  my  note  in  the  case  of  the  Caroline." 
And  towards  the  end  of  the  same  year,  Mr. 
Forsyth,  the  American  Secretary  of  State,  in 
writing  to  him,  expressed  the  belief  that  an  an- 
swer would  soon  be  given.  He  says  :  "  I  have 
had  frequent  conversations  with  Mr.  Fox  in  re- 
gard to  this  subject — one  of  very  recent  date — 
and  from  its  tone,  the  President  expects  the 
British  government  will  answer  your  applica- 
tion in  the  case  without  much  further  delay." 
— Delay,  however,  continued;  and,  as  late  as 
December,  1840,  no  answer  having  yet  been  re- 
ceived, the  President  directed  the  subject  again 
to  be  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  British  gov- 
ernment ;  and  Mr.  Forsyth  accordingly  wrote 
to  Mr.  Fox : 

"  The  President  deems  this  to  be  a  proper 
occasion  to  remind  the  government  of  her  Bri- 
tannic majesty  that  the  case  of  the  "  Caroline  " 
has  been  long  since  brought  to  the  attention  of 
her  Majesty's  principal  Secretary  of  State  for 
foreign  affairs,  who,  up  to  this  day,  has  not 
communicated  its  decision  thereupon.  It  is 
hoped  that  the  government  of  her  Mnjesty  will 
perceive  the  importance  of  no  longer  leaving  the 
government  of  the  United  States  uninformed 
of  its  views  and  intentions  upon  a  subject  which 
has  naturally  produced  much  exasperation,  and 
which  has  led  to  such  grave  consequences.  I 
avail  myself  of  this  occasion  to  renew  to  you 
the  assurance  of  my  distinguished  consider- 
ation." 

This  was  near  the  close  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's 
administration,  and  up  to  that  time  it  must  be 
noted,  first,  that  the  British  government  had 
not  assumed  the  act  of  Captain  Drew  in  de- 
stroying the  Caroline  j  secondly,  that  it  had 
not  answered  (had  not  refused  redress)  for  that 
act.  Another  circumstance  showed  that  the 
government,  in  its  own  conduct  in  relation  to 
those  engaged  in  that  affair,  had  not  even  indi- 
rectly assumed  it  by  rewarding  those  who  did 
it.  Three  years  after  the  event,  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  Lord  John  Russell,  the  premier, 


282 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


was  asked  in  his  place,  whether  it  was  the  in- 
tention of  ministers  to  recommend  to  her  Ma- 
jesty to  bestow  any  reward  upon  Captain  Drew, 
and  others  engaged  in  the  affair  of  the  Caroline ; 
to  which  he  replied  negatively,  and  on  account 
of  the  delicate  nature  of  the  subject.  His  an- 
swer was :  "  No  reward  had  been  resolved  upon, 
and  as  the  question  involved  a  subject  of  a  very 
delicate  nature,  he  must  decline  to  answer  it 
further."  Col.  McNab  had  been  knighted ;  not 
for  the  destruction  of  the  Caroline  on  United 
States  territory  (which  his  order  did  not  justi- 
fy, and  his  letter  condemned),  but  for  his  ser- 
vices in  putting  down  the  revolt. 

Thus  the  affair  stood  till  near  the  close  of 
Mr.  Van  Buren's  administration,  when  an  event 
took  place  which  gave  it  a  new  turn,  and 
brought  on  a  most  serious  question  between 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  and 
changed  the  relative  positions  of  the  two  coun- 
tries— the  United  States  to  become  the  injured 
party,  claiming  redress.  The  circumstances 
were  these  :  one  Alexander  McLeod,  inhabitant 
of  the  opposite  border  shore,  and  a  British  sub- 
ject, had  been  in  the  habit  of  boasting  that  he 
had  been  one  of  the  destroyers  of  the  Caroline, 
and  that  he  had  himself  killed  one  of  the 
"  damned  Yankees."  There  were  enough  to 
repeat  these  boastings  on  the  American  side 
of  the  line  ;  and  as  early  as  the  spring  of  1838 
the  Grand  Jury  for  the  county  in  which  the 
outrage  had  been  committed,  found  a  bill  of  in- 
dictment against  him  for  murder  and  arson. 
He  was  then  in  Canada,  and  would  never  have 
been  troubled  upon  the  indictment  if  he  had  re- 
mained there ;  but,  with  a  boldness  of  conduct 
which  bespoke  clear  innocence,  or  insolent  defi- 
ance, he  returned  to  the  seat  of  the  outrage — to 
the  county  in  which  the  indictment  lay — and 
publicly  exhibited  himself  in  the  county  town. 
This  was  three  years  after  the  event ;  but  the 
memory  of  the  scene  was  fresh,  and  indignation 
boiled  at  his  appearance.  He  was  quickly  ar- 
rested on  the  indictment,  also  sued  for  damages 
by  the  owner  of  the  destroyed  boat,  and  com- 
mitted to  jail — to  take  his  trial  in  the  State 
court  of  the  county  of  Niagara.  This  arrest 
and  imprisonment  of  McLeod  immediately  drew 
an  application  for  his  release  in  a  note  from  Mr. 
Fox  to  the  American  Secretary  of  State.  Un- 
der date  of  the  13th  December,  1840,  he  wrote : 


"  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  call  upon  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  to  take  prompt  and 
effectual  steps  for  the  liberation  of  Mr.  McLeod. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  destruction  of  the 
steamboat ;  Caroline '  was  a  public  act  of  per- 
sons in  her  Majesty's  service,  obeying  the  order 
of  their  superior  authorities. — That  act,  there- 
fore, according  to  the  usages  of  nations,  can  only 
be  the  subject  of  discussion  between  the  two 
national  governments ;  it  cannot  justly  be  made 
the  ground  of  legal  proceedings  in  the  United 
States  against  the  individuals  concerned,  who 
were  bound  to  obey  the  authorities  appointed 
by  their  own  government.  I  may  add  that  I  be- 
lieve it  is  quite  notorious  that  Mr.  McLeod  was 
not  one  of  the  party  engaged  in  the  destruction 
of  the  steamboat  '  Caroline,'  and  that  the  pre- 
tended charge  upon  which  he  has  been  impris- 
oned rests  only  upon  the  perjured  testimony  of 
certain  Canadian  outlaws  and  their  abettors, 
who,  unfortunately  for  the  peace  of  that  neigh- 
borhood, are  still  permitted  by  the  authorities 
of  the  State  of  New  York  to  infest  the  Canadian 
frontier.  The  question,  however,  of  whether 
Mr.  McLeod  was  or  was  not  concerned  in  the 
destruction  of  the  '  Caroline,'  is  beside  the  pur- 
pose of  the  present  communication.  That  act 
was  the  public  act  of  persons  obeying  the  con- 
stituted authorities  of  her  Majesty's  province. 
The  national  government  of  the  United  States 
thought  themselves  called  upon  to  remonstrate 
against  it ;  and  a  remonstrance  which  the  Pres- 
ident did  accordingly  address  to  her  Majesty's 
government  is  still,  I  believe,  a  pending  subject 
of  diplomatic  discussion  between  her  Majesty's 
government  and  the  United  States  legation  in 
London.  I  feel,  therefore,  justified  in  expecting 
that  the  President's  government  will  see  the 
justice  and  the  necessity  of  causing  the  present 
immediate  release  of  Mr.  McLeod,  as  well  as 
of  taking  such  steps  as  may  be  requisite  for 
preventing  others  of  her  Majesty's  subjects 
from  being  persecuted,  or  molested  in  the 
United  States  in  a  similar  manner  for  the  fu- 
ture." 

This  note  of  Mr.  Fox  is  fair  and  unexception- 
able— free  from  menace — and  notable  in  show- 
ing that  the  demand  for  redress  for  the  affair 
of  the  Caroline  was  still  under  diplomatic  dis- 
cussion in  London,  and  that  the  British  govern- 
ment had  not  then  assumed  the  act  of  Captain 
Drew.  The  answer  of  Mr.  Forsyth  was  prompt 
and  clear — covering  the  questions  arising  out 
of  our  duplicate  form  of  government,  and  the 
law  of  nations — and  explicit  upon  the  rights  of 
the  States,  the  duties  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment, and  the  principles  of  national  law.  It  is 
one  of  the  few  answers  of  the  kind  which  cir- 
cumstances have  arisen  to  draw  from  our  gov- 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


283 


ernment,  and  deserves  to  be  well  considered 
for  its  luminous  and  correct  expositions  of  the 
important  questions  of  which  it  treats.  Under 
date  of  the  28th  of  December,  and  writing  un- 
der the  instructions  of  the  President,  he  says  : 

"The  jurisdiction  of  the  several  States  which 
constitute  the  Union  is,  within  its  appropriate 
sphere,  perfectly  independent  of  the  federal 
government.  The  offence  with  which  Mr.  Mc- 
Leod is  charged  was  committed  within  the  ter- 
ritory, and  against  the  laws  and  citizens  of  the 
State  of  New  York,  and  is  one  that  comes 
clearly  within  the  competency  of  her  tribunals. 
It  does  not,  therefore,  present  an  occasion  where, 
under  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the  Union, 
the  interposition  called  for  would  be  proper,  or 
for  which  a  warrant  can  be  found  in  the  powers 
with  which  the  federal  executive  is  invested. 
Nor  would  the  circumstances  to  which  you  have 
referred,  or  the  reasons  you  have  urged,  justify 
the  exertion  of  such  a  power,  if  it  existed.  The 
transaction  out  of  which  the  question  arises, 
presents  the  case  of  a  most  unjustifiable  in- 
vasion, in  time  of  peace,  of  a  portion  of  the  ter- 
ritory of  the  United  States,  by  a  band  of  armed 
men  from  the  adjacent  territory  of  Canada,  the 
forcible  capture  by  them  within  our  own  waters, 
and  the  subsequent  destruction  of  a  steamboat, 
the  property  of  a  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  murder  of  one  or  more  American  citi- 
zens. If  arrested  at  the  time,  the  offenders 
might  unquestionably  have  been  brought  to 
justice  by  the  judicial  authorities  of  the  State 
within  whose  acknowledged  territory  these 
crimes  were  committed ;  and  their  subsequent 
voluntary  entrance  within  that  territory,  places 
them  in  the  same  situation.  The  President  is 
not  aware  of  any  principle  of  international  law, 
or,  indeed,  of  reason  or  justice,  which  entitles 
such  offenders  to  impunity  before  the  legal  tri- 
bunals, when  coming  voluntarily  within  their 
independent  and  undoubted  jurisdiction,  because 
they  acted  in  obedience  to  their  superior  authori- 
ties, or  because  their  acts  have  become  the  sub- 
ject of  diplomatic  discussion  between  the  two 
governments.  These  methods  of  redress,  the 
legal  prosecution  of  the  offenders,  and  the  appli- 
cation of  their  government  for  satisfaction,  are 
independent  of  each  other,  and  may  be  sepa- 
rately and  simultaneously  pursued.  The  avowal 
or  justification  of  the  outrages  by  the  British 
authorities  might  be  a  ground  of  complaint  with 
the  government  of  the  United  States,  distinct 
from  the  violation  of  the  territory  and  laws  of 
the  State  of  New  York.  The  application  of  the 
government  of  the  Union  to  that  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, for  the  redress  of  an  authorized  outrage  of 
the  peace,  dignity,  and  rights  of  the  United 
States,  cannot  deprive  the  State  of  New  York 
of  her  undoubted  right  of  vindicating,  through 
the  exercise  of  her  judicial  power,  the  property 
and  lives  of  her  citizens.     You  have  very  prop- 


erly regarded  the  alleged  absence  of  Mr.  McLeod 
from  the  scene  of  the  offence  at  the  time  when 
it  was  committed,  as  not  material  to  the  deci- 
sion of  the  present  question.  That  is  a  matter 
to  be  decided  by  legal  evidence  ;  and  the  sincere 
desire  of  the  President  is,  that  it  may  be  satis- 
factorily established.  If  the  destruction  of  the 
Caroline  was  a  public  act  of  persons  in  her  Ma- 
jesty's service,  obeying  the  order  of  their  supe- 
rior authorities,  this  fact  has  not  been  commu- 
nicated to  the  government  of  the  United  States 
by  a  person  authorized  to  make  the  admission  ; 
and  it  will  be  for  the  court  which  has  taken 
cognizance  of  the  offence  with  which  Mr.  McLeod 
is  charged,  to  decide  upon  its  validity  when  le- 
gally established  before  it." 

This  answer  to  Mr.  Fox,  was  read  in  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress,  on  the  5th  of  January,  and 
was  heard  with  great  approbation — apparently 
unanimous  in  the  Senate.  It  went  to  London, 
and  on  the  8th  and  9th  of  February,  gave  rise 
to  some  questions  and  answers,  which  showed 
that  the  British  government  did  not  take  its 
stand  in  approving  the  burning  of  the  Caroline, 
until  after  the  presidential  election  of  1840 — 
until  after  that  election  had  ensured  a  change  of 
administration  in  the  United  States.  On  the 
8th  of  February,  to  inquiries  as  to  what  steps 
had  been  taken  to  secure  the  liberation  of  Mc- 
Leod, the  answers  were  general  from  Lord  Pal- 
merston  and  Lord  Melbourne,  "  That  her  Ma- 
jesty's ministers  would  take  those  measures 
which,  in  their  estimation,  would  be  best  cal 
culated  to  secure  the  safety  of  her  Majesty's 
subjects,  and  to  vindicate  the  honor  of  the  Brit- 
ish nation?''  This  answer  was  a  key  to  the  in- 
structions actually  given  to  Mr.  Fox,  showing 
that  they  were  framed  upon  a  calculation  of 
what  would  be  most  effective,  and  not  upon  a 
conviction  of  what  was  right.  They  would  do 
what  they  thought  would  accomplish  the  pur- 
pose ;  and  the  event  showed  that  the  calculation 
led  them  to  exhibit  the  war  attitude — to  assume 
the  offence  of  McLeod,  and  to  bully  the  new  ad- 
ministration. And  here  it  is  to  be  well  noted 
that  the  British  ministry,  up  to  that  time,  had 
done  nothing  to  recognize  the  act  of  Captain 
Drew.  Neither  to  the  American  minister  in 
London,  nor  to  the  Secretary  of  State  here,  had 
they  assumed  it.  More  than  that :  they  care- 
fully abstained  from  indirect,  or  implied  assump- 
tion, by  withholding  pensions  to  their  wounded 
officers  in  that  affair — one  of  whom  had  five 
severe  wounds.    This  fact  was  brought  out  at 


284 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


this  time  by  a  question  from  Mr.  Hume  in  the 
House  of  Commons  to  Lord  John  Russell,  in 
which — 

"  He  wished  to  ask  the  noble  lord  a  question 
relating  to  a  matter  of  fact.  He  believed  that, 
in  the  expedition  which  had  been  formed  for 
the  destruction  of  the  Caroline,  certain  officers, 
who  held  commissions  in  her  Majesty's  army 
and  navy,  were  concerned  in  that  affair,  and  that 
some  of  these  officers  had,  in  the  execution  of 
the  orders  which  were  issued,  received  wounds. 
The  question  he  wished  to  ask  was,  whether 
or  not  her  Majesty's  government  had  thought 
proper  to  award  pensions  to  those  officers,  cor- 
responding in  amount  with  those  which  were 
usually  granted  for  wounds  received  in  the  regu- 
lar service  of  her  Majesty." 

This  was  a  pointed  question,  and  carrying  an 
argument  along  with  it.  Had  the  wounded  offi- 
cers received  the  usual  pension  ?  If  not,  there 
must  be  a  reason  for  departing  from  the  usual 
practice  ;  and  the  answer  showed  that  the  prac- 
tice had  been  departed  from.  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell replied : 

"  That  he  was  not  aware  of  any  pensions 
having  been  granted  to  those  officers  who  were 
wounded  in  the  expedition  against  the  Caro- 
line" 

This  was  sufficiently  explicit,  and  showed 
that  up  to  the  8th  day  of  February,  1841,  the 
act  of  Captain  Drew  had  not  been  even  indi- 
rectly, or  impliedly  recognized.  But  the  matter 
did  not  stop  there.  Mr.  Hume,  a  thoroughly 
business  member,  not  satisfied  with  an  answer 
which  merely  implied  that  the  government  had 
not  sanctioned  the  measure,  followed  it  up  with 
a  recapitulation  of  circumstances  to  show  that 
the  government  had  not  answered,  one  way  or 
the  other,  during  the  three  years  that  the  United 
States  had  been  calling  for  redress  ;  and  ending 
with  a  plain  interrogatory  for  information  on 
that  point. 

"  He  said  that  the  noble  lord  (Palmerston), 
had  just  made  a  speech  in  answer  to  certain 
questions  which  had  been  put  to  him  by  the 
noble  lord,  the  member  for  North  Lancashire ; 
but  he  (Mr.  Hume)  wished  to  ask  the  House 
to  suspend  their  opinion  upon  the  subject  until 
they  had  the  whole  of  the  papers  laid  before  the 
House.  He  had  himself  papers  in  his  posses- 
sion, that  would  explain  many  things  connected 
with  this  question,  and  which,  by-the-bye,  were 
not  exactly  consistent  with  the  statement  which 
had  just  been  made.  It  appeared  by  the  papers 
which  he  had  in  his  possession,  that  in  January, 
1838,  a  motion  was  made  in  the  TJ.  S.  House  of 


Representatives,  calling  upon  the  President  to 
place  upon  the  table  of  the  House,  all  the  papers 
respecting  the  Caroline,  and  all  the  correspond- 
ence which  had  passed  between  the  government 
of  the  United  States  and  the  British  govern- 
ment on  the  subject  of  the  destruction  of  the 
Caroline.  In  consequence  of  that  motion,  cer- 
tain papers  were  laid  upon  the  table,  including 
one  from  Mr.  Stevenson,  the  present  minister 
here  from  the  U.  States.  These  were  accompa- 
nied by  a  long  letter,  dated  the  15th  of  May, 
1838,  from  that  gentleman,  and  in  that  letter, 
the  burning  of  the  Caroline  was  characterized 
in  very  strong  language.  He  also  stated,  that 
agreeably  to  the  orders  of  the  President,  he  had 
laid  before  the  British  government  the  whole 
of  the  evidence  relating  to  the  subject,  which 
had  been  taken  upon  the  spot,  and  Mr.  Steven- 
son denied  he  had  ever  been  informed  that  the 
expedition  against  the  Carolme  was  author- 
ized or  sanctioned,  by  the  British  government. 
Now,  from  May,  1838,  the  time  when  the  letter 
had  been  written,  up  to  this  hour,  no  answer 
had  been  given  to  that  letter,  nor  had  any  satis- 
faction been  given  by  the  British  government 
upon  this  subject.  In  a  letter  dated  from  Lon- 
don, the  2d  of  July,  Mr.  Stevenson  stated  that 
he  had  not  received  any  answer  upon  the  sub- 
ject, and  that  he  did  not  wish  to  press  the 
subject  further ;  but  if  the  government  of  the 
United  States  wished  him  to  do  so,  he  prayed 
to  be  informed  of  it.  By  the  statement  which 
had  taken  place  in  the  House  of  Congress,  it 
appeared  that  the  government  of  the  United 
States  had  been  ignorant  of  any  information  that 
could  lead  them  to  suppose  that  the  enterprise 
against  the  Caroline  had  been  undertaken  by 
the  orders  of  the  British  government,  or  by 
British  authority.  That  he  believed  was  the 
ground  upon  which  Mr.  Forsyth  acted  as  he  had 
done.  He  takes  his  objections,  and  denies  the 
allegation  of  Mr.  Fox,  that  neither  had  he  nor 
her  Majesty's  government  made  any  communi- 
cation to  him  or  the  authorities  of  the  United 
States,  that  the  British  government  had  author- 
ized the  destruction  of  the  Caroline.  He  (Mr. 
Hume)  therefore  hoped  that  no  discussion  would 
take  place,  until  all  the  papers  connected  with 
the  matter  were  laid  before  the  House.  He 
wished  to  know  what  the  nature  of  those  com- 
munications was  with  Mr.  Stevenson  and  her 
Majesty's  government  which  had  induced  him 
to  act  as  he  had  done." 

Thus  the  ministry  were  told  to  their  faces, 
and  in  the  face  of  the  whole  Parliament,  that 
for  the  space  of  three  years,  and  under  repeated 
calls,  they  had  never  assumed  the  destruction 
of  the  Caroline  :  and  to  that  assertion  the  min- 
istry then  made  no  answer.  On  the  following 
day  the  subject  was  again  taken  up,  "  and  in 
the  course  of  it  Lord  Palmerston  admitted 
that  the  government  approved  of  the  burning 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


285 


of  the  Caroline."  So  says  the  Parliamentary 
Register  of  Debates,  and  adds :  "  The  conver- 
sation was  getting  rather  warm,  when  Sir 
Robert  Peel  interposed  by  a  motion  on  the 
affairs  of  Persia."  This  was  the  first  know- 
ledge that  the  British  parliament  had  of  the  as- 
sumption of  that  act,  which  undoubtedly  had 
just  been  resolved  upon.  It  is  clear  that 
Lord  Palmerston  was  the  presiding  spirit  of 
this  resolve.  He  is  a  bold  man,  and  a  man  of 
judgment  in  his  boldness.  He  probably  never 
would  have  made  such  an  assumption  in  deal- 
ing with  General  Jackson :  he  certainly  made 
no  such  assumption  during  the  three  years  he 
had  to  deal  with  the  Van  Buren  administration. 
The  conversation  was  "getting  warm;"  and 
well  it  might :  for  this  pregnant  assumption,  so 
long  delayed,  and  so  given,  was  entirely  gra- 
tuitous, and  unwarranted  by  the  facts.  Col. 
McNab  was  the  commanding  officer,  and  gave 
all  the  orders  that  were  given.  Captain  Drew's 
report  to  him  shows  that  his  orders  were  to  de- 
stroy the  vessel  at  Navy  Island  :  McNab's  let- 
ter of  the  same  day  to  the  United  States  Dis- 
trict Attorney  (Rodgers),  shows  that  he  would 
not  authorize  an  expedition  upon  United  States 
territory ;  and  his  sworn  testimony  on  the  trial 
of  McLeod  shows  that  he  did  not  do  it  in  his 
orders  to  Captain  Drew.    That  testimony  says : 

"  I  do  remember  the  last  time  the  steamboat 
Caroline  came  down  previous  to  her  destruc- 
tion;  from  the  information  I  received,  I  had 
every  reason  to  believe  that  she  came  down  for 
the  express  purpose  of  assisting  the  rebels  and 
brigands  on  Navy  Island  with  arms,  men,  am- 
munition, provisions,  stores,  &c. ;  to  ascertain 
this  fact,  I  sent  two  officers  with  instructions 
to  watch  the  movements  of  the  boat,  to  note 
the  same,  and  report  to  me ;  they  reported  they 
saw  her  land  a  cannon  (a  six  or  nine-pounder), 
several  men  armed  and  equipped  as  soldiers, 
and  that  she  had  dropped  her  anchor  on  the 
east  side  of  Navy  Island ;  on  the  information  I 
had  previously  received  from  highly  respectable 
persons  in  Buffalo,  together  with  the  report  of 
these  gentlemen,  I  determined  to  destroy  her 
that  night.  I  intrusted  the  command  of  the 
expedition  for  the  purposes  aforesaid,  to  Capt. 
A.  Drew,  royal  navy ;  seven  boats  were  equip- 
ped, and  left  the  Canadian  shore  ;  I  do  not  re- 
collect the  number  of  men  in  each  boat ;  Cap- 
tain Drew  held  the  rank  of  commander  in  her 
Majesty's  royal  navy ;  I  ordered  the  expedition, 
and  first  communicated  it  to  Capt.  Andrew 
Drew,  on  the  beach,  where  the  men  embarked 
a  short  time  previous  to  their  embarkation; 
Captain  Drew  was  ordered  to  take  and  destroy 


the  Caroline  wherever  he  could  find  her;  I  gave 
the  order  as  officer  in  command  of  the  forces 
assembled  for  the  purposes  aforesaid  ;  they  em- 
barked at  the  mouth  of  the  Chippewa  river ;  in 
my  orders  to  Captain  Drew  nothing  was  said 
about  invading  the  territory  of  the  United 
States,  but  such  was  their  nature  that  Captain 
Drew  might  feel  himself  justified  in  destroying 
the  boat  wherever  he  might  find  her." 

From  this  testimony  it  is  clear  that  McNab 
gave  no  order  to  invade  the  territory  of  the 
United  States  ;  and  the  whole  tenor  of  his  tes- 
timony agrees  with  Captain  Drew's  report, 
that  it  was  "  expected  "  to  have  found  the  Car- 
oline at  Navy  Island,  where  she  was  in  fact  im- 
mediately before,  and  where  McNab  saw  her 
while  planning  the  expedition.  No  such  order 
was  then  given  by  him — nor  by  any  other  au- 
thority ;  for  the  local  government  in  Quebec 
knew  no  more  of  it  than  the  British  ministry 
in  London.  Besides,  Col.  McNab  was  only  the 
military  commander  to  suppress  the  insurrec- 
tion. He  had  no  authority,  for  he  disclaimed 
it,  to  invade  an  American  possession ;  and  if  the 
British  government  had  given  such  authority, 
which  they  had  not,  it  would  have  been  an  out- 
rage to  the  United  States,  not  to  be  overlooked. 
They  then  assumed  an  act  which  they  had  not 
done ;  and  assumed  it !  and  took  a  war  attitude ! 
and  all  upon  a  calculation  that  it  was  the  most 
effectual  way  to  get  McLeod  released.  It  was 
in  the  evening  of  the  4th  day  of  March  that  all 
Washington  city  was  roused  by  the  rumor  of 
this  assumption  and  demand  :  and  on  the  12th 
day  of  that  month  they  were  all  formally  com- 
municated to  our  government.  It  was  to  the  new 
administration  that  this  formidable  communica- 
tion was  addressed — and  addressed  at  the  ear- 
liest moment  that  decency  would  permit.  The 
effect  was  to  the  full  extent  all  that  could  have 
been  calculated  upon  ;  and  wholly  reversed  the 
stand  taken  under  Mr.  Van  Buren's  adminis- 
tration. The  burning  of  the  Caroline  was  ad- 
mitted to  be  an  act  of  war,  for  which  the  sov- 
ereign, and  not  the  perpetrators,  was  liable : 
the  invasion  of  the  American  soil  was  also  an 
act  of  war :  the  surrender  of  McLeod  could  not 
be  effected  by  an  order  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment, because  he  was  in  the  hands  of  a  State 
court,  charged  with  crimes  against  the  laws  of 
that  State :  but  the  United  States  became  his 
defender  and  protector,  with  a  determination  to 
save  him  harmless :  and  all  this  was  immedi- 


286 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ately  communicated  to  Mr.  Fox  in  unofficial  in- 
terviews, before  the  formal  communication  could 
be  drawn  up  and  delivered.  Lord  Palmers- 
ton's  policy  was  triumphant ;  and  it  is  necessa- 
ry to  show  it  in  order  to  show  in  what  manner 
the  Caroline  affair  was  brought  to  a  conclusion ; 
and  in  its  train  that  of  the  northeastern  boun- 
dary, so  long  disputed ;  and  that  of  the  north- 
western boundary,  never  before  disputed ;  and 
that  of  the  liberated  slaves  on  their  way  from 
one  United  States  port  to  another:  and  all 
other  questions  besides  which  England  wished 
settled.  For,  emboldened  by  the  success  of  the 
Palmerstonian  policy  in  the  case  of  the  Caro- 
line, it  was  incontinently  applied  in  all  other 
cases  of  dispute  between  the  countries — and 
with  the  same  success.  But  of  this  hereafter. 
The  point  at  present  is,  to  show,  as  has  been 
shown,  that  the  assumption  of  this  outrage  was 
not  made  until  three  years  after  the  event,  and 
then  upon  a  calculation  of  its  efficiency,  and 
contrary  to  the  facts  of  the  case;  and  when 
made,  accompanied  by  large  naval  and  military 
demonstrations — troops  sent  to  Canada — ships 
to  Halifax — newspapers  to  ourselves,  the  Times 
especially — all  odorous  of  gunpowder  and  clam- 
orous for  war. 

This  is  dry  detail,  but  essential  to  the  scope 
of  this  work,  more  occupied  with  telling  how 
things  were  done  than  what  was  done :  and  in 
pursuing  this  view  it  is  amazing  to  see  by 
what  arts  and  contrivances — by  what  trifles  and 
accidents — the  great  affairs  of  nations,  as  well 
as  the  small  ones  of  individuals,  are  often  de- 
cided. The  finale  in  this  case  was  truly  ridicu- 
lous :  for,  after  all  this  disturbance  and  commo- 
tion— two  great  nations  standing  to  their  arms, 
exhausting  diplomacy,  and  inflaming  the  people 
to  the  war  point — after  the  formal  assumption 
of  McLeod's  offence,  and  war  threatened  for  his 
release,  it  turned  out  that  he  was  not  there  ! 
and  was  acquitted  by  an  American  jury  on  am- 
ple evidence.  He  had  slept  that  night  in  Chip- 
pewa, and  only  heard  of  the  act  the  next  morn- 
ing at  the  breakfast  table — when  he  wished  he 
had  been  there.  Which  wish  afterwards  ri- 
pened into  an  assertion  that  he  was  there  !  and, 
further,  had  himself  killed  one  of  the  damned 
Yankees — by  no  means  the  first  instance  of  a 
man  boasting  of  performing  exploits  in  a  fight 
which  he  did  not  see.  But  what  a  lesson  it 
teaches    to    nations  !      Two    great    countries 


brought  to  angry  feelings,  to  criminative  diplo- 
macy, to  armed  preparation,  to  war  threats — 
their  governments  and  people  in  commotion — 
their  authorities  all  in  council,  and  taxing  their 
skill  and  courage  to  the  uttermost :  and  all  to 
settle  a  national  quarrel  as  despicable  in  its  ori- 
gin as  the  causes  of  tavern  brawls ;  and  exceed- 
ingly similar  to  the  origin  of  such  brawls. 
McLeod's  false  and  idle  boast  was  the  cause  of 
all  this  serious  difficulty  between  two  great 
Powers. 

Mr.  Fox  had  delivered  his  formal  demand  and 
threat  on  the  12th  day  of  March  :  the  adminis- 
tration immediately  undertook  McLeod's  re- 
lease. The  assumption  of  his  imputed  act  had 
occasioned  some  warm  words  in  the  British 
House  of  Commons,  where  it  was  known  to 
be  gratuitous :  its  communication  created  no 
warmth  in  our  cabinet,  but  a  cold  chill  rather, 
where  every  spring  was  immediately  put  in  ac- 
tion to  release  McLeod.  Being  in  the  hands 
of  a  State  court,  no  order  could  be  given  for  his 
liberation  ;  but  all  the  authorities  in  New  York 
were  immediately  applied  to — governor,  legis- 
lature, supreme  court,  local  court — all  in  vain : 
and  then  the  United  States  assumed  his  defence, 
and  sent  the  Attorney-General,  Mr.  Crittenden, 
to  manage  his  defence,  and  General  Scott,  of  the 
United  States  army,  to  protect  him  from  popu- 
lar violence  ;  and  hastened  to  lay  all  their  steps 
before  the  British  minister  as  fast  as  they  were 
taken. 

The  acquittal  of  McLeod  was  honorable  to 
the  jury  that  gave  it ;  and  his  trial  was  honor- 
able to  the  judge,  who,  while  asserting  the 
right  to  try  the  man,  yet  took  care  that  the 
trial  should  be  fair.  The  judges  of  the  Supreme 
Court  (Bronson,  Nelson,  and  Cowan)  refused 
the  habeas  corpus  which  would  take  him  out 
of  the  State  :  the  Circuit  judge  gave  him  a  fair 
trial.  It  was  satisfactory  to  the  British  ;  and 
put  an  end  to  their  complaint  against  us :  un- 
happily it  seemed  to  put  an  end  to  our  com- 
plaint against  them.  All  was  postponed  for  a 
future  general  treaty — the  invasion  of  territory, 
the  killing  of  citizens,  the  arson  of  the  boat,  the 
impressment  and  abduction  of  a  supposed  Brit- 
ish subject — all,  all  were  postponed  to  the  day 
of  general  settlement :  and  when  that  day  came 
all  were  given  up. 

The  conduct  of  the  administration  in  the  set- 
tlement of  the  affair  became  a  subject  of  <Us- 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


287 


cussion  in  both  Houses  of  Congress,  and  was 
severely  censured  by  the  democracy,  and  zeal- 
ously defended  by  the  whigs.  Mr.  Charles  Ja- 
red  Ingersoll,  after  a  full  statement  of  the  ex- 
traordinary and  successful  efforts  of  the  admin- 
istration of  Mr.  Van  Buren  to  prevent  any  aid 
to  the  insurgents  from  the  American  side,  pro- 
ceeded to  say : 

"Notwithstanding,  however,  every  exertion 
that  could  be  and  was  made,  it  was  impossible 
altogether  to  prevent  some  outbreaks,  and 
among  the  rest  a  parcel  of  some  seventy  or 
eighty  Canadians,  as  I  have  understood,  with  a 
very  few  Americans,  took  possession  of  a  place 
near  the  Canadian  shore,  called  Navy  Island, 
and  fortified  themselves  in  defiance  of  British 
power.  If  I  have  not  been  misinformed  there 
were  not  more  than  eight  or  ten  Americans 
among  them.  An  American  steamboat  sup- 
plied them  with  a  cannon  and  perhaps  other 
munitions  of  war:  for  I  have  no  disposition 
to  diminish  whatever  was  the  full  extent  of 
American  illegality,  but,  in  this  statement  of  the 
premises,  desire  to  present  the  argument  with 
the  most  unreserved  concessions.  I  am  discuss- 
ing nothing  as  the  member  of  a  party.  I  con- 
sider the  Secretary  of  State  as  the  representa- 
tive of  his  government  and  country.  I  desire 
to  be  understood  as  not  intending  to  say  one 
word  against  that  gentleman  as  an  individual ; 
as  meaning  to  avoid  every  thing  like  personali- 
ty, and  addressing  myself  to  the  position  he  has 
assumed  for  the  country,  without  reference  to 
whether  he  is  connected  with  one  administra- 
tion or  another  ;  viewing  this  as  a  controversy 
between  the  United  States  and  a  foreign  gov- 
ernment, in  which  all  Americans  should  be  of 
one  party,  acknowledging  no  distinction  between 
the  acts  of  Mr.  Forsyth  and  Mr.  Webster,  but 
considering  the  whole  affair,  under  both  the 
successive  administrations,  as  one  and  indivisi- 
ble ;  and  on  many  points,  I  believe  this  country 
is  altogether  of  one  and  the  same  sentiment  con- 
cerning this  controversy.  It  seems  to  be  uni- 
versally agreed  that  British  pirates  as  they 
were,  as  I  will  show  according  to  the  strictest 
legal  definition  of  the  term,  in  the  dead  of  night, 
burglariously  invaded  our  country,  murdered 
at  least  one  of  our  unoffending  fellow-citizens, 
were  guilty  of  the  further  crime  of  arson  by 
burning  what  was  at  least  the  temporary  dwell- 
ing of  a  number  of  persons  asleep  in  a  steam- 
boat moored  to  the  wharf,  and  finally  cutting 
her  loose,  carried  her  into  the  middle  of  the 
stream,  where,  by  romantic  atrocity,  unexam- 
pled in  the  annals  of  crime,  they  sent  her  over 
the  Falls  of  Niagara,  with  how  many  persons 
in  her,  God  only  will  ever  know. 

"  Now  Mr.  Speaker,  this,  in  its  national  aspect, 
was  precisely  the  same  as  if  perpetrated  in  your 
house  or  mine,  and  should  be  resented  and  pun- 
ished accordingly.    Some  time  afterwards  one 


of  the  perpetrators,  named  McLeod,  in  a  fit  of 
that  sort  of  infatuation  with  which  Providence 
mostly  betrays  the  guilty,  strayed  over  from 
Canada  to  the  American  shore,  like  a  fool,  as  he 
was,  and  there  was  soon  arrested  and  imprisoned 
by  that  popular  police,  which  is  always  on  the 
alert  to  administer  justice  upon  malefactors. 
First  proceeded  against,  as  it  appears,  for  civil 
redress  for  the  loss  of  the  vessel,  he  was  soon 
after  indicted  by  the  appropriate  grand  jury,  and 
has  remained  ever  since  in  custody,  awaiting  the 
regular  administration  of  justice.  Guilty  or  in- 
nocent, however,  there  he  was,  under  the  aegis 
of  the  law  of  the  sovereign  State  of  New  York, 
with  the  full  protection  of  every  branch  of  the 
government  of  that  State,  when  the  present  ad- 
ministration superseded  the  last,  and  the  first 
moment  after  the  late  President's  inauguration 
was  ungenerously  seized  by  the  British  minister 
to  present  the  new  Secretary  of  State  with  a 
letter  containing  the  insolent,  threatening,  and 
insufferable  language  which  I  am  about  to  read 
from  it : 

" '  The  undersigned  is  instructed  to  demand  from  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States,  formally,  in  the  name  of  the  British 
government,  the  immediate  release  of  Mr.  Alexander  McLeod. 
The  transaction  in  question  may  have  been,  as  her  Majesty's 
government  are  of  opinion  that  it  was,  a  justifiable  employ- 
ment of  force  for  the  purpose  of  defending  the  British  territory 
from  the  unprovoked  attack  of  a  band  of  British  rebels  and 
American  pirates,  who,  having  been  permitted  to  arm  and  or- 
ganize themselves  within  the  territory  of  the  United  States, 
had  actually  invaded  and  occupied  a  portion  of  the  territory 
of  her  Majesty  ;  or  it  may  have  been,  as  alleged  by  Mr.  For- 
syth, in  his  note  to  the  undersigned  of  the  26th  of  December, 
a  most  unjustifiable  invasion  in  time  of  peace,  of  the  territory 
of  the  United  States."' 

"  Finally,  after  a  tissue  of  well  elaborated  di- 
plomatic contumely,  the  very  absurdity  of  part 
of  which,  in  the  application  of  the  term  pirates 
to  the  interfering  Americans,  is  demonstrated 
by  Mr.  Webster — the  British  minister  reiter- 
ates, towards  the  conclusion  of  his  artfully  in- 
sulting note — that  '  be  that  as  it  may,  her 
Majesty's  government  formally  demands,  upon 
the  grounds  already  stated,  the  immediate  re- 
lease of  Mr.  McLeod  ;  and  her  Majesty's  govern- 
ment entreats  the  President  of  the  United  States 
— I  pray  the  House  to  mark  the  sarcasm  of  this 
offensive  entreaty — to  take  into  his  deliberate 
consideration  the  serious  nature  of  the  conse- 
quences which  must  ensue  from  a  rejection  of 
this  demand.' 

"  Taken  in  connection  with  all  the  actual  cir- 
cumstances of  the  case — the  tone  of  the  British 
press,  both  in  England  and  Canada,  the  language 
of  members  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  and 
the  palpable  terms  of  Mr.  Fox's  letter  itself,  it 
is  impossible,  I  think,  not  to  see  we  cannot  wink 
so  hard  as  not  to  perceive  that  Mr.  Fox's  is  a 
threatening  letter.  It  surprises  me  that  this 
should  have  been  a  subject  of  controversy  in  an- 
other part  of  this  building,  while  I  cannot  doubt 
that  Mr.  Webster  was  perfectly  satisfied  of  the 
menacing  aspect  of  the  first  letter  he  received 
from  the  British  minister.  Anxious— perhaps 
laudably  anxious — to  avoid  a  quarrel  so  very 


288 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


unpromising,  at  the  very  outset  of  a  new  ad- 
ministration, he  seems  to  have  shut  his  eyes  to 
what  must  flash  in  every  American  face.  And 
here  was  his  first  mistake ;  for  his  course  was 
perfectly  plain.  He  had  nothing  to  do  but,  by 
an  answer  in  the  blandest  terms  of  diplomatic 
courtesy,  to  send  back  the  questionable  phrases 
to  Mr.  Fox,  with  a  respectful  suggestion  that 
they  looked  to  him  as  if  conveying  a  threat ; 
that  he  hoped  not,  he  believed  not ;  he  trusted 
for  the  harmony  of  their  personal  relations,  and 
the  peace  of  their  respective  nations,  that  he  was 
laboring  under  a  mistake  ;  but  he  could  not  di- 
vest his  mind  of  the  impression,  that  there  were 
in  this  note  of  Mr.  Fox,  certain  phrases  which, 
in  all  controversies  among  gentlemen  as  well  as 
nations,  inevitably  put  an  end  to  further  nego- 
tiation. Mr.  Fox  must  have  answered  nega- 
tively or  affirmatively,  and  the  odious  indignity 
which  now  rankles  in  the  breast  of  at  least  a 
large  proportion  of  the  country,  interpreting  it 
as  the  meaning  of  the  British  communication, 
would  have  been  avoided.  Mr.  Webster  had 
Mr.  Fox  absolutely  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand. 
He  had  an  opportunity  of  enlisting  the  manly 
feeling  of  all  his  countrymen,  the  good  will  of 
right-minded  Englishmen  themselves,  to  a  firm 
and  inoffensive  stand  like  this,  on  the  threshold 
of  the  correspondence.  Why  he  did  not,  is  not 
for  me  to  imagine.  With  no  feeling  of  personal 
disparagement  to  that  gentleman,  I  charge  this 
as  an  obvious,  a  capital,  and  a  deplorable  lapse 
from  the  position  he  should  have  assumed,  in 
his  very  first  attitude  towards  the  British 
minister. 

"  The  British  argument  addressed  to  him  was, 
that  '  the  transaction  in  question  was  a  justi- 
fiable employment  of  public  force,  with  the  sanc- 
tion, or  by  order  of  the  constituted  authorities 
of  a  State,  engaging  individuals  in  military  or 
naval  enterprises  in  their  country's  cause,  when 
it  would  be  contrary  to  the  universal  practice  of 
civilized  nations  to  fix  individual  responsibility 
upon  the  persons  engaged.'  This,  as  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  pronounce  it,  false  assumption  of  law, 
is,  at  once,  conceded  by  Mr.  Webster,  in  the 
remarkable  terms,  that  the  '  government  of  the 
United  States,'  by  which  he  must  mean  himself, 
entertains  no  doubt  of  the  asserted  British  prin- 
ciple. Mr.  Webster  had  just  before  said,  that 
'  the  President  is  not  certain  that  he  understands 
precisely  the  meaning  intended  to  be  conveyed 
by  her  Majesty's  government,'  'which  doubt,' 
he  adds,  'has  occasioned  with  the  President 
some  hesitation.'  Thus  while  the  President  en- 
tertained a  doubt,  the  government  entertained 
no  doubt  at  all ;  which  I  cannot  understand, 
otherwise,  than  that  while  the  President  hesi- 
tated to  concede,  the  Secretary  of  State  had  no 
hesitation  whatever  to  concede  at  once  the  whole 
British  assumption,  and  surrender  at  discretion 
the  whole  American  case.  For  where  is  the  use 
of  Mr.  Webster's  posterior,  elaborated  argument, 
when  told  by  the  British  minister  that  this 


transaction  was  justifiable,  and  informed  by  the 
public  prints  that  at  a  very  early  day,  one  of 
the  British  Secretaries,  Lord  John  Russell,  de- 
clared in  open  Parliament  that  the  British  go- 
vernment  justified  what  is  called  the  transaction 
of  McLeod.  The  matter  was  ended  before  Mr. 
Webster  set  his  powerful  mind  to  produce  an 
argument  on  the  subject.  The  British  crown 
had  taken  its  position.  Mr.  Webster  knew  it 
had ;  and  he  may  write  the  most  elegant  and 
pathetic  letters  till  doomsday,  with  no  other 
effect  than  to  display  the  purity  of  his  English 
to  admiring  fellow-citizens,  and  the  infirmity  of 
his  argument  to  Great  Britain  and  the  world. 
By  asserting  the  legal  position  which  they  as- 
sume, and  justifying  the  transaction,  together 
with  Mr.  Webster's  concession  of  their  legal  po- 
sition, the  transaction  is  settled.  Nothing  re- 
mains to  be  done.  Mr.  Webster  may  write 
about  it  if  he  will,  but  Mr.  Fox  and  the  British 
minister  hold  the  written  acknowledgment  of 
the  American  Secretary  of  State,  that  the  affair 
is  at  an  end.  I  call  this,  sir,  a  terrible  mistake, 
a  fatal  blunder,  irrecoverable,  desperate,  leaving 
us  nothing  but  Mr.  Webster's  dreadful  alterna- 
tive of  cold-blooded,  endless,  causeless  war. 

"  Our  position  is  false,  extremely  and  lament- 
ably false.  The  aggrieved  party,  as  we  are,  and 
bound  to  insist  upon  redress,  to  require  the 
punishment  of  McLeod,  Drew,  and  McNab,  and 
the  other  pirates  who  destroyed  the  Caroline, 
we  have  been  brought  to  such  a  reverse  of  the 
true  state  of  things,  as  to  be  menaced  with  the 
wrong-doer's  indignation,  unless  we  yield  every 
thing.  I  care  not  whose  fault  it  is,  whether  of 
this  administration  or  that.  In  such  an  affair, 
I  consider  both  the  present  and  the  past,  as  pre- 
senting one  and  the  same  front  to  one  and  the 
same  assailant.  I  cannot  refrain,  however,  from 
saying,  that  whatever  may  have  been  cur  posi- 
tion, it  has  been  greatly  deteriorated  by  Mr.  % 
Webster's  unfortunate  concession. 

"  Never  did  man  lose  a  greater  occasion  than 
Mr.  Webster  cast  away,  for  placing  himself  and 
his  country  together,  upon  a  pinnacle  of  just 
renown.  Great  Britain  had  humbled  France, 
conquered  Egypt,  subdued  vast  tracts  of  India, 
and  invaded  the  distant  empire  of  China — there 
was  nothing  left  but  our  degradation,  to  fill  the 
measure  of  her  glory,  if  it  consists  in  such 
achievements ;  and  she  got  it  by  merely  de- 
manding, without  expecting  it.  And  why  have 
we  yielded?  Was  there  any  occasion  for  it? 
Did  she  intend  to  realize  her  threat  ?  Were  the 
consequences  which  Mr.  Webster  was  entreated 
to  take  into  his  consideration,  the  immediate  and 
exterminating  warfare,  servile  war  and  all,  which 
belligerent  newspapers,  peers,  and  other  such 
heralds  of  hostilities  have  proclaimed  ?  No  such 
thing.  We  may  rely,  I  think,  with  confidence, 
upon  the  common  good  sense  of  the  English 
nation,  not  to  rush  at  once  upon  such  extremi- 
ties, and  for  such  a  cause.  Mr.  Fox  took  Mr. 
Webster  in  the  melting  mood,  and  conquered 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


289 


by  a  threat ;  that  is  to  say,  conquered  for  the 
moment ;  because  the  results,  at  some  distant 
day,  unless  his  steps  are  retraced,  will  and  must 
be  estrangement  between  kindred  nations,  and 
cold-blooded  hostilities.  I  have  often  thought, 
Mr.  Speaker,  that  this  affair  of  McLeod  is  what 
military  men  call  a  demonstration,  a  feint,  a 
false  attack,  to  divert  us  from  the  British  design 
on  the  State  of  Maine  ;  of  which  I  trust  not  one 
inch  will  ever  be  given  up.  And  truly,  when  we 
had  the  best  cause  in  the  world,  and  were  the 
most  clearly  in  the  right,  it  has  been  contrived, 
some  how  or  other,  to  put  us  in  false  position, 
upon  the  defensive,  instead  of  the  offensive,  and 
to  perplex  the  plainest  case  with  vexatious  com- 
plication and  concession." 

The  latter  part  of  this  speech  was  prophetic — 
that  which  related  to  the  designs  on  the  State 
of  Maine.  Successful  in  this  experiment  of  the 
most  efficacious  means  for  the  release  of  Mc- 
Leod, the  British  ministry  lost  no  time  in 
making  another  trial  of  the  same  experiment, 
on  the  territory  of  that  State — and  again  success- 
fully :  but  of  this  in  its  proper  place.  Mr.  John 
Quincy  Adams,  and  Mr.  Caleb  dishing,  were 
the  prominent  defenders  of  the  administration 
policy  in  the  House  of  Representatives — resting 
on  the  point  that  the  destruction  of  the  Caroline 
was  an  act  of  war.     Mr.  Adams  said  : 

"  I  take  it  that  the  late  affair  of  the  Caroline 
was  in  hostile  array  against  the  British  govern- 
ment, and  that  the  parties  concerned  in  it  were 
employed  in  acts  of  war  against  it :  and  I  do 
not  subscribe  to  the  very  learned  opinion  of  the 
chief  justice  of  the  State  of  New  York  (not,  I 
hear,  the  chief  justice,  but  a  judge  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  that  State),  that  there  was  no 
act  of  war  committed.  Nor  do  I  subscribe  to 
it  that  every  nation  goes  to  war  only  on  issuing 
a  declaration  or  proclamation  of  war.  This  is 
not  the  fact.  Nations  often  wage  war  for  years, 
without  issuing  any  declaration  of  war.  The 
question  is  not  here  upon  a  declaration  of  war, 
but  acts  of  war.  And  I  say  that  in  the  judg- 
ment of  all  impartial  men  of  other  nations,  we 
shall  be  held  as  a  nation  responsible  ;  that  the 
Caroline,  there,  was  in  a  state  of  war  against 
Great  Britain ;  for  purposes  of  war,  and  the 
worst  kind  of  war — to  sustain  an  insurrection  ; 
I  will  not  say  rebellion,  because  rebellion  is  a 
crime,  and  because  I  heard  them  talked  of  as 
patriots." 

Mr.  Cushing  said : 

"  It  is  strange  enough  that  the  friends  of  Mr. 
Van  Buren  should  deny  that  the  attack  on  the 
Caroline  was  an  act  of  war.  I  reply  to  them 
not  only  by  exhibiting  the  reason  and  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  thing,  but  by  citing  the  authority 

Vol.  II.— 19 


of  their  own  President.  I  hold  in  my  hand  a 
copy  of  the  despatch  addressed  by  Mr.  Steven- 
son to  Lord  Palmerston,  under  the  direction  of 
Mr.  Van  Buren,  making  demand  of  reparation 
for  the  destruction  of  the  Caroline,  and  in  that 
despatch,  which  has  been  published,  Mr.  Ste- 
venson pursues  the  only  course  he  could  pur- 
sue;  he  proceeds  to  prove  the  hostile  nature 
of  the  act  by  a  full  exhibition  of  facts,  and 
concludes  and  winds  up  the  whole  with  declar- 
ing in  these  words :  '  The  case  then  is  one  of 
open,  undisguised,  and  unwarrantable  hostility.' 
After  this,  let  no  one  complain  of  Mr.  Webster 
for  having  put  the  case  of  the  Caroline  on  the 
same  precise  ground  which  Mr.  Van  Buren  had 
assumed  for  it,  and  which,  indeed,  is  the  only 
ground  upon  which  the  United  States  could  un- 
dertake to  hold  the  British  government  respon- 
sible. And  when  the  gentleman  from  Pennsyl- 
vania is  considering  the  first  great  negotiation 
of  Mr.  Webster,  how  does  he  happen  to  forget 
the  famous,  or  rather  infamous,  first  great  ne- 
gotiation undertaken  by  Mr.  Van  Buren  ?  And 
is  it  not  an  act  of  mere  madness  on  the  part  of 
the  friends  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  to  compel  us  to 
compare  the  two  ?  Here  is  a  despatch  before 
us,  addressed  in  a  controversy  between  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain,  containing  one 
of  the  ablest  vindications  of  the  honor  and  in- 
tegrity of  the  United  States  that  ever  was  writ- 
ten. Mr.  Van  Buren  began,  also,  with  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  question  between  us  and  Great 
Britain.  And  in  what  spirit  ? — that  of  a  pa- 
triot, a  man  of  honor,  and  an  American  ?  Is 
not  that  despatch,  on  the  contrary,  a  monument 
of  ignominy  in  the  history  of  the  United 
States?  Instead  of  maintaining  the  interests 
of  this  country,  did  not  Mr.  Van  Buren,  on  that 
occasion,  utterly  sacrifice  them  ?  Did  he  not 
dictate  in  that  despatch,  a  disposition  of  the 
great  question  of  the  colony  trade  between  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain,  which,  from 
that  time  to  this,  has  proved  most  disastrous  in 
its  effects  on  the  commercial  and  navigating  in- 
terests of  the  United  States  ?  And  pernicious 
as  was  the  object  of  the  despatch,  was  not  the 
spirit  of  it  infinitely  worse  ?  in  which,  for  the 
first  time,  party  quarrels  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  were  carried  into  our  foreign 
affairs — in  which  a  preceding  administration 
was  impliedly  reproached  for  the  zeal  with 
which  it  had  defended  our  interests — in  which 
it  was  proclaimed  that  the  new  administration 
started  in  the  world  with  a  set  purpose  of  con- 
cession toward  Great  Britain — in  which  the 
honor  of  the  United  States  was  laid  prostrate 
at  the  foot  of  the  British  throne,  and  the  proud 
name  of  America,  to  sustain  which  our  fathers 
had  carried  on  a  first  and  a  second  war,  as  we 
may  have  to  do  a  third — that  glory  which  the 
arms  of  our  enemy  could  not  reach,  was,  in  this 
truckling  despatch,  laid  low  for  the  first,  and,  I 
trust  in  God,  the  last  time,  before  the  lion  of 
England." 


290 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


The  ground  taken  by  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr. 
Cushing  for  the  defence  of  Mr.  Webster  (for 
they  seemed  to  consider  him,  and  no  doubt  tru- 
ly, as  the  whole  administration  in  this  case) 
was  only  shifting  the  defence  from  One  bad 
ground  to  another.  The  war  ground  they  as- 
sumed could  only  apply  between  Great  Britain 
and  the  insurgents :  she  had  no  war  with  the 
United  States  :  the  attack  on  the  Caroline  was 
an  invasion  of  the  territory  of  a  neutral  power 
— at  peace  with  the  invader.  That  is  a  liberty 
not  allowed  by  the  laws  of  nations — not  allowed 
by  the  concern  which  any  nation,  even  the  most 
inconsiderable,  feels  for  its  own  safety,  and  its 
own  self-respect.  A  belligerent  party  cannot 
enter  the  territory  of  a  neutral,  even  in  fresh 
pursuit  of  an  enemy.  No  power  allows  it. 
That  we  have  seen  in  our  own  day,  in  the  case 
of  the  Poles,  in  their  last  insurrection,  driven 
across  the  Austrian  frontier  by  the  Kussians  ; 
and  the  pursuers  stopped  at  the  line,  and  the 
fugitive  Poles  protected  the  instant  they  had 
crossed  it :  and  in  the  case  of  the  late  Hunga- 
rian revolt,  in  which  the  fugitive  Hungarians 
driven  across  the  Turkish  frontier,  were  pro- 
tected from  pursuit.  The  Turks  protected 
them,  Mahometans  as  they  were ;  and  would 
not  give  up  fugitive  Christians  to  a  Christian 
power ;  and  afterwards  assisted  the  fugitives  to 
escape  to  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States. 
The  British  then  had  no  right  to  invade  the 
United  States  even  in  fresh  pursuit  of  fugitive 
belligerents :  but  the  Caroline  and  crew  were 
not  belligerents.  She  was  an  American  ferry- 
boat carrying  men  and  supplies  to  the  insur- 
gents, but  she  was  not  a  combatant.  And  if 
she  had  been — had  been  a  war-vessel  belonging 
to  the  insurgents,  and  fighting  for  them,  she 
could  not  be  attacked  in  a  neutral  port.  The 
men  on  board  of  her  were  not  Canadian  insur- 
gents, but  American  citizens,  amenable  to  their 
own  country  for  any  infraction  of  her  neutrali- 
ty laws  :  and  if  they  had  been  Canadian  insur- 
gents they  could  not  have  been  seized  on  Amer- 
ican soil ;  nor  even  demanded  under  the  extra- 
dition clause  in  the  treaty  of  1796,  even  if  in  force. 
It  did  not  extend  to  political  offences,  either  of 
treason  or  war.  It  only  applied  to  the  common 
law  offences  of  murder  and  forgery.  How  con- 
tradictory and  absurd  then  to  claim  a  right  to 
come  and  take  by  violence,  what  could  not  be 
demanded  under  any  treaty  or  the  law  of  na- 


tions. No  power  gives  up  a  political  fugitive. 
Strong  powers  protect  them  openly,  while  they 
demean  themselves  orderly  :  weak  powers  get 
them  to  go  away  when  not  able  to  protect 
them.  None  give  them  up — not  even  the 
weakest.  All  the  countries  of  Europe — the 
smallest  kingdom,  the  most  petty  principality, 
the  feeblest  republic,  even  San  Marino — scorn 
to  give  up  a  political  fugitive,  and  though  una- 
ble to  chastise,  never  fail  to  resent  any  viola- 
tion of  its  territory  to  seize  them.  We  alone, 
and  in  the  case  of  the  Caroline,  acknowledge 
the  right  of  Great  Britain  to  invade  our  terri- 
tory, seize  and  kill  American  citizens  sleeping 
under  the  flag  of  their  country,  to  cut  out  an 
American  vessel  moored  in  our  port,  and  send 
her  in  flames  over  the  Falls  of  Niagara.  We 
alone  do  that !  but  we  have  done  it  but  once ! 
and  history  places  upon  it  the  stigma  of  oppro- 
brium. 

Mr.  William  0.  Butler  of  Kentucky,  replied 
to  Mr.  Cushing,  especially  to  his  rehash  of  the 
stale  imputations,  worn  out  at  the  time  of  Mr. 
Van  Buren's  senatorial  rejection  as  minister  to 
Great  Britain,  and  said : 

"  He  expected  from  the  gentleman  a  discus- 
sion on  national  law ;  but  how  much  was  he 
astonished  the  next  day,  on  reading  his  speech 
in  the  Intelligencer,  and  finding  him  making  a 
most  virulent  attack  on  the  conduct  and  repu- 
tation of  Mr.  Van  Buren.  The  gentleman  re- 
ferred to  the  letter  of  instructions  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren  to  our  Minister  at  the  Court  of  St. 
James,  and  compared  it  with  the  instructions 
of  Mr.  Webster  to  the  Attorney-general ; 
speaking  of  the  latter  as  breathing  the  states- 
man and  patriot  throughout,  while  he  charac- 
terizes the  former  as  infamous.  Mr.  B.  said  he 
would  not  repeat  the  harsh  and  offensive  terms 
in  which  the  gentleman  had  spoken  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren's  letter ;  he  would  read  what  the  gentle- 
man said  from  his  printed  speech,  in  order  that 
the  House  might  see  the  length  to  which  his 
invectives  were  carried.  [Here  Mr.  B.  read 
extracts  from  Mr.  Cushing's  speech.]  The 
gentleman  spoke  of  comparing  the  two  letters 
together.  But  did  he  think  of  comparing  the 
thing  we  complain  of  with  the  thing  he  com- 
plains of?  No :  that  would  be  next  to  mad- 
ness. The  gentleman  shrinks  from  that  com- 
parison, and  goes  on  to  compare  not  the  thing 
we  complain  of  with  the  letter  of  Mr.  Van  Bu- 
ren, but  the  beautiful  composition  of  Mr.  Web- 
ster, written  forty  days  after  complying  with 
the  British  minister's  insulting  demands,  and 
intended  to  cover  over  the  instructions  to  Mr. 
Crittenden,  after  which  he  characterizes  Mr. 
Van  Buren's  letter  as  a  monument  of  ignominy. 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


291 


Now  Mr.  B.  said  he  would  make  the  same  re- 
ply that  a  dignified  farmer  of  Kentucky  did  to 
a  lawyer.  The  lawyer  prosecuted  the  farmer 
for  a  slander,  and  in  the  course  of  the  trial  took 
occasion  to  heap  on  him  all  the  abuse  and  in- 
vective of  which  the  Billingsgate  vocabulary  is 
capable.  Yet  the  jury,  without  leaving  their 
box,  pronounced  a  verdict  of  acquittal.  The 
verdict  of  an  honest  and  intelligent  jury,  said 
the  farmer,  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  all  your 
abuse.  Just  so  it  was  with  Mr.  Van  Buren. 
His  letter  had  made  a  great  noise  in  the  coun- 
try ;  had  been  extensively  circulated  and  read, 
and  had  been  assailed  with  the  utmost  virulence 
by  the  opposite  party.  Yet  the  highest  jury 
on  earth,  the  American  people,  had  pronounced 
the  acquittal  of  Mr.  Van  Buren  by  electing  him 
to  the  Chief  Magistracy.  The  gentleman  com- 
plained that  the  patriotism  of  Mr.  Webster  not 
only  had  been  assailed,  but  that  the  gentleman 
from  Pennsylvania  had  had  the  temerity  to  at- 
tack that  most  beautiful  of  letters  which  the 
patriotic  Secretary  wrote  to  Mr.  Fox.  Now  he 
(Mr.  B.)  would  admit  that  it  was  a  beautiful 
piece  of  composition,  and  he  knew  of  but  one 
that  would  compare  with  it,  and  that  was  the 
proclamation  of  General  Hull,  just  before  sur- 
rendering the  Northwestern  army  to  the 
British." 

The  friends  of  Mr.  "Webster  had  a  fashion  of 
extolling  his  intellect  when  his  acts  were  in 
question  j  and  on  no  occasion  was  that  fashion 
more  largely  indulged  in  than  on  the  present 
one.  His  letter,  superscribed  to  Mr.  Fox — 
brought  out  for  home  consumption  forty  days 
after  the  satisfactory  answer  had  been  given — 
was  exalted  to  the  skies  for  the  harmony  of  its 
periods,  the  beauty  of  its  composition,  the  co- 
gency of  its  reasons  !  without  regarding  the  na- 
tional honor  and  interest  which  it  let  down  into 
the  mud  and  mire;  and  without  considering 
that  the  British  imperious  demand  required  in 
the  answer  to  it,  nerve  as  well  as  head— and 
nerve  most.  It  was  a  case  for  an  iron  will, 
more  than  for  a  shining  intellect :  and  iron  will 
was  not  the  strong  side  of  Mr.  Webster's  char- 
acter. His  intellect  was  great — his  will  small. 
His  pursuits  were  civil  and  intellectual ;  and  he 
was  not  the  man,  with  a  goose  quill  in  his  hand, 
to  stand  up  against  the  British  empire  in  arms. 
Throughout  the  debate,  in  both  Houses  of  Con- 
gress, the  answer  to  Mr.  Fox  was  treated  by 
Mr.  Webster's  friends,  as  his  ownj  and,  no 
doubt,  justly — his  supremacy  as  a  jurist  being 
so  largly  deferred  to. 

The  debate  in  the  House  was  on  the  adoption 
of  a  resolution  offered  by  Mr.  John  G.  Floyd, 


of  New  York,  calling  on  the  President  for  in- 
formation in  relation  to  the  steps  taken  to  aid 
the  liberation  of  McLeod ;  and  the  fate  of  the 
resolution  was  significant  of  the  temper  of  the 
House — a  desire  to  get  rid  of  the  subject  with- 
out a  direct  vote.  It  was  laid  upon  the  table 
by  a  good  majority— 110  to  70.  The  nays, 
being  those  who  were  for  prosecuting  the  in- 
quiry, were: 

Messrs.  Archibald  H.  Arrington,  Charles  G. 
Atherton,  Linn  Banks,  Henry  W.  Beeson,  Ben- 
jamin A.  Bidlack,  Samuel  S.  Bowne,  Linn  Boyd, 
Aaron  V.  Brown,  Charles  Brown,  Edmund 
Burke,  Reuben  Chapman,  James  G.  Clinton, 
Walter  Coles,  Edward  Cross,  John  R.  J.  Daniel, 
Richard  D.  Davis,  Ezra  Dean,  William  Doan, 
Andrew  W.  Doig,  Ira  A.  Eastman,  John  C.  Ed- 
wards, Charles  G.  Ferris,  John  G.  Floyd,  Charles 
A.  Floyd,  Joseph  Fornance,  James  Gerry,  Wil- 
liam 0.  Goode,  Samuel  Gordon,  William  A. 
Harris,  John  Hastings,  Samuel  L.  Hays,  Isaac 
E.  Holmes,  Jacob  Houck,  jr.,  George  S.  Houston, 
Edmund  W.  Hubard,  Charles  J.  Ingersoll,  Wil- 
liam Jack,  Cave  Johnson,  John  W.  Jones, 
George  M.  Keim,  Abraham  McClellan,  Robert 
McClellan,  James  J.  McKay,  John  McKeon, 
Albert  G.  Marchand,  Alfred  Marshall,  John 
Thompson  Mason,  James  Mathews,  William 
Medill,  John  Miller,  Christopher  Morgan,  Peter 
Newhard,  William  Parmenter,  Samuel  Patridge, 
William  W.  Payne,  Arnold  Plumer,  John  Rey- 
nolds, Lewis  Riggs,  Tristram  Shaw,  John  Sny- 
der, Lewis  Steenrod,  George  Sweeny,  Thomas  A. 
Tomlinson,  Hopkins  L.  Turney,  John  Van  Buren, 
Aaron  Ward,  Harvey  M.  Watterson,  John  West- 
brook,  James  W.  Williams,  Henry  A.  Wise, 
Fernando  Wood. 

The  same  subject  was  largely  debated  in  the 
Senate — among  others  by  Mr.  Benton — some 
extracts  from  whose  speech  will  constitute  the 
next  chapter. 


CHAPTER     LXXVI. 

DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  CAROLINE:  ARREST  AND 
TRIAL  OF  McLEOD:  MR.  BENTON'S  SPEECH: 
EXTRACTS. 

Mr.  Benton  said  the  history  of  our  country 
contained  a  warning  lesson  to  gentlemen  who 
take  the  side  of  a  foreign  country  against  their 
own :  he  alluded  to  the  case  of  Arbuthnot  and 
Ambrister,  seized  among  the  Seminole  Indians 
in  1818,  and  hung  as  outlaws  and  pirates  by  the 


292 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


orders  of  General  Jackson.  The  news  of  that 
execution  was  heard  with  joy  by  the  American 
people,  who  considered  these  Englishmen  as  a 
thousand  times  more  culpable  than  the  wretched 
savages  whom  they  stimulated  to  the  murder  of 
women  and  children — men  who  had  abandoned 
their  own  country,  and  the  white  race  to  which 
they  belonged,  to  join  savages  against  a  country 
with  which  their  own  government  was  at  peace. 
The  country  heard  the  news  of  the  execution 
with  joy:  they  approved  the  act  of  General 
Jackson.  Not  so  with  the  politicians — the  po- 
liticians of  the  federal  school  especially.  They 
condemned  it ;  partisan  presses  attacked  it ; 
and  when  Congress  met,  committees  of  each 
House  of  Congress  reported  against  it — loudly 
condemned  it — and  were  followed  by  a  crowd 
of  speakers.  All  the  phrases  now  heard  in 
claiming  exemption  for  McLeod,  and  bewail- 
ing his  fate,  were  then  heard  in  deploring 
the  fate  of  Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister.  Viola- 
tion of  the  laws  of  nations — inhuman — unworthy 
of  the  nineteenth  century — shocking  to  human- 
ity— barbarous — uncivilized — subjecting  us  to 
reprisals,  and  even  to  war  from  England — draw- 
ing upon  us  the  reproaches  of  Christendom,  and 
even  the  wrath  of  Heaven :  such  were  the  holi- 
day phrases  with  which  the  two  Houses  of  Con- 
gress then  resounded.  To  hear  what  was  said, 
and  it  would  seem  that  the  British  lion  would 
be  instantly  upon  us.  We  were  taught  to  trem- 
ble for  the  return  news  from  Englnd.  Well !  it 
came !  and  what  was  it  ?  Not  one  word  from 
the  British  government  against  the  act  of  Jack- 
son !  Not  the  scrape  of  a  pen  from  a  minister 
on  the  subject !  Not  a  word  in  Parliament  ex- 
cept the  unsupported  complaint  of  some  solitary 
members— just  enough  to  show,  by  the  indiffer- 
ence with  which  it  was  received,  that  the  Brit- 
ish House  of  Commons  had  no  condemnation  to 
pronounce  upon  the  conduct  of  General  Jackson. 
Their  silence  justified  him  in  England,  while 
committees  and  orators  condemned  him  in  his 
own  country :  and  this  justification  from  abroad, 
in  a  case  where  two  Englishmen  were  actually 
hanged,  should  be  a  warning  to  gentlemen  how 
they  should  commit  themselves  in  a  case  where 
an  Englishman  is  merely  in  the  hands  of  justice, 
and  has  nothing  to  fear  from  "  God  and  the 
country  "  if  he  is  as  innocent,  as  he  now  alleges, 
and  which  humanity  would  wish  him  to  be. 
General  Jackson  was  right,  and  the  committees 


and  orators  who  condemned  him  were  wrong. 
He  was  right  in  the  law,  and  in  the  application 
of  the  law.  He  had  no  musty  volumes  of  na- 
tional law  to  refer  to  in  the  swamps  of  Florida  ; 
and  he  needed  none.  He  had  the  law  of  nature, 
and  of  nations,  in  his  heart.  He  had  an  Ameri- 
can heart,  and  that  heart  never  led  him  wrong 
when  the  rights,  the  interest,  and  the  honor  of 
his  country  were  at  stake.  He  hung  the  Eng- 
lishmen who  were  inciting  savages  to  the  mur- 
der of  our  women  and  children :  and  the  policy 
of  the  measure  has  become  no  less  apparent  than 
its  legality  was  clear.  Before  that  time  Eng- 
lishmen were  habitually  in  the  camp  and  wig- 
wam of  the  Indians,  stimulating  to  war  upon 
us :  since  that  time  no  Englishman  has  been 
heard  of  among  them.  The  example  was  im- 
pressive—  its  effect  salutary — its  lesson  per- 
manent. It  has  given  us  twenty-five  years  of 
exemption  from  British  interference  in  our 
Indian  relations ;  and  if  the  assassins  of  the 
Caroline  shall  be  hung  up  in  like  manner  it  will 
give  us  exemption  from  future  British  outrage 
along  the  extended  line  which  divides  the  Union 
from  the  British  Canadian  provinces. 

It  is  humiliating  to  see  senators  of  eminent 
ability  consulting  books  to  find  passages  to 
justify  an  outrage  upon  their  own  country. 
Better  far  throw  away  the  books,  and  go  by  the 
heart.  Then,  at  least,  with  American  hearts, 
they  would  always  have  the  consolation  of  being 
on  their  country's  side.  Better  even  to  take  the 
rule  of  the  illustrious  commodore  whose  actions 
have  shed  so  much  lustre  on  the  American 
name  (Decatur),  and  go  for  their  country,  right 
or  wrong.  Then  they  would  always  have  their 
own  hearts  on  their  side.  Besides,  there  is  no 
book  which  fits  our  case — none  which  was 
written  for  the  duplicate  form  of  government 
which  we  possess.  We  have  State  governments 
as  well  as  a  general  government;  and  those 
governments  have  their  rights,  and  are  sovereign 
within  their  limits.  The  protection  of  the  lives, 
liberty,  and  property  of  their  citizens,  is  among 
these  rights  :  the  punishment  of  murder,  arson, 
and  burglary,  are  among  these  rights.  If  there 
was  nothing  in  the  law  of  nations,  as  written  in 
the  books,  to  recognize  these  rights,  it  would 
be  necessary  for  us  to  do  an  act  which  would 
cause  a  new  line  to  be  written  in  these  books. 
But  this  is  not  the  case.  The  law  of  nations  as 
it  now  stands,  is  sufficient  for  us.    It  has  been 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


293 


read  from  Vattel  by  several  senators;  and  is 
conclusive  in  our  favor.  What  is  it?  Why, 
that  if  the  citizens  of  one  country  commit  an 
outrage  upon  another,  you  must  apply  to  their 
sovereign  for  redress  :  but  if  the  wrong-doer 
comes  into  your  country,  you  may  seize  and 
punish  him.  This  is  the  law  of  nations,  and  it 
fits  our  case ;  and  we  have  followed  it.  The 
United  States,  as  charged  with  our  foreign  re- 
lations, have  made  the  demand  for  redress  upon 
Great  Britain :  the  State  of  New  York,  as  the 
wronged  local  authority,  has  seized  the  wrong- 
doer, when  he  came  upon  her  territory  ;  and  is 
giving  him  what  he  did  not  give  her  citizens — a 
trial  for  his  life  :  and  this  she  has  a  right  to  do : 
and  if  the  federal  government  attempts  to  give 
up  that  man,  she  shrinks  from  the  defence  of 
right,  violates  the  law  of  nations,  and  invades 
the  jurisdiction  of  New  York. 

This  brings  us  to  the  case  before  us.  What 
is  it?  The  facts  of  the  transaction  are  all 
spread  out  in  official  documents,  and  sustained 
upon  clear  and  undeniable  testimony.  Some 
Canadian  insurgents  are  on  an  island,  near  the 
Canada  shore,  entrenching  themselves,  and  re- 
ceiving aid  in  men  and  arms  from  the  American 
side.  An  American  ferry-boat,  the  Steamer 
Caroline,  carries  that  aid.  She  is  seen  in  the 
fact — seen  by  the  commanding  officer  of  the 
British  forces,  as  he  stands  on  the  Canadian 
shore,  looking  on.  He  sees  her  there  late  in  the 
evening — saw  her  cast  anchor  near  the  island — 
and  determines  to  destroy  her  there.  Five  boats 
are  fitted  out  in  the  dark  to  go  and  do  the  work  ; 
and  if  they  had  done  it  there,  not  a  word  would 
have  been  said ;  for  it  was  a  British  island,  and 
she  was  there  upon  an  unlawful  business — vio- 
lating the  laws  of  neutrality,  disobeying  the 
laws  of  her  own  country,  disregarding  the  proc- 
lamation of  the  President ;  and  doing  an  act 
which  might  bring  her  own  country  into  trouble. 
If  she  had  been  found  there  and  destroyed,  not 
a  word  would  have  been  said  :  but  she  was  not 
found  there,  and  the  captain  of  the  boats,  of  his 
own  head,  contrary  to  the  order  which  he  had 
received,  and  which  directed  him  to  the  British 
island,  and  contrary  to  the  letter  written  by  his 
commanding  officer  on  that  very  day,  abjuring 
all  right  and  all  intent  to  make  a  descent  upon 
our  coast,  because  it  was  ours :  this  captain, 
his  name  Drew,  and  an  officer  in  the  British 
navy,  without  the  knowledge  of  his  commander, 


determines  to  cross  the  line — to  steal  across  the 
river  in  the  night — oars  muffled — all  noises  si- 
lenced— creep  upon  the  unsuspecting  vessel,  an- 
chored at  the  shore,  sleeping  under  the  flag,  and 
sheltered  by  the  laws  of  her  country,  and  the 
law  of  nations :  and  stealthily  get  on  board. 
They  run  to  the  berths— cut,  stab,  slash,  and 
shoot,  all  that  they  see — pursue  the  flying — 
kill  one  man  on  the  shore — no  distinction  of 
persons — and  no  quarter  the  word.  Several  are 
killed  in  the  boat :  none  escape  but  those  whom 
darkness  and  confusion  favored.  Victorious  in 
an  attack  upon  men  asleep,  the  conquerors  draw 
the  vessel  into  the  middle  of  the  river — it  was 
just  above  the  falls— set  her  on  fire  ;  and,  with 
all  her  contents— the  dead  and  the  dying,  the 
living  and  the  wounded — send  her,  luminous  in 
flames,  over  the  frightful  cataract  of  Niagara. 
One  man  alone  had  been  spared,  and  he  as  a 
British  subject,  to  be  taken  home  for  punish- 
ment. These  are  facts.  What  do  they  amount 
to  in  law — that  of  nations,  and  that  of  New 
York,  where  the  deed  was  done  ?  First,  a  vio- 
lation of  the  law  of  nations,  in  invading  the  soil 
of  the  United  States— in  attacking  a  vessel  (even 
if  it  had  been  a  belligerent),  in  a  neutral  port — 
in  attacking  persons  on  neutral  territory — in 
impressing  and  carrying  off  a  man  from  our  ter- 
ritory :  then  each  of  these  acts  was  a  crime 
against  the  municipal  laws  of  New  York.  Mc~ 
Leod,  one  of  the  actors  in  that  cowardly  assas- 
sination, and  conflagration,  guilty  upon  his  own 
boasting,  and  caught  upon  the  scene  of  his  out- 
rage, now  in  the  hands  of  justice  in  the  State  of 
New  York,  while  no  indemnity  is  offered  for  the 
outrage  itself:  this  perpetrator  we  are  required, 
and  that  under  a  threat,  to  release  from  the 
hands  of  a  State,  which  has  the  legal  right  to 
try  him.  All  this  was  years  before — near  four 
years  before — December,  1837.  The  news  flew 
upon  the  wings  of  the  wind.  It  fired  the  bosoms 
of  the  border  inhabitants,  upon  a  line  of  fifteen 
hundred  miles.  Retaliation  was  in  every  heart, 
threats  in  every  mouth,  preparation  open — war 
imminent.  Mr.  Van  Buren  was  then  President. 
To  repress  the  popular  risings,  proclamations 
were  issued  :  to  prevent  acts  of  retaliation, 
troops  were  stationed  along  the  line,  and  armed 
steamers  floated  the  river  and  the  lakes  :  to 
punish  any  violation  of  order,  instructions  were 
issued  to  the  district  attorneys,  and  marshals  ; 
and  the  aid  of  the  State  authorities  was  claimed, 


294 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


and  obtained.  To  obtain  redress  for  the  outrage 
to  our  citizens,  and  the  insults  to  our  national 
character,  immediate  application  was  made  to 
the  British  government.  That  government  de- 
layed its  answer  to  our  just  demand— avoided 
the  assumption  of  the  criminal  act — excused  and 
justified,  without  assuming  it,  either  in  words, 
or  indirectly,  by  rewarding  the  actors,  or  even 
giving  pensions  to  those  wounded  in  the  attack  : 
for  there  were  several  of  them  in  the  dark  and 
dastardly  attack.  Diplomacy  was  still  drawing 
out  its  lengthened  thread — procrastination  the 
game,  and  the  chapter  of  accidents  the  hope — 
when  McLeod,  the  boaster  in  Canada  of  his 
active  share  in  this  triple  crime  of  murder,  ar- 
son, and  robbery,  against  the  State  of  New  York, 
and  of  violated  neutrality  against  the  United 
States,  crosses  over  to  the  United  States,  exhibits 
himself  on  the  very  spot  of  his  exploits,  and  in 
the  sight  of  those  who  had  often  heard  of  his 
boasts.  Justice  then  took  hold  of  him.  He  was 
arrested  on  an  indictment  found  against  him, 
immediately  after  the  act ;  and  he  was  also  sued 
by  the  owner  of  the  vessel.  A  trial,  of  course, 
in  each  case,  was  to  take  place  in  the  courts  of 
the  State  whose  laws  had  been  violated.  Vattel 
prescribed  that.  The  United  States  had  nothing 
to  do  with  it.  Her  business  was  with  his  sove- 
reign. To  the  State  it  belonged  to  punish  the 
violation  of  her  own  laws,  the  perpetrator  hav- 
ing been  caught  within  her  jurisdiction  :  to  the 
owner  of  the  boat  it  belonged  to  sue  for  dama- 
ges ;  and  neither  the  United  States,  nor  the 
State  of  New  York,  had  any  right  to  defeat  his 
action,  by  releasing  the  defendant.  It  was  a 
transitory  action,  and  would  lay  any  where 
where  the  defendant  was  caught.  McLeod  went 
to  jail  in  both  cases — the  indictment,  and  the 
civil  suit ;  and  would  seem  to  have  courted 
that  fate  by  coming  over  to  defy  it.  The  news 
of  these  proceedings  fly  to  the  British  minister 
in  this  city  (Mr.  Henry  S.  Fox)  :  that  minister 
addresses  a  note  to  the  Secretary  of  State  (Mr. 
Forsyth),  demanding  the  release  of  McLeod: 
the  Secretary  answered,  by  the  direction  of 
President  Van  Buren,  that  this  man,  being 
charged  with  criminal  offences  against  the  State 
of  New  York,  and  sued  in  a  civil  action  by  one 
of  her  citizens,  the  general  government  had  no 
right  to  release  him :  and  would  not  undertake 
to  do  so.  This  answer  was  read  in  this  chamber 
on  the  night  of  the  5th  of  January  last,  when 


the  Senate  was  composed  very  nearly  as  it  is 
now — nearly  all  the  same  members — when  the 
present  Secretary  of  State  (Mr.  Webster),  and 
the  present  Attorney-general  (Mr.  Crittenden), 
were  both  present :  and  we  all  know  in  what 
manner  that  answer  of  Mr.  Forsyth  was  re- 
ceived. It  received  the  unanimous  approba- 
tion of  this  chamber  !  Mr.  B.  repeated  the  ex- 
pression— unanimous  approbation  !  and  said  he 
would  pause  for  correction  if  he  was  mistaken. 
(He  paused.  Several  senators  said,  yes  !  yes  ! 
No  one  said  the  contrary.)  Mr.  B.  continued : 
I  remember  that  letter  well,  and  the  feeling 
of  unanimous  approbation  which  pervaded  the 
chamber  when  it  was  read.  Every  senator  that 
spoke,  expressed  his  approbation.  No  one  sig- 
nified dissent :  and  the  feeling  was  then  univer- 
sal that  the  proper  answer  had  been  given  by 
the  American  government — the  answer  which 
the  law  of  nations,  our  duplicate  form  of  govern- 
ment, the  dignity  of  the  Union,  the  rights  of  the 
State  of  New  York,  and  the  rights  of  the  owner 
of  the  destroyed  vessel — all  required  to  be  given. 
If  I  am  wrong  in  my  recollection,  I  repeat  the 
request:  let  me  be  set  right  now.  (Several 
voices  exclaimed,  "  right !  right ! "  No  one  said 
the  contrary.)  Mr.  B.  resumed :  a  great  point 
— one  vital  to  the  case  as  it  concerns  our  action, 
and  conclusive  in  this  debate,  is  now  established. 
It  is  established,  that  in  the  month  of  January 
last,  when  the  answer  of  the  American  Secre- 
tary was  read  in  this  chamber,  we  were  all  of 
opinion  that  he  had  given  the  correct  and  proper 
answer :  and  among  the  senators  then  present 
were  the  present  Secretary  of  State,  who  has 
undertaken  to  get  McLeod  out  of  the  clutches 
of  the  law  in  New  York ;  and  also  the  present 
attorney-general,  who  has  gone  to  New  York 
upon  that  errand.  This  is  enough.  Those  gen- 
tlemen heard  the  case  then,  and  uttered  no  dis- 
sent. The  Senate  was  then  unanimous — includ- 
ing those  who  dissent  now.  How  was  it  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  where  the  same  pa- 
pers were  read  at  the  same  time  ?  How  was  it 
there,  in  a  body  of  220,  and  the  immediate  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people  ?  About  the  same  that 
it  was  in  the  Senate — only  more  formally  ex- 
pressed. The  papers  were  sent  to  the  Commit- 
tee of  Foreign  Affairs.  That  committee,  through 
Mr.  Pickens,  its  chairman,  made  an  ample  report, 
fully  sustaining  the  answer  of  the  American 
government :  and  of  that  report,  five  thousand 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


295 


extra  copies  were  printed  by  the  unanimous  con- 
sent of  the  House,  for  distribution  among  the 
people. 

In  the  month  of  January  last,  it  may  then  be 
assumed,  that  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  ap- 
proved the  decision  of  President  Van  Buren ; 
and  according  to  that  decision,  McLeod  was 
neither  to  be  given  up,  nor  the  course  of  justice 
in  New  York  interfered  with  by  the  federal  gov- 
ernment. Mr.  Fox  received  the  answer  of  Mr. 
Forsyth — transmitted  it  to  his  government — 
and  received  from  that  government  precise  in- 
structions to  avow  and  assume  the  attack  on 
the  Caroline  as  a  national  act — to  make  a  per- 
emptory demand  for  the  release  of  McLeod — to 
threaten  us  with  serious  consequences  in  the 
event  of  refusal ;  and,  as  the  London  newspa- 
pers said,  to  demand  his  passports  and  leave 
the  country  if  his  demand  was  not  immediately 
complied  with.  It  was  on  the  evening  of  the 
4th  day  of  March — the  day  of  the  inauguration 
of  the  new  President,  so  nicely  had  the  British 
ministry  calculated  the  time — that  the  news  of 
these  instructions  arrived  in  this  city  ;  and 
along  with  that  news  came  the  war-threats, 
and  the  war  speeches  of  the  press  and  public 
men  of  Great  Britain — the  threat  of  many  pa- 
pers to  send  admirals  and  war-steamers  to  bat- 
ter down  our  cities ;  and  the  diabolical  speech 
of  a  peer  of  the  realm  (Lord  Mountcashel)  to 
excite  our  three  millions  of  slaves  to  insurrec- 
tion— to  raise  all  the  Indian  tribes  against  us — 
and  to  destroy  our  finances  by  bursting  the  pa- 
per bubbles  on  which  they  floated.  Yes !  it 
was  on  the  evening  of  the  4th  day  of  March 
that  these  instructions — these  threats — these 
war  annunciations — all  arrived  together  in  this 
city.  The  new  President  (General  Harrison) 
had  just  been  inaugurated :  his  cabinet  had  just 
been  indicated :  the  men  who  were  to  compose 
the  presidential  council  were  fully  known :  and 
I  undertook  at  once  to  tell  what  would  be  done. 
I  said  to  several — some  now  in  this  city  if  not 
in  this  chamber:  McLeod  will  be  given  up — not 
directly,  but  indirectly.  Underhanded  springs 
will  be  set  in  motion  to  release  him,  and  a  let- 
ter will  afterwards  be  cooked  up  to  show  to 
Congress  and  the  people,  and  to  justify  what 
had  been  done.  This  is  what  I  said.  Persons 
are  now  in  this  city  to  whom  I  said  it.  And 
now  let  us  resume  the  succession  of  events,  and 
see  what  was  done  by  this  new  administration 


which  had  just  been  inducted  into  office  in  the 
midst  of  triumphal  processions — under  the  fire 
of  cannon — the  beating  of  drums — the  display 
of  flags  ;  and  all  the  glorious  pomp  and  circum- 
stance of  war.  Let  us  see  what  they  did.  On 
the  12th  of  March — the  new  administration 
having  been  allowed  a  week  to  organize — Mr. 
Fox  addresses  to  Mr.  Webster  a  formal  demand, 
in  the  name  of  his  government  for  the  release 
of  McLeod,  and  goes  on  to  say  : 

"  The  grounds  upon  which  the  British  gov- 
ernment made  this  demand  upon  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  are  these  :  that  the 
transaction  on  account  of  which  Mr.  McLeod 
has  been  arrested,  and  is  to  be  put  upon  his 
trial,  was  a  transaction  of  a  public  character, 
planned  and  executed  by  persons  duly  empow- 
ered by  her  Majesty's  colonial  authorities  to 
take  any  steps,  and  to  do  any  acts  which  might 
be  necessary  for  the  defence  of  her  Majesty's 
territories,  and  for  the  protection  of  her  Majes- 
ty's subjects  ;  and  that,  consequently,  those 
subjects  of  her  Majesty  who  engaged  in  that 
transaction  were  performing  an  act  of  public 
duty,  for  which  they  cannot  be  made  personally 
and  individually  answerable  to  the  laws  and  tri- 
bunals of  any  foreign  country." 

And  after  enforcing  this  demand,  by  argu- 
ment, contesting  the  answer  given  by  Mr.  For- 
syth, and  suggesting  the  innocence  of  McLeod, 
the  letter  proceeds  to  say : 

"  But,  be  that  as  it  may,  her  Majesty's  gov- 
ernment formally  demands,  upon  the  grounds 
already  stated,  the  immediate  release  of  Mr. 
McLeod ;  and  her  Majesty's  government  entreat 
the  President  of  the  United  States  to  take  into 
his  most  deliberate  consideration  the  serious 
nature  of  the  consequences  which  must  ensue 
from  a  rejection  of  this  demand." 

This  letter  to  Mr.  Webster  bears  date  on  the 
12th  of  March,  which  was  Friday,  and  will  be 
considered  as  having  been  delivered  on  the  same 
day.  On  the  15th  of  the  same  month,  which 
was  Monday,  Mr.  Webster  delivers  to  the  At- 
torney-general of  the  United  States,  a  set  of  in- 
structions, and  delivers  a  copy  of  the  same  to 
Mr.  Fox,  in  which  he  yields  to  the  demand  of 
this  Minister,  and  despatches  the  Attorney-gen- 
eral to  New  York,  to  effect  the  discharge  of  the 
prisoner.  The  instructions,  among  other  things, 
say: 

"  You  are  well  aware  that  the  President  has 
no  power  to  arrest  the  proceeding  in  the  civil 
and  criminal  courts  of  the  State  of  New  York. 
If  this  indictment  were  pending  in  one  of  the 


296 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


courts  of  the  United  States,  I  am  directed  to 
say  that  the  President,  upon  the  receipt  of  Mr. 
Fox's  last  communication,  would  have  imme- 
diately directed  a  nolle  prosequi  to  be  entered. 
Whether  in  this  case  the  Governor  of  New 
York  have  that  power,  or,  if  he  have,  whether 
he  would  not  feel  it  his  duty  to  exercise  it,  are 
points  upon  which  we  are  not  informed.  It  is 
understood  that  McLeod  is  holden  also  on  civil 
process,  sued  out  against  him  by  the  owner  of 
the  Caroline.  We  suppose  it  very  clear  that 
the  Executive  of  the  State  cannot  interfere  with 
such  process  ;  and,  indeed,  if  such  process  were 
pending  in  the  courts  of  the  United  States,  the 
President  could  not  arrest  it.  In  such,  and 
many  analogous  cases,  the  party  prosecuted  and 
sued,  must  avail  himself  of  his  exemption  or  de- 
fence, by  judicial  proceedings,  either  in  the 
court  into  which  he  is  called,  or  in  some  other 
court.  But  whether  the  process  be  criminal 
or  civil,  the  fact  of  having  acted  under  public 
authority,  and  in  obedience  to  the  orders  of  law- 
ful superiors,  must  be  regarded  as  a  valid  de- 
fence ;  otherwise,  individuals  would  be  holden 
responsible  for  injuries  resulting  from  the  acts 
of  government,  and  even  from  the  operations  of 
public  war.  You  will  be  furnished  with  a  copy 
of  this  instruction,  for  the  use  of  the  Executive 
of  New  York,  and  the  Attorney-general  of  that 
State.  You  will  carry  with  you  also  authentic 
evidence  of  the  recognition  by  the  British  gov- 
ernment of  the  destruction  of  the  Caroline,  as 
an  act  of  public  force,  done  by  national  author- 
ity. The  President  is  impressed  with  the  pro- 
priety of  transferring  the  trial  from  the  scene 
of  the  principal  excitement  to  some  other  and 
distant  county.  You  will  take  care  that  this 
be  suggested  to  the  prisoner's  counsel.  The 
President  is  gratified  to  learn  that  the  Gover- 
nor of  New  York  has  already  directed  that  the 
trial  take  place  before  the  Chief  Justice  of  the 
State.  Having  consulted  with  the  Governor 
you  will  proceed  to  Lockport,  or  wherever  else 
the  trial  may  be  holden,  and  furnish  the  pris- 
oner's counsel  with  the  evidence  of  which  you 
will  be  in  possession  material  to  his  defence. 
You  will  see  that  he  have  skilful  and  eminent 
counsel,  if  such  be  not  already  retained,  and, 
although  you  are  not  desired  to  act  as  counsel 
yourself,  you  will  cause  it  to  be  signified  to  him, 
and  to  the  gentlemen  who  may  conduct  his  de- 
fence, that  it  is  the  wish  of  this  government 
that,  in  case  his  defence  be  overruled  by  the 
court  in  which  he  shall  be  tried,  proper  steps 
be  taken  immediately  for  removing  the  cause, 
by  writ  of  error,  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States.  The  President  hopes  that  you 
will  use  such  despatch  as  to  make  your  arrival 
at  the  place  of  trial  sure  before  the  trial  comes 
on ;  and  he  trusts  you  will  keep  him  informed 
of  whatever  occurs  by  means  of  a  correspond- 
ence through  this  Department." 

A  copy  of  these  instructions,  as  I  have  said, 


was  delivered  to  Mr.  Fox  at  the  time  they 
were  written.  At  the  same  moment  they  were 
delivered  to  the  new  Attorney-general  [Mr. 
Crittenden],  who,  thus  equipped  with  writ- 
ten directions  for  his  guide,  and  accompanied  by 
an  officer  of  high  rank  in  the  United  States  ar- 
my [Major-general  Scott],  immediately  pro- 
ceeded on  the  business  of  his  mission  to  the 
State  of  New  Yrork,  and  to  the  place  of  the  im- 
pending trial,  at  Lockport.  About  forty  days 
thereafter,  namely,  on  the  24th  day  of  April, 
Mr.  Webster  replies  to  Mr.  Fox's  letter  of  the 
12th  of  March ;  elaborately  reviews  the  case 
of  McLeod— justifies  the  instructions — absolves 
the  subject — and  demands  nothing  from  the 
sovereign  who  had  assumed  his  offence.  Thus, 
what  I  had  said  on  the  evening  of  the  4th  of 
March  had  come  to  pass.  Underhand  springs 
had  been  set  in  motion  to  release  the  man ;  a 
letter  was  afterwards  cooked  up  to  justify  the 
act.  This,  sir,  is  the  narrative  of  the  case — the 
history  of  it  down  to  the  point  at  which  it  now 
stands ;  and  upon  this  case  I  propose  to  make 
some  remarks,  and,  in  the  first  place,  to  exam- 
ine into  the  legality  and  the  propriety  of  the 
mission  in  which  our  Attorney-general  was  em- 
ployed. I  mean  this  as  a  preliminary  inquiry, 
unconnected  with  the  general  question,  and 
solely  relating  to  the  sending  of  our  Attorney- 
general  into  any  State  to  interfere  in  any  busi- 
ness in  its  courts.  I  believe  this  mission  of  Mr. 
Crittenden  to  New  York  was  illegal  and  im- 
proper— a  violation  of  our  own  statutes,  and 
will  test  it  by  referring  to  the  law  under  which 
the  office  of  Attorney-general  was  created,  and 
the  duties  of  the  officer  defined.  That  law  was 
passed  in  1789,  and  is  in  these  words : 

"And  there  shall  also  be  appointed  a  meet 
person,  learned  in  the  law,  to  act  as  Attorney- 
general  of  the  United  States,  who  shall  be 
sworn,  or  affirmed,  to  a  faithful  execution  of  his 
office ;  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  prosecute  and 
conduct  all  suits  in  the  Supreme  Court  in  which 
the  United  States  shall  be  concerned,  and  to 
give  his  advice  and  opinion  upon  questions  of 
law,  when  required  by  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  or  when  requested  by  any  of  the 
heads  of  the  Departments,  touching  any  matters 
that  may  concern  their  departments  ;  and  shall 
receive  such  compensation  for  his  services  as 
shall  be  by  law  provided." 

Here,  said  Mr.  B.,  are  the  duties  of  the  At- 
torney general.      He  is  subject  to  no  orders 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


297 


whatever  from  the  Secretary  of  State.  That 
Secretary  has  nothing  to  do  with  him  except  to 
request  his  legal  advice  on  a  matter  which  con- 
cerns his  department.  Advice  on  a  question 
of  municipal  law  was  doubtless  what  was  in- 
tended; but  no  advice  of  any  kind  seems  to 
have  been  asked  of  the  Attorney-general.  He 
seems  to  have  been  treated  as  the  official  sub- 
ordinate of  the  Secretary — as  his  clerk  or  mes- 
senger— and  sent  off  with  "instructions"  which 
he  was  to  read  and  to  execute.  This  was  cer- 
tainly an  illegal  assumption  of  authority  over 
the  Attorney-general,  an  assumption  which  the 
statute  does  not  recognize.  In  the  next  place, 
this  officer  is  sent  into  a  State  court  to  assist  at 
the  defence  of  a  person  on  trial  in  that  court  for 
a  violation  of  the  State  laws,  and  is  directed  to 
employ  eminent  and  skilful  counsel  for  him — 
to  furnish  him  with  evidence — to  suggest  a 
change  of  venue — and  to  take  a  writ  of  error  to 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  if  the 
defence  of  the  prisoner  be  overruled  by  the 
State  court.  If  brought  to  the  Supreme  Court 
by  this  writ  of  error — a  novel  application  of  the 
writ,  it  must  be  admitted — then  the  Attorney- 
general  is  to  appear  in  this  court  for  the  pris- 
oner, not  to  prosecute  him  in  the  name  of  the 
United  States,  but  to  dismiss  the  writ.  Now, 
it  is  very  clear  that  all  this  is  foreign  to  the 
duty  of  the  Attorney-general — foreign  to  his 
office — disrespectful  and  injurious  to  the  State 
of  New  York — incompatible  with  her  judicial 
independence — and  tending  to  bring  the  general 
government  and  the  State  government  into  col- 
lision. McLeod,  a  foreigner,  is  under  prosecu- 
tion in  a  State  court  for  the  murder  of  its  citi- 
zens ;  the  importance  of  the  case  has  induced 
the  Governor  of  the  State,  as  he  has  officially 
informed  its  legislature,  to  direct  the  Attor- 
ney-general of  the  State  to  repair  to  the  spot, 
and  to  prosecute  the  prisoner  in  person ;  and 
here  is  the  Attorney-general  of  the  United 
States  sent  to  the  same  place  to  defend  the 
same  person  against  the  Attorney-general  of 
the  State.  The  admonition  to  Mr.  Crittenden, 
that  he  was  not  desired  to  act  as  counsel  him- 
self, was  an  admission  that  he  ought  not  so  to 
act — that  all  he  was  doing  was  illegal  and  im- 
proper— and  that  he  should  not  carry  the  im- 
propriety so  far  as  to  make  it  public  by  making 
a  speech.  He  was  to  oppose  the  State  without 
publicly  appearing  to  do  so ;  and,  as  for  his  du- 


ty in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
he  was  to  violate  that  outright,  by  acting  for 
the  accused,  instead  of  prosecuting  for  the 
United  States  !  From  all  this,  I  hold  it  to  be 
clear,  that  our  Attorney-general  has  been  ille- 
gally and  improperly  employed  in  this  business ; 
that  all  that  he  has  done,  and  all  the  expense 
that  he  has  incurred,  and  the  fee  he  may  have 
promised,  are  not  only  without  law  but  against 
law ;  and  that  the  rights  of  the  State  of  New 
York  have  not  only  been  invaded  and  infringed 
in  this  interference  in  a  criminal  trial,  but  that 
the  rights  and  interests  of  the  owners  of  the 
Caroline,  who  have  brought  a  civil  action 
against  McLeod  for  damages  for  the  destruction 
of  their  property,  have  been  also  gratuitously 
assailed  in  that  part  of  the  Secretary's  instruc- 
tions in  which  he  declares  that  such  civil  suit 
cannot  be  maintained.  I  consider  the  mission 
as  illegal  in  itself,  and  involving  a  triple  illegal- 
ity,  first,  as  it  concerns  the  Attorney-general 
himself,  who  was  sent  to  a  place  where  he  had 
no  right  to  go ;  next,  as  it  concerns  the  State 
of  New  York,  as  interfering  with  her  adminis- 
tration of  justice  ;  and,  thirdly,  as  it  concerns 
the  owners  of  the  Caroline,  who  have  sued 
McLeod  for  damages,  and  whose  suit  is  de- 
clared to  be  unmaintainable. 

I  now  proceed,  Mr.  President,  to  the  main  in- 
quiry in  this  case,  the  correctness  and  propriety 
of  the  answer  given  by  our  Secretary  of  State 
to  Mr.  Fox,  and  its  compatibility  with  the 
honor,  dignity,  and  future  welfare  of  this  re- 
public. 

I  look  upon  the  "  instructions  "  which  were 
given  to  Mr.  Crittenden,  and  a  copy  of  which 
was  sent  to  Mr-  Fox,  as  being  the  answer  to 
that  Minister ;  and  I  deem  the  letter  entitled 
an  answer,  and  dated  forty  days  afterwards,  as 
being  a  mere  afterpiece — an  article  for  home 
consumption — a  speech  for  Buncombe,  as  we 
say  of  our  addresses  to  our  constituents — a 
pleading  intended  for  us,  and  not  for  the  Eng- 
lish, and  wholly  designed  to  excuse  and  defend 
the  real  answer  so  long  before,  and  so  promptly 
given.  I  will  give  some  attention  to  this,  so 
called,  letter,  before  I  quit  the  case ;  but  for  the 
present  my  business  is  with  the  "  instructions," 
a  copy  of  which  being  delivered  to  Mr.  Fox, 
was  the  answer  to  his  demand;  and  as  such 
was  transmitted  to  the  British  government,  and 
quoted  in  the  House  of  Commons  as  being  en- 


298 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW 


tirely  satisfactory.  This  quotation  took  place 
on  the  6th  day  of  May,  several  days  before  the, 
so  called,  letter  of  the  24th  of  April  could  pos- 
sibly have  reached  London.  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell, in  answer  to  a  question  from  Mr.  Hume, 
referred  to  these  instructions  as  being  satis- 
factory, and  silenced  all  further  inquiry  about 
the  affair,  by  showing  that  they  had  all  they 
wanted. 

I  hold  these  instructions  to  have  been  erro- 
neous, in  point  of  national  law,  derogatory  to  us 
in  point  of  national  character,  and  tending  to 
the  future  degradation  and  injury  of  this  re- 
public. 

That  the  Secretary  has  mistaken  the  law  of 
the  case  in  consenting  to  the  release  of  McLeod 
is  persuasively  shown  by  referring  to  the  opin- 
ions of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  in  January 
last.  Their  opinions  were  then  unanimous  in 
favor  of  Mr.  Forsyth's  answer ;  and  that  an- 
swer was  a  peremptory  refusal  either  to  admit 
that  McLeod  ought  to  be  released,  or  to  inter- 
fere in  his  behalf  with  the  courts  of  New  York. 
The  reasons  urged  by  Mr.  Fox  in  his  letter  to 
Mr.  Forsyth  for  making  the  demand,  were  pre- 
cisely the  same  with  those  subsequently  given 
in  the  letter  to  Mr.  Webster.  The  only  differ- 
ence in  the  two  demands  was  in  the  formality 
of  the  latter,  being  under  instructions  from  his 
government,  and  in  the  threat  which  it  con- 
tained. In  other  respects  the  two  demands 
were  the  same ;  so  that,  at  the  outset  of  this  in- 
quiry, we  have  the  opinions  of  the  Secretary  of 
State,  the  Attorney-general,  and  the  body  of 
their  friends  in  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  to 
plead  against  themselves.  Then  we  produce 
against  our  Secretary  the  law  of  nations,  as  laid 
down  by  Vattel.    He  says : 

"However,  as  it  is  impossible  for  the  best 
regulated  State,  or  for  the  most  vigilant  and  ab- 
solute sovereign  to  model  at  his  pleasure  all  the 
actions  of  his  subjects,  and  to  confine  them  on 
every  occasion  to  the  most  exact  obedience,  it 
would  be  unjust  to  impute  to  the  nation  or  the 
sovereign  every  fault  committed  by  the  citizens. 
We  ought  not,  then,  to  say,  in  general,  that  we 
have  received  an  injury  from  a  nation,  because 
we  have  received  it  from  one  of  its  members. 
But  if  a  nation  or  its  chief  approves  and  ratifies 
the  act  of  the  individual,  it  then  becomes  a  pub- 
lic concern,  and  the  injured  party  is  then  to 
consider  the  nation  as  the  real  author  of  the  in- 
jury, of  which  the  citizen  was,  perhaps,  only 
the  instrument.    If  the  offended  State  has  in 


her  power  the  individual  who  has  done  the  in- 
jury, she  may,  without  scruple,  bring  him  to 
justice,  and  punish  him.  If  he  has  escaped, 
and  returned  to  his  own  country,  she  ought  to 
apply  to  his  sovereign  to  have  justice  done  in 
the  case." 

This  is  the  case  before  us.  The  malefactor  is 
taken,  and  is  in  the  hands  of  justice.  His  im- 
puted crime  is  murder,  arson,  and  robbery. 
His  government,  by  assuming  his  crime,  cannot 
absolve  his  guilt,  nor  defeat  our  right  to  try  and 
punish  him  according  to  law.  The  assumption 
of  his  act  only  adds  to  the  number  of  the  cul- 
pable, and  gives  us  an  additional  offender  to 
deal  with  them,  if  we  choose.  We  may  proceed 
against  one  or  both ;  but  to  give  up  the  indi- 
vidual when  we  have  him,  without  redress  from 
the  nation,  which  justifies  him,  is  to  throw 
away  the  advantage  which  chance  or  fortune 
has  put  into  our  hands,  and  to  make  a  virtual, 
if  not  actual  surrender,  of  all  claim  to  redress 
whatsoever. 

The  law  of  nations  is  clear,  and  the  law  of  the 
patriot  heart  is  equally  clear.  The  case  needs 
no  book,  no  more  than  the  hanging  of  Arbuth- 
not  and  Ambrister  required  the  justification  of 
books  when  General  Jackson  was  in  the  hom- 
mocks  and  marshes  of  Florida.  A  band  of  for- 
eign volunteers,  without  knowing  what  they 
were  going  to  do,  but  ready  to  follow  their  file 
leader  to  the  devil,  steal  across  a  boundary  river 
in  the  night,  attack  unarmed  people  asleep  upon 
the  soil,  and  under  the  flag  of  their  country ; 
give  no  quarter — make  no  prisoners — distin- 
guish not  between  young  and  old — innocent  or 
guilty — kill  all — add  fire  to  the  sword — send 
the  vessel  and  its  contents  over  the  falls  in 
flames — and  run  back  under  cover  of  the  same 
darkness  which  has  concealed  their  approach. 
All  this  in  time  of  peace.  And  then  to  call  this 
an  act  of  war,  for  which  the  perpetrators  are 
not  amenable,  and  for  which  redress  must  be 
had  by  fighting,  or  negotiating  with  the  nation 
to  which  they  belong.  This  is  absurd.  It  is 
futile  and  ridiculous.  Common  sense  condemns 
it.  The  heart  condemns  it.  Jackson's  exam- 
ple in  Florida  condemns  it ;  and  we  should  ren- 
der ourselves  contemptible  if  we  took  any  such 
weak  and  puerile  course. 

Mr.  Fox  nowhere  says  this  act  was  done  by 
the  sovereign's  command.  He  shows,  in  fact, 
that  it  was  not  so  done ;  and  we  know  that  it 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


299 


was  not.  It  was  the  act  of  volunteers,  un- 
known to  the  British  government  until  it  was 
over,  and  unassumed  by  them  for  three  years 
after  it  occurred.  The  act  occurred  in  Decem- 
ber, 1837 ;  our  minister,  Mr.  Stevenson,  de- 
manded redress  for  it  in  the  spring  of  1838. 
The  British  government  did  not  then  assume  it, 
nor  did  they  assume  it  at  all  until  McLeod  was 
caught.  Then,  for  the  first  time,  they  assume 
and  justify,  and  evidently  for  the  mere  purpose 
of  extricating  McLeod.  The  assumption  is 
void.  Governments  cannot  assume  the  crimes 
of  individuals.  It  is  only  as  a  military  enter- 
prise that  this  offence  can  be  assumed ;  and  we 
know  this  affair  was  no  such  enterprise,  and  is 
not  even  represented  as  such  by  the  British 
minister.  He  calls  it  a  "  transaction."  Three 
times  in  one  paragraph  he  calls  it  a  "  transac- 
tion j  "  and  whoever  heard  of  a  fight,  or  a  bat- 
tle, being  characterized  as  a  transaction  ?  We 
apply  the  term  to  an  affair  of  business,  but 
never  to  a  military  operation.  How  can  we 
have  a  military  operation  without  war  ?  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  the  sovereign  ?  without 
the  forms  and  preliminaries  which  the  laws  of 
nations  exact?  This  was  no  military  enter- 
prise in  form,  or  in  substance.  It  was  no  at- 
tack upon  a  fort,  or  a  ship  of  war,  or  a  body  of 
troops.  It  was  no  attack  of  soldiers  upon  sol- 
diers, but  of  assassins  upon  the  sleeping  and  the 
defenceless.  Our  American  defenders  of  this 
act  go  beyond  the  British  in  exalting  it  into 
a  military  enterprise.  They  take  different 
ground,  and  higher  ground,  than  the  British, 
in  setting  up  that  defence ;  and  are  just  as 
wrong  now  as  they  were  in  the  case  of  Arbuth- 
not  and  Ambrister. 

Incorrect  in  point  of  national  law,  I  hold 
these  instructions  to  have  been  derogatory  to 
us  in  point  of  national  character,  and  given  with 
most  precipitate  haste  when  they  should  not 
have  been  given  at  all.  They  were  given  under 
a  formal,  deliberate,  official  threat  from  the 
minister ;  and  a  thousand  unofficial  threats 
from  high  and  respectable  sources.  The  minis- 
ter says : 

"  But,  be  that  as  it  may,  her  Majesty's  gov- 
ernment formally  demands^  upon  the  grounds 
already  stated,  the  immediate  release  of  Mr. 
McLeod ;  and  her  Majesty's  government  entreat 
the  President  of  the  United  States  to  take  into 
his  most  deliberate  consideration  the  serious 


nature  of  the  consequences  which  must  ensue 
from  a  rejection  of  this  demand." 

Nothing  could  be  more  precise  and  formal 
than  this  demand — nothing  more  significant 
and  palpable  than  this  menace.  It  is  such  as 
should  have  prevented  any  answer — such  as 
should  have  suspended  diplomatic  intercourse — 
until  it  was  withdrawn.  Instead  of  that,  a 
most  sudden  and  precipitate  answer  is  given  ; 
and  one  that  grants  all  that  the  British  de- 
manded, and  more  too ;  and  that  without  ask- 
ing any  thing  from  them.  It  is  given  with  a 
haste  which  seems  to  preclude  the  possibility 
of  regular  deliberation,  cabinet  council,  and 
official  form.  The  letter  of  Mr.  Fox  bears  date 
the  12th  of  March,  which  was  Friday,  and  may 
have  been  delivered  in  office  hours  of  that  day. 
The  instruction  to  Mr.  Crittenden  was  delivered 
on  the  15th  of  March,  which  was  Monday,  and 
a  copy  delivered  to  Mr.  Fox.  This  was  the  an- 
swer to  the  demand  and  the  threat ;  and  thus 
the  answer  was  given  in  two  days  ;  for  Sunday, 
as  the  lawyers  call  it,  is  dies  non ;  that  is  to 
say,  no  day  for  business ;  and  it  is  hardly  to  be 
presumed  that  an  administration  which  seems 
to  be  returning  to  the  church  and  state  times 
of  Queen  Anne,  had  the  office  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  State  open,  and  the  clerks  at  their 
desks  on  Sunday,  instead  of  being  in  their  pews 
at  church.  The  answer,  then,  was  given  in  two 
days;  and  this  incontinent  haste  to  comply 
with  a  threat  contrasts  wonderfully  with  the 
delay — the  forty  days'  delay — before  the  letter 
was  written  which  was  intended  for  home  con- 
sumption ;  and  which,  doubtless,  was  consid- 
ered as  written  in  good  time,  if  written  in  time 
to  be  shown  to  Congress  at  this  extra  session. 

Sir,  I  hold  it  to  have  been  derogatory  to  our 
national  character  to  have  given  any  answer  at 
all,  much  less  the  one  that  was  given,  while  a 
threat  was  hanging  over  our  heads.  What  must 
be  the  effect  of  yielding  to  demands  under  such 
circumstances?  Certainly  degradation  —  na- 
tional degradation — and  an  encouragement  to 
Great  Britain  to  continue  her  aggressive  course 
upon  us.  That  nation  is  pressing  us  in  the 
Northeast  and  Northwest ;  she  is  searching  our 
ships  on  the  coast  of  Africa ;  she  gives  liberty 
to  our  slaves  wrecked  on  her  islands  in  their 
transit  from  one  of  our  ports  to  another;  she 
nurtures  in  London  the  societies  which  produced 


300 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  San  Domingo  insurrection,  and  which  are 
preparing  a  smilar  insurrection  for  us ;  and  she 
is  the  mistress  of  subjects  who  hold  immense 
debts  against  our  States,  and  for  the  payment  of 
which  the  national  guarantee,  or  the  public 
lands,  are  wanted.  She  has  many  points  of  ag- 
gressive contact  upon  us ;  and  what  is  the  effect 
of  this  tame  submission — this  abject  surrender 
of  McLeod,  without  a  word  of  redress  for  the 
affair  of  the  Caroline,  and  under  a  public  threat 
— what  is  the  effect  of  this  but  to  encourage  her 
to  press  us  and  threaten  us  on  every  other 
point  ?  It  must  increase  her  arrogance,  and  en- 
courage her  encroachments,  and  induce  her  to 
go  on  until  submission  to  further  outrage  be- 
comes impossible,  and  war  results  from  the 
cowardice  which  courage  would  have  prevented. 
On  this  head  the  history  of  many  nations  is  full 
of  impressive  lessons,  and  none  more  so  than 
that  of  Great  Britain.  It  is  a  nation  of  brave 
people  ;  but  they  have  sometimes  had  ministers 
who  were  not  brave,  and  whose  timidity  has 
ended  in  involving  their  country  in  all  the 
calamities  of  war,  after  subjecting  it  to  all  the 
disgrace  of  pusillanimous  submission  to  foreign 
insult.  The  administration  of  Sir  Robert  Wal- 
pole,  long,  cowardly  and  corrupt — tyrannical  at 
home  and  cringing  abroad — was  a  signal  instance 
of  this ;  and,  as  a  warning  to  ourselves,  I  will 
read  a  passage  from  English  history  to  show  his 
conduct,  and  the  consequences  of  it.  I  read 
from  Smollett,  and  from  his  account  of  the  Span- 
ish depredations,  and  insults  upon  English  sub- 
jects, which  were  continued  the  whole  term  of 
Walpole's  administration,  and  ended  in  bringing 
on  the  universal  war  which  raged  throughout 
Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  America,  and  cost  the 
English  people  so  much  blood  and  treasure. 
The  historian  says : 

"  The  merchants  of  England  loudly  complained 
of  these  outrages ;  the  nation  was  fired  with  re- 
sentment, and  cried  for  vengeance ;  but  the  mi- 
nister appeared  cold,  phlegmatic,  and  timorous. 
He  knew  that  a  war  would  involve  him  in  such 
difficulties  as  must  of  necessity  endanger  his  ad- 
ministration. The  treasure  which  he  now  em- 
ployed for  domestic  purposes  must  in  that  case 
be  expended  in  military  armaments ;  the  wheels 
of  that  machine  on  which  he  had  raised  his  in- 
fluence would  no  longer  move ;  the  opposition 
would  of  consequence  gain  ground,  and  the  im- 
position of  fresh  taxes,  necessary  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  war,  would  fill  up  the  measure  of 
popular  resentment  against  his  person  and  mi- 


nistry. Moved  by  these  considerations,  he  in- 
dustriously endeavored  to  avoid  a  rupture,  and 
to  obtain  some  sort  of  satisfaction  by  dint  of 
memorials  and  negotiations,  in  which  he  betray- 
ed his  own  fears  to  such  a  degree  as  animated 
the  Spaniards  to  persist  in  their  depredations, 
and  encouraged  the  court  of  Madrid  to  disregard 
the  remonstrances  of  the  British  ambassador." 

Such  is  the  picture  of  Walpole's  foreign 
policy  ;  and  how  close  is  the  copy  we  are  now 
presenting  of  it !  Under  the  scourge  of  Spanish 
outrage,  he  was  cold,  phlegmatic,  and  timorous ; 
and  such  is  the  conduct  of  our  secretary  under 
British  outrage.  He  wanted  the  public  treasure 
for  party  purposes,  and  neglected  the  public  de- 
fences :  our  ministry  want  the  public  lands  and 
the  public  money  for  douceurs  to  the  States, 
and  leave  the  Union  without  forts  and  ships. 
Walpole  sought  some  sort  of  satisfaction  by  dint 
of  negotiation  ;  our  minister  does  the  same.  The 
British  minister  at  Madrid  was  paralyzed  by  the 
timidity  of  the  cabinet  at  home ;  so  is  ours  para- 
lyzed at  London  by  our  submission  to  Mr.  Fox 
here.  The  result  of  the  whole  was,  accumulated 
outrage,  coalitions  against  England,  universal 
war,  the  disgrace  of  the  minister,  and  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  man  to  the  highest  place  in  his  coun- 
try, and  to  the  highest  pinnacle  of  glory,  whom 
Walpole  had  dismissed  from  the  lowest  place  in 
the  British  army — that  of  cornet  of  horse — for 
the  political  offence  of  voting  against  him.  The 
elder  William  Pitt — the  dismissed  cornet — con- 
ducted with  glory  and  success  the  war  which 
the  timidity  of  Walpole  begat;  and,  that  the 
smallest  circumstances  might  not  be  wanting  to 
the  completeness  of  the  parallel,  our  prime  mi- 
nister here  has  commenced  his  career  by  issuing 
an  order  for  treating  our  military  and  naval  offi- 
cers as  Pitt  was  treated  by  Walpole,  and  for  the 
same  identical  offence. 

Sir,  I  consider  the  instructions  to  Mr.  Crit- 
tenden as  most  unfortunate  and  deplorable. 
They  have  sunk  the  national  character  in  the 
eyes  of  England  and  of  Europe.  They  have  lost 
us  the  respect  which  we  gained  by  the  late  war, 
and  by  the  glorious  administration  of  Jackson. 
They  bring  us  into  contempt,  and  encourage  the 
haughty  British  to  push  us  to  extremities.  We 
shall  feel  the  effect  of  this  deplorable  diplomacy 
in  our  impending  controversies  with  that  peo- 
ple ;  and  happy  and  fortunate  it  will  be  for  us 
if,  by  correcting  our  error,  retracing  our  steps, 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


301 


recovering  our  manly  attitude,  discarding  our 
distribution  schemes,  and  preparing  for  war,  we 
shall  be  able  thereby  to  prevent  war,  and  to 
preserve  our  rights. 

I  have  never  believed  our  English  difficulties 
free  from  danger.  I  have  not  spoken  upon  the 
Northeastern  question;  but  the  senator  from 
that  State  who  sits  on  my  right  (looking  at  sen- 
ator Williams)  knows  my  opinion.  He  knows 
that  I  have  long  believed  that  nothing  could 
save  the  rights  of  Maine  but  the  war  counte- 
nance of  our  government.  Preparation  for  war 
might  prevent  war,  and  save  the  rights  of  the 
State.  This  has  been  my  opinion  ;  and  to  that 
point  have  all  my  labors  tended.  I  have  avoided 
speeches;  I  have  opposed  all  distributions  of 
land  and  money ;  I  have  gone  for  ships,  forts 
and  cannon — the  ultima  ratio  of  Republics  as 
well  as  kings.  I  go  for  them  now,  and  declare 
it  as  my  opinion  that  the  only  way  to  obtain  our 
rights,  and  to  avoid  eventual  war  with  England, 
is  to  abandon  all  schemes  of  distribution,  and  to 
convert  our  public  lands  and  surplus  revenue, 
when  we  have  it,  into  caanon,  ships  and  forts. 

Hard  pressed  on  the  instructions  to  Mr.  Crit- 
tenden— prostrate  and  defenceless  there — the 
gentlemen  on  the  other  side  take  refuge  under 
the  letter  to  Mr.  Fox,  and  celebrate  the  harmony 
of  its  periods,  and  the  beauty  of  its  composition. 
I  grant  its  merit  in  these  particulars.  I  admit 
the  beauty  of  the  style,  though  attenuated 
into  gossamer  thinness  and  lilliputian  weakness. 
I  agree  that  the  Secretary  writes  well.  I  admit 
his  ability  even  to  compose  a  prettier  letter  in 
less  than  forty  days.  But  what  has  all  this  to 
do  with  the  question  of  right  and  wrong — of 
honor  and  shame — of  war  and  peace — with  a 
foreign  government  ?  In  a  contest  of  rhetori- 
cians, it  would  indeed  be  important ;  but  in  the 
contests  of  nations  it  dwindles  into  insignifi- 
cance. The  statesman  wants  knowledge,  firm- 
ness, patriotism,  and  invincible  adherence  to  the 
rights,  honor,  and  interests  of  his  country. 
These  are  the  characteristics  of  the  statesman ; 
and  tried  by  these  tests,  what  becomes  of  this 
letter,  so  encomiastically  dwelt  upon  here  ?  Its 
knowledge  is  shown  by  a  mistake  of  the  law  of 
nations — its  firmness,  by  yielding  to  a  threat — 
its  patriotism,  by  taking  the  part  of  foreigners 
— its  adherence  to  the  honor,  rights  and  interests 
of  our  own  country,  by  surrendering  McLeod 
without  receiving,  or  even  demanding,  one  word 


of  redress  or  apology  for  the  outrage  upon  the 
Caroline ! 

The  letter,  besides  its  fatal  concessions,  is  de- 
ficient in  manly  tone — in  American  feeling — in 
nerve — in  force — in  resentment  of  injurious  im- 
putations— and  in  enforcement  of  our  just  claims 
to  redress  for  blood  spilt,  territory  invaded,  and 
flag  insulted. 

The  whole  spirit  of  the  letter  is  feeble  and  de- 
precatory. It  does  not  repel,  but  begs  off.  It 
does  not  recriminate,  but  defends.  It  does  not 
resent  insult — not  even  the  audacious  threat — 
which  is  never  once  complained  of,  nor  even 
alluded  to. 

This  letter  is  every  way  an  unfortunate  pro- 
duction. It  does  not  even  show  the  expense 
and  trouble  we  took  to  prevent  our  citizens  from 
crossing  the  line  and  joining  the  Canadian  in- 
surgents. It  does  not  show  the  expense  we 
were  at  in  raising  a  new  regiment  of  infantry 
expressly  for  that  service  (several  voices  said  yes, 
yes,  it  mentions  that).  Good,  let  it  be  credit- 
ed accordingly.  But  it  does  not  mention  the 
appropriation  of  $650,000  made  at  one  time  for 
that  object ;  it  does  not  mention  the  numerous 
calls  upon  the  militia  authorities  and  the  civil 
authorities  along  the  line  to  assist  in  restraining 
our  people ;  it  does  not  mention  the  arrests  of 
persons,  and  seizures  of  arms,  which  we  made ; 
it  does  not  mention  the  prosecutions  which  we 
instituted ;  it  does  not  show  that  for  two  years 
we  were  at  great  expense  and  trouble  to  restrain 
our  people ;  and  that  this  expense  and  trouble 
was  brought  upon  us  by  the  excitement  produ- 
ced by  the  affair  of  the  Caroline.  The  British 
brought  us  an  immense  expense  by  that  affair, 
for  which  they  render  us  no  thanks,  and  the 
Secretary  fails  to  remind  them.  The  letter  does 
not  repel,  with  the  indignant  energy  which  the 
declaration  required,  that  we  had  "permitted  " 
our  citizens  to  arm  and  join  the  insurgents.  It 
repels  it,  to  be  sure,  but  too  feebly  and  gently, 
and  it  omits  altogether  what  should  never  be 
lost  sight  of  in  this  case,  that  the  British  have 
taken  great  vengeance  on  our  people  for  their 
rashness  in  joining  this  revolt.  Great  numbers 
of  them  were  killed  in  action;  many  were 
hanged ;  and  many  were  transported  to  the  ex- 
tremities of  the  world— to  Van  Diemen's  Land, 
under  the  antarctic  circle— where  they  pine  out 
a  miserable  existence,  far,  far,  and  for  ever  re- 
moved from  kindred,  home  and  friends. 


302 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


The  faults  of  the  letter  are  fundamental  and 
radical — no  beauty  of  composition,  no  tropes 
and  figures,  no  flowers  of  rhetoric — can  balance 
or  gloss  over.  The  objections  go  to  its  spirit 
and  substance — to  errors  of  fact  and  law— to  its 
tameness  and  timidity — and  to  its  total  omis- 
sion to  demand  redress  from  the  British  govern- 
ment for  the  outrages  on  the  Caroline,  which 
that  government  has  assumed.  She  has  now 
assumed  that  outrage  for  the  first  time — as- 
sumed it  after  three  years  of  refusal  to  speak ; 
and  in  the  assumption  offers  not  one  word  of 
apology,  or  of  consolation  to  our  wounded  feel- 
ings. She  claps  her  arms  akimbo,  and  avows 
the  offence  ;  and  our  Secretary,  in  his  long  and 
beautiful  letter,  finds  no  place  to  insert  a  de- 
mand for  the  assumed  outrage.  He  gives  up 
the  culprit  subject,  and  demands  nothing  from 
the  imperious  sovereign.  He  lets  go  the  ser- 
vant, and  does  not  lay  hold  of  the  master.  This 
is  a  grievous  omission.  It  is  tantamount  to  a 
surrender  of  all  claim  for  any  redress  of  any 
kind.  McLeod,  the  culprit,  is  given  up :  he  is 
given  up  without  conditions.  The  British  gov- 
ernment assume  his  offence — demand  his  release 
— offer  us  no  satisfaction :  and  we  give  him  up, 
and  ask  no  satisfaction.  The  letter  demands 
nothing — literally  nothing :  and  in  that  respect 
again  degrades  us  as  much  as  the  surrender 
upon  a  threat  had  already  degraded  us.  This  is 
a  most  material  point,  and  I  mean  to  make  it 
clear.  I  mean  to  show  that  the  Secretary  in 
giving  up  the  alleged  instrument,  has  demanded 
nothing  from  the  assuming  superiors  :  and  this 
I  will  do  him  the  justice  to  show  by  reading 
from  his  own  letter.  I  have  examined  it  care- 
fully, and  can  find  but  two  places  where  the 
slightest  approach  is  made,  not  even  to  a  demand 
for  redress,  but  to  the  suggestion  of  an  intima- 
tion of  a  wish  on  our  side  ever  to  hear  the  name 
of  the  Caroline  mentioned  again.  These  two 
places  are  on  the  concluding  pages  of  the  letter, 
as  printed  by  our  order.  If  there  are  others, 
let  gentlemen  point  them  out,  and  they  shall 
be  read.  The  two  paragraphs  I  discover,  are 
these : 

"  This  government,  therefore,  not  only  holds 
itself  above  reproach  in  every  thing  respecting 
the  preservation  of  neutrality,  the  observance 
of  the  principle  of  non-intervention,  and  the 
strictest  conformity,  in  these  respects,  to  the 
rules  of  international  law,  but  it  doubts  not  that 


the  world  will  do  it  the  justice  to  acknowledge 
that  it  has  set  an  example  not  unfit  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  others,  and  that,  by  its  steady  legisla- 
tion on  this  most  important  subject,  it  has  done 
something  to  promote  peace  and  good  neighbor- 
hood among  nations,  and  to  advance  the  civiliza- 
tion of  mankind. 

"  The  President  instructs  the  undersigned  to 
say,  in  conclusion,  that  he  confidently  trusts 
that  this  and  all  other  questions  of  difference 
between  the  two  governments  will  be  treated 
by  both  in  the  full  exercise  of  such  a  spirit  of 
candor,  justice,  and  mutual  respect,  as  shall  give 
assurance  of  the  long  continuance  of  peace  be- 
tween the  two  countries." 

This  is  all  I  can  see  that  looks  to  the  possible 
contingency  of  any  future  allusion  to  the  case  of 
the  Caroline.  Certainly  there  could  not  be  a 
more  effectual  abandonment  of  our  claim  to  re- 
dress. The  first  paragraph  goes  no  further  than 
to  "  trust "  that  the  grounds  may  be  presented 
which  "justify  " — a  strange  word  in  such  a  case 
— the  local  authorities  in  attacking  and  destroy- 
ing this  vessel ;  and  the  second  buries  it  all  up 
by  deferring  it  to  the  general  and  peaceful  settle- 
ment of  all  other  questions  and  differences  be- 
tween the  two  countries.  Certainly  this  is  a 
farewell  salutation  to  the  whole  affair.  It  is  the 
valedictory  to  the  Caroline.  It  is  the  parting 
word,  and  is  evidently  so  understood  by  the 
British  ministry.  They  have  taken  no  notice 
of  this  beautiful  letter  :  they  have  returned  no 
answer  to  it ;  they  have  not  even  acknowledged 
its  receipt.  The  ministry,  the  parliament,  and 
the  press,  all  acknowledge  themselves  satis- 
fied— satisfied  with  the  answer  which  was  given 
to  Mr.  Fox,  on  the  12th  of  March.  They  cease 
to  speak  of  the  affair ;  and  the  miserable  Caro- 
line— plunging  in  flames  over  the  frightful  cata- 
ract, the  dead  and  the  dying  both  on  board — is 
treated  as  a  gone-by  procession,  which  has  lost 
its  interest  for  ever.  Mr.  Webster  has  given  it 
up,  by  deferring  it  to  general  settlement ;  and 
in  so  giving  it  up,  has  not  only  abandoned  the 
rights  and  honor  of  his  country,  but  violated  the 
laws  of  diplomatic  intercourse.  Outrages  and 
insults  are  never  deferred  to  a  general  settle- 
ment. They  are  settled  per  se — and  promptly 
and  preliminarily.  All  other  negotiations  cease 
until  the  insult  and  outrage  is  settled.  That  is 
the  course  of  Great  Britain  herself  in  this  case. 
She  assumes  the  arrest  of  McLeod  to  be  an 
offence  to  the  British  crown,  and  dropping  all 
other  questions  of  difference,  demands  instant 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


303 


reparation  for  that  offence.  Mr.  Webster  should 
have  done  the  same  by  the  offence  to  his  coun- 
try. It  was  prior  in  time,  and  should  have  been 
prior  in  settlement — at  all  events  the  two  offen- 
ces should  have  been  settled  together.  Instead 
of  that  he  hastens  to  make  reparation  to  the 
British — does  it  in  person — and  without  waiting 
even  to  draw  up  a  letter  in  reply  to  Mr.  Fox  ! 
and  then,  of  his  own  head,  defers  our  complaint 
to  a  general  settlement.  This  is  unheard  of, 
either  in  national  or  individual  insults.  What 
would  we  think  of  a  man,  who  being  insulted 
by  an  outrage  to  his  family  in  his  house,  should 
say  to  the  perpetrators :  "  We  have  some  out- 
standing accounts,  and  some  day  or  other  we 
may  have  a  general  settlement ;  and  then,  I  trust 
you  will  settle  this  outrage."  What  would  be 
said  of  an  individual  in  such  a  case,  must  be 
said  of  ourselves  in  this  case.  In  vain  do  gen- 
tlemen point  to  the  paragraph  in  the  letter,  so 
powerfully  drawn,  which  paints  the  destruction 
of  the  Caroline,  and  the  slaughter  of  the  inno- 
cent as  well  as  the  guilty,  asleep  on  board  of 
her.  That  paragraph  aggravates  the  demerit 
of  the  letter :  for,  after  so  well  showing  the 
enormity  of  the  wrong,  and  our  just  title  to  re- 
dress, it  abandons  the  case  without  the  slightest 
atonement.  But'  that  letter,  with  all  its  ample 
beauties,  found  no  place  to  rebuke  the  impress- 
ment and  abduction  of  the  person  claimed  as  a 
British  subject,  because  he  was  a  fugitive  rebel. 
Whether  so,  or  not,  he  could  not  be  seized  upon 
American  soil — could  not  even  be  given  up  un- 
der the  extradition  clause  in  Mr.  Jay's  treaty, 
even  if  in  force,  which  only  applied  to  personal 
and  not  to  political  offences.  But  that  letter, 
was  for  Buncombe  :  it  was  for  home  consump- 
tion :  it  was  to  justify  to  the  American  people 
on  the  24th  of  May,  what  had  been  done  on  the 
12th  of  March.  It  was  superscribed  to  Mr. 
Fox,  but  written  for  our  own  people :  and  so 
Mr.  Fox  understood  it,  and  never  even  acknow- 
ledged its  receipt. 

But  gentlemen  point  to  a  special  phrase  in  the 
letter,  and  quote  it  with  triumph,  as  showing 
pluck  and  fight  in  our  Secretary:  it  is  the 
phrase,  "bloody  and  exasperated  war" — and 
consider  this  phrase  as  a  cure  for  all  deficiencies. 
Alas  !  it  would  seem  to  have  been  the  very  thing 
which  did  the  business  for  our  Secretary.  That 
blood,  with  war,  and  exasperation,  seems  to  have 
hastened  his  submission  to  the  British  demand. 


But  how  was  it  with  Mr.  Fox  ?  Did  it  hasten 
his  inclination  to  pacify  us  ?  Did  he  take  it  as 
a  thing  to  quicken  him?  or,  did  the  British 
government  feel  it  as  an  inducement,  or  stimu- 
lus to  hasten  atonement  for  the  injury  they  had 
assumed  ?  Not  at  all !  Far  from  it !  Mr.  Fox 
did  not  take  fright,  and  answer  in  two  days ! 
nor  has  he  answered  yet !  nor  will  he  ever  while 
such  gentle  epistles  are  written  to  him.  Its 
effect  upon  the  British  ministry  is  shown  by 
the  manner  in  which  they  have  treated  it— the 
contempt  of  silence.  No,  sir  !  instead  of  these 
gentle  phrases,  there  ought  to  have  been  two 
brief  words  spoken  to  Mr.  Fox— first,  your  let- 
ter contains  a  threat ;  and  the  American  govern- 
ment does  not  negotiate  under  a  threat ;  next, 
your  government  has  assumed  the  Caroline  out- 
rage to  the  United  States,  and  now  atone  for  it : 
and  as  to  McLeod,  he  is  in  the  hands  of  justice, 
and  will  be  tried  for  his  crimes,  according  to  the 
law  of  nations.  This  is  the  answer  which  ought 
to  have  been  given.  But  not  so.  Instant  sub- 
mission on  our  part,  was  the  resolve  and  the 
act.  Forty  days  afterwards  this  fine  letter  was 
delivered.  Unfortunate  as  is  this  boasted  letter 
in  so  many  respects,  it  has  a  further  sin  to  an- 
swer for,  and  that  is  for  its  place,  or  order — its 
collocation  and  connection — in  the  printed  docu- 
ment which  lies  before  us  j  and  also  in  its  as- 
sumption to  "  enclose  "  the  Crittenden  instruc- 
tions to  Mr.  Fox — which  had  been  personally 
delivered  to  him  forty  days  before.  The  letter 
is  printed,  in  the  document,  before  the  "  instruc- 
tions," though  written  forty  days  after  them ; 
and  purports  to  "  enclose  "  what  had  been  long 
before  delivered.  Sir,  the  case  of  McLeod  is  not 
an  isolation :  it  is  not  a  solitary  act :  it  is  not 
an  atom  lying  by  itself.  But  it  is  a  feature  in 
a  large  picture — a  link  in  a  long  chain.  It  con- 
nects itself  with  all  the  aggressive  conduct  of 
Great  Britain  towards  the  United  States— her 
encroachments  on  the  State  of  Maine — her  occu- 
pation of  our  territory  on  the  Oregon — her  inso- 
lence in  searching  our  vessels  on  the  coast  of 
Africa — the  liberation  of  our  slaves,  wrecked  on 
her  islands,  when  in  transition  from  one  part 
of  the  Union  to  another — her  hatching  in  Lon- 
don for  the  Southern  States,  what  was  hatched 
there  above  forty  years  ago  for  San  Domingo : 
and  the  ominous  unofficial  intimation  to  our 
aforesaid  Secretary,  that  the  federal  government 
is  bound  for  the  European  debts  of  the  individual 


304 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


States.  The  McLeod  case  mixes  itself  with  the 
whole  of  these ;  and  the  success  which  has  at- 
tended British  threats  in  his  case,  may  bring  us 
threats  in  all  the  other  cases;  and  blows  to 
back  them,  if  not  settled  to  British  liking. 
Submission  invites  aggression.  The  British  are 
a  great  people — a  wonderful  people ;  and  can 
perform  as  well  as  threaten.  Occupying  some 
islands  no  larger  than  two  of  our  States,  they 
have  taken  possession  of  the  commanding  points 
in  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe,  and  dominate 
over  an  extent  of  land  and  water,  compared  to 
which  the  greatest  of  empires — that  of  Alexan- 
der, of  Trajan,  of  the  Caliphs — was  a  dot  upon 
the  map.  War  is  to  them  a  distant  occupation — 
an  ex-territorial  excursion — something  like  pi- 
racy on  a  vast  scale ;  in  which  their  fleets  go 
forth  to  capture  and  destroy — to  circumnavigate 
the  globe  ;  and  to  return  loaded  with  the  spoil 
of  plundered  nations.  Since  the  time  of  William 
the  Conqueror,  no  foreign  hostile  foot  has  trod 
their  soil ;  and,  safe  thus  far  from  the  ravages 
of  war  at  home,  they  are  the  more  ready  to  en- 
gage in  ravages  abroad.  To  bully,  to  terrify, 
to  strike,  to  crush,  to  plunder — and  then  exact 
indemnities  as  the  price  of  forbearance — is  their 
policy  and  their  practice :  and  they  look  upon 
us  with  our  rich  towns  and  extended  coasts,  as 
a  fit  subject  for  these  compendious  tactics.  We 
all  deprecate  a  war  with  that  people — none  de- 
precate it  more  than  I  do — not  for  its  dangers, 
but  for  its  effects  on  the  business  pursuits  of 
the  two  countries,  and  its  injury  to  liberal 
governments :  but  we  shall  never  prevent  war 
by  truckling  to  threats,  and  squandering  in 
douceurs  to  the  States  what  ought  to  be  conse- 
crated to  the  defence  of  the  country.  The  result 
of  our  first  war  with  this  people,  when  only  a 
fifth  of  our  present  numbers,  shows  what  we 
could  do  in  a  seven  years'  contest :  the  result  of 
the  second  shows  that,  at  the  end  of  two  years, 
having  repulsed  their  fleets  and  armies  at  all 
points,  we  were  just  ready  to  light  upon  Canada 
with  an  hundred  thousand  volunteers,  fired  by 
the  glories  of  New  Orleans.  And  in  any  future 
war  with  that  nation,  woe  to  the  statesman  that 
woos  peace  at  the  repulse  of  the  foe.  Of  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  we  are  the  people  to  land 
upon  the  coasts  of  England  and  Ireland.  We 
are  their  kin  and  kith  ;  and  the  visits  of  kindred 
have  sympathies  and  affections,  which  statutes 
and  proclamations  cannot  control. 


CHAPTER    LXXYII. 

KEFUSAL  OF  THE  HOUSE  TO  ALLOW  EECESS 
COMMITTEES. 

Two  propositions  submitted  at  this  session  to 
allow  committees  to  sit  in  the  recess,  and  collect 
information  on  industrial  subjects — commerce, 
manufactures,  and  agriculture — with  a  view  to 
beneficial  legislation,  had  the  effect  of  bringing 
out  a  very  full  examination  into  the  whole  sub- 
ject— under  all  its  aspects,  of  constitutionali- 
ty and  expediency.  The  whole  debate  was 
brought  on  by  the  principal  proposition,  sub- 
mitted by  Mr.  Winthrop,  from  the  Committee 
on  Commerce,  in  these  words  : 

"  Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  nine  mem- 
bers, not  more  than  one  of  whom  shall  be  from 
any  one  State,  be  appointed  by  the  Chair,  to  sit 
during  the  recess,  for  the  purpose  of  taking  evi- 
dence at  the  principal  ports  of  entry  and  else- 
where, as  to  the  operation  of  the  existing  sys- 
tem and  rates  of  duties  on  imports  upon  the 
manufacturing,  agricultural,  and  commercial  in- 
terests of  the  country,  and  of  procuring,  gen- 
erally, such  information  as  may  be  useful  to 
Congress  in  any  revision  of  the  revenue  laws 
which  may  be  attempted  at  the  next  session." 

On  this  resolution  there  was  but  little  said. 
The  previous  question  was  soon  called,  and  the 
resolution  carried  by  a  lean  majority — 106  to 
104.  A  reconsideration  was  instantly  moved 
by  Mr.  McKeon  of  New  York,  which,  after 
some  discussion,  was  adopted,  106  to  90.  The 
resolution  was  then  laid  on  the  table  :  from 
which  it  was  never  raised.  Afterwards  a  mod- 
ification of  it  was  submitted  by  Mr.  Kennedy 
of  Maryland,  from  the  committee  on  commerce, 
in  these  words : 

"  Resolved,  That  a  select  committee  of  eleven 
members,  not  more  than  one  of  which  shall  be 
from  any  one  State,  be  appointed  by  the  Chair, 
for  the  purpose  of  taking  evidence  at  the  prin- 
cipal ports  of  entry  and  elsewhere  as  to  the 
operation  of  the  existing  system  and  rates  of 
duties  on  imports  upon  the  manufacturing, 
commercial,  and  agricultural  interests  of  the 
country ;  and  of  procuring,  generally,  such  in- 
formation as  may  be  useful  to  Congress  in  any 
revision  of  the  revenue  laws  which  may  be  at- 
tempted at  the  next  session. 

"  Resolved,  further,  That  said  committee  be 
authorized  to  sit  during  the  recess,  and  to  em- 
ploy a  clerk." 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


305 


A  motion  was  made  by  Ingersoll  which 
brought  up  the  question  of  recess  committees 
on  their  own  merits,  stripped  of  the  extraneous 
considerations  which  a  proposition  for  such  a 
committee,  for  a  particular  purpose,  would  al- 
ways introduce.  He  moved  to  strike  out  the 
words,  "  to  sit  during  the  recess."  This  was 
the  proper  isolation  of  the  contested  point.  In 
this  form  the  objections  to  such  committees 
were  alone  considered,  and  found  to  be  insuper- 
able. In  the  first  place,  no  warrant  could  be 
found  in  the  constitution  for  this  elongation  of 
itself  by  the  House  by  means  of  its  committees, 
and  it  was  inconsistent  with  that  adjournment 
for  which  the  constitution  provides,  and  with 
those  immunities  to  members  which  are  limited 
to  the  term  of  service,  and  the  time  allowed  for 
travelling  to  and  from  Congress.  No  warrant 
could  be  found  for  them  in  the  constitution,  and 
practical  reasons  against  them  presented  them- 
selves more  forcibly  and  numerously  as  the 
question  was  examined.  The  danger  of  degen- 
erating into  faction  and  favoritism,  was  seen  to 
be  imminent.  Committees  might  be  appointed 
to  perambulate  the  Union — at  the  short  ses- 
sions for  nine  months  in  the  year — spending 
their  time  idly,  or  engaged  in  political  objects — 
drawing  the  pay  and  mileage  of  members  of 
Congress  all  the  time,  with  indefinite  allow- 
ances for  contingencies.  If  one  committee 
might  be  so  appointed,  then  as  many  others  as 
the  House  chose  :  if  by  one  House,  then  by 
both  :  if  to  perambulate  the  United  States, 
then  all  Europe — constituting  a  mode  of  mak- 
ing the  tour  of  Europe  at  the  public  expense. 
All  Congress  might  be  so  employed :  but  it 
was  probable  that  only  the  dominant  party, 
each  in  its  turn,  would  so  favor  its  own  parti- 
sans, and  for  its  own  purposes.  The  practical 
evils  of  the  measure  augmented  to  the  view  as 
more  and  more  examined  :  and  finally,  the 
whole  question  was  put  to  rest  by  the  decided 
sense  of  the  House — only  sixty-two  members 
voting  against  the  motion  to  lay  it  on  the  table, 
not  to  be  taken  up  again:  a  convenient,  and 
compendious  way  to  get  rid  of  a  subject,  as  it 
brings  on  the  direct  vote,  without  discussion, 
and  without  the  process  of  the  previous  ques- 
tion to  cut  off  debate. 

Such  was  the  decision  of  the  House;  and, 
what  has  happened  in  the  Senate,  goes  to  con- 
firm the  wisdom  of  their  decision.  Recess  com- 
Vol.  II.— 20 


mittees  have  been  appointed  from  that  body ; 
and  each  case  of  such  appointment  has  become 
a  standing  argument  against  their  existence. 
The  first  instance  was  that  of  a  senatorial  com- 
mittee, in  the  palmy  days  of  the  United  States 
Bank,  consisting  of  the  friends  of  that  bank, 
appointed  on  the  motion  of  its  own  friends  to 
examine  it — spending  the  whole  recess  in  the 
work :  and  concluding  with  a  report  lauding 
the  management  of  the  bank,  and  assailing 
those  who  opposed  it.  Several  other  senato- 
rial recess  committees  have  since  been  appoint- 
ed; but  under  circumstances  which  condemn 
them  as  an  example ;  and  with  consequences 
which  exemplify  the  varieties  of  abuse  to  which 
they  are  subject ;  and  of  which,  faction,  favorit- 
ism, personal  objects,  ungovernable  expense, 
and  little,  or  no  utility,  constitute  the  heads. 


CHAPTER    LXXVIII. 

EEDUCTION  OF  THE  EXPENSE  OF  FOKEIGN  MIS- 
SIONS BY  EEDUCING  THE  NUMBEE. 

A  question  of  permanent  and  increasing  in- 
terest was  opened  at  this  session,  which  has  be- 
come more  exigent  with  time,  and  deserves  to 
be  pursued  until  its  object  shall  be  accom- 
plished. It  was  the  question  of  reducing  the 
expenses  of  foreign  missions,  by  reducing  the 
number,  and  the  expediency  of  returning  to  the 
Jeffersonian  policy  of  having  no  ministers  resi- 
dent, or  permanent  succession  of  ministers 
abroad.  The  question  was  brought  on  by  a 
motion  from  Mr.  Charles  Jared  Ingersoll  to 
strike  from  the  appropriation  bill  the  salaries 
of  some  missions  mentioned  in  it;  and  this 
motion  brought  on  the  question  of,  how  far  the 
House  had  a  right  to  interfere  in  these  missions 
and  control  them  by  withholding  compensa- 
tion ?  and  how  far  it  was  expedient  to  diminish 
their  number,  and  to  return  to  the  Jeffersonian 
policy  ?  Charges  had  been  appointed  to  Sar- 
dinia and  Naples :  Mr.  Ingersoll  thought  them 
unnecessary;  as  also  the  mission  to  Austria, 
and  that  the  ministers  to  Spain  ought  to  be  re- 
duced to  charge  ships.  Mr.  Caleb  Cushing  con- 
sidered the  appointment  of  these  ministers  as 
giving  them  "vested  rights  in  their  salaries," 


306 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


and  that  the  House  was  bound  to  vote.  Mr. 
Ingersoll  scouted  this  idea  of  "vested  rights." 
Mr.  Adams  said  the  office  of  minister  was  cre- 
ated by  the  law  of  nations,  and  it  belonged  to 
the  President  and  Senate  to  fill  it,  and  for  the 
Congress  to  control  it,  if  it  judged  it  necessary, 
as  the  British  parliament  has  a  right  to  control 
the  war  which  the  king  has  a  right  to  declare, 
namely,  by  withholding  the  supplies :  but  it 
would  require  an  extreme  case  to  do  so  after 
the  appointment  had  been  made.  He  did  not 
think  the  House  ought  to  lay  aside  its  power 
to  control  in  a  case  obviously  improper.  And 
he  thought  the  introduction  of  an  appropriation 
bill,  like  the  present,  a  fit  occasion  to  inquire 
into  the  propriety  of  every  mission ;  and  he 
thought  it  expedient  to  reduce  the  expenses  of 
our  foreign  missions,  by  reducing  the  number : 
and  with  this  view  he  should  offer  a  resolution 
when  it  should  be  in  order  to  do  so.  Mr.  Gil- 
mer, as  one  of  the  Committee  on  Retrenchment, 
had  paid  some  attention  to  the  subject  of  our 
foreign  representation ;  and  he  believed,  with 
Mr.  Adams,  that  both  the  grade  and  the  desti- 
nation of  our  foreign  agents  would  admit  of  a 
beneficial  reduction.  Mr.  Ingersoll  rejoined  on 
the  different  branches  of  the  question,  and  in  favor 
of  Mr.  Jefferson's  policy,  and  for  following  up 
the  inquiry  proposed  by  Mr.  Adams  ;  and  said : 

"  If  the  stand  he  had  now  taken  should  even- 
tually lead  to  the  retrenchment  alluded  to  in 
the  resolution  of  the  venerable  gentleman  from 
Massachusetts,  he  should  be  content.  He  still 
thought  the  House  might  properly  exercise  its 
withholding  power,  not,  indeed,  so  as  to  stop 
the  wheels  of  government,  but  merely  to  curtail 
an  unnecessary  expenditure ;  and  he  hoped 
there  would  be  enough  of  constitutional  feeling, 
of  the  esprit  du  corps,  to  lead  them  to  insist 
upon  their  right.  He  scouted  the  idea  of  the 
President's  appointment  creating  a  vested  in- 
terest in  the  appointee  to  his  salary  as  minister. 
Such  a  doctrine  would  be  monstrous.  The 
House  might  be  bound  by  high  considerations 
of  policy  and  propriety,  but  never  by  the  force 
of  a  contract,  to  appropriate  for  an  appointed 
minister.  This  was  carrying  the  principle  totally 
extra  rtioznia  mundi.  Mr.  I.  disclaimed  op- 
posing these  measures  on  the  mere  ground  of 
dollars  and  cents  ;  he  alluded  to  the  multiplica- 
tion of  missions  to  and  from  this  country  as  in- 
troducing examples  of  lavish  expenditure  and 
luxurious  living  among  our  own  citizens.  As 
to  the  distinction  between  temporary  and  per- 
manent missions,  the  gentleman  from  Massa- 
chusetts [Mr.  Cushing]  perfectly  well  knew 


that  originally  all  public  missions  were  tempo- 
rary ;  such  a  thing  as  a  permanent  foreign  mis- 
sion was  unheard  of.  This  was  an  invention 
of  modern  times  ;  and  it  had  been  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son's opinion  that  such  missions  ought  not  to 
exist.  It  was  high  time  that  public  attention 
was  called  to  the  subject ;  and  he  hoped  that  at 
the  next  session  Mr.  Adams  would  bring  for- 
ward and  press  his  resolution  of  inquiry  as  to 
the  expediency  of  reducing  the  whole  system 
of  foreign  intercourse." 

Mr.  Adams  afterwards  introduced  his  pro- 
posed resolution,  which  was  adopted  by  the 
House,  and  sent  to  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations  ;  but  which  has  not  yet  produced  the 
required  reform.     This  was  his  resolve  : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Affairs  be  instructed  to  inquire  into  the  expe- 
diency of  reducing  the  expenditures  in  the  dip- 
lomatic department  of  the  government,  by  di- 
minishing the  number  of  ministers  and  other 
diplomatic  agents  abroad,  and  report  thereon  to 
the  House." 

It  would  be  a  public  benefaction,  and  a  great 
honor  to  the  member  who  should  do  it,  for  some 
ardent  man  to  take  charge  of  this  subject — re- 
vive Mr.  Adams'  resolution,  and  pursue  the  in- 
quiry through  all  the  branches  which  belong  to 
it :  and  they  are  many.  First :  The  full  mission 
of  minister  plenipotentiary  and  envoy  extra- 
ordinary, formerly  created  only  on  extraordi- 
nary occasions,  and  with  a  few  great  courts,  and 
intrusted  to  eminent  men,  are  now  lavished  in 
profusion ;  and  at  secondary  courts  ;  and  filled 
with  men  but  little  adapted  to  grace  them ;  and 
without  waiting  for  an  occasion,  but  rapidly,  to 
accommodate  political  partisans  ;  and  as  a  mere 
party  policy,  recalling  a  political  opponent  to 
make  room  for  an  adherent :  and  so  keeping  up 
a  perpetual  succession,  and  converting  the  en- 
voys extraordinary  into  virtual  ministers  resi- 
dent. In  the  second  place,  there  are  no  pleni- 
potentiaries now — no  ministers  with  full  powers 
— or  in  fact  with  any  powers  at  all,  except  to  copy 
what  is  sent  to  them,  and  sign  what  they  are  told. 
The  Secretaries  of  State  now  do  the  business 
themselves,  either  actually  making  the  treaty  at 
home  while  the  minister  is  idle  abroad,  or  virtu- 
ally by  writing  instructions  for  home  effect,  often 
published  before  they  are  delivered,  and  con- 
taining every  word  the  minister  is  to  say — with 
orders  to  apply  for  fresh  instructions  at  every 
new  turn  the  business  takes.    And  communica- 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


307 


tions  have  now  become  so  rapid  and  facile  that 
the  entire  negotiation  may  be  conducted  at  home 
— the  important  minister  plenipotentiary  and 
envoy  extraordinary  being  reduced  to  the  func- 
tions of  a  messenger.  In  the  third  place,  all 
the  missions  have  become  resident,  contrary  to 
the  policy  and  interest  of  our  country,  which 
wants  no  entangling  alliances  or  connections 
abroad;  and  to  the  damage  of  our  treasury,  which 
is  heavily  taxed  to  keep  up  a  numerous  diplomatic 
establishment  in  Europe,  not  merely  useless, 
but  pernicious.  In  the  fourth  place,  our  foreign 
intercourse  has  become  inordinately  expensive, 
costing  above  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  a 
year;  and  for  ministers  who  do  not  compare 
with  the  John  Marshalls  of  Virginia,  the  John 
Quincy  Adamses,  the  Pinckneys  of  South  Caro- 
lina, the  Pinkney  of  Maryland,  the  Rufus  Kings, 
Albert  Gallatins,  James  Monroes,  the  Living- 
stons, and  all  that  class,  the  pride  of  their  coun- 
try, and  the  admiration  of  Europe ;  and  which 
did  not  cost  us  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  a 
year,  and  had  something  to  do,  and  did  it — and 
represented  a  nation  abroad,  and  not  a  party. 
Prominently  among  the  great  subjects  demand- 
ing reform,  is  now  the  diplomatic  intercourse  of 
the  United  States.  Reduction  of  number,  no  mis- 
sion without  an  object  to  accomplish,  no  per- 
petual succession  of  ministers,  no  ministers  resi- 
dent, no  exclusion  of  one  party  by  the  other 
from  this  national  representation  abroad,  no 
rank  higher  than  a  charge  except  when  a  special 
service  is  to  be  performed  and  then  nationally 
composed :  and  the  expenses  inexorably  brought 
back  within  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  a 
year.  Such  are  the  reforms  which  our  diplo- 
matic foreign  intercourse  has  long  required — 
which  so  loudly  called  for  the  hand  of  correction 
fifteen  years  ago,  when  Mr.  Adams  submitted 
his  resolution ;  and  all  the  evils  of  which  have 
nearly  doubled  since.  It  is  a  case  in  which  the 
House  of  Representatives,  the  immediate  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people,  and  the  sole  constitu- 
tional originator  of  taxes  upon  them,  should  act 
as  a  check  upon  the  President  and  Senate ;  and 
do  it  as  the  British  House  of  Commons  checks 
the  king,  the  lords  and  the  ministry — by  with- 
holding the  supplies. 


CHAPTER    LXXIX. 

INFRINGEMENT  OF  THE  TARIFF  COMPROMISE 
ACT  OF  1833:  CORRECTION  OF  ABUSES  IN 
DRAWBACKS. 

The  history,  both  ostensible  and  secrect,  of  this 
act  has  been  given,  and  its  brief  existence  fore- 
told, although  intended  for  perpetuity,  and  the 
fate  of  the  Union,  in  numerous  State  legislative 
resolves,  and  in  i numerable  speeches,  declared 
to  depend  upon  its  inviolability.  It  was  assumed 
to  have  saved  the  Union :  the  corollary  of  that 
assumption  was,  that  its  breach  would  dissolve 
the  Union.  Equally  vain  and  idle  were  both 
the  assumption  and  the  inference  !  and  equally 
erroneous  was  the  general  voice,  which  attri- 
buted the  act  to  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Calhoun. 
They  appeared  to  the  outside  observer  as  the 
authors  of  the  act:  the  inside  witness  saw  in 
Mr.  John  M.  Clayton,  of  Delaware,  and  Mr. 
Robert  P.  Letcher,  of  Kentucky,  its  real  archi- 
tects— the  former  in  commencing  the  measure 
and  controlling  its  provisions ;  the  latter  as  hav- 
ing brought  Mr.  Calhoun  to  its  acceptance  by 
the  communication  to  him  of  President  Jack- 
son's intentions ;  and  by  his  exertions  in  the 
House  of  Representatives.  It  was  composed  of 
two  parts — one  part  to  last  nine  years,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  manufacturers  :  the  other  part  to 
last  for  ever,  for  the  benefit  of  the  planting  and 
consuming  interest.  Neither  part  lived  out  its 
allotted  time ;  or,  rather,  the  first  part  died  pre- 
maturely, and  the  second  never  began  to  live. 
It  was  a  felo  de  se  from  the  beginning,  and 
bound  to  perish  of  the  diseases  in  it.  To  Mr.  Clay 
and  Mr.  Calhoun,  it  was  a  political  necessity — 
one  to  get  rid  of  a  stumbling-block  (which  protec- 
tive tariff  had  become) ;  the  other  to  escape  a 
personal  peril  which  his  nullifying  ordinance  had 
brought  upon  him :  and  with  both,  it  was  a  piece 
of  policy,  to  enable  them  to  combine  against  Mr. 
Van  Buren,  by  postponing  their  own  contention : 
and  a  device  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Clayton  and  Mr. 
Clay  to  preserve  the  protective  system,  doomed 
to  a  correction  of  its  abuses  at  the  ensuing  ses- 
sion of  Congress.  The  presidential  election  was 
over,  and  General  Jackson  elected  to  his  second 
term,  pledged  to  a  revenue  tariff  and  incidental 
protection :  a  majority  of  both  Houses  of  Con- 


308 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


gress  were  under  the  same  pledge :  the  public 
debt  was  rapidly  verging  to  extinction:  and 
both  the  circumstances  of  the  Treasury,  and  the 
temper  of  the  government  were  in  harmony 
with  the  wishes  of  the  people  for  a  "judicious 
tariff; "  limited  to  the  levy  of  the  revenue  re- 
quired for  the  economical  administration  of  a 
plain  government,  and  so  levied  as  to  extend 
encouragement  to  the  home  production  of  arti- 
cles necessary  to  our  independence  and  comfort. 
All  this  was  ready  to  be  done,  and  the  country 
quieted  for  ever  on  the  subject  of  the  tariff,  when 
the  question  was  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
government  by  a  coalition  between  Mr.  Clay  and 
Mr.  Calhoun,  and  a  bill  concocted,  as  vicious  in 
principle,  as  it  was  selfish  and  unparliamentary 
in  its  conception  and  execution.  The  plan  was 
to  give  the  manufacturers  their  undue  protec- 
tion for  nine  years,  by  making  annual  reduc- 
tions, so  light  and  trifling  during  the  time,  that 
they  would  not  be  felt ;  and  after  the  nine  years, 
to  give  the  anti-tariff  party  their  millennium,  in 
jumping  down,  at  two  leaps,  in  the  two  last 
years,  to  a  uniform  ad  valorem  duty  of  twenty 
per  centum  on  all  dutied  articles.  All  practical 
men  saw  at  the  time  how  this  concoction  would 
work — that  it  would  produce  more  revenue  than 
the  government  wanted  the  first  seven  years, 
and  leave  it  deficient  afterwards — that  the  re- 
sult would  be  a  revulsion  of  all  interests  against 
a  system  which  left  the  government  without 
revenue — and  that,  in  this  revulsion  there  must 
be  a  re-modelling,  and  an  increase  in  the  tariff: 
all  ending  in  a  complete  deception  to  the  anti- 
tariff  party,  who  would  see  the  protective  part 
of  the  compromise  fully  enjoyed  by  the  manu- 
facturing interest,  and  the  relief  part  for  them- 
selves wholly  lost.  All  this  was  seen  at  the 
time :  but  a  cry  was  got  up,  by  folly  and  knavery, 
of  danger  to  the  Union  :  this  bill  was  proclaimed 
as  the  only  means  of  saving  it :  ignorance,  credu- 
lity, timidity  and  temporizing  temperaments 
united  to  believe  it.  And  so  the  bill  was  ac- 
cepted as  a  God-send :  the  coming  of  which  had 
saved  the  Union — the  loss  of  which  would  de- 
stroy it :  and  the  two  ostensible  architects  of 
the  measure  (each  having  worked  in  his  own 
interest,  and  one  greatly  over-reaching  the 
other),  were  saluted  as  pacificators,  who  had 
sacrificed  their  ambition  upon  the  altar  of  pa- 
triotism for  the  good  of  their  country. 

The  time  had  come  for  testing  these  opinions. 


We  were  in  the  eighth  year  of  the  compromise : 
the  first  part  had  nearly  run  its  course :  within 
one  year  the  second  part  was  to  begin.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  had  declared  the  ne- 
cessity of  loans  and  taxes  to  carry  on  the  govern- 
ment :  a  loan  bill  for  twelve  millions  had  been 
passed :  a  tariff  bill  to  raise  fourteen  millions 
more  was  depending ;  and  the  chairman  of  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  Mr.  Millard 
Fillmore,  thus  defended  its  necessity : 

"  He  took  a  view  of  the  effects  of  the  compro- 
mise act,  in  the  course  of  which  he  said  that  by 
that  act  one  tenth  of  the  customs  over  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  ad  valorem  was  to  come  off  on  the 
1st  January,  1834 ;  and  on  the  1st  January, 
1836,  another  tenth  was  to  be  deducted ;  on  the 
1st  January,  1838,  another  tenth ;  and  on  the 
1st  January,  1840,  another  tenth;  and  on  the 
1st  January,  1842,  three  tenths  more ;  and  on 
the  1st  July,  1842,  the  remaining  three  tenths 
were  to  be  deducted,  so  that,  on  that  day,  what 
was  usually  termed  the  compromise  act,  was  to 
go  fully  into  effect,  and  reduce  the  revenue  to 
20  per  cent,  ad  valorem  on  all  articles  imported 
into  the  country.  It  appeared  from  a  report  sub- 
mitted to  this  House  (he  meant  the  financial  re- 
port of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  document 
No.  2,  page  20),  showing  the  amount  of  imports 
for  the  seven  years  from  1834  to  1840  inclusive, 
that  there  were  imported  into  this  country  one 
hundred  and  forty-one  million  four  hundred  and 
seventy-six  thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty- 
nine  dollars'  worth  of  goods,  of  which  seventy- 
one  million  seven  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
thousand  three  hundred  and  twelve  dollars  were 
free  of  duty,  and  sixty-nine  million  seven  hundred 
and  forty-eight  thousand  four  hundred  and  fifty- 
seven  dollars  paid  duty.  Then,  having  these 
amounts,  and  knowing  that,  by  the  compromise 
act,  articles  paying  duty  over  20  per  cent.,  and 
many  of  them  paid  more,  were  to  be  reduced 
down  to  that  standard,  and  all  were  to  pay  only 
20  per  cent.,  what  would  be  the  amount  of  re- 
venue from  that  source  ?  Why,  its  gross  amount 
would  only  be  thirteen  million  nine  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars  in  round  numbers — 
that  is,  taking  the  average  of  goods  imported  in 
the  last  seven  years,  the  whole  gross  amount  of 
duty  that  would  pass  into  the  Treasury,  did  all 
the  imported  articles  pay  the  highest  rate  of 
duty,  would  only  be  thirteen  million  nine  hun- 
dred and  fifty-four  thousand  dollars— say  four- 
teen millions  of  dollars  in  round  numbers." 

Thus  the  compromise  act,  under  its  second 
stage,  was  only  to  produce  about  fourteen  mil- 
lions of  dollars— little  more  than  half  what  the 
exigencies  of  the  government  required.  Mr 
Fillmore  passed  in  review  the  different  modes 
by  which  money  could  be  raised.    First,  by 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


309 


loans:  and  rejected  that  mode  as  only  to  be 
used  temporarily,  and  until  taxes  of  some  kind 
could  be  levied.  Next,  by  direct  taxation :  and 
rejected  that  mode  as  being  contrary  to  the 
habits  and  feelings  of  the  people.  Thirdly,  by 
duties:  and  preferred  that  mode  as  being  the 
one  preferred  by  the  country,  and  by  which  the 
payment  of  the  tax  became,  in  a  large  degree, 
voluntary — according  to  the  taste  of  the  payer 
in  purchasing  foreign  goods.  He,  therefore,  with 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  preferred  that 
mode,  although  it  involved  an  abrogation  of  the 
compromise.  His  bill  proposed  twenty  per 
centum  additional  to  the  existing  duty  on  cer- 
tain specified  articles — sufficient  to  make  up  the 
amount  wanted.  This  encroachment  on  a  mea- 
sure so  much  vaunted  when  passed,  and  which 
had  been  kept  inviolate  while  operating  in  favor 
of  one  of  the  parties  to  it,  naturally  excited  com- 
plaint and  opposition  from  the  other ;  and  Mr. 
Gilmer,  of  Virginia,  said : 

•'  In  referring  to  the  compromise  act,  the  true 
characteristics  of  that  act  which  recommended 
it  strongly  to  him,  were  that  it  contemplated 
that  duties  were  to  be  levied  for  revenue  only, 
and  in  the  next  place  to  the  amount  only  neces- 
sary to  the  supply  of  the  economical  wants  of 
the  government.  He  begged  leave  to  call  the 
attention  of  the  committee  to  the  principle  re- 
cognized in  the  language  of  the  compromise — a 
principle  which  ought  to  be  recognized  in  all 
time  to  come  by  every  department  of  the  govern- 
ment. It  is,  said  he,  that  duties  to  be  raised  for 
revenue  are  to  be  raised  to  such  an  amount  only 
as  is  necessary  for  an  economical  administration 
of  the  government.  Some  incidental  protection 
must  necessarily  be  given,  and  he,  for  one,  com- 
ing from  an  anti-tariff  portion  of  the  country, 
would  not  object  to  it.  But  said  he,  we  were 
told  yesterday  by  the  gentleman  from  Massa- 
chusetts [Mr.  Adams],  that  he  did  not  consider 
the  compromise  binding,  because  it  was  a  com- 
pact between  the  South  and  the  West,  in  which 
New  England  was  not  a  party,  and  it  was  cram- 
med down  her  throat  by  the  previous  question, 
he  voting  against  it.  The  gentleman  from  Penn- 
sylvania said  to-day  almost  the  same  thing,  for 
he  considered  it  merely  a  point  of  honor  which 
he  was  willing  to  concede  to  the  South,  and  that 
object  gained,  there  was  no  longer  reason  for 
adhering  to  it. 

"  Did  the  gentleman  contend  that  no  law  was 
binding  on  New  England,  and  on  him,  unless  it 
is  sanctioned  by  him  and  the  New  England  dele- 
gation ?  Sir,  said  Mr.  G.,  I  believe  that  it  is 
binding,  whether  sanctioned  by  New  England  or 
not.  The  gentleman  said  that  he  would  give 
the  public  lands  to  the  States,  and  the  compro- 


mise act  to  the  dogs.  Sir,  if  the  lands  are  to 
be  given  to  the  States,  if  upwards  of  three  mil- 
lions are  to  be  deducted  from  that  source  of 
revenue,  and  we  are  then  to  be  told  that  this 
furnishes  a  pretext,  first  for  borrowing,  and  then 
for  taxing  the  people,  we  may  well  feel  cause  for 
insisting  on  the  obligations  of  the  compromise. 
Sir,  said  Mr.  G.,  gentlemen  know  very  well  that 
there  is  some  virtue  in  the  compromise  act,  and 
that  though  it  may  be  repudiated  by  a  few  of 
the  representatives  of  the  people,  yet  the  people 
themselves  will  adhere  to  it  as  the  means  of 
averting  the  greatest  of  evils.  But  he  had  seen 
enough  to  show  him  that  the  power  of  giving 
might  be  construed  as  the  power  of  taking,  and 
he  should  not  be  surprised  to  see  a  proposition 
to  assume  the  debts  of  the  States — for  the  more 
that  you  give,  the  more  that  is  wanted. 

"After  some  further  remarks,  Mr.  G.  said 
that  he  was  opposed  to  the  hurrying  of  this  im- 
portant measure  through  at  the  present  session. 
Let  us  wait  until  sufficient  information  is  ob- 
tained to  enable  us  to  act  judiciously.  Let  us 
wait  to  inquire  whether  there  is  any  necessity 
for  raising  an  increased  revenue  of  eight  millions 
of  dollars  from  articles,  all  of  which,  under  the 
compromise  act,  are  either  free  of  duty  or  liable 
to  a  duty  of  less  than  20  per  cent.  Let  us  not 
be  told  that  on  account  of  the  appropriations  for 
a  home  squadron,  and  for  fortifications  amount- 
ing to  about  three  millions  of  dollars,  that  it  is 
necessary  to  raise  this  large  sum.  We  have  al- 
ready borrowed  twelve  millions  of  dollars,  and 
during  the  remainder  of  the  year,  Mr.  Ewing 
tells  us  that  the  customs  will  yield  five  millions, 
which  together,  will  make  seventeen  millions  of 
dollars  of  available  means  in  the  Treasury.  Then 
there  was  a  large  sum  in  the  hands  of  the  dis- 
bursing officers  of  the  government,  and  he  ven- 
tured to  assert  that  there  would  be  more  than 
twenty  millions  at  the  disposal  of  the  Treasury 
before  the  expiration  of  the  next  session  of  Con- 
gress. Are  we  to  be  told,  said  Mr.  G.,  that  we 
are  to  increase  the  tariff  in  order  to  give  to  the 
States  this  fourth  instalment  under  the  deposit 
act  ?  No  sir ;  let  us  arrest  this  course  of  ex- 
travagance at  the  outset ;  let  us  arrest  that  bill 
which  is  now  hanging  in  the  other  House  [the 
distribution  bill],  and  which  I  trust  will  ever 
hang  there.  Let  us  arrest  that  bill  and  the  pro- 
ceeds from  that  source  will,  in  the  coming  four 
years,  pay  this  twelve  million  loan.  But  these 
measures  are  all  a  part  of  the  same  system. 
Distribution  is  used  as  a  pretext  for  a  loan,  and 
a  loan  is  used  as  a  pretext  for  high  duties.  This 
was  an  extraordinary  session  of  Congress,  and 
inasmuch  as  there  would  be  within  a  few  months 
a  regular  session — inasmuch  as  the  Committee 
on  Commerce  had  reported  a  resolution  contem- 
plating the  organization  of  a  select  committee, 
with  a  view  to  the  collection  of  information  to 
aid  in  the  revision  of  the  tariff  for  revenue— and 
inasmuch  as  the  compromise  goes  fully  into 
operation  in  July  next — he  thought  that  wis- 


310 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


dom,  as  well  as  justice,  demanded  that  they 
should  not  hurry  through  so  important  a  mea- 
sure, when  it  was  not  absolutely  essential  to 
the  wants  of  the  government. 

"After  some  further  remarks,  Mr.  G.  said 
that  it  was  time  that  he  and  his  whig  friends 
should  understand  one  another.  He  wanted 
now  to  understand  what  were  the  cardinal  prin- 
ciples of  the  whig  party,  of  which  he  was  an 
humble  member.  He  had  for  six  or  seven  years 
been  a  member  of  that  party,  and  thought  he 
understood  their  principles,  but  he  much  feared 
that  he  had  been  acting  under  some  delusion  ; 
and  now  that  they  were  all  here  together,  he 
wished  to  come  to  a  perfect  understanding." 

The  perfect  understanding  of  each  other  which 
Mr.  Gilmer  wished  to  have  with  his  whig  friends, 
was  a  sort  of  an  appeal  to  Mr.  Clay  to  stand  by 
the  act  of  1833.  He  represented  that  party  on 
one  side  of  the  compromise,  and  Mr.  Calhoun 
the  other :  and  now,  when  it  was  about  to  be 
abrogated,  he  naturally  called  on  the  guaranty 
of  the  other  side  to  come  to  the  rescue.  Mr. 
Charles  Jared  Ingersoll,  pleasantly  and  sarcas- 
tically apostrophized  the  two  eminent  chiefs, 
who  represented  two  opposite  parties,  and  glo- 
riously saved  the  Union  (without  the  participa- 
tion of  the  government),  at  the  making  of  that 
compromise :  and  treated  it  as  glory  that  had 
passed  by : 

"  I  listened  with  edification  to  the  account  of 
the  venerable  member  from  Massachusetts  [Mr. 
Adams],  of  the  method  of  enacting  the  compro- 
mise act — what  may  be  called  the  perpetration 
of  that  memorable  measure.  Certainly  it  put 
an  end  to  fearful  strife.  Perhaps  it  saved  this 
glorious  Union.  I  wish  to  be  understood  as 
speaking  respectfully  of  both  the  distinguished 
persons  who  are  said  to  have  accomplished  it. 
After  all,  however,  it  was  rather  their  individual 
achievement  than  an  act  of  Congress.  The  two 
chiefs,  the  towering  peaks,  of  overhanging  pro- 
hibitory protection  and  forcible  nullification, 
nodded  their  summits  together,  and  the  work 
was  done,  without  the  active  agency  of  either 
the  executive  or  legislative  branches  of  govern- 
ment. Its  influences  on  public  tranquillity  were 
benignant.  But  how  to  be  regarded  as  economi- 
cal or  constitutional  lessons,  is  a  different  ques- 
tion, which,  at  this  session,  I  am  hardly  prepared 
to  unravel.  Undiscriminating  impost,  twenty 
per  cent,  flush  throughout,  on  all  articles  alike, 
will  not  answer  the  purposes  of  the  Union,  or 
of  my  State.  It  is  not  supposed  by  their  ad- 
vocates that  it  will.  The  present  bill  is  to  be 
transient ;  we  are  to  have  more  particular,  more 
thorough  and  permanent  laws  hereafter.  With- 
out giving  in  my  adhesion  to  the  compromise 
act,  or  announcing  opposition  to  it,  I  hope  to  see 


such  government  as  will  ensure  steady  employ- 
ment, at  good  wages,  by  which  I  mean  high 
wages,  paid  in  hard  money ;  no  others  can  be 
good,  high,  or  adequate,  or  money  at  all ;  for 
every  branch  of  industry,  agricultural,  commer- 
cial, manufacturing,  and  navigation,  that  palmy 
state  of  a  country,  to  which  this  of  all  others  is 
entitled,  pulcheirimo  populi  fastigio." 

Mr.  Pickens,  of  South  Carolina,  the  intimate 
friend  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  also  raised  his  voice 
against  the  abrogation  of  the  act  which  had  been 
kept  in  good  faith  by  the  free-trade  party,  and 
the  consuming  classes  while  so  injurious  to  them, 
and  was  now  to  be  impaired  the  moment  it  was 
to  become  beneficial : 

"  All  the  gentlemen  who  had  spoken  denied 
the  binding  force  of  the  compromise  act.  "Was 
this  the  doctrine  of  the  party  in  power  ?  Mr. 
P.  had  wished  to  hear  from  Kentucky,  that  he 
might  discover  whether  this  had  been  deter- 
mined in  conclave.  The  struggle  would  be  se- 
vere to  bring  back  the  system  of  1824,  '28,  and 
'32.  The  fact  could  no  longer  be  disguised; 
and  gentlemen  might  prepare  themselves  for  the 
conflict.  He  saw  plainly  that  this  bill  was  to 
be  passed  by,  and  that  all  the  great  questions 
of  the  tariff  policy  would  be  again  thrown  open 
as  though  the  compromise  act  had  no  existence. 
Was  this  fair?  In  1835-6,  when  the  last  ad- 
ministration had  taken  possession  of  power,  it 
was  determined  that  the  revenue  must  be  re- 
duced; but  Mr.  P.  had  at  that  time  insisted 
that,  though  there  was  a  surplus,  the  compro- 
mise act  was  not  lightly  to  be  touched^  and  that 
it  would  therefore  be  better  to  forbear  and  let 
that  act  run  its  course.  Gentlemen  on  the  other 
side  had  then  come  up  and  congratulated  him  on 
his  speech;  for  they  had  already  received  the 
benefit  of  that  act  for  four  years.  Then  his  doc- 
trine was  all  right  and  proper ;  but  now,  when 
the  South  came  to  enjoy  its  share  of  the  benefit, 
they  took  the  other  side,  and  the  compromise 
was  as  nothing.  One  gentleman  had  said  that 
twenty-eight  millions  would  be  needed  to  carry 
on  the  government ;  another,  that  twenty-seven ; 
another,  that  twenty-five ;  and  in  this  last  opin- 
ion, the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  [Mr.  In- 
gersoll] agreed.  And,  as  this  sum  could  not 
be  raised  without  duties  over  20  per  cent,  the 
compromise  must  be  set  aside.  Until  lately  Mr. 
P.  had  not  been  prepared  for  this  ;  he  had  ex- 
pected that  at  least  the  general  spirit  of  that 
act  would  be  carried  out  in  the  legislation  of 
Congress ;  but  he  now  saw  that  the  whole  tariff 
question  must  be  met  in  all  its  length  and 
breadth." 

Very  justly  did  Mr.  Pickens  say  that  the  bill 
had  been  kept  inviolate  while  operating  inju- 
riously to  the  consumers — that  no  alteration 
would  be  allowed  in  it.    That  was  the  course 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


311 


of  the  Congress  to  such  a  degree  that  a  pal- 
pable error  in  relation  to  drawbacks  was  not  al- 
lowed to  be  rectified,  though  plundering  the  Trea- 
sury of  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars 
per  annum.  But  the  new  bill  was  to  be  passed  : 
it  was  a  necessity :  for,  in  the  language  of  Mr. 
Adams,  the  compromise  act  had  beggared  the 
Treasury,  and  would  continue  to  beggar  it — 
producing  only  half  enough  for  the  support  of 
the  government :  and  the  misfortune  of  the  free 
trade  party  was,  that  they  did  not  foresee  that 
consequence  at  the  time,  as  others  did  ;  or  see- 
ing it,  were  obliged  to  submit  to  what  the  high 
tariff  party  chose  to  impose  upon  them,  to  re- 
lease eminent  men  of  South  Carolina  from  the 
perilous  condition  in  which  the  nullification 
ordinance  had  placed  them.  It  passed  the  House 
by  a  vote  of  116  to  101 — the  vote  against  it 
being  stronger  than  the  resistance  in  debate  in- 
dicated. 

The  expenses  of  collecting  the  duties  under 
the  universal  ad  valorem  system,  in  which 
every  thing  had  to  be  valued,  was  enormous, 
and  required  an  army  of  revenue  officers — many 
of  them  mere  hack  politicians,  little  acquainted 
with  their  business,  less  attentive  to  it,  giving 
the  most  variant  and  discordant  valuations  to 
the  same  article  at  different  places,  and  even  in 
the  same  place  at  different  times;  and  often 
corruptly ;  and  more  occupied  with  politics  than 
with  custom-house  duties.  This  was  one  of 
the  evils  foreseen  when  specific  duties  were 
abolished  to  make  way  for  ad  valorems  and 
home  valuations,  and  will  continue  until  specific 
duties  are  restored  as  formerly,  or  ua?igels" 
procured  to  make  the  valuations.  Mr.  Charles 
Jared  Ingersoll  exposed  this  abuse  in  the  de- 
bate upon  this  bill,  showing  that  it  cost  nearly 
two  millions  of  dollars  to  collect  thirteen ;  and 
that  two  thousand  officers  were  employed  about 
it,  who  also  employed  themselves  in  the  elec- 
tions.    He  said : 

"Even  the  direct  tax  and  internal  duties 
levied  during  the  late  war  cost  but  little  more 
than  five  per  cent,  for  collection ;  whereas,  now, 
upon  an  income  decreasing  under  the  compro- 
mise act  in  geometrical  ratio,  the  cost  of  collect- 
ing it  increases  in  that  ratio ;  amounting,  ac- 
cording to  the  answer  I  got  from  the  chairman 
of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  to  at 
least  twelve  per  cent. ;  near  two  millions  of  dol- 
lars, says  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts 
[Mr.  Saltonstall] — one  million  seven  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars.     To  manage  the  cus- 


toms, government  is  obliged  to  employ  not  less 
than  two  thousand  officers,  heavily  paid,  and 
said  to  be  the  most  active  partisans ;  those 
who,  in  this  metropolis,  are  extremely  annoy- 
ing by  their  importunate  contests  for  office,  and 
elsewhere  still  more  offensive  by  misconduct, 
sometimes  of  a  gross  kind,  as  in  the  instance  of 
one,  whom  I  need  not  name,  in  my  district. 
The  venerable  gentleman  from  Vermont  [Mr. 
Everett]  suggested  yesterday  a  tax  on  auc- 
tions as  useful  to  American  manufactures.  On 
that,  I  give  no  opinion.  But  this  I  say,  that  a 
stamp  tax  on  bank  notes,  and  a  duty  on  auc- 
tions, would  not  require  fifty  men  to  collect 
them.  It  is  not  for  us  of  the  minority  to  deter- 
mine whether  they  should  be  laid.  Yet  I  make 
bold  to  suggest  to  the  friends  of  the  great 
leader,  who,  next  to  the  President,  has  the 
power  of  legislation  at  present,  that  one  of 
three  alternatives  is  inevitable." 

The  bill  went  to  the  Senate  where  it  found 
its  two  authors — such  to  the  public ;  but  in  rel 
ative  positions  very  different  from  what  they 
were  when  it  was  passed — then  united,  now  di- 
vided— then  concurrent,  now  antagonistic :  and 
the  antagonism,  general  upon  all  measures,  was 
to  be  special  on  this  one.  Their  connection 
with  the  subject  made  it  their  function  to  lead 
off  in  its  consideration;  and  their  antagonist 
positions  promised  sharp  encounters — which 
did  not  fail  to  come.  From  the  first  word  tem- 
per was  manifest ;  and  especially  on  the  part  of 
Mr.  Clay.  He  proposed  to  go  on  with  the  bill 
when  it  was  called  :  Mr.  Calhoun  wished  it  put 
off  till  Monday.  (It  was  then  Friday.)  Mr. 
Clay  persevered  in  his  call  to  go  on  with  the 
bill,  as  the  way  to  give  general  satisfaction. 
Then  ensued  a  brief  and  peremptory  scene, 
thus  appearing  in  the  Register  of  Debates  : 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  thought  the  subject  had  bet- 
ter lie  over.  Senators  had  not  an  opportunity 
of  examining  the  amendments ;  indeed,  few  had 
even  the  bill  before  them,  not  expecting  it  to 
come  up.  He  agreed  with  the  senator  from 
Kentucky  that  it  was  important  to  give  satis- 
faction, but  the  best  way  was  to  do  what  was 
right  and  proper ;  and  he  always  found  that,  in 
the  end,  it  satisfied  more  persons  than  they 
would  by  looking  about  and  around  to  see  what 
particular  interest  could  be  conciliated.  What- 
ever touched  the  revenue  touched  the  pockets 
of  the  people,  and  should  be  looked  to  with 
great  caution.  Nothing,  in  his  opinion,  was  so 
preposterous  as  to  expect,  by  a  high  duty  on 
these  articles,  to  increase  the  revenue.  If  the 
duty  was  placed  at  20  per  cent,  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  prevent  smuggling.  The  articles  in 
question  would  not  bear  any  such  duty;  in- 
deed, if  they  were  reduced  to  5  per  cent,  more 


312 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


revenue  would  be  realized.  He  really  hoped 
the  senator  would  let  the  matter  lie  over  until 
to-morrow  or  Monday." 

"Mr.  Clay  said  he  always  found,  when  there 
was  a  journey  to  be  performed,  that  it  was  as 
well  to  make  the  start ;  if  they  only  got  five  or 
six  miles  on  the  way,  it  was  so  much  gained  at 
least." 

"Mr.  Calhoun.  We  ought  to  have  had 
some  notice." 

"  Mr.  Clay.  I  give  you  notice  now.  Start ! 
start !  The  amendment  was  very  simple,  and 
easily  understood.  It  was  neither  more  nor 
less  than  to  exempt  the  articles  named  from 
the  list  of  exceptions  in  the  bill,  by  which  they 
would  be  subjected  to  a  duty  of  20  per  cent. 
Those  who  agreed  to  it  could  say  'aye,'  and 
those  who  did  not '  no ; '  and  that  was  all  he 
should  say  on  the  subject." 

The  bill  went  on.     Mr.  Calhoun  said : 

"  He  was  now  to  be  called  on  to  vote  for  this 
bill,  proposing,  as  it  did,  a  great  increase  of 
taxes  on  the  community,  because  it  was  an  exi- 
gency measure.  He  should  give  his  votes  as  if 
for  the  permanent  settlement  of  the  tariff.  The 
exigency  was  produced  by  the  gentlemen  on 
the  opposite  side,  and  they  should  be  held  re- 
sponsible for  it.  This  necessity  had  been  pro- 
duced by  the  present  administration — it  was  of 
their  making,  and  he  should  vote  for  this  as  if 
he  were  settling  the  taxes,  and  as  if  the  gentle- 
men had  done  their  duty,  and  had  not  by  ex- 
travagance and  distribution  created  a  deficiency 
in  the  Treasury,  for  which  they  were  responsi- 
ble. They  yesterday  passed  a  bill  emptying 
the  Treasury,  by  giving  away  the  proceeds  of 
the  public  lands,  and  to-day  we  have  a  bill  to 
supply  the  deficiency  by  a  resort  to  a  tax  which 
in  itself  was  a  violation  of  the  compromise  act. 
The  compromise  act  provides  that  no  duty  shall 
be  laid  except  for  the  economical  support  of  the 
government ;  and  he  regarded  the  giving  away 
of  the  public  lands  a  violation  of  that  act, 
whether  the  duty  was  raised  to  20  per  cent,  or 
not,  because  they  had  not  attempted  to  bring 
down  the  expenses  of  the  government  to  an 
economical  standard.  He  should  proceed  with 
this  bill  as  if  he  were  fixing  the  tariff;  he 
thought  an  average  of  twelve  and  a  half  per 
cent,  on  our  imports  would  raise  an  ample  rev- 
enue for  the  support  of  the  government,  and  in 
his  votes  on  the  several  classes  of  articles  he 
should  bear  this  average  in  mind,  imposing 
higher  duties  on  some,  and  lower  duties  on 
others,  as  he  thought  the  several  cases  called 
for." 

"Mr.  Benton  said  the  bill  came  in  the  right 
place;  and  at  the  right  moment:  it  came  to 
fill  up  the  gap  which  we  had  just  made  in  the 
revenue  by  voting  away  the  land-money.  He 
should  not  help  to  fill  that  gap.    Those  who 


made  it  may  fill  it.  He  knew  the  government 
needed  money,  and  must  have  it,  and  he  did  not 
intend  to  vote  factiously,  to  stop  its  wheels,  but 
considerately  to  compel  it  to  do  right.  Stop 
the  land-money  distribution,  and  he  would  vote 
to  supply  its  place  by  increased  duties  on  im- 
ports ;  but  while  that  branch  of  the  revenue 
was  lavished  on  the  States  in  order  to  purchase 
popularity  for  those  who  squandered  it,  he 
would  not  become  accessory  to  their  offence  by 
giving  them  other  money  to  enable  them  to  do 
so.  The  present  c^casion,  he  said,  was  one  of 
high  illustration  of  the  vicious  and  debauching 
distribution  schemes.  When  those  schemes 
were  first  broached  in  this  chamber  ten  years 
before,  it  was  solely  to  get  rid  of  a  surplus — 
solely  to  get  rid  of  money  lying  idle  in  the 
Treasury — merely  to  return  to  the  people 
money  which  they  had  put  into  the  Treasury 
and  for  which  there  was  no  public  use.  Such 
was  the  argument  for  these  distributions  for 
the  first  years  they  were  attempted.  Then  the 
distributors  advanced  a  step  further,  and  pro- 
posed to  divide  the  land  money  for  a  series  of 
years,  without  knowing  whether  there  would  be 
any  surplus  or  not.  Now  they  have  taken  the 
final  stride,  and  propose  to  borrow  money,  and 
divide  it :  propose  to  raise  money  by  taxes,  and 
divide  it :  for  that  is  what  the  distribution  of 
the  land  money  comes  to.  It  is  not  a  separate 
fund :  it  is  part  of  the  public  revenue  :  it  is  in 
the  Treasury  :  and  is  as  much  custom-house 
revenue,  for  the  customs  have  to  be  resorted  to 
to  supply  its  place.  It  is  as  much  public  money 
as  that  which  is  obtained  upon  loan :  for  the 
borrowed  money  goes  to  supply  its  loss.  The 
distribution  law  is  a  fraud  and  a  cheat  on  its 
face :  its  object  is  to  debauch  the  people,  and 
to  do  it  with  their  own  money;  and  I  will 
neither  vote  for  the  act ;  nor  for  any  tax  to 
supply  its  place." 

It  was  moved  by  Mr.  Woodbury  to  include 
sumach  among  the  dutiable  articles,  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  an  article  of  home  growth, 
and  the  cultivation  of  it  for  domestic  manufac- 
turing purposes  ought  to  be  encouraged.  Mr. 
Clay  opposed  this  motion,  and  fell  into  a  per- 
fect free-trade  argument  to  justify  his  opposi- 
tion, and  to  show  that  sumach  ought  to  come 
in  free.  This  gave  Mr.  Calhoun  an  opportunity, 
which  was  not  neglected,  to  compliment  him  on 
his  conversion  to  the  right  faith ;  and  this  com- 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


313 


pliment  led  to  some  interesting  remarks  on 
both  sides,  in  which  each  greeted  the  other  in  a 
very  different  spirit  from  what  they  had  done 
when  they  were  framing  that  compromise  which 
one  of  them  was  now  breaking.     Thus  : 

"  Mr.  Clay  said  it  was  very  true  that  sumach 
was  an  article  of  home  growth ;  but  he  under- 
stood it  was  abundant  where  it  was  not  wanted ; 
and  where  those  manufactures  exist  which 
would  require  it,  there  was  none  to  be  found. 
Under  these  circumstances,  it  had  not  as  yet 
been  cultivated  for  manufacturing  purposes,  and 
probably  would  not  be,  as  long  as  agricultural 
labor  could  be  more  profitably  employed.  Im- 
ported sumach  came  from  countries  where  la- 
bor was  much  cheaper  than  in  this  country,  and 
he  thought  it  was  for  the  interest  of  our  manu- 
facturers to  obtain  it  upon  the  cheapest  terms 
they  can.  Our  agricultural  labor  would  be 
much  employed  in  other  channels  of  industry." 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  was  very  glad  to  hear  the 
senator  from  Kentucky  at  last  coming  round 
in  support  of  this  sound  doctrine.  It  was  just 
what  he  (Mr.  Calhoun)  had  long  expected  that 
Mr.  Clay  would  be  forced  to  conform  to,  that 
those  articles  ought  to  be  imported,  which  can 
be  obtained  from  abroad  on  cheaper  terms  than 
they  can  be  produced  at  home." 

"Mr.  Clay  thought  the  senator  from  South 
Carolina  was  not  entitled  to  his  interpretation 
of  what  he  (Mr.  Clay)  had  said.  The  senator 
converts  a  few  words  expressed  in  favor  of  con- 
tinuing the  free  importation  of  sumach,  under 
present  circumstances,  into  a  general  approba- 
tion of  free  trade — a  thing  wholly  out  of  view 
in  his  (Mr.  Clay's)  mind  at  the  time  he  made 
his  remarks.  It  was  certainly  owing  to  the  pe- 
culiar habit  of  mind  in  which  the  senator  from 
South  Carolina  was  so  fond  of  indulging,  that 
he  was  thus  always  trying  to  reduce  every  thing 
to  his  system  of  abstractions." 

These  "  abstractions,"  and  this  "  peculiar 
habit,"  were  a  standing  resort  with  Mr.  Clay 
when  a  little  pressed  by  Mr.  Calhoun.  They 
were  mere  flouts,  but  authorizing  retaliation; 
and,  on  the  present  occasion,  when  the  question 
was  to  break  up  that  compromise  which  (in  his 
part  of  it,  the  universal  20  per  cent,  ad  valo- 
rems)  was  the  refined  essence  of  Mr.  Calhoun's 
financial  system,  and  which  was  to  be  perpetual, 
and  for  which  he  had  already  paid  the  conside- 
ration in  the  nine  years'  further  endurance  of  the 
protective  system :  when  this  was  the  work  in 
hand,  and  it  aggravated  by  the  imperative  man- 
ner in  which  it  was  brought  on — refusal  to  wait 
till  Monday,  and  that  most  extemporaneous 
notice,  accompanied  by  the  command,  "  start ! 
start ! " — all  this  was  a  good  justification  to  Mr. 


Calhoun  in  the  biting  spirit  which  he  gave  to 
his  replies — getting  sharper  as  he  went  on,  until 
Mr.  Clay  pleasantly  took  refuge  under  sumach 
—popularly  called  shoe-make  in  the  South  and 
West. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  observed  that  the  senator  from 
Kentucky  had  evidently  very  strong  prejudices 
against  what  he  calls  abstractions.  This  would 
be  easily  understood  when  we  take  into  con- 
sideration what  the  senator  and  his  friends 
characterized  as  abstractions.  What  he  and 
they  called  abstractions,  was  the  principle  of 
scrutiny  and  opposition  so  powerfully  evinced 
by  this  side  of  the  Senate,  against  the  low  esti- 
mates, ruinous  projects,  and  extravagant  ex- 
penditures which  constitute  the  leading  meas- 
ures of  the  present  administration.  As  regards 
the  principles  of  free  trade,  if  these  were  ab- 
stractions, he  was  happy  to  know  that  he  was 
in  company  with  some  of  the  ablest  statesmen 
of  Great  Britain.  He  referred  to  the  report  re- 
cently made  in  Parliament  on  this  subject — a 
document  of  eminent  ability." 

"Mr.  Clay  observed  that  the  senator  from 
South  Carolina  based  his  abstractions  on  the 
theories  of  books — on  English  authorities,  and 
on  the  arguments  urged  in  favor  of  free  trade  by 
a  certain  party  in  the  British  Parliament.  Now, 
he  (Mr.  Clay),  and  his  friends  would  not  admit 
of  these  authorities  being  entitled  to  as  much 
weight  as  the  universal  practice  of  nations,  which 
in  all  parts  of  the  world  was  found  to  be  in  favor 
of  protecting  home  manufactures  to  an  extent 
sufficient  to  keep  them  in  a  flourishing  condi- 
tion. This  was  the  whole  difference.  The  sen- 
ator was  in  favor  of  book  theory  and  abstrac- 
tions: he  (Mr.  Clay)  and  his  friends  were  in 
favor  of  the  universal  practice  of  nations,  and  the 
wholesome  and  necessary  protection  of  domestic 
manufactures.  And  what  better  proof  could 
be  given  of  national  decision  on  this  point 
than  that  furnished  by  the  recent  elections  in 
Great  Britain.  A  report  on  the  subject  of  free 
trade,  written  by  the  astute  and  ingenious 
Scotchman,  Mr.  Hume,  had  obtained  pretty  gen- 
eral circulation  in  this  country.  On  the  prin- 
ciples set  forth  in  that  report  the  British  min- 
istry went  before  the  people  of  England  at  a 
general  election,  and  the  result  proved  that  they 
were  repudiated." 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  had  supposed  the  senator  from 
Kentucky  was  possessed  of  more  tact  than  to 
allude  at  all  to  the  recent  elections  in  England, 
and  claim  them  as  a  triumph  of  his  principles, 
much  less  to  express  himself  in  such  strong 
terms  of  approbation  at  the  result.  The  sena- 
tor was,  however,  elated  at  the  favorable  result 
of  the  late  elections  to  the  tory  party  in  Eng- 
land. That  was  not  much  to  be  wondered  at; 
for  the  interests,  objects,  and  aims  of  the  tory 
party  there  and  the  whig  party  here,  are  identi- 
cal. The  identity  of  the  two  parties  is  remark- 
able.   The  tory  party  are  the  patrons  of  corpo- 


314 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


rate  monopolies ;  and  are  not  you  ?  They  are 
advocates  of  a  high  tariff;  and  are  not  you? 
They  are  the  supporters  of  a  national  bank ; 
and  are  not  you?  They  are  for  corn-laws — 
laws  oppressive  to  the  mass  of  the  people,  and 
favorable  to  their  own  power;  and  are  not 
you?  Witness  this  bill.  The  tory  party  in 
England  are  not  supported  by  the  British  peo- 
ple. That  party  is  the  representative  of  the 
mere  aristocracy  of  the  country,  which,  by  the 
most  odious  and  oppressive  system  of  coercion 
exercised  over  the  tenantry  of  the  country,  has 
obtained  the  power  of  starving  the  mass  of  the 
people,  by  the  continuation  of  laws  exclusively 
protecting  the  landed  interests,  that  is,  the  rent 
rolls  of  the  aristocracy.  These  laws  that  party 
will  uphold,  rather  than  suffer  the  people  to  ob- 
tain cheap  oread.  The  administration  party  in 
England  wished  to  dissipate  this  odious  system 
of  exclusive  legislation,  and  to  give  the  mass  of 
the  people  cheap  bread.  This  the  senator  from 
Kentucky  characterizes  as  ridiculous  abstrac- 
tion. And  who  are  these  tories  of  England  ? 
Do  not  the  abolitionists  constitute  a  large  por- 
tion of  that  party?  Those  very  abolitionists, 
who  have  more  sympathy  for  the  negroes  of  the 
West  India  Islands,  than  for  the  starving  and 
oppressed  white  laborers  of  England.  And  why  ? 
Because  it  is  the  interest  of  the  tory  party  to 
have  high  rents  at  home,  and  high  tariff  duties 
against  the  sugar  of  this  country,  for  the  protec- 
tion of  the  owners  of  estates  in  the  West  India 
Islands.  This  is  the  party,  the  success  of  which, 
at  the  recent  elections  in  Great  Britain,  has  so 
elated  the  senator  from  Kentucky !  The  suc- 
cess of  that  party  in  England,  and  of  the  whig 
party  here,  is  the  success  of  the  great  money 
power,  which  concentrates  the  interests  of  the 
two  parties,  and  identifies  their  principles.  The 
struggle  of  both  is  a  struggle  for  the  ascendency 
of  this  great  money  power.  When  the  whole 
subject  is  narrowly  looked  into,  it  is  seen  that 
the  whole  question  at  issue  is  that  of  the  as- 
cendency of  this  enormous  and  dangerous  power, 
or  that  of  popular  rights.  And  this  is  a  strug- 
gle which  the  opposition  in  this  Capitol,  to 
whom  alone  the  people  of  this  country  can  now 
look  for  protection  against  the  measures  threat- 
ened to  be  consummated  here,  will  maintain  to 
the  last,  regardless  of  the  success  of  the  tories 
abroad  or  their  allies  at  home." 

Mr.  Clay  did  not  meet  these  biting  interroga- 
tories. He  did  not  undertake  to  show  any  in- 
justice in  classifying  his  modern  whig  party 
with  the  English  high  tory  party,  but  hauled 
off,  washing  his  hands  of  sympathy  for  that 
party — a  retreat,  for  which  Mr.  Calhoun  taunted 
him  in  his  reply.  Fact  was,  the  old  federal 
party — and  I  never  refer  to  them  as  such  in  re- 
proach— had  become  unpopular,  and  changed 
name  without  changing  principles.    They  took 


that  of  whig,  as  having  a  seductive  revolution- 
ary odor,  without  seeming  to  perceive  that  it 
had  not  a  principle  in  common  with  the  whigs 
of  the  revolution  which  their  adversaries  had 
not  also  ;  and  that  in  reality  they  occupied  the 
precise  ground  in  our  political  parties  which  the 
high  tory  party  did  in  England.  Mr.  Calhoun 
drove  this  home  to  Mr.  Clay  with  a  point  and 
power,  and  a  closeness  of  application,  which 
stuck,  and  required  an  exculpatory  answer,  if 
any  could  be  given.  But  none  such  was  at- 
tempted, either  by  Mr.  Clay,  or  any  of  his 
friends ;  and  the  issue  has  shown  the  folly  of 
taking  a  name  without  corresponding  works. 
The  name  "  whig  "  has  been  pretty  well  given 
up,  without  finding  a  better,  and  perhaps  with- 
out saving  the  commendable  principle  of  con- 
servatism which  was  in  it;  and  which,  in  its 
liberal  and  enlightened  sense,  is  so  essential  in 
all  governments.  One  thing  both  the  disputants 
seemed  to  forget;,  though  others  did  not ;  and  that 
was,  that  Mr.  Calhoun  had  acted  with  this  party 
for  ten  years  against  President  Jackson. 

"  Mr.  Clay  denied  that  he  had  made  any  boast 
of  the  success  of  the  tories  in  the  English  elec- 
tions. He  had  expressed  no  sympathy  with 
that  party.  He  cared  nothing  about  their  suc- 
cess, though  he  did  hope  that  the  tories  would 
not  come  into  power  in  this  country.  He  had 
only  adverted  to  their  triumph  in  England  as  an 
evidence  of  the  sense  of  the  English  nation  on 
the  subject  of  free  trade.  His  argument  was, 
that  no  matter  what  contending  politicians  said 
about  abstract  principles,  when  it  came  to  the 
practical  action  of  the  whole  nation  on  these 
principles,  that  action  was  found  decisive  against 
theories  and  in  favor  of  the  practice  of  nations 
all  over  the  globe.  As  to  the  success  of  the 
tories  in  England,  he  had  frequently  made  the 
remark  that  this  government  had  more  to  ex- 
pect from  the  justice  of  a  tory  ministry  than  a 
whig  ministry,  either  in  England  or  France,  as 
the  latter  were  afraid  of  being  accused  of  being 
swayed  by  their  liberal  sentiments." 

This  was  disavowing  a  fellow-feeling — not 
showing  a  difference ;  and  Mr.  Calhoun,  seeing 
his  advantage,  followed  it  up  with  clinching 
vigor,  and  concluded  with  a  taunt  justified  by 
the  occasion. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  said  when  there  was  a  ques- 
tion at  issue  between  the  senator  from  Ken- 
tucky and  himself,  that  senator  was  not  the 
judge  of  its  accuracy,  nor  was  he ;  but  he  would 
leave  it  to  the  Senate,  and  to  all  present  who 
had  heard  the  argument,  if  he  had  not  met  it 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


315 


fairly.  Did  he  not  quote,  in  tones  of  exultation, 
the  triumph  of  the  tory  party  in  England  as  the 
triumph  of  his  principles  over  the  principles  of 
free  trade  ?  And  when  he  (Mr.  Calhoun)  had 
noticed  the  points  of  identity  in  principle  be- 
tween the  tory  party  of  England  and  the  whig 
party  of  this  country,  had  the  senator  attempted 
to  reply  ?  Nay  more,  he  had  alluded  to  the 
striking  coincidence  between  the  party  affinities 
in  Great  Britain  and  this  country,  and  showed 
that  this  victory  was  not  a  tory  victory  only, 
but  an  abolitionist  victory — the  advocates  of 
high  taxes  on  sugar  joining  the  advocates  of 
high  taxes  on  bread,  and  now  the  senator  wishes 
to  produce  the  impression  that  he  had  not  fairly 
met  the  question,  and  tries  to  make  a  new  issue. 
There  was  one  trait  in  the  senator's  character, 
which  he  had  often  noticed.  He  makes  his  on- 
slaughts with  great  impetuosity,  not  always 
thinking  where  they  will  carry  him ;  and  when 
he  finds  himself  in  difficulty,  all  his  great  in- 
genuity is  taxed  to  make  a  skilful  retreat. 
Like  the  French  general,  Moreau,  he  is  more 
celebrated  for  the  dexterity  of  his  retreats  than 
the  fame  of  his  battles." 

Mr.  Clay  pleasantly  terminated  this  interlude, 
which  was  certainly  unprofitable  to  him,  by  re- 
calling the  Senate  to  the  question  before  them, 
which  was  simply  in  relation  to  the  free,  or 
taxed  importation  of  sumach :  a  word  which  he 
pronounced  with  an  air  and  emphasis,  peculiar 
to  himself,  and  which  had  the  effect  of  a  satiric 
speech  when  he  wished  to  make  any  thing  ap- 
pear contemptible,  or  ridiculous. 

"  Mr.  Clay  of  Kentucky  was  not  going  into  a 
dissertatiou  on  the  political  institutions  of  the 
British  nation.  He  would  merely  recapitulate 
the  facts  with  relation  to  the  question  at  issue 
between  the  administration  party  in  England 
and  the  tory  party.  Here  Mr.  Clay  re-stated 
the  position  of  both  parties  at  the  recent  elec- 
tion, and  the  result ;  and  concluded  by  declar- 
ing, that,  after  all,  it  was  not  a  question  now  be- 
fore the  Senate,  whether  it  was  a  tory  victory 
in  England  and  a  whig  victory  here,  but  whether 
sumach  was  or  was  not  to  be  admitted  free  of 
duty.  He  thought  it  would  be  just  as  well  to 
revert  to  that  question  and  let  it  be  decided. 
For  his  part,  he  cared  very  little  whether  it  was 
or  was  not.  He  would  leave  it  to  the  Senate  to 
decide  the  question  just  as  it  pleased." 

The  vote  was  taken :  sumach  was  taxed :  the 
foreign  rival  was  discouraged — with  what  bene- 
fit to  the  American  farmer,  and  the  domestic 
grower  of  the  article,  the  elaborate  statistics  of 
the  decennial  census  has  yet  failed  to  inform  us. 
But  certainly  so  insignificant  a  weed  has  rarely 
been  the  occasion  of  such  keen  debate,  between 


such  eminent  men,  on  a  theatre  so  elevated. 
The  next  attempt  to  amend  the  bill  was  at  a 
point  of  more  concern  to  the  American  farmer : 
and  appears  thus  in  the  Register  of  Debates  : 

"  Mr.  Allen  had  proposed  to  make  salt  a  free 
article,  which  Mr.  Walker  had  proposed  to 
amend  by  adding  gunny  bags. 

"  Mr.  Benton  appealed  to  the  senator  from 
Mississippi  to  withdraw  his  amendment,  and  let 
the  vote  be  taken  on  salt. 

'■'  Mr.  King  also  appealed  to  the  senator  from 
Mississippi  to  withdraw  his  amendment. 

"  Mr.  Walker  said,  at  the  suggestion  of  his 
friends,  he  should  withdraw  his  amendment  for 
the  present,  as  it  was  supposed  by  some  it  might 
embarrass  the  original  amendment. 

"Mr.  Huntington  opposed  the  amendment 
as  tending  to  a  violation  of  the  compromise  act. 
It  would  result,  also,  in  the  annihilation  of  the 
extensive  American  works  engaged  in  this  manu- 
facture, and  would  give  the  foreign  manufactur- 
ers a  monopoly  in  trade,  which  would  tend  to 
greatly  increase  the  price  of  the  article  as  it  en- 
tered into  the  consumption  of  the  country. 

"  Mr.  King  was  in  favor  of  the  compromise 
act,  so  far  as  it  could  be  maintained.  The  article 
of  salt  entered  equally  into  the  consumption  of 
all  classes — the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich.  He 
should  vote  for  this  amendment.  If  the  senator 
wished,  he  would  vote  to  amend  the  proposition 
so  that  it  should  not  take  effect  till  the  30th  of 
June,  1842 ;  and  that  would  prevent  its  inter- 
ference with  the  compromise.  He  hoped  the 
experiment  would  be  made,  and  be  ascertained 
whether  revenue  sufficient  for  the  expenses  of 
government  could  be  raised  by  taxation  on  other 
articles  which  could  better  bear  it.  He  should 
vote  for  the  amendment. 

"•Mr.  Bates  said  the  duty  on  salt  affected  two 
great  portions  of  the  community  in  a  very  dif- 
ferent manner — the  interior  of  the  country, 
which  derived  their  supplies  from  the  domestic 
manufacture,  from  salines,  and  those  parts  on 
the  seaboard  which  were  supplied  with  imported 
salt.  The  price  of  salt  for  the  interior  of  the 
country,  which  was  supplied  with  domestic  salt, 
of  which  there  was  a  great  abundance,  would 
not  be  affected  by  an  imposition  of  duty,  as  the 
price  was  regulated  by  the  law  of  nature,  and 
could  not  be  repealed  or  modified ;  but  the  price 
of  salt  on  the  seaboard,  which  was  supplied  by 
imports,  and  some  manufactured  from  marine 
water,  would,  however  gentlemen  might  be  dis- 
posed to  disbelieve  it,  be  increased  if  the  duty 
were  taken  off;  as  the  manufactories  of  salt  from 
marine  water  would  be  entirely  suspended,  since 
none  would  continue  the  investment  of  their 
capital  in  so  uncertain  a  business — the  foreign 
supply  being  quite  irregular.  Thus  perhaps,  a 
third  of  the  supplies  being  cut  off,  a  greater  de- 
mand would  arise,  and  the  price  be  increased 
on  the  seaboard,  while  the  interior  would  not  be 
affected. 


316 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"  Mr.  Sevier  wished  to  know  how  much  reve- 
nue was  collected  from  salt ;  he  had  heard  it 
stated  that  the  drawbacks  amounted  to  more 
than  the  duty  ;  if  so,  it  would  be  better  to  leave 
it  among  the  free  articles. 

"Mr.  Clay  did  not  recollect  positively;  he 
believed  the  duty  was  about  $400,000,  and  the 
drawbacks  near  $260,000— the  tax  greatly  ex- 
ceeded the  drawback. 

"Mr.  Calhoun  said,  individually  there  was, 
perhaps,  no  article  which  he  would  prefer  to  have 
exempted  from  duty  than  salt,  but  he  was  op- 
posed, by  any  vote  of  his,  to  give  a  pretext  for 
a  violation  of  the  compromise  act  hereafter. 
The  duty  on  salt  was  going  off  gradually,  and 
full  as  rapidly  as  was  consistent  with  safety  to 
commercial  interests.  No  one  could  regard  the 
bill  before  them  as  permanent.  It  was  evident 
that  the  whole  system  would  have  to  be  revised 
under  the  compromise  system. 

"  Mr.  Walker  was  warmly  in  favor  of  the 
amendment.  He  regarded  a  tax  on  salt  as  in- 
human and  unjust.  It  was  almost  as  necessary 
to  human  life  as  the  air  they  breathed,  and 
should  be  exempted  from  all  burdens  whatever. 

"  Mr.  Allen  then  modified  his  amendment  so 
as  that  it  should  not  take  effect  until  after  the 
3d  of  June,  1842. 

"Mr.  Clay  spoke  against  the  amendment; 
and  said  the  very  circumstance  of  the  univer- 
sality of  its  use,  was  a  reason  it  should  come  in 
for  its  share  of  taxation.  He  never  talked  about 
the  poor,  but  he  believed  he  felt  as  much,  and 
probably  more,  than  those  who  did.  Who  were 
the  poor  ?  Why  we  were  all  poor ;  and  any 
attempt  to  select  certain  classes  for  taxation  was 
absurd,  as  before  the  collector  came  round  they 
might  be  poor.  He  expressed  the  hope  that  the 
tax  might  not  be  interfered  with.  This  was  a 
subject  which  Mr.  Jefferson  and  Mr.  Macon  took 
under  their  peculiar  care,  and  other  gentlemen 
had  since  mounted  the  hobby,  and  literally  rode 
it  down.  He  could  tell  them,  if  they  desired  to 
preserve  the  compromise,  they  must  leave  the 
salt  tax  alone. 

The  debate  was  further  continued  by  Messrs. 
Walker,  Benton,  Calhoun,  and  Preston, 
when  the  question  was  taken  on  the  adoption 
of  the  amendment,  and  decided  in  the  negative, 
as  follows : 

Yeas— Messrs.  Allen,  Benton,  Buchanan,  Clay 
of  Alabama,  Cuthbert,  Fulton,  King,  Linn,  Mc- 
Roberts,  Mouton,  Nicholson,  Pierce,  Prentiss, 
Preston,  Smith  of  Connecticut,  Tappan,  Walker, 
White,  Woodbury,  Wright,  and  Young — 21. 

Nays — Messrs.  Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Ber- 
rien, Calhoun,  Choate,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clay- 
ton, Dixon,  Evans,  Graham,  Henderson,  Hun- 
tington, Ker,  Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller,  Porter, 
Smith  of  Indiana,  Southard,  Sturgeon,  Tall- 
madge,  and  Woodbridge — 23. 

This  odious  and  impious  tax  on  salt  has  been 
kept  up  by  a  combination  of  private  and  political 


interests.  The  cod  and  mackerel  fisheries  of 
New  England  and  the  domestic  manufacturers 
of  salt  on  the  Kenhawa  and  in  New  York,  con- 
stituting the  private  interest ;  and  the  tariff-pro- 
tective party  constituting  the  political  interest. 
The  duty  has  been  reduced,  not  abolished  ;  and 
the  injury  has  become  greater  to  the  Treasury 
in  consequence  of  the  reduction ;  and  still  re- 
mains considerable  to  the  consumers.  The  salt 
duty,  previous  to  the  full  taking  effect  of  the 
compromise  act  of  1833,  paid  the  fishing  bounties 
and  allowances  founded  upon  it,  and  left  a  sur- 
plus for  the  Treasury :  now,  and  since  1842, 
these  bounties  and  allowances  take  the  whole 
amount  of  the  salt  duty,  and  a  large  sum  be- 
sides, out  of  the  public  Treasury.  In  five  years 
(from  1848  to  1854),  the  duty  produced  from 
about  $210,000,  to  $220,000  ;  and  the  bounties 
and  allowances  during  the  same  time,  were  from 
about  $240,000,  to  $300,000 ;  leaving  the  Treas- 
ury a  loser  to  the  amount  of  the  difference  :  and, 
without  going  into  figures,  the  same  result  may 
be  predicated  of  every  year  since  1842.  To  the 
consumer  the  tax  still  remaining,  although  only 
one-fifth  of  the  value,  about  doubles  the  cost  of 
the  article  consumed  to  the  consumer.  It  sends 
all  the  salt  to  the  custom-house,  and  throws  it 
into  the  hands  of  regraters  ;  and  they  combine, 
and  nearly  double  the  price. 

The  next  attempt  to  amend  the  bill  was  on 
Mr.  Woodbury's  motion  to  exempt  tea  and 
coffee  from  duty,  which  was  successful  by  a 
large  vote — 39  to  10.  The  nays  were  :  Messrs. 
Archer,  Barrow,  Berrien,  Clay  of  Kentucky, 
Henderson,  Leeds  Kerr,  Merrick,  Preston, 
Rives,  Southard.  The  bill  was  then  passed  by 
a  general  vote,  only  eleven  against  it,  upon  the 
general  ground  that  the  government  must  have 
revenue  :  but  those  who  voted  against  it  thought 
the  proper  way  to  stop  the  land  bill  was  to  deny 
this  supply  until  that  was  given  up. 

The  compromise  act  of  1833 — by  a  mere 
blunder,  for  it  cannot  be  supposed  such  an  omis- 
sion could  have  been  intentional — in  providing 
for  the  reduction  of  duties  on  imported  sugars, 
molasses,  and  salt,  made  no  corresponding  pro- 
vision for  the  reduction  of  drawbacks  when  the 
sugars  underwent  refining  and  exportation ;  nor 
upon  molasses  when  converted  into  rum  and 
exported ;  nor  on  the  fishing  bounties  and  al- 
lowances, when  the  salt  was  re-exported  on  the 
fish  which  had  been  cured  by  it.    This  omission 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


317 


was  detected  at  the  time  by  members  not  parties 
to  the  compromise,  but  not  allowed  to  be  cor- 
rected by  any  one  unfriendly  to  the  compromise. 
The  author  of  this  View  offered  an  amendment 
to  that  effect — which  was  rejected,  by  yeas  and 
nays,  as  follows  :  Yeas — Messrs.  Benton,  Buck- 
ner,  Calhoun,  Dallas,  Dickerson,  Dudley,  For- 
syth, Johnson.  Kane,  King,  Rives,  Robinson, 
Seymour,  Tomlinson,  "Webster,  White,  Wilkins, 
and  Wright.  Nays — Messrs.  Bell,  Bibb,  Black, 
Clay,  Clayton,  Ewing,  Foot,  Grundy,  Hendricks, 
Holmes,  Knight,  Mangum,  Miller,  Moore,  Nau- 
dain,  Poindexter,  Prentiss,  Robbins,  Silsbee, 
Smith,  Sprague,  Tipton,  Troup,  and  Tyler.  Of 
those  then  voting  against  this  provision,  one 
(Mr.  Ewing,  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury),  now, 
in  1841,  recommended  its  adoption,  so  far  as  it 
related  to  refined  sugars  and  rum ;  another 
(Mr.  Clay),  supported  his  recommendation;  a 
third  (Mr.  Tyler),  approved  the  act  which 
adopted  it :  but  all  this,  after  the  injury  had 
been  going  on  for  eight  years,  and  had  plundered 
the  Treasury  of  one  and  a  half  millions  of  dol- 
lars. The  new  tariff  act  of  this  extra  session 
made  the  corresponding  reductions,  and  by  a 
unanimous  vote  in  each  House ;  the  writer  of 
this  View,  besides  his  motion  at  the  time,  hav- 
ing renewed  it,  and  in  vain,  almost  every  year 
afterwards — always  rejected  on  the  cry  that 
the  compromise  was  sacred  and  inviolable — had 
saved^  the  Union  at  the  time  it  was  made,  and 
would  endanger  it  the  day  it  was  broken.  Well ! 
it  was  pretty  well  broken  at  this  extra  session : 
and  the  Union  was  just  as  much  destroyed  by 
its  breaking  as  it  had  been  saved  by  its  making. 
In  one  case  the  reductions  of  drawback  re- 
mained untouched — that  of  the  bounties  and 
allowances  to  the  cod  and  mackerel  fisheries, 
founded  on  the  idea  of  returning  to  the  fisher- 
man, or  the  exporter,  the  amount  of  duty  sup- 
posed to  have  been  paid  on  the  imported  salt 
carried  back  out  of  the  country  on  that  part  of 
the  fish  which  was  exported.  The  fisheries  have 
so  long  possessed  this  advantage  that  they  now 
claim  it  as  a  right — no  such  pretension  being 
set  up  until  it  was  attacked  as  an  abuse.  A  com- 
mittee of  the  Senate,  in  the  year  1846,  of  which 
Mr.  Benton  was  chairman,  and  Mr.  John  Davis 
of  Massachusetts,  and  Mr.  Alexander  Anderson, 
were  members,  made  a  report  which  explored  this 
abuse  to  its  source ;  but  without  being  able  to  get 
it  corrected.   The  abuse  commenced  after  the  late 


war  with  Great  Britain,  and  has  taken  since 
that  time  about  six  millions  of  dollars ;  and  is 
now  going  at  the  rate  of  about  three  hundred 
thousand  dollars  per  annum.  In  the  earlier 
ages  of  the  government,  these  bounties  and  al- 
lowances were  always  stated  in  the  annual 
treasury  report,  according  to  their  true  nature 
in  connection  with  the  salt  duties,  and  as  de- 
pendent upon  those  duties :  and  the  sums  al- 
lowed were  always  carried  out  in  bushels  of 
salt:  which  would  show  how  much  salt  was 
supposed  to  have  been  carried  out  of  the  coun- 
try on  the  exported  fish.  A  treasury  statement 
of  that  kind  at  present,  would  show  about  one 
million  three  hundred  thousand  bushels  of  for- 
eign salt  (for  it  is  only  on  the  foreign  that  the 
bounties  and  allowances  accrue),  so  exported, 
while  there  is  only  about  one  million  of  bushels 
imported — nineteen-twentieths  of  which  is  em- 
ployed in  other  branches  of  business — beef  and 
pork  packing,  and  bacon  curing,  for  example : 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  these 
branches  export  far  more  foreign  salt  on  the  ar- 
ticles they  send  abroad,  than  is  done  on  cod  and 
mackerel  exported.  In  viewing  the  struggles 
about  these  bounties  and  allowances,  I  have  of- 
ten had  occasion  to  admire  the  difference  be- 
tween the  legislators  of  the  North  and  those  of 
the  South  and  West — the  former  always  intent 
upon  the  benefits  of  legislation — the  latter  upon 
the  honors  of  the  government. 


CHAPTER   LXXX. 

NATIONAL  BANK :    FIKST  BILL. 

This  was  the  great  measure  of  the  session,  and 
the  great  object  of  the  whig  party,  and  the  one 
without  which  all  other  measures  would  be 
deemed  to  be  incomplete,  and  the  victorious 
election  itself  little  better  than  a  defeat.  Though 
kept  out  of  view  as  an  issue  during  the  canvass, 
it  was  known  to  every  member  of  the  party  to 
be  the  alpha  and  omega  of  the  contest,  and  the 
crowning  consummation  of  ten  years  labor  in 
favor  of  a  national  bank.  It  was  kept  in  the 
background  for  a  reason  perfectly  understood. 
Both  General  Harrison  and  Mr.  Tyler  had  been 
ultra  against  a  national  bank  while  members  of 


318 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  democratic  party :  they  had  both,  as  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Representatives  voted  in  a 
small  minority  in  favor  of  issuing  a  writ  of 
scire  facias  against  the  late  Bank  of  the  United 
States  soon  after  it  was  chartered;  and  this 
could  be  quoted  in  the  parts  of  the  country 
where  a  bank  was  unpopular.  At  the  same 
time  the  party  was  perfectly  satisfied  with  their 
present  sentiments,  and  wanted  no  discussion 
which  might  scare  off  anti-bank  men  without 
doing  any  good  on  their  own  side.  The  bank, 
then,  was  the  great  measure  of  the  session — 
the  great  cause  of  the  called  session — and  as 
such  taken  by  Mr.  Clay  into  his  own  care  from 
the  first  day.  He  submitted  a  schedule  of 
measures  for  the  consideration  of  the  body,  and 
for  acting  on  which  he  said  it  might  be  under- 
stood the  extraordinary  session  was  convoked ; 
he  moved  for  a  select  committee  to  report 
a  bill,  of  which  committee  he  was  of  course  to 
be  chairman :  and  he  moved  a  call  upon  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury  (Mr.  Ewing)  for  the 
plan  of  a  bank.  In  was  furnished  accordingly, 
and  studiously  contrived  so  as  to  avoid  the 
President's  objections,  and  save  his  consistency 
— a  point  upon  which  he  was  exceedingly  sensi- 
tive. The  bill  of  the  select  committee  was 
modelled  upon  it.  Even  the  title  was  made  ri- 
diculous to  please  the  President,  though  not  as 
much  so  as  he  wished.  He  objected  to  the  name 
of  bank,  either  in  the  title  or  the  body  of  the 
charter,  and  proposed  to  style  it  "  The  Fiscal 
Institute  ; "  and  afterwards  the  "  Fiscal  Agent  ;" 
and  finally  the  "  Fiscal  Corporation."  Mr.  Clay 
and  his  friends  could  not  stand  these  titles  ;  but 
finding  the  President  tenacious  on  the  title  of  the 
bill,  and  having  all  the  properties  of  all  sorts 
of  banks — discount — deposit — circulation — ex- 
change— all  in  the  plan  so  studiously  contrived, 
they  yielded  to  the  word  Fiscal — rejecting  each 
of  its  proposed  addenda— and  substituted  bank. 
The  title  of  the  instrument  then  ran  thus :  "  A 
Bill  to  incorporate  the  subscribers  to  the  Fiscal 
Bank  of  the  United  States."  Thus  entitled, 
and  thus  arranged  out  of  doors,  it  was  brought 
into  the  Senate,  not  to  be  perfected  by  the  col- 
lective legislative  wisdom  of  the  body,  but  to 
be  carried  through  the  forms  of  legislation, 
without  alteration  except  from  its  friends,  and 
made  into  law.  The  deliberative  power  of  the 
body  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  Registration 
of  what  had  been  agreed  upon  was  its  only 
office.  The  democratic  members  resisted  strenu- 


ously in  order  to  make  the  measure  odious.  Suc- 
cessful resistance  was  impossible,  and  a  repeal 
of  the  act  at  a  subsequent  Congress  was  the  only 
hope — a  veto  not  being  then  dreamed  of.  Re- 
peal, therefore,  was  taken  as  the  watchword,  and 
formal  notice  of  it  proclaimed  in  successive 
speeches,  that  all  subscribers  to  the  bank  should 
be  warned  in  time,  and  deprived  of  the  plea  of 
innocence  when  the  repeal  should  be  moved. 
Mr.  Allen,  of  Ohio,  besides  an  argument  in 
favor  of  the  right  of  this  repeal,  produced  a  re- 
solve from  the  House  Journal  of  1819,  in  which 
General  Harrison,  then  a  member  of  that  body, 
voted  with  others  for  a  resolve  directing  the 
Judiciary  Committee  to  report  a  bill  to  repeal 
the  then  United  States  Bank  charter — not  to 
inquire  into  the  expediency  of  repealing,  but  to 
repeal  absolutely. 

The  bill  was  passed  through  both  Houses — 
in  the  Senate  by  a  close  vote,  26  to  23 — in  the 
House  by  a  better  majority,  128  to  98.  This 
was  the  sixth  of  August.  All  was  considered 
finished  by  the  democracy,  and  a  future  re- 
peal their  only  alternative.  Suddenly  light  be- 
gan to  dawn  upon  them.  Rumors  came  that 
President  Tyler  would  disapprove  the  act; 
which,  in  fact  he  did:  but  with  such  expres- 
sions of  readiness  to  approve  another  bill  which 
should  be  free  from  the  objections  which  he 
named,  as  still  to  keep  his  party  together,  and 
to  prevent  the  explosion  of  his  cabinet.  But 
it  made  an  explosion  elsewhere.  Mr.  Clay  was 
not  of  a  temper  to  be  balked  in  a  measure  so 
dear  to  his  heart  without  giving  expression  to 
his  dissatisfaction ;  and  did  so  in  the  debate  on 
the  veto  message  ;  and  in  terms  to  assert  that 
Mr.  Tyler  had  violated  his  faith  to  the  whig 
party,  and  had  been  led  off  from  them  by  new 
associations.    He  said : 

"  On  the  4th  of  April  last,  the  lamented  Har- 
rison, the  President  of  the  United  States,  paid 
the  debt  of  nature.  President  Tyler,  who,  as 
Vice-P  resident,  succeeded  to  the  duties  of  that 
office,  arrived  in  the  city  of  "Washington  on  the 
6th  of  that  month.  He  found  the  whole  metropo- 
lis wrapt  in  gloom,  every  heart  filled  with  sorrow 
and  sadness,  every  eye  streaming  with  tears, 
and  the  surrounding  hills  yet  flinging  back  the 
echo  of  the  bells  which  were  tolled  on  that 
melancholy  occasion.  On  entering  the  Presi- 
dential mansion  he  contemplated  the  pale  body 
of  his  predecessor  stretched  before  him,  and 
clothed  in  the  black  habiliments  of  death.  At 
that  solemn  moment,  I  have  no  doubt  that 
the  heart  of  President  Tyler  was  overflowing 
with  mingled  emotions  of  griefj  of  patriotism 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


319 


and  gratitude — above  all,  of  gratitude  to  that 
country  by  a  majority  of  whose  suffrages,  be- 
stowed at  the  preceding  November,  he  then 
stood  the  most  distinguished,  the  most  elevated, 
the  most  honored  of  all  living  whigs  of  the 
United  States. 

"It  was  under  these  circumstances,  and  in 
this  probable  state  of  mind,  that  President 
Tyler,  on  the  10th  day  of  the  same  month  of 
April,  voluntary  promulgated  an  address  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  That  address  was 
in  the  nature  of  a  coronation  oath,  which  the 
chief  of  the  State,  in  other  countries,  and  under 
other  forms,  takes  upon  ascending  the  throne. 
It  referred  to  the  solemn  obligations,  and  the 
profound  sense  of  duty  under  which  the  new 
President  entered  upon  the  high  trust  which 
had  devolved  upon  him,  by  the  joint  acts  of  the 
people  and  of  Providence,  and  it  stated  the 
principles  and  delineated  the  policy  by  which 
he  would  be  governed  in  his  exalted  station.  It 
was  emphatically  a  whig  address  from  begin- 
ning to  end — every  inch  of  it  was  whig,  and 
was  patriotic. 

"In  that  address  the  President,  in  respect 
to  the  subject-matter  embraced  in  the  present 
bill,  held  the  following  conclusive  and  emphatic 
language :  '  I  shall  promptly  give  my  sanction 
to  any  constitutional  measure  which,  originat- 
ing in  Congress,  shall  have  for  its  object  the 
restoration  of  a  sound  circulating  medium,  so 
essentially  necessary  to  give  confidence  in  all 
the  transactions  of  life,  to  secure  to  industry 
its  just  and  adequate  rewards,  and  to  re-estab- 
lish the  public  prosperity.  In  deciding  upon 
the  adaptation  of  any  such  measure  to  the  end 
proposed,  as  well  as  its  conformity  to  the  Con- 
stitution, I  shall  resort  to  the  fathers  of  the 
great  republican  school  for  advice  and  instruc- 
tion, to  be  drawn  from  their  sage  views  of  our 
system  of  government,  and  the  light  of  their 
ever  glorious  example.' 

"  To  this  clause  in  the  address  of  the  Presi- 
dent, I  believe  but  one  interpretation  was  given 
throughout  this  whole  country,  by  friend  and 
foe,  by  whig  and  democrat,  and  by  the  presses 
of  both  parties.  It  was  by  every  man  with 
whom  I  conversed  on  the  subject  at  the  time 
of  its  appearance,  or  of  whom  I  have  since  in- 
quired, construed  to  mean  that  the  President 
intended  to  occupy  the  Madison  ground,  and  to 
regard  the  question  of  the  power  to  establish  a 
national  bank  as  immovably  settled.  And  I 
think  I  may  confidently  appeal  to  the  Senate, 
and  to  the  country,  to  sustain  the  fact  that  this 
was  the  contemporaneous  and  unanimous  judg- 
ment of  the  public.  Reverting  back  to  the 
period  of  the  promulgation  of  the  address, 
could  any  other  construction  have  been  given 
to  its  language  ?  What  is  it?  'I  shall  promptly 
give  my  sanction  to  any  constitutional  measure 
which,  originating  in  Congress,'  shall  have  cer- 
tain defined  objects  in  view.  He  concedes  the 
vital  importance  of  a  sound  circulating  me- 
dium to  industry  and  to  the  public  prosperity. 


He  concedes  that  its  origin  must  be  in  Congress. 
And.  to  prevent  any  inference  from  the  qualifi- 
cation, which  he  prefixes  to  the  measure,  being 
interpreted  to  mean  that  a  United  States  Bank 
was  unconstitutional,  he  declares  that,  in  de- 
ciding on  the  adaptation  of  the  measure  to  the 
end  proposed,  and  its  conformity  to  the  consti- 
tution, he  will  resort  to  the  fathers  of  the  great 
Republican  school.  And  who  were  they  ?  If 
the  Father  of  his  country  is  to  be  excluded,  are 
Madison  (the  father  of  the  constitution),  Jef- 
ferson, Monroe,  Gerry,  Gallatin,  and  the  long 
list  of  Republicans  who  acted  with  them,  not  to 
be  regarded  as  among  those  fathers  ?  But  Presi- 
dent Tyler  declares  not  only  that  he  should 
appeal  to  them  for  advice  and  instruction,  but  to 
the  light  of  their  ever  glorious  example.  What 
example?  What  other  meaning  could  have 
been  possibly  applied  to  the  phrase,  than  that 
he  intended  to  refer  to  what  had  been  done 
during  the  administrations  of  Jefferson,  Madi- 
son, and  Monroe  ? 

"  Entertaining  this  opinion  of  the  address,  I 
came  to  Washington,  at  the  commencement  of 
the  session,  with  the  most  confident  and  buoyant 
hopes  that  the  Whigs  would  be  able  to  carry 
all  their  prominent  measures,  and  especially  a 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  by  far  that  one  of 
the  greatest  immediate  importance.  I  antici- 
pated nothing  but  cordial  co-operation  between 
the  two  departments  of  government;  and  I 
reflected  with  pleasure  that  I  should  find  at  the 
head  of  the  Executive  branch,  a  personal  and 
political  friend,  whom  I  had  long  and  intimately 
known,  and  highly  esteemed.  It  will  not  be 
my  fault  if  our  amicable  relations  should  un- 
happily cease,  in  consequence  of  any  difference 
of  opinion  between  us  on  this  occasion.  The 
President  has  been  always  perfectly  familiar 
with  my  opinion  on  this  bank  question, 

"  Upon  the  opening  of  the  session,  but  es- 
pecially on  the  receipt  of  the  plan  of  a  national 
bank,  as  proposed  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  fears  were  excited  that  the  President 
had  been  misunderstood  in  his  address,  and  that 
he  had  not  waived  but  adhered  to  his  constitu- 
tional scruples.  Under  these  circumstances  it 
was  hoped  that,  by  the  indulgence  of  a  mutual 
spirit  of  compromise  and  concession,  a  bank, 
competent  to  fulfil  the  expectations  and  satisfy 
the  wants  of  the  people,  might  be  established. 

"  Under  the  influence  of  that  spirit,  the  Sen- 
ate and  the  House  agreed,  1st,  as  to  the  name 
of  the  proposed  bank.  I  confess,  sir,  that  there 
was  something  exceedingly  outre  and  revolting 
to  my  ears  in  the  term  "  Fiscal  Bank ; "  but 
I  thought,  "  What  is  there  in  a  name  ?  A  rose 
by  any  other  name,  would  smell  as  sweet." 
Looking,  therefore,  rather  to  the  utility  of  the 
substantial  faculties  than  to  the  name  of  the 
contemplated  institution,  we  consented  to  that 
which  was  proposed. 

In  his  veto  message  Mr.  Tyler  fell  back  upon 
his  early  opinions  against  the  constitutionality 


320 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  a  national  bank,  so  often  and  so  publicly  ex- 
pressed ;  and  recurring  to  these  early  opinions 
he  now  declared  that  it  would  be  a  crime  and 
an  infamy  in  him  to  sign  the  bill  which  had 
been  presented  to  him.  In  this  sense  he  thus 
expressed  himself: 

"  Entertaining  the  opinions  alluded  to,  and 
having  taken  this  oath,  the  Senate  and  the  coun- 
try will  see  that  I  could  not  give  my  sanction 
to  a  measure  of  the  character  described  without 
surrendering  all  claim  to  the  respect  of  honor- 
able men — all  confidence  on  the  part  of  the  peo- 
ple— all  self-respect — all  regard  for  moral  and 
religious  obligations  ;  without  an  observance 
of  which  no  government  can  be  prosperous,  and 
no  people  can  be  happy.  It  would  be  to  com- 
mit a  crime  which  I  would  not  wilfully  commit 
to  gain  any  earthly  reward,  and  which  would 
justly  subject  me  to  the  ridicule  and  scorn  of 
all  virtuous  men." 

Mr.  Clay  found  these  expressions  of  self-con- 
demnation entirely  too  strong,  showing  too 
much  sensibility  in  a  President  to  personal 
considerations — laying  too  much  stress  upon 
early  opinions — ignoring  too  completely  later 
opinions — and  not  sufficiently  deferring  to  those 
fathers  of  the  government  to  whom,  in  his  in- 
augural address,  he  had  promised  to  look  for 
advice  and  instruction,  both  as  to  the  constitu- 
tionality of  a  bank,  and  its  adaptation  to  the 
public  wants.  And  he  thus  animadverted  on 
the  passage : 

"  I  must  think,  and  hope  I  may  be  allowed 
to  say,  with  profound  deference  to  the  Chief 
Magistrate,  that  it  appears  to  me  he  has  viewed 
with  too  lively  sensibility  the  personal  conse- 
quences to  himself  of  his  approval  of  the  bill ; 
and  that,  surrendering  himself  to  a  vivid  imagi- 
nation, he  has  depicted  them  in  much  too  glow- 
ing and  exaggerated  colors,  and  that  it  would 
have  been  most  happy  if  he  had  looked  more 
to  the  deplorable  consequences  of  a  veto  upon 
the  hopes,  the  interests,  and  the  happiness  of 
his  country.  Does  it  follow  that  a  magistrate 
who  yields  his  private  judgment  to  the  concur- 
ring authority  of  numerous  decisions,  repeated- 
ly and  deliberately  pronounced,  after  the  lapse 
of  long  intervals,  by  all  the  departments  of  gov- 
ernment, and  by  all  parties,  incurs  the  dreadful 
penalties  described  by  the  President  ?  Can 
any  man  be  disgraced  and  dishonored  who 
yields  his  private  opinion  to  the  judgment  of 
the  nation  ?  In  this  case,  the  country  (I  mean 
a  majority),  Congress,  and,  according  to  com- 
mon fame,  an  unanimous  cabinet,  were  all  unit- 
ed in  favor  of  the  bill.  Should  any  man  feel 
himself  humbled  and  degraded  in  yielding  to 
the  conjoint  force  of  such  high  authority  ? 
Does  any  man,  who  at  one  period  of  his  life 


shall  have  expressed  a  particular  opinion,  and  at 
a  subsequent  period  shall  act  upon  the  opposite 
opinion,  expose  himself  to  the  terrible  conse- 
quences which  have  been  portrayed  by  the 
President  ?  How  is  it  with  the  judge,  in  the 
case  by  no  means  rare,  who  bows  to  the  au- 
thority of  repeated  precedents,  settling  a  par- 
ticular question,  whilst  in  his  private  judgment 
the  law  was  otherwise  ?  How  is  it  with  that 
numerous  class  of  public  men  in  this  country, 
and  with  the  two  great  parties  that  have  divided 
it,  who,  at  different  periods,  have  maintained 
and  acted  on  opposite  opinions  in  respect  to  this 
very  bank  question  ? 

"  How  is  it  with  James  Madison,  the  father 
of  the  constitution — that  great  man  whose  ser- 
vices to  his  country  placed  him  only  second  to 
Washington — whose  virtues  and  purity  in  pri- 
vate life — whose  patriotism,  intelligence,  and 
wisdom  in  public  councils,  stand  unsurpassed  ? 
He  was  a  member  of  the  national  convention 
that  formed,  and  of  the  Virginia  convention 
that  adopted  the  constitution.  No  man  under- 
stood it  better  than  he  did.  He  was  opposed  in 
1791  to  the  establishment  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  upon  constitutional  ground ;  and 
in  1816  he  approved  and  signed  the  charter  of 
the  late  Bank  of  the  United  States.  It  is  a  part 
of  the  secret  history  connected  with  the  first 
Bank,  that  James  Madison  had,  at  the  instance 
of  General  Washington,  prepared  a  veto  for  him 
in  the  contingency  of  his  rejection  of  the  bill. 
Thus  stood  James  Madison  when,  in  1815,  he 
applied  the  veto  to  a  bill  to  charter  a  bank 
upon  considerations  of  expediency,  but  with  a 
clear  and  express  admission  of  the  existence  of 
a  constitutional  power  in  Congress  to  charter 
one.  In  1816,  the  bill  which  was  then  pre- 
sented to  him  being  free  from  the  objections 
applicable  to  that  of  the  previous  year,  he  sanc- 
tioned and  signed  it.  Did  James  Madison  sur- 
render 'all  claim  to  the  respect  of  honorable  men 
— all  confidence  on  the  part  of  the  people — all 
self-respect — all  regard  for  moral  and  religious 
obligations  ? '  Did  the  pure,  the  virtuous,  the 
gifted  James  Madison,  by  his  sanction  and  sig- 
nature to  the  charter  of  the  late  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  commit  a  crime  which  justly 
subjected  him  '  to  the  ridicule  and  scorn  of  all 
virtuous  men  ? ' " 

But  in  view  of  these  strong  personal  conse- 
quences to  his  (Mr.  Tyler's)  own  character  in  the 
event  of  signing  the  bill,  Mr.  Clay  pointed  out  a 
course  which  the  President  might  have  taken 
which  would  have  saved  his  consistency — con- 
formed to  the  constitution — fulfilled  his  obliga- 
tions to  the  party  that  elected  him — and  permit- 
ted the  establishment  of  that  sound  currency,  and 
that  relief  from  the  public  distress,  which  his  in- 
augural address,  and  his  message  to  Congress,  and 
his  veto  message,  all  so  earnestly  declared  to  be 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


321 


necessary.  It  was  to  have  let  the  bill  lie  in 
his  hands  without  approval  or  disapproval :  in 
which  case  it  would  have  become  a  law  without 
any  act  of  his.  The  constitution  had  made  pro- 
vision for  the  case  in  that  clause  in  which  it  de- 
clares that — "  If  any  bill  shall  not  be  returned 
by  the  President  within  ten  days  (Sundays  ex- 
cepted) after  it  shall  have  been  presented  to 
him,  the  same  shall  be  a  law,  in  like  manner  as 
if  he  had  signed  it,  unless  the  Congress  by  their 
adjournment  prevent  its  return ;  in  which  case 
it  shall  not  be  a  law."  In  this  case  there  was 
no  danger  of  Congress  adjourning  before  the 
lapse  of  the  ten  days ;  and  Mr.  Clay  adverted 
to  this  course  as  the  one,  under  his  embarrass- 
ing circumstances  the  President  ought  to  have 
adopted,  and  saved  both  his  consistency  and 
faith  to  his  party.  He  urged  it  as  a  proper 
course — saying : 

"  And  why  should  not  President  Tyler  have 
suffered  the  bill  to  become  a  law  without  his 
signature  ?  Without  meaning  the  slightest  pos- 
sible disrespect  to  him  (nothing  is  further  from 
my  heart  than  the  exhibition  of  any  such  feel- 
ing towards  that  distinguished  citizen,  long  my 
personal  friend),  it  cannot  be  forgotten  that  he 
came  into  his  present  office  under  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances. The  people  did  not  foresee  the 
contingency  which  has  happened.  They  voted 
for  him  as  Vice-President.  They  did  not,  there- 
fore, scrutinize  his  opinions  with  the  care  which 
they  probably  ought  to  have  done,  and  would 
have  done,  if  they  could  have  looked  into  futu- 
rity. If  the  present  state  of  the  fact  could  have 
been  anticipated — if  at  Harrisburg,  or  at  the 
polls,  it  had  been  foreseen  that  General  Harri- 
son would  die  in  one  short  month  after  the 
commencement  of  his  administration ;  that 
Vice-President  Tyler  would  be  elevated  to  the 
presidential  chair ;  that  a  bill,  passed  by  deci- 
sive majorities  of  the  first  whig  Congress,  char- 
tering a  national  bank,  would  be  presented  for 
his  sanction ;  and  that  he  would  veto  the  bill, 
do  I  hazard  any  thing  when  I  express  the  con- 
viction that  he  would  not  have  received  a  soli- 
tary vote  in  the  nominating  convention,  nor 
one  solitary  electoral  vote  in  any  State  in  the 
Union?" 

Not  having  taken  this  course  with  the  bill, 
Mr.  Clay  pointed  out  a  third  one,  suggested  by 
the  conduct  of  the  President  himself  under 
analogous  circumstances,  and  which,  while  pre- 
serving his  self-respect,  would  accomplish  all 
the  objects  in  view  by  the  party  which  elected 
him,  by  simply  removing  the  obstacle  which 
stood  between  them  and  the  object  of  their 
hopes  j  it  was  to  resign  the  presidency.  For 
Vol.  II.— 21 


this  contingency — that  of  neither  President 
nor  Vice-President — the  constitution  had  also 
made  provision  in  declaring — "In  case  of  the 
removal  of  the  President  from  office,  or  of  his 
death,  resignation,  or  inability  to  discharge  the 
powers  and  duties  of  the  said  office,  the  same 
shall  devolve  on  the  Vice-President;  and  the 
Congress  may  by  law  provide  for  the  case  of  the 
removal,  death,  resignation,  or  inability  both 
of  the  President  and  Vice-President,  declaring 
what  officer  shall  then  act  as  President ;  and 
such  officer  shall  act  accordingly,  until  the  dis- 
ability be  removed,  or  a  President  shall  be 
elected."  Congress  had  acted  under  this  in- 
junction and  had  devolved  the  duties  of  Presi- 
dent, first  on  the  president  of  the  Senate  pro 
tempore ;  and  if  no  such  temporary  president, 
then  on  the  speaker  of  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives ;  and  requiring  a  new  election  to  be  held 
on  the  first  Wednesday  of  the  ensuing  Decem- 
ber if  there  was  time  before  it  for  a  notification 
of  two  months  ;  and  if  not,  then  the  new  elec- 
tion to  take  place  (if  the  vacant  term  had  not 
expired  on  the  third  day  of  March  after  they 
happened)  on  the  like  Wednesday  of  the  next 
ensuing  month  of  December.  Here  was  pro- 
vision made  for  the  case,  and  the  new  election 
might  have  been  held  in  less  than  four  months 
— the  temporary  president  of  the  Senate,  Mr. 
Southard,  acting  as  President  in  the  mean  time. 
The  legal  path  was  then  clear  for  Mr.  Tyler's 
resignation,  and  Mr.  Clay  thus  enforced  the 
propriety  of  that  step  upon  him  : 

"  But,  sir,  there  was  still  a  third  alternative, 
to  which  I  allude  not  because  I  mean  to  inti- 
mate that  it  should  be  embraced,  but  because  I 
am  reminded  of  it  by  a  memorable  event  in  the 
life  of  President  Tyler.  It  will  be  recollected 
that,  after  the  Senate  had  passed  the  resolution 
declaring  the  removal  of  the  deposits  from  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States  to  have  been  deroga- 
tory from  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the 
United  States,  for  which  resolution  President 
(then  senator)  Tyler  had  voted,  the  General 
Assembly  of  Virginia  instructed  the  senators 
from  that  State  to  vote  for  the  expunging  of 
that  resolution.  Senator  Tyler  declined  voting 
in  conformity  with  that  instruction,  and  re- 
signed his  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States.  This  he  did  because  he  could  not  con- 
form, and  did  not  think  it  right  to  go  counter, 
to  the  wishes  of  those  who  had  placed  him  in 
the  Senate.  If,  when  the  people  of  Virginia,  or 
the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  were  his 
only  constituency,  he  would  not  set  up  his  own 
particular  opinion  in  opposition  to  theirs,  what 


322 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ought  to  be  the  rule  of  his  conduct  when  the 
people  of  twenty-six  States — a  whole  nation — 
compose  his  constituency  ?  Is  the  will  of  the 
constituency  of  one  State  to  be  respected,  and 
that  of  twenty-six  to  be  wholly  disregarded  ? 
Is  obedience  due  only  to  the  single  State  of  Vir- 
ginia? The  President  admits  that  the  Bank 
question  deeply  agitated,  and  continues  to  agitate, 
the  nation.  It  is  incontestable  that  it  was  the 
great,  absorbing,  and  controlling  question,  in  all 
our  recent  divisions  and  exertions.  I  am  firm- 
ly convinced,  and  it  is  my  deliberate  judgment, 
that  an  immense  majority,  not  less  than  two- 
thirds  of  the  nation,  desire  such  an  institution. 
All  doubts  in  this  respect  ought  to  be  dispelled 
by  the  recent  decisions  of  the  two  Houses  of 
Congress.  I  speak  of  them  as  evidence  of  pop- 
ular opinion.  In  the  House  of  Representatives, 
the  majority  was  131  to  100.  If  the  House  had 
been  full,  and  but  for  the  modification  of  the 
16th  fundamental  condition,  there  would  have 
been  a  probable  majority  of  47.  Is  it  to  be  be- 
lieved that  this  large  majority  of  the  imme- 
diate representatives  of  the  people,  fresh  from 
amongst  them,  and  to  whom  the  President 
seemed  inclined,  in  his  opening  message,  to  re- 
fer this  very  question,  have  mistaken  the  wishes 
of  their  constituents  ?  " 

The  acting  President  did  not  feel  it  to  be  his 
duty  to  resign,  although  it  may  be  the  judgment 
of  history  (after  seeing  the  expositions  of  his  sec- 
retaries at  the  resignation  of  their  places  conse- 
quent upon  a  second  veto  to  a  second  bank  act), 
that  he  ought  to  have  done  so.  In  his  veto 
message  he  seemed  to  leave  the  way  open  for 
his  approval  of  a  charter  free  from  the  excep- 
tions he  had  taken  ;  and  rumor  was  positive  in 
asserting  that  he  was  then  engaged  in  arranging 
with  some  friends  the  details  of  a  bill  which  he 
could  approve.  In  allusion  to  this  rumor,  Mr. 
Clay  remarked : 

"  On  a  former  occasion  I  stated  that,  in  the 
event  of  an  unfortunate  difference  of  opinion  be- 
tween the  legislative  and  executive  departments, 
the  point  of  difference  might  be  developed,  and 
it  would  be  then  seen  whether  they  could  be 
brought  to  coincide  in  any  measure  correspond- 
ing with  the  public  hopes  and  expectations.  I 
regret  that  the  President  has  not,  in  this  mes- 
sage, favored  us  with  a  more  clear  and  explicit 
exhibition  of  his  views.  It  is  sufficiently  mani- 
fest that  he  is  decidedly  opposed  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  new  Bank  of  the  United  States 
formed  after  two  old  models.  I  think  it  is  fairly 
to  be  inferred  that  the  plan  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  could  not  have  received  his  sanc- 
tion. He  is  opposed  to  the  passage  of  the  bill 
which  he  has  returned  ;  but  whether  he  would 
give  his  approbation  to  any  bank,  and,  if  any, 
what  sort  of  a  bank,  is  not  absolutely  clear.    I 


think  it  may  be  collected  from  the  message, 
with  the  aid  of  information  derived  through 
other  sources,  that  the  President  would  concur 
in  the  establishment  of  a  bank  whose  operations 
should  be  limited  to  dealing  in  bills  of  exchange 
to  deposits,  and  to  the  supply  of  a  circulation, 
excluding  the  power  of  discounting  promissory 
notes.  And  I  understand  that  some  of  our 
friends  are  now  considering  the  practicability  of 
arranging  and  passing  a  bill  in  conformity  with 
the  views  of  President  Tyler.  Whilst  I  regret 
that  I  can  take  no  active  part  in  such  an  experi- 
ment, and  must  reserve  to  n^self  the  right  of 
determining  whether  I  can  or  cannot  vote  for 
such  a  bill  after  I  see  it  in  its  matured  form,  I 
assure  my  friends  that  they  shall  find  no  obsta- 
cle or  impediment  in  me.  On  the  contrary,  I 
say  to  them,  go  on :  God  speed  you  in  any  mea- 
sure which  will  serve  the  country,  and  preserve 
or  restore  harmony  and  concert  between  the  de- 
partments of  government.  An  executive  veto 
of  a  Bank  of  the  United  States,  after  the  sad  ex- 
perience of  late  years,  is  an  event  which  was  not 
anticipated  by  the  political  friends  of  the  Presi- 
dent ;  certainly  not  by  me.  But  it  has  come 
upon  us  with  tremendous  weight,  and  amidst 
the  greatest  excitement  within  and  without  the 
metropolis.  The  question  now  is,  what  shall  be 
done?  What,  under  this  most  embarrassing 
and  unexpected  state  of  things,  will  our  consti- 
tuents expect  of  us  ?  What  is  required  by  the 
duty  and  the  dignity  of  Congress  ?  I  repeat 
that  if,  after  a  careful  examination  of  the  exe- 
cutive message,  a  bank  can  be  devised  which  will 
afford  any  remedy  to  existing  evils,  and  secure 
the  President's  approbation,  let  the  project  of 
such  a  bank  be  presented.  It  shall  encounter 
no  opposition,  if  it  should  receive  no  support, 
from  me." 

The  speech  of  Mr.  Clay  brought  out  Mr. 
Rives  in  defence  of  the  President,  who  com- 
menced with  saying : 

"  He  came  to  the  Senate  that  morning  to  give 
a  silent  vote  on  the  bill,  and  he  should  have 
contented  himself  with  doing  so  but  for  the  ob- 
servations which  had  fallen  from  the  senator 
from  Kentucky  in  respect  to  the  conduct  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  R,  had 
hoped  the  senator  would  have  confined  himself 
strictly  to  the  merits  of  the  question  before  the 
Senate.  He  told  us,  said  Mr.  R.,  that  the  ques- 
tion was  this:  the  President  having  returned 
the  bill  for  a  fiscal  bank  with  his  exceptions 
thereto,  the  bill  was  such  an  one  as  ought  to 
pass  by  the  constitutional  majority  of  two- 
thirds  ;  and  thus  become  a  law  of  the  land. 
Now  what  was  the  real  issue  before  the  Senate  ? 
Was  it  not  the  naked  question  between  the  bill 
and  the  objections  to  it,  as  compared  with  each 
other  ?  I  really  had  hoped  that  the  honorable 
senator,  after  announcing  to  us  the  issue  in  this 
very  proper  manner,  would  have  confined  his  ob- 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


323 


servations  to  it  alone ;  and  if  he  had  done  so  I 
should  not  have  troubled  the  Senate  with  a 
single  word.  But  what  has  been  the  course  of 
the  honorable  senator  ?  I  do  not  reproach  him 
with  it.  He,  no  doubt,  felt  it  necessary,  in  order 
to  vindicate  his  own  position  before  the  country, 
to  inculpate  the  course  taken  by  the  President : 
and  accordingly  about  two- thirds  of  his  speech, 
howsoever  qualified  by  expressions  of  personal 
kindness  and  respect,  were  taken  up  in  a  solemn 
arraignment  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  Most  of  the  allegations  put  forth  by 
the  senator  seem  to  arrange  themselves  under 
the  general  charge  of  perfidy — of  faithlessness 
to  his  party,  and  to  the  people," 

Mr.  Rives  went  on  to  defend  the  President  at 
all  points,  declaring  the  question  of  a  bank  was 
not  an  issue  in  the  election — repelling  the  im- 
putation of  perfidy — scouting  the  suggestions  of 
resignation  and  of  pocketing  the  bill  to  let  it  be- 
come law — arguing  that  General  Harrison  him- 
self would  have  disapproved  the  same  bill  if  he 
had  lived  and  it  had  been  presented  to  him.  In 
support  of  this  opinion  he  referred  to  the  Gene- 
ral's early  opposition  to  the  national  bank  of 
1816,  and  to  his  written  answer  given  during 
the  canvass — "  that  he  would  not  give  his  sanc- 
tion to  a  Bank  of  the  United  States,  unless  by 
the  failure  of  all  other  expedients,  it  should  be 
demonstrated  to  be  necessary  to  carry  on  the 
operations  of  government ;  and  unless  there 
should  be  a  general  and  unequivocal  manifesta- 
tion of  the  will  of  the  Union  in  favor  of  such  an 
institution  ;  and  then  only  as  a  fiscal,  and  not 
as  a  commercial  bank."  But  this  authentic  de- 
claration seemed  to  prove  the  contrary  of  that 
for  which  it  was  quoted.  It  contained  two  con- 
ditions, on  the  happening  of  which  General 
Harrison  would  sign  a  bank  charter — first,  the 
failure  of  all  other  plans  for  carrying  on  the 
financial  operations  of  the  government ;  and, 
secondly,  the  manifestation  of  public  opinion  in 
favor  of  it.  That  the  first  of  these  conditions 
had  been  fulfilled  was  well  shown  by  Mr.  Rives 
himself  in  the  concluding  passages  of  his  speech 
where  he  said:  "All  previous  systems  have 
been  rejected  and  condemned — the  sub-treasury 
— the  pet  banks — an  old-fashioned  Bank  of  the 
United  States — a  new-fashioned  fiscal  agent." 
The  second  condition  was  fulfilled  in  the  presi- 
dential election  in  the  success  of  the  whig  party, 
whose  first  object  was  a  bank ;  and  in  the  elec- 
tion of  members  of  the  House  and  the  Senate, 
where  the  majorities  were  in  favor  of  a  bank. 


The  conditions  were  fulfilled  then  on  which 
General  Harrison  was  to  approve  a  bank  char- 
ter ;  and  the  writer  of  this  View  has  no  doubt 
that  he  would  have  given  his  signature  to  a 
usual  bank  charter  if  he  had  lived ;  and  from 
an  obligatory  sense  of  duty,  and  with  no  more 
dishonor  than  Mr.  Madison  had  incurred  in 
signing  the  act  for  the  second  bank  charter  after 
having  been  the  great  opponent  of  the  first  one ; 
and  for  which  signing,  as  for  no  act  of  his  life, 
was  dishonor  imputed  to  him.  The  writer  of 
this  View  believes  that  General  Harrison  would 
have  signed  a  fair  bank  charter,  and  under  its 
proper  name  ;  and  he  believes  it,  not  from  words 
spoken  between  them,  but  from  public  manifesta- 
tions, seen  by  every  body.  1.  His  own  decla- 
ration, stating  the  conditions  on  which  he  would 
do  it ;  and  which  conditions  were  fulfilled.  2. 
The  fact  that  he  was  the  presidential  candidate 
of  the  party  which  was  emphatically  the  bank 
party.  3.  The  selection  of  his  cabinet,  every 
member  of  which  was  in  favor  of  a  national 
bank.  4.  The  declaration  of  Mr.  Clay  at  the 
head  of  the  list  of  measures  proposed  by  him 
for  the  consideration  of  Congress  at  its  extra 
session,  in  which  a  national  bank  was  included ; 
and  which  measures  he  stated  were  probably 
those  for  which  the  extraordinary  session  had 
been  convened  by  President  Harrison —  a  point 
on  which  Mr.  Clay  must  be  admitted  to  be  well 
informed,  for  he  was  the  well  reputed  adviser  of 
President  Harrison  on  the  occasion. 

Mr.  Clay  rejoined  to  Mr.  Rives,  and  became 
more  close  and  pointed  in  his  personal  remarks 
upon  Mr.  Tyler's  conduct,  commencing  with 
Mr.  Rives'  lodgment  in  the  "  half-way  house," 
i.  e.  the  pet  bank  system — which  was  supposed 
to  have  been  a  camping  station  in  the  transition 
from  the  democratic  to  the  whig  camp.  He  be- 
gan thus : 

"  I  have  no  desire,  said  he,  to  prolong  this  un- 
pleasant discussion,  but  I  must  say  that  I  heard 
with  great  surprise  and  regret  the  closing  re- 
mark, especially,  of  the  honorable  gentleman 
from  Virginia,  as,  indeed,  I  did  many  of  those 
which  preceded  it.  That  gentleman  stands  in  a 
peculiar  situation.  I  found  him  several  years 
ago  in  the  half-way  house,  where  he  seems  afraid 
to  remain,  and  from  which  he  is  yet  unwilling 
to  go.  I  had  thought,  after  the  thorough  rid- 
dling which  the  roof  of  the  house  had  received 
in  the  breaking  up  of  the  pet  bank  system,  he 
would  have  fled  somewhere  else  for  refuge ;  but, 
there  he  still  stands,  solitary  and  alone,  shiver- 


324 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ing  and  pelted  by  the  pitiless  storm.  The  sub- 
treasury  is  repealed — the  pet  bank  system  is 
abandoned  —  the  United  States  Bank  bill  is 
vetoed — and  now,  when  there  is  as  complete 
and  perfect  a  reunion  of  the  purse  and  the  sword 
*n  the  hands  of  the  executive  as  ever  there  was 
under  General  Jackson  or  Mr.  Van  Buren,  the 
senator  is  for  doing  nothing." 

There  was  a  whisper  at  this  time  that  Mr. 
Tyler  had  an  inner  circle  of  advisers,  some  de- 
mocratic and  some  whig,  and  most  of  whom  had 
sojourned  in  the  "  half-way  house,"  and  who 
were  more  confidential  and  influential  with  the 
President  than  the  members  of  his  cabinet.  To 
this  Mr.  Clay  caustically  adverted. 

"Although  the  honorable  senator  professes 
not  to  know  the  opinions  of  the  President,  it 
certainly  does  turn  out  in  the  sequel  that  there 
is  a  most  remarkable  coincidence  between  those 
opinions  and  his  own ;  and  he  has,  on  the  pre- 
sent occasion,  defended  the  motives  and  the 
course  of  the  President  with  all  the  solicitude 
and  all  the  fervent  zeal  of  a  member  of  his  privy 
council.  There  is  a  rumor  abroad  that  a  cabal 
exists — a  new  sort  of  kitchen  cabinet — whose 
object  is  the  dissolution  of  the  regular  cabinet — 
the  dissolution  of  the  whig  party — the  disper- 
sion of  Congress,  without  accomplishing  any  of 
the  great  purposes  of  the  extra  session — and  a 
total  change,  in  fact,  in  the  whole  face  of  our 
political  affairs.  I  hope,  and  I  persuade  myself, 
that  the  honorable  senator  is  not,  cannot  be,  one 
of  the  component  members  of  such  a  cabal ;  but 
I  must  say  that  there  has  been  displayed  by  the 
honorable  senator  to-day  a  predisposition,  aston- 
ishing and  inexplicable,  to  misconceive  almost 
all  of  what  I  have  said,  and  a  perseverance,  after 
repeated  corrections,  in  misunderstanding — for  I 
will  not  charge  him  with  wilfully  and  intention- 
ally misrepresenting — the  whole  spirit  and  char- 
acter of  the  address  which,  as  a  man  of  honor 
and  as  a  senator,  I  felt  myself  bound  in  duty  to 
make  to  this  body." 

There  was  also  a  rumor  of  a  design  to  make 
a  third  party,  of  which  Mr.  Tyler  was  to  be  the 
head ;  and,  as  part  of  the  scheme,  to  make  a 
quarrel  between  Mr.  Tyler  and  Mr.  Clay,  in 
which  Mr.  Clay  was  to  be  made  the  aggressor ; 
and  he  brought  this  rumor  to  the  notice  of  Mr. 
Rives,  repelling  the  part  which  inculpated  himself, 
and  leaving  the  rest  for  Mr.  Rives  to  answer. 

""Why,  sir,  what  possible,  what  conceivable 
motive  can  I  have  to  quarrel  with  the  President, 
or  to  break  up  the  whig  party  ?  What  earthly 
motive  can  impel  me  to  wish  for  any  other  re- 
sult than  that  that  party  shall  remain  in  per- 
fect harmony,  undivided,  and  shall  move  undis- 
mayed, boldly,  and  unitedly  forward  to  the  ac- 


complishment of  the  all-important  public  objects 
which  it  has  avowed  to  be  its  aim?  What 
imaginable  interest  or  feeling  can  I  have  other 
than  the  success,  the  triumph,  the  glory  of  the 
whig  party  ?  But  that  there  may  be  designs  and 
purposes  on  the  part  of  certain  other  individuals 
to  place  me  in  inimical  relations  with  the  Presi- 
dent, and  to  represent  me  as  personally  opposed 
to  him,  I  can  well  imagine — individuals  who  are 
beating  up  for  recruits,  and  endeavoring  to  form 
a  third  party,  with  materials  so  scanty  as  to  be 
wholly  insufficient  to  compose  a  decent  cor- 
poral's guard.  I  fear  there  are  such  individ- 
uals, though  I  do  not  charge  the  senator  as 
being  himself  one  of  them.  What  a  spectacle 
has  been  presented  to  this  nation  during  this 
entire  session  of  Congress  !  That  of  the  cher- 
ished and  confidential  friends  of  John  Tyler, 
persons  who  boast  and  claim  to  be  par  excel- 
lence, his  exclusive  and  genuine  friends,  being 
the  bitter,  systematic,  determined,  uncompromis- 
ing opponents  of  every  leading  measure  of  John 
Tyler's  administration  !  Was  there  ever  before 
such  an  example  presented,  in  this  or  any  other 
age,  in  this  or  any  other  country  ?  I  have  my- 
self known  the  President  too  long,  and  cher- 
ished towards  him  too  sincere  a  friendship,  to 
allow  my  feelings  to  be  affected  or  alienated  by 
any  thing  which  has  passed  here  to  day.  If 
the  President  chooses — which  I  am  sure  he 
cannot,  unless  falsehood  has  been  whispered 
into  his  ears  or  poison  poured  into  his  heart — 
to  detach  himself  from  me,  I  shall  deeply  regret 
it,  for  the  sake  of  our  common  friendship  and 
our  common  country.  I  now  repeat,  what  I 
before  said,  that,  of  all  the  measures  of  relief 
which  the  American  people  have  called  upon  us 
for,  that  of  a  National  Bank  and  a  sound  and 
uniform  currency  has  been  the  most  loudly  and 
importunately  demanded." 

Mr.  Clay  reiterated  his  assertion  that  bank, 
or  no  bank,  was  the  great  issue  of  the  presiden- 
tial canvass  wherever  he  was,  let  what  else 
might  have  been  the  issue  in  Virginia,  where 
Mr.  Rives  led  for  General  Harrison. 

"  The  senator  says  that  the  question  of  a  Bank 
was  not  the  issue  made  before  the  people  at  the 
late  election.  I  can  say,  for  one,  my  own  con- 
viction is  diametrically  the  contrary.  What 
may  have  been  the  character  of  the  canvass  in 
Virginia,  I  will  not  say ;  probably  gentlemen 
on  both  sides  were,  every  where,  governed  in 
some  degree  by  considerations  of  local  policy. 
What  issues  may  therefore  have  been  presented 
to  the  people  of  Virginia,  either  above  or  be- 
low tide  water,  I  am  not  prepared  to  say.  The 
great  error,  however,  of  the  honorable  senator, 
is  in  thinking  that  the  sentiments  of  a  particu- 
lar party  in  Virginia  are  always  a  fair  expo- 
nent of  the  sentiments  of  the  whole  Union. 
I  can  tell  the  senator,  that,  wherever  I  was 
— in  the  great  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  in 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


325 


Kentucky,  in  Tennessee,  in  Maryland — in  all 
the  circles  in  which  I  moved,  every  where, 
'  Bank  or  no  Bank '  was  the  great,  the  leading, 
the  vital  question." 

In  conclusion,  Mr  Clay  apostrophized  him- 
self in  a  powerful  peroration  as  not  having 
moral  courage  enough  (though  he  claimed  as 
much  as  fell  to  the  share  of  most  men)  to  make 
himself  an  obstacle  to  the  success  of  a  great 
measure  for  the  public  good ;  in  which  the 
allusion  to  Mr.  Tyler  and  his  veto  was  too 
palpable  to  miss  the  apprehension  of  any 
person. 

"  The  senator  says  that,  if  placed  in  like 
circumstances,  I  would  have  been  the  last  man 
to  avoid  putting  a  direct  veto  upon  the  bill, 
had  it  met  my  disapprobation  ;  and  he  does  me 
the  honor  to  attribute  to  me  high  qualities  of 
stern  and  unbending  intrepidity.  I  hope  that 
in  all  that  relates  to  personal  firmness — all 
that  concerns  a  just  appreciation  of  the  in- 
significance of  human  life — whatever  may  be 
attempted  to  threaten  or  alarm  a  soul  not 
easily  swayed  by  opposition,  or  awed  or  in- 
timidated by  menace — a  stout  heart  and  a  steady 
eye,  that  can  survey,  unmoved  and  undaunted, 
any  mere  personal  perils  that  assail  this  poor 
transient,  perishing  frame — I  may,  without  dis- 
paragement, compare  with  other  men.  But  there 
is  a  sort  of  courage  which,  I  frankly  confess  it, 
I  do  not  possess — a  boldness  to  which  1  dare 
not  aspire — a  valor  which  I  cannot  covet.  I 
cannot  lay  myself  down  in  the  way  of  the 
welfare  and  happiness  of  my  country.  That  I 
cannot,  I  have  not  the  courage  to  do.  I  can- 
not interpose  the  power  with  which  I  may  be 
invested — a  power  conferred  not  for  my  per- 
sonal benefit,  not  for  my  aggrandizement,  but  for 
my  country's  good — to  check  her  onward  march 
to  greatness  and  glory.  I  have  not  courage 
enough,  I  am  too  cowardly  for  that.  I  would 
not,  I  dare  not,  in  the  exercise  of  such  a  trust, 
lie  down,  and  place  my  body  across  the  path  that 
leads  my  country  to  prosperity  and  happiness. 
This  is  a  sort  of  courage  widely  different  from 
that  which  a  man  may  display  in  his  private 
conduct  and  personal  relations.  Personal  or 
private  courage  is  totally  distinct  from  that 
higher  and  nobler  courage,  which  prompts  the 
patriot  to  offer  himself  a  voluntary  sacrifice  to 
his  country's  good.  Apprehensions  of  the  im- 
putation of  the  want  of  firmness  sometimes  im- 
pel us  to  perform  rash  and  inconsiderate  acts. 
It  is  the  greatest  courage  to  be  able  to  bear  the 
imputation  of  the  want  of  courage.  But  pride, 
vanity,  egotism,  so  unamiable  and  offensive  in 
private  life,  are  vices  which  partake  of  the  char- 
acter of  crimes  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs. 
The  unfortunate  victim  of  these  passions  cannot 
see  beyond  the  little,  petty,  contemptible  circle 
of  his  own  personal  interests.    All  his  thoughts 


are  withdrawn  from  his  country,  and  concen- 
trated on  his  consistency,  his  firmness,  himself. 
The  high,  the  exalted,  the  sublime  emotions  of 
a  patriotism,  which,  soaring  towards  Heaven, 
rises  far  above  all  mean,  low,  or  selfish  things, 
and  is  absorbed  by  one  soul-transporting 
thought  of  the  good  and  the  glory  of  one's 
country,  are  never  felt  in  his  impenetrable 
bosom.  That  patriotism  which,  catching  its 
inspiration  from  the  immortal  God,  and  leaving 
at  an  immeasurable  distance  below,  all  lesser, 
grovelling,  personal  interests  and  feelings,  ani- 
mates and  prompts  to  deeds  of  self-sacrifice,  of 
valor,  of  devotion,  and  of  death  itself — that  is 
public  virtue — that  is  the  noblest,  the  sublimest 
of  all  public  virtues ! " 

Mr.  Rives  replied  to  Mr.  Clay,  and  with 
respect  to  the  imputed  cabal,  the  privy  council, 
and  his  own  zealous  defence  of  Mr.  Tyler,  said : 

"  The  senator  has  indulged  his  fancy  in  regard 
to  a  certain  cabal,  which  he  says  it  is  alleged  by 
rumor  (an  authority  he  seems  prone  to  quote  of 
late)  has  been  formed  for  the  wicked  purpose  of 
breaking  up  the  regular  cabinet,  and  dissolving 
the  whig  party.  Though  the  senator  is  pleased 
to  acquit  me  of  being  a  member  of  the  supposed 
cabal,  he  says  he  should  infer,  from  the  zeal  and 
promptitude  with  which  I  have  come  forward  to 
defend  the  motives  and  conduct  of  the  President, 
that  I  was  at  least  a  member  of  his  privy  coun- 
cil !  I  thank  God,  Mr.  President,  that  in  his 
gracious  goodness  he  has  been  pleased  to  give 
me  a  heart  to  repel  injustice  and  to  defend  the 
innocent,  without  being  laid  under  any  special 
engagement,  as  a  privy  councillor  or  otherwise, 
to  do  justice  to  my  fellow-man  ;  and  if  there  be 
any  gentleman  who  cannot  find  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  his  own  bosom  a  satisfactory  explana- 
tion of  so  natural  an  impulse,  I,  for  one,  envy 
him  neither  his  temperament  nor  his  philosophy. 
If  Mr.  Tyler,  instead  of  being  a  distinguished 
citizen  of  my  own  State,  and  filling  at  this  mo- 
ment, a  station  of  the  most  painful  responsibility, 
which  entitles  him  to  a  candid  interpretation  of 
his  official  acts  at  the  hands  of  all  his  country- 
men, had  been  a  total  stranger,  unknown  to  me 
in  the  relations  of  private  or  political  friendship, 
I  should  yet  have  felt  myself  irresistibly  im- 
pelled by  the  common  sympathies  of  humanity 
to  undertake  his  defence,  to  the  best  of  my  poor 
ability,  when  I  have  seen  him  this  day  so  pow- 
erfully assailed  for  an  act,  as  I  verily  believe,  of 
conscientious  devotion  to  the  constitution  of  his 
country  and  the  sacred  obligation  of  his  high 
trust." 

With  respect  to  the  half-way  house,  Mr. 
Rives  admitted  his  sojourn  there,  and  claimed  a 
sometime  companionship  in  it  with  the  senator 
from  Kentucky,  just  escaped  from  the  lordly 
mansion,  gaudy  without,  but  rotten  and  rat- 


326 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


eaten  within  (the  Bank  of  the  United  States)  ; 
and  glad  to  shelter  in  this  humble  but  comfort- 
able stopping  place. 

"  The  senator  from  Kentucky  says  he  found 
me  several  years  ago  in  this  half-way  house, 
which,  after  the  thorough  riddling  the  roof  had 
received  in  the  breaking  up  of  the  pet  bank  sys- 
tem, he  had  supposed  I  would  have  abandoned. 
How  could  I  find  it  in  my  heart,  Mr.  President, 
to  abandon  it  when  I  found  the  honorable  sena- 
tor from  Kentucky  (even  after  what  he  calls 
the  riddling  of  the  roof)  so  anxious  to  take  re- 
fuge in  it  from  the  ruins  of  his  own  condemned 
and  repudiated  system,  and  where  he  actually 
took  refuge  for  four  long  years,  as  I  have  already 
stated.  When  I  first  had  the  honor  to  meet 
the  honorable  senator  in  this  body,  I  found  him 
not  occupying  the  humble  but  comfortable  half- 
way house,  which  has  given  him  shelter  from 
the  storm  for  the  kst  four  years,  but  a  more 
lordly  mansion,  gaudy  to  look  upon,  but  alto- 
gether unsafe  to  inhabit ;  old,  decayed,  rat-eaten, 
which  has  since  tumbled  to  the  ground  with  its 
own  rottenness,  devoted  to  destruction  alike  by 
the  indignation  of  man  and  the  wrath  of  heaven. 
Yet  the  honorable  senator,  unmindful  of  the 
past,  and  heedless  of  the  warnings  of  the  pres- 
ent, which  are  still  ringing  in  his  ears,  will  hear 
of  nothing  but  the  instant  reconstruction  of  this 
devoted  edifice." 

Mr.  Rives  returned  to  the  imputed  cabal, 
washed  his  hands  of  it  entirely,  and  abjured  all 
desire  for  a  cabinet  office,  or  any  public  station, 
except  a  seat  in  the  Senate  :  thus  : 

"I  owe  it  to  myself,  Mr.  President,  before  I 
close,  to  say  one  or  two  words  in  regard  to  this 
gorgon  of  a  cabal,  which  the  senator  tells  us, 
upon  the  authority  of  dame  Rumor,  has  been 
formed  to  break  up  the  cabinet,  to  dissolve  the 
whig  party,  and  to  form  a  new  or  third  party. 
Although  the  senator  was  pleased  to  acquit  me 
of  being  a  member  of  this  supposed  cabal,  he 
yet  seemed  to  have  some  lurking  jealousies  and 
suspicions  in  his  mind  on  the  subject.  I  will 
tell  the  honorable  senator,  then,  that  I  know  of 
no  such  cabal,  and  I  should  really  think  that  I 
was  the  last  man  that  ought  to  be  suspected  of 
any  wish  or  design  to  form  a  new  or  third  party. 
I  have  shown  myself  at  all  times  restive  under 
mere  party  influence  and  control  from  any  quar- 
ter. All  party,  in  my  humble  judgment,  tends, 
in  its  modern  degeneracy,  to  tyranny,  and  is 
attended  with  serious  hazard  of  sacrificing  an 
honest  sense  of  duty,  and  the  great  interests  of 
the  country,  to  an  arbitrary  lead,  directed  by 
other  aims.  I  desire,  therefore,  to  take  upon 
myself  no  new  party  bonds,  while  I  am  anxious 
to  fulfil,  to  the  fullest  extent  that  a  sense  of 
duty  to  the  country  will  permit,  every  honorable 
engagement  implied  in  existing  ones.  In  regard 
to  the  breaking  up  of  the  cabinet,  I  had  hoped 


that  I  was  as  far  above  the  suspicion  of  having 
any  personal  interest  in  such  an  event  as  any 
man.  I  have  never  sought  office,  but  have  often 
declined  it ;  and  will  now  give  the  honorable 
senator  from  Kentucky  a  full  quit-claim  and 
release  of  all  cabinet  pretensions  now  and  for 
ever.  He  may  rest  satisfied  that  he  will  never 
see  me  in  any  cabinet,  under  this  or  any  other 
administration.  During  the  brief  remnant  of  my 
public  life,  the  measure  of  my  ambition  will  be 
filled  by  the  humble,  but  honest  part  I  may  be 
permitted  to  take  on  this  floor  in  consultations 
for  the  common  good." 

Mr.  Rives  finished  with  informing  Mr.  Clay 
of  a  rumor  which  he  had  heard— the  rumor  of  a 
dictatorship  installed  in  the  capitol,  seeking  to 
govern  the  country,  and  to  intimidate  the  Presi- 
dent, and  to  bend  every  thing  to  its  own  will, 
thus: 

"  Having  disposed  of  this  rumor  of  a  cabal, 
to  the  satisfaction,  I  trust,  of  the  honorable 
senator,  I  will  tell  him  of  another  rumor  I  have 
heard,  which,  I  trust,  may  be  equally  destitute 
of  foundation.  Rumor  is  busy  in  alleging  that 
there  is  an  organized  dictatorship,  in  permanent 
session  in  this  capitol,  seeking  to  control  the 
whole  action  of  the  government,  in  both  the 
legislative  and  executive  branches,  and  sending 
deputation  after  deputation  to  the  President  of 
the  United  States  to  teach  him  his  duty,  and 
bring  him  to  terms.  I  do  not  vouch  for  the 
correctness  of  this  rumor.  I  humbly  hope  it 
may  not  be  true  ;  but  if  it  should  unfortunately 
be  so.  I  will  say  that  it  is  fraught  with  far  more 
danger  to  the  regular  and  salutary  action  of  our 
balanced  constitution,  and  to  the  liberties  of  the 
people,  than  any  secret  cabal  that  ever  has  ex- 
isted or  ever  will  exist." 

The  allusion,  of  course,  was  to  Mr.  Clay,  who 
promptly  disavowed  all  knowledge  of  this  im- 
puted dictatorship.  In  this  interlude  between 
Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Rives,  both  members  of  the 
same  party,  the  democratic  senators  took  no 
part ;  and  the  subject  was  dropped,  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  a  little  conversational  debate,  of  kin- 
dred interest,  growing  out  of  it,  between  Mr. 
Archer  of  Virginia,  and  Mr.  Clay — which  ap- 
pears thus  in  the  Register  of  Debates  : 

"  Mr.  Archer,  in  rising  on  the  present  occa- 
sion, did  not  intend  to  enter  into  a  discussion 
on  the  subject  of  the  President's  message.  He 
thought  enough  had  been  said  on  the  subject  by 
the  two  senators  who  had  preceded  him,  and 
was  disposed,  for  his  part,  to  let  the  question  be 
taken  without  any  more  debate.  His  object  in 
rising  was  to  call  the  attention  of  the  senator 
from  Kentucky  to  a  certain  portion  of  his  re- 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


327 


marks,  in  which  he  hoped  the  senator,  upon  re- 
flection, would  see  that  the  language  used  by 
him  had  been  too  harsh.  His  honorable  friend 
from  Kentucky  had  taken  occasion  to  apply 
some  very  harsh  observations  to  the  conduct  of 
certain  persons  who  he  supposed  had  instigated 
the  President  of  the  United  States  in  the  course 
he  had  taken  in  regard  to  the  bill  for  chartering 
the  Fiscal  Bank  of  the  United  States.  The 
honorable  senator  took  occasion  to  disclaim  any 
allusion  to  his  colleague  [Mr.  Rives],  and  he 
would  say  beforehand  that  he  knew  the  honor- 
able senator  would  except  him  also. 
"  Mr.  Clay  said,  certainly,  sir  ! " 

This  was  not  a  parliamentary  disclaimer,  but 
a  disclaimer  from  the  heart,  and  was  all  that 
Mr.  Archer  could  ask  on  his  own  account ;  but 
he  was  a  man  of  generous  spirit  as  well  as  of 
high  sense  of  honor,  and  taking  up  the  case  of 
his  colleagues  in  the  House,  who  seemed  to  be 
implicated,  and  could  not  appear  in  the  chamber 
and  ask  for  a  disclaimer,  Mr.  Archer  generously 
did  so  for  them  ;  but  without  getting  what  he 
asked  for.     The  Register  says  : 

"  Mr.  Archer.  He  would  say,  however,  that 
the  remarks  of  the  senator,  harsh  as  they  were, 
might  well  be  construed  as  having  allusion  to 
his  colleagues  in  the  other  House.  He  (Mr. 
A.)  discharged  no  more  than  the  duty  which  he 
knew  his  honorable  colleagues  in  the  other 
House  would  discharge  towards  him  were  an 
offensive  allusion  supposed  to  be  made  to  him 
where  he  could  not  defend  himself,  to  ask  of 
the  honorable  senator  to  make  some  disclaimer 
as  regarded  them. 

"Mr.  Clay  here  said,  no,  no. 

"Mr.  Archer.  The  words  of  the  senator 
were  :  '  A  low,  vulgar,  and  profligate  cabal  ; ' 
which  the  senator  also  designated  as  a  kitchen 
cabinet,  had  surrounded  the  President,  and  were 
endeavoring  to  turn  out  the  present  cabinet. 
Now,  who  would  the  public  suppose  to  be  that 
low  and  infamous  cabal?  Would  the  people 
of  the  United  States  suppose  it  to  be  composed 
of  any  other  than  those  who  were  sent  here  by 
the  people  to  represent  them  in  Congress  ?  He 
asked  the  senator  from  Kentucky  to  say,  in  that 
spirit  of  candor  and  frankness  which  always 
characterized  him,  who  he  meant  by  that  cabal, 
and  to  disclaim  any  allusion  to  his  colleagues  in 
the  other  House,  as  he  had  done  for  his  col- 
league and  himself  in  this  body. 

"Mr.  Clay  said,  if  the  honorable  senator 
would  make  an  inquiry  of  him,  and  stop  at  the 
inquiry,  without  going  on  to  make  an  argu- 
ment, he  would  answer  him.  He  had  said  this, 
and  he  would  repeat  it,  and  make  no  disclaimer 
— that  certain  gentlemen,  professing  to  be  the 
friends,  par  excellence,  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  had  put  themselves  in  opposition 
to  all  the  leading  measures  of  his  administra- 


tion. He  said  that  rumor  stated  that  a  cabal 
was  formed,  for  the  purpose  of  breaking  down 
the  present  cabinet  and  forming  a  new  one ; 
and  that  that  cabal  did  not  amount  to  enough 
to  make  a  corporal's  guard.  He  did  not  say 
who  they  were  ;  but  he  spoke  of  rumor  only. 
Now,  he  would  ask  his  friend  from  Virginia 
[Mr.  Archer]  if  he  never  heard  of  that  rumor? 
If  the  gentleman  would  tell  him  that  he  never 
heard  of  that  rumor,  it  would  give  him  some 
claims  to  an  answer. 

"  Mr.  Archer  confessed  that  he  had  heard 
of  such  a  rumor,  but  he  never  heard  of  any  evi- 
dence to  support  it. 

"Mr.  Clay.  I  repeat  it  here,  in  the  face  of 
the  countrj'-,  that  there  are  persons  who  call 
themselves,  par  excellence,  the  friends  of  John 
Tyler,  and  yet  oppose  all  the  leading  measures 
of  the  administration  of  John  Tyler.  I  will 
say  that  the  gentleman  himself  is  not  of  that 
cabal,  and  that  his  colleague  is  not.  Farther 
than  that,  this  deponent  saith  not,  and  will  not 
say. 

"Mr.  Archer.  The  gentleman  has  not  ad- 
verted to  the  extreme  harshness  of  the  language 
he  employed  when  he  was  first  up,  and  he 
would  appeal  to  gentlemen  present  for  the  cor- 
rectness of  the  version  he  (Mr.  A.)  had  given 
of  it.  The  gentleman  said  there  was  a  cabal 
formed — a  vile  kitchen  cabinet — low  and  infa- 
mous, who  surrounded  the  President  and  insti- 
gated him  to  the  course  he  had  taken.  That 
was  the  language  employed  by  the  honorable 
senator.  Now  suppose  language  such  as  this 
had  been  used  in  the  other  branch  of  the  na- 
tional legislature,  which  might  be  supposed  to 
refer  to  him  (Mr.  A.)  where  he  had  not  an  op- 
portunity of  defending  himself;  what  would  be 
the  course  of  his  colleagues  there  ?  The  course 
of  those  high-minded  and  honorable  men  there 
toward  him,  would  be  similar  to  that  he  had 
taken  in  regard  to  them. 

"Mr.  Clay.  Mr.  President,  did  I  say  one 
word  about  the  colleagues  of  the  gentleman? 
I  said  there  was  a  cabal  formed  for  the  purpose 
of  breaking  down  the  present  cabinet,  and  that 
that  cabal  did  not  number  a  corporal's  guard ; 
but  I  did  not  say  who  that  cabal  was,  and  do 
not  mean  to  be  interrogated.  Any  member 
on  this  floor  has  a  right  to  ask  me  if  I  alluded 
to  him  ;  but  nobody  else  has.  I  spoke  of  ru- 
mor only. 

"  Mr.  Archer  said  a  few  words,  but  he  was 
not  heard  distinctly  enough  to  be  reported. 

"  Mr.  Clay.  I  said  no  such  thing.  I  said 
there  was  a  rumor — that  public  fame  had  stated 
that  there  was  a  cabal  formed  for  the  purpose 
of  removing  the  cabinet,  and  I  ask  the  gentle- 
man if  he  has  not  heard  of  that  rumor  ? 

"  Mr.  Archer,  after  some  remarks  too  low 
to  be  heard  in  the  gallery,  said  it  was  not  the 
words  the  gentleman  had  quoted  to  which  he 
referred.  It  was  the  remark  of  the  gentleman 
that  there  was  a  low  and  infamous  cabal — a  vile 
kitchen  cabinet— and  the  gentleman  knew  that 


328 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


to  his  view  there  could  not  be  a  more  odious 
phrase  used  than  kitchen  cabinet — and  that  it 
was  these  expressions  that  he  wished  an  ex- 
planation of. 

"Mr.  Berrien  said  it  was  the  concurrent 
opinion  of  all  the  senators  around  him,  that  the 
senator  from  Kentucky  had  spoken  of  the  cabal 
as  a  rumor,  and  as  not  coming  within  his  own 
knowledge.  He  hoped  the  senator  would  un- 
derstand him  in  rising  to  make  this  explanation. 

"  Mr.  Archer  said  he  was  glad  to  hear  the 
disclaimer  made  by  the  gentleman  from  Geor- 
gia, and  he  would  therefore  sit  down,  under  the 
conviction  that  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky 
had  made  no  such  blow  at  his  colleagues  of  the 
other  House,  as  he  had  supposed." 

Mr.  Clay  could  not  disclaim  for  the  Virginia 
members  of  the  House — that  is  to  say,  for  all 
those  members.  Rumor  was  too  loud  with  re- 
spect to  some  of  them  to  allow  him  to  do  that. 
He  rested  upon  the  rumor  ;  and  public  opinion 
justified  him  in  doing  so.  He  named  no  one,  nor 
was  it  necessary.  They  soon  named  themselves 
by  the  virulence  with  which  they  attacked  him. 

The  vote  was  taken  on  the  bill  over  again,  as 
required  by  the  constitution,  and  so  far  from 
receiving  a  two-thirds  vote,  it  barely  escaped 
defeat  by  a  simple  majority.  The  vote  was  24 
to  24  ;  and  the  yeas  and  nays  were : 

"  Yeas — Messrs.  Barrow,  Bates,  Bayard,  Ber- 
rien, Choate,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Dixon,  Evans, 
Graham,  Henderson,  Huntington,  Kerr,  Man- 
gum,  Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead,  Porter,  Pren- 
tiss, Preston,  Simmons,  Smith  of  Indiana,  South- 
ard, Tallmadge,  White,  Woodbridge. 

"  Nays — Messrs.  Allen,  Archer,  Benton,  Bu- 
chanan, Calhoun,  Clay  of  Alabama,  Clayton, 
Cuthbert,  Fulton,  King,  Linn,  McRoberts, 
Mouton,  Nicholson,  Pierce,  Rives,  Sevier,  Stur- 
geon, Tappan,  Walker,  Williams,  Woodbury, 
Wright,  Young." 

The  rejection  of  the  bank  bill  gave  great  vex- 
ation to  one  side,  and  equal  exultation  to  the 
other.  Hisses  resounded  from  the  galleries  of 
the  Senate  :  the  President  was  outraged  in  his 
house,  in  the  night,  by  the  language  and  conduct 
of  a  disorderly  crowd  assembled  about  it.  Mr. 
Woodbury  moved  an  inquiry  into  the  extent  of 
these  two  disturbances,  and  their  authors  ;  and 
a  committee  was  proposed  to  be  charged  with 
the  inquiry :  but  the  perpetrators  were  found  to 
be  of  too  low  an  order  to  be  pursued,  and  the 
proceeding  was  dropped.  Some  manifestations 
of  joy  or  sorrow  took  place,  however,  by  actors 
of  high  order,  and  went  into  the  parliamentary 
debates.     Some  senators  deemed  it  proper  to 


make  a  complimentary  visit  to  Mr.  Tyler,  on 
the  night  of  the  reception  of  the  veto  message, 
and  to  manifest  their  satisfaction  at  the  service 
which  he  had  rendered  in  arresting  the  bank 
charter  j  and  it  so  happened  that  this  compli- 
mentary visit  took  place  on  the  same  night  on 
which  the  President's  house  had  been  beset  and 
outraged.  It  was  doubtless  a  very  consolatory 
compliment  to  the  President,  then  sorely  as- 
sailed by  his  late  whig  friends  ;  and  very  proper 
on  the  part  of  those  who  paid  it,  though  there 
were  senators  who  declined  to  join  in  it — 
among  others,  the  writer  of  this  View,  though 
sharing  the  exultation  of  his  party.  On  the 
other  hand  the  chagrin  of  the  whig  party  was 
profound,  and  especially  that  of  Mr.  Clay,  its 
chief — too  frank  and  impetuous  to  restrain  his 
feelings,  and  often  giving  vent  to  them — gen- 
erally bitterly,  but  sometimes  playfully.  An 
occasion  for  a  display  of  the  latter  kind  was 
found  in  the  occasion  of  this  complimentary 
visit  of  democratic  senators  to  the  President, 
and  in  the  offering  of  Mr.  Woodbury's  resolu- 
tion of  inquiry  into  the  disturbances ;  and  he 
amusingly  availed  himself  of  it  in  a  brief  speech, 
of  which  some  extracts  are  here  given  : 

"  An  honorable  senator  from  New  Hampshire 
[Mr.  Woodbury]  proposed  some  days  ago  a 
resolution  of  inquiry  into  certain  disturbances 
which  are  said  to  have  occurred  at  the  presi- 
dential mansion  on  the  night  of  the  memorable 
16th  of  August  last.  If  any  such  proceedings 
did  occur,  they  were  certainly  very  wrong  and 
highly  culpable.  The  chief  magistrate,  whoever 
he  may  be,  should  be  treated  by  every  good 
citizen  with  all  becoming  respect  if  not  for  his 
personal  character,  on  account  of  the  exalted 
office  he  holds  for  and  from  the  people.  And  I 
will  here  say,  that  I  read  with  great  pleasure 
the  acts  and  resolutions  of  an  early  meeting, 
promptly  held  by  the  orderly  and  respectable 
citizens  of  this  metropolis,  in  reference  to,  and 
in  condemnation  of,  those  disturbances.  But,  if 
the  resolution  had  been  adopted,  I  had  intended 
to  move  for  the  appointment  of  a  select  com- 
mittee, and  that  the  honorable  senator  from 
New  Hampshire  himself  should  be  placed  at  the 
head  of  it,  with  a  majority  of  his  friends.  And 
will  tell  you  why,  Mr.  President.  I  did  hear 
that  about  eight  or  nine  o'clock  on  that  same  night 
of  the  famous  16th  of  August,  there  was  an  ir- 
ruption on  the  President's  house  of  the  whole 
loco  foco  party  in  Congress ;  and  I  did  not  know 
but  that  the  alleged  disorders  might  have  grown 
out  of  or  had  some  connection  with  that  fact. 
I  understand  that  the  whole  party  were  there. 
No  spectacle,  I  am  sure,  could  have  been  more 
supremely  amusing  and  ridiculous.      If  I  could 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


329 


have  been  in  a  position  in  which,  without  being 
seen,  I  could  have  witnessed  that  most  extra- 
ordinary reunion,  I  should  have  had  an  enjoy- 
ment which  no  dramatic  performance  could 
possibly  communicate.  I  think  that  I  can  now 
see  the  principal  dramatis  persona  who  figured 
in  the  scene.  There  stood  the  grave  and  dis- 
tinguished senator  from  South  Carolina — 

["  Mr.  Calhoun  here  instantly  rose,  and 
earnestly  insisted  on  explaining;  but  Mr.  Clay 
refused  to  be  interrupted  or  to  yield  the  floor.] 

"  Mr.  Clay.  There,  I  say,  I  can  imagine  stood 
the  senator  from  South  Carolina — tall,  care- 
worn, with  furrowed  brow,  haggard,  and  in- 
tensely gazing,  looking  as  if  he  were  dissecting 
the  last  and  newest  abstraction  which  sprung 
from  metaphysician's  brain,  and  muttering  to 
himself,  in  half-uttered  sounds, '  This  is  indeed  a 
real  crisis  ! '  Then  there  was  the  senator  from 
Alabama  [Mr.  King],  standing  upright  and 
gracefully,  as  if  he  were  ready  to  settle  in  the 
most  authoritative  manner  any  question  of 
order,  or  of  etiquette,  that  might  possibly  arise 
between  the  high  assembled  parties  on  that 
new  and  unprecedented  occasion.  Not  far  off 
stood  the  honorable  senators  from  Arkansas 
and  from  Missouri  [Mr.  Sevier  and  Mr.  Ben- 
ton], the  latter  looking  at  the  senator  from 
South  Carolina,  with  an  indignant  curl  on  his 
lip  and  scorn  in  his  eye,  and  pointing  his  finger 
with  contempt  towards  that  senator  [Mr.  Cal- 
houn], whilst  he  said,  or  rather  seemed  to  say, 
'  He  call  himself  a  statesman !  why,  he  has 
never  even  produced  a  decent  humbug ! ' 

[*;  Mr.  Benton.  The  senator  from  Missouri 
was  not  there."] 

Mr.  Clay  had  doubtless  been  informed  that 
the  senator  from  Missouri  was  one  of  the  sena- 
torial procession  that  night,  and  the  readiness 
with  which  he  gave  his  remarks  an  imaginative 
turn  with  respect  to  him,  and  the  facility  with 
which  he  went  on  with  his  scene,  were  instances 
of  that  versatility  of  genius,  and  presence  of 
mind,  of  which  his  parliamentary  life  was  so 
full,  and  which  generally  gave  him  the  ad- 
vantage in  sharp  encounters.  Though  refusing 
to  permit  explanations  from  Mr.  Calhoun,  he 
readily  accepted  the  correction  from  Mr.  Benton 
— (probably  because  neither  Mr.  Benton,  nor 
his  immediate  friends,  were  suspected  of  any  at- 
tempt to  alienate  Mr.  Tyler  from  his  whig 
friends) — and  continued  his  remarks,  with  great 
apparent  good  humor,  and  certainly  to  the 
amusement  of  all  except  the  immediate  objects 
of  his  attention. 

"  Mr.  Clay.  I  stand  corrected ;  I  was  only 
imagining  what  you  would  have  said  if  you  had 
been  there.  Then  there  stood  the  senator  from 
Georgia  [Mr.  Cuthbert],  conning  over  in  his 


mind  on  what  point  he  should  make  his  next 
attack  upon  the  senator  from  Kentucky.  On 
yonder  ottoman  reclined  the  other  senator  from 
Missouri  on  my  left  [Mr.  Linn],  indulging,  with 
smiles  on  his  face,  in  pleasing  meditations  on 
the  rise,  growth,  and  future  power  of  his  new 
colony  of  Oregon.  The  honorable  senator  from 
Pennsylvania  [Mr.  Buchanan],  I  presume,  stood 
forward  as  spokesman  for  his  whole  party ;  and, 
although  I  cannot  pretend  to  imitate  his  well- 
known  eloquence,  I  beg  leave  to  make  an  hum- 
ble essay  towards  what  I  presume  to  have  been 
the  kind  of  speech  delivered  by  him  on  that  au- 
gust occasion : 

"  May  it  please  your  Excellency  :  A  number 
of  your  present  political  friends,  late  your  politi- 
cal opponents,  in  company  with  myself,  have 
come  to  deposit  at  your  Excellency's  feet  the 
evidences  of  our  loyalty  and  devotion  ;  and  they 
have  done  me  the  honor  to  make  me  the  organ 
of  their  sentiments  and  feelings.  We  are  here 
more  particularly  to  present  to  your  Excellency 
our  grateful  and  most  cordial  congratulations  on 
your  rescue  of  the  country  from  a  flagrant  and 
alarming  violation  of  the  constitution,  by  the 
creation  of  a  Bank  of  the  United  States ;  and 
also  our  profound  acknowledgments  for  the 
veto,  by  which  you  have  illustrated  the  wisdom 
of  your  administration,  and  so  greatly  honored 
yourself.  And  we  would  dwell  particularly  on 
the  unanswerable  reasons  and  cogent  arguments 
with  which  the  notification  of  the  act  to  the 
legislature  had  been  accompanied.  We  had 
been,  ourselves,  struggling  for  days  and  weeks 
to  arrest  the  passage  of  the  bill,  and  to  prevent 
the  creation  of  the  monster  to  which  it  gives 
birth.  We  had  expended  all  our  logic,  exerted 
all  our  ability,  employed  all  our  eloquence ;  but 
in  spite  of  all  our  utmost  efforts,  the  friends  of 
your  Excellency  in  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives  proved  too  strong  for  us.  And 
we  have  now  come  most  heartily  to  thank  your 
Excellency,  that  you  have  accomplished  for  us 
that  against  your  friends,  which  we,  with  our 
most  strenuous  exertions,  were  unable  to 
achieve." 

After  this  pleasant  impersonation  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania senator,  Mr.  Clay  went  on  with  his  own 
remarks. 

"  I  hope  the  senator  will  view  with  indulgence 
this  effort  to  represent  him,  although  I  am  but 
too  sensible  how  far  it  falls  short  of  the  merits  of 
the  original.  At  all  events  he  will  feel  that  there 
is  not  a  greater  error  than  was  committed  by 
the  stenographer  of  the  Intelligencer  the  other 
day,  when  he  put  into  my  mouth  a  part  of  the 
honorable  senator's  speech.  I  hope  the  honor- 
able senators  on  the  other  side  of  the  chamber 
will  pardon  me  for  having  conceived  it  possible 
that,  amidst  the  popping  of  champagne,  the  in- 
toxication of  their  joy,  the  ecstasy  of  their  glori- 
fication, they  might  have  been  the  parties  who 
created  a  disturbance,  of  which  they  never  could 
have  been  guilty  had  they  waited  for  their  '  sobar 


330 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


second  thoughts.1  I  have  no  doubt  the  very- 
learned  ex-Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who  con- 
ducted that  department  with  such  distinguished 
ability,  and  such  happy  results  to  the  country, 
and  who  now  has  such  a  profound  abhorrence 
of  all  the  taxes  on  tea  and  coffee,  though,  in  his 
own  official  reports,  he  so  distinctly  recom- 
mended them,  would,  if  appointed  chairman  of 
the  committee,  have  conducted  the  investigation 
with  that  industry  which  so  eminently  distin- 
guishes him ;  and  would  have  favored  the  Senate 
with  a  report,  marked  with  all  his  accustomed 
precision  and  ability,  and  with  the  most  perfect 
lucid  clearness." 

Mr.  Buchanan,  who  had  been  made  the  prin- 
cipal figure  in  Mr.  Clay's  imaginary  scene,  took 
his  satisfaction  on  the  spot,  and  balanced  the 
account  by  the  description  of  another  night 
scene,  at  the  east  end  of  the  avenue,  not  entirely 
imaginary  if  Dame  Rumor  may  be  credited  on 
one  side  of  the  question,  as  well  as  on  the  other. 
He  said : 

"  The  honorable  senator  has,  with  great  power 
of  humor,  and  much  felicity  of  description, 
drawn  for  us  a  picture  of  the  scene  which  he 
supposes  to  have  been  presented  at  the  Presi- 
dent's house  on  the  ever-memorable  evening  of 
the  veto.  It  was  a  happy  effort ;  but,  unfortu- 
nately, it  was  but  a  fancy  sketch — at  least  so 
far  as  I  am  concerned.  I  was  not  there  at  all 
upon  the  occasion.  But,  I  ask,  what  scenes 
were  enacted  on  that  eventful  night  at  this  end 
of  the  avenue  ?  The  senator  would  have  no 
cause  to  complain  if  I  should  attempt,  in  humble 
imitation  of  him,  to  present  a  picture,  true  to 
the  life,  of  the  proceedings  of  himself  and  his 
friends.  Amidst  the  dark  and  lowering  clouds 
of  that  never-to-be-forgotten  night,  a  caucus 
assembled  in  one  of  the  apartments  of  this 
gloomy  building,  and  sat  in  melancholy  con- 
clave, deploring  the  unhappy  fate  of  the  whig- 
party.  Some  rose,  and  advocated  vengeance ; 
'  their  voice  was  still  for  war.'  Others,  more 
moderate,  sought  to  repress  the  ardent  zeal  of 
their  fiery  compatriots,  and  advised  to  peace 
and  prudence.  It  was  finally  concluded  that, 
instead  of  making  open  war  upon  Captain  Tyler, 
they  should  resort  to  stratagem,  and,  in  the 
elegant  language  of  one  of  their  number,  that 
they  should  endeavor  '  to  head  '  him.  The  ques- 
tion was  earnestly  debated  by  what  means  they 
could  best  accomplish  this  purpose ;  and  it  was 
resolved  to  try  the  effect  of  the  'Fiscality'  now 
before  us.  Unfortunately  for  the  success  of  the 
scheme,  '  Captain  Tyler '  was  forewarned  and 
forearmed,  by  means  of  a  private  and  confiden- 
tial letter,  addressed  by  mistake  to  a  Virginia 
coffee-house.  It  is  by  means  like  this  that  '  enter- 
prises of  great  pith  and  moment '  often  fail.  But 
so  desperately  intent  are  the  whig  party  still  on 
the  creation  of  a  bank,  that  one  of  my  friends  on 
this  side  of  the  House  told  me  that  a  bank  they 


would  have,  though  its  exchanges  should  be 
made  in  bacon  hams,  and  its  currency  be  small 
patatoes. 

Other  senators  took  the  imaginary  scene,  in 
which  they  had  been  made  to  act  parts,  in 
perfect  good  temper ;  and  thus  the  debate  on 
the  first  Fiscal  Bank  charter  was  brought  to  a 
conclusion  with  more  amicability  than  it  had 
been  conducted  with. 

In  the  course  of  the  consideration  of  this  bill 
in  the  Senate,  a  vote  took  place  which  showed 
to  what  degree  the  belief  of  corrupt  practices 
between  the  old  bank  and  members  of  Congress 
had  taken  place.  A  motion  was  made  by  Mr. 
Walker  to  amend  the  Fiscal  Bank  bill  so  as  to 
prevent  any  member  of  Congress  from  borrow- 
ing money  from  that  institution.  The  motion 
was  resisted  by  Mr.  Clay,  and  supported  by 
democratic  senators  on  the  grounds  of  the  cor- 
ruptions already  practised,  and  of  which  repeti- 
tions might  be  expected.  Mr.  Pierce,  of  New 
Hampshire,  spoke  most  fully  in  favor  of  the 
motion,  and  said : 

"It  was  idle — if  it  were  not  offensive,  he 
would  say  absurd — for  gentlemen  to  discourse 
here  upon  the  incorruptibility  of  members  of 
Congress.  They  were  like  other  men — and  no 
better,  he  believed  no  worse.  They  were  sub- 
ject to  like  passions,  influenced  by  like  motives, 
and  capable  of  being  reached  by  similar  appli- 
ances. History  affirmed  it.  The  experience 
of  past  years  afforded  humiliating  evidence  of 
the  fact.  Were  we  wiser  than  our  fathers  ? 
Wiser  than  the  most  sagacious  and  patriotic  as- 
semblage of  men  that  the  world  ever  saw  ? 
Wiser  than  the  framers  of  the  constitution'? 
What  protection  did  they  provide  for  the  coun- 
try against  the  corruptibility  of  members  of 
Congress  ?  Why,  that  no  member  should  hold 
any  office,  however  humble,  which  should  be 
created,  or  the  emoluments  of  which  should  be 
increased,  during  his  term  of  service.  How 
could  the  influence  of  a  petty  office  be  compared 
with  that  of  the  large  bank  accommodations 
which  had  been  granted  and  would  be  granted 
again  ?  And  yet  they  were  to  be  told,  that  in 
proposing  this  guard  for  the  whole  people,  they 
were  fixing  an  ignominious  brand  upon  them- 
selves and  their  associates.  It  seemed  to  him, 
that  such  remarks  could  hardly  be  serious  ',  but 
whether  sincere  or  otherwise,  they  were  not 
legislating  for  themselves — not  legislating  for 
individuals — and  he  felt  no  apprehension  that 
the  mass,  whose  rights  and  interests  were  in- 
volved, would  consider  themselves  aggrieved  by 
such  a  brand. 

"The  senator  from  Pennsylvania  [Mr.  Bu- 
chanan] while  pressing  his  unanswerable  argu- 
ment in  favor  of  the  provision,  remarked,  that 
should  this  bill  become  a  law,  no  member  of 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


331 


Congress  'having  a  proper  sense  of  delicacy  and 
honor,'  with  the  question  of  repeal  before  him, 
could  accept  a  loan  from  the  Bank.  That  ques- 
tion of '  delicacy  and  honor '  was  one  to  which 
he  (Mr.  P.)  did  not  choose  now  to  address  him- 
self. He  would,  however,  be  guided  by  the 
light  of  experience,  and  he  would  take  leave  to 
say,  that  that  light  made  the  path  before  him, 
upon  this  proposition,  perfectly  luminous.  By 
no  vote  of  his  should  a  provision  be  stricken 
from  this  bill,  the  omission  of  which  would  tend 
to  establish  a  corrupt  and  corrupting  influence 
— secret  and  intangible — in  the  very  bosom  of 
the  two  Houses  whose  province  and  duty  it 
would  be  to  pass  upon  that  great  question  of 
repeal.  What  had  taken  place  was  liable  to 
occur  again.  Those  who  were  now  here  and 
those  who  would  succeed  to  their  places,  were 
not  more  virtuous,  not  more  secure  from  the 
approach  of  venality,  not  more  elevated  above 
the  influence  of  certain  appliances^  than  their 
predecessors.  Well,  what  did  history  teach  in 
relation  to  the  course  of  members  of  Congress 
during  that  most  extraordinary  struggle  be- 
tween the  Bank  and  the  people  for  supremacy, 
which  convulsed  the  whole  continent  from  1831 
to  1834  ? 

'•  He  rose  chiefly  to  advert  to  that  page  of 
history,  and  whether  noticed  here  or  not,  it 
would  be  noticed  by  his  constituents,  who, 
with  their  children,  had  an  infinitely  higher 
stake  in  this  absorbing  question  than  members 
of  Congress,  politicians,  or  bankers. 

"  He  read  from  the  bank  report  presented  to 
the  Senate  in  1834,  by  the  present  President  of 
the  United  States,  'Senate  Documents,  second 
session,  twenty- third  Congress,'  p.  320.  From 
that  document  it  appeared  that  in  1831  there 
was  loaned  to  fifty-nine  members  of  Congress, 
the  sum  of  three  hundred  and  twenty-two 
thousand  one  hundred  and  ninety-nine  dollars. 
In  1832,  the  year  when  the  bank  charter  was 
arrested  by  the  veto  of  that  stern  old  man  who 
occupied  the  house  and  hearts  of  his  country- 
men, there  was  loaned  to  fifty-four  members  of 
Congress,  the  sum  of  four  hundred  and  seventy- 
eight  thousand  and  sixty-nine  dollars.  In  1833, 
the  memorable  panic  year,  there  was  loaned  to 
fifty-eight  members,  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty-six  dol- 
lars. In  1834,  hope  began  to  decline  with  the 
Bank,  and  so,  also,  did  its  line  of  discounts  to 
members  of  Congress ;  but  even  in  that  year 
the  loan  to  fifty-two  members  amounted  to  two 
hundred  and  thirty-eight  thousand  five  hundred 
and  eighty-six  dollars. 

"  Thus  in  four  years  of  unparalleled  political 
excitement,  growing  out  of  a  struggle  with  the 
people  for  the  mastery,  did  that  institution 
grant  accommodations  to  two  hundred  and 
twenty-three  of  the  people's  representatives, 
amounting  to  the  vast  sum  of  one  million  four 
hundred  and  thirteen  thousand  six  hundred  and 
twenty  dollars.     He  presented  no  argument  on 


these  facts.  He  would  regard  it  not  merely  as 
supererogation,  but  an  insult  to  the  intelligence 
of  his  countrymen.  A  tribunal  of  higher  au- 
thority than  the  executive  and  Congress  com- 
bined, would  pass  upon  the  question  of  '  delica- 
cy and  honor,'  started  by  the  senator  from 
Pennsylvania,  and  it  would  also  decide  whether 
in  the  bank  to  loan  was  dangerous  or  other- 
wise. He  indulged  no  fears  as  to  the  decision 
of  the  tribunal  in  the  last  resort — the  sovereign 
people." 

Mr.  Clay  remarked  that  the  greater  part  of 
these  loans  were  made  to  members  opposed  to 
the  bank,  Mr.  Buchanan  answered,  no  doubt 
of  that.  A  significant  smile  went  through  the 
chamber,  with  inquiries  whether  any  one  had 
remained  opposed  ?  The  yeas  and  nays  were 
called  upon  the  question — and  it  was  carried  ; 
the  two  Virginia  senators,  Messrs.  Archer  and 
Rives,  and  Mr.  Preston,  a  Virginian  by  birth, 
voting  with  the  democracy,  and  making  the 
vote  25  yeas  to  24  nays.  The  yeas  were  : 
Messrs.  Allen,  Archer,  Benton,  Buchanan,  Cal- 
houn, Clay  of  Alabama,  Cuthbert,  Fulton,  King, 
Linn,  McRoberts,  Mouton,  Nicholson,  Pierce, 
Preston,  Rives,  Sevier,  Smith  of  Connecticut, 
Sturgeon,  Tappan,  Walker,  Williams,  Wood- 
bury, Wright  and  Young.  The  nays  were : 
Messrs.  Barrow,  Bates,  Berrien,  Choate,  Clay 
of  Kentucky,  Clayton,  Dixon,  Evans,  Graham, 
Henderson,  Huntingdon,  Leeds  Kerr,  Mangum, 
Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead,  Phelps,  Porter, 
Simmons,  Smith  of  Indiana,  Southard,  Tall- 
madge,  White,  Woodbridge.  This  vote,  after 
the  grounds  on  which  the  question  was  put, 
was  considered  an  explicit  senatorial  condemna- 
tion of  the  bank  for  corrupt  practices  with 
members  of  Congress. 


CHAPTEK    LXXXI. 

SECOND  FISCAL  AGENT :  BILL  PKESENTED :  PASS- 
ED :  DISAPPKOVED  BY  THE  PKESIDENT. 

This  second  attempt  at  a  fiscal  bill  has  two  his- 
tories— one  public  and  ostensible — the  other  se- 
cret and  real :  and  it  is  proper  to  write  them 
both,  for  their  own  sakes,  and  also  to  show  in 
what  manner  the  government  is  worked.  The 
public  history  will  be  given  first,  and  will  be 
given  exclusively  from  a  public  source — the  de- 


332 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


bates  of  Congress.  "We  begin  with  it  as  it  be- 
gins there — an  extemporaneous  graft  upon  a 
neglected  bill  lying  on  the  table  of  the  House 
of  Representatives.  Early  in  the  session  a  bill 
had  been  brought  in  from  a  select  committee  on 
the  "currency,"  which  had  not  been  noticed 
from  the  time  of  its  introduction.  It  seemed 
destined  to  sleep  undisturbed  upon  the  table  to 
the  end  of  the  session,  and  then  to  expire  quiet- 
ly upon  lapse  of  time.  Soon  after  the  rejection 
of  the  first  fiscal  under  the  qualified  veto  of 
the  President,  Mr.  Sergeant  of  Pennsylvania 
moved  the  House  (when  in  that  state  which  is 
called  Committee  of  the  Whole)  to  take  up  this 
bill  for  consideration :  which  was  done  as 
moved.  Mr.  Sergeant  then  stated  that,  his  in- 
tention was  to  move  to  amend  that  bill  by 
striking  out  the  whole  of  it  after  the  enact- 
ing clause,  and  inserting  a  new  bill,  which  he 
would  move  to  have  printed.  Several  mem- 
bers asked  for  the  reading  of  the  new  bill,  or 
a  statement  of  its  provisions  ;  and  Mr.  Ser- 
geant, in  compliance  with  these  requests,  stood 
up  and  said : 

"  That,  as  several  inquiries  had  been  made  of 
him  with  regard  to  this  bill,  he  would  now  pro- 
ceed to  make  a  short  statement,  to  show  in 
what  respects  it  differed  from  that  recently  be- 
fore this  House.  He  would  say,  first,  that 
there  were  two  or  three  verbal  errors  in  this 
bill,  and  there  were  words,  in  two  or  three 
places,  which  he  thought  had  better  have  been 
left  out,  and  which  were  intended  to  have  been 
omitted  by  the  committee.  There  were  several 
gentlemen  in  the  present  Congress  who  enter- 
tained extreme  hostility  to  the  word  'bank,' 
and,  as  far  as  he  was  concerned,  he  felt  every 
disposition  to  indulge  their  feelings  ;  and  he  had 
therefore  endeavored  throughout  this  bill  to 
avoid  using  the  word  'bank.'  If  that  word 
anywhere  remained  as  applicable  to  the  being 
it  was  proposed  to  create  by  this  law,  let  it  go 
out — let  it  go  out.  Now  the  word  'corpora- 
tion '  sounded  well,  and  he  was  glad  to  perceive 
it  gave  pleasure  to  the  House.  At  all  events, 
they  had  a  new  word  to  fight  against.  Now 
the  difference  between  this  bill  and  that  which 
passed  this  House  some  days  ago,  would  be 
seen  by  comparison.  The  present  differed  from 
the  other  principally  in  three  or  four  particu- 
lars, and  there  were  some  other  parts  of  the 
bill  which  varied,  in  minor  particulars,  from 
that  which  had  been  before  the  House  a  few 
days  ago.  Those  differences  gentlemen  would 
have  no  difficulty  in  discovering  and  under- 
standing when  the  bill  should  have  been  print- 
ed. He  would  now  proceed  to  answer  the  in- 
quiries of  gentlemen  in  reference  to  this  bill. 


Mr.  S.  then  stated  the  following  as  the  sub- 
stantial points  of  difference  between  the  two 
bills : 

"  1.  The  capital  in  the  former  bill  was  thirty 
millions,  with  power  to  extend  it  to  fifty  mil- 
lions. In  this  bill  twentj'-one  millions,  with 
power  to  extend  it  to  thirty-five  millions. 
2.  The  former  bill  provided  for  offices  of  dis- 
count and  deposit.  In  this  there  are  to  be 
agencies  only.  3.  The  dealings  of  the  corpo- 
ration are  to  be  confined  to  buying  and  sell- 
ing foreign  bills  of  exchange,  including  bills 
drawn  in  one  State  or  territory,  and  payable 
in  another.  There  are  to  be  no  discounts. 
4.  The  title  of  the  corporation  is  changed." 

This  was  Friday,  the  20th  of  August.  The 
next  day — the  bill  offered  in  amendment  by 
Mr.  Sergeant  having  been  printed  and  the 
House  gone  into  committee — that  member 
moved  that  all  debate  upon  it  in  committee  of 
the  whole  should  cease  at  4  o'clock  that  after- 
noon, and  then  proceed  to  vote  upon  the  amend- 
ments which  might  be  offered,  and  report  those 
agreed  upon  to  the  House.  And  having  moved 
this  in  writing,  he  immediately  moved  the  pre- 
vious question  upon  it.  This  was  sharp  prac- 
tice, and  as  new  as  sharp.  It  was  then  past  12 
o'clock.  Such  rapidity  of  proceeding  was  a 
mockery  upon  legislation,  and  to  expose  it  as 
such,  Mr.  Roosevelt  of  New  York  moved  to 
amend  the  time  by  substituting,  instanter,  for  4 
o'clock,  remarking  that  they  might  as  well 
have  no  time  for  discussion  as  the  time  desig- 
nated. Several  members  expressing  themselves 
to  the  same  effect,  Mr.  Sergeant  extended  the 
time  to  4  o'clock  on  Monday  evening.  The 
brevity  of  the  time  was  still  considered  by  the 
minority,  and  justly,  as  a  mockery  upon  legisla- 
tion; and  their  opinions  to  that  effect  were 
freely  expressed.  Mr.  Cave  Johnson  asked  to 
be  excused  from  voting  on  Mr.  Sergeant's  reso- 
lution, giving  for  the  reason  that  the  amend- 
ment was  a  new  bill  just  laid  upon  the  table  of 
members,  and  that  it  would  be  impossible  for 
them  to  act  understandingly  upon  it  in  the 
short  time  proposed.  Mr.  Charles  Brown  of 
Pennsylvania  also  asked  to  be  excused  from 
voting,  saying  that  the  amendment  was  a  bill 
of  thirty-eight  printed  pages — that  it  had  only 
been  laid  upon  their  tables  ten  minutes  when 
the  motion  to  close  the  debate  at  4  o'clock  was 
made — and  that  it  was  impossible  to  act  upon 
it  with  the  care  and  consideration  due  to  a  leg- 
islative act,  and  to  one  of  this  momentous  im- 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


333 


portance,  and  which  was  to  create  a  great  fiscal 
corporation  with  vast  privileges,  and  an  exclu- 
sive charter  for  twenty  years.  Mr.  Rhett  of 
South  Carolina  asked  to  be  in  like  manner  ex- 
cused, reducing  his  reasons  to  writing,  in  the 
form  of  a  protest.     Thus  : 

"  1.  Because  the  rule  by  which  the  resolution 
is  proposed  is  a  violation  of  the  spirit  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  which  de- 
clares that  the  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the 
press  shall  not  be  abridged  by  any  law  of  Con- 
gress. 2.  Because  it  destroys  the  character  of 
this  body  as  a  deliberative  assembly  :  a  right  to 
deliberate  and  discuss  measures  being  no  longer 
in  Congress,  but  with  the  majority  only.  3.  Be- 
cause it  is  a  violation  of  the  rights  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  through  their  representa- 
tives, inherited  from  their  ancestors,  and  enjoyed 
and  practised  time  immemorial,  to  speak  to  the 
taxes  imposed  on  them,  when  taxes  are  imposed. 
4.  Because  by  the  said  rule,  a  bill  may  be  taken 
up  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  be  immediately 
reported  to  the  House,  and,  by  the  aid  of  the 
previous  question,  be  passed  into  a  law,  with- 
out one  word  of  debate  being  permitted  or  ut- 
tered. 5.  Because  free  discussion  of  the  laws 
by  which  the  people  are  governed,  is  not  only 
essential  to  right  legislation,  but  is  necessary  to 
the  preservation  of  the  constitution,  and  the 
liberties  of  the  people  ;  and  to  fear  or  supress  it 
is  the  characteristic  of  tyrannies  and  tyrants 
only.  6.  Because  the  measure  proposed  to  be 
forced  through  the  House  within  less  than  two 
days'  consideration  is  one  which  deeply  affects 
the  integrity  of  the  constitution  and  the  liberties 
of  the  people ;  and  to  pass  it  with  haste,  and 
without  due  deliberation,  would  evince  a  con- 
temptuous disregard  of  either,  and  may  be  a  fatal 
violation  of  both." 

Besides  all  other  objections  to  this  rapid  legis- 
lation, it  was  a  virtual  violation  of  the  rules  of 
the  House,  made  under  the  constitution,  to  pre- 
vent hasty  and  inconsiderate,  or  intemperate  ac- 
tion ;  and  which  requires  a  bill  to  be  read  three 
times,  each  time  on  a  different  day,  and  to  be 
voted  upon  each  time.  Technically  an  amend- 
ment, though  an  entire  new  bill,  is  not  a  bill,  and 
therefore,  is  not  subject  to  these  three  readings 
and  votings :  substantially  and  truly,  such  an 
amendment  is  a  bill ;  and  the  reason  of  the  rule 
would  require  it  to  be  treated  as  such. 

Other  members  asked  to  be  excused  from 
voting ;  but  all  being  denied  that  request  by  an 
inexorable  majority,  Mr.  Pickens  of  South  Caro- 
lina stood  up  and  said:  "It  is  now  manifest 
that  the  House  does  not  intend  to  excuse  any 
member  from  voting.    And  as  enough  has  been 


done  to  call  public  attention  to  the  odious  reso- 
lution proposed  to  be  adopted,  our  object  will 
have  been  attained :  and  I  respectfully  suggest 
to  our  friends  to  go  no  further  in  this  proceed- 
ing !  "  Cries  of  "  agreed  !  agreed  ! "  responded 
to  this  appeal ;  and  the  motion  of  Mr.  Sergeant 
was  adopted.  He,  himself,  then  spoke  an  hour 
in  support  of  the  new  bill — one  hour  of  the  brief 
time  which  was  allowed  for  discussion.  Mr. 
Wise  occupied  the  remainder  of  the  evening 
against  the  bill.  On  Monday,  on  resuming  its 
consideration,  Mr.  Turney  of  Tennessee  moved 
to  strike  out  the  enacting  clause — which,  if 
done,  would  put  an  end  to  the  bill.  The  mo- 
tion failed.  Some  heated  discussion  took  place, 
which  could  hardly  be  called  a  debate  on  the 
bill ;  but  came  near  enough  to  it  to  detect  its 
fraudulent  character.  It  was  the  old  defunct 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  in  disguise,  to  come 
to  life  again  in  it.  That  used-up  concern  was 
then  in  the  hands  of  justice,  hourly  sued  upon 
its  notes,  and  the  contents  collected  upon  exe- 
cution ;  and  insolvency  admitted.  It  could  not 
be  named  in  any  charter:  no  reference  could 
be  made  to  it  by  name.  But  there  was  a  pro- 
vision in  the  amended  bill  to  permit  it  to  slip 
into  full  life,  and  take  the  whole  benefit  of  the 
new  charter.  Corporations  were  to  be  allowed 
to  subscribe  for  the  stock  :  under  that  provision 
she  could  take  all  the  stock — and  be  herself 
again.  This,  and  other  fraudulent  provisions 
were  detected  :  but  the  clock  struck  four  !  and 
the  vote  was  taken,  and  the  bill  passed — 125  to 
94.  The  title  of  the  original  bill  was  then 
amended  to  conform  to  its  new  character  ;  and, 
on  the  motion  of  Mr.  Sergeant  was  made  to  read 
in  this  wise :  "  An  act  to  provide  for  the  better 
collection,  safe  keeping,  and  disbursement  of 
the  public  revenue,  by  means  of  a  corporation 
to  be  styled  the  Fiscal  Corporation  of  the 
United  States."  Peals  of  laughter  saluted  the 
annunciation  of  this  title  ;  and  when  it  was  car- 
ried to  the  Senate,  as  it  immediately  was,  for 
the  concurrence  of  that  body,  and  its  strange 
title  was  read  out,  ridicule  was  already  lying  in 
wait  for  it ;  and,  under  the  mask  of  ridicule,  an 
attack  was  made  upon  its  real  character,  as  the 
resuscitation  of  Mr.  Biddle's  bank :  and  Mr. 
Benton  exclaimed — 

"  Heavens  what  a  name  !  long  as  the  moral 
law— half  sub  treasury,  and  half  national  bank— 
and  all  fraudulent  and  deceptive,  to  conceal  what 


334 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


it  is  ;  and  entirely  too  long.  The  name  is  too 
long.  People  will  never  stand  it.  They  cannot 
go  through  all  that.  We  must  have  something 
shorter — something  that  will  do  for  every  day 
use.  Corporosity  !  that  would  be  a  great 
abridgment ;  but  it  is  still  too  long.  It  is  five 
syllables,  and  people  will  not  go  above  two  syl- 
lables, or  three  at  most,  and  often  hang  at  one, 
in  names  which  have  to  be  incontinently  re- 
peated. They  are  all  economical  at  that,  let 
them  be  as  extravagant  as  they  may  be  in  spend- 
ing their  money.  They  will  not  spend  their 
breath  upon  long  names  which  have  to  be  re- 
peated every  day.  They  must  have  something 
short  and  pointed  ;  and,  if  you  don't  give  it  to 
them,  they  will  make  it  for  themselves.  The 
defunct  Fiscal  Bank  was  rapidly  taking  the  title 
of  fiscality  ;  and,  by  alliteration,  rascality  ;  and 
if  it  had  lived,  would  soon  have  been  compen- 
diously and  emphatically  designated  by  some 
brief  and  significant  title.  The  Fiscal  Corpora- 
tion cannot  expect  to  have  better  luck.  It  must 
undergo  the  fate  of  all  great  men  and  of  all  great 
measures,  overburdened  with  titles — it  must  sub- 
mit to  a  short  name.  There  is  much  virtue  in 
a  name  ;  and  the  poets  tell  us  there  are  many  on 
whose  conception  Phcebus  never  smiled,  and  at 
whose  birth  no  muse,  or  grace,  was  present.  In 
that  predicament  would  seem  to  be  this  intru- 
sive corporosity,  which  we  have  received  from 
the  other  House,  and  sent  to  our  young  com- 
mittee, and  which  has  mutation  of  title  without 
alteration  of  substance,  and  without  accession 
of  euphony,  or  addition  of  sense.  Some  say  a 
name  is  nothing — that  a  rose  by  any  other  name 
would  smell  as  sweet.  So  it  will ;  and  a  thorn 
by  any  other  name  would  stick  as  deep.  And 
so  of  these  fiscals,  whether  to  be  called  banks  or 
corporations.  They  will  still  be  the  same  thing 
— a  thorn  in  our  side — but  a  short  name  they 
must  have.  This  corporosity  must  retrench  its 
extravagance  of  title. 

"  I  go  for  short  names,  and  will  give  reasons 
for  it.  The  people  will  have  short  names,  al- 
though they  may  spoil  a  fine  one  ;  and  I  will 
give  you  an  instance.  There  was  a  most  beau- 
tiful young  lady  in  New  Orleans  some  years 
ago,  as  there  always  has  been,  and  still  are  many 
such.  She  was  a  Creole,  that  is  to  say,  born  in 
this  country,  of  parents  from  Europe.  A  gentle- 
man who  was  building  a  superb  steamboat,  took 
it  into  his  head  to  honor  this  young  lady,  by 
connecting  her  name  with  his  vessel ;  so  he  be- 
stowed upon  it  the  captivating  designation  of 
La  Belle  Creole.  This  fine  name  was  painted 
in  golden  letters  on  the  sides  of  his  vessel ;  and 
away  she  went,  with  three  hundred  horse  power, 
to  Kentucky  and  Ohio.  The  vessel  was  beauti- 
ful, and  the  name  was  beautiful,  and  the  lady 
was  beautiful ;  but  all  the  beauty  on  earth  could 
not  save  the  name  from  the  catastrophe  to  which 
all  long  titles  are  subjected.  It  was  immediately 
abbreviated,  and,  in  the  abbreviation,  sadly  de- 
teriorated.    At  first,  they  called  her  the  bell — 


not  the  French  belle,  which  signifies  fine  or 
beautiful — but  the  plain  English  bell,  which  in 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  was  defined  to  be  a  tink- 
ling cymbal.  This  was  bad  enough  ;  but  worse 
was  coming.  It  so  happens  that  the  vernacular 
pronunciation  of  Creole,  in  the  Kentucky  waters, 
is  cre-owl ;  so  they  began  to  call  this  beautiful 
boat  the  cre-owl !  but  things  did  not  stop  here. 
It  was  too  extravagant  to  employ  two  syllables 
when  one  would  answer  as  well,  and  be  so  much 
more  economical ;  so  the  first  half  of  the  name 
was  dropped,  and  the  last  retained ;  and  thus 
La  Belle  Creole — the  beautiful  Creole — sailed 
up  and  clown  the  Mississippi  all  her  life  by  the 
name,  style,  title,  and  description  ofj  The  Owl  ! 
(Roars  of  laughing  in  the  Senate,  with  excla- 
mations from  several,  that  it  was  a  good  name 
for  a  bank — that  there  was  an  Owl-^Creek  Bank 
in  Ohio  once,  now  dead  and  insolvent,  but,  in 
its  day,  as  good  as  the  best.) 

"  Mr.  B.  continued.  I  do  not  know  whether 
owl  will  do  for  this  child  of  long  name,  and 
many  fathers ;  but  we  must  have  a  name,  and 
must  continue  trying  till  we  get  one.  Let  us 
hunt  far  and  wide.  Let  us  have  recourse  to  the 
most  renowned  iEsop  and  his  fables,  and  to  that 
one  of  his  fables  which  teaches  us  how  an  old 
black  cat  succeeded  in  getting  at  the  rats  again 
after  having  eaten  up  too  many  of  them,  and 
become  too  well  known,  under  her  proper  form, 
to  catch  any  more.  She  rolled  herself  over  in 
a  meal  tub — converted  her  black  skin  into  white 
— and  walked  forth  among  the  rats  as  a  new 
and  innocent  animal  that  they  had  never  seen 
before.  All  were  charmed  to  see  her !  but  a 
quick  application  of  teeth  and  claws  to  the 
throats  and  bellies  of  the  rats,  let  them  see  that 
it  was  their  old  acquaintance,  the  black  cat ; 
and  that  whitening  the  skin  did  not  alter  the 
instincts  of  the  animal,  nor  blunt  the  points  of 
its  teeth  and  claws.  The  rats,  after  that,  called 
her  the  meal-tub  cat,  and  the  mealy  cat.  May 
we  not  call  this  corporosity  the  meal-tub  bank  1 
A  cattish  name  would  certainly  suit  it  in  one 
particular  ;  for,  like  a  cat,  it  has  many  lives,  and 
a  cat,  you  know,  must  be  killed  nine  times  be- 
fore it  will  die ;  so  say  the  traditions  of  the 
nursery ;  and  of  all  histories  the  traditions  of 
children  are  the  most  veracious.  They  teach 
us  that  cats  have  nine  lives.  So  of  this  bank. 
It  has  been  killed  several  times,  but  here  it  is 
still,  scratching,  biting,  and  clawing.  Jackson 
killed  it  in  1832;  Tyler  killed  it  last  week. 
But  this  is  only  a  beginning.  Seven  times  more 
the  Fates  must  cut  the  thread  of  its  hydra  life 
before  it  will  yield  up  the  ghost." 

"  The  meal  tub  !  No  insignificant,  or  vulgar 
name.  It  lives  in  history,  and  connects  its  fame 
with  kings  and  statesmen.  We  all  know  the 
Stuarts  of  England— an  honest  and  bigoted  race 
in  the  beginning,  but  always  unfortunate  in  the 
end.  The  second  Charles  was  beset  by  plots 
and  cabals.  There  were  many  attempts,  or  sup- 
posed attempts  to  kill  him;  many  plots  against 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


335 


him,  and  some  very  ridiculous  ;  among  the  rest 
one  which  goes  by  the  name  of  the  meal-tub 
plot ;  because  the  papers  which  discovered  it 
were  found  in  the  meal-tub  where  the  con- 
spirators, or  their  enemies,  had  hid  them. 

"  Sir,  I  have  given  you  a  good  deal  of  meal 
this  morning ;  but  you  must  take  more  yet.  It 
is  a  fruitful  theme,  and  may  give  us  a  good 
name  before  we  are  done  with  it.  I  have  a  re- 
miniscence, as  the  novel  writers  say,  and  I  will 
tell  it.  When  a  small  boy,  I  went  to  school  in 
a  Scotch  Irish  neighborhood,  and  learnt  many 
words  and  phrases  which  I  have  not  met  with 
since,  but  which  were  words  of  great  pith  and 
power  ;  among  the  rest  shake-poke.  (Mr. 
Archer  :  I  never  heard  that  before.)  Mr. 
Benton  :  but  you  have  heard  of  poke.  You 
know  the  adage  :  do  not  buy  a  pig  in  the  poke  ; 
that  is  to  say,  in  the  bag ;  for  poke  signifies  bag,  or 
wallet,  and  is  a  phrase  much  used  in  the  north  of 
England,  and  among  the  Scotch  Irish  in  America. 
A  pig  is  carried  to  market  in  a  poke,  and  if  you 
buy  it  without  taking  it  out  first,  you  may  be 
'  taken  in.'  So  corn  is  carried  to  a  mill  in  a 
poke,  and  when  brought  home,  ground  into 
meal,  the  meal  remains  in  the  poke,  in  the 
houses  of  poor  families,  until  it  is  used  up. 
When  the  bag  is  nearly  empty,  it  is  turned  up- 
side down,  and  shaken ;  and  the  meal  that 
comes  out  is  called  the  shake-poke,  that  is  to 
say,  the  last  shake  of  the  bag.  By  an  easy  and 
natural  metaphor,  this  term  is  also  applied  to 
the  last  child  that  is  born  in  a  family ;  especial- 
ly if  it  is  puny  or  a  rickety  concern.  The  last 
child,  like  the  last  meal,  is  called  a  shake-poke ; 
and  may  we  not  call  this  fiscalous  corporation 
a  shake-poke  also,  and  for  the  same  reason  ?  It 
is  the  last — the  last  at  all  events  for  the  session ! 
it  is  the  last  meal  in  their  bag — their  shake- 
poke  !  and  it  is  certainly  a  rickety  concern. 

"  I  do  not  pretend  to  impose  a  name  upon  this 
bantling ;  that  is  a  privilege  of  paternity,  or  of 
sponsorship,  and  I  stand  in  neither  relation  to 
this  babe.  But  a  name  of  brevity — of  brevity 
and  significance  —  it  must  have;  and,  if  the 
fathers  and  sponsors  do  not  bestow  it,  the  peo- 
ple will :  for  a  long  name  is  abhorred  and  es- 
chewed in  all  countries.  Remember  the  fate  of 
John  Barebone,  the  canting  hypocrite  in  Crom- 
well's time.  He  had  a  very  good  name,  John 
Barebone ;  but  the  knave  composed  a  long  verse, 
like  Scripture,  to  sanctify  himself  with  it,  and 
intituled  himself  thus :— '  Praise  God,  Barebone, 
for  if  Christ  had  not  died  for  you,  you  would  be 
damned,  Barebone.'  Now,  this  was  very  sancti- 
monious ;  but  it  was  too  long — too  much  of  a 
good  thing— and  so  the  people  cut  it  all  off  but 
the  last  two  words,  and  called  the  fellow 
'  damned  Barebone?  and  nothing  else  but 
damned  Barebone,  all  his  life  after.  So  let  this 
corporosity  beware :  it  may  get  itself  damned 
before  it  is  done  with  us,  and  Tyler  too." 

The  first  proceeding  in  the  Senate  was  to  re- 


fer this  bill  to  a  committee,  and  Mr.  Clay's  select 
committee  would  naturally  present  itself  as  the 
one  to  which  it  would  go  :  but  he  was  too  much 
disgusted  at  the  manner  in  which  his  own  bill 
had  been  treated  to  be  willing  to  take  any  lead 
with  respect  to  this  second  one ;  and,  in  fact, 
had  so  expressed  himself  in  the  debate  on  the 
veto  message.  A  motion  was  made  to  refer  it 
to  another  select  committee,  the  appointing  of 
which  would  be  in  the  President  of  the  Senate 
— Mr.  Southard,  of  New  Jersey.  Mr.  Southard, 
like  Mr.  Sergeant,  was  the  fast  friend  of  the 
United  States  Bank,  to  be  revived  under  this 
bill ;  and  like  him  conducted  the  bill  to  the  best 
advantage  for  that  institution.  Mr.  Sergeant 
had  sprung  the  bill,  and  rushed  it  through, 
backed  by  the  old  bank  majority,  with  a  velocity 
which  distanced  shame  in  the  disregard  of  all 
parliamentary  propriety  and  all  fair  legislation. 
He  had  been  the  attorney  of  the  bank  for  many 
years,  and  seemed  only  intent  upon  its  revivifi- 
cation— no  matter  by  what  means.  Mr.  South- 
ard, bound  by  the  same  friendship  to  the  bank, 
seemed  to  be  animated  by  the  same  spirit,  and  de- 
termined to  use  his  power  in  the  same  way.  lie 
appointed  exclusively  the  friends  of  the  bank, 
and  mostly  of  young  senators,  freshly  arrived  in 
the  chamber.  Mr.  King,  of  Alabama,  the  often 
President  of  the  Senate  pro  tempore,  and  the 
approved  expounder  of  the  rules,  was  the  first — 
and  very  properly  the  first — to  remark  upon  the 
formation  of  this  one-sided  committee  ;  and  to 
bring  it  to  the  attention  of  the  Senate.  He  ex- 
posed it  in  pointed  terms. 

"  Mr.  King  observed,  that  in  the  organization 
of  committees  by  Congress,  the  practice  had  been 
heretofore  invariable — the  usage  uniform.  The 
first  business,  on  the  meeting  of  each  House, 
after  the  selection  of  officers  and  organizing,  was 
to  appoint  the  various  standing  committees.  In 
designating  those  to  whom  the  various  subjects 
to  which  it  is  proposed  to  call  the  attention  of 
Congress  shall  be  referred,  the  practice  always 
has  been  to  place  a  majority  of  the  friends  of  the 
administration  on  each  committee.  This  is 
strictly  correct,  in  order  to  insure  a  favorable 
consideration  of  the  various  measures  which  the 
administration  may  propose  to  submit  to  their 
examination  and  decision.  A  majority,  how- 
ever, of  the  friends  of  the  administratiou,  is  all 
that  has  heretofore  been  considered  either  ne- 
cessary or  proper  to  be  placed  on  those  commit- 
tees ;  and  in  every  instance  a  minority  of  each 
committee  consists  of  members  supposed  to  be 
adverse  to  the  measures  of  the  dominant  party. 


336 


THIRTY  YEARS'  YIEW. 


The  propriety  of  such  an  arrangement  cannot 
fail  to  strike  the  mind  of  every  senator.  All 
measures  should  be  carefully  examined  ;  objec- 
tions suggested ;  amendments  proposed ;  and 
every  proposition  rendered  as  perfect  as  practi- 
cable before  it  is  reported  to  the  House  for  its 
action.  This  neither  can,  nor  will,  be  contro- 
verted. In  the  whole  of  his  [Mr.  King's]  con- 
gressional experience,  he  did  not  know  of  a  single 
instance  in  which  this  rule  had  been  departed 
from,  until  now.  But  there  has  been  a  departure 
from  this  usage,  sanctioned  by  justice  and  unde- 
viating  practice,  which  had  given  to  it  the  force 
and  obligation  of  law ;  and  he  [Mr.  King]  felt 
it  to  be  his  duty  to  call  the  attention  of  the 
Senate  to  this  most  objectionable  innovation. 
Yesterday  a  bill  was  reported  from  the  House 
of  Representatives  for  the  chartering  of  a  fiscal 
corporation.  It  was  immediately  taken  up,  read 
twice  on  the  same  day,  and,  on  the  motion  of  the 
senator  from  Georgia,  ordered  to  be  referred  to 
a  select  committee.  This  bill  embraced  a  sub- 
ject of  the  greatest  importance,  one  more  dis- 
puted upon  constitutional  grounds,  as  well  as 
upon  the  grounds  of  expediency,  than  any  other 
which  has  ever  agitated  this  country.  This  bill, 
of  such  vast  importance,  fraught  with  results  of 
the  greatest  magnitude,  in  which  the  whole 
country  takes  the  liveliest  interest,  either  for  or 
against  its  adoption,  has  been  hurried  through 
the  other  House  in  a  few  days,  almost  without 
discussion,  and,  as  he  [Mr.  K.],  conceived,  in 
violation  of  the  principles  of  parliamentary  law, 
following  as  it  did,  immediately  on  the  heels  of 
a  similar  bill,  which  had,  most  fortunately  for 
the  country,  received  the  veto  of  the  President, 
and  ultimately  rejected  by  the  Senate.  The 
rules  of  the  Senate  forbade  him  to  speak  of  the 
action  of  the  other  House  on  this  subject  as  he 
could  wish.  He  regretted  that  he  was  not  at 
liberty  to  present  their  conduct  plainly  to  the 
people,  to  show  to  the  country  what  it  has  to 
expect  from  the  dominant  party  here,  and  what 
kind  of  measures  may  be  expected  from  the 
mode  of  legislation  which  has  been  adopted. 
The  fiscal  corporation  bill  has,  however,  come 
to  us,  and  he  [Mr.  King]  and  his  friends,  much 
as  they  were  opposed  to  its  introduction  or  pas- 
sage, determined  to  give  it  a  fair  and  open  op- 
position. No  objection  was  made  to  the  motion 
of  the  senator  from  Georgia  to  send  it  to  a  select 
committee,  and  that  that  committee  should  be 
appointed  by  the  presiding  officer.  The  Presi- 
dent of  the  Senate  made  the  selection ;  but,  to 
his  [Mr.  K.'s]  great  surprise,  on  reading  the 
names  this  morning  in  one  of  the  public  papers, 
he  found  they  were  all  members  of  the  dominant 
party :  not  one  selected  for  this  most  important 
committee  belongs  to  the  minority  in  this  body 
opposed  to  the  bill.  Why  was  it,  he  [Mr.  King] 
must  be  permitted  to  ask,  that  the  presiding 
officer  had  departed  from  a  rule  which,  in  all 
the  fluctuations  of  party,  and  in  the  highest 


times  of  party  excitement,  had  never  before  been 
departed  from  ? 

"  There  must  have  been  a  motive  in  thus  de- 
parting from  a  course  sanctioned  by  time,  and 
by  every  principle  of  propriety.  It  will  be  for 
the  presiding  officer  to  state  what  that  motive 
was.  Mr.  King  must  be  permitted  to  repeat, 
the  more  to  impress  it  on  the  minds  of  senators! 
that  during  more  than  twenty  years  he  had 
been  in  Congress,  he  had  never  known  impor- 
tant committees  to  be  appointed,  either  standing 
or  select,  in  which  some  member  of  the  then 
minority  did  not  constitute  a  portion,  until  this 
most  extraordinary  selection  of  a  committee,  to 
report  on  this  most  important  bill.  Would  it 
not  [said  Mr.  King]  have  been  prudent,  as  well 
as  just,  to  have  given  to  the  minority  a  fair  op- 
portunity of  suggesting  their  objections  in  com- 
mittee ?  The  friends  of  the  measure  would  then 
be  apprised  of  those  objections,  and  could  pre- 
pare themselves  to  meet  them.  He  [Mr.  King] 
had  not  risen  to  make  a  motion,  but  merely  to 
present  this  extraordinary  proceeding  to  the 
view  of  the  Senate,  and  leave  it  there ;  but,  he 
believed,  in  justice  to  his  friends,  and  to  stamp 
this  proceeding  with  condemnation,  he  would 
move  that  two  additional  members  be  added  to 
the  committee." 

The  President  of  the  Senate,  in  answer  to  the 
remarks  of  Mr.  King,  read  a  rule  from  Jeffer- 
son's Manual  in  which  it  is  said  that,  a  bill  must 
be  committed  to  its  friends  to  improve  and  per- 
fect it,  and  not  to  its  enemies  who  would  destroy 
it.  And  under  this  rule  Mr.  Southard  said  he 
had  appointed  the  committee.  Mr.  Benton  then 
stood  up,  and  said : 

"  That  is  the  Lex  Parliamentaria  of  Eng- 
land from  which  you  read,  Mr.  President,  and  is 
no  part  of  our  rules.  It  is  English  authority — 
very  good  in  the  British  Parliament,  but  not 
valid  in  the  American  Senate.  It  is  not  in  our 
rules — neither  in  the  rules  of  the  House  nor  in 
those  of  the  Senate;  and  is  contrary  to  the 
practice  of  both  Houses — their  settled  practice 
for  fifty  years.  From  the  beginning  of  our  gov- 
ernment we  have  disregarded  it,  and  followed  a 
rule  much  more  consonant  to  decency  and  jus- 
tice, to  public  satisfaction,  and  to  the  results  of 
fair  legislation,  and  that  was,  to  commit  our 
business  to  mixed  committees — committees  con- 
sisting of  friends  and  foes  of  the  measure,  and  of 
both  political  parties — always  taking  care  that 
the  friends  of  the  measure  should  be  the  majo- 
rity ;  and,  if  it  was  a  political  question,  that  the 
political  party  in  power  should  have  the  majo- 
rity. This  is  our  practice ;  and  a  wise  and  good 
practice  it  is,  containing  all  the  good  that  there 
is  in  the  British  rule,  avoiding  its  harshness,  and 
giving  both  sides  a  chance  to  perfect  or  to  un- 
derstand a  measure.    The  nature  of  our  govern- 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


ment — its  harmonious  and  successful  action — 
requires  both  parties  to  have  a  hand  in  conduct- 
ing the  public  business,  both  in  the  committees 
and  the  legislative  halls ;  and  this  is  the  first 
session  at  which  committee  business,  or  legis- 
lative business,  has  been  confined,  or  attempted 
to  be  confined,  to  one  political  party.  The  clause 
which  you  read,  Mr.  President,  I  have  often 
read  myself;  not  for  the  purpose  of  sending  a 
measure  to  a  committee  of  exclusive  friends,  but 
to  prevent  it  from  going  to  a  committee  of  ex- 
clusive enemies — in  fact  to  obtain  for  it  a  mixed 
committee — such  as  the  democracy  has  always 
given  when  in  power — such  as  it  will  again  give 
when  in  power — and  such  as  is  due  to  fair,  de- 
cent, satisfactory,  and  harmonious  legislation." 

Mr.  Benton,  after  sustaining  Mr.  King  in  his 
view  of  the  rules  and  the  practice,  told  him  that 
he  was  deceived  in  his  memory  in  supposing 
there  had  never  been  a  one-sided  committee  in 
the  Senate  before :  and  remarked  : 

"  That  senator  is  very  correct  at  all  times ; 
but  he  will  not  take  it  amiss  if  I  shall  suggest 
to  him  that  he  is  in  error  now — that  there  has 
been  one  other  occasion  in  which  a  one-siclcd 
committee  was  employed — and  that  in  a  very 
important  case — concerning  no  less  a  power  than 
Mr.  Biddle's  bank,  and  even  Mr.  Biddle  himself. 
I  speak  of  the  committee  which  was  sent  by  this 
Senate  to  examine  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
in  the  summer  of  1834,  when  charged  with  in- 
solvency and  criminality  by  General  Jackson — 
charges  which  time  have  proved  to  be  true — and 
when  the  whole  committee  were  of  one  party, 
and  that  party  opposed  to  General  Jackson,  and 
friendly  to  the  bank.  And  what  became  then 
of  the  rule  of  British  parliamentary  law,  which 
has  just  been  read  ?  It  had  no  application  then, 
though  it  would  have  cut  off  every  member  of 
the  committee ;  for  not  one  of  them  was  favor- 
able to  the  inquiry,  but  the  contrary ;  and  the 
thing  ended  as  all  expected.  I  mention  this  as 
an  instance  of  a  one-sided  committee,  which  the 
senator  from  Alabama  has  overlooked,  and  which 
deserves  to  be  particularly  remembered  on  this 
occasion,  for  a  reason  which  I  will  mention ;  and 
which  is,  that  both  these  committees  were  ap- 
pointed in  the  same  case — for  the  same  Bank  of 
the  United  States — one  to  whitewash  it — which 
it  did ;  the  other  to  smuggle  it  into  existence 
under  a  charter  in  which  it  cannot  be  named. 
And  thus,  whenever  that  bank  is  concerned,  we 
have  to  look  out  for  tricks  and  frauds  (to  say  no 
more),  even  on  the  high  floors  of  national  legis- 
lation." 

Mr.  Buchanan  animadverted  with  justice  and 
severity  upon  the  tyranny  with  which  the  ma- 
jority in  the  House  of  Representatives  had 
forced  the  bill  through,  and  marked  the  fact 
that  not  a  single  democratic  member  had  sue- 
Yol.  II.— 22 


ceeded  in  getting  an  opportunity  to  speak  against 
it.  This  was  an  unprecedented  event  in  the 
history  of  parties  in  America,  or  in  England, 
and  shows  the  length  to  which  a  bank  party 
would  go  in  stifling  the  right  of  speech.  In  all 
great  measures,  before  or  since,  and  in  all  coun- 
tries possessing  free  institutions,  the  majority 
has  always  allowed  to  the  adversary  the  privi- 
lege of  speaking  to  the  measures  which  were  to 
be  put  upon  them :  here  for  the  first  time  it  was 
denied ;  and  the  denial  was  marked  at  the  time, 
and  carried  at  once  into  parliamentary  history 
to  receive  the  reprobation  due  to  it.  This  was 
the  animadversion  of  Mr.  Buchanan : 

"The  present  bill  to  establish  a  fiscal  cor- 
poration was  hurried  through  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives with  the  celerity,  and,  so  far  as 
the  democracy  was  concerned,  with  the  silence 
of  despotism.  No  democratic  member  had  an 
opportunity  of  raising  his  voice  against  it.  Un- 
der new  rules  in  existence  there,  the  majority 
had  predetermined  that  it  should  pass  that  body 
within  two  days  from  the  commencement  of  the 
discussion.  At  first,  indeed,  the  determination 
was  that  it  should  pass  the  first  day  ;  but  this 
was  felt  to  be  too  great  an  outrage  ;  and  the 
mover  was  graciously  pleased  to  extend  the  time 
one  day  longer.  Whilst  the  bill  was  in  Com- 
mittee of  the  Whole,  it  so  happened  that,  in  the 
struggle  for  the  floor,  no  democratic  member 
succeeded  in  obtaining  it ;  and  at  the  destined 
hour  of  four  in  the  afternoon  of  the  second  day, 
the  committee  rose,  and  all  further  debate  was 
arrested  by  the  previous  question.  The  voice 
of  that  great  party  in  this  country  to  which  I 
am  proud  to  belong,  was,  therefore,  never  heard 
through  any  of  its  representatives  in  the  House 
against  this  odious  measure.  Not  even  one  brief 
hour,  the  limit  prescribed  by  the  majority  to 
each  speaker,  was  granted  to  any  democratic 
member." 

The  bill  went  to  the  committee  which  had 
been  appointed,  without  the  additional  two 
members  which  Mr.  King  had  suggested ;  and 
which  suggestion,  not  being  taken  up  by  the 
majority,  was  no  further  pressed.  Mr.  Berrien, 
chairman  of  that  committee,  soon  reported  it 
back  to  the  Senate — without  alteration ;  as  had 
been  foreseen.  He  spoke  two  hours  in  its  favor 
— concluding  with  the  expression  that  the  Pre- 
sident would  give  it  his  approval — founding  that 
opinion  on  the  President's  message  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  session— on  his  veto  message 
of  the  first  fiscal  bill— on  the  report  of  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury— and  on  this  Secretary's 
subsequent  plan  for  a  bank  framed  with  the  view 


338 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


to  avoid  his  constitutional  objections.  Mr.  Clay 
declared  his  intention  to  vote  for  the  bill,  not 
that  it  went  as  far  as  he  could  wish,  but  that  it 
would  go  a  good  distance — would  furnish  a 
sound  national  currency,  and  regulate  exchanges. 
Mr.  Archer,  who  had  voted  against  the  first 
bank,  and  who  was  constitutionally  opposed  to 
a  national  bank,  made  a  speech  chiefly  to  justify 
his  vote  in  favor  of  the  present  bill.  It  was 
well  known  that  no  alteration  would  be  permit- 
ted in  the  bill — that  it  had  been  arranged  out 
of  doors,  and  was  to  stand  as  agreed  upon  :  but 
some  senators  determined  to  oifer  amendments, 
merely  to  expose  the  character  of  the  measure, 
to  make  attacks  upon  the  most  vulnerable 
points  ;  and  to  develope  the  spirit  which  con- 
ducted it.  In  this  sense  Mr.  Benton  acted  in 
presenting  several  amendments,  deemed  proper 
in  themselves,  and  which  a  foreknowledge  of 
their  fate  would  not  prevent  him  from  offering. 
The  whole  idea  of  the  institution  was,  that  it 
was  to  be  a  treasury  bank ;  and  hence  the  per- 
tinacity with  which  "  fiscal,"  synonymous  with 
treasury,  was  retained  in  all  the  titles,  and  con- 
formed to  in  all  its  provisions :  and  upon  this 
idea  the  offered  amendments  turned.  • 

"  Mr.  Benton  said  he  had  an  amendment  to 
offer,  which  the  Senate  would  presently  see  was 
of  great  importance.  It  was,  to  strike  out  from 
the  ninth  line  of  the  first  section  the  word 
"States."  It  was  in  that  provision  assigning 
seventy  thousand  shares  to  individual  companies, 
corporations,  or  States.  This  was  a  new  kind 
of  stockholders  :  a  new  description  of  co-part- 
ners with  stockjobbers  in  a  banking  corporation. 
States  had  no  right  to  be  seduced  into  such  com- 
pany ;  he  would  therefore  move  to  have  them 
struck  out :  let  the  word  "  States  "  be  taken  out 
of  that  line.  To  comprehend  the  full  force  and 
bearing  of  this  amendment  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  keep  in  view  that  the  sixteenth  section 
of  this  charter  designates  the  Fiscal  Corporation 
the  Treasury  of  the  United  States.  It  expressly 
says  that — 

" '  All  public  moneys  in  deposit  in  said  corporation,  or  stand- 
ing on  its  books  to  the  credit  of  the  Treasurer,  shall  be  taken 
and  deemed  to  be  in  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States,  and 
all  payments  made  by  the  Treasurer  shall  be  in  checks  drawn 
on  said  corporation.' " 

"  Yes,  sir  !  this  Fisc  is  to  be  the  Treasury  of 
the  United  States ;  and  the  Treasury  of  the 
United  States  is  to  be  converted  into  a  corpora- 
tion, and  not  only  forced  into  partnership  with 
individuals,  companies,  and  corporations,  but 
into  joint  stock  co-partnership  with  the  States. 
The .  general  government  is  to  appoint  three 
directors,  and  the  rest  of  the  partners  will  have 
the  appointment  of  the  other  six.    The  corpora- 


tors will  be  two  to  one  against  the  general  gov- 
ernment, and  they  will  of  course  have  the  con- 
trol of  the  Treasury  of  this  Union  in  their  hands. 
Now  he  was  for  sticking  to  the  constitution,  not 
only  in  spirit  and  meaning,  but  to  the  letter ; 
and  the  constitution  gives  no  authority  to  indi- 
viduals, companies,  corporations,  and  States,  to 
take  the  public  Treasury  of  the  Union  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  general  government.  The 
general  government  alone,  and  acting  independ- 
ently of  any  such  control,  is  required  by  the 
constitution  to  manage  its  own  fiscal  affairs. 
Here  it  is  proposed  to  retain  only  one-third  of 
the  control  of  this  Treasury  in  the  hands  of  the 
general  government — the  other  two-thirds  may 
fall  exclusively  into  the  hands  of  the  States,  and 
thus  the  Treasury  of  the  whole  Union  may  be 
at  the  disposal  of  such  States  as  can  contrive  to 
possess  themselves  of  the  two-thirds  of  the  stock 
they  are  authorized  to  take.  If  it  is  the  object 
to  let  those  States  have  the  funds  of  the  Trea- 
sury to  apply  to  their  own  use,  the  scheme  is 
well  contrived  to  attain  that  end.  He,  however, 
was  determined  not  to  let  that  plan  be  carried 
without  letting  the  people  know  who  were  its 
supporters ;  he  should,  therefore,  demand  the 
yeas  and  nays  on  his  amendment." 

"Mr.  Berrien  explained  that  the  objection 
raised  against  the  sixteenth  section  was  merely 
technical.  The  words  did  not  convert  the  bank 
into  the  United  States  Treasury ;  they  merely 
provided  for  a  conformity  with  laws  regulating 
the  lodgment  and  withdrawal  of  Treasury  funds. 
The  question  was  then  taken  on  the  amendment, 
which  was  rejected  as  follows :  Yeas — Messrs. 
Allen,  Benton,  Buchanan,  Clay  of  Alabama,  King, 
Linn,  McRoberts,  Mouton,  Nicholson,  Pierce,  Se- 
vier, Smith  of  Connecticut,  Sturgeon,  Tappan, 
Walker,  Woodbury,  Wright,  and  Young — 18. 
Nays — Messrs.  Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Berrien, 
Choate,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clayton,  Dixon,  Ev- 
ans, Graham,  Henderson,  Huntington,  Kerr, 
Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead,  Phelps, 
Porter,  Prentiss,  Preston,  Rives,  Simmons, 
Smith  of  Indiana,  Southard,  Tallmadge,  White, 
and  Woodbridge— 28." 

Mr.  Benton  then  moved  to  strike  out  "  corpo- 
rations "  from  the  enumeration  of  persons  and 
powers  which  should  possess  the  faculty  of  be- 
coming stockholders  in  this  institution,  with  the 
special  view  of  keeping  out  the  Pennsylvania 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  whose  name 
could  not  be  presented  openly  for  a  charter,  or 
re-charter : 

"  The  late  United  States  Bank  had  means  yet 
to  keep  a  cohort  of  lawyers,  agents,  cashiers, 
and  directors,  who  would  not  lose  sight  of  the 
hint,  and  who  were  panting  to  plunge  their 
hands  into  Uncle  Sam's  pocket.  There  was 
nothing  to  prevent  the  corporators  of  the  late 
United  States  Bank  becoming  the  sole  owners 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


339 


of  these  two-thirds  of  the  stock  in  the  new  Fis- 
cally. The  sixteenth  fundamental  rule  of  the 
eleventh  section  is  the  point  where  we  are  to 
find  the  constitutionality  of  this  Fiscality.  The 
little  pet  banks  of  every  State  may  be  employed 
as  agents.  This  is  a  tempting  bait  for  every  in- 
solvent institution  in  want  of  Treasury  funds  to 
strain  every  nerve  and  resort  to  every  possible 
scheme  for  possessing  themselves  of  the  control 
of  the  funds  of  the  United  States.  This  object 
was  to  defeat  such  machinations.  On  this  amend- 
ment he  would  demand  the  yeas  and  nays.  The 
question  was  then  taken  on  the  amendment, 
and  decided  in  the  negative  as  follows  :  Yeas — 
Messrs.  Allen,  Benton,  Buchanan,  Calhoun,  Clay 
of  Alabama,  Fulton,  King,  Linn,  McRoberts, 
Mouton,  Nicholson,  Pierce,  Rives,  Sevier,  Smith 
of  Connecticut,  Sturgeon,  Tappan,  Walker, 
Woodbury,  Wright,  and  Young — 21.  Nays — 
Messrs.  Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Berrien,  Choate, 
Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clayton,  Dixon,  Evans,  Gra- 
ham, Henderson,  Huntington,  Kerr,  Mangum, 
Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead,  Phelps,  Porter,  Pren- 
tiss, Preston,  Simmons,  Smith  of  Indiana,  Tall- 
madge,  White,  and  Woodbridge — 26." 

Mr.  Rives  objected  to  the  exchange  dealings 
which  this  fiscal  corporation  was  to  engage  in, 
as  being  discounts  when  the  exchange  had  some 
time  to  run.  He  referred  to  his  former  opin- 
ions, and  corrected  a  misapprehension  of  Mr. 
Berrien.  He  was  opposed  to  discounts  in  every 
form  ;  while  this  bill  authorizes  discounts  to 
any  amount  on  bills  of  exchange.  He  offered 
no  amendment,  but  wished  to  correct  the  mis- 
understanding of  Mr.  Berrien,  who  held  that 
this  bill,  in  this  particular,  was  identical  with 
the  amendment  offered  to  the  first  bill  by  Mr. 
Rives,  and  that  it  was  in  strict  conformity  with 
the  President's  message. 

"  Mr.  Benton  fully  concurred  with  the  sena- 
tor from  Virginia  [Mr.  Rives],  that  cashing 
bills  of  exchange  was  just  as  much  a  discounting 
operation  as  discounting  promissory  notes  ;  it 
was,  in  fact,  infinitely  worse.  It  was  the  great- 
est absurdity  in  the  world,  to  suppose  that  the 
flimsy  humbug  of  calling  the  discounting  of 
bills  of  exchange — gamblers'  kites,  and  race- 
horse bills  of  exchange — a  'dealing  in  ex- 
changes '  within  the  meaning  of  the  terms  used 
in  the  President's  veto  message.  As  if  the 
President  could  be  bamboozled  by  such  a  shal- 
low artifice.  Only  look  at  the  operation  under 
this  bill.  A  needy  adventurer  goes  to  one  of 
these  agencies,  and  offers  his  promissory  note 
with  securities,  in  the  old-fashioned  way,  but  is 
told  it  cannot  be  discounted — the  law  is  against 
it.  The  law,  however,  may  be  evaded  if  he  put 
his  note  into  another  shape,  making  one  of  his 
sureties  the  drawer,  and  making  the  other,  who 


lives  beyond  the  State  line,  his  drawee,  in  favor 
of  himself,  as  endorser ;  and  in  that  shape  the 
kite  will  be  cashed,  deducting  the  interest  and 
a  per  centage  besides  in  the  shape  of  exchange. 
Here  is  discount  added  to  usury ;  and  is  not 
that  worse  than  discounting  promissory  notes  ?" 

The  President  had  dwelt  much  upon  "  local 
discounts,"  confining  the  meaning  of  that  phrase 
to  loans  obtained  on  promissory  notes.  He  did 
not  consider  money  obtained  upon  a  bill  of  ex- 
change as  coming  under  that  idea — nor  did  it 
when  it  was  an  exchange  of  money — when  it 
was  the  giving  of  money  in  one  place  for  money 
in  another  place.  But  that  true  idea  of  a  bill 
of  exchange  was  greatly  departed  from  when  the 
drawer  of  the  bill  had  no  money  at  the  place 
drawn  on,  and  drew  upon  time,  and  depended 
upon  getting  funds  there  in  time  ;  or  taking  up 
the  bill  with  damages  when  it  returned  pro- 
tested. Money  obtained  that  way  was  a  dis- 
count obtained,  and  on  far  worse  terms  for  the 
borrower,  and  better  for  the  bank,  than  on  a 
fair  promissory  note  :  and  the  rapacious  banks 
forced  their  loans,  as  much  as  possible  into  this 
channel.  So  that  this  fiscal  bank  was  limited 
to  do  the  very  thing  it  wished  to  do,  and  which 
was  so  profitable  to  itself  and  so  oppressive  to 
the  borrower.  This,  Mr.  Tappan,  of  Ohio, 
showed  in  a  concise  speech. 

"Mr.  Tappan  said,  when  senators  on  the 
other  side  declare  that  this  bank  bill  is  intended 
to  withhold  from  the  corporation  created  by  it 
the  power  of  making  loans  and  discounts,  he 
felt  himself  bound  to  believe  that  such  was 
their  honest  construction  of  it.  He  was,  how- 
ever, surprised  that  any  man,  in  the  slightest 
degree  acquainted  with  the  banking  business 
of  the  country,  who  had  read  this  bill,  should 
suppose  that,  under  its  provisions,  the  company 
incorporated  by  it  would  not  have  unlimited 
power  to  loan  their  paper  and  to  discount  the 
paper  of  their  customers.  The  ninth  funda- 
mental article  says,  that  '  the  said  corporation 
shall  not,  directly  or  indirectly,  deal  or  trade 
in  any  thing  except  foreign  bills  of  exchange, 
including  bills  or  drafts  drawn  in  one  Slate 
or  Territory  and  payable  in  another.'1  This 
bill,  in  this  last  clause,  sanctioned  a  mode  of 
discounting  paper,  and  making  loans  common 
in  the  Western  country.  He  spoke  of  a  mode 
of  doing  business  which  he  had  full  knowledge 
of,  and  he  asked  senators,  therefore,  to  look  at 
it.  A  man  who  wants  a  loan  from  a  bank  ap- 
plies to  the  directors,  and  is  told,  we  can  lend 
you  the  money,  but  we  do  not  take  notes  for 
our  loans — you  must  give  us  a  draft ;  but,  says 
the  applicant,  I  have  no  funds  any  where  to 


340 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


draw  upon  ;  no  matter,  say  the  bankers,  if  your 
draft  is  not  met,  or  expected  to  be  met,  because 
you  have  no  funds,  that  need  make  no  differ- 
ence ;  you  may  pay  it  here,  with  the  exchange, 
when  the  time  it  has  to  run  is  out;  so  the 
borrower  signs  a  draft  or  bill  of  exchange  on 
somebody  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  or  Bal- 
timore, and  pays  the  discount  for  the  time  it 
has  to  run ;  when  that  time  comes  round,  the 
borrower  pays  into  the  bank  the  amount  of  his 
draft,  with  two,  four,  six,  or  ten  per  cent.,  what- 
ever the  rate  of  exchange  may  be,  and  the  affair 
is  settled,  and  he  gets  a  renewal  for  sixty  days, 
by  further  paying  the  discount  on  the  sum  bor- 
rowed ;  and  if  it  is  an  accommodation  loan,  it 
is  renewed  from  time  to  time  by  paying  the 
discount  and  exchange.  Very  few  of  the  West- 
ern banks,  he  believed,  discounted  notes ;  they 
found  it  much  more  profitable  to  deal  in  ex- 
change, as  it  is  called ;  but  this  dealing  in  ex- 
change enables  the  banks  to  discount  as  much 
paper,  and  to  loan  as  much  of  their  own  notes, 
as  the  old-fashioned  mode  of  discounting ;  it  is 
a  difference  in  form  merely,  with  this  advantage 
to  the  banks,  that  it  enables  them  to  get  from 
their  customers  ten  or  twelve  per  cent,  on  their 
loans,  instead  of  six,  to  which,  in  discounting 
notes,  they  are  usually  restricted.  How  then, 
he  asked,  could  senators  say  that  this  bill  did 
not  give  the  power  to  make  loans  and  discounts  ? 
He  had  shown  them  how,  under  this  law,  both 
loans  and  discounts  will  be  made  without  limi- 
tation." 

Mr.  Benton  then  went  on  with  offering  his 
amendments,  and  offered  one  requiring  all  the 
stockholders  in  this  corporation  Fisc  (which 
was  to  be  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States), 
to  be  citizens  of  the  United  States,  for  the  ob- 
vious reason  of  preventing  the  national  treasury 
from  falling  under  the  control  of  foreigners. 
M.  Berrien  considered  the  amendment  unneces- 
sary, as  there  was  already  a  provision  that  none 
but  citizens  of  the  United  States  should  take 
the  original  stock ;  and  the  only  effect  of  the 
provision  would  be  to  lessen  the  value  of  the 
stock.  Mr.  Benton  considered  this  provision  as 
a  fraudulent  contrivance  to  have  the  appearance 
of  excluding  foreigners  from  being  stockholders 
while  not  doing  so.  The  prohibition  upon  them 
as  original  subscribers  was  nothing,  when  they 
were  allowed  to  become  stockholders  by  pur- 
chase. His  amendment  was  intended  to  make 
the  charter  what  it  fraudulently  pretended  to 
be — a  bank  owned  by  American  citizens.  The 
word  "original"  would  be  a  fraud  unless  the 
prohibition  was  extended  to  assignees.  And 
he  argued  that  the  senator  from  Georgia  (Mr. 
Berrien),  had  admitted  the  design  of  selling  to 


foreigners  by  saying  that  the  value  of  the  stock 
would  be  diminished  by  excluding  foreigners 
from  its  purchase.  He  considered  the  answer 
of  the  senator  double,  inconsistent,  and  contra- 
dictory. He  first  considered  the  amendment 
unnecessary,  as  the  charter  already  confined 
original  subscriptions  to  our  own  citizens ; 
and  then  considered  it  would  injure  the  price 
of  the  stock  to  be  so  limited.  That  was  a  con- 
tradiction. The  fact  was,  he  said,  that  this  bill 
was  to  resurrect,  by  smuggling,  the  old  United 
States  Bank,  which  was  a  British  concern ;  and 
that  the  effect  would  be  to  make  the  British  the 
governors  and  masters  of  our  treasury :  and  he 
asked  the  yeas  and  nays  on  his  motion,  which 
was  granted,  and  they  stood — 19  to  26.  and 
were  :  Yeas — Messrs.  Allen,  Benton,  Buchanan, 
Clay  of  Alabama,  Cuthbert,  Fulton,  King,  Linn, 
McRoberts,  Mouton,  Nicholson,  Pierce,  Sevier, 
Sturgeon.  Tappan,  Walker,  Woodbury,  Wright, 
and  Young — 19.  Nays — Messrs.  Archer,  Bar- 
row, Bates,  Berrien,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clayton, 
Dixon,  Evans,  Graham,  Henderson,  Hunting- 
ton, Kerr,  Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead, 
Phelps,  Porter,  Prentiss,  Preston,  Rives,  Sim- 
mons, Smith,  of  Indiana,  Tallmadge,  White, 
and  Woodbridge — 20.  Considering  this  a  vital 
question,  and  one  On  which  no  room  should  be 
left  for  the  majority  to  escape  the  responsi- 
bility of  putting  the  United  States  Treasury  in 
the  hands  of  foreigners — even  alien  enemies  in 
time  of  war,  as  well  as  rival  commercial  com- 
petitors in  time  of  peace — Mr.  Benton  moved 
the  same  prohibition  in  a  different  form.  It  was 
to  affix  it  to  the  eleventh  fundamental  rule  of 
the  eleventh  section  of  the  bill,  which  clothes 
the  corporation  with  power  to  make  rules  to 
govern  the  assignment  of  stock :  his  amend- 
ment was  to  limit  these  assignments  to  Ameri- 
can citizens.  That  was  different  from  his  first 
proposed  amendment,  which  included  both  origi- 
nal subscribers  and  assignees.  The  senator 
from  Georgia  objected  to  that  amendment  as 
unnecessary,  because  it  included  a  class  already 
prohibited  as  well  as  one  that  was  not.  Cer- 
tainly it  was  unnecessary  with  respect  to  one 
class,  but  necessary  with  respect  to  the  other — 
necessary  in  the  estimation  of  all  who  were 
not  willing  to  see  the  United  States  Treasury 
owned  and  managed  by  foreigners.  He  wished 
now  to  hear  what  the  senator  from  Georgia 
could  say  against  the  proposed  amendment,  in 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


341 


this  form.  Mr.  Berrien  answered :  "  He  hoped 
the  amendment  would  not  prevail.  The  origi- 
nal subscribers  would  be  citizens  of  the  United 
States.  To  debar  them  from  transferring  their 
stock,  would  be  to  lessen  the  value  of  the  stock, 
which  they  rendered  valuable  by  becoming  the 
purchasers  of  it."  Mr.  Benton  rejoined,  that 
his  amendment  did  not  propose  to  prevent  the 
original  subscribers  from  selling  their  stock,  or 
any  assignee  from  selling ;  the  only  design  of 
the  amendment  was  to  limit  all  these  sales  to 
American  citizens  ;  and  that  would  be  its  only 
effect  if  adopted.  And  as  to  the  second  objec- 
tion, a  second  time  given,  that  it  would  injure 
the  value  of  the  stock,  he  said  it  was  a  strange 
argument,  that  the  paltry  difference  of  value  in 
shares  to  the  stockholders  should  outweigh  the 
danger  of  confiding  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States  to  foreigners — subjects  of  foreign  poten- 
tates. He  asked  the  yeas,  which  were  granted 
— and  stood — 21  to  27 :  the  same  as  before, 
with  the  addition  of  some  senators  who  had 
come  in.  These  several  proposed  amendments, 
and  the  manner  in  which  they  were  rejected, 
completed  the  exposure  of  the  design  to  resus- 
citate the  defunct  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
just  as  it  had  been,  with  its  foreign  stock- 
holders, and  extraordinary  privileges.  It  was 
to  be  the  old  bank  revived,  disguised,  and  smug- 
gled in.  It  was  to  have  the  same  capital  as  the 
old  one — thirty-five  millions  :  for  while  it  said 
the  capital  was  to  be  twenty-one  millions,  there 
was  a  clause  enabling  Congress  to  add  on  four- 
teen millions — which  it  would  do  as  soon  as  the 
bill  passed.  Like  the  old  bank,  it  was  to  have  the 
United  States  for  a  partner,  owning  seven  mil- 
lions of  the  stock.  The  stock  was  all  to  go  to 
the  old  Bank  of  the  United  States  ;  for  the 
subscriptions  were  to  be  made  with  commis- 
sioners appointed  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Trea- 
sury—who, it  was  known,  would  appoint  the 
friends  of  the  old  bank ;  so  that  the  whole  sub- 
scription would  be  in  her  hands ;  and  a  char- 
ter for  her  fraudulently  and  deceptiously  ob- 
tained. The  title  of  the  bill  was  fraudulent, 
being  limited  to  the  management  of  the  "pub- 
lic" moneys,  while  the  body  of  it  conferred 
all  the  privileges  known  to  the  three  distinct 
kinds  of  banks : — 1.  Circulation.  2.  Exchange. 
3.  Discount  and  deposit — the  discount  being  in 
the  most  oppressive  and  usurious  form  on  in- 
land and  mere  neighborhood  bills  of  exchange, 


declared  by  the  charter  to  be  foreign  bills  for 
the  mere  purpose  of  covering  these  local  loans. 

"Mr.  Walker  moved  an  amendment,  re- 
quiring that  the  bills  in  which  the  Bank  should 
deal  should  be  drawn  at  short  dates,  and  on 
goods  already  actually  shipped.  It  was  nega- 
tived by  yeas  and  nays,  as  follows: — Yeas — 
Messrs.  Allen,  Benton,  Buchanan,  Calhoun, 
Clay  of  Alabama,  Fulton,  King,  Linn,  McRob- 
erts,  Mouton,  Nicholson,  Pierce,  Rives,  Sevier, 
Smith  of  Connecticut,  Sturgeon,  Tappan,  Walk- 
er, Woodbury,  Wright,  and  Young — 21.  Nays 
— Messrs.  Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Berrien, 
Choate,  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Clayton,  Dixon, 
Evans,  Graham,  Henderson,  Huntington,  Kerr, 
Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead,  Phelps, 
Porter,  Prentiss,  Preston,  Simmons,  Smith  of 
Indiana,  Southard,  Tallmadge,  White,  and  Wood- 
bridge — 27.  Mr.  Allen  moved  an  amendment 
to  make  the  directors,  in  case  of  suspension, 
personally  liable  for  the  debts  of  the  bank. 
This  was  negatived  as  follows  :  Yeas — Messrs. 
Allen,  Benton,  Buchanan,  Clay  of  Alabama, 
Cuthbert,  Fulton,  King,  Linn,  McRoberts,  Mou- 
ton, Nicholson,  Pierce,  Sevier,  Smith  of  Con- 
necticut, Sturgeon,  Tappan,  Walker,  Woodbury, 
Wright,  and  Young — 20.  Nays — Messrs.  Ar- 
cher, Barrow,  Bates,  Berrien,  Choate,  Clay  of 
Kentucky,  Clayton,  Dixon,  Evans,  Graham, 
Henderson,  Huntington,  Kerr,  Mangum,  Mer- 
rick, Miller,  Morehead,  Phelps,  Porter,  Pren- 
tiss, Preston,  Rives,  Simmons,  Smith  of  Indiana, 
Southard,  Tallmadge,  White,  and  Woodbridge 
—28." 

The  character  of  the  bill  having  been  shown 
by  the  amendments  offered  and  rejected,  there 
was  no  need  to  offer  any  more,  and  the  demo- 
cratic senators  ceased  opposition,  that  the  vote 
might  be  taken  on  the  bill :  it  was  so ;  and  the 
bill  was  passed  by  the  standing  majority.  Con- 
curred in  by  the  Senate  without  alteration,  it 
was  returned  to  the  House,  and  thence  referred 
to  the  President  for  his  approval,  or  disapproval. 
It  was  disapproved,  and  returned  to  the  House, 
with  a  message  stating  his  objections  to  it ; 
where  it  gave  rise  to  some  violent  speaking, 
more  directed  to  the  personal  conduct  of  the 
President  than  to  the  objections  to  the  bill 
stated  in  his  message.  In  this  debate  Mr. 
Botts,  of  Virginia,  was  the  chief  speaker  on  one 
side,  inculpating  the  President :  Mr.  Gilmer  of 
Virginia,  and  Mr.  Proffit  of  Indiana,  on  the 
other  were  the  chief  respondents  in  his  favor. 
The  vote  being  taken  there  appeared  103  for 
the  bill,  80  against  it— which  not  being  a  ma- 
jority of  two-thirds,  the  bill  was  rejected :  and 
so  ends  the  public  and  ostensible  history  of  the 


342 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


second  attempt  to  establish  a  national  bank  at 
this  brief  session  under  the  guise,  and  disguise, 
of  a  misnomer :  and  a  long  one  at  that. 

The  negative  votes,  when  rejected  on  the  final 
vote  for  want  of  two-thirds  of  the  House,  were : 

"  Messrs.  Archibald  H.  Arrington,  Charles  G. 
Atherton,  Linn  Banks,  Benjamin  A.  Bidlack, 
Linn  Boyd,  David  P.  Brewster,  Aaron  V.  Brown, 
Charles  Brown,  William  0.  Butler,  Patrick  C. 
Caldwell,  John  Campbell,  Reuben  Chapman, 
James  G.  Clinton,  Walter  Coles,  Richard  D. 
Davis,  John  B.  Dawson,  Ezra  Dean,  Andrew 
W.  Doig,  Ira  A.  Eastman,  John  0.  Edwards, 
Joseph  Egbert,  Charles  G.  Ferris,  John  G. 
Floyd,  Charles  A.  Floyd,  Joseph  Fornance, 
James  Gerry,  Thomas  W.  Gilmer,  William  0. 
Goode,  Amos  Gustine,  William  A.  Harris,  John 
Hastings,  Samuel  L.  Hays,  Isaac  E.  Holmes, 
George  W.  Hopkins,  Jacob  Houck,jr.,  George 
S.  Houston,  Edmund  W.  Hubard,  Robert  M.  T. 
Hunter,  Charles  J.  Ingersoll,  William  W.  Ir- 
win, William  Jack,  Cave  Johnson,  John  W. 
Jones,  George  M.  Keim,  Andrew  Kennedy, 
Dixon  H.  Lewis,  Abraham  McClellan,  Robert 
McClellan,  James  J.  McKay,  John  McKeon, 
Francis  Mallory,  Albert  G.  Marchand,  John 
Thompson  Mason,  James  Mathews,  William 
Medill,  John  Miller,  Peter  Newhard,  William 
Parmenter,  Samuel  Patridge,  Wm.  W.  Payne, 
Arnold  Plumer,  George  H.  Proffit,  John  Rey- 
nolds, R.  Barnwell  Rhett,  Lewis  Riggs,  James 
Rogers,  Tristram  Shaw,  Benjamin  G.  Shields, 
John  Snyder,  Lewis  Steenrod,  George  Sweney, 
Hopkins  L.  Turney,  John  Van  Buren,  Aaron 
Ward,  Harvey  M.  Watterson,  John  B.  Weller, 
John  Westbrook,  James  W.  Williams,  Henry 
A.  Wise,  Fernando  Wood. 


CHAPTER    LXXXII. 

SECRET  HISTORY  OF  THE  SECOND  BILL  FOR  A 
FISCAL  AGENT,  CALLED  FISCAL  CORPORATION: 
ITS  ORIGIN  WITH  MR.  TYLER :  ITS  PROGRESS 
THROUGH  CONGRESS  UNDER  HIS  LEAD:  ITS 
REJECTION  UNDER  HIS  VETO. 

Soon  after  the  meeting  of  Congress  in  this  ex- 
tra session — in  the  course  of  the  first  week  of  it 
— Mr.  Gilmer,  of  Virginia,  held  a  conversation 
with  a  whig  member  of  the  House,  in  which  he 
suggested  to  him  that  "  a  couple  of  gentlemen 
of  about  their  size,"  might  become  important 
men  in  this  country — leading  men — and  get  the 
control  of  the  government.  An  explanation 
was  requested — and  given.  It  was  to  with- 
draw Mr.  Tyler  from  the  whig  party,  and  make 
him  the  head  of  a  third  party,  in  which  those 


who  did  it  would  become  chiefs,  and  have  con- 
trol in  the  administration.  This  was  the  ex- 
planation ;  and  the  scheme  was  based,  not  upon 
any  particular  circumstances,  but  upon  a  know- 
ledge of  Mr.  Tyler's  character  and  antecedents : 
and  upon  a  calculation  that  he  would  be  dazzled 
with  the  idea  of  being  the  head  of  a  party,  and 
let  the  government  fall  into  the  hands  of  those 
who  pleased  him — his  indolence,  and  want  of 
business  habits  disqualifying  him  for  the  labors 
of  administration.  Democratic  doctrines  were 
to  be  the  basis  of  the  new  party,  especially  op- 
position to  a  national  bank  :  but  recruits  from 
all  parties  received.  The  whig  member  to 
whom  this  suggestion  for  the  third  party  was 
made,  declined  to  have  any  thing  to  do  with  it : 
nor  was  he  further  consulted.  But  his  eyes 
were  opened,  and  he  had  to  see ;  and  he  saw 
other  whigs  do  what  he  would  not.  And  he 
had  received  a  clue  which  led  to  the  compre- 
hension of  things  which  he  did  not  see,  and  had 
got  an  insight  that  would  make  him  observant. 
But  his  lips  were  sealed  under  an  injunction ; 
and  remained  so,  as  far  as  the  public  was  con- 
cerned. I  never  heard  him  quoted  for  a  word 
on  the  subject ;  but  either  himself,  or  some  one 
equally  well  informed,  must  have  given  Mr. 
Clay  exact  information  ;  otherwise  he  could 
not  have  hit  the  nail  on  the  head  at  every  lick, 
as  he  did  in  his  replies  to  Mr.  Rives  and  Mr. 
Archer  in  the  debate  on  the  first  veto  message : 
as  shown  in  the  preceding  chapter. 

The  movement  went  on  :  Mr.  Tyler  fell  into 
it :  the  new  party  germinated,  microscopical- 
ly small ;  but  potent  in  the  President's  veto 
power.  A  national  bank  was  the  touchstone ; 
and  that  involved  a  courtship  with  the  democ- 
racy— a  breach  with  the  whigs.  The  democra- 
cy rejoiced,  and  patted  Mr.  Tyler  on  the  shoul- 
der— even  those  who  despised  the  new  party  : 
for  they  deemed  it  fair  to  avail  themselves  of  a 
treachery  of  which  they  were  not  the  authors  ; 
and  felt  it  to  be  a  retributive  justice  to  deprive 
the  whigs  of  the  fruits  of  a  victory  which  they 
had  won  by  log-cabin,  coonskin,  and  hard  cider 
tactics  ;  and  especially  to  effect  the  deprivation 
in  the  person  of  one  whom  they  had  taken  from 
the  democratic  camp,  and  set  up  against  his  old 
friends — the  more  annoying  to  them  because  he 
could  tell  of  their  supposed  misdeeds  when  he 
was  one  of  them.  To  break  their  heads  with 
such  a  stick  had  retribution  in  it.  as  well  as 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


343 


gratification:  and  Mr.  Tyler  was  greatly  ex- 
tolled. To  the  whigs,  it  was  a  galling  and  mor- 
tifying desertion,  and  ruinous  besides.  A  na- 
tional bank  was  their  life — the  vital  principle — 
without  which  they  could  not  live  as  a  party — 
the  power  which  was  to  give  them  power  : 
which  was  to  beat  down  their  adversaries — up- 
hold themselves — and  give  them  the  political 
and  the  financial  control  of  the  Union.  To  lose 
it,  was  to  lose  the  fruits  of  the  election,  with 
the  prospect  of  losing  the  party  itself.  Indig- 
nation was  their  pervading  feeling ;  but  the 
stake  was  too  great  to  be  given  up  in  a  pas- 
sion ;  and  policy  required  the  temporizing  ex- 
pedient of  conciliation — the  proud  spirit  of  Mr. 
Clay  finding  it  hard  to  bend  to  it ;  but  yielding 
a  little  at  first.  The  breach  with  the  whigs 
was  resolved  on :  how  to  effect  it  without  too 
much  rudeness — without  a  violence  which 
would  show  him  an  aggressor  as  well  as  a  de- 
serter— was  the  difficulty ;  and  indirect  methods 
were  taken  to  effect  it.  Newspapers  in  his 
interest — the  Madisonian  at  Washington  and 
Herald  at  New  York — vituperated  the  whig 
party,  and  even  his  cabinet  ministers.  Slights 
and  neglects  were  put  upon  those  ministers :  the 
bank  question  was  to  complete  the  breach  ;  but 
only  after  a  long  management  which  should  have 
the  appearance  of  keeping  faith  with  the  whigs, 
and  throwing  the  blame  of  the  breach  upon 
them.  This  brings  us  to  the  point  of  commenc- 
ing the  history  of  the  second  fiscal  bank  bill, 
ending  with  a  second  veto,  and  an  open  rupture 
between  the  President  and  the  whigs. 

The  beginning  of  the  second  bill  was  laid  in 
the  death  of  the  first  one  ;  as  the  seed  of  a  sep- 
aration from  his  cabinet  was  planted  in  the 
same  place.  The  first  veto  message,  in  reject- 
ing one  bill,  gave  promise  to  accept  another, 
and  even  defined  the  kind  of  bill  which  the 
President  could  approve  :  this  was  encouraging 
to  the  whigs.  But  that  first  veto  was  resolved 
upon,  and  the  message  for  it  drawn,  without 
consultation  with  his  cabinet — without  refer- 
ence to  them  ;  and  without  their  knowledge — 
except  from  hearsay  and  accident.  They  first 
got  wind  of  it  in  street  rumor,  and  in  para- 
graphs in  the  Madisonian,  and  in  letters  to  the 
New  York  Herald:  and  got  the  first  know- 
ledge of  it  from  coming  in  upon  the  President 
while  he  was  drawing  it.  This  was  a  great 
slight  to  his  cabinet,  and  very  unaccountable  to 
ministers  who,  only  two  short  months  before, 


had  been  solicited  to  remain  in  their  places — 
had  been  saluted  with  expressions  of  confi- 
dence ;  and  cheered  with  the  declaration  that 
their  advice  and  counsel  would  be  often  wanted. 
They  felt  the  slight  of  the  neglected  consulta- 
tion, as  well  as  the  disappointment  in  the  re- 
jected bill ;  but  the  President  consoled  them 
for  the  disappointment  (saying  nothing  about 
the  slight)  by  showing  himself  ready,  and  even 
impatient  for  another  bill.  This  readiness  for 
another  bill  is  thus  related  by  Mr.  Ewing,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  his  letter  of  resig- 
nation of  his  office  addressed  to  the  President ; 
dated  Sept.  11th,  1841 : 

"  On  the  morning  of  the  16th  of  August  I 
called  at  your  chamber,  and  found  you  prepar- 
ing the  first  veto  message,  to  be  despatched  to 
the  Senate.  The  Secretary  of  War  came  in  also, 
and  you  read  a  portion  of  the  message  to  us. 
He  observed  that  though  the  veto  would  create 
a  great  sensation  in  Congress,  yet  he  thought 
the  minds  of  our  friends  better  prepared  for  it 
than  they  were  some  days  ago,  and  he  hoped  it 
would  be  calmly  received,  especially  as  it  did 
not  shut  out  all  hope  of  a  bank.  To  this  you 
replied,  that  you  really  thought  that  there 
ought  to  be  no  difficulty  about  it ;  that  you 
had  sufficiently  indicated  the  kind  of  a  bank 
you  would  approve,  and  that  Congress  might, 
if  they  saw  fit,  pass  such  a  bill  in  three  days." 

Mr.  Bell,  the  Secretary  of  War,  referred  to  in 
the  foregoing  statement  of  Mr.  Ewing,  thus 
gives  his  account  of  the  same  interview  : 

"  I  called  on  the  President  on  official  business 
on  the  morning  of  Monday  the  16th  of  August, 
before  the  first  veto  message  was  sent  in.  I 
found  him  reading  the  message  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury.  He  did  me  the  honor  to  read 
the  material  passages  to  me.  Upon  reading 
that  part  of  it  which  treats  of  the  superior  im- 
portance and  value  of  the  business  done  by  the 
late  Bank  of  the  United  States  in  furnishing 
exchanges  between  different  States  and  sections 
of  the  Union,  I  was  so  strongly  impressed  with 
the  idea  that  he  meant  to  intimate  that  he 
would  have  no  objection  to  a  bank  which  should 
be  restricted  to  dealing  in  exchanges,  that  I  in- 
terrupted him  in  the  reading,  and  asked  if  I  was 
to  understand  (by  what  he  had  just  read)  that 
he  was  prepared  to  give  his  assent  to  a  bank  in 
the  District  of  Columbia,  with  offices  or  agen- 
cies in  the  States,  having  the  privilege,  without 
their  assent,  to  deal  in  exchanges  between  them, 
and  in  foreign  bills.  He  promptly  replied  that 
he  thought  experience  had  shown  the  necessity 
of  such  a  power  in  the  government.  And  (after 
some  further  remarks  favorable  to  such  a  bill) 
expressed  the  opinion  that  nothing  could  be 
more  easy  than  to  pass  a  bill  which  would  an- 


344 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


swer  all  necessary  purposes — that  it  could  be 
done  in  three  days." 

Such  are  the  concurrent  statements  of  two 
of  the  cabinet ;  and  Mr.  Alexander  A.  Stuart,  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  from 
Virginia,  thus  gives  his  statement  to  the  same 
effect  in  his  account  of  the  readiness  of  the 
President,  amounting  to  anxiety,  for  the  intro- 
duction and  passage  of  a  second  bill. 

*  After  the  adjournment  of  the  House  (on  the 
16th  of  August),  Mr.  Pearce  of  Maryland  (then 
a  representative  in  Congress,  now  a  senator) 
called  at  my  boarding-house,  and  informed  me 
that  he  was  induced  to  believe  that  there  was 
still  some  hope  of  compromising  the  difficulties 
between  Congress  and  the  President,  by  adopt- 
ing a  bank  bill  on  the  basis  of  a  proposition 
which  had  been  submitted  by  Mr.  Bayard 
(Richard  H.)  in  the  Senate,  modified  so  as  to 
leave  out  the  last  clause  which  authorized  the 
conversion  of  the  agencies  into  offices  of  dis- 
count and  deposit  on  certain  contingencies.  He 
produced  to  me  a  portion  of  the  Senate  journal, 
containing  that  proposition,  with  the  obnoxious 
clause  crossed  out  with  ink ;  and  requested  me 
to  visit  the  President  and  see  if  we  could  not 
adjust  the  difficulty.  At  first  I  declined,  but  at 
length  yielded  to  his  desire,  and  promised  to 
do  so.  About  5  o'clock,  I  drove  to  the  Presi- 
dent's house,  but  found  him  engaged  with  a  dis- 
tinguished democratic  senator.  This  I  thought 
rather  a  bad  omen ;  but  I  made  known  my  wish 
for  a  private  audience ;  which  in  a  few  minutes 
was  granted.  This  was  the  first  occasion  on 
which  I  had  ventured  to  approach  the  President 
on  the  subject.  I  made  known  to  him  at  once 
the  object  of  my  visit,  and  expressed  the  hope 
that  some  measure  might  be  adopted  to  heal 
the  division  between  himself  and  the  whig  party 
in  Congress.  I  informed  him  of  the  existence 
of  the  committee  to  which  I  referred,  and  men- 
tioned the1  names  of  those  who  composed  it, 
and  relied  on  their  age  and  known  character  for 
prudence  and  moderation,  as  the  best  guaran- 
tees of  the  conciliator}^  spirit  of  the  whig  party 
in  Congress.  He  seemed  to  meet  me  in  the 
proper  temper,  and  expressed  the  belief  that  a 
fair  ground  of  compromise  might  yet  be  agreed 
upon.  I  then  made  known  what  I  had  heard 
of  his  opinions  in  regard  to  Mr.  Bayard's  pro- 
position. He  asked  me  if  I  had  it  with  me  ? 
I  replied  in  the  affirmative,  and  produced  the 
paper,  which  had  been  given  to  me  by  Mr. 
Pearce  with  the  clause  struck  out,  as  above 
stated.  He  read  it  over  carefully,  and  said  it 
would  do,  making  no  objection  whatever  to  the 
clause  in  regard  to  the  establishment  of  agencies 
in  the  several  States  without  their  assent.  But 
he  said  the  capital  was  too  large,  and  referred 
to  Mr.  Appleton  and  Mr.  Jaudon  as  authority 
to  prove  that  ten  or  fifteen  millions  would  be 
enough.  I  objected  that  it  might  hereafter  be 
found  insufficient ;  and  as  the  charter  had  twenty 


years  to  run,  it  might  be  as  well  to  provide 
against  a  contingency  which  would  leave  the  gov- 
ernment dependent  on  the  bank  for  permission  to 
enlarge  the  capital ;  and  to  obviate  the  difficulty, 
I  suggested  the  propriety  of  giving  to  Congress 
the  power  to  increase  it  as  the  public  exigencies' 
should  require.  To  this  he  assented ;  and  by 
his  direction  I  made  the  note  on  the  margin  of 
the  paper ;  '  capital  to  be  15  millions  of  dollars 
— to  be  increased  at  the  option  of  Congress  when 
public  interests  require.'  The  President  then 
said  :  '  Now  if  you  will  send  me  this  bill  I  will 
sign  it  in  twenty-four  hours.'  (After  informing 
the  President  that  there  was  a  statute  in  Vir- 
ginia against  establishing  agencies  of  foreign 
banks  in  the  State,  he  said),  '  This  must  be  pro- 
vided for:'  and  he  then  took  the  paper  and 
wrote  on  the  margin  the  following  words,  which 
were  to  come  in  after  the  word  '  or,'  and  before 
the  word  'bank'  in  the  first  line  of  the  proposi- 
tion of  Mr.  Bayard,  (the  blank  line  in  this  paper), 
'In  case  such  agencies  are  forbidden  by  the 
laws  of  the  State.'  I  remonstrated  against  this 
addition  as  unnecessary,  and  not  meeting  the 
objection ;  but  he  said :  '  Let  it  stand  for  the 
present ;  I  will  think  about  it.' — The  President 
then  instructed  me  to  go  to  Mr.  Webster,  and 
have  the  bill  prepared  at  once ;  and  as  I  rose  to 
leave  him,  after  cautioning  me  not  to  expose 
him  to  the  charge  of  dictating  to  Congress,  he 
held  my  right  hand  in  his  left,  and  raising  his 
right  hand  upwards,  exclaimed  with  much  feel- 
ing :  k  Stuart !  if  you  can  be  instrumental  in 
passing  this  bill  through  Congress,  I  will  esteem 
you  the  best  friend  I  have  on  earth." 

The  original  paper  of  Mr.  Bayard,  here  refer- 
red to,  with  the  President's  autographic  emenda 
tions  upon  it,  were  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Ben- 
ton, and  burnt  in  the  conflagration  of  his  house, 
books  and  papers,  in  February,  1855. 

These  statements  from  Messrs.  Ewing,  Bell, 
and  Stuart  are  enough  (though  others  might 
be  added)  to  show  that  Mr.  Tyler,  at  the  time 
that  he  sent  in  the  first  veto  message,  was  in 
favor  of  a  second  bill — open  and  earnest  in 
his  professions  for  it — impatient  for  its  ad- 
vent—and ready  to  sign  it  within  twenty-four 
hours.  The  only  question  is  whether  these 
professions  were  sincere,  or  only  phrases  to  de- 
ceive the  whigs — to  calm  the  commotion  which 
raged  in  their  camp — and  of  which  he  was  well  in- 
formed— and  to  avert  the  storm  which  was  ready 
to  burst  upon  him ;  trusting  all  the  while  to  the 
chapter  of  contingencies  to  swamp  the  bill  in 
one  of  the  two  Houses,  or  to  furnish  pretexts 
for  a  second  veto  if  it  should  come  back  to  his 
hands.  The  progress  of  the  narrative  must 
solve  the  problem;  and,  therefore,  let  it  pro- 
ceed. 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


345 


The  18th  of  August— the  day  on  which  Mr. 
Clay  was  to  have  spoken  in  the  Senate  on  the 
first  veto  message,  and  which  subject  was 
then  postponed  on  the  motion  of  Mr.  Ber- 
rien for  reasons  which  he  declined  to  state — 
Mr.  Tyler  had  a  meeting  with  his  cabinet,  in 
which  the  provisions  of  the  new  bill  were  dis- 
cussed, and  agreed  upon  —  the  two  members 
picked  out  (one  in  each  House—  Mr.  Sergeant 
and  Mr.  Berrien)  to  conduct  it — the  cabinet 
invited  to  stand  by  him  (the  President)  and  see 
that  the  bill  passed.  Mr.  Ewing  gives  this  ac- 
count, of  this  days'  work,  in  his  letter  of  resigna- 
tion addressed  to  the  President. 

"  I  then  said  to  you,  '  I  have  no  doubt  that  the 
House  having  ascertained  your  views  will  pass 
a  bill  in  conformity  to  them,  provided  they  can 
be  satisfied  that  it  would  answer  the  purposes 
of  the  Treasury,  and  relieve  the  country.'  You 
then  said,  '  cannot  my  cabinet  see  that  this  is 
brought  about  ?  You  must  stand  by  me  in  this 
emergency.  Cannot  you  see  that  a  bill  passes 
Congress  such  as  I  can  approve  without  incon- 
sistency 1 '  I  declared  again  my  belief  that  such 
a  bill  might  be  passed.  And  you  then  said  to 
me,  '  what  do  you  understand  to  be  my  opin- 
ions ?  State  them :  so  that  I  may  see  that 
there  is  no  misapprehension  about  them.'  I 
then  said  that  I  understood  you  to  be  of  opin- 
ion that  Congress  might  charter  a  bank  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  giving  it  its  location  here. 
To  this  you  assented.  That  they  might  au- 
thorize such  bank  to  establish  offices  of  discount 
and  deposit  in  the  several  States,  with  the  assent 
of  the  States.  To  this  you  replied,  '  don't  name 
discounts  :  they  have  been  the  source  of  the 
most  abominable  corruptions,  and  are  wholly 
unnecessary  to  enable  the  bank  to  discharge  its 
duties  to  the  country  and  the  government.'  I 
observed  in  reply  that  I  was  proposing  nothing, 
but  simply  endeavoring  to  state  what  I  had  un- 
derstood to  be  your  opinion  as  to  the  powers 
which  Congress  might  constitutionally  confer  on 
a  bank ;  that  on  that  point  I  stood  corrected. 
I  then  proceeded  to  say  that  I  understood  you 
to  be  of  opinion  that  Congress  might  authorize 
such  bank  to  establish  agencies  in  the  several 
States,  with  power  to  deal  in  bills  of  exchange, 
without  the  assent  of  the  States,  to  which  you 
replied,  '  yes,  if  they  be  foreign  bills,  or  bills 
drawn  in  one  State  and  payable  in  another. 
That  is  all  the  power  necessary  for  transmitting 
the  public  funds  and  regulating  exchanges  and 
the  currency.'  Mr.  Webster  then  expressed, 
in  strong  terms,  his  opinion  that  such  a  charter 
would  answer  all  just  purposes  of  government 
and  be  satisfactory  to  the  people ;  and  declared 
his  preference  for  it  over  any  which  had  been 
proposed,  especially  as  it  dispensed  with  the  as- 
sent of  the  States  to  the  Greation  of  an  institu- 


tion necessary  for  carrying  on  the  fiscal  opera- 
tions of  government.  He  examined  it  at  some 
length,  both  as  to  its  constitutionality  and  its 
influence  on  the  currency  and  exchanges,  in  all 
which  views  you  expressed  your  concurrence, 
desired  that  such  a  bill  should  be  introduced, 
and  especially  that  it  should  go  into  the  hands 
of  some  of  yourfriends.  To  my  inquiry  whether 
Mr.  Sergeant  would  be  agreeable  to  you,  you 
replied  that  he  would.  You  especially  requested 
Mr.  Webster  and  myself  to  communicate  with 
Messrs.  Berrien  and  Sergeant  on  the  subject,  to 
whom  you  said  you  had  promised  to  address  a 
note,  but  you  doubted  not  that  this  personal 
communication  would  be  equally  satisfactory. 
You  desired  us,  also,  in  communicating  with 
those  gentlemen,  not  to  commit  you  personally, 
lest,  this  being  recognized  as  your  measure,  it 
might  be  made  a  subject  of  comparison  to  your 
prejudice  in  the  course  of  discussion.  You  and 
Mr.  Webster  then  conversed  about  the  particu- 
lar wording  of  the  lGth  fundamental  article, 
containing  the  grant  of  power  to  deal  in  ex- 
changes, and  of  the  connection  in  which  that 
grant  should  be  introduced ;  you  also  spoke  of 
the  name  of  the  institution,  desiring  that  that 
should  be  changed.  To  this  I  objected,  as  it 
would  probably  be  made  a  subject  of  ridicule, 
but  you  insisted  that  there  was  much  in  a  name, 
and  this  institution  ought  not  to  be  called  a 
bank.  Mr.  Webster  undertook  to  adapt  it  in 
this  particular  to  your  wishes.  Mr.  Bell  then 
observed  to  Mr.  Webster  and  myself  that  we 
had  no  time  to  lose ;  that  if  this  were  not  im- 
mediately attended  to,  another  bill,  less  accept- 
able, might  be  got  up  and  reported.  We  replied 
that  we  would  lose  no  time.  Mr.  Webster  ac- 
cordingly called  on  Messrs.  Berrien  and  Ser- 
geant immediately,  and  I  waited  on  them  by  his 
appointment  at  5  o'clock  on  the  same  day,  and 
agreed  upon  the  principles  of  the  bill  in  accord- 
ance with  your  expressed  wishes.  And  I  am 
apprised  of  the  fact,  though  it  did  not  occur  in 
my  presence,  that  after  the  bill  was  drawn  up, 
and  before  it  was  reported,  it  was  seen  and  ex- 
amined by  yourself;  that  your  attention  was 
specially  called  to  the  lGth  fundamental  article : 
that  on  full  examination  you  concurred  in  its 
provisions :  that  at  the  same  time  its  name  was 
so  modified  as  to  meet  your  approbation :  and 
the  bill  was  reported  and  passed,  in  all  essential 
particulars,  as  it  was  when  it  came  through  your 
hands." 

The  sixteenth  fundamental  article,  here  de- 
clared to  have  been  especially  examined  and 
approved  by  the  President,  was  the  part  of  the 
bill  on  which  he  afterwards  rested  his  objections 
to  its  approval,  and  the  one  that  had  been  pre- 
viously adjusted  to  suit  him  in  the  interview 
with  Mr.  Stuart :  Mr.  Sergeant,  and  Mr.  Berrien 
(mentioned  as  the  President's  choice  to  conduct 


346 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  bill  through  the  two  Houses),  were  the  two 
members  that  actually  did  it :  and  they  did  it 
with  a  celerity  which  subjected  themselves  to 
great  censure  ;  but  which  corresponded  with  the 
President's  expressed  desire  to  have  it  back  in 
three  days.  Every  part  of  the  bill  was  made  to 
suit  him.  The  title,  about  which  he  was  so 
solicitous  to  preserve  his  consistency,  and  about 
which  his  cabinet  was  so  fearful  of  incurring 
ridicule,  was  also  adjusted  to  his  desire.  Mr. 
Bell  says  of  this  ticklish  point :  "  A  name,  he 
(the  President)  said,  was  important.  What 
should  it  be  ?  Fiscal  Institute  would  do."  It 
was  objected  to  by  a  member  of  the  cabinet,  and 
Fiscal  Bank  preferred.  He  replied,  "  there  was 
a  great  deal  in  a  name,  and  he  did  not  want  the 
word  bank  to  appear  in  the  bill."  Finally, 
Fiscal  Corporation  was  agreed  upon.  Other 
members  of  the  cabinet,  in  their  letters  of  resig- 
nation, who  were  present  on  the  18th,  when  the 
bill  was  agreed  upon,  corroborated  the  state- 
ment of  Mr.  Ewing,  in  all  particulars.  Mr. 
Badger  said,  "  It  was  then  distinctly  stated  and 
understood  that  such  an  institution  (the  plan 
before  the  cabinet)  met  the  approbation  of  the 
President,  and  was  deemed  by  him  free  from 
constitutional  objections ;  that  he  desired  (if 
Congress  should  deem  it  necessary  to  act  upon 
the  subject  during  the  session)  that  such  an 
institution  should  be  adopted  by  that  body,  and 
that  the  members  of  his  cabinet  should  aid  in 
bringing  about  that  result :  and  Messrs.  Web- 
ster and  Ewing  were  specially  requested  by  the 
President  to  have  a  communication  on  the  sub- 
ject with  certain  members  of  Congress.  In  con- 
sequence of  what  passed  at  this  meeting  I  saw 
such  friends  in  Congress  as  I  deemed  it  proper 
to  approach,  and  urged  upon  them  the  passage 
of  a  bill  to  establish  such  an  institution  (the 
one  agreed  upon),  assuring  them  that  I  did  not 
doubt  it  would  receive  the  approbation  of  the 
President.  Mr.  Bell  is  full  and  particular  in  his 
statement,  and  especially  on  the  point  of  consti- 
tutionality in  the  16th  fundamental  article — 
the  reference  to  Mr.  Webster  on  that  point — 
his  affirmative  opinion,  and  the  concurrence  of 
the  President  in  it.  A  part  of  the  statement  is 
here  given — enough  for  the  purpose. 

"  The  President  then  gave  the  outline  of  such 
a  bank,  or  fiscal  institution,  as  he  thought  he 
could  sanction.  It  was  to  be  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,  to  have  the  privilege  of  issuing  its 


own  notes,  receive  moneys  on  deposit,  and  to 
deal  in  bills  of  exchange  between  the  States, 
and  between  the  United  States  and  foreign 
states.  But  he  wished  to  have  the  opinion  of 
his  cabinet  upon  it.  His  own  consistency  and 
reputation  must  be  looked  to.  He  considered 
his  cabinet  his  friends,  who  must  stand  by  and 
defend  whatever  he  did  upon  the  subject.  He 
appealed  particularly  to  Mr.  Webster,  for  his 
opinion  on  the  point  of  consistency ;  and  whe- 
ther there  was  not  a  clear  distinction  between 
the  old  bank  of  the  United  States — a  bank  of 
discount  and  deposit — and  the  one  he  now 
thought  of  proposing ;  and  whether  the  consti- 
tutional question  was  not  different.  He  re- 
minded us  that  in  all  his  former  speeches  and 
reports,  he  had  taken  the  ground  that  Congress 
had  no  constitutional  power  to  charter  a  bank 
which  had  the  power  of  local  discount.  Mr. 
Webster  pointed  out  the  distinction  between 
the  two  plans,  which  appeared  to  be  satisfactory 
to  him." 

On  the  point  of  having  himself  understood, 
and  all  chance  for  misunderstanding  obviated, 
the  President  was  very  particular,  and  requested 
Mr.  Ewing  to  repeat  what  he  (the  President) 
had  said.  Mr.  Ewing  did  so  ;  and  having  at  one 
point  deviated  from  the  President's  understand- 
ing, he  was  stopped — corrected — set  right ;  and 
then  allowed  to  go  on  to  the  end.  Mr.  Bell's 
own  words  must  tell  the  rest. 

"  The  President  said  he  was  then  understood. 
He  requested  Mr.  Webster  particularly  to  com- 
municate with  the  gentlemen  (Messrs.  Sergeant 
and  Berrien),  who  had  waited  upon  him  that 
morning,  and  to  let  them  know  the  conclusions 
to  which  he  had  come.  He  also  requested  Mr. 
Ewing  to  aid  in  getting  the  subject  properly  be- 
fore Congress.  He  requested  that  they  would 
take  care  not  to  commit  him  by  what  they  said 
to  members  of  Congress,  to  any  intention  to 
dictate  to  Congress.  They  might  express  their 
confidence  and  belief  that  such  a  bill  as  had  just 
been  agreed  upon  would  receive  his  sanction ; 
but  it  should  be  as  matter  of  inference  from  his 
veto  message  and  his  general  views.  He  thought 
he  might  request  that  the  measure  should  be 
put  into  the  hands  of  some  friend  of  hb  own 
upon  whom  he  could  rely.  Mr.  Sergeant  was 
named,  and  he  expressed  himself  satisfied  that 
he  should  have  charge  of  it.  He  also  expressed 
a  wish  to  see  the  bill  before  it  was  presented  to 
the  House,  if  it  could  be  so  managed." 

Thus  instructed  and  equipped,  the  members 
of  the  cabinet  went  forth  as  requested,  and  had 
such  success  in  preparing  a  majority  of  the  mem- 
bers of  each  House  for  the  reception  of  this  Fis- 
cal Corporation  bill,  and  for  its  acceptance  also, 
that  it  was  taken  up  to  the  exclusion  of  all  busi- 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


347 


ness,  hurried  along,  and  passed  incontinently — 
as  shown  in  the  public  history  of  the  bill  in  the 
preceding  chapter ;  and  with  such  disregard  of 
decent  appearances,  as  drew  upon  the  President's 
two  conductors  of  the  bill  (Messrs.  Sergeant 
and  Berrien)  much  censure  at  the  time — to  be 
vetoed,  like  the  first ;  and  upon  objections  to 
that  lGth  fundamental  rule,  which  had  been 
the  subject  of  such  careful  consideration — of 
autographic  correction — clear  understanding — 
and  solemn  ratification.  And  here  the  opportu- 
nity occurs,  and  the  occasion  requires,  the  cor- 
rection of  a  misapprehension  into  which  senators 
fell  (and  to  the  prejudice  of  Mr.  Berrien),  the 
day  he  disappointed  the  public  and  the  Senate 
in  putting  off  the  debate  on  the  first  veto  mes- 
sage, and  taking  up  the  bankrupt  bill.  He  de- 
clined to  give  a  reason  for  that  motion,  and  sus- 
picion assigned  it  to  an  imperious  requisition  on 
the  part  of  the  senators  who  had  taken  the 
bankrupt  act  to  their  bosoms,  and  who  held  the 
fate  of  Mr.  Clay's  leading  measures  in  their 
hands.  It  was  afterwards  known  that  this  was 
a  mistake,  and  that  this  postponement,  as  well 
as  the  similar  one  the  day  before,  were  both 
yielded  to  conciliate  Mr.  Tyler — to  save  him 
from  irritation  (for  he  had  a  nervous  terror  of 
Mr.  Clay's  impending  speech)  while  the  new 
bill  was  in  process  of  concoction.  This  pro- 
cess was  commenced  on  the  16th  of  August, 
continued  on  the  17th,  and  concluded  on  the 
18th.  Mr.  Clay  consented  to  the  postponement 
of  his  anti-veto  speech  both  on  the  17th  and  on 
the  18th,  not  to  disturb  this  concoction ;  and 
spoke  on  the  19th — being  the  day  after  the  pre- 
pared bill  had  been  completed,  and  confided  to 
its  sponsors  in  the  House  and  the  Senate.  All 
this  is  derived  from  Mr.  Alexander  A.  Stuart's 
subsequent  publication,  to  comprehend  which 
fully,  his  account  of  his  connection  with  the  sub- 
ject must  be  taken  up  from  the  moment  of  his 
leaving  the  President's  house,  that  night  of  the 
16th  ;  and  premising,  that  the  whig  joint  com- 
mittee of  which  he  speaks,  was  a  standing  little 
body  of  eminent  whigs,  whose  business  it  was 
to  fix  up  measures  for  the  action  of  the  whole 
party  in  Congress.  With  this  preliminary  view, 
the  important  statement  of  Mr.  Stuart  will  be 
given. 

"  Upon  leaving  the  President.  I  took  a  hack, 
and  drove  immediately  to  Mr.  Webster's  lodg- 
ings, which  were  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  city ; 


but.  unfortunately  he  was  not  at  home.  I  then 
returned  to  my  boarding-house,  where  I  told 
what  had  transpired  to  my  messmates,  Mr. 
Summers,  and  others.  After  tea  I  went  to  the 
meeting  of  the  joint  committee,  of  which  I  have 
already  spoken.  I  there  communicated  to  Mr. 
Sergeant,  before  the  committee  was  called  to 
order,  what  had  occurred  between  the  President 
and  myself.  When  the  committee  was  first  or- 
ganized there  was  a  good  deal  of  excitement,  and 
difference  of  opinion  ;  and  an  animated  debate 
ensued  on  various  propositions  which  were  sub- 
mitted. Finally  I  was  invited  by  Mr.  Sergeant 
to  state  to  the  committee  what  had  passed  be- 
tween the  President  and  myself;  which  I  did, 
accompanied  by  such  remarks  as  I  thought 
would  have  a  tendency  to  allay  excitement,  and 
lead  to  wise  and  dispassionate  conclusions.  After 
much  deliberation,  the  committee  concluded  to 
recommend  to  the  whig  party,  in  both  Houses 
of  Congress,  to  accede  to  the  President's  views. 
A  difficulty  was  then  suggested,  that  the  veto 
message  had  been  made  the  order  of  the  day  at 
noon,  and  Mr.  Clay  had  the  floor ;  and  it  was 
supposed  that  the  debate  might  possibly  assume 
such  a  character  as  to  defeat  our  purposes  of 
conciliation.  Mr.  Mangum  at  once  pledged  him- 
self that  Mr.  Clay  should  offer  no  obstacle  to 
the  adjustment  of  our  difficulties  ;  and  engaged 
to  obtain  his  assent  to  the  postponement  of  the 
orders  of  the  day,  until  we  should  have  an  op- 
portunity of  reporting  to  a  general  meeting  of 
the  whig  party,  and  ascertaining  whether  they 
would  be  willing  to  accept  a  bank  on  the  basis 
agreed  on  by  Mr.  Tyler  and  myself — with  this 
understanding  the  committee  adjourned.  On 
the  next  day  (17th  of  August)  Mr.  Mangum, 
with  Mr.  Clay's  assent,  moved  the  postponement 
of  the  discussion  of  the  veto,  and  it  was  agreed 
to  (see  Senate  Journal,  p.  170)  :  and  on  the 
18th  of  August  the  subject  was  again,  with 
Mr.  Clay's  concurrence,  postponed,  on  the  mo- 
tion of  Mr.  Berrien.  (Senate  Journal,  p.  173.) 
During  this  time  the  whigs  held  their  general 
meeting,  and  agreed  to  adopt  a  bill  on  the  Presi- 
dent's plan ;  and  Mr.  Sergeant  and  Mr.  Berrien 
were  requested  to  see  that  it  was  properly 
drawn  ;  and,  if  necessary,  to  seek  an  interview 
with  the  President  to  be  certain  that  there  was 
no  misunderstanding  as  to  his  opinions.  From 
this  statement,  confirmed  by  the  journals  of 
the  Senate,  it  will  be  seen  with  how  much  truth 
Mr.  Tyler  has  charged  Mr.  Clay  with  an  intol- 
erant and  dictatorial  spirit,  and  a  settled  pur- 
pose to  embarrass  his  administration.  So  far 
from  such  being  the  fact,  I  state  upon  my  own 
personal  knowledge,  that  Mr.  Clay  made  every 
sacrifice  consistent  with  honor  and  patriotism, 
to  avoid  a  rupture  with  Mr.  Tyler.  The  result 
of  the  labors  of  Messrs.  Sergeant  and  Berrien, 
was  the  second  bank  bill,  which  these  distin- 
guished jurists  supposed  to  be  in  conformity 
with  the  President's  views. 

From  this  array  of  testimony  it  would  seem 


348 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


certain  that  the  President  was  sincerely  in  favor 
of  passing  this  second  bill :  but  this  account  has 
a  per  contra  side  to  it ;  and  it  is  necessary  to 
give  the  signs  and  facts  on  the  other  side  which 
show  him  against  it  from  the  beginning.  These 
items  are  : — 1.  The  letters  in  the  New  York 
Herald ;  which,  from  the  accuracy  with  which 
they  told  beforehand  what  the  President  was 
to  do,  had  acquired  a  credit  not  to  be  despised  ; 
and  which  foreshadowed  the  veto,  lauding  the 
President  and  vituperating  his  cabinet.  2.  A 
sinister  rumor  to  that  effect  circulating  in  the 
city,  and  countenanced  by  the  new  friends  who 
were  intimate  with  the  President.  3.  The  con- 
course of  these  at  his  house.  4.  The  bitter  op- 
position to  it  from  the  same  persons  in  the 
House  and  the  Senate  ;  a  circumstance  on 
which  Mr.  Clay  often  remarked  in  debate,  with 
a  significant  implication.  5.  What  happened 
to  Mr.  Bell ;  and  which  was  this  :  on  the  17th 
day  of  August  Mr.  Tyler  requested  him  to 
make  up  a  statement  from  the  operations  of 
the  war  department  (its  receipts  and  disburse- 
ments) to  show  the  advantage  of  such  a  bank 
as  they  had  agreed  upon,  and  to  be  used  as  an 
argument  for  it.  Mr.  Bell  complied  with  alac- 
rity, and  carried  the  statement  to  the  Presi- 
dent himself  the  same  evening — expecting  to  be 
thanked  for  his  zeal  and  activity.  Quite  the 
contrary.  "  He  received  the  statements  which 
I  gave  him  (writes  Mr.  Bell)  with  manifest  in- 
difference, and  alarmed  me  by  remarking  that 
he  began  to  doubt  whether  he  would  give  his 
assent  (as  I  understood  him)  to  any  bill." 
6.  What  happened  to  Mr.  Webster  and  Mr. 
Ewing,  and  which  is  thus  related  by  the  latter 
in  his  letter  of  resignation  to  the  President : 
"You  asked  Mr.  Webster  and  myself  each  to 
prepare  and  present  you  an  argument  touch- 
ing the  constitutionality  of  the  bill  (as  agreed 
upon)  ;  and  before  those  arguments  could  be 
prepared  and  read  by  you,  you  declared,  as  I 
heard  and  believe,  to  gentlemen,  members  of  the 
House,  that  you  would  cut  off  your  right  hand 
rather  than  approve  it.  7.  What  passed  be- 
tween Mr.  Wise  and  Mr.  Thompson  of  Indiana 
in  the  debate  on  the  veto  of  this  bill,  and  which 
thus  appears  on  the  Congress  Register :  "  Mr. 
Wise  rose  and  said,  that  he  had  always  felt 
perfectly  assured  that  the  President  would  not 
sign  a  bank :  that  if  he  had  been  waked  up  at 
any  hour  of  the  night  he  would  have  declared 


his  opposition  to  a  bank."  To  which  Mr. 
Thompson :  "  Then  why  not  tell  us  so  at  once  ? 
Why  all  this  subterfuge  and  prevarication — 
this  disingenuous  and  almost  criminal  conceal- 
ment ?  What  labor,  care,  and  anxiety  he 
would  have  saved  us."  8.  Rumors  that  Mr. 
Tyler  was  endeavoring  to  defeat  the  bill  while 
on  its  passage.  9.  Proof  point  blanc  to  that 
effect.  As  this  is  a  most  responsible  allegation, 
it  requires  a  clear  statement  and  exact  proof; 
and  they  shall  both  be  given.  On  the  25th  of 
August,  after  the  bill  had  passed  the  House  and 
was  still  before  the  Senate,  Mr.  Webster  wrote 
a  letter  to  Messrs.  Choate  and  Bates  (the  two 
senators  from  Massachusetts)  in  which,  speak- 
ing in  the  interest  of  the  President,  and  of  his 
personal  knowledge,  he  informed  them  that  the 
President  had  seen  the  rapid  progress  of  the 
bill  in  the  House  with  regret,  and  wished  it 
might  have  been  postponed  ; — and  advised  the 
whigs  to  press  it  no  further ;  and  justified  this 
change  in  the  President  on  Mr.  Botts'  letter, 
which  had  just  appeared.  This  is  the  allega- 
tion, and  here  is  the  proof  in  the  letter  itself — 
afterwards  furnished  for  publication  by  Mr. 
Webster  to  the  editors  of  the  Madisonian  : 

"  Gentlemen  : — As  you  spoke  last  evening 
of  the  general  policy  of  the  whigs,  under  the 
present  posture  of  affairs,  relative  to  the  bank 
bill,  I  am  willing  to  place  you  in  full  possession 
of  my  opinion  on  that  subject. 

"  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  further  back,  into 
the  history  of  the  past,  than  the  introduction 
of  the  present  measure  into  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives. 

"  That  introduction  took  place,  within  two  or 
three  days,  after  the  President's  disapproval  of 
the  former  bill;  and  I  have  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  it  was  honestly  and  fairly  intended 
as  a  measure  likely  to  meet  the  President's  ap- 
probation. I  do  not  believe  that  one  in  fifty  of 
the  whigs  had  any  sinister  design  whatever,  if 
there  was  an  individual  who  had  such  design. 

"But  I  know  that  the  President  had  been 
greatly  troubled,  in  regard  to  the  former  bill, 
being  desirous,  on  one  hand,  to  meet  the  wishes 
of  his  friends,  if  he  could,  and  on  the  other,  to 
do  justice  to  his  own  opinions. 

"  Having  returned  this  first  bill  with  objec- 
tions, a  new  one  was  presented  in  the  House, 
and  appeared  to  be  making  rapid  progress. 

"/  know  the  President  regretted  this,  and 
wished  the  whole  subject  might  have  been  post- 
poned. At  the*  same  time,  I  believed  he  was 
disposed  to  consider  calmly  and  conscientiously, 
whatever  other  measure  might  be  presented  to 
him.  But  in  the  mean  time  Mr.  Botts'  very  ex- 
traordinary letter  made  its  appearance.     Mr. 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


349 


Botts  is  a  whig  of  eminence  and  influence  in 
our  ranks.  I  need  not  recall  to  your  mind  the 
contents  of  the  letter.  It  is  enough  to  say,  that 
it  purported  that  the  whigs  designed  to  circum- 
vent their  own  President,  to  'head  him'  as  the 
expression  was  and  to  place  him  in  a  condition 
of  embarrassment.  From  that  moment,  I  felt 
that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  whigs  to  forbear 
from  pressing  the  bank  bill  further,  at  the 
present  time.  I  thought  it  was  but  just  in 
them  to  give  decisive  proof  that  they  enter- 
tained no  such  purpose,  as  seemed  to  be  imput- 
ed to  them.  And  since  there  was  reason  to  be- 
lieve, that  the  President  would  be  glad  of  time, 
for  information  and  reflection,  before  being  called 
on  to  form  an  opinion  on  another  plan  for  a 
bank — a  plan  somewhat  new  to  the  country — I 
thought  his  known  wishes  ought  to  be  com- 
plied with.  I  think  so  still.  I  think  this  is  a 
course,  just  to  the  President,  and  wise  on  be- 
half of  the  whig  party.  A  decisive  rebuke 
ought,  in  my  judgment,  to  be  given  to  the  inti- 
mation, from  whatever  quarter,  of  a  disposi- 
tion among  the  whigs  to  embarrass  the  Presi- 
dent. This  is  the  main  ground  of  my  opinion  ; 
and  such  a  rebuke,  I  think,  would  be  found  in 
the  general  resolution  of  the  party  to  postpone 
further  proceedings  on  the  subject  to  the  next 
session,  now  only  a  little  more  than  three 
months  oif. 

"  The  session  has  been  fruitful  of  important 
acts. — The  wants  of  the  Treasury  have  been 
supplied  ;  provisions  have  been  made  for  fortifi- 
cations, and  for  the  navy ;  the  repeal  of  the  sub- 
treasury  has  passed  ;  the  bankrupt  bill,  that 
great  measure  of  justice  and  benevolence,  has 
been  carried  through ;  and  the  land  bill  seems 
about  to  receive  the  sanction  of  Congress. 

"In  all  these  measures,  forming  a  mass  of 
legislation,  more  important,  I  will  venture  to 
say,  than  all  the  proceedings  of  Congress  for 
many  years  past,  the  President  has  cordially 
concurred. 

"  I  agree,  that  the  currency  question  is,  nev- 
ertheless, the  great  question  before  the  country  ; 
but  considering  what  has  already  been  accom- 
plished, in  regard  to  other  things  ;  considering 
the  difference  of  opinion  which  exists  upon  this 
remaining  one ;  and,  considering,  especially,  that 
it  is  the  duty  of  the  whigs  effectually  to  repel 
and  put  down  any  supposition,  that  they  are 
endeavoring  to  put  the  President  i'n  a  condition, 
in  which  he  must  act  under  restraint  or  embar- 
rassment, I  am  fully  and  entirely  persuaded, 
that  the  bank  subject  should  be  postponed  to 
the  next  session.  I  am  gentlemen,  your  friend 
and  obedient  servant.  (Signed,  Daniel  Web- 
ster, and  addressed  to  Messrs.  Choate  and 
Bates,  senators  from  Massachusetts,  and  dated, 
August  25th,  1841.)" 

This  is  the  proof,  and  leaves  it  indisputable 
that  the  President  undertook  to  defeat  his  own 
bill.     No  more  can  be  said  on  that  point.     The 


only  point  open  to  remark,  and  subject  to  ex- 
amination, is  the  reason  given  by  Mr.  Webster 
for  this  conduct  in  the  President ;  and  this  rea- 
son is  found  in  Mr.  Botts'  letter — which  had 
just  made  its  appearance.  That  letter  might 
be  annoyance — might  be  offensive — might  ex- 
cite resentment :  but  it  could  not  change  a  con- 
stitutional opinion,  or  reverse  a  state  policy,  or 
justify  a  President  in  breaking  his  word  to  his 
cabinet  and  to  the  party  that  had  elected  him. 
It  required  a  deeper  reason  to  work  such  re- 
sults ;  and  the  key  to  that  reason  is  found  in 
the  tack  taken  in  the  first  eight  or  nine  days 
of  the  session  to  form  a  third  party,  breaking 
with  the  whigs,  settling  back  on  the  democracy, 
and  making  the  bank  veto  the  point  of  rupture 
with  one,  the  cement  with  the  other,  the  rally- 
ing points  of  the  recruits,  and  the  corner-stone 
of  the  infant  Tyler  party.  That  was  the  rea- 
son :  and  all  the  temporizing  and  double-deal- 
ing— pushing  the  bill  forward  with  one  hand, 
and  pulling  back  with  the  other — were  nothing 
but  expedients  to  avert  or  appease  the  storm 
that  was  brewing,  and  to  get  through  the  tem- 
pest of  his  own  raising  with  as  little  damage  to 
himself  as  possible.  The  only  quotable  part  of 
this  letter  was  the  phrase,  "Head  Captain  Ty- 
ler, or  die  : "  a  phrase  quoted  by  the  public  to 
be  laughed  at — by  Mr.  Webster,  to  justify  Mr. 
Tyler's  attempt  to  defeat  his  own  bill,  so  sol- 
emnly prepared  and  sent  to  the  whigs,  with  a 
promise  to  sign  it  in  twenty-four  hours  if  they 
would  pass  it.  The  phrase  was  fair  though  it 
presented  a  ridiculous  image.  This  "  heading," 
applied  to  a  person  signifies  to  check,  or  re- 
strain ;  applied  to  animals  (which  is  its  com- 
mon use  in  the  South  and  the  West)  is,  to  turn 
one  round  which  is  running  the  wrong  way,  and 
make  it  go  back  to  the  right  place.  Taken  in 
either  sense,  the  phrase  is  justifiable,  and  could 
only  mean  checking  Mr.  Tyler  in  his  progress 
to  the  new  party,  and  turning  him  back  to  the 
party  that  elected  him  Vice-president.  As  for 
the  "  dying,"  that  could  imply  no  killing  of  per- 
sons, nor  any  death  of  any  kind  to  "  Captain 
Tyler,"  but  only  the  political  death  of  the 
whigs  if  their  President  left  them.  All  this 
Mr.  Webster  knew  very  well,  for  he  was  a  good 
philologist,  and  knew  the  meaning  of  words. 
He  was  also  a  good  lawyer,  and  knew  that  an 
odious  meaning  must  be  given  to  an  innocent 
word  when  it  is  intended  to  make  it  offensive. 


350 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


The  phrase  was,  therefore,  made  to  signify  a 
design  to  circumvent  the  President  with  a  view 
to  embarrass  him— Mr.  Clay  being  the  person 
intended  at  the  back  of  Mr.  Botts  in  this  sup- 
posed circumvention  and  embarrassment.  But 
circumvent  was  not  the  word  of  the  letter,  nor 
its  synonyme ;  and  is  a  word  always  used  in 
an  evil  sense — implying  imposition,  stratagem, 
cheat,  deceit,  fraud.  The  word  "  heading  "  has 
no  such  meaning  :  and  thus  the  imputed  offence, 
gratuitously  assumed,  makes  its  exit  for  want 
of  verity.  Embarrassment  is  the  next  part  of 
the  offence,  and  its  crowning  part,  and  fails  like 
the  other.  Mr.  Clay  had  no  such  design.  That 
is  proved  by  Mr.  Stuart,  and  by  his  own  con- 
duct— twice  putting  off  his  speech — holding  in 
his  proud  spirit  until  chafed  by  Mr.  Rives — 
then  mollifying  indignant  language  with  some 
expressions  of  former  regard  to  Mr.  Tyler.  He 
bad  no  design  or  object  in  embarrassing  him. 
No  whig  had.  And  they  all  had  a  life  and 
death  interest  (political)  in  conciliating  him, 
and  getting  him  to  sign :  and  did  their  best  to 
do  so.  The  only  design  was  to  get  him  to  sign 
his  own  bill — the  fiscal  corporation  bill — which 
he  had  fixed  up  himself,  title  and  all — sent  out 
his  cabinet  to  press  upon  Congress — and  desired 
to  have  it  back  in  three  days,  that  he  might  sign 
it  in  twenty -four  hours.  The  only  solution  is, 
that  he  did  not  expect  it  to  come  back — that 
he  counted  on  getting  some  whigs  turned 
against  it,  as  tried  without  avail  on  Messrs. 
Choate  and  Bates ;  and  that  he  could  appease 
the  whig  storm  by  sending  in  the  bill,  and 
escape  the  performance  of  his  promise  by  get- 
ting it  defeated.  This  is  the  only  solution  ;  and 
the  fact  is  that  he  would  have  signed  no  bank 
bill,  under  any  name,  after  the  eighth  or  ninth 
day  of  the  session — from  the  day  that  he  gave 
into  the  scheme  for  the  third  party,  himself  its 
head,  and  settling  back  upon  his  ci-devant 
democratic  character.  From  that  day  a  na- 
tional bank  of  any  kind  was  the  Jonas  of  his 
political  ship — to  be  thrown  overboard  to  save 
the  vessel  and  crew. 

And  this  is  the  secret  history  of  the  birth, 
life  and  death  of  the  second  fiscal  bank,  called 
fiscal  corporation — doomed  from  the  first  to  be 
vetoed — brought  forward  to  appease  a  whig 
storm — sometimes  to  be  postponed — commend- 
ed to  the  nursing  care  of  some — consigned  to 
the  strangling  arts  of  others :   but  doomed  to 


be  vetoed  when  it  came  to  the  point  as  being 
the  corner-stone  in  the  edifice  of  the  new  party, 
and  the  democratic  baptismal  regeneration  of 
Mr.  Tyler  himself. 


CHAPTER    LXXXIII/ 

THE  VETO  MESSAGE  HISSED  IN  THE*  SENATE 
GALLEEIES. 

The  Senate  chamber,  and  its  galleries,  were 
crowded  to  their  utmost  capacity  to  hear  the 
reading  of  the  veto  message,  and  to  witness  the 
proceedings  to  which  it  would  give  rise.  The 
moment  the  reading  was  finished  hisses  broke 
forth,  followed  by  applauses.  Both  were  breaches 
of  order,  and  contempts  of  the  Senate  ;  but  the 
hisses  most  so,  as  being  contemptuous  in  them- 
selves, independent  of  the  rule  which  forbids 
them,  and  as  being  also  the  causes  of  the  ap- 
plauses, which  are  only  contemptuous  by  virtue 
of  the  rule  which  forbids  manifestations  of  satis- 
faction as  well  as  of  dissatisfaction  at  any  thing 
done  in  the  Senate :  and  because  a  right  to  ap- 
plaud would  involve  a  right  to  judge ;  and,  by 
implication,  to  condemn  as  well  as  to  approve. 
The  President  of  the  Senate  heard  a  disturbance, 
and  gave  the  raps  on  the  table  to  restore  order : 
but  Mr.  Benton,  who  was  on  the  look-out  for 
the  outrage,  was  determined  that  it  should  not 
go  off  with  raps  upon  the  table :  he  thought 
there  ought  to  be  raps  on  the  offenders,  and  im- 
mediately stood  up  and  addressed  the  Chair. 

u  Mr.  President,  there  were  hisses  here,  at  the 
reading  of  the  presidential  message.  I  heard 
them,  sir,  and  I  feel  indignant  that  the  American 
President  shall  be  insulted.  I  have  been  insulted 
by  the  hisses  of  ruffians  in  this  gallery,  when 
opposing  the  old  Bank  of  the  United  States. 
While  I  am  here,  the  President  shall  never  be 
insulted  by  hisses  in  this  hall.  I  ask  for  no 
such  thing  as  clearing  the  galleries,  but  let  those 
who  have  made  the  disturbance  be  pointed  out 
to  the  sergeant-at-arms,  and  be  turned  out 
from  the  galleries.  Those  who  have  dared  to 
insult  our  form  of  government — for  in  insulting 
this  message  they  have  insulted  the  President 
and  our  form  of  government — those  ruffians  who 
would  not  have  dared  to  insult  the  King,  sur- 
rounded by  his  guard,  have  dared  to  insult  the 
American  President  in  the  American  Senate; 
and  I  move  that  the  sergeant-at-arms  be  directed 
to  take  them  into  custody." 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


351 


This  motion  of  Mr.  Benton  was  opposed  by 
several  senators,  some  because  they  did  not  hear 
the  disturbance,  some  because  it  was  balanced, 
being  as  much  clapping  as  hissing;  some  be- 
cause they  were  in  doubt  about  the  power  to 
punish  for  a  contempt ;  and  some  from  an  ami- 
able indisposition  to  disturb  the  people  who  had 
disturbed  the  Senate,  and  who  had  only  yielded 
to  an  ebullition  of  feeling.  This  sort  of  tempo- 
rizing with  an  outrage  to  the  Senate  only  stim- 
ulated Mr.  Benton  to  persevere  in  his  motion ; 
which  he  did  until  the  object  was  accomplished. 
The  Register  of  Debates  shows  the  following  re- 
marks and  replies ;  which  are  given  here  to 
show  the  value  of  perseverance  in  such  a  case, 
and  to  do  justice  to  the  Senate  which  protected 
itself: 

"  Mr.  Rives  regretted  that  any  disturbance 
had  taken  place.  He  doubted  not  but  the  sen- 
ator thought  he  heard  it,  but  must  say,  in  all 
sincerity,  he  did  not  hear  the  hiss.  At  all 
events,  it  was  so  slight  and  of  short  duration, 
that  the  majority  of  the  Senate  scarcely  heard 
it.  He  hoped  that  no  proceedings  of  this  kind 
would  take  place,  and  that  this  manifestation  of 
disturbance,  when  so  deep  an  interest  was  felt, 
and  which  was  so  immediately  quieted,  would 
be  passed  over.  The  general  opinion  of  the  sen- 
ators around  him  was,  that  the  honorable  sena- 
tor was  mistaken. 

"Mr.  Benton.  I  am  not  mistaken — I  am 
not. 

"  Mr.  Rives.  He  hoped  they  would  pass  it  by, 
as  one  of  those  little  ebullitions  of  excitement 
which  were  unavoidable,  and  which  was  not  of- 
fered to  insult  this  body,  or  the  President  of  the 
United  States. 

"  Mr.  Benton  heard  the  hisses,  and  heard 
them  distinctly ;  if  a  doubt  was  raised  on  it,  he 
would  bring  the  matter  to  a  question  of  fact, 
'  true  or  not  true.'  No  man  should  doubt  whe- 
ther he  heard  them  or  not.  He  came  here  this 
day  prepared  to  see  the  American  President  in- 
sulted by  bank  bullies  ;  and  he  told  his  friends 
that  it  had  been  done,  and  that  they  never  could 
proceed  in  action  on  a  bank,  when  the  American 
Senate  would  not  be  insulted,  either  by  hissing 
on  one  side,  or  clapping  on  the  other.  He  told 
them,  if  it  was  done,  as  sure  as  the  American 
President  should  be  insulted  this  day,  by  bank 
ruffians,  just  so  sure  he  should  rise  in  his  place 
and  move  to  have  those  disturbers  of  the  honor 
and  dignity  of  the  Senate  brought  to  the  bar  of 
the  Senate.  He  would  not  move  to  clear  the 
galleries,  for  a  thousand  orderly  people  were 
there,  who  were  not  to  be  turned  out  for  the 
disturbance  of  a  few  ruffians.  He  would  tell  the 
senator  from  Virginia  that  he  (the  senator) 
should  hang  no  doubt  on  his  declaration ;  and 


if  it  were  doubted,  he  would  appeal  to  senators 
near  him.  [Mr.  Walker.  I  will  answer, 
most  directly,  that  I  heard  it,  and  I  believe  the 
same  bully  is  going  on  now.]  A  national  bank 
(continued  Mr.  B.)  is  not,  as  yet,  our  master, 
and  shall  not  be ;  and  he  would  undertake  to 
vindicate  the  honor  of  the  Senate,  from  the  out- 
rages perpetrated  on  it  by  the  myrmidons  of  a 
national  bank.  Were  the  slaves  of  a  national 
bank  to  have  the  privilege  of  insulting  the  Sen- 
ate, just  as  often  as  a  vote  passed  contrary  to 
their  wishes  ?  It  was  an  audacity  that  must  be 
checked — and  checked  before  they  went  with 
arms  in  their  hands  to  fire  on  those  who  gave 
votes  contrary  to  their  wishes,  or  assassinate 
them  on  their  way  home.  He  put  the  whole  at 
defiance — the  entire  bank,  and  its  myrmidons. 

"Mr.  Preston  said  if  any  thing  had  occurred 
in  the  gallery  out  of  order,  it  should  be  strictly 
inquired  into  and  punished.  He  himself  did 
not  hear  the  manifestations  of  disapprobation, 
alluded  to  by  the  senators  on  the  other  side  ; 
but  it  was  sufficient  for  him  that  the  senators 
heard  it,  or  supposed  that  they  heard  it.  [Mr. 
Benton.  We  did  not  suppose  we  heard  it ;  we 
knew  it.]  In  this  case  (continued  Mr.  P.),  a 
formal  investigation  should  take  place.  It  was 
a  contempt  of  the  Senate,  and,  as  a  member  of 
the  Senate,  he  desired  to  see  an  investigation — 
to  see  the  charge  fixed  on  some  person,  and  if 
property  sustained,  to  see  punishment  awarded. 
Manifestations  of  praise  or  censure  were  emi- 
nently wrong,  and  eminently  dangerous ;  and  it 
was  due  to  every  member  of  the  Senate  that 
they  should  preserve  the  dignity  of  the  body  by 
checking  it.  He  hoped,  therefore,  if  a  formal 
motion  was  made,  it  would  be  discovered  who 
had  caused  the  disturbance,  and  that  they  would 
be  properly  punished. 

"  Mr.  Buchanan  said  this  was  a  very  solemn 
and  momentous  occasion,  which  would  form  a 
crisis,  perhaps,  in  the  politics  of  the  country ; 
and  he  should  hope,  as  he  believed  that  every 
American  citizen  present  in  the  galleries  would 
feel  the  importance  of  this  crisis,  and  feel  deeply 
sensible  of  the  high  character  to  which  every 
man,  blessed  with  birth  in  this  free  country, 
should  aim.  He  heard,  distinctly  heard,  the 
hiss  referred  to  by  the  senator  from  Missouri 
[Mr.  Benton],  but  he  was  bound  to  say  it  was 
not  loud  and  prolonged,  but  was  arrested  in 
a  moment,  he  believed  partly  from  the  senator 
rising,  and  partly  from  the  good  sense  and 
good  feeling  of  the  people  in  the  galleries. 
Under  these  circumstances,  as  it  only  com- 
menced and  did  not  proceed,  if  he  had  the 
power  of  persuasion,  he  would  ask  the  senator 
from  Missouri  to  withdraw  his  motion. 

"[Mr.  Benton.  I  never  will,  so  help  me 
God.] 

"  He  thought  it  better,  far  better,  that  they 
proceed  to  the  important  business  before  them, 
under  the  consideration  that  they  should  not 
be  disturbed  hereafter;   and  if  they  were,   he 


352 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


would  go  as  far  as  the  senator  from  Missouri 
in  immediately  arresting  it.  He  would  much 
rather  go  on  with  the  business  in  hand. 

"  Mr.  Linn  reminded  the  Senate  that  when 
the  bank  bill  had  passed  the  Senate  there  was 
a  loud  manifestation  of  approbation  in  the  gal- 
lery, of  which  no  notice  was  taken.  He  believed 
on  the  present  occasion  there  was  approbation 
as  well  as  hisses  ;  but  both  were  instantly  sup- 
pressed. He  had  distinctly  heard  both.  No 
doubt  it  was  the  promptness  with  which  his 
colleague  had  got  up  to  check  the  disturbance, 
which  had  prevented  it  from  going  further. 
He  had  no  doubt  some  law  ought  to  be  passed 
making  it  punishable  to  commit  any  outrage  of 
this  kind  on  either  House  of  Congress. 

"Mr.  Merrick  thought  with  the  senator 
from  Pennsylvania,  that  this  was  a  very  solemn 
occasion.  There  had  been  tokens  of  assent  and 
dissent.  The  President  of  the  Senate  at  the 
moment  rapped  very  hard  till  order  was  re- 
stored. The  disorder  was  but  momentary. 
He  trusted  some  allowance  would  be  made  for 
the  excitement  so  natural  on  the  occasion. 

"  Mr.  King  suggested  the  difficuly  that  might 
arise  out  of  pursuing  the  matter  further.  He 
had  witnessed  something  of  the  kind  once  be- 
fore, and  when  the  offender  was  brought  to  the 
bar,  great  embarrassment  was  created  by  not 
knowing  how  to  get  rid  of  him.  He  thought 
it  would  be  better  to  pass  over  the  matter  and 
proceed  to  the  consideration  of  the  message, 
or  to  the  appointment  of  a  time  for  its  con- 
sideration. 

"  The  Chair  explained  that  having  heard 
some  noise,  without  considering  whether  it  was 
approbation  or  disapprobation,  he  had  called 
the  Senate  to  order ;  but  could  not  say  that  he 
had  or  had  not  heard  hisses. 

"  Mr.  Rives  explained  that  he  did  not  mean 
to  say  the  senator  from  Missouri  did  not  hear 
the  hisses,  but  that  he  himself  did  not  hear 
them,  and  he  believed  many  gentlemen  around 
him  did  not  hear  any.  But  as  the  senator 
from  Missouri  had  avowedly  come  prepared  to 
hear  them,  no  doubt  he  did,  more  sensitively 
than  others.  He  would  ask  the  senator  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  crush  which  the  mother  of 
monsters  had  got,  and  not  to  bear  too  hard  on 
the  solitary  bank  ruffian,  to  use  his  own  ex- 
pression, who  had  disapproved  of  the  monster's 
fate.  He  hoped  the  senator  would  withdraw 
the  motion. 

"  Mr.  Linn  observed  that  the  senator  from 
Virginia,  by  his  own  remarks,  doubting  that 
there  were  any  hisses,  had  forced  the  senator 
from  Missouri  to  persist  in  having  the  proof. 
However,  he  now  understood  that  point  was 
settled ;  and  the  object  being  accomplished,  he 
hoped  his  colleague  would  withdraw  the  motion. 

"  Mr.  Preston  again  expressed  his  concur- 
rence in  the  propriety  of  the  motion,  and  hoped 
effectual  steps  would  be  taken  to  prevent  the 
recurrence  of  such  a  scene. 


"  Mr.  Allen  made  some  appropriate  remarks, 
and  concluded  by  stating  that  he  understood 
the  offender  was  in  custody,  and  expressed  his 
sorrow  for  having  done  what  he  was  not  at 
the  time  aware  was  an  offence ;  as,  therefore, 
all  the  ends  had  been  accomplished  which  his 
friend  had  in  view  when  he  refused  to  with- 
draw his  motion,  he  hoped  he  would  now  with- 
draw it. 

"  Mr.  Walker  said,  when  the  senator  from 
Missouri  [Mr.  Benton]  pledged  himself  not  to 
withdraw  his  motion  to  arrest  the  individual 
who  had  insulted  the  Senate  and  the  country 
by  hissing  the  message  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  that  pledge  arose  from  the  doubt 
expressed  by  the  senator  from  Virginia  [Mr. 
Rives]  whether  the  hissing  had  taken  place. 
That  doubt  was  now  solved.  "When  the  senator 
from  Missouri  appealed  to  his  friends  as  to  the 
truth  of  the  fact  stated  by  him,  he  [Mr. 
Walker]  had  risen,  and  pointed  to  that  por- 
tion of  the  gallery  from  which  the  hissing  pro- 
ceeded. Our  assistant  Sergeant-at-Arms  had 
proceeded  to  that  quarter  of  the  gallery  desig- 
nated by  him  [Mr.  W.],  and  this  officer  had 
now  in  his  possession  one  of  the  offenders,  who 
acknowledged  his  indecent  conduct,  and  who 
was  prepared  to  point  out  many  of  those  who 
had  joined  him.  The  object  of  the  senator  was, 
therefore,  now  accomplished;  the  fact  of  the 
indecorum  was  established,  and  the  offender, 
as  moved  by  the  senator  from  Missouri,  was 
now  in  custody.  This,  Mr.  W.  hoped,  would 
be  sufficient  punishment,  especially  as  Mr.  W. 
understood  the  offender  expressed  his  penitence 
for  the  act,  as  one  of  sudden  impulse.  As, 
then,  the  formal  trial  of  this  individual  would 
occupy  much  time,  Mr.  W.  hoped  the  matter 
would  be  dropped  here,  and  let  us  proceed,  as 
required  by  the  Constitution,  to  consider  the 
message  of  the  President  returning  the  bank 
bill,  with  his  objections.  This  message,  Mr.  W. 
said,  he  regarded  as  the  most  important  which 
ever  emanated  from  an  American  President, 
and  under  circumstances  the  most  solemn  and 
imposing.  The  President,  in  perfect  and  glorious 
consistency  with  a  long  life  of  usefulness  and 
honor,  has  placed  his  veto  upon  the  charter  of 
a  National  Bank,  and,  Mr.  W.  said,  his  heart 
was  too  full  of  gratitude  to  the  Giver  of  all 
good  for  this  salvation  of  the  country,  and 
rescue  of  the  Constitution,  to  engage  in  the 
business  of  inflicting  punishment  upon  an  in- 
dividual, said  to  be  respectable,  and  who  had 
in  part  atoned  for  his  offence  by  the  expression 
of  his  repentance.  Let  him  go,  then,  and  sin 
no  more,  and  let  us  proceed  to  the  considera- 
tion of  that  Veto  Message,  which  he,  Mr.  W.  had 
confidently  predicted  at  the  very  commence- 
ment of  this  session,  and  recorded  that  opinion 
at  its  date  in  the  journals  of  the  day.  Many 
then  doubted  the  correctness  of  this  prediction, 
but,  he,  Mr.  W.  whilst  he  stated  at  the  time 
that  he  was  not  authorized  to  speak  for  the 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


353 


President  of  the  United  States,  based  his  con- 
viction upon  his  knowledge  of  Mr.  Tyler  as  a 
man  and  a  senator,  and  upon  his  long  and  con- 
sistent opposition  to  the  creation  of  any  such 
bank,  as  was  now  proposed  to  be  established. 

"Mr.  Benton  said  he  had  been  informed  by 
one  of  the  officers  of  the  Senate  [Mr.  Beale] 
that  one  of  the  persons  who  made  the  disorder 
in  the  gallery  had  been  seized  by  him,  and  was 
now  in  custody  and  in  the  room  of  the  Ser- 
geant-at-Arms.  This  the  officers  had  very  pro- 
perly done  of  their  own  motion,  and  without 
waiting  for  the  Senate's  order.  They  had  done 
their  duty,  and  his  motion  had  thus  been  exe- 
cuted. His  motion  was  to  seize  the  disorderly, 
and  bring  them  to  the  bar  of  the  Senate.  One 
had  been  seized  ;  he  was  in  custody  in  an  adjoin- 
ing room  ;  and  if  he  was  still  acting  contempt- 
uously to  the  Senate,  he  should  move  to  bring 
him  to  the  bar ;  but  that  was  not  the  case. 
He  was  penitent  and  contrite.  He  expressed 
his  sorrow  for  what  he  had  done,  and  said  he 
had  acted  without  ill  design,  and  from  no  feel- 
ings of  contempt  to  the  President  or  Senate. 
Under  these  circumstances,  all  was  accom- 
plished that  his  motion  intended.  The  man 
is  in  custody  and  repentant.  This  is  sufficient. 
Let  him  be  discharged,  and  there  is  an  end  of 
the  affair.  His  motion  now  was  that  the  Presi- 
dent direct  him  to  be  discharged.  Mr.  B.  said 
he  had  acted  from  reflection,  and  not  from  im- 
pulse, in  this  whole  affair.  He  expected  the 
President  to  be  insulted :  it  was  incident  to  the 
legislation  on  national  bank  charters.  When 
they  were  on  the  carpet,  the  Senate,  the  Presi- 
dent, and  the  American  people  must  all  be  in- 
sulted if  the  bank  myrmidons  are  disappointed. 
He  told  his  family  before  he  left  home,  that  the 
Senate  and  the  President  would  be  insulted  by 
hisses  in  the  gallery  this  day,  and  that  he  would 
not  let  it  pass — that  it  would  be  an  insult,  not 
merely  to  the  President  and  Senate,  but  to  the 
whole  American  people,  and  to  their  form  of 
government — and  that  it  should  not  pass.  He 
came  here  determined  to  nip  this  business  in 
the  bud — and  to  prevent  an  insult  to  the  Presi- 
dent in  this  chamber  from  being  made  a  prece- 
dent for  it  elsewhere.  We  all  know  the  inso- 
lence of  the  national  bank  party — we  know 
the  insolence  of  their  myrmidons — we  know 
that  President  Tyler,  who  has  signed  this  veto 
message,  is  subject  to  their  insults — beginning 
here,  and  following  him  wherever  he  goes.  He 
[Mr.  B.]  was  determined  to  protect  him  here, 
and,  in  doing  so,  to  set  the  example  which 
would  be  elsewhere  followed.  He  repeated : 
an  insult  to  the  President  for  an  official  act, 
was  not  an  insult  to  the  man,  but  to  the  whole 
American  people,  and  to  their  form  of  govern- 
ment. Would  these  bank  myrmidons  insult  a 
king,  surrounded  by  his  guards  ?  Not  at  all. 
Then  they  should  not  insult  an  American  Presi- 
dent with  impunity  whenever  he  was  present.  In 
the  Senate  or  out  of  it,  he  would  defend  the  Pre- 

Vol.  II.— 23 


sident  from  personal  outrage  and  indignity.  As 
to  the  numerous  and  respectable  auditory  now 
present,  his  motion  did  not  reach  them.  He 
had  not  moved  to  clear  the  galleries ;  for  that 
would  send  out  the  respectable  audience,  who 
had  conducted  themselves  with  propriety.  The 
rule  of  order  was  "  to  clear  the  galleries ;  " 
but  he  had  purposely  avoided  that  motion,  be- 
cause the  disorder  came  from  a  few,  and  the 
respectable  part  of  the  audience  ought  not  to 
suffer  for  an  offence  in  which  they  had  no  share. 
Mr.  B.  said  the  man  being  in  custody,  his  motion 
was  executed  and  superseded ;  its  object  was 
accomplished,  and,  he  being  contrite,  he  would 
move  to  discharge  him. 

"  The  President  of  the  Senate  ordered  him 
to  be  discharged." 


CHAPTER    LXXXIY. 

RESIGNATION  OF  MR.  TYLER'S  CABINET. 

This  event,  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Webster 
who  was  prevailed  upon  to  remain,  took  place 
on  the  11th  day  of  September — being  two  days 
after  the  second  veto  message — the  one  on  the 
fiscal  corporation  bill — had  been  sent  to  the 
House  of  Representatives.  It  was  a  thing  to 
take  place  in  consequence  of  the  President's 
conduct  in  relation  to  that  bill ;  but  the  immedi- 
ate cause,  or  rather,  the  circumstance  which 
gave  impulse  to  the  other  causes,  was  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  letter  from  Washington  city  in 
the  New  York  Herald  in  which  the  cabinet  was 
much  vituperated — accused  of  remaining  in  their 
places  contrary  to  the  will  of  the  President,  and 
in  spite  of  the  neglects  and  slights  which  he  put 
upon  them  with  a  view  to  make  them  resign. 
Appearing  in  that  paper,  which  had  come  to  be 
considered  as  the  familiar  of  the  President,  and 
the  part  in  relation  to  the  slights  and  neglects 
being  felt  to  be  true,  it  could  not  escape  the 
serious  attention  of  those  to  whom  it  referred. 
But  there  was  something  else  in  it  which  seemed 
to  carry  its  origin  directly  to  the  President  him- 
self. There  was  an  account  of  a  cabinet  meet- 
ing in  it,  in  which  things  were  told  which  were 
strictly  confidential  between  the  President  and 
his  ministers — which  had  actually  occurred; 
and  which  no  one  but  themselves  or  the  Presi- 
dent could  have  communicated.  They  conferred 
together :    the  conviction  was  unanimous  that 


354 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  President  had  licensed  this  communication : 
and  this  circumstance  authorized  them  to  con- 
sider the  whole  letter  as  his,  of  course  by- 
subaltern  hand.  To  this  letter  Mr.  Ewing  al- 
luded in  his  letter  of  resignation  when  he  said 
to  the  President :  "  The  very  secrets  of  our 
cabinet  councils  made  their  appearance  in  an  in- 
famous paper,  printed  in  a  neighboring  city,  the 
columns  of  which  were  daily  charged  with  flat- 
tery of  yourself  and  foul  abuse  of  your  cabinet." 
There  was  no  exception  in  the  letter  in  favor  of 
any  one.  All  were  equally  included :  all  took 
their  resolutions  together  (Mr.  Granger  ex- 
cepted who  was  not  present),  and  determined 
to  resign  at  once,  and  in  a  body,  and  to  publish 
their  reasons — the  circumstances  under  which 
they  acted  justifying,  in  their  opinion,  this  ab- 
rupt and  unceremonious  separation  from  their 
chief.  All  carried  this  resolve  into  effect,  except 
Mr.  "Webster,  who  was  induced  to  re-consider 
his  determination,  and  to  remain.  The  reasons 
for  this  act  should  be  given,  so  far  as  they  are 
essential,  in  the  words  of  the  retiring  ministers 
themselves :  and,  accordingly  here  they  are ; 
and  first  from  Mr.  Ewing : 

"  This  bill,  framed  and  fashioned  according  to 
your  own  suggestions,  in  the  initiation  of  which 
I  and  another   member  of  your  cabinet  were 
made  by  you  the  agents  and  negotiators,  was 
passed  by  large  majorities  through  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress,  and  sent  to  you,  and  you  re- 
jected it.   Important  as  was  the  part  which  I  had 
taken,  at  your  request,  in  the  origination  of  this 
bill,  and  deeply  as  I  was  committed  for  your  ac- 
tion upon  it,  you  never  consulted  me  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  veto  message.     You  did  not  even  re- 
fer to  it  in  conversation,  and  the  first  notice  I 
had  of  its  contents  was  derived  from  rumor. 
And  to  me,  at  least,  you  have  done  nothing  to 
wipe  away  the  personal  indignity  arising  out  of 
the  act.    I  gathered,  it  is  true,  from  your  con- 
versation, shortly  after  the  bill  had  passed  the 
House,  that  you  had  a  strong  purpose  to  reject 
it ;  but  nothing  was  said  like  softening  or  apol- 
ogy to  me,  either  in  reference  to  myself  or  to 
those  with  whom  I  had  communicated  at  your 
request,  and  who  had  acted  themselves  and  in- 
duced the  two  Houses  to  act  upon  the  faith  of 
that  communication.     And,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  the  veto  message  attacks  in  an  especial 
manner  the  very  provisions  which  were  inserted 
at  your  request ;  and  even  the  name  of  the  cor- 
poration, which  was  not  only  agreed  to  by  you, 
but  especially  changed  to  meet  your  expressed 
wishes,  is  made  the  subject  of  your  criticism. 
Different  men  might  view  this  transaction  in 
different  points  of  light,  but,  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, as  a  matter  of  personal  honor,  it 


would  be  hard  for  me  to  remain  of  your  coun- 
sel, to  seal  my  lips  and  leave  unexplained  and 
undisclosed  where  lies  in  this  transaction  the  de- 
parture from  straightforwardness  and  candor. 
So  far  indeed  from  admitting  the  encouragement 
which  you  gave  to  this  bill  in  its  inception,  and 
explaining  and  excusing  your  sudden  and  vio- 
lent hostility  towards  it,  you  throw  into  your 
veto  message  an  interrogatory  equivalent  to  an 
assertion  that  it  was  such  a  bill  as  you  had  al- 
ready declared  could  not  receive  your  sanction. 
Such  is  the  obvious  effect  of  the  first  interroga- 
tory clause  on  the  second  page.  It  has  all  the 
force  of  an  assertion  without  its  open  fairness. 
I  have  met  and  refuted  this,  the  necessary  infer- 
ence from  your  language,  in  my  preceding  state- 
ment, the  correctness  of  which  you  I  am  sure 
will  not  call  in  question." 

Of  the  cause  assigned  for  the  President's 
change  in  relation  to  the  bill,  namely,  Mr. 
Botts'  letter,  Mr.  Ewing  thus  expresses  him- 
self: 

"  And  no  doubt  was  thrown  out  on  the  sub- 
ject (veto  of  the  fiscal  corporation  bill)  by  you, 
in  my  hearing,  or  within  my  knowledge,  until 
the  letter  of  Mr.  Botts  came  to  your  hands. 
Soon  after  the  reading  of  that  letter,  you  threw 
out  strong  intimations  that  you  would  veto  the 
bill  if  it  were  not  postponed.  That  letter  I  did 
and  do  most  unequivocally  condemn,  but  it  did 
not  effect  the  constitutionality  of  the  bill,  or 
justify  you  in  rejecting  it  on  that  ground ;  it 
could  affect  only  the  expediency  of  your  action ; 
and,  whatever  you  may  now  believe  as  to  the 
scruples  existing  in  your  mind,  in  this  and  in  a 
kindred  source  there  is  strong  ground  to  believe 
they  have  their  origin." 

Mr.  Badger,  Secretary  of  the  Navy : 

"  At  the  cabinet  meeting  held  on  the  18th  of 
August  last  (the  attorney-general  and  the  post- 
master-general being  absent),  the  subject  of  an 
exchange  bank,  or  institution,  was  brought  for- 
ward by  the  President  himself,  and  was  fully 
considered.  Into  the  particulars  of  what  passed 
I  do  not  propose  now  to  enter.  It  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  say  that  it  was  then  distinctly  stated 
and  understood  that  such  an  institution  met  the 
approbation  of  the  President,  and  was  deemed 
by  him  free  of  constitutional  objections ;  that  he 
desired  (if  Congress  should  deem  it  necessary 
to  act  upon  the  subject  during  the  session)  that 
such  an  institution  should  be  adopted  by  that 
body,  and  that  the  members  of  his  cabinet 
would  aid  in  bringing  about  that  result ;  and 
Messrs.  Webster  and  Ewing  were  specially  re- 
quested by  the  President  to  have  a  communica- 
tion upon  the  subject  with  certain  members  of 
Congress.  In  consequence  of  what  passed  at 
this  meeting,  I  saw  such  friends  in  Congress  as 
I  deemed  it  proper  to  approach,  and  urged  upon 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


355 


them  the  passage  of  a  bill  to  establish  such  an 
institution,  assuring  them  that  I  did  not  doubt 
it  would  receive  the  approbation  of  the  Presi- 
dent. The  bill  was  passed,  as  the  public  know, 
and  was  met  by  the  veto.  Now,  if  the  Presi- 
dent, after  the  meeting  of  the  18th  August,  had 
changed  his  mind  as  to  the  constitutional  power 
of  Congress,  and  had  come  to  doubt  or  deny 
what  he  had  admitted  in  that  meeting  (which  is 
the  most  favorable  interpretation  that  can  be 
put  upon  his  conduct),  it  was,  in  my  opinion,  a 
plain  duty  on  his  part  to  have  made  known  to 
the  gentlemen  concerned  this  change  of  senti- 
ment— to  have  offered  them  an  apology  for  the 
unpleasant  situation  in  which  they  were  placed 
by  his  agency — or,  at  least,  to  have  softened,  by 
a  full  explanation  of  his  motives,  his  intended 
veto  of  a  measure  in  promoting  the  success  of 
which  they,  at  his  request,  had  rendered  their 
assistance.  But  this  the  President  did  not  do. 
Never,  from  the  moment  of  my  leaving  his  house 
on  the  18th,  did  he  open  his  lips  to  me  on  the 
subject.  It  was  only  from  the  newspapers,  from 
rumor,  from  hearsay,  I  learned  that  he  had  de- 
nied the  constitutionality  of  the  proposed  insti- 
tution, and  had  made  the  most  solemn  assevera- 
tions that  he  would  never  approve  a  measure 
which  I  knew  was  suggested  by  himself,  and 
which  had  been,  at  his  own  instance,  introduced 
into  Congress.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say 
that  I  have  not  supposed,  and  do  not  now  sup- 
pose, that  a  difference  merely  between  the  Pre- 
sident and  his  cabinet,  either  as  to  the  constitu- 
tionality or  the  expediency  of  a  bank,  necessarily 
interposes  any  obstacles  to  a  full  and  cordial  co- 
operation between  them  in  the  general  conduct 
of  his  administration  ;  and  therefore  deeply  as  I 
regretted  the  veto  of  the  first  bill,  I  did  not  feel 
myself  at  liberty  to  retire  on  that  account  from 
my  situation.  But  the  facts  attending  the  initi- 
ation and  disapproval  of  the  last  bill  made  a  case 
totally  different  from  that — one  it  is  believed 
without  a  parallel  in  the  history  of  our  cabinets  ; 
presenting,  to  say  nothing  more,  a  measure  em- 
braced and  then  repudiated — efforts  prompted 
and  then  disowned — services  rendered  and  then 
treated  with  scorn  or  neglect.  Such  a  case  re- 
quired, in  my  judgment,  upon  considerations, 
private  and  public,  that  the  official  relations  sub- 
sisting between  the  President  and  myself  should 
be  immediately  dissolved." 

Mr.  Bell,  Secretary  at  War. 

"  I  called  to  see  the  President  on  official  busi- 
ness on  the  morning  (Monday,  16th  August) 
before  the  first  veto  message  was  sent  in.  I 
found  him  reading  the  message  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury.  He  did  me  the  honor  to  read 
the  material  passages  to  me.  Upon  reading 
that  part  of  it  which  treats  of  the  superior  im- 
portance and  value  of  the  business  done  by  the 
late  bank  of  the  United  States  in  furnishing  ex- 
changes between  the  different  States  and  sec- 


tions of  the  Union,  I  was  so  strongly  impressed 
with  the  idea  that  he  meant  to  intimate  that 
he  would  have  no  objection  to  a  bank  which 
should  be  restricted  in  dealing  in  exchanges,  that 
I  interrupted  him  in  the  reading,  and  asked  if  I 
was  to  understand,  by  what  he  had  just  read, 
that  he  was  prepared  to  give  his  assent  to  a 
bank  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  with  offices  or 
agencies  in  the  States,  having  the  privilege,  with- 
out their  assent,  to  deal  in  exchanges  between 
them,  and  in  foreign  bills.  He  promptly  replied 
that  he  thought  experience  had  shown  the  ne- 
cessity of  such  a  power  in  the  government.  I 
could  not  restrain  the  immediate  expression  of 
my  gratification  upon  hearing  this  avowal.  T  said 
to  the  President  at  once,  that  what  I  had  feared 
would  lead  to  fatal  dissension  among  our  friends, 
I  now  regarded  as  rather  fortunate  than  other- 
wise ;  that  his  veto  of  the  bill  then  before  him 
(the  first  one),  would  lead  to  the  adoption  of  a 
much  better  one.  I  also  congratulated  him  upon 
the  happy  circumstance  of  the  delay  which  had 
taken  place  in  sending  in  his  veto  message.  The 
heat  and  violence  which  might  have  been  ex- 
pected if  the  veto  had  been  sent  in  immediately 
upon  the  passage  of  the  bill,  would  now  be 
avoided.  Time  had  been  given  for  cool  reflec- 
tion, and  as  the  message  did  not  exclude  the 
idea  of  a  bank  in  some  form,  no  unpleasant  con- 
sequences would  be  likely  to  follow.  He  ex- 
pressed his  great  surprise  that  there  should  be 
so  much  excitement  upon  the  subject ;  said  that 
he  had  had  his  mind  made  up  on  the  bill  before 
him  from  the  first,  but  had  delayed  his  message 
that  there  should  be  time  for  the  excitement  to 
wear  off;  that  nothing  could  be  more  easy  than 
to  pass  a  bill  which  would  answer  all  necessary 
purposes  ;  that  it  could  be  done  in  three  days. 
The  next  day,  having  occasion  to  see  the  Presi- 
dent again,  he  requested  me  to  furnish  him  with 
such  information  as  the  war  department  afforded 
of  the  embarrassments  attending  the  transfer 
and  disbursement  of  the  public  revenue  to  dis- 
tant points  on  the  frontier,  in  Florida,  &c.  He 
at  the  same  time  requested  me  to  draw  up  a 
brief  statement  of  my  views  upon  the  subject, 
showing  the  practical  advantages  and  necessity 
of  such  a  fiscal  institution  as  he  had  thought  of 
proposing.  Such  information  as  I  could  hastily 
collect  from  the  heads  of  the  principal  disbursing 
bureaus  of  the  department  I  handed  to  him  on 
the  evening  of  the  same  day,  knowing  that  time 
was  of  the  utmost  importance  in  the  state  in 
which  the  question  then  was.  He  received  the 
statements  I  gave  him  with  manifest  indifference, 
and  alarmed  me  by  remarking  that  he  began  to 
doubt  whether  he  would  give  his  assent  (as  I 
understood  him)  to  any  bank." 

This  was  Mr.  Bell's  first  knowledge  of  the 
second  bill— all  got  from  the  President  himself, 
and  while  he  was  under  nervous  apprehension 
of  the  storm  which  was  to  burst  upon  him.    He 


356 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


goes  on  to  detail  the  subsequent  consultations 
with  his  cabinet,  and  especially  with  Mr.  Web- 
ster, as  heretofore  given ;  and  concludes  with 
expressing  the  impossibility  of  his  remaining 
longer  in  the  cabinet. 

Mr.  Crittenden,  the  attorney-general,  re- 
signed in  a  brief  and  general  letter,  only  stating 
that  circumstances  chiefly  connected  with  the 
fiscal  agent  bills,  made  it  his'  duty  to  do  so. 
His  reserve  was  supposed  to  be  induced  by  the 
close  friendly  relation  in  which  he  stood  with 
respect  to  Mr.  Clay.  Palliation  for  Mr.  Tyler's 
conduct  was  attempted  to  be  found  by  some  of 
his  friends  in  the  alleged  hostility  of  Mr.  Clay 
to  him,  and  desire  to  brow-beat  him,  and  em- 
barrass him.  No  doubt  Mr.  Clay  was  indig- 
nant, and  justly  so,  at  the  first  veto,  well  know- 
ing the  cause  of  it  as  he  showed  in  his  replies 
to  Mr.  Rives  and  Mr.  Archer:  but  that  was 
after  the  veto.  But  even  then  the  expression 
of  his  indignation  was  greatly  restrained,  and  he 
yielded  to  his  friends  in  twice  putting  off  his 
speech  on  that  first  veto,  that  he  might  not  dis- 
turb Mr.  Tyler  in  his  preparation  of  the  second 
bill.  The  interest  at  stake  was  too  great — no 
less  than  the  loss  of  the  main  fruits  of  the  presi- 
dential election — for  him  to  break  voluntarily 
with  Mr.  Tyler.  He  restrained  himself,  and 
only  ceased  his  self-restraint,  when  temporizing 
would  no  longer  answer  any  purpose  ;  and  only 
denounced  Mr.  Tyler  when  he  knew  that  he  had 
gone  into  the  embraces  of  a  third  party — taken 
his  stand  against  any  national  bank  as  a  means 
of  reconciling  himself  to  the  democracy — and 
substituted  "  a  secret  cabal "  (which  he  stigma- 
tized as  "  a  kitchen  cabinet ")  in  place  of  his 
constitutional  advisers. 

Two  days  after  the  appearance  of  those  letters 
of  resignation,  the  whole  of  which  came  out  in 
the  National  Intelligencer,  Mr.  Webster  pub- 
lished his  reasons  for  not  joining  in  that  act  with 
his  colleagues  :  and  justice  to  him  requires  this 
paper  to  be  given  in  his  own  words.  It  is  dated 
September  13th,  and  addressed  to  Messrs.  Gales 
and  Seaton,  the  well  reliable  whig  editors  in 
Washington. 

"  Lest  any  misapprehension  should  exist,  as 
to  the  reasons  which  have  led  me  to  differ  from 
the  course  pursued  by  my  late  colleagues,  I  wish 
to  say  that  I  remain  in  my  place,  first,  because 
I  have  seen  no  sufficient  reasons  for  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  late  cabinet,  by  the  voluntary  act  of 
its  own  members.    I  am  perfectly  persuaded  of 


the  absolute  necessity  of  an  institution,  under 
the  authority  of  Congress,  to  aid  revenue  and 
financial  operations,  and  to  give  the  country  the 
blessings  of  a  good  currency  and  cheap  ex- 
changes. Notwithstanding  what  has  passed,  I 
have  confidence  that  the  President  will  co-oper- 
ate with  the  legislature  in  overcoming  all  diffi- 
culties in  the  attainment  of  these  objects  ;  and 
it  is  to  the  union  of  the  whig  party — by  which 
I  mean  the  whole  party,  the  whig  President,  the 
whig  Congress,  and  the  whig  people — that  I  look 
for  a  realization  of  our  wishes.  I  can  look  no- 
where else.  In  the  second  place,  if  I  had  seen 
reasons  to  resign  my  office,  I  should  not  have 
done  so,  without  giving  the  President  reasonable 
notice,  and  affording  him  time  to  select  the  hands 
to  which  he  should  confide  the  delicate  and  im- 
portant affairs  now  pending  in  this  department." 

Notwithstanding  the  tone  of  this  letter,  it  is 
entirely  certain  that  Mr.  Webster  had  agreed 
to  go  out  with  his  colleagues,  and  was  expected 
to  have  done  so  at  the  time  they  sent  in  their 
resignations  ;  but,  in  the  mean  while,  means  had 
been  found  to  effect  a  change  in  his  determina- 
tion, probably  by  disavowing  the  application  of 
any  part  of  the  New  York  Herald  letter  to  him 
— certainly  (as  it  appears  from  his  letter)  by 
promising  a  co-operation  in  the  establishment 
of  a  national  bank  (for  that  is  what  was  in- 
tended by  the  blessings  of  a  sound  currency  and 
cheap  exchanges) :  and  also  equally  certain, 
from  the  same  letter,  that  he  was  made  to  ex- 
pect that  he  would  be  able  to  keep  all  whiggery 
together — whig  President  Tyler,  whig  members 
of  Congress,  and  whig  people,  throughout  the 
Union.  The  belief  of  these  things  shows  that 
Mr.  Webster  was  entirely  ignorant  of  the  for- 
mation of  a  third  party,  resting  on  a  democratic 
basis ;  and  that  the  President  himself  was  in 
regular  march  to  the  democratic  camp.  But  of 
all  this  hereafter. 

The  reconstruction  of  his  cabinet  became  the 
immediate  care  of  the  President,  and  in  the 
course  of  a  month  it  was  accomplished.  Mr. 
Walter  Forward,  of  Pennsylvania,  was  appointed 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury ;  the  department  of 
war  was  offered  to  Mr.  Justice  McLean  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and  upon 
his  refusal  to  accept  the  place,  it  was  conferred 
upon  John  C.  Spencer,  Esq.,  of  New  York  ;  Mr. 
Abel  P.  Upshur,  of  Virginia,  was  appointed 
Secretary  of  the  Navy — Hugh  S.  Legare,  Esq.. 
of  South  Carolina,  Attorney-General— Charles 
A.  Wickliffe,  Esq.,  of  Kentucky,  Postmaster- 
General.    This  cabinet  was  not  of  uniform  po- 


ANNO  1841.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


357 


litical  complexion.  Mr.  Webster  had  been  per- 
manently of  that  party  which,  under  whatso- 
ever name,  had  remained  antagonistic  to  the 
democracy.  Mr.  Forward  came  into  public  life 
democratic,  and  afterwards  acted  with  its  an- 
tagonists :  the  same  of  Mr.  Wickliffe  and  Mr. 
Spencer  :  Mr.  Upshur  a  whig,  classed  with  Mr. 
Calhoun's  political  friends — Mr.  Legare  the  con- 
trary, and  democratic,  and  distinguished  for  op- 
position to  nullification,  secession,  and  disunion. 


CHAPTER    LXXXY. 

REPUDIATION  OF  ME.  TYLER  BY  THE  WHIG  PAR- 
TY: THEIR  MANIFESTO:  COUNTER  MANIFESTO 
BY  MR.  CALEB  CUSHING. 

The  conduct  of  Mr.  Tyler  in  relation  to  a  na- 
tional bank  produced  its  natural  effect  upon  the 
party  which  had  elected  him — disgust  and  re- 
volt. In  both  Houses  of  Congress  individual 
members  boldly  denounced  and  renounced  him. 
He  seemed  to  be  crushed  there,  for  his  assail- 
ants were  many  and  fierce — his  defenders  few, 
and  feeble.  But  a  more  formal  act  of  condem- 
nation, and  separation  was  wanted — and  had. 
On  the  11th  day  of  September — the  day  of  the 
cabinet  resignations,  and  two  days  after  the 
transmission  of  the  second  veto  message — the 
whigs  of  the  two  Houses  had  a  formal  meeting 
to  consider  what  they  should  do  in  the  new, 
anomalous,  and  acephalous  condition  in  which 
they  found  themselves.  The  deliberations  were 
conducted  with  all  form.  Mr.  Senator  Dixon 
of  Rhode  Island,  and  Mr.  Jeremiah  Morrow  of 
Ohio — both  of  them  men  venerable  for  age 
and  character — were  appointed  presidents  ;  and 
Messrs.  Kenneth  Rayner  of  North  Carolina, 
Mr.  Christopher  Morgan  of  New  York,  and 
Richard  W.  Thompson  of  Indiana — all  members 
of  the  House — were  appointed  secretaries.  Mr. 
Mangum,  of  North  Carolina,  then  offered  two 
resolutions : 

"  1.  That  it  is  expedient  for  the  whigs  of  the 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the 
United  States  to  publish  an  address  to  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States,  containing  a  succinct 
exposition  of  the  prominent  proceedings  of  the 
extra  session  of  Congress,  of  the  measures  that 
have  been  adopted,  and  those  in  which  they 
have  failed,  and  the  causes  of  such  failure ;  to- 


gether with  such  other  matters  as  may  exhibit 
truly  the  condition  of  the  whig  party  and  whig 
prospects. 

"  2.  That  a  committee  of  three  on  the  part 
of  the  Senate,  and  five  on  the  part  of  the  House, 
be  appointed  to  prepare  such  address,  and  sub- 
mit it  to  a  meeting  of  the  whigs  on  Monday 
morning  next,  the  13th  inst.,  at  half  past  8 
o'clock." 

Both  resolutions  were  unanimously  adopted, 
and  Messrs.  Berrien  of  Georgia,  Tallmadge  of 
New  York,  and  Smith  of  Indiana  were  appoint- 
ed on  the  part  of  the  Senate ;  and  Messrs.  Ev- 
erett of  Vermont,  Mason  of  Ohio,  Kennedy  of 
Maryland,  John  C.  Clark  of  New  York,  and 
Rayner  of  North  Carolina,  on  the  part  of  the 
House. 

At  the  appointed  time  the  meeting  reassem- 
bled, and  the  committee  made  their  report. 
Much  of  it  was  taken  up  with  views  and  recom- 
mendations in  relation  to  the  general  policy  of 
the  party  :  it  is  only  of  what  relates  to  the  re- 
pudiation of  Mr.  Tyler  that  this  history  intends 
to  speak  :  for  government  with  us  is  a  struggle 
of  parties :  and  it  is  necessary  to  know  how 
parties  are  put  up,  and  put  down,  in  order  to 
understand  how  the  government  is  managed. 
An  opening  paragraph  of  the  address  set  forth 
that,  for  twelve  years  the  whigs  had  carried  on 
a  contest  for  the  regulation  of  the  currency,  the 
equalization  of  exchanges,  the  economical  ad- 
ministration of  the  finances,  and  the  advance- 
ment of  industry — all  to  be  accomplished  by 
means  of  a  national  bank — declaring  these  ob- 
jects to  be  misunderstood  by  no  one — and  the 
bank  itself  held  to  be  secured  in  the  presiden- 
tial election,  and  its  establishment  the  main  ob- 
ject of  the  extra  session.  The  address  then 
goes  on  to  tell  how  these  cherished  hopes  were 
frustrated : 

"  It  is  with  profound  and  poignant  regret  that 
we  find  ourselves  called  upon  to  invoke  your 
attention  to  this  point.  Upon  the  great  and 
leading  measure  touching  this  question,  our 
anxious  endeavors  to  respond  to  the  earnest 
prayer  of  the  nation  have  been  frustrated  by  an 
act  as  unlooked  for  as  it  is  to  be  lamented.  We 
grieve  to  say  to  you  that  by  the  exercise  of  that 
power  in  the  constitution  which  has  ever  been 
regarded  with  suspicion,  and  often  with  odium, 
by  the  people — a  power  which  we  had  hoped 
was  never  to  be  exhibited  on  this  subject,  by  a 
whig  President — we  have  been  defeated  in  two 
attempts  to  create  a  fiscal  agent,  which  the 
wants  of  the  country  had  demonstrated  to  us, 
in  the  most  absolute  form  of  proof,  to  be  emi- 


358 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


nently  necessary  and  proper  in  the  present 
emergency.  Twice  have  we,  with  the  utmost 
diligence  and  deliberation,  matured  a  plan  for 
the  collection,  safe-keeping  and  disbursing  of 
the  public  moneys  through  the  agency  of  a  cor- 
poration adapted  to  that  end,  and  twice  has  it 
been  our  fate  to  encounter  the  opposition  of  the 
President,  through  the  application  of  the  veto 
power.  The  character  of  that  veto  in  each  case, 
the  circumstances  in  which  it  was  administered, 
and  the  grounds  upon  which  it  has  met  the  de- 
cided disapprobation  of  your  friends  in  Con- 
gress, are  sufficiently  apparent  in  the  public 
documents  and  the  debates  relating  to  it.  This 
subject  has  acquired  a  painful  interest  with  us, 
and  will  doubtless  acquire  it  with  you,  from 
the  unhappy  developments  with  which  it  is  ac- 
companied. We  are  constrained  to  say,  that 
we  find  no  ground  to  justify  us  in  the  convic- 
tion that  the  veto  of  the  President  has  been  in- 
terposed on  this  question  solely  upon  conscien- 
tious and  well-considered  opinions  of  constitu- 
tional scruple  as  to  his  duty  in  the  case  present- 
ed. On  the  contrary,  too  many  proofs  have 
been  forced  upon  our  observation  to  leave  us 
free  from  the  apprehension,  that  the  President 
has  permitted  himself  to  be  beguiled  into  an 
opinion  that,  by  this  exhibition  of  his  preroga- 
tive, he  might  be  able  to  divert  the  policy  of  his 
administration  into  a  channel  which  should  lead 
to  new  political  combinations,  and  accomplish 
results  which  must  overthrow  the  present  di- 
visions of  party  in  the  country ;  and  finally  pro- 
duce a  state  of  things  which  those  who  elect- 
ed him,  at  least,  have  never  contemplated.  We 
have  seen  from  an  early  period  of  the  session, 
that  the  whig  party  did  not  enjoy  the  confidence 
of  the  President.  With  mortification  we  have 
observed  that  his  associations  more  sedulously 
aimed  at  a  free  communion  with  those  who 
have  been  busy  to  prostrate  our  purposes, 
rather  than  those  whose  principles  seemed  to 
be  most  identified  with  the  power  by  which  he 
was  elected.  Wc  have  reason  to  believe  that 
he  has  permitted  himself  to  be  approached, 
counselled  and  influenced  by  those  who  have 
manifested  least  interest  in  the  success  of  whig 
measures.  What  were  represented  to  be  his 
opinions  and  designs  have  been  freely  and  even 
insolently  put  forth  in  certain  portions,  and 
those  not  the  most  reputable,  of  the  public 
press,  in  a  manner  that  ought  to  be  deemed 
offensive  to  his  honor,  as  it  certainly  was  to  the 
feelings  of  those  who  were  believed  to  be  his 
friends.  In  the  earnest  endeavor  manifested 
by  the  members  of  the  whig  party  in  Congress 
to  ascertain  specifically  the  President's  notions 
in  reference  to  the  details  of  such  a  bill  relating 
to  a  fiscal  agent  as  would  be  likely  to  meet  his 
approbation,  the  frequent  changes  of  his  opinion, 
and  the  singular  want  of  consistency  in  his 
views,  have  baffled  his  best  friends,  and  ren- 
dered the  hope  of  adjustment  with  him  impos- 
sible." 


"  The  plan  of  an  exchange  bank,  such  as  was 
reported  after  the  first  veto,  the  President  is 
understood  by  more  than  one  member  of  Con- 
gress to  whom  he  expressed  his  opinion,  to 
have  regarded  as  a  favorite  measure.  It  was 
in  view  of  this  opinion,  suggested  as  it  is  in  his 
first  veto,  and  after  using  every  proper  effort 
to  ascertain  his  precise  views  upon  it,  that  the 
committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives  re- 
ported their  second  bill.  It  made  provision 
for  a  bank  without  the  privilege  of  local  dis- 
counting, and  was  adapted  as  closely  as  possible, 
to  that  class  of  mercantile  operations  which  the 
first  veto  message  describes  with  approbation, 
and  which  that  paper  specifically  illustrates  by 
reference  to  the  '  dealings  in  the  exchanges  ' 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  in  1833,  which 
the  President  affirms  '  amounted  to  upwards  of 
one  hundred  millions  of  dollars.'  Yet  this  plan, 
when  it  was  submitted  to  him,  was  objected  to 
on  a  new  ground.  The  last  veto  has  narrowed 
the  question  of  a  bank  down  to  the  basis  of  the 
sub-treasury  scheme,  and  it  is  obvious  from  the 
opinions  of  that  message  that  the  country  is  not 
to  expect  any  thing  better  than  the  exploded 
sub-treasury,  or  some  measure  of  the  same 
character,  from  Mr.  Tyler.  In  the  midst  of 
all  these  varieties  of  opinion,  an  impenetrable 
mystery  seemed  to  hang  over  the  whole  ques- 
tion. There  was  no  such  frank  interchange  of 
sentiment  as  ought  to  characterize  the  inter- 
course of  a  President  and  his  friends,  and  the 
last  persons  in  the  government  who  would 
seem  to  have  been  intrusted  with  his  confidence 
on  those  embarrassing  topics  were  the  constitu- 
tional advisers  which  the  laws  had  provided 
for  him.  In  this  review  of  the  position  into 
which  the  late  events  have  thrown  the  whig 
party,  it  is  with  profound  sorrow  we  look  to 
the  course  pursued  by  the  President.  He  has 
wrested  from  us  one  of  the  best  fruits  of  a  long 
and  painful  struggle,  and  the  consummation  of 
a  glorious  victory  ;  he  has  even  perhaps  thrown 
us  once  more  upon  the  field  of  political  strife, 
not  weakened  in  numbers,  nor  shorn  of  the 
support  of  the  country,  but  stripped  of  the 
arms  which  success  had  placed  in  our  hands, 
and  left  again  to  rely  upon  that  high  patriotism 
which  for  twelve  years  sustained  us  in  a  con- 
flict of  unequalled  asperity,  and  which  finally 
brought  us  to  the  fulfilment  of  those  bril- 
liant hopes  which  he  has  done  so  much  to 
destroy." 

Having  thus  shown  the  loss,  by  the  conduct 
of  the  President,  of  all  the  main  fruits  of  a 
great  victory  after  a  twelve  years'  contest,  the 
address  goes  On  to  look  to  the  future,  and  to 
inquire  what  is  to  be  the  conduct  of  the  party 
in  such  unexpected  and  disastrous  circum-. 
stances  ?  and  the  first  answer  to  that  inquiry 
is,  to  establish  a  permanent  separation  of  the 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


359 


whig  party  from  Mr.  Tyler,  and  to  wash  their 
hands  of  all  accountability  for  his  acts. 

"  In  this  state  of  things,  the  whigs  will  natu- 
rally look  with  anxiety  to  the  future,  and  in- 
quire what  are  the  actual  relations  between 
the  President  and  those  who  brought  him  into 
power ;  and  what,  in  the  opinion  of  their  friends 
in  Congress,  should  be  their  course  hereafter. 
On  both  of  these  questions  we  feel  it  to  be  our 
duty  to  address  you  in  perfect  frankness  and 
without  reserve,  but,  at  the  same  time,  with  due 
respect  to  others.  In  regard  to  the  first,  we 
are  constrained  to  say  that  the  President,  by 
the  course  he  has  adopted  in  respect  to  the  ap- 
plication of  the  veto  power  to  two  successive 
bank  charters,  each  of  which  there  was  just 
reason  to  believe  would  meet  his  approbation  ; 
by  his  withdrawal  of  confidence  from  his  real 
friends  in  Congress  and  from  the  members  of 
his  cabinet ;  by  his  bestowal  of  it  upon  others 
notwithstanding  their  notorious  opposition  to 
leading  measures  of  his  administration,  has 
voluntarily  separated  himself  from  those  by 
whose  exertions  and  suffrages  he  was  elevated 
to  that  office  through  which  he  reached  his 
present  exalted  station.  The  existence  of  this 
unnatural  relation  is  as  extraordinary  as  the 
annunciation  of  it  is  painful  and  mortifying. 
"What  are  the  consequences  and  duties  which 
grow  out  of  it  ?  The  first  consequence  is,  that 
those  who  brought  the  President  into  power 
can  be  no  longer,  in  any  manner  or  degree, 
justly  held  responsible  or  blamed  for  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  executive  branch  of  the  gov- 
ernment ;  and  that  the  President  and  his  ad- 
visers should  be  exclusively  hereafter  deemed 
accountable." 

Then  comes  the  consideration  of  what  they 
are  to  do  ?  and  after  inculcating,  in  the  ancient 
form,  the  laudable  policy  of  supporting  their 
obnoxious  President  when  he  was  '  right,''  and 
opposing  him  when  he  was  'wrong' — phrases 
repeated  by  all  parties,  to  be  complied  with  by 
none — they  go  on  to  recommend  courage  and 
unity  to  their  discomfited  ranks — to  promise 
a  new  victory  at  the  next  election ;  and  with  it 
the  establishment  of  all  their  measures,  crowned 
by  a  national  bank. 

"The  conduct  of  the  President  has  occa- 
sioned bitter  mortification  and  deep  regret. 
Shall  the  party,  therefore,  yielding  to  senti- 
ments of  despair,  abandon  its  duty,  and  submit 
to  defeat  and  disgrace?  Far  from  suffering  such 
dishonorable  consequences,  the  very  disappoint- 
ment which  it  has  unfortunately  experienced 
should  serve  only  to  redouble  its  exertions,  and 
to  inspire  it  with  fresh  courage  to  persevere 
with  a  spirit  unsubdued  and  a  resolution  un- 
shaken, until  the  prosperity  of  the  country  is 


fully  re-established,  and  its  liberties  firmly  se- 
cured against  all  danger  from  the  abuses,  en- 
croachments or  usurpations  of  the  executive 
department  of  the  government." 

This  was  the  manifesto,  so  far  as  it  concerns 
the  repudiation  of  Mr.  Tyler,  which  the  whig 
members  of  Congress  put  forth :  it  was  an- 
swered (under  the  name  of  an  address  to  his 
constituents)  by  Mr.  Cushing,  in  what  may  be 
called  a  counter  manifesto :  for  it  was  on  the 
same  subject  as  the  other,  and  counter  to  it  at  all 
points — especially  on  the  fundamental  point  of, 
which  party  the  President  was  to  belong  to  ! 
the  manifesto  of  the  whig  members  assigning 
him  to  the  democracy — the  counter  manifesto 
claiming  him  for  the  whigs !  In  this,  Mr. 
Cushing  followed  the  lead  of  Mr.  Webster  in 
his  letter  of  resignation  :  and,  in  fact,  the  whole 
of  his  pleading  (for  such  it  was)  was  an  am- 
plification of  Mr.  Webster's  letter  to  the  editors 
of  the  National  Intelligencer,  and  of  the  one  to 
Messrs.  Bates  and  Choate,  and  of  another  to 
Mr.  Ketchum,  of  New  York.  The  first  part  of 
the  address  of  Mr.  Cushing,  is  to  justify  the 
President  for  changing  his  course  on  the  fiscal 
corporation  bill ;  and  this  attempted  in  a  thrust 
at  Mr  Clay  thus : 

"  A  caucus  dictatorship  has  been  set  up  in 
Congress,  which,  not  satisfied  with  ruling  that 
body  to  the  extinguishment  of  individual  free- 
dom of  opinion,  seeks  to  control  the  President 
in  his  proper  sphere  of  duty,  denounces  him  be- 
fore you  for  refusing  to  surrender  his  independ- 
ence and  his  conscience  to  its  decree,  and  pro- 
poses, through  subversion  of  the  fundamental 
provisions  and  principles  of  the  constitution,  to 
usurp  the  command  of  the  government.  It  is  a 
question,  therefore,  in  fact,  not  of  legislative 
measures,  but  of  revolution.  What  is  the  visi- 
ble, and  the  only  professed,  origin  of  these  ex- 
traordinary movements?  The  whig  party  in 
Congress  have  been  extremely  desirous  to  cause 
a  law  to  be  enacted  at  the  late  session,  incorpo- 
rating a  national  bank.  Encountering,  in  the 
veto  of  the  President,  a  constitutional  obstacle 
to  the  enactment  of  such  a  law  at  the  late  ses- 
sion, a  certain  portion  of  the  whig  party,  repre- 
sented by  the  caucus  dictatorship,  proceeds 
then,  in  the  beginning,  to  denounce  the  Presi- 
dent. Will  you  concur  in  this  denunciation  of 
the  President  ?  " 

This  was  the  accusation,  first  hinted  at  by 
Mr.  Hives  in  the  Senate,  afterwards  obscurely 
intimated  in  Mr.  Webster's  letter  to  the  two 
Massachusetts  senators ;  and  now  broadly  stated 


360 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


by  Mr.  Cushing  j  without,  however,  naming  the 
imputed  dictator ;  which  was,  in  fact,  unneces- 
sary. Every  body  knew  that  Mr.  Clay  was  the 
person  intended )  with  what  justice,  not  to  re- 
peat proofs  already  given,  let  the  single  fact 
answer,  that  these  caucus  meetings  (for  such 
there  were)  were  all  subsequent  to  Mr.  Tyler's 
change  on  the  bank  question !  and  in  conse- 
quence of  it !  and  solely  with  a  view  to  get  him 
back !  and  that  by  conciliation  until  after  the 
second  veto.  In  this  thrust  at  Mr.  Clay  Mr. 
Cushing  was  acting  in  the  interest  of  Mr.  Web- 
ster's feelings  as  well  as  those  of  Tyler;  for 
since  1832  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Webster  had  not 
been  amicable,  and  barely  kept  in  civil  relations 
by  friends,  who  had  frequently  to  interpose  to 
prevent,  or  compose  outbreaks ;  and  even  to 
make  in  the  Senate  formal  annunciation  of  re- 
conciliation effected  between  them.  But  the 
design  required  Mr.  Clay  to  be  made  the  cause 
of  the  rejection  of  the  bank  bills  ;  and  also  re- 
quired him  to  be  crippled  as  the  leader  of  the 
anti-administration  whigs.  In  this  view  Mr. 
Cushing  resumes : 

"When  Lord  Grenville  broke  up  the  whig 
party  of  England,  in  1807,  by  the  unseasonable 
pressure  of  some  great  question,  and  its  conse- 
quent loss,  '  Why,'  said  Sheridan,  '  did  they  not 
put  it  off,  as  Fox  did  ?  I  have  heard  of  men 
running  their  heads  against  a  wall ;  but  this  is 
the  first  time  I  ever  heard  of  men  building  a 
wall,  and  squaring  it,  and  clamping  it,  for  the 
express  purpose  of  knocking  out  their  brains 
against  it.'  This  bon  mot  of  Sheridan's  will  ap- 
ply to  the  whig  party  in  Congress,  if,  on  account 
of  the  failure  of  the  bank  bill  at  the  late  session, 
they  secede  from  the  administration,  and  set  up 
as  a  Tertium  Quid  in  the  government,  neither 
administration  nor  opposition." 

Having  presented  this  spectacle  of  their  brains 
beaten  out  against  a  wall  of  their  own  raising, 
if  the  whig  party  should  follow  Mr.  Clay  into 
opposition  to  the  Tyler-Webster  administration, 
Mr.  Cushing  took  the  party  on  another  tack — 
that  of  the  bird  in  the  hand,  which  is  worth  two 
in  the  bush ;  and  softly  commences  with  them 
on  the  profit  of  using  the  presidential  power 
while  they  had  it : 

"  Is  it  wise  for  the  whig  party  to  throw  away 
the  actuality  of  power  for  the  current  four  years  ? 
If  so,  for  what  object  ?  For  some  contingent 
possibility  four  years  hence  ?  If  so,  what  one  ? 
Is  the  contingent  possibility  of  advancing  to 
power  four  years  hence  any  one  particular  man 


in  its  ranks,  whoever  he  may  be,  and  however 
eminently  deserving,  a  sufficient  object  to  induce 
the  whig  party  to  abdicate  the  power  which  it- 
self as  a  body  possesses  now  ?  " 

And  changing  again,  and  from  seduction  to 
terror,  he  presents  to  them,  as  the  most  appal- 
ling of  all  calamities,  the  possible  election  of 
a  democratic  President  at  the  next  election 
through  the  deplorable  divisions  of  the  whig 
party. 

"  If  so,  will  its  abdication  of  power  now  tend  to 
promote  that  object  ?  Is  it  not,  on  the  contrary, 
the  very  means  to  make  sure  the  success  of  some 
candidate  of  the  democratic  party  ?  " 

Proceeding  to  the  direct  defence  of  the  Presi- 
dent, he  then  boldly  absolves  him  from  any 
violation  of  faith  in  rejecting  the  two  bank  bills. 
Thus : 

"  In  refusing  to  sign  those  bills,  then,  he  vio- 
lated no  engagement,  and  committed  no  act  of 
perfidy  in  the  sense  of  a  forfeited  pledge." 

And  advancing  from  exculpation  to  applause, 
he  makes  it  an  act  of  conscience  in  Mr.  Tyler  in 
refusing  to  sign  them,  and  places  him  under  the 
imperious  command  of  a  triple  power — con- 
science, constitution,  oath  ;  without  the  faculty 


"  But,  in  this  particular,  the  President,  as  an 
upright  man,  could  do  no  otherwise  than  he  did. 
He  conscientiously  disapproved  those  bills. 
And  the  constitution,  which  he  was  sworn  to 
obey,  commands  him,  expressly  and  peremp- 
torily commands  him,  if  he  do  not  approve  of 
any  bill  presented  to  him  for  his  signature,  to 
return  it  to  the  House  of  Congress  in  which  it 
originated.  '  If  he  approve  he  shall  sign  it :  if 
not,  he  shall  return  it,'  are  the  words  of  the 
constitution.  Would  you  as  conscientious  men 
yourselves,  forbid  the  President  of  the  United 
States  to  have  a  conscience  ?  " 

Acquittal  of  the  President  of  all  hand  in  the 
initiation  of  the  second  bill,  is  the  next  task  of 
Mr.  Cushing,  and  he  boldly  essays  it. 

"  The  President,  it  is  charged,  trifled  with  one 
or  more  of  the  retiring  secretaries.  Of  what 
occurred  at  cabinet  meetings,  the  public  knows 
and  can  know  nothing.  But,  as  to  the  main 
point,  whether  he  initiated  the  fiscal  corporation 
bill.  This  idea  is  incompatible  with  the  dates 
and  facts  above  stated,  which  show  that  the  con- 
sideration of  a  new  bill  was  forced  on  the  Presi- 
dent by  members  of  Congress.  It  is,  also, 
incompatible  with  the  fact  that,  on  Tuesday,  the 
17th  of  August,  as  it  is  said  by  the  Secretary 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


361 


of  "War,  the  President  expressed  to  him  doubt 
as  to  any  bill." 

Now  what  happened  in  these  cabinet  meet- 
ings is  well  known  to  the  public  from  the  con- 
current statement  of  three  of  the  secretaries, 
and  from  presidential  declarations  to  members 
of  Congress,  and  these  statements  cover  the 
main  point  of  the  initiation  of  the  second  bill  by 
the  President  himself;  and  that  not  on  the  18th, 
but  the  16th  of  August,  and  not  only  to  his 
cabinet  but  to  Mr.  Stuart  of  Virginia  the  same 
evening ;  and  that  it  was  two  days  afterwards 
that  the  two  members  of  Congress  called  upon 
him  (Messrs.  Sergeant  and  Berrien),  not  to  force 
him  to  take  a  bill,  but  to  be  forced  by  him  to 
run  his  own  bill  through  in  three  days.  De- 
murring to  the  idea  that  the  President  could  be 
forced  by  members  of  Congress  to  adopt  an  ob- 
noxious bill,  the  brief  statement  is,  that  it  is  not 
true.  The  same  is  to  be  said  of  the  quoted 
remark  of  the  Secretary  at  War,  Mr.  Bell, 
that  the  President  expressed  to  him  a  doubt 
whether  he  would  sign  any  bank  bill — leaving 
out  the  astonishment  of  the  Secretary  at  that 
declaration,  who  had  been  requested  by  the  Pre- 
sident the  day  before  to  furnish  facts  in  favor  of 
the  bill ;  and  who  came  to  deliver  a  statement  of 
these  facts  thus  prepared,  and  in  great  haste, 
upon  request ;  and  when  brought,  received  with 
indifference !  and  a  doubt  expressed  whether  he 
would  sign  any  bill.  Far  from  proving  that  the 
President  had  a  consistent  doubt  upon  the  sub- 
ject, which  is  the  object  of  the  mutilated  quota- 
tion from  Mr.  Bell — it  proves  just  the  contrary ! 
proves  that  the  President  was  for  the  bill,  and 
began  it  himself,  on  the  lGth ;  and  was  laying 
an  anchor  to  windward  for  its  rejection  on  the 
17th !  having  changed  during  the  night. 

The  retirement  of  all  the  cabinet  ministers 
but  one,  and  that  for  such  reasons  as  they  gave, 
is  treated  by  Mr.  Cushing  as  a  thing  of  no  sig- 
nification, and  of  no  consequence  to  any  body 
but  themselves.  He  calls  it  a  common  fact 
which  has  happened  under  many  administra- 
tions, and  of  no  permanent  consequence,  pro- 
vided good  successors  are  appointed.  All  that 
is  right  enough  where  secretaries  retire  for  per- 
sonal reasons,  such  as  are  often  seen ;  but  when 
they  retire  because  they  impeach  the  President 
of  great  moral  delinquency,  and  refuse  to  remain 
with  him  on  that  account,  the  state  of  the  case 
is  altered.   He  and  they  are  public  officers  ;  and 


officers  at  the  head  of  the  government;  and 
their  public  conduct  is  matter  of  national  con- 
cern; and  the  people  have  a  right  to  inquire 
and  to  know  the  public  conduct  of  public  men. 
The  fact  that  Mr.  Webster  remained  is  con- 
sidered as  overbalancing  the  withdrawal  of  all 
the  others ;  and  is  thus  noticed  by  Mr.  Cush- 
ing: 

"And  that,  whilst  those  gentlemen  have  re- 
tired, yet  the  Secretary  of  State,  in  whose  pa- 
triotism and  ability  you  have  more  immediate 
cause  to  confide,  has  declared  that  he  knows  no 
sufficient  cause  for  such  separation,  and  con- 
tinues to  co-operate  cordially  with  the  Presi- 
dent in  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  that  sta- 
tion which  he  fills  with  so  much  honor  to  him- 
self and  advantage  to  the  country." 

Certainly  it  was  a  circumstance  of  high  mo- 
ment to  Mr.  Tyler  that  one  of  his  cabinet  re- 
mained with  him.  It  was  something  in  such  a 
general  withdrawing,  and  for  such  reasons  as 
were  given,  and  was  considered  a  great  sacrifice 
on  the  part  of  Mr.  Webster  at  the  time.  As 
such  it  was  well  remembered  a  short  time  after- 
wards, when  Mr.  Webster,  having  answered  the 
purposes  for  which  he  was  retained,  was  com- 
pelled to  follow  the  example  of  his  old  col- 
leagues. The  address  of  Mr.  Cushing  goes  on 
to  show  itself,  in  terms,  to  be  an  answer  to  the 
address  of  the  whig  party — saying : 

"  Yet  an  address  has  gone  forth  from  a  por- 
tion of  the  members  of  Congress,  purporting  to 
be  the  unanimous  act  of  a  meeting  of  the  whigs 
of  Congress,  which,  besides  arraigning  the  Pre- 
sident on  various  allegations  of  fact  and  surmises 
not  fact,  recommends  such  radical  changes  of  the 
constitution." 

The  address  itself  of  the  whig  party  is  treated 
as  the  work  of  Mr.  Clay — as  an  emanation  of 
that  caucus  dictatorship  in  Congress  of  which 
he  was  always  the  embodied  idea.     He  says : 

"  Those  changes,  if  effected,  would  concentrate 
the  chief  powers  of  government  in  the  hands  of 
that  of  which  this  document  (the  whig  address) 
itself  is  an  emanation,  namely  a  caucus  dictator- 
ship of  Congress." 

This  defence  by  Mr.  Cushing,  the  letters  of 
Mr.  Webster,  and  all  the  writers  in  the  in- 
terests of  Mr.  Tyler  himself,  signified  nothing 
against  the  concurrent  statements  of  the  retir- 
ing senators,  and  the  confirmatory  statements 
of  many  members  of  Congress.  The  whig  party 
recoiled  from  him.     Instead  of  that    "whig 


362 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


President,  whig  Congress,  and  whig  people," 
formed  into  a  unit,  with  the  vision  of  which  Mr. 
Webster  had  been  induced  to  remain  when  his 
colleagues  retired — instead  of  this  unity,  there 
was  soon  found  diversity  enough.  The  whig 
party  remained  with  Mr.  Clay  ;  the  whig  Sec- 
retary of  State  returned  to  Massachusetts,  in- 
quiring, "  where  am  I  to  go?  "  The  whig  de- 
fender of  Mr.  Tyler  went  to  China,  clothed 
with  a  mission;  and  returning,  found  that 
greatest  calamity,  the  election  of  a  democratic 
President,  to  be  a  fixed  fact;  and  being  so 
fixed,  he  joined  it,  and  got  another  commission 
thereby :  while  Mr.  Tyler  himself,  who  was  to 
have  been  the  Roman  cement  of  this  whig  unity, 
continued  his  march  to  the  democratic  camp — 
arrived  there — knocked  at  the  gate — asked  to 
be  let  in :  and  was  refused.  The  national  dem- 
ocratic Baltimore  convention  would  not  recog- 
nize him. 


CHAPTER    LXXXYI. 

THE  DANISH  SOUND  DUES. 

This  subject  was  brought  to  the  attention  of 
the  President  at  this  extra  session  of  Congress 
by  a  report  from  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  by 
the  President  communicated  to  Congress  along 
with  his  message.  He  did  not  seem  to  call  for 
legislative  action,  as  the  subject  was  diplomatic, 
and  relations  were  established  between  the 
countries,  and  the  remedy  proposed  for  the 
evil  stated  was  simply  one  of  negotiation.  The 
origin  and  history  of  these  dues,  and  the  claims 
and  acquiescences  on  which  they  rest,  are  so 
clearly  and  concisely  set  forth  by  Mr.  "Webster, 
and  the  amelioration  he  proposed  so  natural 
and  easy  for  the  United  States,  and  the  subject 
now  acquiring  an  increasing  interest  with  us, 
that  I  draw  upon  his  report  for  nearly  all  that 
is  necessary  to  be  said  of  it  in  this  chapter; 
and  which  is  enough  for  the  general  reader. 
The  report  says : 

"  The  right  of  Denmark  to  levy  these  dues  is 
asserted  on  the  ground  of  ancient  usage,  coming 
down  from  the  period  when  that  power  had 
possession  of  both  shores  of  the  Belt  and  Sound. 
However  questionable  the  right  or  uncertain  its 


origin,  it  has  been  recognised  by  European 
governments,  in  several  treaties  with  Den- 
mark, some  of  whom  entered  into  it  at  as  early 
a  period  as  the  fourteenth  century ;  and  inas- 
much as  our  treaty  with  that  power  contains 
a  clause  putting  us  on  the  same  footing  in  this 
respect  as  other  the  most  favored  nations,  it 
has  been  acquiesced  in,  or  rather  has  not  been 
denied  by  us.  The  treaty  of  1645,  between 
Denmark  and  Holland,  to  which  a  tariff  of  the 
principal  articles  then  known  in  commerce, 
with  a  rule  of  measurement  and  a  fixed  rate  of 
duty,  was  appended,  together  with  a  subsequent 
one  between  the  same  parties  in  1701,  amenda- 
tory and  explanatory  of  the  former,  has  been 
generally  considered  as  the  basis  of  all  subse- 
quent treaties,  and  among  them  of  our  own, 
concluded  in  1826,  and  limited  to  continue  ten 
years  from  its  date,  and  further  until  the  end 
of  one  year,  after  notice  by  either  party  of  an 
intention  to  terminate  it,  and  which  is  still  in 
force. 

"Treaties  have  also  been  concluded  with 
Denmark,  by  Great  Britain,  France,  Spain, 
Portugal,  Russia,  Prussia  and  Brazil,  by  which, 
with  one  or  two  exceptions  in  their  favor,  they 
are  placed  on  the  same  footing  as  the  United 
States.  There  has  recently  been  a  general 
movement  on  the  part  of  the  northern  powers 
of  Europe,  with  regard  to  the  subject  of  these 
Sound  dues,  and  which  seems  to  afford  to  this 
government  a  favorable  opportunity,  in  con- 
junction with  them,  for  exerting  itself  to  obtain 
some  such  alteration  or  modification  of  exist- 
ing regulations  as  shall  conduce  to  the  freedom 
and  extension  of  our  commerce,  or  at  least  to 
relieve  it  from  some  of  the  burdens  now  im- 
posed, which,  owing  to  the  nature  of  our  trade, 
operate,  in  many  instances,  very  unequally 
and  unjustly  on  it  in  comparison  with  that  of 
other  nations. 

"  The  ancient  tariff  of  1645,  by  which  the  pay- 
ment of  these  dues  was  regulated,  has  never 
been  revised,  and  by  means  of  the  various 
changes  wThich  have  taken  place  in  commerce 
since  that  period,  and  of  the  alteration  in  price 
in  many  articles  therein  included,  chiefly  in 
consequence  of  the  settlement  of  America,  and 
the  introduction  of  her  products,  into  general 
commerce,  it  has  become  quite  inapplicable.  It 
is  presumed  to  have  been  the  intention  of  the 
framers  of  that  tariff  to  fix  a  duty  of  about  one 
per  centum  ad  valorem  upon  the  articles  there- 
in enumerated,  but  the  change  in  value  of  many 
of  those  commodities,  and  the  absence  of  any 
corresponding  change  in  the  duty,  has,  in  many 
instances,  increased  the  ad  valorem  from  one 
per  centum  to  three,  four,  and  even  seven  ;  and 
this,  generally,  upon  those  articles  which  form 
the  chief  exports  of  the  United  States,  of  South 
America,  and  the  West  India  Islands  :  such  as 
the  articles  of  cotton,  rice,  raw  sugar,  tobacco, 
rum,  Campeachy  wood,  &c.  On  all  articles  not 
enumerated  in  this  ancient  tariff  it  is  stipulated 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


363 


by  the  treaty  of  1701  that  the  'privileged 
nations.'  or  those  who  have  treaties  with  Den- 
mark, shall  pay  an  ad  valorem  of  one  per  cent.  ; 
but  the  value  of  these  articles  being  fixed  by 
some  rules  known  only  to  the  Danish  govern- 
ment, or  at  least  unknown  to  us,  this  duty  ap- 
pears uncertain  and  fluctuating,  and  its  estimate 
is  very  much  left  to  the  arbitrary  discretion  of 
the  custom  house  officers  at  Elsinore. 

"  It  has  been,  by  some  of  the  public  writers 
in  Denmark,  contended  that  goods  of  privileged 
nations,  carried  in  the  vessels  of  unprivileged 
nations,  should  not  be  entitled  to  the  limitation 
of  one  per  centum  ad  valorem,  but  should  be 
taxed  oue  and  a  quarter  per  centum,  the  amount 
levied  on  the  goods  of  unprivileged  nations; 
and,  also,  that  this  limitation  should  be  confined 
to  the  direct  trade,  so  that  vessels  coming  from 
or  bound  to  the  ports  of  a  nation  not  in  treaty 
with  Denmark  should  pay  on  their  cargoes  the 
additional  quarter  per  cent." 

"  These  questions,  although  the  former  is  not 
of  so  much  consequence  to  us,  who  are  our  own 
carriers,  are  still  in  connection  with  each  other, 
of  sufficient  importance  to  render  a  decision 
upon  them,  and  a  final  understanding,  extreme- 
ly desirable.  These  Sound  dues  are,  moreover, 
in  addition  to  the  port  charges  of  light  money, 
pass-money,  &c,  which  are  quite  equal  to  the 
rates  charged  at  other  places,  and  the  payment 
of  which,  together  with  the  Sound  dues,  often 
causes  to  vessels  considerable  delay  at  Elsinore. 

"  The  port  charges,  which  are  usual  among 
all  nations  to  whose  ports  vessels  resort,  are 
unobjectionable,  except  that,  as  in  this  case, 
they  are  mere  consequences  of  the  imposition 
of  the  Sound  dues,  following,  necessarily,  upon 
the  compulsory  delay  at  Elsinore  of  vessels 
bound  up  and  down  the  Sound  with  cargoes, 
with  no  intention  of  making  any  importation 
into  any  port  of  Denmark,  and  having  no  other 
occasion  for  delay  at  Elsinore  than  that  which 
arises  from  the  necessity  of  paying  the  Sound 
dues,  and,  in  so  doing,  involuntarily  subjecting 
themselves  to  these  other  demands.  These  port 
duties  would  appear  to  have  some  reason  in 
them,  because  of  the  equivalent ;  while,  in  fact, 
they  are  made  requisite,  with  the  exception, 
perhaps,  of  the  expense  of  lights,  by  the  delay 
necessary  for  the  payment  of  the  Sound  dues. 

"  The  amount  of  our  commerce  with  Den- 
mark, direct,  is  inconsiderable,  compared  with 
that  of  our  transactions  with  Russia,  Sweden 
and  the  ports  of  Prussia,  and  the  Germanic  as- 
sociation on  the  Baltic  ;  but  the  sum  annually 
paid  to  that  government  in  Sound  dues,  and  the 
consequent  port  charges  by  our  vessels  alone, 
is  estimated  at  something  over  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars.  The  greater  proportion  of 
this  amount  is  paid  by  the  articles  of  cotton, 
sugar,  tobacco,  and  rice ;  the  first  and  last  of 
these  paying  a  duty  of  about  three  per  cent,  ad 
valorem,  reckoning  their  value  at  the  places 
whence  they  come. 


"  By  a  list  published  at  Elsinore,  in  1840,  it 
appears  that  between  April  and  November  of 
that  year,  seventy-two  American  vessels,  com- 
paratively a  small  number,  lowered  their  top- 
sails before  the  castle  of  Cronberg.  These  were 
all  bound  up  the  Sound  to  ports  on  the  Baltic, 
with  cargoes  composed  in  part  of  the  above- 
named  products,  upon  which  alone,  according 
to  the  tariff,  was  paid  a  sum  exceeding  forty 
thousand  dollars  for  these  dues.  Having  dis- 
posed of  these  cargoes,  they  returned  laden  with 
the  usual  productions  of  the  countries  on  the 
Baltic,  on  which,  in  like  manner,  were  paid  du- 
ties on  going  out  through  the  Sound,  again  ac- 
knowledging the  tribute  by  an  inconvenient 
and  sometimes  hazardous  ceremony.  The 
whole  amount  thus  paid  within  a  period  of 
eight  months  on  inward  and  outward  bound 
cargoes,  by  vessels  of  the  United  States,  none 
of  which  were  bound  for,  or  intended  to  stop 
at,  any  port  in  Denmark,  except  compulsorily 
at  Elsinore,  for  the  purpose  of  complying  with 
these  exactions,  must  have  exceeded  the  large 
sum  above  named." 

This  is  the  burden,  and  the  history  of  it 
which  Mr.  Webster  so  succinctly  presents. 
The  peaceful  means  of  negotiation  are  recom- 
mended to  obtain  the  benefit  of  all  the  reduc- 
tions in  these  dues  which  should  be  granted  to 
other  nations  ;  and  this  natural  and  simple 
course  is  brought  before  the  President  in  terms 
of  brief  and  persuasive  propriety. 

"  I  have,  therefore,  thought  proper  to  bring 
this  subject  before  you  at  this  time,  and  to  go 
into  these  general  statements  in  relation  to  it, 
which  might  be  carried  more  into  detail,  and 
substantiated  by  documents  now  at  the  depart- 
ment, to  the  end  that,  if  you  should  deem  it  ex- 
pedient, instructions  may  be  given  to  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  United  States  at  Denmark  to 
enter  into  friendly  negotiations  with  that  gov- 
ernment, with  a  view  of  securing  to  the  com- 
merce of  the  United  States  a  full  participation 
in  any  reduction  of  these  duties,  or  the  benefits 
resulting  from  any  new  arrangements  respect- 
ing them  which  may  be  granted  to  the  com- 
merce of  other  states." 

This  is  the  view  of  an  American  statesman. 
No  quarrelling,  or  wrangling  with  Denmark, 
always  our  friend :  no  resistance  to  duties  which 
all  Europe  pays,  and  were  paying  not  only  be- 
fore we  had  existence  as  a  nation,  but  before  the 
continent  on  which  we  live  had  been  discov- 
ered :  no  setting  ourselves  up  for  the  liberators 
of  the  Baltic  Sea :  no  putting  ourselves  in  the 
front  of  a  contest  in  which  other  nations  have 
more  interest  than  ourselves.  It  is  not  even 
recommended  that  we  should  join  a  congress 


364 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  European  ministers  to  solicit,  or  to  force,  a 
reduction  or  abolition  of  these  duties  ;  and  the 
policy  of  engaging  in  no  entangling  alliances,  is 
well  maintained  in  that  abstinence  from  asso- 
ciated negotiation.  The  Baltic  is  a  European 
sea.  Great  powers  live  upon  its  shores  :  other 
great  powers  near  its  entrance :  and  all  Europe 
nearer  to  it  than  ourselves.  The  dues  collected 
at  Elsinore  present  a  European  question  which 
should  be  settled  by  European  powers,  all  that 
we  can  ask  being  (what  Denmark  has  always 
accorded)  the  advantage  of  being  placed  on  the 
footing  of  the  most  favored  nation.  We  might 
solicit  a  further  reduction  of  the  dues  on  the 
articles  of  which  we  are  the  chief  carriers  to 
that  sea — cotton,  rice,  tobacco,  raw  sugar ;  but 
solicit  separately  without  becoming  parties  to  a 
general  arrangement,  and  thereby  making  our- 
selves one  of  its  guarantees.  Negotiate  sepa- 
rately, asking  at  the  same  time  to  be  continued 
on  the  footing  of  the  most  favored  nation.  This 
report  and  recommendation  of  Mr.  Webster  is 
a  gem  in  our  State  papers — the  statement  of  the 
case  condensed  to  its  essence,  the  recommenda- 
tion such  as  becomes  our  geographical  position 
and  our  policy ;  the  style  perspicuous,  and  even 
elegant  in  its  simplicity. 

I  borrow  from  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser 
(Mr.  Hale  the  writer)  a  condensed  and  clear 
account  of  the  success  of  Mr.  Webster's  just 
and  wise  recommendations  on  this  subject : 

"  He  recommended  that  '  friendly  negotia- 
tions'  be  instituted  with  the  Danish  govern- 
ment, '  with  a  view  to  securing  to  the  United 
States  a  full  participation  in  any  reduction  of 
these  duties,  or  the  benefits  resulting  from  any 
new  arrangements  respecting  them,  which  may 
be  granted  to  the  commerce  of  other  states.' 

"  This  recommendation  was  doubtless  adopt- 
ed, for  the  concluding  papers  of  the  negotiation 
appear  among  the  documents  communicated  to 
Congress.  The  Danish  government  made  a 
complete  revision  of  the  ancient  tariff,  establish- 
ing new  specific  duties  on  all  articles  of  com- 
merce, with  one  or  two  exceptions,  in  which 
the  one  per  cent,  ad  valorem  duty  was  retained. 

"The  duties  were  not  increased  in  any  in- 
stance, and  on  many  of  the  articles  they  were 
largely  reduced ;  on  some  of  them  as  large  a 
discount  as  83  per  cent,  was  made,  and  a  great 
number  were  reduced  50  per  cent.  Of  the  ar- 
ticles particularly  mentioned  by  Mr.  Webster 
as  forming  the  bulk  of  the  American  commerce 
paying  these  duties,  the  duty  on  raw  sugar  was 
reduced  from  9  stivers  on  100  pounds  to  5  sti- 
vers j  on  rice  (in  paddy)  the  duty  was  reduced 


from  15  stivers  to  6  stivers.  On  some  other 
articles  of  importance  to  American  commerce 
the  duties  were  reduced  in  a  larger  proportion ; 
on  some  dyewoods  the  reduction  was  from  30 
stivers  to  8,  and  on  others  from  30  to  12,  per 
thousand  pounds ;  and  on  coffee  the  reduction 
was  from  24  to  6  stivers  per  100  pounds,  there- 
by making  it  profitable  to  ship  this  article  di- 
rectly up  the  Baltic,  instead  of  to  Hamburgh, 
and  thence  by  land  across  to  Lubec,  which  had 
previously  been  done  to  avoid  the  Sound  dues. 

"  It  was  also  provided  that  no  unnecessary 
formalities  should  be  required  from  the  vessels 
passing  through  the  Sound.  The  lowering  of 
top-sails,  complained  of  by  Mr.  Webster,  was 
dispensed  with.  We  mention  this  circumstance 
because  a  recent  article  in  the  New  York  Tri- 
bune speaks  of  this  formality  as  still  required. 
It  was  abolished  thirteen  years  ago.  A  num- 
ber of  other  accommodations  were  also  granted 
on  the  part  of  Denmark  in  modification  of  the 
harshness  of  former  regulations.  The  time  for 
the  functionaries  to  attend  at  their  offices  was 
prolonged,  and  an  evident  disposition  was  mani- 
fested to  make  great  abatements  in  the  rigor  of 
enforcing  as  well  as  in  the  amount  of  the  tax. 

"  These  concessions  were  regarded  as  emi- 
nently favorable,  and  as  satisfactory  to  the 
United  States.  Mr.  Webster  cordially  ex- 
pressed this  sentiment  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Isaac 
Rand  Jackson,  then  our  Charge  d'Aflaires  for 
Denmark,  bearing  date  June  25,  1842,  and  also 
in  another  letter,  two  days  later,  to  Mr.  Steen 
Bille,  the  Danish  Charge  d'Aflaires  in  the 
United  States.  In  the  former  letter  Mr.  Web- 
ster praised  Mr.  Jackson's  '  diligence  and  fideli- 
ty in  discharging  his  duties  in  regard  to  this 
subject.' " 

Greatly  subordinate  as  the  United  States  are 
geographically  in  this  question,  they  are  equal- 
ly, and  in  fact,  duly  and  proportionally  so  in 
interest.  Their  interest  is  in  the  ratio  of  their 
distance  from  the  scene  of  the  imposition  ;  that 
is  to  say,  as  units  are  to  hundreds,  and  hun- 
dreds to  thousands.  Taking  a  modern,  and  an 
average  year  for  the  number  of  vessels  of  dif- 
ferent powers  which  passed  this  Sound  and 
paid  these  duties — the  year  1850 — and  the  re- 
spective proportions  stand  thus :  English,  5,448 
vessels  ;  Norwegian,  2,553  ;  Swedish,  1,982  ; 
Dutch,  1,900  j  Prussian,  2,391 ;  Russian,  1,138  ; 
American,  106 — being  about  the  one-fiftieth 
part  of  the  English  number,  and  about  the  one- 
twentieth  part  of  the  other  powers.  But  that 
is  not  the  way  to  measure  the  American  in- 
terest. The  European  powers  aggregately  pre- 
sent one  interest :  the  United  States  sole 
another :  and  in  this  point  of  view  the  propor- 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


365 


tion  of  vessels  is  as  two  hundred  to  one.  The 
whole  number  of  European  vessels  in  a  series 
of  five  years— 1849  to  1853— varied  from  17,563 
to  21,586 ;  the  American  vessels  during  the 
same  years  varying  from  76  to  135.  These 
figures  show  the  small  comparative  interest  of 
the  United  States  in  the  reduction,  or  abolition 
of  these  dues — large  enough  to  make  the  United 
States  desirous  of  reduction  or  abolition — en- 
tirely too  small  to  induce  her  to  become  the 
champion  of  Europe  against  Denmark :  and, 
taken  in  connection  with  our  geographical  posi- 
tion, and  our  policy  to  avoid  European  entan- 
glement, should  be  sufficient  to  stamp  as  Quix- 
otic, and  to  qualify  as  mad,  any  such  attempt. 


CHAPTER   LXXXVII. 

LAST   NOTICE   OF    THE    BANK   OF  THE    UNITED 
STATES. 

For  ten  long  years  the  name  of  this  bank  had 
resounded  in  the  two  Halls  of  Congress.  For 
twenty  successive  sessions  it  had  engrossed 
the  national  legislature — lauded,  defended,  sup- 
ported— treated  as  a  power  in  the  State :  and 
vaunted  as  the  sovereign  remedy  for  all  the  dis- 
eases to  which  the  finances,  the  currency,  and 
the  industry  of  the  country  could  be  heir.  Now, 
for  the  first  time  in  that  long  period,  a  session 
passed  by — one  specially  called  to  make  a  bank 
— in  which  the  name  of  that  institution  was  not 
once  mentioned :  never  named  by  its  friends  ! 
seldom  by  its  foes.  Whence  this  silence  ? 
Whence  this  avoidance  of  a  name  so  long,  so 
lately,  and  so  loudly  invoked  ?  Alas  !  the  great 
bank  had  run  its  career  of  audacity,  crime,  op- 
pression, and  corruption.  It  was  in  the  hands 
of  justice,  for  its  crimes  and  its  debts — was 
taken  out  of  the  hands  of  its  late  insolvent  di- 
rectory— placed  in  the  custody  of  assignees — 
and  passed  into  a  state  of  insolvent  liquidation. 
Goaded  by  public  reproaches,  and  left  alone  in 
a  state  of  suspension  by  other  banks,  she  es- 
sayed the  perilous  effort  of  a  resumption.  Her 
credit  was  gone.  It  was  only  for  payment  that 
any  one  approached  her  doors.  In  twenty  days 
she  was  eviscerated  of  six  millions  of  solid  dol- 
lars, accumulated  by  extraordinary  means,  to 


enable  her  to  bid  for  a  re-charter  at  the  extra 
session.  This  was  the  last  hope,  and  which 
had  been  resolved  upon  from  the  moment  of 
General  Harrison's  election.  She  was  empty. 
The  seventy-six  millions  of  assets,  sworn  to  the 
month  before,  were  either  undiscoverable,  or 
unavailable.  The  shortest  month  in  the  year 
had  been  too  long  for  her  brief  resources. 
Early  in  the  month  of  February,  her  directory 
issued  a  new  decree  of  suspension — the  third 
one  in  four  years  ;  but  it  was  in  vain  to  under- 
take to  pass  off  this  stoppage  for  a  suspension. 
It  was  felt  by  all  to  be  an  insolvency,  though 
bolstered  by  the  usual  protestations  of  entire 
ability,  and  firm  determination  to  resume  briefly. 
An  avalanche  of  suits  fell  upon  the  helpless  in- 
stitution, with  judgments  carrying  twelve  per 
cent,  damages,  and  executions  to  be  levied  on 
whatever  could  be  found.  Alarmed  at  last,  the 
stockholders  assembled  in  general  meeting,  and 
verified  the  condition  of  their  property.  It  was 
a  wreck  !  nothing  but  fragments  to  be  found, 
and  officers  of  the  bank  feeding  on  these  crumbs 
though  already  gorged  with  the  spoils  of  the 
monster. 

A  report  of  the  affairs  of  the  institution  was 
made  by  a  committee  of  the  stockholders :  it 
was  such  an  exhibition  of  waste  and  destruction, 
and  of  downright  plundering,  and  criminal  mis- 
conduct, as  was  never  seen  before  in  the  annals 
of  banking.  Fifty-six  millions  and  three  quar- 
ters of  capital  out  of  sixty-two  millions  and  one 
quarter  (including  its  own  of  thirty-five)  were 
sunk  in  the  limits  of  Philadelphia  alone :  for 
the  great  monster,  in  going  down,  had  carried 
many  others  along  with  her ;  and,  like  the  strong 
man  in  Scripture,  slew  more  in  her  death  than 
in  her  life.  Vast  was  her  field  of  destruction — 
extending  all  over  the  United  States — and  reach- 
ing to  Europe,  where  four  millions  sterling  of 
her  stock  was  held,  and  large  loans  had  been 
contracted.  Universally  on  classes  the  ruin 
fell — foreigners  as  well  as  citizens — peers  and 
peeresses,  as  well  as  the  ploughman  and  the 
wash-woman — merchants,  tradesmen,  lawyers, 
divines  :  widows  and  orphans,  wards  and  guar- 
dians :  confiding  friends  who  came  to  the  res- 
cue :  deceived  stockholders  who  held  on  to  their 
stock,  or  purchased  more  :  the  credulous  masses 
who  believed  in  the  safety  of  their  deposits,  and 
in  the  security  of  the  notes  they  held — all — all 
saw  themselves  the  victims  of  indiscriminate 


366 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ruin.  An  hundred  millions  of  dollars  was  the 
lowest  at  which  the  destruction  was  estimated ; 
and  how  such  ruin  could  be  worked,  and  such 
blind  confidence  kept  up  for  so  long  a  time,  is 
the  instructive  lesson  for  history  :  and  that  les- 
son the  report  of  the  stockholders'  committee 
enables  history  to  give. 

From  this  authentic  report  it  appears  that 
from  the  year  1830  to  1836 — the  period  of  its 
struggles  for  a  re-charter — the  loans  and  dis- 
counts of  the  bank  were  about  doubled — its  ex- 
penses trebled.  Near  thirty  millions  of  these 
loans  were  not  of  a  mercantile  character — neither 
made  to  persons  in  trade  or  business,  nor  gov- 
erned by  the  rules  of  safe  endorsement  and 
punctual  payment  which  the  by-laws  of  the  in- 
stitution, and  the  very  safety  of  the  bank,  re- 
quired ;  nor  even  made  by  the  board  of  direc- 
tors, as  the  charter  required ;  but  illegally  and 
clandestinely,  by  the  exchange  committee — a 
small  derivation  of  three  from  the  body  of  the 
committee,  of  which  the  President  of  the  bank 
was  ex  officio  a  member,  and  the  others  as  good 
as  nominated  by  him.  It  follows  then  that 
these,  near  thirty  millions  of  loans,  were  vir- 
tually made  by  Mr.  Biddle  himself  5  and  in  vio- 
lation of  the  charter,  the  by-laws  and  the  prin- 
ciples of  banking.  To  whom  were  they  made  ? 
To  members  of  Congress,  to  editors  of  news- 
papers, to  brawling  politicians,  to  brokers  and 
jobbers,  to  favorites  and  connections :  and  all 
with  a  view  to  purchase  a  re-charter,  or  to  en- 
rich connections,  and  exalt  himself — having  the 
puerile  vanity  to  delight  in  being  called  the 
"Emperor  Nicholas."  Of  course  these  loans 
were,  in  many  instances,  not  expected  to  be 
returned — in  few  so  secured  as  to  compel  re- 
turn :  and,  consequently,  near  all  a  dead  loss  to 
the  stockholders,  whose  money  was  thus  dis- 
posed of. 

The  manner  in  which  these  loans  were  made 
to  members  of  Congress,  was  told  to  me  by  one 
of  these  members  who  had  gone  through  this 
process  of  bank  accommodation ;  and  who,  vot- 
ing against  the  bank,  after  getting  the  loan,  felt 
himself  free  from  shame  in  telling  what  had 
been  done.  He  needed  $4,000,  and  could  not 
get  it  at  home :  he  went  to  Philadelphia — to 
the  bank — inquired  for  Mr.  Biddle— was  shown 
into  an  ante-room,  supplied  with  newspapers 
and  periodicals;  and  asked  to  sit,  and  amuse 


himself — the  president  being  engaged  for  the 
moment.  Presently  a  side  door  opened.  He 
was  ushered  into  the  presence — graciously  re- 
ceived— stated  his  business- — was  smilingly  an- 
swered that  he  could  have  it,  and  more  if  he 
wished  it :  that  he  could  leave  his  note  with 
the  exchange  committee,  and  check  at  once  for 
the  proceeds  :  and  if  inconvenient  to  give  an 
indorser  before  he  went  home,  he  could  do  it 
afterwards :  and,  whoever  he  said  was  good, 
would  be  accepted.  And  in  telling  me  this,  the 
member  said  he  could  read  "'bribery"  in  his 
eyes. 

The  loans  to  brokers  to  extort  usury  upon — 
to  jobbers,  to  put  up  and  down  the  price  of 
stocks — to  favorites,  connections,  and  bank  offi- 
cers, were  enormous  in  amount,  indefinite  in  time, 
on  loose  security,  or  none  :  and  when  paid,  if  at 
all,  chiefly  in  stocks  at  above  their  value.  The 
report  of  the  committee  thus  states  this  abuse  : 

"  These  loans  were  generally  in  large  amounts. 
In  the  list  of  debtors  on  '  bills  receivable '  of 
the  first  of  January  1837,  twenty-one  individu- 
als, firms  and  companies,  stand  charged,  each 
with  an  amount  of  one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars and  upwards.  One  firm  of  this  city  re- 
ceived accommodations  of  this  kind  between 
August  1835,  and  November  1837,  to  the  extent 
of  4,213,878  dollars  30  cents— more  than  half 
of  which  was  obtained  in  1837.  The  officers  of 
the  bank  themselves  received  in  this  way,  loans 
to  a  large  amount.  In  March  1836,  when  the 
bank  went  into  operation,  under  its  new  char- 
ter, Mr.  Samuel  Jaudon,  then  elected  its  princi- 
pal cashier,  was  indebted  to  it,  100,500  dollars. 
When  he  resigned  the  situation  of  cashier,  and 
was  appointed  foreign  agent,  he  was  in  debt 
408,389  dollars  25  cents  j  and  on  the  first  of 
March  1841,  he  still  stood  charged  with  an  in- 
debtedness of  117,500  dollars.  Mr.  John  An- 
drews, first  assistant  cashier,  was  indebted  to 
the  bank  in  March  1836,  104,000  dollars.  By 
subsequent  loans  and  advances  made  during  the 
next  three  years,  he  received  in  all,  the  sum  of 
426,930  dollars  67  cents.  Mr.  Joseph  Cowper- 
thwaite,  then  second  assistant  cashier,  was  in 
debt  to  the  bank  in  March  1836, 115,000  dollars ; 
when  he  was  appointed  cashier  in  September, 
1837,  326,382  dollars  50  cents:  when  he  re- 
signed, and  was  elected  a  director  by  the  board, 
in  June  1840,  72,860  dollars,  and  he  stands 
charged  March  3,  1841,  on  the  books  with  the 
sum  of  55,081  dollars  95  cents.  It  appears  on 
the  books  of  the  bank,  that  these' three  gentle- 
men were  engaged  in  making  investments  on 
their  joint  accounts,  in  the  stock  and  loan  of 
the  Camden  and  Woodbury  railroad  company, 
Philadelphia,  Wilmington,  and  Baltimore  rail- 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


367 


road  company,  Dauphin  and  Lycoming  coal  lands, 
and  Grand  Gulf  railroad  and  banking  com- 
pany." 

These  enormous  loans  were  chiefly  in  the  year 
1837,  at  the  time  when  the  bank  stopped  pay- 
ment on  account  of  the  "  specie  circular,"  the 
"removal  of  the  deposits,"  and  other  alleged 
misdoings  of  the  democratic  administrations : 
and  this  is  only  a  sample  of  the  way  that  the 
institution  went  on  during  that  period  of  ficti- 
tious distress,  and  real  oppression — millions  to 
brokers  and  favorites,  not  a  dollar  to  the  man 
of  business. 

Two  agencies  were  established  in  London — 
one  for  the  bank,  under  Mr.  Jaudon,  to  borrow 
money;  the  other  for  a  private  firm,  of  which 
Mr.  Biddle  was  partner,  and  his  young  son  the 
London  head — its  business  being  to  sell  cotton, 
bought  with  the  dead  notes  of  the  old  bank. 
Of  the  expenses  and  doings  of  these  agencies,  all 
bottomed  upon  the  money  of  the  stockholders 
(so  far  as  it  was  left),  the  committee  gave  this 
account : 

"  When  Mr.  Jaudon  was  elected  to  the  place 
of  foreign  agent,  he  was  the  principal  cashier,  at 
a  salary  of  7,000  dollars  per  annum.  The  bank 
paid  the  loss  on  the  sale  of  his  furniture,  5,074 
dollars,  and  the  passage  of  himself  and  family 
to  London,  a  further  sum  of  1,015  dollars.  He 
was  to  devote  himself  exclusively  to  the  busi- 
ness of  the  bank,  to  negotiate  an  uncovered 
credit  in  England,  to  provide  for  the  then  exist- 
ing debt  in  Europe,  to  receive  its  funds,  to  pay 
its  bills  and  dividends,  to  effect  sales  of  stocks, 
and  generally  to  protect  the  interests  of  the 
bank  and  '  the  country  at  large.'  For  these  ser- 
vices he  was  to  receive  the  commission  thereto- 
fore charged  and  allowed  to  Baring  Brothers  & 
Company,  equal  to  about  28.000  dollars  per  an- 
num. In  addition  to  which,  the  expenses  of  the 
agency  were  allowed  him,  including  a  salarj-  of 
1,000  pounds  sterling  to  his  brother,  Mr.  Charles 
B.  Jaudon,  as  his  principal  clerk.  From  the  in- 
crease of  money  operations,  arising  from  facili- 
ties afforded  by  ihe  agency,  the  amount  upon 
which  commissions  were  charged  was  greatly 
augmented,  so  that  the  sums  paid  him  for  his 
country  services  up  to  January,  1841,  amounted 
at  nine  per  cent,  exchange  to  178,044  dollars  47 
cents,  and  the  expenses  of  the  agency  to  35,166 
dollars  99  cents.  In  addition  to  these  sums,  he 
was  allowed  by  the  exchange  committee,  an 
extra  commission  of  one  per  cent,  upon  a  loan 
effected  in  October,  1839,  of  800,000  pounds,  say 
$38,755  56;  and  upon  his  claim  for  a  similar 
commission,  upon  subsequent  loans  in  France 
and  Holland,  to  the  amount  of  $8,337,141  90, 
the  board  of  directors,  under  the  sanction  of  a 


legal  opinion,  from  counsel  of  high  standing,  and 
the  views  of  the  former  president,  by  whom  the 
agreement  with  Mr.  Jaudon  was  made,  that  the 
case  of  extraordinary  loans  was  not  anticipated, 
nor  meant  to  be  included  in  the  original  arrange- 
ment, allowed  the  further  charge  of  $83,970  37. 
These  several  sums  amount  to  $335,937  39,  as 
before  stated." 

A  pretty  expensive  agency,  although  the  agent 
was  to  devote  himself  exclusively  to  the  business 
of  the  bank,  protecting  its  interests,  and  those 
of  "  the  country  at  large  " — an  addition  to  his 
mission,  this  protection  of  the  country  at  large, 
which  illustrates  the  insolent  pretensions  of  this 
imperious  corporation.  Protect  the  country  at 
large  !  while  plundering  its  own  stockholders  of 
their  last  dollar.  And  that  furniture  of  this 
bank  clerk !  the  loss  on  the  sale  of  which  was 
$5,074 !  and  which  loss  the  stockholders  made 
up :  while  but  few  of  them  had  that  much  in 
their  houses.  The  whole  amount  of  loans  effect- 
ed by  this  agency  was  twenty-three  millions  of 
dollars ;  of  which  a  considerable  part  was  raised 
upon  fictitious  bills,  drawn  in  Philadelphia  with- 
out funds  to  meet  them,  and  to  raise  money  to 
make  runs  upon  the  New  York  banks,  compel 
them  to  close  again :  and  so  cover  her  own  in- 
solvency in  another  general  suspension  :  for  all 
these  operations  took  place  after  the  suspension 
of  1837.  The  committee  thus  report  upon  these 
loans,  and  the  gambling  in  stock  speculations  at 
home: 

"  Such  were  some  of  the  results  of  the  resolu- 
tion of  March,  1835,  though  it  cannot  be  ques- 
tioned, that  much  may  be  fairly  attributed  to 
the  unhappy  situation  of  the  business  and  ex- 
changes of  the  country,  concurring  with  the  un- 
fortunate policy  pursued  by  the  administration 
of  the  bank.  Thus  the  institution  has  gone  on 
to  increase  its  indebtedness  abroad,  until  it  has 
now  more  money  borrowed  in  Europe,  than  it 
has  on  loan  on  its  list  of  active  debt  in  America. 
To  this  has  been  superadded,  extensive  dealing 
in  stocks,  and  a  continuation  of  the  policy  of 
loaning  upon  stock  securities,  though  it  was  evi- 
dently proper  upon  the  recharter,  that  such  a 
policy  should  be  at  once  and  entirely  abandoned. 
Such  indeed  was  its  avowed  purpose,  yet  one 
year  afterwards,  in  March,  1837,  its  loans  on 
stocks  and  other  than  personal  security  had  in- 
creased $7,821,541,  while  the  bills  discounted 
on  personal  security,  and  domestic  exchange, 
had  suffered  a  diminution  of  $9,516,463  78.  It 
seems  to  have  been  sufficient,  to  obtain  money 
on  loan,  to  pledge  the  stock  of  an  '  incorporated 
company,'  however  remote  its  operation  or  un- 
certain its  prospects.    Many  large  loans  origi- 


368 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


nally  made  on  a  pledge  of  stocks,  were  paid  for 
in  the  same  kind  of  property,  and  that  too  at  par, 
when  in  many  instances  they  had  become  depre- 
ciated in  value.  It  is  very  evident  to  the  commit- 
tee, that  several  of  the  officers  of  the  bank  were 
themselves  engaged  in  large  operations  in  stocks 
and  speculations,  of  a  similar  character,  with 
funds  obtained  of  the  bank,  and  at  the  same  time 
loans  were  made  to  the  companies  in  which  they 
were  interested,  and  to  others  engaged  in  the 
same  kind  of  operations,  in  amounts  greatly  dis- 
proportionate to  the  means  of  the  parties,  or  to 
their  proper  and  legitimate  wants  and  dealings. 
The  effect  of  this  system,  was  to  monopolize 
the  active  means  of  the  institution,  and  disable 
it  from  aiding  and  accommodating  men  engaged 
in  business  really  productive  and  useful  to  the 
community ;  and  as  might  have  been  anticipated, 
a  large  part  of  the  sums  thus  loaned  were  ulti- 
mately lost,  or  the  bank  compelled,  on  disad- 
vantageous terms  as  to  price,  to  take  in  pay- 
ment stocks,  back  lands  and  other  fragments  of 
the  estates  of  great  speculators." 

The  cotton  agency  seemed  to  be  an  ambidex- 
trous concern — both  individual  and  corporation 
— its  American  office  in  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States — the  purchases  made  upon  ten  millions 
of  its  defunct  notes — the  profits  going  to  the 
private  firm — the  losses  to  the  bank.  The  com- 
mittee give  this  history : 

"  In  the  course  of  the  investigation  the  atten- 
tion of  the  committee  has  been  directed  to  cer- 
tain accounts,  which  appear  on  the  books  as  '  ad- 
vances on  merchandise,'  but  which  were,  in  fact, 
payments  for  cotton,  tobacco  aud  other  produce, 
purchased  by  the  direction  of  the  then  President, 
Mr.  Nicholas  Biddle,  and  shipped  to  Europe  on 
account  of  himself  and  others.  These  accounts 
were  kept  by  a  clerk  in  the  foreign  exchange 
department,  this  department  being  under  the 
charge  of  Mr.  Cowperthwaite,  until  September 
22,  1837,  when  he  was  elected  cashier,  and  of 
Mr.  Thomas  Dunlap,  until  March  20,  1840, 
when  he  was  chosen  president.  The  original 
documents,  necessary  to  enable  the  committee 
to  arrive  at  all  the  facts  in  relation  to  these 
transactions,  were  not  accessible,  having  been 
retained,  as  was  supposed,  by  the  parties  in- 
terested, as  private  papers.  A  succinct  view  of 
the  whole  matter,  sufficient  to  convey  to  the 
stockholders  a  general  idea  of  its  character,  may 
be  drawn  from  the  report  of  a  committee  of  the 
board  of  directors,  appointed  on  the  21st  of 
July,  1840,  for  the  purpose  of  adjusting  and 
settling  these  accounts,  and  who  reported  on  the 
21st  of  December,  1840,  which  report  with  the 
accompanying  accounts,  is  spread  at  large  upon 
the  minutes.  The  first  transactions  were  in 
July,  1837,  and  appear  as  advances,  to  A.  G. 
Jaudon,  to  purchase  cotton  for  shipment  to 
Baring  Brothers  &  Co,  of  Liverpool,  the  pro- 


ceeds to  be  remitted  to  their  house  in  London, 
then  acting  as  the  agents  of  the  bank.  The 
amount  of  these  shipments  was  2,182,998  dol- 
lars 28  cents.  The  proceeds  were  passed  to  the 
credit  of  the  bank,  and  the  account  appears  to  be 
balanced.  The  results,  as  to  the  profit  and  loss, 
do  not  appear,  and  the  committee  had  no  means 
of  ascertaining  them,  nor  the  names  of  the  par- 
ties interested.  In  the  autumn  of  1837,  when 
the  second  of  these  transactions  commenced,  it 
will  be  recollected,  that  Mr.  Samuel  Jaudon  had 
been  appointed  the  agent  of  the  bank  to  reside 
in  London.  About  the  same  time,  a  co-partner- 
ship was  formed  between  Mr.  May  Humphreys, 
then  a  director  of  the  bank,  and  a  son  of  Mr. 
Nicholas  Biddle,  under  the  firm  of  Biddle  & 
Humphreys.  This  house  was  established  at 
Liverpool,  and  thenceforward  acted  as  agents  for 
the  sale  of  the  produce  shipped  to  that  place, 
which  comprised  a  large  proportion  of  the  whole 
amount.  In  explanation  of  these  proceedings, 
the  committee  annex  to  their  report  a  copy  of  a 
letter  dated  Philadelphia,  December  28, 1840,  to 
the  president  and  directors  of  the  bank,  from 
Mr.  Joseph  Cabot,  one  of  the  firm  of  Bevan  & 
Humphreys,  and  who  became  a  director  at  the 
election  in  January,  1838.  This  letter  was  read 
to  the  board,  December  29,  1840,  but  was  not 
inserted  on  the  minutes. 

"  This  arrangement  continued  during  the  years 
1837,  1838  and  1839,  the  transactions  of  which 
amounted  to  8,969,450  dollars  95  cents.  The 
shipments  were  made  principally  to  Biddle  and 
Humphreys,  were  paid  for  by  drafts  on  Bevan 
and  Humphreys — the  funds  advanced  by  the 
bank,  and  the  proceeds  remitted  to  Mr.  Samuel 
Jaudon,  agent  of  the  bank  in  London.  It  ap- 
pears that  there  was  paid  to  Messrs.  Bevan  and 
Humphreys  by  the  bank  in  Philadelphia  during 
the  months  of  March,  April,  and  May,  1839  the 
sum  of  eight  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  the 
account  was  thus  balanced.  The  committee 
have  reason  to  believe,  that  this  sum  consti- 
tuted a  part  or  perhaps  the  whole  of  the  profits 
derived  from  the  second  series  of  shipments. 
How,  and  among  whom,  it  was  distributed, 
they  have  not  been  informed,  but  from  the 
terms  of  the  final  settlement,  to  be  adverted  to 
presently,  each  one  will  be  at  liberty  to  make 
his  own  inferences.  The  third  and  last  ac- 
count, amounting  to  3,241,042  dollars  83  cents, 
appears  on  the  books,  as  '  bills  on  London,  ad- 
vances S.  V.  S.  W.'  These  letters  stand  for 
the  name  of  S.  V.  S.  Wilder,  of  New  York.— 
Messrs.  Humphreys  and  Biddle,  to  whom  these 
consignments  were  made,  continued  their  ac- 
counts in  the  name  of  Bevan  and  Humphreys, 
but  without  the  knowledge  of  that  firm,  as  ap- 
pears by  Mr.  Cabot's  letter  of  December  28, 
1840.  The  result  of  these  last  shipments,  was 
a  loss  of  962,524  dollars  13  cents.  Of  this 
amount  the  sum  of  553,908  dollars  57  cents  was 
for  excess  of  payments  by  Messrs.  Humphreys 
and  Biddle  to  the  London  agency,  beyond  the 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


369 


proceeds  of  sale,  with  interest  thereon.  The 
parties  interested,  claimed  and  were  allowed  a 
deduction  for  loss  on  52G,000  dollars  of  southern 
funds,  used  in  the  purchase  of  cotton,  when  at 
a  discount,  the  sum  of  310,071  dollars  30  cents ; 
and  also  this  sum',  being  banker's  commission 
to  Messrs.  Humphreys  and  Biddle  on  advances 
to  Samuel  Jaudon,  agent,  21,061  dollars  86  cents, 
making  331,133  dollars  16  cents,  and  leaving  to 
be  settled  by  the  parties  the  sum  of  631,390 
dollars  97  cents." 

Thus,  the  profit  of  eight  hundred  thousand 
dollars  on  the  first  shipments  of  cotton  went  to 
this  private  firm,  though  not  shown  on  the 
books  to  whom ;  and  the  loss  of  nine  hundred 
and  sixty-two  thousand  five  hundred  and 
twenty-four  dollars  and  thirteen  cents  on  the 
last  shipments  went  to  the  bank;  but  this 
being  objected  to  by  some  of  the  directors,  it 
was  settled  by  Mr.  Biddle  and  the  rest — the 
bank  taking  from  them  stocks,  chiefly  of  Texas, 
at  par — the  sales  of  the  same  being  slow  at  a 
tithe  of  their  face.  The  bank  had  also  a  way 
of  guaranteeing  the  individual  contracts  of  Mr. 
Biddle  for  millions ;  of  which  the  report  gives 
this  account : 

"  Upon  the  eighteenth  day  of  August,  1838, 
the  bank  guaranteed  a  contract  made  by  Mr. 
Nicholas  Biddle  in  his  individual  capacity,  for 
the  purchase  of  two  thousand  five  hundred 
bonds  of  the  State  of  Mississippi,  of  two  thou- 
sand dollars  each,  amounting  in  the  whole  to 
5,000,000  dollars.  The  signature  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Dunlap,  then  second  assistant  cashier,  was  affix- 
ed to  the  guarantee,  in  behalf  of  the  bank,  upon 
the  verbal  authority  of  the  president.  Upon  the 
29th  of  January,  1839,  the  bank  guaranteed  to 
the  State  of  Michigan,  the  punctual  fulfilment 
of  the  obligations  of  the  Morris  canal  and  bank- 
ing company,  for  the  purchase  of  bonds  of  that 
state,  to  the  extent  of  3,145,687  dollars  50  cents, 
for  2,700,000  taken  at  par,  and  including  interest 
on  the  instalments  payable  every  three  months 
up  to  January,  1843.  On  the  29th  of  April,  1839, 
the  bank  guaranteed  a  contract  entered  into  by 
Mr.  Thomas  Dunlap  in  his  individual  capacity 
for  the  purchase  of  one  million  of  dollars  of  the 
'  Illinois  and  Michigan  canal  stock.'  In  regard 
to  these  transactions,  the  committee  can  find  no 
authority  on  the  minutes  of  the  board,  and  have 
been  referred  to  none,  by  the  president,  upon 
whom  they  called  for  information." 

Unintelligible  accounts  of  large  amounts  ap- 
peared in  the  profit  and  loss  side  of  the  bank 
ledger ;  which,  not  explaining  themselves,  the 
parties  named  as  receiving  the  money,  were 
Vol.  II.— 24 


called  upon  for  explanations — which  they  re- 
fused to  give.    Thus : 

"  In  this  last  account  there  is  a  charge  under 
date  of  June  30,  1840,  of  $400,000  to  <  parent 
bank  notes  account,'  which  has  not  been  ex- 
plained to  the  satisfaction  of  the  committee. 
It  must  be  also  mentioned,  that  among  the  ex- 
penditures of  the  bank,  there  is  entered,  at 
various  dates,  commencing  May  5,  1836,  sums 
amounting  in  all  to  618,640  dollars  15  cents, 
as  paid  on  the  'receipts  of  Mr.  N.  Biddle,' 
of 'Mr.  N.  Biddle  and  J.  Cowperthwaite,'  and 
'cashier's  vouchers.'  As  the  committee  were 
unable  to  obtain  satisfactory  information  upon 
the  subject  of  these  expenses  from  the  books  or 
officers  of  the  bank,  application  was  made  by 
letter  to  Mr.  N.  Biddle  and  Mr.  J.  Cowperth- 
waite, from  whom  no  reply  has  been  received." 

These  enormous  transactions  generally  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  the  directory,  usually 
upon  the  initials  of  a  member  of  the  exchange 
committee ;  and  frequently  upon  a  deposit  of 
stock  in  the  cash  drawer.  Besides  direct  loans 
to  members  of  Congress,  and  immense  fees, 
there  was  a  process  of  entertainment  for  them 
at  immense  expense — nightly  dinners  at  hotels 
— covers  for  fifty :  and  the  most  costly  wines 
and  viands :  and  this  all  the  time.  Besides 
direct  applications  of  money  in  elections,  the 
bank  became  a  fountain  of  supply  in  raising  an 
election  fund  where  needed,  taking  the  loss  on 
itself.  Thus,  in  1833,  in  the  presidential  election 
in  Kentucky,  some  politicians  went  into  the 
branch  bank  at  Lexington,  assessed  the  party 
in  each  county  for  the  amount  wanted  in  that 
county — drew  drafts  for  the  amount  of  the  as- 
sessment on  some  ardent  friends  in  the  county, 
received  the  cash  for  the  drafts  from  the  bank, 
and  applied  it  to  the  election — themselves  not 
liable  if  the  assessment  was  not  paid,  but  the 
same  to  go  to  the  profit  and  loss  account  of  the 
bank.  In  such  operations  as  all  these,  and 
these  are  not  all,  it  was  easy  for  the  bank  to 
be  swallowed  up:  and  swallowed  up  it  was 
totally. 

The  losses  to  the  stockholders  were  deplor- 
able, and  in  many  instances  attended  with  cir- 
cumstances which  aggravated  the  loss.  Many 
were  widows  and  children,  their  all  invested 
where  it  was  believed  to  be  safe ;  and  an  as- 
certained income  relied  on  as  certain,  with  event- 
ual return  of  the  capital.  Many  were  unfortu- 
nately deceived  into  the  purchase  or  retention 


370 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  stock,  by  the  delusive  bank  reports.  The 
makers  of  these  reports  themselves  held  no 
quantity  of  the  stock — only  the  few  shares 
necessary  to  qualify  them  for  the  direction. 
Foreign  holders  were  numerous,  attracted  by 
the,  heretofore,  high  credit  of  American  securi- 
ties, and  by  the  implications  of  the  name — Bank 
of  the  United  States ;  implying  a  national  owner- 
ship, which  guaranteed  national  care  in  its  man- 
agement, and  national  liability  on  its  winding 
up.  Holland,  England,  France  suffered,  but  the 
English  most  of  all  the  foreigners.  The  Lon- 
don Banker's  Circular  thus  described  their  loss: 

"  The  proportion  of  its  capital  held  by  British 
subjects  is  nearly  four  millions  sterling ;  it  may 
be  described  as  an  entire  loss.  And  the  loss 
we  venture,  upon  some  consideration,  to  say  is 
greater  than  the  aggregate  of  all  the  losses  sus- 
tained by  the  inhabitants  of  the  British  Islands, 
from  failure  of  banks  in  this  country,  since  Mr. 
Patterson  established  the  banks  of  England  and 
Scotland  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. The  small  population  of  Guernsey  and 
Jersey  hold  £200,000  of  the  stock  of  this  U. 
States  Bank.  Call  it  an  entire  loss,  and  it  is 
equal  to  a  levy  of  three  or  four  pounds  on  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  whole  community 
of  those  islands — a  sum  greater  than  was  ever 
raised  by  taxation  in  a  single  year  on  any 
people  in  the  whole  world.  Are  these  im- 
portant facts  ?  if  facts  they  be.  Then  let  states- 
men meditate  upon  them,  for  by  their  errors  and 
reckless  confidence  in  delusive  theories  they 
have  been  produced." 

The  credit  of  the  bank,  and  the  price  of  stock 
was  kept  up  by  delusive  statements  of  profits, 
and  fictitious  exhibition  of  assets  and  false  de- 
clarations of  surpluses.  Thus,  declaring  a  half- 
yearly  dividend  of  four  per  centum,  January  1st, 
1839,  with  a  surplus  of  more  than  four  mil- 
lions ;  on  the  first  of  July  of  the  same  year, 
another  half-yearly  dividend  of  four  per  centum, 
with  a  surplus  of  more  than  four  millions  ;  on 
the  15th  of  January,  the  same  year,  announ- 
cing a  surplus  of  three  millions ;  and  six  weeks 
thereafter,  on  the  first  of  January,  announcing 
a  surplus  of  five  millions ;  while  the  assets 
of  the  bank  were  carried  up  to  seventy-six 
millions.  In  this  way  credit  was  kept  up.  The 
creating  of  suspensions — that  of  1837,  and  sub- 
sequent— cost  immense  sums,  and  involved  the 
most  enormous  villainy  j  and  the  last  of  these 
attempts — the  run  upon  the  New  York  banks 
to  stop  them  again  before  she  herself  stopped 
for  the  last  time — was  gigantically  criminal,  and 


ruinous  to  itself.  Mr.  Joseph  Cowperthwaite 
(perfectly  familiar  with  the  operation)  describes 
it  to  the  life,  and  with  the  indifference  of  a 
common  business  transaction.  Premising  that 
a  second  suspension  was  coming  on,  it  was 
deemed  best  (as  in  the  first  one  of  1837)  to 
make  it  begin  in  New  York ;  and  the  operation 
for  that  purpose  is  thus  narrated : 

"  After  the  feverish  excitement  consequent  on 
this  too  speedy  effort  to  return  to  cash  payments 
had  in  a  good  degree  subsided,  another  crisis  was 
anticipated,  and  it  was  feared  that  the  banks 
generally  would  be  obliged  again  to  suspend. 
This  was,  unhappily,  too  soon  to  be  realized,  for 
the  storm  was  then  ready  to  burst,  but,  instead 
of  meeting  its  full  force  at  once,  it  was  deemed 
best  to  make  it  fall  first  upon  the  banks  of  New 
York.  To  effect  this  purpose,  large  means  were 
necessary,  and  to  procure  these,  resort  was  had 
to  the  sale  of  foreign  exchange.  The  state  of 
the  accounts  of  the  bank  with  its  agents  abroad 
did  not  warrant  any  large  drafts  upon  them,  es- 
pecially that  of  the  Messrs.  Hottinguer  in  Paris. 
This  difficulty,  however,  it  was  thought  might 
be  avoided,  by  shipping  the  coin  to  be  drawn 
from  the  New  York  banks  immediately  to  meet 
the  bills.  Accordingly,  large  masses  of  exchange, 
particularly  bills  on  Paris,  which  were  then  in 
great  demand,  were  sent  to  New  York  to  be 
sold  without  limit.  Indeed,  the  bills  were  signed 
in  blank,  and  so  sent  to  New  York ;  and  al- 
though a  large  book  was  thus  forwarded,  it  was 
soon  exhausted,  and  application  was  made  to  the 
agent  of  the  Paris  house  in  New  York  for  a  fur- 
ther supply,  who  drew  a  considerable  amount 
besides.  The  proceeds  of  these  immense  sales 
of  exchange  created  very  heavy  balances  against 
the  New  York  banks,  which,  after  all,  signally 
failed  in  producing  the  contemplated  effect.  The 
bills  not  being  provided  for,  nor  even  regularly 
advised,  as  had  uniformly  been  the  custom  of 
the  bank,  were  dishonored ;  and  although  the 
agent  in  London  did  every  thing  which  skill  and 
judgment  could  accomplish,  the  credit  of  the 
bank  was  gone,  and  from  that  day  to  the  present 
its  effects  upon  the  institution  have  been  more 
and  more  disastrous." 

"  Deemed  best  to  make  the  storm  fall  first  upon 
the  banks  of  New  York ; "  and  for  that  purpose  to 
draw  bills  without  limit,  without  funds  to  meet 
them,  in  such  rapid  succession  as  to  preclude  the 
possibility  of  giving  notice — relying  upon  sending 
the  gold  which  they  drew  out  of  the  New  York 
banks  to  Paris,  to  meet  the  same  bills  (all  the 
while  laying  that  exportation  of  gold  to  the 
wickedness  of  the  specie  circular),  and  failing 
to  get  the  money  there  as  fast  as  these  "  race- 
horse "  bills  went — they  returned  dishonored— 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


371 


came  rolling  back  by  millions,  protested  in  Paris, 
to  be  again  protested  in  Philadelphia.  Then  the 
bubble  burst.  The  credit  which  sustained  the 
monster  was  gone.  Ruin  fell  upon  itself,  and 
upon  all  who  put  their  trust  in  it ;  and  certainly 
this  last  act,  for  the  criminality  of  its  intent  and 
the  audacity  of  its  means,  was  worthy  to  cap 
and  crown  the  career  of  such  an  institution. 

It  was  the  largest  ruin,  and  the  most  criminal 
that  has  been  seen  since  the  South  Sea  and 
Mississippi  schemes  ;  yet  no  one  was  punished, 
or  made  to  refund.  Bills  of  indictment  were 
found  by  the  grand  jury  of  the  county  of  Phila- 
delphia against  Nicholas  Biddle,  Samuel  Jaudon, 
and  John  Andrews,  for  a  conspiracy  to  defraud 
the  stockholders  in  the  bank ;  and  they  were 
arrested,  and  held  to  bail  for  trial.  But  they 
surrendered  themselves  into  custody,  procured 
writs  of  habeas  corpus  for  their  release ;  and 
were  discharged  in  vacation  by  judges  before 
whom  they  were  brought.  It  has  been  found 
difficult  in  the  United  States  to  punish  great 
offenders — much  more  so  than  in  England  or 
France.  In  the  cases  of  the  South  Sea  and 
Mississippi  frauds,  the  principal  actors,  though 
men  of  high  position,  were  criminally  punished, 
and  made  to  pay  damages.  While  these  delin- 
quencies were  going  on  in  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  an  eminent  banker  of  London — 
Mr.  Fauntleroy — was  hanged  at  Tyburn,  like  a 
common  felon — for  his  bank  misdeeds :  and 
while  some  plundered  stockholders  are  now 
(autumn  of  1855)  assembled  in  Philadelphia, 
searching  in  vain  for  a  shilling  of  their  stock, 
three  of  the  greatest  bankers  in  London  are  re- 
ceiving sentence  of  transportation  for  fourteen 
years  for  offences,  neither  in  money  nor  morals, 
the  hundredth  part  of  the  ruin  and  crime  per- 
petrated by  our  American  bank — bearing  the 
name  of  the  United  States.  The  case  presents 
too  strong  a  contrast,  and  teaches  too  great  a 
lesson  to  criminal  justice  to  be  omitted ;  and 
here  it  is : 

"  The  firm  had  been  in  existence  for  nearly 
two  centuries.  The  two  elder  partners  of  the 
firm  had  been  distinguished  for  munificent  chari- 
ties, for  an  advocacy  of  great  moral  reforms, 
and  an  active  participation  in  the  religious  or 
philanthropic  measures  of  the  day.  They  had 
always  been  liberal  givers,  had  presided  at 
Exeter  Hall  meetings,  built  chapels,  and  gener- 
ally acted  the  part  of  liberal  and  useful  mem- 
bers of  society  j  and  one  of  them,  Sir  John  Dean 


Paul,  was  a  baronet  by  descent,  and  allied  to 
some  of  the  highest  nobility  of  England.  He 
was  first  cousin  to  the  present  Lord  Ravens- 
worth,  the  honorable  Augustus  and  Adolphus 
Liddell,  the  rector  of  St.  Paul's,  Knightsbridge, 
the  Countess  of  Hardwicke,  Viscountess  Bar- 
rington,  Lady  Bloomfield  j  and.  above  all,  the 
honorable  Mrs.  Villiers,  sister-in-law  to  the  Earl 
of  Clarendon.  These  connections,  however,  in 
a  country  where  rank  and  social  position  have 
peculiar  influence,  did  not  save  them  from  a 
criminal  trial  and  utter  disgrace.  One  of  their 
customers,  in  obedience  to  what  he  believed  to 
be  a  duty  to  society,  having  personally  inquired 
into  the  affairs  of  the  firm,  proceeded  to  lay  a 
criminal  information  against  Messrs.  Strahan, 
Paul,  and  Bates,  which  led  to  their  indictment 
and  subsequent  trial  before  the  criminal  court. 
This  gentleman  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Griffith,  Pre- 
bendary of  Rochester,  a  wealthy  ecclesiastic  and 
a  personal  friend  of  all  the  partners  of  the  firm, 
with  which  he  had  been  a  large  depositor  for 
many  years.  On  the  twenty-fifth  of  October 
the  trial  came  on  before  Mr.  Baron  Alderson, 
assisted  by  Baron  Martin  and  Justice  Willes. 
The  defendants  appeared  in  court,  attended  by 
Sir  Frederick  Thesiger,  Mr.  Ballantyne,  Ser- 
geant Byles,  and  other  almost  equally  eminent 
counsel.  The  Attorney-general  appeared  for  the 
prosecution,  and  the  evidence  adduced  at  the 
trial,  disclosed  the  following  facts :  Dr.  Griffith, 
the  prosecutor  in  the  proceedings,  and  who,  at 
the  time  of  the  failure  of  the  defendants,  had 
money  and  securities  on  deposit  with  them  to 
the  amount  of  £22,000,  about  five  years  ago  em- 
powered them  to  purchase  for  him  on  three  dif- 
ferent occasions,  Danish  five  per  cent,  bonds  to 
the  value  of  £5,000.  The  defendants  purchased 
the  bonds,  upon  which  they  regularly  received 
the  dividends,  and  credited  Dr.  Griffith  with 
the  same  on  their  books.  This  continued  until 
March,  1854,  when  Sir  John  D.  Paul,  to  relieve 
the  embarrassments  under  which  the  firm  were 
laboring,  sold  these  securities,  together  with 
others  with  which  they  were  entrusted,  and 
appropriated  the  proceeds,  amounting  to  over 
£12,000,  to  the  use  of  the  firm.  This,  as  we 
have  stated,  was  no  offence  at  common  law,  and 
the  indictment  was  preferred  upon  a  statutory 
provision  found  in  the  7th  and  8th  of  George  IV., 
cap.  29.  The  rigid  severity  of  the  penal  law  in 
England  on  this  subject  will  be  better  appre- 
ciated when  we  add,  that  the  bonds  were  re- 
placed by  others  of  equal  value,  in  the  June  fol- 
lowing their  misappropriation,  just  one  year 
previous  to  the  failure  of  the  firm ;  and  that  the 
indictment  only  charged  the  defendants  with 
misappropriating  them  in  this  single  instance, 
although  it  was  shown  that  the  second  set  of 
bonds  were  again  sold  for  the  use  of  the  firm  in 
April,  1855 ;  Dr.  Griffith  having,  in  the  inter- 
val, regularly  received  his  dividends;  so  that, 
although  the  firm  might  be  perfectly  solvent  at 
this  moment,  the  fact  that  they  had  sold  the 


372 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


bonds  in  March,  1851,  even  if  they  had  replaced 
them  in  June,  1854,  and  had  credited  Dr.  Griffith 
with  the  dividends  on  them  between  those  dates, 
would  still  render  them  liable  to  an  indictment. 
The  case,  therefore,  overlooking  the  final  mis- 
appropriation of  the  bonds,  and  the  failure  of  the 
firm  in  1855,  was  narrowed  down  to  the  single 
issue— whether  they  had  been  sold  in  1854 
without  the  consent  of  Dr.  Griffith." 

For  misappropriating  sixty  thousand  dollars 
of  one  of  their  customers — using  it  without  his 
consent — these  three  great  London  bankers  were 
sentenced  to  fourteen  years'  transportation :  for 
misappropriating  thirty-five  millions,  and  sink- 
ing twenty-one  millions  more  in  other  institu- 
tions, the  wrong-doers  go  free  in  the  United 
States — giving  some  countenance  among  us  to 
the  sarcasm  of  the  Scythian  philosopher,  that 
laws  are  cobwebs  which  catch  the  weak  flies, 
and  let  the  strong  ones  break  through.  The 
Judge  (Mr.  Baron  Alderson)  who  tried  this 
case  (that  of  the  three  London  bankers),  had  as 
much  heart  and  feeling  as  any  judge,  or  man 
ought  to  have ;  but  he  also  had  a  sense  of  his 
own  duty,  and  of  his  obligations  to  the  laws, 
and  to  the  country ;  and  in  sentencing  men  of 
such  high  position,  and  with  whom  he  had  been 
intimate  and  social,  he  combined  in  the  highest 
degree  the  feelings  of  a  man  with  the  duties  of 
the  judge.     He  said  to  the  prisoners  : 

"  William  Strahan,  Sir  John  Dean  Paul,  and 
Robert  Makin  Bates,  the  jury  have  now  found 
you  guilty  of  the  offence  charged  upon  you  in 
the  indictment — the  offence  of  disposing  of  secu- 
rities which  were  entrusted  by  your  customers 
to  you  as  bankers,  for  the  purpose  of  being  kept 
safe  for  their  use,  and  which  you  appropriated, 
under  circumstances  of  temptation,  to  your  own. 
A  greater  and  more  serious  offence  can  hardly 
be  imagined  in  a  great  commercial  city  like  this. 
It  tends  to  shake  confidence  in  all  persons  in  the 
position  you  occupied,  and  it  has  shaken  the 
public  confidence  in  establishments  like  that  you 
for  a  long  period  honorably  conducted.  I  do 
very,  very  much  regret  that  it  falls  to  my  lot  to 
pass  any  sentence  on  persons  in  your  situation  ; 
but  yet  the  public  interest  and  public  justice  re- 
quire it ;  and  it  is  not  for  me  to  shrink  from  the 
discharge  of  any  duty,  however  painful,  which 
properly  belongs  to  my  office.  I  should  have 
been  very  glad,  if  it  had  pleased  God  that  some 
one  else  now  had  to  discharge  that  duty.  I  have 
seen  (continued  the  learned  judge,  with  deep 
emotion)  at  least  one  of  you  under  very  different 
circumstances,  sitting  at  my  side  in  high  office 
instead  of  being  where  you  now  are,  and  I  could 
scarcely  then  have  fancied  to  myself  that  it 
would  ever  come  to  me  to  pass  sentence  on  you. 


But  so  it  is,  and  this  is  a  proof,  therefore,  that 
we  all  ought  to  pray  not  to  be  led  into  tempta- 
tion. You  have  been  well  educated,  and  held  a 
high  position  in  life,  and  the  punishment  which 
must  fall  on  you  will  consequently  be  the  more 
seriously  and  severely  felt  by  you,  and  will  also 
greatly  affect  those  connected  with  you,  who 
will  most  sensitively  feel  the  disgrace  of  your 
position.  All  that  I  have  to  say  is,  that  Ican- 
not  conceive  any  worse  case  of  the  sort  arising 
under  the  act  of  Parliament,  applicable  to  your 
offence.  Therefore,  as  I  cannot  conceive  any 
worse  case  under  the  act,  I  can  do  nothing  else 
but  impose  the  sentence  therein  provided  for  the 
worst  case,  namely,  the  most  severe  punishment, 
which  is,  that  you  be  severally  transported  for 
fourteen  years." 

For  the  admiration  of  all  in  our  America — for 
the  imitation  of  those  who  may  be  called  to  act 
in  the  like  cases — with  the  sad  conviction  that 
the  administration  of  criminal  justice  is  not 
equal  in  our  Republic  to  what  it  is  in  the  mon- 
archies of  Europe :  for  the  benefit  of  all  such, 
this  brief  notice  of  judicial  action  in  an  English 
court  against  eminent,  but  culpable  bankers,  is 
here  given — contrasting  so  strikingly  with  the 
vain  attempts  to  prosecute  those  so  much  more 
culpable  in  our  own  country. 


CHAPTER    LXXXVIII. 

END  AND  KESULTS  OF  THE  EXTEA  SESSION 

This  extraordinary  session,  called  by  President 
Harrison,  held  under  Mr.  Tyler,  dominated  by 
Mr.  Clay,  was  commenced  on  the  31st  of  May 
and  ended  the  13th  of  September :  seventy-five 
days'  session — and  replete  with  disappointed 
calculations,  and  nearly  barren  of  permanent 
results.  The  whigs  expected  from  it  an  easy 
and  victorious  course  of  legislation,  and  the  con- 
solidation of  their  power  by  the  inauguration 
of  their  cherished  measures  for  acting  on  the 
people — national  bank — paper  money  national 
currency — union  of  bank  and  state — distribu- 
tion of  public  money — bankrupt  act — monopoly 
of  office.  The  democracy  saw  no  means  of  pre- 
venting these  measures ;  but  relied  upon  the 
goodness  of  their  cause,  the  badness  of  the 
measures  to  be  adopted  by  the  whigs,  and  the 
blunders  they  would  commit,  to  give  them 
eventual  victory,  and  soon  to  restore  parties  to 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


373 


their  usual  relative  positions.  The  defection 
of  Mr.  Tyler  was  not  foreseen :  his  veto  of  a 
national  bank  was  not  counted  upon :  the  es- 
tablishment of  that  institution  was  considered 
certain :  and  the  only  remedy  thought  of  was 
in  the  repeal  of  the  law  establishing  it.  As  a 
public  political  corporation,  that  repeatability 
came  within  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  in  the  Dartmouth  College 
case  ;  and  being  established  for  the  good  of  the 
state,  it  became  amenable  to  the  judgment  of 
the  State  upon  the  question  of  good,  or  evil — 
to  be  decided  by  the  political  power.  Repeal- 
ability  was  then  the  reliance  against  a  national 
bank ;  and  that  ground  was  immediately  taken, 
and  systematically  urged — both  for  the  pur- 
pose of  familiarizing  the  people  with  the  idea 
of  repeal,  and  of  deterring  capitalists  from 
taking  its  stock.  The  true  service  that  Mr. 
Tyler  did  the  democratic  party  was  in  rejecting 
the  bank  charters  (for  such  they  both  were, 
though  disguised  with  ridiculous  names).  Nu- 
merically he  weakened  the  whig  ranks  but 
little :  potentially  not  at  all — as  those  who 
joined  him,  took  office :  and  became  both  use- 
less to  him,  and  a  reproach.  That  beau  ideal,  of 
a  whig  unit}* — "  whig  President,  whig  Congress, 
and  whig  people  " — which  Mr.  Webster  and 
Mr.  Cushing  were  to  realize,  vanished :  and  they 
with  it — leaving  Mr.  Tyler  without  whig,  and 
without  democratic  adherents  ;  but  with  a  small 
party  of  his  own  as  long  as  he  was  in  a  condi- 
tion to  dispense  office.  The  legislation  of  the 
session  was  a  wreck.  The  measures  passed, 
had  no  duration.  The  bankrupt  act,  and  the  dis- 
tribution act,  were  repealed  by  the  same  Con- 
gress that  passed  them — under  the  demand  of 
the  people.  The  new  tariff  act,  called  revenue 
— was  changed  within  a  year.  The  sub-trea- 
sury system,  believed  to  have  been  put  to  death, 
came  to  life  again.  Gold  and  silver,  intended 
to  have  been  ignored  as  a  national  currency, 
had  become  that  currency — both  for  the  na- 
tional coffers,  and  the  people's  pockets.  Of  all 
the  measures  of  that  extraordinary  session, 
opening  with  so  much  hope,  nothing  now  re- 
mains to  recall  the  idea  of  its  existence,  but, 
first — The  Home  Squadron  !  keeping  idle 
watch  on  our  safe  coasts,  at  the  cost  of  a  mil- 
lion per  annum.  Next,  The  Ocean  Line 
Steamers!  plundering  the  country  of  two 
millions  annually,  oppressing  fair  competition, 
and  damaging  the  character  of  Congress.    And 


last,  not  least,  That  One  Hour  Rule  !  which 
has  silenced  the  representatives  of  the  people  in 
the  House  of  Representatives,  reduced  the  na- 
tional legislation  to  blind  dictation,  suppressed 
opposition  to  evil  measures,  and  deprived  the 
people  of  the  means  of  knowing  the  evil  that 
Congress  is  doing. 

To  the  democracy  it  was  a  triumphant  ses- 
sion— triumphant  in  every  thing  that  consti- 
tutes moral  and  durable  triumph.  They  had 
broken  down  the  whig  party  before  the  session 
was  over — crushed  it  upon  its  own  measures ; 
and  were  ready  for  the  elections  which  were  to 
reverse  the  party  positions.  The  Senate  had 
done  it.  The  House,  oppressed  by  the  hour 
rule,  and  the  tyrannical  abuse  of  the  previous 
question,  had  been  able  to  make  but  little  show. 
The  two-and-twenty  in  the  Senate  did  the  work ; 
and  never  did  I  see  a  body  of  men  more  effec- 
tive or  brilliant — show  a  higher  spirit  or  a  more 
determined  persistence.  To  name  the  speakers, 
would  be  to  enumerate  all — except  Mr.  Mouton, 
who  not  having  the  English  language  perfect 
was  limited  to  his  vote — always  in  place,  and 
always  faithful.  The  Globe  newspaper  was  a 
powerful  assistant,  both  as  an  ally  working  in 
its  own  columns,  and  as  a  vehicle  of  communi- 
cation for  our  daily  debates.  Before  the  session 
was  over  we  felt  ourselves  victorious,  and  only 
waiting  for  the  day  when  the  elections  were  to 
show  it.  Of  all  our  successes,  that  of  keeping 
the  hour  rule,  and  the  previous  question  out  of 
the  American  Senate,  was  the  most  brilliant,  and 
durably  beneficent — rising  above  party — enter- 
ing the  high  region  of  free  government — pre- 
serving the  liberty  of  speech — preserving  to  re- 
publican government  its  distinctive  and  vital 
feature,  that  of  free  debate  ;  and  saving  national 
legislation  from  unresisted  party  dictation. 


CHAPTER    LXXXIX. 

FIRST  ANNUAL  MESSAGE  OF  PEESIDENT  TYLER. 

This  message  coming  in  so  soon  after  the  ter- 
mination of  the  extra  session — only  two  months 
after  it — was  necessarily  brief  and  meagre  of 
topics,  and  presents  but  few  points  worthy  of 
historical  remembrance.  The  first  subject  men- 
tioned was  the  acquittal  of  M'Leod,  which  had 


374 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


taken  place  in  the  recess :  and  with  which  re- 
sult the  British  government  was  content.  The 
next  subject  was,  the  kindred  matter  of  the 
Caroline ;  on  which  the  President  had  nothing 
satisfactory  to  communicate,  but  expressed  a 
high  sense  of  the  indignity  which  had  been  of- 
fered to  the  United  States,  and  evinced  a  be- 
coming spirit  to  obtain  redress  for  it.  He 
said: 

"  I  regret  that  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  make 
known  to  you  an  equally  satisfactory  conclu- 
sion in  the  case  of  the  Caroline  steamer,  with 
the  circumstances  connected  with  the  destruc- 
tion of  which,  in  December,  1837,  by  an  armed 
force  fitted  out  in  the  Province  of  tipper  Canada, 
you  are  already  made  acquainted.  No  such 
atonement  as  was  due  for  the  public  wrong 
done  to  the  United  States  by  this  invasion  of 
her  territory,  so  wholly  irreconcilable  with  her 
rights  as  an  independent  power,  has  yet  been 
made.  In  the  view  taken  by  this  government, 
the  inquiry  whether  the  vessel  was  in  the  em- 
ployment of  those  who  were  prosecuting  an  un- 
authorized war  against  that  Province,  or  was 
engaged  by  the  owner  in  the  business  of  trans- 
porting passengers  to  and  from  Navy  Island  in 
hopes  of  private  gain,  which  was  most  probably 
the  case,  in  no  degree  alters  the  real  question 
at  issue  between  the  two  governments.  This 
government  can  never  concede  to  any  foreign 
government  the  power,  except  in  a  case  of  the 
most  urgent  and  extreme  necessity,  of  invading 
its  territory,  either  to  arrest  the  persons  or  de- 
stroy the  property  of  those  who  may  have 
violated  the  municipal  laws  of  such  foreign  gov- 
ernment, or  have  disregarded  their  obligations 
arising  under  the  law  of  nations.  The  territory 
of  the  United  States  must  be  regarded  as  sa- 
credly secure  against  all  such  invasions,  until 
they  shall  voluntarily  acknowledge  their  in- 
ability to  aquit  themselves  of  their  duties  to 
others.  And  in  announcing  this  sentiment,  I 
do  but  affirm  a  principle  which  no  nation  on 
earth  would  be  more  ready  to  vindicate,  at  all 
hazards,  than  the  people  and  government  of 
Great  Britain." 

The  finances  were  in  a  bad  condition,  and  the 
President  chiefly  referred  to  the  report  of  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury  upon  them.  Of  the  loan 
of  twelve  millions  authorized  at  the  previous  ses- 
sion, only  five  millions  and  a  half  had  been  taken 
— being  the  first  instance,  and  the  last  in  our 
financial  history  in  which,  in  time  of  peace,  our 
government  was  unable  to  borrow  money.  A 
deficiency  existed  in  the  revenues  of  the  year, 
and  for  the  ensuing  year  that  deficiency  was  es- 
timated, would  amount  to  a  fraction  over  four- 
teen millions  of  dollars.  To  meet  this  large 
deficit  the   secretary  recommended— -jirst,  an 


extension  of  the  term  for  the  redeemability  of 
the  remainder  of  the  authorized  loan,  amount- 
ing to  $6,500,000.  Secondly,  the  re-issue  of 
the  five  millions  of  treasury  notes  authorized  at 
the  previous  session.  Thirdly,  the  remainder 
($2,718,570)  to  be  made  up  by  additional  duties 
on  imported  articles.  While  recommending 
these  fourteen  millions  and  a  quarter  to  be 
raised  by  loans,  treasury  notes,  and  duties,  the 
President  recommended  the  land  revenue  should 
still  remain  as  a  fund  for  distribution  to  the 
States,  and  was  solicitous  that,  in  the  imposi- 
tion of  new  duties,  care  should  be  taken  not  to 
impair  the  mutual  assurance  for  each  other's 
life  which  the  land  distribution  bill,  and  the 
compromise  clause  contained  in  the  tariff  bill  of 
the  extra  session  provided  for  each  other — say- 
ing :  "  It  might  be  esteemed  desirable  that  no 
such  augmentation  of  the  duties  should  take 
place  as  would  have  the  effect  of  annulling  the 
land  proceeds  distribution  act  of  the  last  ses- 
sion, which  act  it  declared  to  be  inoperative  the 
moment  the  duties  are  increased  beyond  20 
per  centum — the  maximum  rate  established  by 
the  compromise  act."  This  recommendation,  so 
far  as  it  applied  to  the  compromise  act,  was 
homage  to  the  dead  ;  and  so  far  as  it  related  to 
continuing  the  distribution  of  the  land  revenue 
was,  probably,  the  first  instance  in  the  annals 
of  nations  in  which  the  chief  magistrate  of  a 
country  has  recommended  the  diversion  and'  gra- 
tuitous distribution  of  a  large  branch  of  its  re- 
venues, recommending  at  the  same  time,  money 
to  be  raised  by  loans,  taxes,  and  government 
notes  to  supply  the  place  of  that  given  away. 
The  largeness  of  the  deficiency  was  a  point  to 
be  accounted  for  ;  and  that  was  done  by  show- 
ing the  great  additional  expenses  to  be  incurred 
— and  especially  in  the  navy,  for  which  the 
new  secretary  (Mr.  Upshur)  estimated  enor- 
mously, and  gave  rise  to  much  searching  dis- 
cussion in  Congress :  of  which,  in  its  place. 
But  the  chief  item  in  the  message  was  another 
modification  of  the  fiscalities  of  the  extra  ses- 
sion, with  a  new  name,  and  an  old  countenance 
upon  it,  except  where  it  was  altered  for  the 
worse.  This  new  plan  was  thus  introduced  by 
the  President : 

"  In  pursuance  of  a  pledge  given  to  you  in  my 
last  message  to  Congress,  which  pledge  I  urge 
as  an  apology  for  adventuring  to  present  you 
the  details  of  any  plan,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  will  be  ready  to  submit  to  you,  should 


ANNO  1841.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


375 


you  require  it,  a  plan  of  finance  which,  while  it 
throws  around  the  public  treasure  reasonable 
guards  for  its  protection,  and  rests  on  powers 
acknowledged  in  practice  to  exist  from  the  origin 
of  the  government,  will,  at  the  same  time,  fur- 
nish to  the  country  a  sound  paper  medium,  and 
afford  all  reasonable  facilities  for  regulating  the 
exchanges.  When  submitted,  you  will  perceive 
in  it  a  plan  amendatory  of  the  existing  laws  in 
relation  to  the  Treasury  department — subordi- 
nate in  all  respects  to  the  will  of  Congress  di- 
rectly, and  the  will  of  the  people  indirectly — 
self-sustaining  should  it  be  found  in  practice  to 
realize  its  promises  in  theory,  and  repealable  at 
the  pleasure  of  Congress.  It  proposes  by  effec- 
tual restraints,  and  by  invoking  the  true  spirit 
of  our  institutions,  to  separate  the  purse  from 
the  sword ;  or  more  properly  to  speak,  denies 
any  other  control  to  the  President  over  the 
agents  who  may  be  selected  to  carry  it  into  exe- 
cution, but  what  may  be  indispensably  necessary 
to  secure  the  fidelity  of  such  agents ;  and,  by 
wise  regulations,  keeps  plainly  apart  from  each 
other  private  and  public  funds.  It  contemplates 
the  establishment  of  a  Board  of  Control  at  the 
seat  of  government,  with  agencies  at  prominent 
commercial  points,  or  wherever  else  Congress 
shall  direct,  for  the  safe-keeping  and  disburse- 
ment of  the  public  moneys,  and  a  substitution, 
at  the  option  of  the  public  creditor,  of  treasury 
notes,  in  lieu  of  gold  and  silver.  It  proposes 
to  limit  the  issues  to  an  amount  not  to  exceed 
$15,000,000 — without  the  express  sanction  of 
the  legislative  power.  It  also  authorizes  the  re- 
ceipt of  individual  deposits  of  gold  and  silver  to 
a  limited  amount,  and  the  granting  certificates 
of  deposit,  divided  into  such  sums  as  may  be 
called  for  by  the  depositors.  It  proceeds  a  step 
further,  and  authorizes  the  purchase  and  sale  of 
domestic  bills  and  drafts,  resting  on  a  real  and 
substantial  basis,  payable  at  sight,  or  having  but 
a  short  time  to  run,  and  drawn  on  places  not 
less  than  one  hundred  miles  apart — which  au- 
thority, except  in  so  far  as  may  be  necessary  for 
government  purposes  exclusively,  is  only  to  be 
exerted  upon  the  express  condition,  that  its 
exercise  shall  not  be  prohibited  by  the  State 
in  which  the  agency  is  situated." 

This  was  the  prominent  feature  of  the  mes- 
sage, and  appeared  to  Mr.  Benton  to  be  so  mon- 
strous and  dangerous  that  it  ought  not  to  be 
allowed  to  get  out  of  the  Senate  without  a  mark 
of  reprobation  should  be  first  set  upon  it.  The 
moment  the  reading  was  finished,  the  usual  re- 
solve was  offered  to  print  extra  copies,  when  he 
rose  and  inveighed  against  the  new  fiscality  with 
great  vehemence,  saying : 

"  He  could  not  reconcile  it  to  himself  to  let  the 
resolution  pass  without  making  a  few  remarks 
on  that  part  of  the  message  which  related  to  the 
new  fiscal  agent.    Looking  at  that  feature  of  it, 


as  read,  he  perceived  that  the  President  gave  an 
outline  of  his  plan,  leaving  it  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  to  furnish  the  details  in  his  re- 
port. He  (Mr.  Benton)  apprehended  that  no- 
thing in  those  details  could  reconcile  him  to  the 
project,  or  in  any  manner  meet  his  approbation. 
There  were  two  main  points  presented  in  the 
plan,  to  which  he  never  could  agree — both  being 
wholly  unconstitutional  and  dangerous.  One 
was  that  of  emitting  bills  of  credit,  or  issuing  a 
treasury  currency.  Congress  had  no  constitu- 
tional authority  to  issue  paper  money,  or  emit 
federal  bills  of  credit ;  and  the  other  feature  is 
to  authorize  this  government  to  deal  in  ex- 
changes. The  proposition  to  issue  bills  of  credit, 
when  under  consideration  at  the  formation  of 
the  constitution,  was  struck  out  with  the  ex- 
press view  of  making  this  government  a  hard 
money  government — not  capable  of  recognizing 
any  other  than  a  specie  currency — a  currency  of 
gold  and  silver — a  currency  known  and  valued, 
and  equally  understood  by  every  one.  But  here 
is  a  proposition  to  do  what  is  expressly  refused 
to  be  allowed  by  the  framers  of  the  constitution 
— to  exercise  a  power  not  only  not  granted  to 
Congress,  but  a  power  expressly  denied.  The 
next  proposition  is  to  authorize  the  federal  gov- 
ernment to  deal  in  and  regulate  exchanges,  and 
to  furnish  exchange  to  merchants.  This  is  a 
new  invention — a  modern  idea  of  the  power  of 
this  government,  invented  by  Mr.  Biddle,  to  help 
out  a  national  bank.  Much  as  General  Ham- 
ilton was  in  favor  of  paper  money,  he  never  went 
the  length  of  recommending  government  bills  of 
credit,  or  dealings  in  exchange  by  the  United 
States  Treasury.  The  fathers  of  the  church, 
Macon,  and  John  Kandolph,  and  others,  called 
this  a  hard  money  government :  they  objected 
to  bank  paper ;  but  here  is  government  paper ; 
and  that  goes  beyond  Hamilton,  much  as  he 
was  in  favor  of  the  paper  system.  The  wholo 
scheme  making  this  government  a  regulator  of 
exchange — a  dealer  in  exchange — a  furnisher  of 
exchange — is  absurd,  unconstitutional,  and  per- 
nicious, and  is  a  new  thing  under  the  sun. 

"  Now  he  (Mr.  Benton)  objected  to  this  gov- 
ernment becoming  a  seller  of  exchange  to  the 
country  (which  is  transportation  of  money),  for 
which  there  is  no  more  authority  than  there  is 
for  its  furnishing  transportation  of  goods  or 
country  produce.  There  is  not  a  word  in  the 
constitution  to  authorize  it — not  a  word  to  be 
found  justifying  the  assumption.  The  word  ex- 
change is  not  in  the  constitution.  What  does 
this  message  propose  ?  Congress  is  called  upon 
to  establish  a  board  with  agencies,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  furnishing  the  country  with  exchanges. 
Why  should  not  Congress  be  also  called  on  to 
furnish  that  portion  of  the  community  engaged 
in  commerce  with  facilities  for  transporting  mer- 
chandise 1  The  proposition  is  one  of  the  most 
pernicious  nature,  and  such  as  must  lead  to  the 
most  dangerous  consequences  if  adopted. 

"  The  British  debt  began  in  the  time  of  Sir 


376 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Robert  Walpole,  on  issues  of  exchequer  bills — 
by  which  system  the  British  nation  has  been 
cheated,  and  plunged  irretrievably  in  debt  to  the 
amount  of  nine  hundred  millions  of  pounds. 
The  proposition  that  the  government  should 
become  the  issuer  of  exchequer  notes,  is  one 
borrowed  from  the  system  introduced  in  Eng- 
land by  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  whose  whig  admin- 
istration was  nothing  but  a  high  tory  administra- 
tion of  Queen  Anne  :  and  infinitely  worse ;  for 
Walpole's  exchequer  bills  were  for  large  sums,  for 
investment :  this  scheme  goes  down  to  five  dol- 
lar notes  for  common  and  petty  circulation.  He 
(Mr.  Benton)  had  much  to  say  on  this  subject, 
but  this  was  not  the  time  for  entering  at  large 
into  it.  This  perhaps  was  not  the  proper  occa- 
sion to  say  more ;  nor  would  it,  he  considered, 
be  treating  the  President  of  the  United  States 
with  proper  respect  to  enter  upon  a  premature 
discussion.  He  could  not,  however,  in  justice  to 
himself,  allow  this  resolution  to  pass  without 
stating  his  objections  to  two  such  obnoxious 
features  of  the  proposed  fiscality,  looking,  as  he 
did,  upon  the  whole  thing  as  one  calculated  to 
destroy  the  whole  structure  of  the  government, 
to  change  it  from  the  hard  money  it  was  in- 
tended to  be,  to  the  paper  money  government  it 
was  intended  not  to  be,  and  to  mix  it  up  with 
trade,  which  no  one  ever  dreamed  of.  He  (Mr. 
Benton)  had  on  another  occasion  stated  that 
this  administration  would  go  back  not  only  to 
the  federal  times  of  '98,  but  to  the  times  of  Sir 
Robert  Walpole  and  Queen  Anne,  and  the  evi- 
dence is  now  before  us. 

"He  (Mr.  Benton)  had  only  said  a  few 
words  on  this  occasion,  because  he  could  not  let 
the  proposition  to  sanction  bills  of  credit  go 
without  taking  the  very  earliest  opportunity  of 
expressing  his  disapprobation,  and  denouncing 
a  system  calculated  to  produce  the  same  re- 
sults which  had  raised  the  funded  debt  of  Great 
Britain  from  twenty-one  millions  to  nine  hundred 
millions  of  pounds.  He  should  avail  himself  of 
the  first  appropriate  opportunity  to  maintain 
the  ground  he  had  assumed  as  to  the  identity  of 
this  policy  with  that  of  Walpole,  by  argument 
and  references,  that  this  plan  of  the  President's 
was  utterly  unconstitutional  and  dangerous- 
part  borrowed  from  the  system  of  English  ex- 
chequer issues,  and  part  from  Mr.  Biddle's 
scheme  of  making  the  federal  government  an 
exchange  dealer— though  Mr.  Biddle  made  the 
government  act  indirectly  through  a  board  of 
bank  directors,  and  this  makes  it  act  directly 
through  a  board  of  treasury  directors  and  their 
agents. 

"  This  is  the  first  time  that  a  formal  proposi- 
tion has  been  made  to  change  our  hard  money 
government  (as  it  was  intended  to  be)  into  a 
paper  money  machine ;  and  it  is  the  first  time 
that  there  has  been  a  proposal  to  mix  it  up  with 
trade  and  commerce,  by  making  it  a  furnisher  of 
exchanges,  a  bank  of  deposit,  a  furnisher  of  paper 
currency,  and  an  imitator  of  the  old  confedera- 


tion in  its  continental  bills  and  a  copyist  of  the 
English  exchequer  system.  Being  the  first  time 
these  unconstitutional  and  pernicious  schemes 
were  formally  presented  to  Congress,  he  felt  it 
to  be  his  duty  to  disclose  his  opposition  to  them 
at  once.     He  would  soon  speak  more  fully." 

The  President  in  his  message  referred  to  the 
accompanying  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  (Mr.  Walter  Forward),  for  the  details 
of  his  plan ;  and  in  looking  at  these  they  were 
found  to  comprise  all  the  features  of  a  bank  of 
circulation,  a  bank  of  deposit,  and  a  bank  of  dis- 
count upon  bills  of  exchange — all  in  the  hands  of 
the  government,  and  they  to  become  the  collec- 
tors and  keepers  of  the  public  moneys,  and  the 
furnishers  of  a  national  paper  money  currency, 
in  sums  adapted  to  common  dealings,  both  to 
the  people  and  the  federal  government.  It  was  a 
revolting  scheme,  and  fit  for  instant  condemna- 
tion, but  in  great  danger  of  being  adopted  from 
the  present  predominance  of  that  party  in  all 
the  departments  of  the  government  which  was 
so  greatly  addicted  to  the  paper  system. 


CHAPTER    XG. 

THIED  PLAN  FOE  A  FISCAL  AGENT,  CALLED 
EXCHEQUEE  BOAED :  ME.  BENTON'S  SPEECH 
AGAINST  IT:    EXTEACTS. 

Mr.  President  : — I  have  said  on  several  occa- 
sions since  the  present  administration  was 
formed,  that  we  had  gone  back  not  merely  to 
the  federal  times  of  General  Hamilton,  but  far 
beyond  them — to  the  whig  times  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole,  and  the  tory  times  of  Queen  Anne. 
When  I  have  said  this  I  did  not  mean  it  for  sar- 
casm, or  for  insult,  or  to  annoy  the  feelings  of 
those  who  had  just  gotten  into  power.  My  aim 
was  far  higher  and  nobler — that  of  showing  the 
retrograde  movement  which  our  government 
was  making,  and  waking  up  the  country  to  a 
sense  of  its  dangers  before  it  was  too  late  j  and 
to  the  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  arresting 
that  movement,  and  recovering  the  ground 
which  we  have  lost.  When  I  had  said  that  we 
had  gone  back  to  the  Walpole  and  Queen  Anne 
times  of  the  British  government,  I  knew  full 
well  the  extent  of  the  declaration  which  I  had 
made,  and  the  obligation  which  I  had  imposed 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


377 


on  myself  to  sustain  my  assertion,  and  I  knew 
that  history  would  bear  me  out  in  it.  I  knew 
all  this  ;  and  I  felt  that  if  I  could  show  to  the 
American  people  that  we  had  retrograded  to 
the  most  calamitous  period  of  British  history 
— the  period  from  which  her  present  calamities 
all  dates — and  that  we  were  about  to  adopt  the 
systems  of  policy  which  she  then  adopted,  and 
which  has  led  to  her  present  condition ;  I  felt 
that  if  I  could  do  this,  I  might  succeed  in  rous- 
ing up  the  country  to  a  sense  of  its  danger  be- 
fore it  was  too  late  to  avoid  the  perils  which 
are  spread  before  us.  The  administration  of  Sir 
Robert  Walpole  was  the  fountain-head  of  British 
woes.  All  the  measures  which  have  led  to  the 
present  condition  of  the  British  empire,  and 
have  given  it  more  debt  and  taxes,  more  pau- 
pers, and  more  human  misery  than  ever  before 
was  collected  under  the  sway  of  one  sceptre : 
all  these  date  from  the  reigns  of  the  first  and 
second  George ;  when  this  minister,  for  twen- 
ty-five years,  was  the  ruler  of  parliament  by 
means  of  the  moneyed  interest,  and  the  ruler  of 
kings  by  beating  the  tories  at  their  own  game 
of  non-resistance  and  passive  obedience  to  the 
royal  will.  The  tories  ruled  under  Queen 
Anne :  they  went  for  church  and  state,  and 
rested  for  support  on  the  landed  interest.  The 
whigs  came  into  power  with  the  accession  of 
George  the  First :  they  went  for  bank  and 
state ;  and  rested  for  support  on  the  moneyed 
interest.  Sir  Robert  Walpole  was  the  head  of 
the  whig  party ;  and  immediately  became  the 
favorite  of  that  monarch,  and  afterwards  of  his 
successor  ;  and,  availing  himself  during  that 
long  period  of  power  of  all  the  resources  of 
genius,  unimpeded  by  the  obstacle  of  principles, 
he  succeeded  in  impressing  his  own  image  upon 
the  age  in  which  he  lived,  and  giving  to  the 
government  policy  the  direction  which  it  has 
followed  ever  since.  Morals,  politics,  public 
and  private  pursuits,  all  received  the  impress 
of  the  minister's  genius ;  and  what  that  genius 
produced  I  will  now  proceed  to  show :  I  read 
from  Smollet's  continuation  of  Hume  : 

"  This  was  the  age  of  interested  projects,  in- 
spired by  a  venal  spirit  of  adventure,  the  natu- 
ral consequence  of  that  avarice,  fraud,  and  prof- 
ligacy which  the  moneyed  corporations  had 
introduced.  The  vice,  luxury,  and  prostitution 
of  the  age — the  almost  total  extinction  of  senti- 
ment, honor,  and  public  spirit — had  prepared 
the  minds  of  men  for  slavery  and  corruption. 


The  means  were  in  the  hands  of  the  ministry : 
the  public  treasure  was  at  their  devotion :  they 
multiplied  places  and  pensions,  to  increase  the 
number  of  their  dependents :  they  squandered 
away  the  national  treasure  without  taste,  dis- 
cernment, decency,  or  remorse :    they  enlisted 
an   army   of  the  most  abandoned    emissaries, 
whom  they  employed  to  vindicate  the  worst 
measures  in  the  face  of  truth,  common  sense, 
and  common  honesty ;  and  they  did  not  fail  to 
stigmatize  as  Jacobites,  and  enemies  to  the  gov- 
ernment, all  those  who  presumed  to  question 
the  merit  of  their  administration.      The  inte- 
rior government  of  Great  Britain  was  chiefly 
managed  by  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  a  man  of  ex- 
traordinary talents,  who  had  from  low  begin- 
nings raised  himself  to  the  head  of  the  minis- 
try.    Having  obtained  a  seat  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  he  declared  himself  one  of  the  most 
forward  partisans  of  the  whig  faction.     He  was 
endued  with  a  species  of  eloquence  which,  though 
neither  nervous  nor  elegant,  flowed  with  great 
facility,  and  was  so  plausible  on  all  subjects, 
that  even  when  he  misrepresented  the  truth, 
whether  from  ignorance  or  design,  he  seldom 
failed  to  persuade  that  part  of  his  audience  for 
whose   hearing   his   harangue  was   chiefly  in- 
tended.    He  was  well  acquainted  with  the  na- 
ture of  the  public  funds,  and  understood  the 
whole  mystery  of  stockjobbing.     This  know- 
ledge produced  a  connection  between  him  and 
the  money  corporations,  which  served  to  en- 
hance his  importance." 

Such  was  the  picture  of  Great  Britain  in  the 
time  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  and  such  was  the 
natural  fruit  of  a  stockjobbing  government, 
composed  of  bank  and  state,  resting  for  sup- 
port on  heartless  corporations,  and  lending  the 
wealth  and  credit  of  the  country  to  the  inter- 
ested schemes  of  projectors  and  adventurers. 
Such  was  the  picture  of  Great  Britain  during 
this  period;  and  who  would  not  mistake  it 
(leaving  out  names  and  dates)  for  a  description 
of  our  own  times,  in  our  own  America,  during 
the  existence  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
and  the  thousand  affiliated  institutions  which 
grew  up  under  its  protection  during  its  long 
reign  of  power  and  corruption  ?  But,  to  pro- 
ceed, with  English  history : 

Among  the  corporations  brought  into  exist- 
ence by  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  or  moulded  by 
him  into  the  form  which  they  have  since  worn, 
were  the  South  Sea  Company,  the  East  India 
Company,  the  Bank  of  England,  the  Royal  In- 
surance Company,  the  London  Insurance  Com- 
pany, the  Charitable  Corporation,  and  a  multi- 
tude of  others,  besides  the  exchequer  and  fund- 
ing systems,  which  were    the    machines    for 


378 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


smuggling  debts  and  taxes  upon  the  people  and 
saddling  them  on  posterity.  All  these  schemes 
were  brought  forward  under  the  pretext  of  pay- 
ing the  debts  of  the  nation,  relieving  the  dis- 
tresses of  the  people,  assisting  the  poor,  encour- 
aging agriculture,  commerce,  and  manufactures  ; 
and  saving  the  nation  from  the  burden  of  loans 
and  taxes.  Such  were  the  pretexts  for  all  the 
schemes.  They  were  generally  conceived  by 
low  and  crafty  adventurers,  adopted  by  the 
minister,  carried  through  parliament  by  bribery 
and  corruption,  flourished  their  day ;  and  ended 
in  ruin  and  disgrace.  A  brief  notice  of  the  ori- 
gin and  pretensions  of  the  South  Sea  scheme, 
may  serve  for  a  sample  of  all  the  rest,  and  be 
an  instructive  lesson  upon  the  wisdom  of  all 
government  projects  for  the  relief  of  the  people. 
I  say,  a  notice  of  its  origin  and  pretensions  ;  for 
the  progress  and  termination  of  the  scheme  are 
known  to  everybody,  while  few  know  (what 
the  philosophy  of  history  should  be  most  for- 
ward to  teach)  that  this  renowned  scheme  of 
fraud,  disgrace,  and  ruin,  was  the  invention  of  a 
London  scrivener,  adopted  by  the  king  and  his 
minister,  passed  through  parliament  by  bribes 
to  the  amount  of  £574,000  ;  and  that  its  vaunt- 
ed object  was  to  pay  the  debts  of  the  nation,  to 
ease  the  burdens  of  the  subject,  to  encourage 
the  industry  of  the  country,  and  to  enrich  all 
orders  of  men.  These  are  the  things  which 
should  be  known ;  these  are  the  things  which 
philosophy,  teaching  by  the  example  of  history, 
proposes  to  tell,  in  order  that  the  follies  of  one 
age  or  nation  may  be  a  warning  to  others  ;  and 
this  is  what  I  now  want  to  show.  I  read  again 
from  the  same  historian : 

"  The  king  (George  I.)  having  recommended 
to  the  Commons  the  consideration  of  proper 
means  for  lessening  the  national  debt,  wras  a 
prelude  to  the  famous  South  Sea  act,  which  be- 
came productive  of  so  much  mischief  and  infat- 
uation. The  scheme  was  projected  by  Sir  John 
Blunt,  who  had  been  bred  a  scrivener,  and  was 
possessed  of  all  the  cunning,  plausibility  and 
boldness  requisite  for  such  an  undertaking.  He 
communicated  his  plan  to  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  as  well  as  to  one  of  the  Secretaries 
of  State.  He  answered  all  their  objections,  and 
the  plan  was  adopted.  They  foresaw  their  own 
private  advantage  in  the  execution  of  the  de- 
sign. The  pretence  for  the  scheme  was  to  dis- 
charge the  national  debt,  by  reducing  all  the 
funds  into  one.  The  Bank  and  the  South  Sea 
Company  outbid  each  other.  The  South  Sea 
Company  altered  their  original  plan,  and  offered 


such  high  terms  to  government  that  the  propo- 
sals of  the  Bank  were  rejected :  and  a  bill  was 
ordered  to  be  brought  into  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, formed  on  the  plan  presented  by  the 
South  Sea  Company.  The  bill  passed  without 
amendment  or  division  ;  and  on  the  7th  day  of 
April,  1720,  received  the  royal  assent.  Before 
any  subscription  could  be  made,  a  fictitious 
stock  of  £574,000  had  been  disposed  of  by  the 
directors  to  facilitate  the  passing  of  the  bill. 
Great  part  of  this  was  distributed  among  the 
Earl  Sunderland,  Mr.  Craggs,  Secretary  of  State, 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  the  Duchess 
of  Kendall,  the  Countess  of  Platen,  and  her  two 
nieces  "  (mistresses  of  the  king,  &c). 

This  is  a  sample  of  the  origin  and  pretensions 
of  nearly  all  the  great  corporations  which  were 
chartered  and  patronized  by  the  Walpole  whigs : 
all  of  them  brought  forward  under  the  pretext 
of  relieving  the  people  and  the  government — 
nearly  all  of  them  founded  in  fraud  or  folly — 
carried  through  by  corruption — and  ending  in 
disgrace  and  calamity.  Leaving  out  names, 
and  who  would  not  suppose  that  I  had  been 
reading  the  history  of  our  own  country  in  our 
own  times  ?  The  picture  suits  the  United 
States  in  1840  as  well  as  it  suited  England  in 
1720  :  but  at  one  point,  the  comparison,  if 
pushed  a  step  further,  would  entirely  fail  j  all 
these  corporation  plunderers  were  punished  in 
England  !  Though  favored  by  the  king  and 
ministry,  they  were  detested  by  the  people,  and 
pursued  to  the  extremity  of  law  and  justice. 
The  South  Sea  swindlers  were  fined  and  impris- 
oned— their  property  confiscated — their  names 
attainted — and  themselves  declared  incapable 
of  holding  any  office  of  honor  or  profit  in  the 
kingdom.  The  president  and  cashier  of  the 
charitable  corporation — (which  was  chartered 
to  relieve  the  distresses  of  the  poor,  and  which 
swindled  the  said  poor  out  of  £600,000  sterling) 
— this  president  and  this  cashier  were  pursued 
into  Holland — captured — brought  back — crimi- 
nally punished — and  made  to  disgorge  their 
plunder.  Others,  authors  and  managers  of  va- 
rious criminal  corporations,  were  also  punished : 
and  in  this  the  parallel  ceases  between  the  Eng- 
lish times  and  our  own.  With  us,  the  swin- 
dling corporations  are  triumphant  over  law  and 
government.  Their  managers  are  in  high  places 
— give  the  tone  to  society — and  riot  in  wealth. 
Those  who  led,  or  counselled  the  greatest  ruin 
which  this,  or  any  country  ever  beheld — the 
Bank  of  the  United  States — these  leaders,  their 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


379 


counsellors  and  abettors,  are  now  potential  with 
the  federal  government — furnish  plans  for  new 
systems  of  relief— and  are  as  bold  and  perse- 
vering as  ever  in  seizing  upon  government 
money  and  government  credit  to  accomplish 
their  own  views.  In  all  this,  the  parallel  ceases  j 
and  our  America  sinks  in  the  comparison. 

Corporation  credit  was  ruined  in  Great 
Britain,  by  the  explosions  of  banks  and  com- 
panies— by  the  bursting  of  bubbles — by  the  de- 
tection of  their  crimes — and  by  the  crowning 
catastrophe  of  the  South  Sea  scheme  :  it  is 
equally  ruined  with  us,  and  by  the  same  means, 
and  by  the  crowning  villany  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States.  Bank  and  state  can  no  longer 
go  together  in  our  America :  the  government 
can  no  longer  repose  upon  corporations.  This 
is  the  case  with  us  in  1841 ;  and  it  was  the  case 
with  Great  Britain  in  1720.  The  South  Sea 
explosion  dissolved  (for  a  long  time)  the  con- 
nection there;  the  explosion  of  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States  has  dissolved  it  here.  New 
schemes  become  indispensable :  and  in  both 
countries  the  same  alternative  is  adopted. 
Having  exhausted  corporation  credit  in  Eng- 
land, the  Walpole  whigs  had  recourse  to  gov- 
ernment credit,  and  established  a  Board  of 
Exchequer,  to  strike  government  paper.  In 
like  manner,  the  new  whigs,  having  exhausted 
corporation  credit  with  us,  have  recourse  to 
government  credit  to  supply  its  place  ;  and  send 
us  a  plan  for  a  federal  exchequer,  copied  with 
such  fidelity  of  imitation  from  the  British  origi- 
nal that  the  description  of  one  seems  to  be  the 
description  of  the  other.  Of  course  I  speak  of 
the  exchequer  feature  of  the  plan  alone.  For 
as  to  all  the  rest  of  our  cabinet  scheme — its 
banking  and  brokerage  conceptions — its  ex- 
change and  deposit  operations— its  three  dollar 
issues  in  paper  for  one  dollar  specie  in  hand — 
its  miserable  one-half  of  one  per  centum  on  its 
Change-alley  transactions — its  Cheapsideunder- 
biddings  of  rival  bankers  and  brokers  : — as  to 
all  these  follies  (for  they  do  not  amount  to  the 
dignity  of  errors)  they  are  not  copied  from  any 
part  of  the  British  exchequer  system,  or  any 
other  system  that  I  ever  heard  of,  but  are  the  un- 
contested and  unrivalled  production  of  our  own 
American  genius.  I  repeat  it :  our  administra- 
tion stands  to-day  where  the  British  govern- 
ment stood  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago. 
Corporation  credit  exhausted,  public  credit  is 


resorted  to ;  and  the  machinery  of  an  exchequer 
of  issues  becomes  the  instrument  of  cheating 
and  plundering  the  people  in  both  countries. 
The  British  invent :  we  copy :  and  the  copy 
proves  the  scholar  to  be  worthy  of  the  master. 
Here  is  the  British  act.  Let  us  read  some  parts 
of  it :  and  recognize  in  its  design,  its  structure, 
its  object,  its  provisions,  and  its  machinery,  the 
true  original  of  this  plan  (the  exchequer  part) 
which  the  united  wisdom  of  our  administration 
has  sent  down  to  us  for  our  acceptance  and  rati- 
fication. I  read,  not  from  the  separate  and  de- 
tached acts  of  the  first  and  second  George,  but 
from  the  revised  and  perfected  system  as  cor- 
rected and  perpetuated  in  the  reign  of  George 
the  Third.  (Here  Mr.  Benton  compared  the 
two  systems  through  the  twenty  sections 
which  compose  the  British  act,  and  the  same 
number  which  compose  the  exchequer  bill  of 
this  administration.) 

Here,  resumed  Mr.  B.  is  the  original  of  our 
exchequer  scheme  !  here  is  the  original  of  which 
our  united  administration  has  unanimously  sent 
us  down  a  faithful  copy.  In  all  that  relates  to 
the  exchequer  —  its  design  —  operation  —  and 
mode  of  action — they  are  one  and  the  same 
thing!  identically  the  same.  The  design  of 
both  is  to  substitute  government  credit  for  cor- 
poration credit — to  strike  paper  money  for  the 
use  of  the  government — to  make  this  paper  a 
currency,  as  well  as  a  means  of  raising  loans — to 
cover  up  and  hide  national  debt — to  avoid  pre- 
sent taxes  in  order  to  increase  them  an  hun- 
dred fold  in  future — to  throw  the  burdens  of 
the  present  day  upon  a  future  day ;  and  to  load 
posterity  with  our  debts  in  addition  to  their 
own.  The  design  of  both  is  the  same,  and  the 
structure  of  both  is  the  same.  The  English 
board  consists  of  the  lord  treasurer  for  the  time 
being,  and  three  commissioners  to  be  appointed 
by  the  king ;  our  board  is  to  consist  of  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury  and  the  Treasurer  for  the 
time  being,  and  three  commissioners  to  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  President  and  Senate.  The 
English  board  is  to  superintend  and  direct  the 
form  and  mode  of  preparing  and  issuing  the  ex- 
chequer bills ;  our  board  is  to  do  the  same  by 
our  treasury  notes.  The  English  bills  are  to  be 
receivable  in  all  payments  to  the  public  j  our 
treasury  notes  are  to  be  received  in  like  manner 
in  all  federal  payments.  The  English  board  ap- 
points paymasterSj  clerks  and  officers  to  assist 


380 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


them  in  the  work  of  the  exchequer ;  ours  is  to 
appoint  agents  in  the  States,  with  officers  and 
clerks  to  assist  them  in  the  same  work.  The 
English  paymasters  are  to  give  bonds,  and  be 
subject  to  inspection ;  our  agents  are  to  do  and 
submit  to  the  same.  The  English  exchequer 
bills  are  to  serve  for  a  currency ;  and  for  that 
purpose  the  board  may  contract  with  persons, 
bodies  politic  and  corporate,  to  take  and  cir- 
culate them ;  our  board  is  to  do  the  same  thing 
through  its  agencies  in  the  States  and  terri- 
tories. The  English  exchequer  bills  are  to  be 
exchanged  for  ready  money ;  ours  are  to  be  ex- 
changed in  the  same  manner.  In  short,  the 
plans  are  the  same,  one  copied  from  the  other, 
identical  in  design,  in  structure,  and  in  mode  of 
operation  ;  and  wherein  they  differ  (as  they  do 
in  some  details),  the  advantage  is  on  the  side  of 
the  British.  For  example :  1.  The  British  pay 
interest  on  their  bills,  and  raise  the  interest 
when  necessary  to  sustain  them  in  the  market. 
Ours  are  to  pay  no  interest,  and  will  depreciate 
from  the  day  they  issue.  2.  The  British  cancel 
and  destroy  their  bills  when  once  paid :  we  are 
to  reissue  ours,  like  common  bank  notes,  until 
worn  out  with  use.  3.  The  British  make  no 
small  bills;  none  less  than  £100  sterling 
($500),  we  begin  with  five  dollars,  like  the  old 
continentals  ;  and,  like  them,  will  soon  be  down 
to  one  dollar,  and  to  a  shilling.  4.  The  British 
board  could  issue  no  bill  except  as  specially  au- 
thorized from  time  to  time  by  act  of  Parlia- 
ment :  ours  is  to  keep  out  a  perpetual  issue  of 
fifteen  millions ;  thus  creating  a  perpetual  debt 
to  that  amount.  5.  The  British  board  was  to 
have  no  deposit  of  government  stocks :  ours  are 
to  have  a  deposit  of  five  millions,  to  be  con- 
verted into  money  when  needed,  and  to  consti- 
tute another  permanent  debt  to  that  amount. 
6.  The  British  gave  a  true  title  to  their  ex- 
chequer act :  we  give  a  false  one  to  ours.  They 
entitled  theirs,  "An  act  for  regulating  the 
issuing  and  paying  off,  of  exchequer  bills : " 
we  entitle  ours,  "A  bill  amendatory  of  the 
several  acts  establishing  the  Treasury  de- 
partment." In  these  and  a  few  other  particu- 
lars the  two  exchequers  differ ;  but  in  all  the 
essential  features — design — structure — operation 
— they  are  the  same. 

Having  shown  that  our  proposed  exchequer 
was  a  copy  of  the  British  system,  and  that  we 
are  having  recourse  to  it  under  the  same  cir- 


cumstances :  that  in  both  countries  it  is  a  transit 
from  corporation  credit  deceased,  to  government 
credit  which  is  to  bear  the  brunt  of  new  follies 
and  new  extravagances :  having  shown  this,  I 
next  propose  to  show  the  manner  in  which  this 
exchequer  system  has  worked  in  England,  that, 
from  its  workings  there,  we  may  judge  of  its 
workings  here.  This  is  readily  done.  Some 
dates  and  figures  will  accomplish  the  task,  and 
enlighten  our  understandings  on  a  point  so  im- 
portant. I  say  some  dates  and  figures  will  do 
it.  Thus :  at  the  commencement  of  this  system 
in  England  the  annual  taxes  were  5  millions 
sterling :  they  are  now  50  millions.  The  public 
debt  was  then  40  millions :  it  is  now  900  mil- 
lions, the  unfunded  items  included.  The  in- 
terest and  management  of  the  debt  were  then  1^ 
millions :  they  are  now  30  millions. 

Here  Mr.  B.  exhibited  a  book — the  index  to 
the  British  Statutes  at  large — containing  a  re- 
ference to  all  the  issues  of  exchequer  bills  from 
the  last  year  of  the  reign  of  George  I.  (1727) 
to  the  fourth  year  of  the  reign  of  her  present 
Majesty  (1840).  He  showed  the  amounts  issued 
under  each  reign,  and  the  parallel  growth  of  the 
national  debt,  until  these  issues  exceeded  a 
thousand  millions,  and  the  debt,  after  all  pay- 
ments made  upon  it,  is  still  near  one  thousand 
millions.  Mr.  B.  here  pointed  out  the  annual 
issues  under  each  reign,  and  then  the  totals  for 
each  reign,  showing  that  the  issues  were  small 
and  far  between  in  the  beginning — large  and 
close  together  in  the  conclusion — and  that  it 
was  now  going  on  faster  than  ever. 

The  following  was  the  table  of  the  issues  un- 
der each  reign : 


Geo.  I.  in  1727  (one  year), 
Geo.  II.  from  1727  to  1760  (33  years), 
Geo.  III.  from  1760  to  1820  (60  years), 
Geo.  IV.  from  1820  to  1831  (11  years), 
Will.  IV.  from  1831  to  1837  (6  years), 
Victoria  I.  from  1837  to  1840  (4  years), 


£370,000 
11,500,000 
542,500.000 
320,000,000 
160,000,000 
160,000,000 

£1,140,370,000 


Near  twelve  hundred  millions  of  pounds  ster- 
ling in  less  than  a  century  and  a  quarter — we 
may  say  three-quarters  of  a  century,  for  the 
great  mass  of  the  issues  have  taken  place  since 
the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  George  III.  The 
first  issue  was  the  third  of  a  million ;  under 
George  II.,  the  average  annual  issue  was  the 
third  of  a  million ;  under  George  III.,  the  an- 
nual average  was  nine  millions ;  under  George 
IV.  it  was  thirty  millions ;  under  William  IV. 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


381 


twenty-three  millions  ;  and  under  Victoria,  it  is 
twenty-one  millions.  Such  is  the  progress  of 
the  system — such  the  danger  of  commencing  the 
issue  of  paper  money  to  supply  the  wants  of  a 
government. 

This,  continued  Mr.  B.,  is  the  fruit  of  the  ex- 
chequer issues  in  England,  and  it  shows  both 
the  rapid  growth  and  dangerous  perversion  of 
such  issues.  The  first  bills  of  this  kind  ever 
issued  in  that  country  were  under  William  III., 
commonly  called  the  Prince  of  Orange,  in  the 
year  1696.  They  were  issued  to  supply  the 
place  temporarily  of  the  coin,  which  was  all 
called  in  to  be  recoined  under  the  superintend- 
ence of  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  The  first  bills  were 
put  out  by  King  William  only  for  this  tem- 
porary purpose,  and  were  issued  as  low  as  ten 
pounds  and  five  pounds  sterling.  It  was  not 
until  more  than  thirty  years  afterwards,  and 
when  corporation  credit  had  failed,  that  Sir  Ro- 
bert Walpole  revived  the  idea  of  these  bills,  and 
perverted  them  into  a  currency,  and  into  instru- 
ments for  raising  money  for  the  service  of  the 
government.  His  practice  was  to  issue  these 
bills  to  supply  present  wants,  instead  of  laying 
taxes  or  making  a  fair  and  open  loan.  When 
due,  a  new  issue  took  up  the  old  issue ;  and 
when  the  quantity  would  become  great,  the 
whole  were  funded ;  that  is  to  say  saddled  upon 
posterity.  The  fruit  of  the  system  is  seen  in 
the  900,000,000  of  debt  which  Great  Britain 
still  owes,  after  all  the  payments  made  upon  it. 
The  amount  is  enormous,  overwhelming,  appal- 
ling ;  such  as  never  could  have  been  created  un- 
der any  system  of  taxes  or  loans.  In  the  nature 
of  things  government  expenditure  has  its  limits 
when  it  has  to  proceed  upon  taxation  or  bor- 
rowing. Taxes  have  their  limit  in  the  capacity 
of  the  people  to  pay :  loans  have  their  limit  in 
the  capacity  of  men  to  lend ;  and  both  have 
their  restraints  in  the  responsibility  and  pub- 
licity of  the  operation.  Taxes  cannot  be  laid 
without  exciting  the  inquiry  of  the  people. 
Loans  cannot  be  made  without  their  demanding 
wherefore.  Money,  i.  e.  gold  and  silver,  cannot 
be  obtained,  but  in  limited  and  reasonable 
amounts,  and  all  these  restraints  impose  limits 
upon  the  amount  of  government  expenditure 
and  government  debt.  Not  so  with  the  noise- 
less, insidious,  boundless  progress  of  debt  and 
expenditure  upon  the  issue  of  government  pa- 
per!    The  silent  working  of  the  press  is  un- 


heard by  the  people.  Whether  it  is  one  million 
or  twenty  millions  that  is  struck,  is  all  one  to 
them.  When  the  time  comes  for  payment,  the 
silent  operation  of  the  funding  system  succeeds 
to  the  silent  operation  of  the  printing  press ; 
and  thus  extravagant  expenditures  go  on  —  a 
mountain  of  debt  grows  up — devouring  interest 
accrues — and  the  whole  is  thrown  upon  pos- 
terity, to  crush  succeeding  ages,  after  demoraliz- 
ing the  age  which  contracted  it. 

The  British  debt  is  the  fruit  of  the  exchequer 
system  in  Great  Britain,  the  same  that  we  are 
now  urged  to  adopt,  and  under  the  same  circum- 
stances ;  and  frightful  as  is  its  amount,  that  is 
only  one  branch — one  part  of  the  fruit — of  the 
iniquitous  and  nefarious  system.  Other  parts 
remain  to  be  stated,  and  the  first  that  I  name 
is,  that  a  large  part  of  this  enormous  debt  is 
wholly  false  and  factitious  !  McCulloch  states 
two-fifths  to  be  fictitious ;  other  writers  say 
more  ;  but  his  authority  is  the  highest,  and  I 
prefer  to  go  by  it.  In  his  commercial  dictionary, 
now  on  my  table,  under  the  word  "funds,"  he 
shows  the  means  by  which  a  stock  for  £100 
would  be  granted  when  only  £60  or  £70  were 
paid  for  it ;  and  goes  on  to  say : 

"  In  consequence  of  this  practice,  the  principal 
of  the  debt  now  existing  amounts  to  nearly  two- 
fifths  more  than  the  amount  actually  advanced 
by  the  lender." 

So  that  the  English  people  are  bound  for  two- 
fifths  more  of  capital,  and  pay  two-fifths  more 
of  annual  interest,  on  account  of  their  debt  than 
they  ever  received.  Two-fifths  of  900,000,000 
is  360,000,000 ;  and  two-fifths  of  30,000,000  is 
12,000,000  ;  so  that  here  is  fictitious  debt  to  the 
amount  of  $1,600,000,000  of  our  money,  draw- 
ing $60,000,000  of  interest,  for  which  the  people 
of  England  never  received  a  cent ;  and  into  which 
they  were  juggled  and  cheated  by  the  frauds 
and  villanies  of  the  exchequer  and  funding  sys- 
tems !  those  systems  which  we  are  now  unani- 
mously invited  by  our  administration  to  adopt. 
The  next  fruit  of  this  system  is  that  of  the  kind 
of  money,  as  it  was  called,  which  was  considered 
lent,  and  which  goes  to  make  up  the  three-fifths 
of  the  debt  admitted  to  have  been  received; 
about  the  one-half  of  it  was  received  in  depre- 
ciated paper  during  the  long  bank  suspension 
which  took  place  from  1797  to  1823,  and  during 
which  time  the  depreciation  sunk  as  low  as  30 
per  centum.    Here,  then,  is  another  deduction 


382 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  near  one-third  to  be  taken  off  the  one-half  of 
the  three-fifths  which  is  counted  as  having  been 
advanced  by  the  lenders.  Finally,  another  bit- 
ter drop  is  found  in  this  cup  of  indebtedness, 
that  the  lenders  were  mostly  jobbers  and  gam- 
blers in  stocks,  without  a  shilling  of  their  own 
to  go  upon,  and  who  by  the  tricks  of  the  system 
became  the  creditors  of  the  government  for  mil- 
lions. These  gentry  would  puff  the  stocks  which 
they  had  received — sell  them  at  some  advance — 
and  then  lend  the  government  a  part  of  its  own 
money.  These  are  the  lenders — these  the  re- 
ceivers of  thirty  millions  sterling  of  taxes — 
these  the  scrip  nobility  who  cast  the  hereditary 
nobles  into  the  shade,  and  who  hold  tributary 
to  themselves  all  the  property  and  all  the  pro- 
ductive industry  of  the  British  empire.  And 
this  is  the  state  of  things  which  our  adminis- 
tration now  proposes  for  our  imitation. 

This  is  the  way  the  exchequer  and  funding 
system  have  worked  in  England;  and  let  no 
one  say  they  will  not  work  in  the  same  manner 
in  our  own  country.  The  system  is  the  same 
in  all  countries,  and  will  work  alike  every  where. 
Go  into  it,  and  we  shall  have  every  fruit  of  the 
system  wrhich  the  English  people  now  have ; 
and  of  this  most  of  our  young  States,  and  of 
our  cities,  and  corporations,  which  have  gone 
into  the  borrowing  business  upon  their  bonds, 
are  now  living  examples.  Their  bonds  were 
their  exchequer  bills.  They  used  them  pro- 
fusely, extravagantly,  madly,  as  all  paper  credit 
is  used.  Their  bonds  were  sold  under  par, 
though  the  discount  was  usually  hid  by  a  trick : 
pay  was  often  received  in  depreciated  paper. 
Sharpers  frequently  made  the  purchase,  who  had 
nothing  to  pay  but  a  part  of  the  proceeds  of  the 
same  bonds  when  sold.  And  thus  the  States 
and  cities  are  bound  for  debts  which  are  in  a 
great  degree  fictitious,  and  are  bound  to  lenders 
who  had  nothing  to  lend;  and  such  are  the 
frauds  of  the  system  which  is  presented  to  us, 
and  must  be  our  fate,  if  we  go  into  the  exche- 
quer system. 

I  have  shown  the  effect  of  an  exchequer  of 
issues  in  Great  Britain  to  strike  paper  money 
for  a  currency,  and  as  a  substitute  for  loans  and 
taxes.  I  have  shown  that  this  system,  adopted 
by  Sir  Robert  Walpole  upon  the  failure  of  cor- 
poration credit,  has  been  the  means  of  smuggling 
a  mountain  load  of  debt  upon  the  British  people, 
two-fifths  of  which  is  fraudulent  and  fictitious ; 


that  it  has  made  the  great  body  of  the  people 
tributaries  to  a  handful  of  fundholders,  most  of 
whom,  without  owning  a  shilling,  were  enabled 
by  the  frauds  of  the  paper  system  and  the  fund- 
ing system,  to  lend  millions  to  the  government. 
I  have  shown  that  this  system,  thus  ruinous  in 
England,  was  the  resort  of  a  crafty  minister  to 
substitute  government  credit  for  the  exhausted 
credit  of  the  moneyed  corporations,  and  the  ex- 
ploded bubbles ;  and  I  have  shown  that  the 
exchequer  plan  now  presented  to  us  by  our  ad- 
ministration, is  a  faithful  copy  of  the  English 
original.  I  have  shown  all  this ;  and  now  the 
question  is,  shall  we  adopt  this  copy?  This 
is  the  question  ;  and  the  consideration  of  it  im- 
plies the  humiliating  conclusion,  that  we  have 
forgot  that  we  have  a  constitution,  and  we  have 
gone  back  to  the  worst  era  of  English  history — 
to  times  of  the  South  Sea  bubble,  to  take  les- 
sons in  the  science  of  political  economy.  Sir, 
we  have  a  Constitution  !  and  if  there  was  any 
thing  better  established  than  another,  at  the 
time  of  its  adoption,  it  was  that  the  new  govern- 
ment was  a  hard-money  government,  made  by 
hard-money  men,  who  had  seen  and  felt  the 
evils  of  government  paper,  and  who  intended 
for  ever  to  cut  off  the  new  government  from  the 
use  of  that  dangerous  expedient.  The  question 
was  made  in  the  Convention  (for  there  was  a 
small  paper  money  party  in  that  body),  and 
solemnly  decided  that  the  government  should 
not  emit  paper  money,  bills  of  credit,  or  paper 
currency  of  any  kind.  It  appears  from  the  his- 
tory of  the  Convention,  that  the  first  draft  of 
the  constitution  contained  a  paper  clause,  and 
that  it  stood  in  connection  with  the  power  to 
raise  money ;  thus  :  "  To  borrow  money ;  and 
emit  bills,  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States." 
When  this  clause  came  up  for  consideration, 
Mr.  Gouverneur  Morris  moved  to  strike  out  the 
words,  " and  emit  bills"  and  was  seconded  by 
Mr.  Pierce  Butler.  "Mr.  Madison  thought  it 
sufficient  to  prevent  them  from  being  made  a 
tender."  "  Mr.  Ellsworth  thought  this  a  favorable 
moment  to  shut  and  bar  the  door  against  paper 
money.  The  mischief  of  the  various  experi- 
ments which  had  been  made,  were  now  fresh  in 
the  public  mind,  and  had  excited  the  disgust  of 
all  the  respectable  part  of  America.  By  with- 
holding the  power  from  the  new  government, 
more  friends  of  influence  would  be  gained  to  it 
than  by  almost  any  thing  else.     Paper  money 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


383 


can  in  no  case  be  necessary.  Give  the  govern- 
ment credit,  and  other  resources  will  offer.  The 
power  may  do  harm,  never  good."  Mr.  Wilson 
said  :  "  It  will  have  a  most  salutary  influence  on 
the  credit  of  the  United  States,  to  remove  the 
possibility  of  paper  money.  This  expedient  can 
never  succeed  while  its  mischiefs  are  remem- 
bered ;  and  as  long  as  it  can  be  resorted  to,  it 
will  be  a  bar  to  other  resources."  "  Mr.  Butler 
remarked  that  paper  was  a  legal  tender  in  no 
country  in  Europe.  He  was  urgent  for  disarm- 
ing the  government  of  such  a  power."  "  Mr. 
Read  thought  the  words,  if  not  struck  out,  would 
be  as  alarming  as  the  mark  of  the  beast  in  Reve- 
lations." "  Air.  Langdon  had  rather  reject  the 
whole  plan  than  retain  the  three  words,  '  and 
emit  bills.' "  A  few  members  spoke  in  favor  of 
retaining  the  clause ;  but,  on  taking  the  vote, 
the  sense  of  the  convention  was  almost  unani- 
mously against  it.  Nine  States  voted  for  strik- 
ing out :  two  for  retaining. 

If  there  were  a  thousand  constitutional  pro- 
visions in  favor  of  paper  money,  I  should  still 
be  against  it — against  the  thing  itself,  per  se 
and  propter  se — on  account  of  its  own  inherent 
baseness  and  vice.  But  the  Constitution  is 
against  it — clearly  so  upon  its  face ;  upon  its 
history  ;  upon  its  early  practice  ;  upon  its  uni- 
form interpretation.  The  universal  expression 
at  the  time  of  its  adoption  was,  that  the  new 
government  was  a  hard  money  government, 
made  by  hard  money  men,  and  that  it  was  to 
save  the  country  from  the  curse  of  paper  money. 
This  was  the  universal  language — this  the  uni- 
versal sentiment ;  and  this  hard  money  char- 
acter of  the  new  government  was  one  of  the 
great  recommendations  in  its  favor,  and  one  of 
the  chief  inducements  to  its  adoption.  All  the 
early  action  of  the  government  conformed  to 
this  idea — all  its  early  legislation  was  as  true 
to  hard  money  as  the  needle  is  to  the  pole.  The 
very  first  act  of  Congress  for  the  collection  of 
duties  on  imports,  passed  in  the  first  year  of 
the  new  government's  existence,  and  enacted 
by  the  very  men  who  had  framed  the  Consti- 
tution— this  first  act  required  those  duties  to  be 
paid  "  in  gold  and  silver  coin  only  ;  "  the  word 
only,  which  is  a  contraction  for  the  old  English 
onely,  being  added  to  cut  off  the  possibility  of 
an  intrusion,  or  an  injection  of  a  particle  of 
paper  money  into  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States.    The  first  act  for  the  sale  of  public 


lands  required  them  to  be  paid  for  in  "  specie  " 
— the  specie  circular  of  1836  was  only  the  en- 
forcement of  that  act;  and  the  hard  money 
clause  in  the  independent  treasury  was  a  re- 
vival of  these  two  original  and  fundamental 
revenue  laws.  Such  were  the  early  legislative 
interpretations  of  the  Constitution  by  the  men 
who  made  it ;  and  corresponding  with  these 
for  a  long  time  after  the  commencement  of  the 
government,  were  the  interpretations  of  all 
public  men,  and  of  no  one  more  emphatically 
than  of  him  who  is  now  the  prominent  mem- 
ber of  this  administration,  and  to  whose  hand 
public  opinion  attributes  the  elaborate  defence 
of  the  Cabinet  Exchequer  plan  which  has  been 
sent  down  to  us.  In  two  speeches,  delivered 
by  that  gentleman  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives in  the  year  1816,  he  thus  expressed  him- 
self on  the  hard  money  character  of  our  govern- 
ment, and  on  the  folly  and  danger  of  the  paper 
system : 

"  No  nation  had  a  better  currency  than  the 
United  States.  There  was  no  nation  which  had 
guarded  its  currency  with  more  care :  for  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  and  those  who  had 
enacted  the  early  statutes  on  the  subject,  were 
hard  money  men.  They  had  felt  and  duly  ap- 
preciated the  evils  of  a  paper  medium :  they, 
therefore,  sedulously  guarded  the  currency  of 
the  United  States  from  debasement.  The  legal 
currency  of  the  United  States  was  gold  and 
silver  coin:  this  was  a  subject  in  regard  to 
which  Congress  had  run  into  no  folly.  Gold 
and  silver  currency  was  the  law  of  the  land 
at  home,  and  the  law  of  the  world  abroad :  there 
could,  in  the  present  condition  of  the  world,  be 
no  other  currency." 

So  spake  the  present  Secretary  of  State  in 
February,  1816 ;  and  speaking  so,  he  spoke  the 
language  of  the  Constitution,  of  the  statesman, 
and  of  the  enlightened  age  in  which  we  live. 
He  was  right  in  saying  that  Congress,  up  to 
that  time,  had  run  into  no  folly  in  relation  to 
the  currency  ;  that  is  to  say,  had  not  attempted 
to  supersede  the  hard  money  of  the  Constitu- 
tion by  a  national  currency  of  paper.  I  can  say 
the  same  for  Congress  up  to  the  present  day. 
Can  the  Secretary  answer  in  like  manner  for 
the  cabinet  of  which  he  is  a  member  ?  Can  he 
say  of  it,  that  it  has  run  into  no  folly  in  rela- 
tion to  the  currency  ?  The  secretary  is  right 
again  in  saying  that,  in  the  present  condition 
of  the  world,  there  can  be  no  other  currency 
than  gold  and  silver.    Certainly  he  is  right. 


384 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Gold  and  silver  is  the  measure  of  values.  The 
actual  condition  of  the  world  requires  that 
measure  to  be  uniform  and  universal.  The 
whole  world  is  now  in  a  state  of  incessant  in- 
tercommunication. Commercial,  social,  politi- 
cal relations  are  universal.  Dealings  and  trans- 
actions are  immense.  All  nations,  civilized  and 
barbarian,  acknowledge  the  validity  of  the  gold 
and  silver  standard ;  and  the  nation  that  should 
attempt  to  establish  another,  would  derange  its 
connections  with  the  world,  and  put  itself  with- 
out the  pale  of  its  monetary  system.  The  Sec- 
retary was  right  in  saying  that,  in  the  present 
condition  of  the  world,  in  the  present  state  of 
the  universal  intercommunications  of  all  man- 
kind, there  could  be  no  measure  of  values  but 
that  which  was  universally  acknowledged,  and 
that  all  must  conform  to  that  measure.  In  this 
he  showed  a  grasp  of  mind — a  comprehension 
and  profundity  of  intellect — which  merits  en- 
comium, and  which  casts  far  into  the  shade  the 
lawyer-like  argument,  in  the  shape  of  a  report, 
which  has  been  sent  down  to  us. 

The  senator  from  Virginia  [Mr.  Rives]  felici- 
tates himself  upon  the  character  of  these  pro- 
posed exchequer  bills,  because  they  are  not  to 
be  declared  by  law  to  be  a  legal  tender  :  as  if 
there  was  any  necessity  for  such  a  declaration ! 
Far  above  the  law  of  the  land  is  the  law  of  ne- 
cessity !  far  above  the  legal  tender,  which  the 
statute  enacts,  is  the  forced  tender  which  neces- 
sity compels.  There  is  no  occasion  for  the 
statutory  enactment :  the  paper  will  soon  enact 
the  law  for  itself — that  law  which  no  power 
can  resist,  no  weakness  can  shun,  no  art  elude, 
no  cunning  escape.  It  is  the  prerogative  of  all 
paper  money  to  expel  all  hard  money ;  and 
then  to  force  itself  into  every  man's  hand,  be- 
cause there  is  nothing  else  for  any  hand  to  re- 
ceive. It  is  the  prerogative  of  all  paper  money 
to  do  this,  and  of  government  paper  above  all 
other.  Let  this  government  go  into  the  busi- 
ness of  paper  issues:  let  it  begin  to  stamp 
paper  for  a  currency,  and  it  will  quickly  find 
itself  with  nothing  but  paper  on  its  hands  j — 
paper  to  pay  out — paper  to  receive  in; — the 
specie  basis  soon  gone — and  the  vile  trash  de- 
preciating from  day  to  day  until  it  sinks  into 
nothing,  and  perishes  on  the  hands  of  the  igno- 
rant, the  credulous,  and  the  helpless  part  of 
the  community. 

The  same  senator  [Mr.  Rives]  consoles  him- 


self with  the  small  amount  of  these  exchequer 
bills  which  are  to  be  issued — only  fifteen  mil- 
lions of  dollars.  Alas !  sir,  does  he  recollect 
that  that  sum  is  seven  times  the  amount  of  our 
first  emission  of  continental  bills  ?  that  it  is  fif- 
teen times  the  amount  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole's 
first  emission  of  exchequer  bills?  and  double 
the  amount  of  the  first  emission  of  the  French 
assignats  ?  Does  he  consider  these  things,  and 
recollect  that  it  is  the  first  step  only  which  costs 
the  difficulty  ?  and  that,  in  the  case  of  govern- 
ment paper  money,  the  subsequent  progress  is 
rapid  in  exact  propoption  to  the  difficulty  of  the 
first  step?  Does  he  not  know  that  the  first 
emission  of  our  continental  bills  was  two  millions 
of  dollars,  and  that  in  three  years  they  amount- 
ed to  two  hundred  millions  ?  that  the  first  issue 
of  Sir  Robert  Walpole's  exchequer  bills  was 
the  third  of  a  million,  and  that  they  have  since 
exceeded  a  thousand  millions?  that  the  first 
emission  of  assignats  was  the  third  of  a  mil- 
liard of  francs,  and  that  in  seven  years  they 
amounted  to  forty-five  thousand  milliards  ? 
Thus  it  has  been,  and  thus  it  will  be.  The 
first  issues  of  government  paper  are  small,  and 
with  difficulty  obtained,  and  upon  plausible 
pretexts  of  necessity  and  relief.  The  subse- 
quent issues  are  large,  and  obtained  without 
opposition,  and  put  out  without  the  formality 
of  an  excuse.  This  is  the  course,  and  thus  it 
will  be  with  us  if  we  once  begin.  We  propose 
fifteen  millions  for  the  start :  grant  it :  it  will 
soon  be  fifteen  hundred  millions  !  and  those 
who  go  to  that  excess  will  be  far  less  blamable 
than  those  who  made  the  first  step. 

I  have  said  that  the  present  administration 
have  gone  back  far  beyond  the  times  of  General 
Hamilton — that  they  have  gone  to  the  times 
of  Sir  Robert  Walpole ;  and  I  prove  it  by 
showing  how  faithfully  they  copy  his  policy  in 
pursuing  the  most  fatal  of  his  measures.  Yes, 
sir,  they  have  gone  back  not  merely  far  beyond 
where  General  Hamilton  actually  stood,  but  to 
the  point  to  which  he  refused  to  go.  He  refused 
to  go  to  government  paper  money.  That  great 
man,  though  a  friend  to  bank  paper,  was  an 
enemy  to  government  paper.  He  condemned 
and  deprecated  the  whole  system  of  govern- 
ment issues.  He  has  left  his  own  sentiments 
on  record  on  this  point,  and  they  deserve  in 
this  period  of  the  retrogression  of  our  govern- 
ment to  be  remembered,  and  to  be  cited  on  this 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


385 


floor.  In  his  report  on  a  national  bank  in  1791, 
he  ran  a  parallel  between  the  dangers  of  bank 
paper  and  government  paper,  assigning  to  the 
latter  the  character  of  far  greatest  danger  and 
mischief — an  opinion  in  which  I  fully  concur 
with  him.  In  that  report,  he  thus  expressed 
himself  on  the  dangers  of  government  paper : 

"  The  emitting  of  paper  money  by  the  author- 
ity of  the  government  is  wisely  prohibited 
to  the  individual  States  by  the  National  Consti- 
tution :  and  the  spirit  of  the  prohibition  should 
not  be  disregarded  by  the  government  of  the 
United  States.  Though  paper  emissions,  under 
a  general  authority,  might  have  some  advan- 
tages not  applicable,  and  be  free  from  disadvan- 
tages which  are  applicable,  to  the  like  emissions 
by  the  States  separately,  yet  they  are  of  a  na- 
ture so  liable  to  abuse — and,  it  may  even  be 
affirmed,  so  certain  of  being  abused — that  the 
wisdom  of  the  government  will  be  shown  in 
never  trusting  itself  with  the  use  of  so  seduc- 
ing and  dangerous  an  expedient.  The  stamping 
of  paper  is  an  operation  so  much  easier  than 
the  laying  of  taxes,  that  a  government  in  the 
practice  of  paper  emissions  would  rarely  fail,  in 
any  such  emergency,  to  indulge  itself  too  far 
in  the  employment  of  that  resource,  to  avoid, 
as  much  as  possible,  one  less  auspicious  to  pre- 
sent popularity.  If  it  should  not  even  be  car- 
ried so  far  as  to  be  rendered  an  absolute  bubble, 
it  would  at  least  be  likely  to  be  extended  to  a 
degree  which  would  occasion  an  inflated  and 
artificial  state  of  things,  incompatible  with  the 
regular  and  prosperous  course  of  the  political 
economy." 

A  division  has  taken  place  in  the  great  whig 
party  on  this  point.  It  has  split  into  two 
wings — a  great,  and  a  small  wing.  The  body 
of  the  party  stand  fast  on  the  Hamiltonian 
ground  of  1791 :  a  fraction  of  the  party  have 
slid  back  to  the  Walpole  ground  of  1720.  The 
point  of  difference  between  them  is  a  govern- 
ment bank  and  government  paper  on  one  hand, 
and  a  banking  company  under  a  national  char- 
ter, issuing  bank  notes,  on  the  other.  This  is 
the  point  of  difference,  and  it  is  a  large  one, 
very  visible  to  every  eye  ;  and  I  am  free  to  say 
that,  with  all  my  objections  to  the  national 
bank  and  its  paper,  I  am  far  more  opposed  to 
government  banking,  and  to  government  issues 
of  paper  money. 

The  Tyler- Webster  whigs  are  for  government 
banking— for  making  the  transit  from  corporation 
credit,  no  longer  available,  to  government  credit, 
which  is  to  stand  the  brunt  of  new  follies  and 
new  extravagances.  They  go  for  the  British 
Vol.  II.— 25 


exchequer  system,  with  all  the  folly  and  degra- 
dation of  modern  banking  superadded  and  en- 
grafted upon  it.  And  what  are  the  pretexts  for 
this  flagrant  attempt?  The  same  that  were 
urged  by  the  scrivener,  John  Blunt,  in  favor  of 
his  South  Sea  bubble — and  by  the  gambler, 
John  Law,  in  favor  of  the  Mississippi  scheme. 
To  relieve  the  public  distress — to  aid  the  gov- 
ernment and  the  people — to  make  money  plen- 
ty, and  to  raise  the  price  of  property  and 
wages  :  these  are  the  pretexts  which  usher  in 
our  exchequer  scheme,  and  which  have  ushered 
in  all  the  paper  money  bubbles  and  projects 
which  have  ever  afflicted  and  disgraced  man- 
kind. Belief  to  the  people  has  been  the  pretext 
for  the  whole  ;  and  they  have  all  ended  in  the 
same  way — in  the  enrichment  of  sharpers — the 
plunder  of  nations — and  the  shame  of  govern- 
ments. All  these  schemes  have  been  brought 
forward  in  the  same  way,  and  although  base 
upon  their  face,  and  clearly  big  with  shame  and 
ruin,  and  opposed  by  the  wise  and  good  of  the 
times,  yet  there  seem  to  be  seasons  of  national 
delusion  when  the  voice  of  judgment,  reason, 
and  honor  is  drowned  under  the  clamor  of 
knaves  and  dupes ;  and  when  the  highest  re- 
commendation of  a  new  plan  is  its  absolute 
folly,  knavery,  and  audacity.  Thus  it  was  in 
England  during  the  reign  of  the  moneyed  cor- 
porations under  the  protection  of  Walpole. 
Wise  men  opposed  all  the  mad  schemes  of  that 
day,  and  exposed  in  advance  all  their  disastrous 
and  disgraceful  issues.  Mr.  Shippen,  Sir  Joseph 
Jekyll,  Mr.  Barnard,  Sir  William  Wyndham, 
Mr.  Pulteney,  Lord  Morpeth  (that  Howard 
blood  which  has  not  yet  degenerated),  all  these 
and  many  others  opposed  the  South  Sea,  ex- 
chequer issues,  and  other  mad  schemes  of  their 
day — to  be  overpowered  then,  but  to  be  remem- 
bered, and  quoted  with  honor  now.  The  chan- 
cellor of  France,  the  wise  and  virtuous  D'Agues- 
seau,  was  exiled  from  Paris  by  the  Regent  Duke 
of  Orleans  for  opposing  and  exposing  the  Mis- 
sissippi scheme  of  the  gambler,  John  Law ;  but 
his  name  lives  in  the  pantheon  of  history  -r  and 
I  take  a  pleasure  in  citing  it  here,  in  the  Amer- 
ican Senate,  as  well  in  honor  to  him,  as  to  en- 
courage others  to  sacrifice  themselves  in  the 
noble  task  of  resisting  the  mad  delusions  of  the 
day.  Every  nation  has  its  seasons  of  delusion. 
They  seem  to  come,  like  periodical  epidemics, 
once  in  so  many  ages  or  centuries  ;  and  while 


386 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


they  rage,  neither  morals  nor  reason  can  make 
head  against  them.  The  have  to  run  out.  We 
have  just  had  our  season  of  this  delusion,  when 
every  folly,  from  a  national  bank  whose  notes 
were  to  circulate  in  China,  to  the  moras  multi- 
caulis  whose  leaves  were  to  breed  fortunes  to 
the  envied  possessors  ;  when  every  such  folly 
had  its  day  of  triumph  and  exultation  over  rea- 
son, judgment,  morals  and  common  sense. 
Happily  this  season  is  passing  away — the  delu- 
sion is  wearing  off— -before  this  cabinet  plan  of 
a  government  bank,  with  its  central  board,  its 
fifty-two  branches,  its  national  engine  to  strike 
paper,  its  brokerage  and  exchange  dealings,  its 
Cheapside  and  Change- Alley  operations  in  real 
business  transactions,  its  one-half  of  one  per 
centum  profits,  its  three  dollars  in  paper  money 
to  any  one  who  was  fool  enough  to  deposit  one 
dollar  in  the  hard  :  happily  our  season  of  delu- 
sion is  passing  off  before  this  monstrous  scheme 
was  presented.  Otherwise,  its  adoption  would 
have  been  inevitable.  Its  very  monstrosity 
would  have  made  it  irresistibly  captivating  to 
the  diseased  public  appetite  if  presented  while 
still  in  its  morbid  state. 

But  the  senator  from  Virginia  who  sits  over 
the  way  [Mr.  Rives],  who  has  spoken  in  this 
debate,  and  who  appears  as  a  quasi  defender  of 
this  cabinet  plan  of  relief,  he  demands  if  the 
senator  from  Missouri  (my  poor  self)  will  do 
nothing  to  relieve  the  distress  of  the  people  and 
of  the  government  ?  He  puts  the  question  to 
me,  and  I  answer  it  readily ;  yes !  I  will  do 
my  part  towards  relieving  this  distress,  but  not 
exactly  in  the  mode  which  he  seems  to  prefer 
— not  by  applying  a  cataplasm  of  lamb-black 
and  rags  to  the  public  wounds  !  whether  that 
cataplasm  should  be  administered  by  a  league 
of  coon-box  banks  in  the  States,  or  by  a  Biddle 
king  bank  in  Philadelphia,  or  by  a  Walpole 
exchequer  bank  in  Washington  city.  I  would 
relieve  the  distress  by  the  application  of  appro- 
priate remedies  to  notorious  diseases — a  bank- 
rupt act  to  bankrupt  banks — taxation  to  bank 
issues — restoration  of  the  land  revenue  to  its 
proper  destination — the  imposition  of  economy 
upon  this  taxing,  borrowing,  squandering,  gold- 
hating,  paper-loving  administration ;  and  by  re- 
storing, as  soon  as  possible,  the  reign  of  democ- 
racy, economy,  and  hard  money. 

The  distress!  still  the  distress.  Distress, 
still  the  staple  of  all  the  whig  speeches  made 


here,  and  of  all  the  cabinet  reports  which  come 
down  to  us.  Distress  is  the  staple  of  the  whole. 
"  Motley  is  their  only  wear."  Why,  sir,  I  have 
heard  about  that  distress  before ;  and  I  am  al- 
most tempted  to  interrupt  gentlemen  in  the 
midst  of  their  pathetic  rehearsals  as  the  Vicar 
of  Wakefield  interrupted  Jenkinson  in  the 
prison,  when  he  began  again  the  same  learned 
dissertation  upon  the  cosmogony  or  creation  of 
the  world ;  and  gave  him  the  same  quotations 
from  Sanconiathan,  Manetho,  Berosus,  and  Lu- 
canus  Ocellus,  with  which  he  entertained  the 
good  old  Vicar  at  the  fair,  while  cheating  him 
out  of  Blackberry,  after  having  cheated  Moses 
out  of  the  colt.  You  know  the  incident,  said 
Mr.  B.  (addressing  himself  to  Mr.  Archer,  who 
was  nodding  recognition),  you  remember  the 
incident,  and  know  the  Vicar  begged  pardon 
for  interrupting  so  much  learning,  with  the  de- 
claration of  his  belief  that  he  had  had  the  honor 
to  hear  it  all  before.  In  like  manner,  I  am  al- 
most tempted  to  stop  gentlemen  with  a  beg- 
pardon  for  interrupting  so  much  distress,  and 
declaring  my  belief  that  I  have  heard  it  all  be- 
fore. Certain  it  is,  that  for  ten  years  past  I 
have  been  accustomed  to  hear  the  distress  ora- 
tions on  this  floor  ;  and  for  twenty-two  years 
I  have  been  accustomed  to  see  distress  in  our 
country  ;  but  never  have  I  seen  it,  or  heard  of 
it,  that  it  did  not  issue  from  the  same  notorious 
fountain — the  moneyed  corporations — headed 
and  conducted  by  the  Juggernaut  of  federal 
adoration,  the  Biddle  King  Bank  of  the  United 
States  !  I  have  seen  this  distress  for  two  and 
twenty  years  ;  first,  from  1819  to  1826  ;  then 
again  in  1832— '33— '34— '37— '39  ;  and  I  see 
something  of  it  now.  The  Bank  of  the  United 
States  commenced  the  distress  in  1819,  and 
gave  a  season  of  calamity  which  lasted  as  long 
as  one  of  the  seven  years'  plagues  of  Egypt. 
It  was  a  seven  years'  agony ;  but  at  that  time 
distress  was  not  the  object,  but  only  the  effect 
of  her  crimes  and  follies.  In  1832  she  renewed 
the  distress  as  an  object  per  se  and  propter  se, 
to  force  a  renewal  of  her  charter.  In  1833 — '34 
she  entered  upon  it  with  new  vigor — with  vast 
preparation — upon  an  immense  scale — and  all 
her  forces — to  coerce  a  restoration  of  the  de- 
posits, which  the  patriot  President  had  saved 
by  taking  from  her.  In  1837  she  headed  the 
conspiracy  for  the  general  suspension  (and  ac- 
complished it  by  the  aid  of  the  deposit  distri- 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


387 


bution  act)  for  the  purpose  of  covering  up  and 
hiding  her  own  insolvency  in  a  general  catas- 
trophe, and  making  the  final,  agonizing  death- 
struggle,  to  clutch  the  re-charter.  In  1839  she 
forced  the  second  suspension  (which  took  place 
all  south  and  west  of  New  York)  and  endeav- 
ored to  force  it  all  north  and  east  of  that  place, 
and  make  it  universal,  in  order  to  conceal  her 
own  impending  bankruptcy.  She  failed  in  the 
universality  of  this  second  suspension  only  for 
want  of  the  means  and  power  which  the  gov- 
ernment deposits  would  have  given  her.  She 
succeeded  with  her  limited  means,  and  in  her 
crippled  condition,  over  three-fourths  of  the 
Union  ;  and  now  the  only  distress  felt  is  in  the 
places  which  have  felt  her  power ; — in  the  parts 
of  the  country  which  she  has  regulated — and 
arises  from  the  institutions  which  have  followed 
her  lead — obeyed  her  impulse — imitated  her 
example — and  now  keep  up,  for  their  own 
profit,  and  on  their  own  account,  the  distress 
of  which  they  were  nothing  but  the  vicarious 
agents  in  the  beginning.  Sir,  there  has  been  no 
distress  since  1819  which  did  not  come  from 
the  moneyed  corporations ;  and  since  1832,  all 
the  distress  which  we  have  seen  has  been  facti- 
tious and  factious — contrived  of  purpose,  made 
to  order,  promulgated  upon  edict — and  spread 
over  the  people,  in  order  to  excite  discontents 
against  the  administration,  to  overturn  the  de- 
mocracy, to  re-establish  federalism,  to  unite 
bank  and  state — and  to  deliver  up  the  credit 
and  revenue  of  the  Union,  and  the  property  and 
industry  of  the  people,  to  the  pillage  and  plun- 
der of  the  muckworm  nobility  which  the  crimes 
of  the  paper  system  have  made  the  lords  of  the 
land.  This  is  the  only  distress  we  have  seen  ; 
and  had  it  not  been  that  God  had  given  our 
country  a  Jackson,  their  daring  schemes  would 
all  have  succeeded ;  and  we  and  our  children, 
and  all  the  property  and  labor  of  our  country, 
would  have  been  as  completely  tributary  to  the 
moneyed  corporations  of  America,  as  the  people 
of  Great  Britain  are  to  the  Change-alley  lords 
who  hold  the  certificates  of  their  immense  na- 
tional debt. 

Distress  ! — what,  sir,  are  not  the  whigs  in 
power,  and  was  not  all  distress  to  cease  when 
the  democracy  was  turned  out  ?  Did  they  not 
carry  the  elections  ?  Has  Mr.  Van  Buren  not 
gone  to  Kinderhook  ?  Is  General  Jackson  not 
in  the  Hermitage  ?  Are  democrats  not  in  the 
minority  in  Congress,  and  expelled  from  office 


every  where  ?  Were  not  "  Tippecanoe  and 
Tyler  too  "  both  elected  ?  Is  not  whiggery  in 
entire  possession  of  the  government?  Have 
they  not  had  their  extra  session,  called  to  re- 
lieve the  country,  and  passed  all  the  relief  mea- 
sures, save  one  ? — all  save  one  ! — all  except  their 
national  bank,  of  which  this  fine  exchequer  bank 
is  to  be  the  metempsychosis. 

The  cry  is  distress  !  and  the  remedy  a  national 
poultice  of  lamp-black  and  rags  !  This  is  the 
disease,  and  this  the  medicine.  But  let  us  look 
before  we  act.  Let  us  analyze  the  case — exam- 
ine the  pathology  of  the  disease — that  is  the 
word,  I  believe  (looking  at  Dr.  Linn,  who  nod- 
ded assent),  and  see  its  cause  and  effect,  the 
habits  and  constitution  of  the  patient,  and  the 
injuries  he  may  have  suffered.  The  complaint 
is,  distress :  the  specifications  are,  depreciated 
currency,  and  deranged  exchanges.  The  ques- 
tion is,  where  1  all  over  the  Union  ?  not  at  all — 
only  in  the  South  and  West.  All  north  and 
east  of  New  York  is  free  from  distress — the  ex- 
changes fair — the  currency  at  par:  all  south 
and  west  of  that  city  the  distress  prevails — the 
exchanges  (as  they  are  called)  being  deranged 
and  the  currency  depreciated.  Why  ?  Because, 
in  one  quarter — the  happy  quarter — the  banks 
pay  their  debts :  in  the  other — the  distressed 
quarter — they  refuse  to  pay.  Here  then  is  the 
cause,  and  the  effect.  This  is  the  analysis  of 
the  case — the  discovery  of  the  nature  and  lo- 
cality of  the  disease — and  the  key  to  its  cure. 
Make  the  refractory  banks  comply  with  their 
promises ;  and  there  is  an  end  of  depreciated 
paper  and  deranged  exchanges,  and  of  all  the 
distress  which  they  create  ;  and  that  without  a 
national  bank,  or  its  base  substitute,  an  exche- 
quer bank ;  or  a  national  institution  of  any  kind 
to  strike  paper  money.  Make  the  delinquent 
banks  pay  up,  or  wind  up.  And  why  not? 
Why  should  not  the  insolvent  wind  up,  and  the 
solvent  pay  up  ?  Why  should  not  the  commu- 
nity know  the  good  from  the  bad  ?  Suspension 
puts  all  on  a  level,  and  the  community  cannot 
distinguish  between  them.  Our  friend  Sancho 
(looking  at  Mr.  Mouton)  has  a  proverb  that 
suits  the  case :  M  De  noche  todos  los  gatos  son 
pardos." 

"M.  Mouton:  (Denuit  toics  les  chats  sont 

gris.' " 

"  Mr.  Buchanan  :  What  is  all  that  ?  " 

Mr.  Benton  :  It  is  this  :  Our  friend,  Sancho 

Panza,  says  that,  in  the  dark  all  the  cats  are  of 


388 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


one  color.  [A  laugh.]  So  of  these  banks.  In 
a  state  of  suspension  they  are  all  of  one  credit ; 
but  as  the  light  of  a  candle  soon  discriminates 
the  black  cats  from  the  white  ones,  so  would  the 
touch  of  a  bankrupt  act  speedily  show  the  dif- 
ference between  a  rotten  bank  and  a  solvent 
one. 

But  currency — currency — a  national  currency 
of  uniform  value,  and  universal  circulation  :  this 
is  what  modern  whigs  demand,  and  call  upon 
Congress  to  give  it;  meaning  all  the  while  a 
national  currency  of  paper  money.  I  deny  the 
power  of  Congress  to  give  it,  and  aver  its  folly 
if  it  had.  The  word  currency  is  not  in  the  con- 
stitution, nor  any  word  which  can  be  made  to 
signify  paper  money.  Coin  is  the  only  thing 
mentioned  in  that  instrument ;  and  the  only 
power  of  Congress  over  it  is  to  regulate  its  value. 
It  is  an  interpolation,  and  a  violation  of  truth 
to  say  that  the  constitution  authorizes  Congress 
to  regulate  the  value  of  paper  money,  or  to  create 
paper  money.  It  is  a  calumny  upon  the  consti- 
tution to  say  any  such  thing ;  and  I  defy  the 
whole  phalanx  of  the  paper  money  party  to  pro- 
duce one  word  in  that  instrument  to  justify  their 
imputation.  Coin,  and  not  paper,  is  the  thing 
to  be  regulated ;  coin,  and  not  paper,  is  the  cur- 
rency mentioned  and  intended  ;  and  this  coin  it 
is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  preserve,  instead  of 
banishing  it  from  circulation.  Paper  banishes 
coin ;  and  by  creating,  or  encouraging  paper, 
Congress  commits  a  double  violation  of  the  con- 
stitution ;  first,  by  favoring  a  thing  which  the 
constitution  condemns;  and,  secondly,  by  de- 
stroying the  thing  which  it  meant  to  preserve. 
But  the  paper  money  party  say  there  is  not 
gold  and  silver  enough  in  the  world  to  answer 
the  purposes  of  a  currenc}'' ;  and,  therefore,  they 
must  have  paper.  I  answer,  if  this  was  true, 
we  must  first  alter  our  constitution  before  we 
can  create,  or  adopt  paper  money.  But  it  is 
not  true  !  the  assertion  is  unfounded  and  erro- 
neous to  the  last  degree,  and  implies  the  most 
lamentable  ignorance  of  the  specie  resources  of 
commercial  and  agricultural  countries.  The 
world  happens  to  contain  more  specie  than 
such  countries  can  use;  and  it  depends  upon 
each  one  to  have  its  share  when  it  pleases. 
This  is  an  assertion  as  easily  proved  as  made ; 
and  I  proceed  to  the  proof  of  it,  because  it  is  a 
point  on  which  there  is  much  misunderstanding ; 
and  on  which  the  public  good  requires  authentic 


information.  I  will  speak  first  of  our  own  coun- 
try, and  of  our  own  times — literally,  my  own 
times. 

I  have  some  tabular  statements  on  hand,  Mr. 
President,  made  at  the  Treasury,  on  my  motion, 
and  which  show  our  specie  acquisitions  during 
the  time  that  I  have  sat  in  this  chair :  I  say,  sat 
in  this  chair,  for  I  always  sit  in  the  same  place. 
I  never  change  my  position,  and  therefore  never 
have  to  find  it  or  define  it.  These  tables  show 
our  imports  of  gold  and  silver  during  this  time — 
a  period  of  twenty-one  years — to  have  been  on 
the  custom-house  books,  182  millions  of  dollars : 
making  an  allowance  for  the  amounts  brought 
by  passengers,  and  not  entered  on  the  books, 
and  the  total  importation  cannot  be  less  than 
200  millions.  The  coinage  at  our  Mint  during 
the  same  period,  is  66  millions  of  dollars.  The 
product  of  our  gold  mines  during  that  period 
has  been  several  millions ;  and  many  millions 
of  gold  have  been  dragged  from  their  hiding 
places  and  restored  to  circulation  by  the  gold 
bill  of  1834.  Putting  all  together,  and  our 
specie  acquisitions  must  have  amounted  to  220 
or  230  millions  of  dollars  in  these  twenty-one 
years  ;  being  at  the  average  rate  of  ten  or  eleven 
millions  per  annum. 

Not  specie  enough  in  the  world  to  do  the 
business  of  the  country  !  What  an  insane  idea ! 
Do  people  who  talk  in  that  way  know  any 
thing  about  the  quantity  of  specie  that  there  is 
in  the  world,  or  even  in  Europe  and  America, 
and  the  amount  that  different  nations,  according 
to  their  pursuits,  can  employ  in  their  business  ? 
If  they  do  not,  let  them  listen  to  what  Gallatin 
and  Gouge  say  upon  the  subject,  and  let  them 
learn  something  which  a  man  should  know  be- 
fore he  ventures  an  opinion  upon  currency.  Mr. 
Gallatin,  in  1831,  thus  speaks  of  the  quantity  of 
gold  and  silver  in  Europe  and  America : 

"  The  total  amount  of  gold  and  silver  produced 
by  the  mines  of  America,  to  the  year  1803,  in- 
clusively, and  remaining  there  or  exported  to 
Europe,  has  been  estimated  by  Humboldt  at 
about  five  thousand  six  hundred  millions  of  dol- 
lars ;  and  the  product  of  the  years  1804 — 1830, 
may  be  estimated  at  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
millions.  If  to  this  we  add  one  hundred  mil- 
lions, the  nearly  ascertained  product,  to  this 
time,  of  the  mines  of  Siberia,  about  four  hundred 
and  fifty  millions  for  the  African  gold  dust,  and 
for  the  product  of  the  mines  of  Europe  (which 
yielded  about  three  millions  a  year,  in  the  begin- 
ning of  this  century),  from  the  discovery  of 


ANNO  1842.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


389 


America  to  this  day,  and  three  hundred  millions 
for  the  amount  existing  in  Europe  prior  to  the 
discovery  of  America,  we  find  a  total  not  widely 
differing  from  the  fact,  of  seven  thousand  two 
hundred  millions  of  dollars.  It  is  much  more 
difficult  to  ascertain  the  amount  which  now  re- 
mains in  Europe  and  America  together.  The 
loss  by  friction  and  accidents  might  be  esti- 
mated, and  researches  made  respecting  the  total 
amount  which  has  been  exported  to  countries 
beyond  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  ;  but  that  which 
has  been  actually  consumed  in  gilding,  plated 
ware,  and  other  manufactures  of  the  same  char- 
acter, cannot  be  correctly  ascertained.  From 
the  imperfect  data  within  our  reach,  it  may,  we 
think,  be  affirmed,  that  the  amount  still  existing 
in  Europe  and  America  certainly  exceeds  four 
thousand,  and  most  probably  falls  short  of  five 
thousand  millions  of  dollars.  Of  the  medium, 
or  four  thousand  five  hundred  millions,  which 
we  have  assumed,  it  appears  that  from  one-third 
to  two-fifths  is  used  as  currency,  and  that  the 
residue  consists  of  plate,  jewels,  and  other  man- 
ufactured articles.  It  is  known,  that  of  the  gross 
amount  of  seven  thousand  two  hundred  millions 
of  dollars,  about  eighteen  hundred  millions,  or 
one-fourth  of  the  whole  in  value,  and  one-forty- 
eighth  in  weight,  consisted  of  gold.  Of  the 
four  thousand  five  hundred  millions,  the  pre- 
sumed remaining  amount  in  gold  and  silver,  the 
proportion  of  gold  is  probably  greater,  on  ac- 
count of  the  exportation  to  India  and  China 
having  been  exclusively  in  silver,  and  of  the 
greater  care  in  preventing  every  possible  waste 
in  an  article  so  valuable  as  gold." 

Upon  this  statement,  Mr.  Gouge,  in  his  Jour- 
nal of  Banking,  makes  the  following  remarks : 

"  "We  begin  to-day  with  Mr.  Gallatin's  esti- 
mate of  the  quantity  of  gold  and  silver  in  Europe 
and  America.  In  a  work  published  by  him  in 
1831,  entitled  '  Considerations  on  the  Currency 
and  Banking  system  of  the  United  States,'  he 
estimates  the  amount  of  precious  metals  in  these 
two  quarters  of  the  world  at  between  four  thou- 
sand and  five  thousand  million  dollars.  This,  it 
will  be  recollected,  was  ten  years  ago.  The 
amount  has  since  been  considerably  increased, 
a^  the  mines  have  annually  produced  millions, 
and  the  demand  for  the  China  trade  has  been 
greatly  diminished. 

"Taking  the  medium,  however,  of  the  two 
sums  stated  by  Mr.  Gallatin — four  thousand  five 
hundred  million  dollars — and  supposing  the 
population  of  Europe  and  America  to  be  two 
hundred  and  seventy-seven  millions,  it  will 
amount  to  sixteen  dollars  and  upwards  for 
every  man,  woman,  and  child,  on  the  two  con- 
tinents. The  same  gentleman  estimates  the 
whole  amount  of  currency  in  the  United  States 
in  1829,  paper  and  specie  together,  at  only  six 
dollars  a  head. 


"  It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  if  the  natural 
laws  of  supply  and  demand  had  not  been  inter- 
fered with,  the  United  States  would  have,  in 
proportion  to  population,  four,  five,  six,  seven, 
yea,  eight  times  as  much  gold  and  silver  as 
many  of  the  countries  of  Europe.  Take  it  at 
only  the  double  of  the  average  for  the  popula- 
tion of  the  two  continents,  and  it  will  amount 
to  thirty-two  dollars  a  head,  or  to  five  hundred 
and  fourteen  millions.  This  would  give  us  one- 
ninth  part  of  the  stock  of  gold  and  silver  of 
Europe  and  America,  while  our  population  is 
but  one-sixteenth :  but  for  the  reasons  already 
stated,  under  a  natural  order  of  things,  we  should 
have,  man  for  man,  a  much  larger  portion  of  the 
precious  metals,  than  falls  to  the  lot  of  most 
countries  of  Europe. 

"  Suppose,  however,  we  had  but  the  average 
of  sixteen  dollars  a  head.  This  would  amount 
to  two  hundred  and  fifty-seven  millions. 

"  On  two  points  do  people  (that  is,  some  peo- 
ple) capitally  err.  First,  in  regard  to  the 
quantity  of  gold  and  silver  in  the  world :  this  is 
much  greater  than  they  imagine  it  to  be.  Next, 
in  regard  to  the  amount  of  money  required  for 
commercial  purposes :  this  is  much  smaller  than 
they  suppose  it  to  be.  Under  a  sound  money, 
sound  credit,  and  sound  banking  system,  ten 
dollars  a  head  would  probably  be  amply  suffi- 
cient in  the  United  States." 


The  points  on  which  the  statesman's  atten- 
tion should  be  fixed  in  these  statements  are  :  1. 
The  quantity  of  gold  and  silver  in  Europe  and 
America,  to  wit,  $4,500,000,000.  2.  Our  fair 
proportion  of  that  quantity,  to  wit,  $257,000,000, 
or  $16  per  head.  3.  Our  inability  to  use  more 
than  $10  a  head.  4.  The  actual  amount  of  our 
whole  currency,  paper  and  specie,  in  1830  (when 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  in  all  its 
glory),  and  which  was  only  $6  a  head.  5.  The 
ease  with  which  the  United  States  can  supply 
itself  with  its  full  proportion  of  the  whole 
quantity  if  it  pleased,  and  have  $16  per  head 
(if  it  could  use  it,  which  it  cannot)  for  every 
human  being  in  the  Union. 

These  are  the  facts  which  demand  our  atten- 
tion, and  it  is  only  at  a  single  point  that  I  now  pro- 
pose to  illustrate,  or  to  enforce  them ;  and  that 
is,  as  to  the  quantity  of  money  per  head  which  any 
nation  can  use.  This  differs  among  different  na- 
tions according  to  their  pursuits,  the  commercial 
and  manufacturing  people  requiring  most,  be- 
cause their  payments  are  daily  or  weekly  for 
every  thing  they  use :  food,  raiment,  labor  and 
raw  materials.  With  agricultural  people  it  is 
less,  because  they  produce  most  of  what  they 


390 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


consume,  and  their  large  payments  are  made 
annually  from  the  proceeds  of  the  crops.  Thus, 
England  and  France  (both  highly  manufactur- 
ing and  commercial)  are  ascertained  to  employ 
fourteen  dollars  per  head  (specie  and  paper 
combined)  for  their  whole  population  :  Russia, 
an  agricultural  country,  is  ascertained  to  em- 
ploy only  four  dollars  per  head ;  and  the  United 
States,  which  is  chiefly  agricultural,  but  with 
some  considerable  admixture  of  commerce  and 
manufactures,  ten  dollars  are  believed  to  be  the 
maximum  which  they  could  employ.  In  this 
opinion  I  concur.  I  think  ten  dollars  per  head, 
an  ample  average  circulation  for  the  Union  ;  and 
it  is  four  dollars  more  than  we  had  in  1830,  when 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  at  the  zenith 
of  its  glory.  The  manufacturing  and  commercial 
districts  might  require  more  —  all  the  agri- 
cultural States  less ; — and  perhaps  an  agricul- 
tural State  without  a  commercial  town,  or  man- 
ufactures, like  Mississippi,  could  not  employ  five 
dollars  per  head.  Here  then  are  the  results: 
Our  proportion  of  the  gold  and  silver  in  Europe 
and  America  is  two  hundred  and  fifty-seven  mil- 
lions of  dollars :  we  had  but  twenty  millions  in 
1830 :  we  have  ninety  millions  now  ;  and  would 
require  but  eighty  millions  more  (one  hundred 
and  seventy  millions  in  the  whole)  in  the  pre- 
sent state  of  our  population,  slaves  included 
(for  their  labor  is  to  be  represented  by  money 
and  themselves  supported),  to  furnish  as  much 
currency,  and  that  in  gold  and  silver,  as  the 
country  could  possibly  use ;  consequently  sus- 
taining the  prices  of  labor  and  property  at  their 
maximum  amount.  Of  that  sum,  we  now  have 
about  the  one-half  in  the  country,  to  wit,  ninety 
millions  ;  making  five  dollars  per  head ;  and  as 
that  sum  was  gained  in  seven  years  of  Jackso- 
nian  policy,  it  follows  of  course,  that  another 
seven  years  of  the  same  policy,  would  give  us 
the  maximum  supply  that  we  could  use  of  the 
precious  metals  ;  and  that  gold,  silver,  and  the 
commercial  bill  of  exchange,  could  then  consti- 
tute the  safe,  solid,  constitutional,  moral,  and 
never-failing  currency  of  the  Union. 

The  facility  with  which  any  industrious  coun- 
try can  supply  itself  with  a  hard-money  cur- 
rency— can  lift  itself  out  of  the  mud  and  mire 
of  depreciated  paper,  and  mount  the  high  and 
clean  road  of  gold  and  silver;  the  ease  with 
which  any  industrious  people  can  do  this,  has 
been  sufficiently  proved  in  our  own  country,  and 


in  many  others.  We  saw  it  in  the  ease  with 
which  the  Jackson  policy  gained  us  ninety  mil- 
lions of  dollars  in  seven  years.  We  saw  it  at 
the  close  of  the  Revolution,  when  the  paper 
money  sunk  to  nothing,  ceased  to  circulate,  and 
specie  re-appeared,  as  by  magic.  I  have  asked 
the  venerable  Mr.  Macon  how  long  it  was  after 
paper  stopped,  before  specie  re-appeared  at  that 
period  of  our  history  7  his  answer  was :  No 
time  at  all.  As  soon  as  one  stopped,  the  other 
came.  We  have  seen  it  in  England  at  the  end 
of  the  long  bank  suspension,  which  terminated 
in  1823.  Parliament  allowed  the  bank  four 
years  to  prepare  for  resumption  :  at  the  end  of 
two  years— half  the  time — she  reported  herself 
ready — having  in  that  short  space  accumulated 
a  mass  cf  twenty  millions  sterling  (one  hundred 
millions  of  dollars)  in  gold ;  and,  above  all,  we 
have  seen  it  in  France,  where  the  great  Emperor 
restored  the  currency  in  the  short  space  of  six 
years,  from  the  lowest  degree  of  debasement 
to  the  highest  point  of  brilliancy.  On  becom- 
ing First  Consul,  in  1800,  he  found  nothing 
but  depreciated  assignats  in  the  country: — in 
six  years  his  immortal  campaigns — Austerlitz, 
Jena,  Friedland — all  the  expenses  of  his  imperial 
court,  surpassing  in  splendor  that  of  the  Romans, 
and  rivalling  the  almost  fabulous  magnificence 
of  the  Caliphs  of  Bagdad — all  his  internal  im- 
provements— all  his  docks,  forts,  and  ships — all 
the  commerce  of  his  forty  millions  of  subjects — 
all  these  were  carried  on  by  gold  and  silver 
alone  ;  and  from  having  the  basest  currency  in 
the  world,  France,  in  six  years,  had  near  the 
best ;  and  still  retains  it.  These  instances  show 
how  easy  it  is  for  any  country  that  pleases  to 
supply  itself  with  an  ample  currency  of  gold  and 
silver — how  easy  it  will  be  for  us  to  complete 
our  supplies — that  in  six  or  seven  years  we 
could  saturate  the  land  with  specie  !  and  yet  we 
have  a  formal  cabinet  proposition  to  set  up  £ 
manufactory  of  paper  money  ! 

The  senator  from  Mississippi  [Mr.  Walker] 
who  sits  on  my  right,  has  just  visited  the  island 
of  Cuba,  and  has  told  us  what  he  has  seen  there 
— a  pure  metallic  currency  of  gold — twelve  mil- 
lions of  dollars  of  it  to  a  population  of  one  mil- 
lion of  souls,  half  slaves — not  a  particle  of  paper 
money — prices  of  labor  and  property  higher 
than  in  the  United  States — industry  active — 
commerce  flourishing :  a  foreign  trade  of  twenty- 
four  millions  of  dollars,  which,  compared  to  popu- 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


391 


lation  and  territory,  is  so  much  greater  than  ours 
that  it  would  require  ours  to  be  four  hundred 
and  twenty-five  millions  to  be  equal  to  it !  This 
is  what  the  senator  from  Mississippi  tells  us  that 
he  has  seen  ;  and  would  to  God  that  we  had  all 
seen  it.  Would  to  God  that  the  whole  Ameri- 
can Congress  had  seen  it.  Devoutly  do  I  wish 
that  it  was  the  custom  now,  as  in  ancient  times, 
for  legislators  to  examine  the  institutions  of 
older  countries  before  they  altered  those  of  their 
own  country.  The  Solons  and  Lycurguses  of 
antiquity  would  visit  Egypt,  and  Crete,  and  other 
renowned  places  in  the  East,  before  they  would 
touch  the  laws  of  Sparta  or  Athens;  in  like 
manner  I  should  rejoice  to  see  our  legislators 
visit  the  hard  money  countries — Holland,  France, 
Cuba — before  they  went  further  with  paper 
money  schemes  in  our  own  country.  The  cabi- 
net, I  think,  should  be  actually  put  upon  such 
a  voyage.  After  what  they  have  done,  I  think 
they  should  be  shipped  on  a  visit  to  the  lands 
of  hard  money.  And  although  it  might  seem 
strange,  under  our  form  of  government,  thus  to 
travel  our  President  and  cabinet,  yet  I  must  be 
permitted  to  say  that  I  can  find  constitutional 
authority  for  doing  so,  just  as  soon  as  they  can 
find  constitutional  authority  for  sending  such  a 
scheme  of  finance  and  currency  as  they  have 
spread  before  us. 

Holland  and  Cuba  have  the  best  currencies 
in  the  world:  it  is  gold  and  the  commercial 
bill  of  exchange,  with  small  silver  for  change, 
and  not  a  particle  of  bank  paper.  France  has 
the  next  best :  it  is  gold,  with  the  commercial 
bill  of  exchange,  much  silver,  and  not  a  bank 
note  below  five  hundred  francs  (say  one  hun- 
dred dollars).  And  here  let  me  do  justice  to 
the  wisdom  and  firmness  of  the  present  king 
of  the  French.  The  Bank  of  France  lately  re- 
solved to  reduce  the  minimum  size  of  its  notes 
^to  two  hundred  francs  (say  forty  dollars).  The 
king  gave  them  notice  that  if  they  did  it,  the 
government  would  consider  it  an  injury  to  the 
currency,  and  would  take  steps  to  correct  the 
movement.  The  Bank'  rescinded  its  resolution ; 
and  Louis  Philippe,  in  that  single  act  (to  say 
nothing  of  others)  showed  himself  to  be  a  pa- 
triot king,  worthy  of  every  good  man's  praise, 
and  of  every  legislator's  imitation.  The  United 
States  have  the  basest  currency  in  the  world : 
it  is  paper,  down  to  cents  ;  and  that  paper  sup- 
plied by  irresponsible  corporations,  which  exer- 


cise the  privilege  of  paying,  or  not,  just  as  it 
suits  their  interest  or  politics.  We  have  the 
basest  currency  upon  the  face  of  the  earth ;  but 
it  will  not  remain  so.  Reform  is  at  hand  ; 
probably  from  the  mild  operation  of  law;  if 
not,  certainly  from  the  strong  arm  of  ruin. 
God  has  prescribed  morality,  law,  order,  gov- 
ernment, for  the  conduct  of  human  affairs  ;  and 
he  will  not  permit  these  to  be  too  long  outraged 
and  trampled  under  foot.  The  day  of  vindicat- 
ing the  outraged  law  and  order  of  our  country, 
is  at  hand  ;  and  its  dawn  is  now  visible.  The 
excess  of  bank  enormity  will  cure  itself  under 
the  decrees  of  Providence  ;  and  the  cure  will  be 
more  complete  and  perfect,  than  any  that  could 
come  from  the  hands  of  man. 

It  may  seem  paradoxical,  but  it  is  true,  that 
there  is  no  abundant  currency,  low  interest, 
and  facility  of  loans,  except  in  hard  money 
countries :  paper  makes  scarcity,  high  interest, 
usury,  extortion,  and  difficulty  of  borrowing. 
Ignorance  supposes  that  to  make  money  plenty, 
you  must  have  paper :  this  is  pure  nonsense. 
Paper  drives  away  all  specie,  and  then  dies 
itself  for  want  of  specie ;  and  leaves  the  coun- 
try penniless  until  it  can  recruit. 

The  Roman  historians,  Mr.  President,  inform 
us  of  a  strange  species  of  madness  which  afflict- 
ed the  soldiers  of  Mark  Antony  on  their  retreat 
from  the  Parthian  war.  Pressed  by  hunger, 
they  ate  of  unknown  roots  and  herbs  which 
they  found  along  the  base  of  the  Armenian 
mountains,  and  among  the  rest,  of  one  which 
had  the  effect  of  depriving  the  unfortunate  man 
of  memory  and  judgment.  Those  who  ate  of 
this  root  forgot  that  they  were  Romans — that 
they  had  arms — a  general — a  camp,  and  their 
lives,  to  defend.  And  wholly  possessed  of  a 
single  idea,  which  became  fixed,  they  neglected 
all  their  duties  and  went  about  turning  over  all 
the  stones  they  could  find,  under  the  firm  con- 
viction that  there  was  a  great  treasure  under 
it  which  would  make  them  rich  and  happy. 
Nothing  could  be  more  deplorable,  say  the  his- 
torians, than  to  see  these  heroic  veterans,  the 
pride  of  a  thousand  fields,  wholly  given  up  to 
this  visionary  pursuit,  their  bodies  prone  to  the 
earth,  day  after  day,  and  turning  over  stones  in 
search  of  this  treasure,  until  death  from  famine, 
or  the  Parthian  arrow,  put  an  end  at  once  ta 
their  folly  and  their  misery.  Such  is  the  ao 
count  which  historians  give  us  of  this  Strang* 


392 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


madness  amongst  Antony's  soldiers ;  and  it  does 
seem  to  me  that  something  like  it  has  happened 
to  a  great  number  of  our  Americans,  and  even 
to  our  cabinet  council — that  they  have  forgotten 
that  we  have  such  a  thing  as  a  constitution — 
that  there  are  such  things  as  gold  and  silver — 
that  there  are  limitations  upon  government 
power — and  that  man  is  to  get  his  living  by 
toil  and  labor,  and  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  and 
not  by  government  contrivances  ;  that  they 
have  forgot  all  this,  and  have  become  possessed 
of  a  fixed  idea,  that  paper  money  is  the  sum- 
mum  bonum  of  human  life ;  that  lamp-black  and 
rags,  perfumed  with  the  odor  of  nationality,  is 
a  treasure  which  is  to  make  everybody  rich  and 
happy  ;  and,  thereupon  incontinently  pursue 
this  visionary  treasure — this  figment  of  the 
brain — this  disease  of  the  mind.  Possessed  of 
this  idea,  they  direct  all  their  thoughts  to  the 
erection  of  a  national  institution — no  matter 
what — to  strike  paper  money,  and  circulate  it 
upon  the  faith  of  the  credit  and  revenues  of  the 
Union :  and  no  argument,  no  reason,  no  expe- 
rience of  our  own,  or  of  other  nations,  can  have 
the  least  effect  in  dislodging  that  fixed  and  sov- 
ereign conception.  To  this  we  are  indebted  for 
the  cabinet  plan  of  the  federal  exchequer  and  its 
appurtenances,  which  has  been  sent  down  to  us. 
To  this  we  are  indebted  for  the  crowds  who 
look  for  relief  from  the  government,  instead  of 
looking  for  it  in  their  own  labor,  their  own  in- 
dustry, and  their  own  economy.  To  this  we  are 
indebted  for  all  the  paper  bubbles  and  projects 
which  are  daily  presented  to  the  public  mind : 
and  how  it  all  is  to  end,  is  yet  in  the  womb  of 
time ;  though  I  greatly  suspect  that  the  catas- 
trophe of  the  federal  exchequer  and  its  appur- 
tenances will  do  much  towards  curing  the  de- 
lusion and  turning  the  public  mind  from  the 
vain  pursuit  of  visionary  government  remedies, 
to  the  solid  relief  of  hard  money,  hard  work, 
and  instant  compulsion  of  bank  resumption. 

The  proposition  which  has  been  made  by  our 
President  and  cabinet,  to  commence  a  national 
issue  of  paper  money,  has  had  a  very  natural 
effect  upon  the  public  mind,  that  of  making  peo- 
ple believe  that  the  old  continental  bills  are  to 
be  revived,  and  restored  to  circulation  by  the 
federal  government.  This  belief,  so  naturally 
growing  out  of  the  cabinet  movement,  has  taken 
very  wide  and  general  root  in  the  public  mind  ; 
and  my  position  in  the  Senate  and  connection 


with  the  currency  questions,  have  made  me  the 
centre  of  many  communications  on  the  point. 
Daily  I  receive  applications  for  my  opinion,  as 
to  the  revival  of  this  long  deceased  and  vener- 
able currency.  The  very  little  boys  at  the 
school  have  begged  my  little  boy  to  ask  their 
father  about  it,  and  let  them  know,  that  they 
may  hunt  up  the  one  hundred  dollar  bills  which 
their  mothers  had  given  them  for  thumb  pa- 
pers, and  which  they  had  thrown  by  on  account 
of  their  black  and  greasy  looks.  I  receive  let- 
ters from  all  parts  of  the  Union,  bringing  speci- 
mens of  these  venerable  relics,  and  demanding 
my  opinion  of  the  probability  of  their  resusci- 
tation. These  letters  contain  various  proposi- 
tions— some  of  despair — some  of  hope— some 
of  generous  patriotism — and  all  evidently  sin- 
cere. Some  desire  me  to  exhibit  the  bundle 
they  enclose  to  the  Senate,  to  show  how  the 
holders  have  been  cheated  by  paper  money; 
some  want  them  paid ;  and  if  the  government 
cannot  pay  at  present,  they  wish  them  funded, 
and  converted  into  a  national  stock,  as  part  of 
the  new  national  debt.  Some  wish  me  to  look 
at  them,  on  my  own  account ;  and  from  this 
sample,  to  derive  new  hatred  to  paper  money, 
and  to  stand  up  to  the  fight  with  the  greater 
courage,  now  that  the  danger  of  swamping  us 
in  lamp-black  and  rags  is  becoming  so  much 
greater  than  ever.  Others,  again,  rising  above 
the  degeneracy  of  the  times,  and  still  feeling  a 
remnant  of  that  patriotism  for  which  our  ances- 
tors were  so  distinguished,  and  which  led  them 
to  make  so  many  sacrifices  for  their  country, 
and  hearing  of  the  distress  of  the  government 
and  its  intention  to  have  recourse  to  an  emis- 
sion of  new  continental  bills,  propose  at  once  to 
furnish  it  with  a  supply  of  the  old  bills.  Of 
this  number  is  a  gentleman  whose  letter  I  re- 
ceived last  night,  and  which,  being  neither  con- 
fidential in  its  nature,  nor  marked  so,  and  be- 
ing, besides,  honorable  to  the  writer,  I  will, 
with  the  leave  of  the  Senate,  here  read : 

"East  Weymouth,  Massachusetts, 
January  8,  1842. 
"  Dear  Sir  : — Within  you  have  a  few  conti- 
nentals, or  promises  to  pay  in  gold  or  silver, 
which  may  now  be  serviceable  to  the  Treasury, 
which  the  whigs  have  bankrupted  in  the  first 
year  of  their  reign,  and  left  members  without 
pay  for  their  landlords.  They  may  serve  to 
start  the  new  fiscality  upon  ;  and,  if  they 
should  answer  the  purpose,  and  any  more  are 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


393 


wanted,  please  let  mo  know,  and  another  batch 
will  come  on  from  your  friend  and  servant, 

"Lowell  Bicknell. 
"  Hon.  Thomas  H.  Benton,  United  States  Sen- 
ate, Washington  city." 

This  is  the  letter,  resumed  Mr.  B.,  and  these 
the  contents  (holding  up  a  bundle  of  old  conti- 
nentals). This  is  an  assortment  of  them,  be- 
ginning at  nine  dollars,  and  descending  regu- 
larly through  eight,  seven,  six,  five,  four,  three, 
two,  one,  and  the  fractional  parts  of  a  dollar, 
down  to  the  one-sixth  part  of  a  dollar.  I  will 
read  the  highest  and  lowest  in  the  bundle, 
as  a  sample  of  the  whole.  The  highest  runs 
thus: 

"  This  bill  entitles  the  bearer  to  receive  nine 
Spanish  milled  dollars,  or  the  value  thereof  in 
gold  or  silver,  according  to  the  resolves  of  the 
Congress  held  at  Philadelphia,  the  10th  day  of 
May,  1775. 

"Signed,  William  Craig." 

The  margins  are  covered  with  the  names  of 
the  States,  and  with  the  words  continental  cur- 
rency, in  glaring  capitals,  and  the  Latin  motto, 
Sustine  vel  abstine  (Sustain  it,  or  let  it  alone). 
The  lowest  runs  thus : 

"  One-sixth  of  a  dollar,  according  to  a  resolve 
of  Congress  passed  at  Philadelphia  February 
17th,  1776. 


"  Signed, 


B.  Brannan." 


The  device  on  this  note  is  a  sun  shining 
through  a  glass,  with  the  word  fugio  (I  fly)  for 
the  motto — a  motto  sufficiently  appropriate, 
whether  emblematic  of  the  fugitive  nature  of 
time,  or  of  paper  money. 

These  are  a  sample  of  the  bills  sent  me  in  the 
letter  which  I  have  just  read ;  and  now  the 
mind  naturally  reverts  to  the  patriotic  proposi- 
tion to  supply  the  administration  with  these 
old  bills  instead  of  putting  out  a  new  emission. 
For  myself  I  incline  to  the  proposition.  If  the 
question  is  once  decided  in  favor  of  a  paper 
emission,  I  am  decidedly  in  favor  of  the  old 
continental  currency  in  preference  to  any  new 
edition — as  much  so  as  I  prefer  the  old  Revolu- 
tionary whigs  to  the  new  whigs  of  this  day.  I 
prefer  the  old  bills  ;  and  that  for  many  and  co- 
gent reasons.  I  will  enumerate  a  few  of  these 
reasons  : — 1.  They  are  ready  made  to  our  hand, 
and  will  save  all  the  expense  and  time  which 
the  preparations  of  new  bills  would  require. 
The  expense  would  probably  be  no  objection 


with  this  administration ;  but,  in  the  present 
condition  of  the  Treasury,  the  other  considera- 
tion, that  of  time,  must  have  great  weight 
2.  They  cannot  be  counterfeited.  Age  protects 
them  from  that.  The  wear  and  tear  of  seventy 
long  years  cannot  be  impressed  on  the  face  of 
the  counterfeits,  cunning  as  their  makers  may 
be.  3.  Being  limited  in  quantity,  and  there- 
fore incapable  of  contraction  or  inflation  at  the 
will  of  jobbers  in  stocks  or  politics,  they  will 
answer  better  for  a  measure  of  values.  4.  They 
are  better  promises  than  any  that  will  be  made 
at  this  day ;  for  they  are  payable  in  Spanish 
milled  dollars,  which  are  at  a  premium  of  three 
per  cent,  in  our  market  over  other  dollars ;  and 
they  are  payable  in  gold  or  silver,  disjunctively, 
so  as  to  give  the  holder  his  option  of  the  metals. 

5.  They  are  made  by  better  men  than  will 
make  the  bills  of  the  present  day — men  better 
known  to  Europe  and  America — of  higher 
credit  and  renown — whose  names  are  connected 
with  the  foundation  of  the  republic,  and  with 
all  the  glorious  recollections  of  the  revolution. 
Without  offence  to  any,  I  can  well  say  that  no 
Congress  of  the  present  day  can  rank  with  our 
Revolutionary  assemblies  who  signed  the  De- 
claration of  Independence  with  ropes  round 
their  necks,  staked  life,  honor,  and  fortune  in  a 
contest  where  all  the  chances  were  against 
them ;  and  nobly  sustained  what  they  had  dared 
to  proclaim.  We  cannot  rank  with  them,  nor 
our    paper    ever    have   the    credit   of   theirs. 

6.  They  are  of  all  sizes,  and  therefore  ready 
for  the  catastrophe  of  the  immediate  flight,  dis- 
persion, absconding,  and  inhumation  of  all  the 
specie  in  the  country,  for  which  the  issue  of  a 
government  paper  would  be  the  instant  and  im- 
perative signal.  Our  cabinet  plan  comes  no 
lower  than  five  dollars,  whereby  great  difficulty 
in  making  change  at  the  Treasury  would  accrue 
until  a  supplementary  act  could  be  passed,  and 
the  small  notes  and  change  tickets  be  prepared. 
The  adoption  of  the  old  continental  would  pre- 
vent this  balk,  as  the  notes  from  one  to  ten 
dollars  inclusive  would  be  ready  for  all  pay- 
ments which  ended  in  even  dollars;  and  the 
fractional  notes  would  be  ready  for  all  that 
ended  in  shillings  or  sixpences.  7.  And,  final- 
ly, because  it  is  right  in  itself  that  we  should 
take  up  the  old  continentals  before  we  begin  to 
make  new  ones.  For  these,  and  other  reasons, 
I  am  bold  to  declare  that  if  we  must  have  a 


394 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Congress  paper-moDey,  I  prefer  the  paper  of  the 
Congress  of  1776  to  that  of  1842. 

"  Sir,  the  Senate  must  pardon  me.  It  is  not 
my  custom  to  speak  irreverently  of  official  mat- 
ters ;  but  there  are  some  things  too  light  for 
argument — too  grave  for  ridicule — and  which  it 
is  difficult  to  treat  in  a  becoming  manner.  This 
cabinet  plan  of  a  federal  exchequer  is  one  cf 
those  subjects ;  and  to  its  strange  and  novel 
character,  part  tragic  and  part  farcical,  must  be 
attributed  my  more  than  usually  defective  mode 
of  speaking.  I  plead  the  subject  itself  for  the 
imperfection  of  my  mode  of  treating  it. 


CHAPTER    XCI. 

THE  THIRD  FISCAL  AGENT,  ENTITLED  A  BOAED 
OF  EXCHEQUER. 

This  measure,  recommended  by  the  President, 
was  immediately  taken  up  in  each  branch  of 
Congress.  In  the  House  of  Representatives  a 
committee  of  a  novel  character — one  without 
precedent,  and  without  imitation — was  created 
for  it :  "  A  select  committee  on  the  finances  and 
the  currency,"  composed  of  nine  members,  and 
Mr.  Caleb  Cushing  its  chairman.  Through  its 
chairman  this  committee,  with  the  exception  of 
two  of  its  members  (Mr.  Garret  Davis  of  Ken- 
tucky, and  Mr.  John  P.  Kennedy,  of  Maryland), 
made  a  most  elaborate  report,  recommending 
the  measure,  and  accompanied  by  a  bill  to  carry 
it  into  effect.  The  ruling  feature  of  the  whole 
plan  was  a  national  currency  of  paper-money, 
to  be  issued  by  the  federal  government,  and  to 
be  got  into  circulation  through  payments  made 
by  it,  and  by  its  character  of  receivability  in 
payment  of  public  dues.  To  clear  the  ground 
for  the  erection  of  this  new  species  of  national 
currency,  all  other  kinds  of  currency  were  re- 
viewed and  examined — their  good  and  their  bad 
qualities  stated — and  this  government  currency 
pronounced  to  combine  the  good  qualities,  and 
to  avoid  the  bad  of  all  other  kinds.  National 
bank-notes  were  condemned  for  one  set  of  rea- 
sons :  local  bank-notes  for  another :  and  as  for 
gold  and  silver,  the  reporter  found  so  many  de- 
fects in  such  a  currency,  and  detailed  them  with 
such  precision,  that  it  looked  like  drawing  up  a 


bill  of  indictment  against  such  vicious  substi- 
tutes for  money.    In  this  view  the  report  said : 

"But  the  precious  metals  themselves,  in 
addition  to  their  uses  for  coin,  are  likewise, 
whether  coined  or  uncoined,  a  commodity,  or 
article  of  production,  consumption,  and  mer- 
chandise. Themselves  are  a  part  of  that  gen- 
eral property  of  the  community,  of  all  the  rest 
of  which  they  are  the  measure ;  and  they  are 
of  actual  value  different  in  different  places,  ac- 
cording to  the  contingencies  of  government  or 
commerce.  Their  aggregate  quantity  is  subject 
to  be  diminished  by  casual  destruction  or  ab- 
sorption in  the  arts  of  manufacture,  or  to  be 
diminished  or  augmented  by  the  greater  or  less 
number  or  productiveness  of  mines ;  and  thus 
their  aggregate  value  relatively  to  other  com- 
modities is  liable  to  perpetual  change.  The  in- 
fluence of  these  facts  upon  prices,  upon  public 
affairs,  and  upon  commerce,  is  visible  in  all  the 
financial  history  of  modern  times.  Besides 
which,  coin  is  subject  to  debasement,  or  to  be 
made  a  legal  tender,  at  a  rate  exceeding  its  ac- 
tual value,  by  the  arbitrary  act  of  the  govern- 
ment, which  controls  its  coinage  and  prescribes 
its  legal  value.  In  times  when  the  uses  of  a  pa- 
per currency  and  of  public  stocks  were  not  un- 
derstood or  not  practised,  and  communities  had 
not  begun  to  resort  to  a  paper  symbol  or  nomi- 
nal representative  of  money,  capable  of  being 
fabricated  at  will,  the  adulteration  of  coin,  in- 
stead of  it,  was,  it  is  well  known,  the  frequent 
expedient  of  public  necessity  or  public  cupidity 
to  obtain  relief  from  some  pressing  pecuniary 
embarrassment.  Moreover,  the  precious  metals, 
though  of  less  bulk  in  proportion  to  their  value 
than  most  other  commodities,  yet  cannot  be 
transported  from  place  to  place  without  cost 
and  risk ;  coin  is  subject  to  be  stolen  or  lost, 
and  in  that  case  cannot  be  easily  identified,  so 
as  to  be  reclaimed ;  the  continual  counting  of  it 
in  large  sums  is  inconvenient ;  it  would  be  un- 
safe, and  would  cause  much  money  to  remain 
idle  and  unfruitful,  if  every  merchant  kept  con- 
stantly on  hand  a  sum  of  coin  for  all  his  trans- 
actions ;  and  the  displacement  of  large  amounts 
of  coin,  its  transfer  from  one  community  or  one 
country  to  another,  is  liable  to  occasion  fluctua- 
tions in  the  value  of  property  or  labor,  and  to 
embarrass  commercial  operations." 

Having  thus  shown  the  demerit  of  all  other 
sorts  of  currency,  and  cleared  the  way  for  this 
new  species,  the  report  proceeds  to  recommend 
it  to  the  adoption  of  the  legislature,  with  an  en- 
comium upon  the  President,  and  on  the  select 
committee  on  the  finances  and  the  currency, 
who  had  so  well  discharged  their  duty  in  pro- 
posing it ;  thus : 

"  The  President  of  the  United  States,  in  pre- 
senting this  plan  to  Congress,  has  obeyed  the 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


395 


injunction  of  the  constitution,  which  requires 
him  to  recommend  to  their  consideration  such 
measures  as  he  shall  judge  necessary  and  expe- 
dient ;  he  has  fully  redeemed  the  engagements 
in  this  respect  which  he  had  previously  made  to 
Congress  :  and  thus  he  has  faithfully  discharged 
his  whole  duty  to  the  constitution  and  the  Union. 
The  committee,  while  animated  by  the  highest 
respect  for  his  views,  have  yet  deemed  it  due  to 
him,  to  themselves,  to  the  occasion,  and  to  the 
country,  to  give  to  those  views  a  free  and  un- 
biassed examination.  They  have  done  so  ;  and 
in  so  doing,  they  have  also  discharged  their  duty. 
They  respectfully  gubmit  the  result  to  the  House 
in  the  bill  herewith  reported.  They  believe  this 
measure  to  contain  the  elements  of  usefulness 
and  public  good  ;  and,  as  such,  they  recommend 
it  to  the  House.  But  they  feel  no  pride  of  opin- 
ion concerning  it ;  and,  if  in  error,  they  are  ready 
to  follow  the  lead  of  better  lights,  if  better  there 
be,  from  other  quarters  ;  being  anxious  only  to 
minister  to  the  welfare  of  the  people  whom  they 
represent.  It  remains  now  for  Congress  to  act 
in  the  matter;  the  country  demands  that  in 
some  way  we  shall  act ;  and  the  times  appeal  to 
us  to  act  with  decision,  with  moderation,  with 
impartiality,  with  independence.  Long  enough, 
the  question  of  the  national  finances  has  been 
the  sport  of  passion  and  the  battle-cry  of  party. 
Foremost  of  all  things,  the  country,  in  order  to 
recover  itself,  needs  repose  and  order  for  its 
material  interest,  and  a  settled  purpose  in  that 
respect  (what  it  shall  be  is  of  less  moment,  but 
at  any  rate  some  settled  purpose)  on  the  part 
of  the  federal  government.  If,  careless  of  names 
and  solicitous  only  for  things,  aiming  beyond  all 
intermediate  objects  to  the  visible  mark  of  the 
practicable  and  attainable  good — if  Congress 
shall  in  its  wisdom  concur  at  length  in  some 
equitable  adjustment  of  the  currency  question, 
it  cannot  fail  to  deserve  and  secure  the  lasting 
gratitude  of  the  people  of  the  United  States." 

After  reading  this  elaborate  report,  Mr.  Cush- 
ing  also  read  the  equally  elaborate  bill  which 
accompanied  it :  and  that  was  the  last  of  the 
bill  ever  heard  of  in  the  House.  It  was  never 
called  up  for  consideration,  but  died  a  natural 
death  on  the  calendar  on  which  it  was  placed. 
In  the  Senate  the  fate  of  the  measure  was  still 
more  compendiously  decided.  The  President's 
recommendation,  the  ample  report  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  and  the  bill  drawn  up  at 
the  Treasury  itself,  were  all  sent  to  the  Com- 
mittee of  Finance ;  which  committee,  deeming 
it  unworthy  of  consideration,  through  its  chair- 
man, Mr.  Evans,  of  Maine,  prayed  to  be  dis- 
charged from  the  consideration  of  it :  and  were 
so  discharged  accordingly.  But,  though  so 
lightly  disposed  of,  the  measure  did  not  escape 


ample  denunciation.  Deeming  the  proposition 
an  outrage  upon  the  constitution,  an  insult  to 
gold  and  silver,  and  infinitely  demoralizing  to 
the  government  and  dangerous  to  the  people, 
Mr.  Benton  struck  another  blow  at  it  as  it  went 
out  of  the  Senate  to  the  committee.  It  was  on 
the  motion  to  refer  the  subject  to  the  Finance 
Committee,  that  he  delivered  a  speech  of  three 
hours  against  it :  of  which  some  extracts  were 
given  in  Chapter  XC. 


CHAPTER  XCII. 

ATTEMPTED  PvEPEAL  OF  THE  BANKRUPT  ACT. 

As  soon  as  Congress  met  in  the  session  1841-'2 
the  House  of  Representatives  commenced  the 
repeal  of  this  measure.  The  period  for  the  act 
to  take  effect  had  been  deferred  by  an  amend- 
ment in  the  House  from  the  month  of  Novem- 
ber, which  would  be  before  the  beginning  of  the 
regular  session,  to  the  month  of  February — for 
the  well-known  purpose  of  giving  Congress  an 
opportunity  to  repeal  it  before  it  went  into 
operation.  The  act  was  odious  in  itself,  and 
the  more  so  from  the  manner  in  which  it  was 
passed — coercively,  and  by  the  help  of  votes 
from  those  who  condemned  it,  but  who  voted 
for  it  to  prevent  its  friends  from  defeating  the 
bank  bill,  and  the  land  distribution  bill.  Those 
two  measures  were  now  passed,  and  many  of 
the  coerced  members  took  their  revenge  upon 
the  hated  bill  to  which  they  had  temporarily 
bowed.  The  repeal  commenced  in  the  House, 
and  had  a  rapid  progress  through  that  body. 
A  motion  was  made  to  instruct  the  Judiciary 
Committee  to  bring  in  a  bill  for  the  repeal ;  and 
that  motion  succeeded  by  a  good  majority.  The 
bill  was  brought  in,  and,  under  the  pressure  of 
the  previous  question,  was  quickly  brought  to 
a  vote.  The  yeas  were  124 — the  nays  9G.  It 
then  went  to  the  Senate,  where  it  was  closely 
contested,  and  lost  by  one  vote— 22  for  the  re- 
peal: 23  against  it.  Thus  a  most  iniquitous 
act  got  into  operation,  by  the  open  joining  of 
measures  which  could  not  pass  alone ;  and  by 
the  weak  calculation  of  some  members  of  the 
House,  who  expected  to  undo  a  bad  vote  before 
it  worked  its  mischief.    The  act  was  saved  by 


396 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


one  vote ;  but  met  its  fate  at  the  next  session — 
having  but  a  short  run ;  while  the  two  acts  which 
it  passed  were  equally,  and  one  of  them  still 
more  short  lived.  The  fiscal  bank  bill,  which 
was  one  that  it  carried,  never  became  a  law  at 
all :  the  land  distribution  bill,  which  was  the 
other,  became  a  law  only  to  be  repealed  before 
it  had  effect.  The  three  confederate  criminal 
bills  which  had  mutually  purchased  existence 
from  each  other,  all  perished  prematurely,  fruit- 
less and  odious — inculcating  in  their  history 
and  their  fate,  an  impressive  moral  against  vi- 
cious and  foul  legislation. 


CHAPTER   XCIII. 

DEATH  OF  LEWIS  WILLIAMS,  OF  NORTH  CARO- 
LINA, AND  NOTICE  OF  HIS  LIFE  AND  CHARAC- 
TER. 

He  was  one  of  those  meritorious  and  exemplary 
members  whose  labors  are  among  the  most  use- 
ful to  their  country:  diligent,  modest,  atten- 
tive, patriotic,  inflexibly  honest — a  friend  to 
simplicity  and  economy  in  the  working  of  the 
government,  and  an  enemy  to  all  selfish,  per- 
sonal, and  indirect  legislation.  He  had  the  dis- 
tinction to  have  his  merits  and  virtues  com- 
memorated in  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  by 
two  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  age — Mr. 
Clay  and  Mr.  Adams — who  respectively  seconded 
in  the  House  to  which  each  belonged,  the  cus- 
tomary motion  for  funeral  honors  to  his  mem- 
ory.   Mr.  Adams  said : 

"  Mr.  Speaker,  I  second  the  motion,  and  ask 
the  indulgence  of  the  House  for  the  utterance 
of  a  few  words,  from  a  heart  full  to  overflowing 
with  anguish  which  no  words  can  express.  Sir, 
my  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Williams  commenced 
with  the  second  Congress  of  his  service  in  this 
House.  Twenty-five  years  have  since  elapsed, 
during  all  which  he  has  been  always  here  at 
his  post,  always  true  to  his  trust,  always  adher- 
ing faithfully  to  his  constituents  and  to  his  coun- 
try— always,  and  through  every  political  vicis- 
situde and  revolution,  adhered  to  faithfully  by 
them.  I  have  often  thought  that  this  steadfast- 
ness of  mutual  attachment  between  the  repre- 
sentative and  the  constituent  was  characteristic 
of  both;  and,  concurring  with  the  idea  just 
expressed  with  such  touching  eloquence  by 
his  colleague  (Mr.  Rayner),  I  have  habitually 
looked  upon  Lewis  Williams  as  the  true  por- 


traiture and  personification  of  the  people  of 
North  Carolina.  Sir,  the  loss  of  such  a  man  at 
any  time,  to  his  country,  would  be  great.  To 
this  House,  at  this  juncture,  it  is  irreparable. 
His  wisdom,  his  experience,  his  unsullied  integ- 
rity, his  ardent  patriotism,  his  cool  and  deliber- 
ate judgment,  his  conciliatory  temper,  his  firm 
adherence  to  principle — where  shall  we  find  a 
substitute  for  them  ?  In  the  distracted  state  of 
our  public  counsels,  with  the  wormwood  and 
the  gall  of  personal  animosities  adding  tenfold 
bitterness  to  the  conflict  of  rival  interests  and 
discordant  opinions,  how  shall  we  have  to  de- 
plore the  bereavement  of  his  presence,  the  very 
light  of  whose  countenance,  the  very  sound  of 
whose  voice,  could  recall  us,  like  a  talisman,  from 
the  tempest  of  hostile  passions  to  the  calm  com- 
posure of  harmony  and  peace. 

"Mr.  Williams  was,  and  had  long  been,  in 
the  official  language  which  we  have  adopted 
from  the  British  House  of  Commons,  the  Father 
of  the  House  ;  and  though  my  junior  by  nearly 
twenty  years,  I  have  looked  up  to  him  in  this 
House,  with  the  reverence  of  filial  affection,  as 
if  he  was  the  father  of  us  all.  The  seriousness 
and  gravity  of  his  character,  tempered  as  it  was 
with  habitual  cheerfulness  and  equanimity,  pe- 
culiarly fitted  him  for  that  relation  to  the  other 
members  of  the  Honse,  while  the  unassuming 
courtes3r  of  his  deportment  and  the  benevolence 
of  his  disposition  invited  every  one  to  consider 
him  as  a  brother.  Sir,  he  is  gone  !  The  places 
that  have  known  him  shall  know  him  no  more ; 
but  his  memory  shall  be  treasured  up  by  the 
wise  and  the  good  of  his  contemporaries,  as  emi- 
nent among  the  patriots  and  statesmen  of  this 
our  native  land ;  and  were  it  possible  for  any 
Northern  bosom,  within  this  hall,  ever  to  har- 
bor for  one  moment  a  wish  for  the  dissolution 
of  our  National  Union,  may  the  spirit  of  our  de- 
parted friend,  pervading  every  particle  of  the 
atmosphere  around  us,  dispel  the  delusion  of  his 
soul,  by  reminding  him  that,  in  that  event,  he 
would  no  longer  be  the  countryman  of  Lewis 
Williams." 

Mr.  Clay,  in  the  Senate,  who  was  speaker  of 
the  House  when  the  then  young  Lewis  Williams 
first  entered  it,  bore  his  ample  testimony  from 
intimate  personal  knowledge,  to  the  merits  of 
the  deceased ;  and,  like  Mr.  Adams,  professed  a 
warm  personal  friendship  for  the  individual,  as 
well  as  exalted  admiration  for  the  public  man. 

"  Prompted  by  a  friendship  which  existed 
between  the  deceased  and  myself,  of  upwards  of 
a  quarter  of  a  century's  duration,  and  by  the 
feelings  and  sympathies  which  this  melancholy 
occasion  excites,  will  the  Senate  allow  me  to 
add  a  few  words  to  those  which  have  been  so 
well  and  so  appropriately  expressed  by  my 
friend  near  me  [Mr.  Graham],  in  seconding  the 
motion  he  has  just  made  ?    Already,  during  the 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


397 


present  session,  has  Congress,  and  each  House, 
paid  the  annual  instalment  of  the  great  debt  of 
Nature.  We  could  not  have  lost  two  more 
worthy  and  estimable  men  than  those  who  have 
been  taken  from  us.  My  acquaintance  with 
the  lamented  Lewis  Williams  commenced  in 
the  fall  of  1815,  when  he  first  took  his  seat  as  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  from 
the  State  of  North  Carolina,  and  I  re-entered 
that  House  after  my  return  from  Europe.  From 
that  period  until  his  death,  a  cordial  and  un- 
broken friendship  has  subsisted  between  usj  and 
similar  ties  were  subsequently  created  with  al- 
most every  member  of  his  highly  respectable 
family.  When  a  vacancy  arose  in  the  respon- 
sible and  laborious  office  of  chairman  of  the 
Committee  of  Claims,  which  had  been  previous- 
ly filled  by  another  distinguished  and  lamented 
son  of  North  Carolina  (the  late  Mr.  Yancy), 
m  virtue  of  authority  vested  in  me,  as  the  pre- 
siding officer  of  the  House,  I  appointed  Mr. 
Williams  to  fill  it.  Always  full  of  labor,  and 
requiring  unremitting  industry,  it  was  then,  in 
consequence  of  claims  originating  in  the  late 
war,  more  than  ever  toilsome.  He  discharged 
his  complicated  duties  with  the  greatest  dili- 
gence, ability,  impartiality,  and  uprightness, 
and  continued  in  the  office  until  I  left  the  House 
in  the  year  1825.  He  occasionally  took  part 
in  the  debates  which  sprung  up  on  great  mea- 
sures brought  for  the  advancement  of  the  in- 
terests of  the  country,  and  was  always  heard 
with  profound  attention,  and,  I  believe,  with  a 
thorough  conviction  of  his  perfect  integrity.  In- 
flexibly adhering  always  to  what  he  believed 
to  be  right,  if  he  ever  displayed  warmth  or  im- 
patience, it  was  excited  by  what  he  thought  was 
insincere,  or  base,  or  ignoble.  In  short,  Lewis 
Williams  was  a  true  and  faithful  image  of  the 
respectable  State  which  he  so  long  and  so  ably 
served  in  the  national  councils — intelligent, 
quiet,  unambitious,  loyal  to  the  Union,  and 
uniformly  patriotic.  We  all  feel  and  deplore, 
with  the  greatest  sensibility,  the  heavy  loss  we 
have  so  suddenly  sustained.  May  it  impress  us 
with  a  just  sense  of  the  frailty  and  uncertainty 
of  human  life  !  And,  profiting  by  his  example, 
may  we  all  be  fully  prepared  for  that  which  is 
soon  to  follow." 

Mr.  Williams  reflected  the  character  of  his 
State ;  and  that  was  a  distinction  so  obvious  and 
so  honorable  that  both  speakers  mentioned  it,  and 
in  doing  so  did  honor  both  to  the  State  and  the 
citizen.  And  she  illustrated  her  character  by 
the  manner  in  which  she  cherished  him.  Elect- 
ed into  the  General  Assembly  as  soon  as  age 
would  permit,  and  continued  there  until  riper 
age  would  admit  him  into  the  Federal  Congress, 
he  was  elected  into  that  body  amongst  the 
youngest  of  its  members ;  and  continued  there 
by  successive  elections  until  he  was  the  longest 


sitting  member,  and  became  entitled  to  the 
Parliamentary  appellation  of  Father  of  the 
House.  Exemplary  in  all  the  relations  of  pub- 
lic and  private  life,  he  crowned  a  meritorious 
existence  by  an  exemplary  piety,  and  was  as 
remarkable  for  the  close  observance  of  all  his 
christian  obligations  as  he  was  for  the  dischage 
of  his  public  duties. 


CHAPTER    XCIV. 

THE  CIVIL  LIST  EXPENSES:  THE  CONTINGENT 
EXPENSES  OF  CONGRESS:  AND  THE  REVENUE 
COLLECTION  EXPENSE. 

Pursuing  the  instructive  political  lesson  to  be 
found  in  the  study  of  the  progressive  increased 
expenditures  of  the  government,  we  take  up,  in 
this  chapter,  the  civil  list  in  the  gross,  and  two 
of  its  items  in  detail — the  contingent  expenses 
of  Congress,  and  the  expense  of  collecting  the 
revenue — premising  that  the  civil  list,  besides 
the  salaries  of  civil  officers,  includes  the  foreign 
diplomatic  intercourse,  and  a  variety  of  mis- 
cellanies. To  obtain  the  proper  comparative 
data,  recourse  is  again  had  to  Mr.  Calhoun's 
speech  of  this  year  (1842)  on  the  naval  appro- 
priation. 

"  The  expenditures  under  the  first  head  have 
increased  since  1823,  when  they  were  $2,022,093, 
to  $5,492,030  98,  the  amount  in  1840 ;  showing 
an  increase,  in  seventeen  years,  of  2  7-10  to  1, 
while  the  population  has  increased  only  about  £ 
to  1,  that  is,  about  75  per  cent. — making  the  in- 
crease of  expenditures,  compared  to  the  increase 
of  population,  about  3  6-10  to  1.  This  enormous 
increase  has  taken  place  although  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  expenditures  under  this  head,  con- 
sisting of  salaries  to  officers,  and  the  pay  of 
members  of  Congress,  has  remained  unchanged. 
The  next  year,  in  1841,  the  expenditure  rose  to 
$6,196,560.  I  am,  however,  happy  to  perceive 
a  considerable  reduction  in  the  estimates  for 
this  year,  compared  with  the  last  and  several 
preceding  years  ;  but  still  leaving  room  for 
great  additional  reduction  to  bring  the  increase 
of  expenditures  to  the  same  ratio  with  the  in- 
crease of  population,  as  liberal  as  that  standard 
of  increase  would  be. 

"  That  the  Senate  may  form  some  conception, 
in  detail,  of  this  enormous  increase,  I  propose 
to  go  more  into  particulars  in  reference  to  two 
items  :  the  contingent  expenses  of  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress,  and  that  of  collecting  the 
duties   on  imports.    The  latter,  though  of  a 


398 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


character  belonging  to  the  civil  list,  is  not  in- 
cluded in  it,  or  either  of  the  other  heads ;  as  the 
expenses  incident  to  collecting  the  customs,  are 
deducted  from  the  receipts,' before  the  money  is 
paid  into  the  Treasury. 

':  The  contingent  expenses  (they  exclude  the 
pay  and  mileage  of  members)  of  the  Senate  in 
1823  were  $12,841  07,  of  which  the  printing  cost 
$6,349  56,  and  stationery  $1,631  51 ;  and  that 
of  the  House,  $37,848  95,  of  which  the  printing 
cost  $22,314  41,  and  the  stationery  $3,877  71. 
In  1840,  the  contingent  expenses  of  the  Senate 
were  $77,447  22,  of  which  the  printing  cost 
$31,285  32,  and  the  stationery  $7,061  77  ;  and 
that  of  the  House  $199,219  57,  of  which  the 
printing  cost  $65,086  46,  and  the  stationery 
$36,352  99.  The  aggregate  expenses  of  the 
two  Houses  together  rose  from  $50,690  02  to 
$276,666 ;  being  an  actual  increase  of  5  4-10 
to  1,  and  an  increase,  in  proportion  to  popula- 
tion, of  about  7  2-10  to  one.  But  as  enormous 
as  this  increase  is,  the  fact  that  the  number  of 
members  had  increased  not  more  than  about  ten 
per  cent,  from  1823  to  1840,  is  calculated  to  make 
it  .still  more  strikingly  so.  Had  the  increase 
kept  pace  with  the  increase  of  members  (and 
there  is  no  good  reason  why  it  should  greatly 
exceed  it),  the  expenditures  would  have  risen 
from  $50,690  to  $55,759,  only  making  an  in- 
crease of  but  $5,069 ;  but,  instead  of  that,  it 
rose  to  $276,666,  making  an  increase  of  $225,970. 
To  place  the  subject  in  a  still  more  striking  view, 
the  contingent  expenses  in  1823  were  at  the  rate 
of  $144  per  member,  which  one  would  suppose 
was  ample,  and  in  1840,  $942.  This  vast  in- 
crease took  place  under  the  immediate  eyes  of 
Congress ;  and  yet  we  were  told  at  the  extra 
session,  by  the  present  chairman  of  the  Finance 
Committee,  that  there  was  no  room  for  econo- 
my, and  that  no  reduction  could  be  made  ;  and 
even  in  this  discussion  he  has  intimated  that 
little  can  be  done.  As  enormous  as  are  the 
contingent  expenses  of  the  two  Houses,  I  infer 
from  the  very  great  increase  of  expenditures 
under  the  head  of  civil  list  generally,  when  so 
large  a  portion  is  for  fixed  salaries,  which  have 
not  been  materially  increased  for  the  last  seven- 
teen years,  that  they  are  not  much  less  so 
throughout  the  whole  range  of  this  branch  of 
the  public  service. 

"  I  shall  now  proceed  to  the  other  item,  which 
I  have  selected  for  more  particular  examination, 
the  increased  expenses  of  collecting  the  duties 
on  imports.  In  1823  it  was  $766,699,  equal  to 
3  86-100  per  cent,  on  the  amount  collected,  and 
98-100  on  the  aggregate  amount  of  imports ; 
and  in  1840  it  had  increased  to  $1,542,319  24, 
equal  to  14  13-100  per  cent,  on  the  amount  col- 
lected, and  to  1  58-100  on  the  aggregate  amount 
of  the  imports,  being  an  actual  increase  of 
nearly  a  million,  and  considerably  more  than 
double  the  amount  of  1823.  In  1839  it  rose 
to  $1,714,515. 

"  From  these  facts,  there  can  be  little  doubt 


that  more  than  a  million  annually  may  be 
saved  under  the  two  items  of  contingent  ex- 
penses of  Congress,  and  the  collection  of  the 
customs,  without  touching  the  other  great  items 
comprised  under  the  civil  list,  the  executive  and 
judicial  departments,  the  foreign  intercourse, 
light-houses,  and  miscellaneous.  It  would  be 
safe  to  put  down  a  saving  of  at  least  a  half 
million  for  them." 

The  striking  facts  to  be  gleaned  from  these 
statements  are — That  the  civil  list  in  1821  was 
about  two  millions  of  dollars ;  in  1839,  four 
and  a  half  millions ;  and  in  1841,  six  millions 
and  a  fraction.  That  the  contingent  expenses 
of  Congress  during  the  same  periods  respec- 
tively, were,  $50,000,  and  $276,000.  And  the 
collection  of  the  custom  house  revenue  at  the 
same  periods,  the  respective  sums  of  $766,000, 
and  $1,542,000.  These  several  sums  were  each 
considered  extravagant,  and  unjustifiable,  at  the 
time  Mr.  Calhoun  was  speaking ;  and  each  was 
expected  to  feel  the  pruning  knife  of  retrench- 
ment. On  the  contrary,  all  have  risen  higher- — 
inordinately  so — and  still  rising :  the  civil  and 
diplomatic  appropriation  having  attained  17 
millions :  the  contingent  expenses  of  Congress 
4  to  510,000 :  and  the  collection  of  the  customs 
to  above  two  millions. 


CHAPTER    XCV. 

RESIGNATION  AND  VALEDICTORY  OF  ME,  CLAY. 

In  the  month  of  March,  of  this  year,  Mr.  Clay 
resigned  his  place  in  the  Senate,  and  delivered 
a  valedictory  address  to  the  body,  in  the  course 
of  which  he  disclosed  his  reasons.  Neither  age, 
nor  infirmities,  nor  disinclination  for  public 
service  were  alleged  as  the  reasons.  Disgust, 
profound  and  inextinguishable,  was  the  ruliug 
cause — more  inferrible  than  alleged  in  his  care- 
fully considered  address.  Supercession  at  the 
presidential  convention  of  his  party  to  make 
room  for  an  "  available  "  in  the  person  of 
General  Harrison — the  defection  of  Mr.  Tyler — 
the  loss  of  his  leading  measures — the  criminal 
catastrophe  of  the  national  bank  for  which  he 
had  so  often  pledged  himself — and  the  insolent 
attacks  of  the  petty  adherents  of  the  adminis- 
tration in  the  two  Houses,  (too  annoying  for 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


399 


his  equanimity,  and  too  contemptible  for  his 
reply) :  all  these  causes  of  disgust,  acting  upon 
a  proud  and  lofty  spirit,  induced  this  with- 
drawal from  a  splendid  theatre  for  which,  it 
was  evident,  he  had  not  yet  lost  his  taste.  The 
address  opened  with  a  retrospect  of  his  early 
entrance  into  the  Senate,  and  a  grand  encomium 
upon  its  powers  and  dignity  as  he  had  found  it, 
and  left  it.  Memory  went  back  to  that  early 
year,  1806,  when  just  arrived  at  senatorial  age, 
he  entered  the  American  Senate,  and  commenced 
his  high  career — a  wide  and  luminous  horizon 
before  him,  and  will  and  talent  to  fill  it.  After 
some  little  exordium,  he  proceeded : 

"  And  now,  allow  me,  Mr.  President,  to  an- 
nounce, formally  and  officially,  my  retirement 
from  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  to 
present  the  last  motion  which  I  shall  ever  make 
within  this  body ;  but,  before  making  that  mo- 
tion, I  trust  I  shall  be  pardoned  for  availing 
myself  of  this  occasion  to  make  a  few  observa- 
tions. At  the  time  of  my  entry  into  this  body, 
which  took  place  in  December,  1806, 1  regarded 
it,  and  still  regard  it,  as  a  body  which  may  be 
compared,  without  disadvantage,  to  any  of  a 
similar  character  which  has  existed  in  ancient 
or  modern  times ;  whether  we  look  at  it  in  re- 
ference to  its  dignity,  its  powers,  or  the  mode  of 
its  constitution ;  and  I  will  also  add,  whether 
it  be  regarded  in  reference  to  the  amount  of 
ability  which  I  shall  leave  behind  me  when  I 
retire  from  this  chamber.  In  instituting  a  com- 
parison between  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
and  similar  political  institutions,  of  other  coun- 
tries, of  France  and  England,  for  example,  he 
was  sure  the  comparison  might  be  made  with- 
out disadvantage  to  the  American  Senate.  In 
respect  to  the  constitution  of  these  bodies :  in 
England,  with  only  the  exception  of  the  peers 
from  Ireland  and  Scotland,  and  in  France  with 
no  exception,  the  component  parts,  the  members 
of  these  bodies,  hold  their  places  by  virtue  of  no 
delegated  authority,  but  derive  their  powers 
from  the  crown,  either  by  ancient  creation  of 
nobility  transmitted  by  force  of  hereditary  de- 
scent, or  by  new  patents  as  occasion  required  an 
increase  of  their  numbers.  But  here,  Mr.  Pre- 
sident, we  have  the  proud  title  of  being  the 
representatives  of  sovereign  States  or  common- 
wealths. If  we  look  at  the  powers  of  these 
bodies  in  France  and  England,  and  the  powers 
of  this  Senate,  we  shall  find  that  the  latter  are 
far  greater  than  the  former.  In  both  those 
countries  they  have  the  legislative  power,  in 
both  the  judicial  with  some  modifications,  and 
in  both  perhaps  a  more  extensive  judicial  power 
than  is  possessed  by  this  Senate ;  but  then  the 
vast  and  undefined  and  undefinable  power,  the 
treaty-making  power,  or  at  least  a  participation 
in  the  conclusions  of  treaties  with  foreign 
powers,  is  possessed  by  this  Senate,  and  is  pos- 


sessed by  neither  of  the  others.  Another 
power,  too,  and  one  of  infinite  magnitude,  that 
of  distributing  the  patronage  of  a  great  nation, 
which  is  shared  by  this  Senate  with  the  exe- 
cutive magistrate.  In  both  these  respects  we 
stand  upon  ground  different  from  that  occupied 
by  the  Houses  of  Peers  of  England  and  of  France. 
And  I  repeat,  that  with  respect  to  the  dignity 
which  ordinarily  prevails  in  this  body,  and  with 
respect  to  the  ability  of  its  members  during  the 
long  period  of  my  acquaintance  with  it,  without 
arrogance  or  presumption,  we  may  say,  in  pro- 
portion to  its  numbers,  the  comparison  would 
not  be  disadvantageous  to  us  compared  with 
any  Senate  either  of  ancient  or  modern  times." 

He  then  gave  the  date  of  the  period  at  which 
he  had  formed  the  design  to  retire,  and  the 
motive  for  it — the  date  referring  to  the  late 
presidential  election,  and  the  motive  to  find  re- 
pose in  the  bosom  of  his  family. 

"  Sir,  I  have  long — full  of  attraction  as  public 
service  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  is — a 
service  which  might  fill  the  aspirations  of  the 
most  ambitious  heart — I  have  nevertheless  long 
desired  to  seek  that  repose  which  is  only  to  be 
found  in  the  bosom  of  one's  family — in  private 
life — in  one's  home.  It  was  my  purpose  to  have 
terminated  my  senatorial  career  in  November, 
1840,  after  the  conclusion  of  the  political  strug- 
gle which  characterized  that  year." 

The  termination  of  the  presidential  election  in 
November,  was  the  period  at  which  Mr.  Clay  in- 
tended to  retire :  the  determination  was  formed 
before  that  time — formed  from  the  moment  that 
he  found  himself  superseded  at  the  head  of  his 
party  by  a  process  of  intricate  and  trackless  fil- 
tration of  public  opinion  which  left  himself  a  dreg 
where  he  had  been  for  so  many  years  the  head. 
It  was  a  mistake,  the  effect  of  calculation,  which 
ended  more  disastrously  for  the  party  than  for 
himself.  Mr.  Clay  could  have  been  elected  at 
that  time.  The  same  power  which  elected  Gen- 
eral Harrison  could  have  elected  him.  The 
banks  enabled  the  party  to  do  it.  In  a  state  of 
suspension,  they  could  furnish,  without  detri- 
ment to  themselves,  the  funds  for  the  campaign. 
Affecting  to  be  ruined  by  the  government,  they 
could  create  distress:  and  thus  act  upon  the 
community  with  the  double  battery  of  terror 
and  seduction.  Lending  all  their  energies  and 
resources  to  a  political  party,  they  elected  Gene- 
ral Harrison  in  a  hurrah  !  and  could  have  done 
the  same  by  Mr.  Clay.  With  him  the  election 
would  have  been  a  reality— a  victory  bearing 
fruit:  with  General  Harrison  and  Mr.  Tyler- 
through  Providence  with  one,  and  defection  in 


400 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  other — the  triumph,  achieved  at  so  great  ex- 
pense, became  ashes  in  the  mouths  of  the  victors. 
He  then  gave  his  reasons  for  not  resigning,  as 
he  had  intended,  at  the  termination  of  the  elec- 
tion :  it  was  the  hope  of  carrying  his  measures 
at  the  extra  session,  which  he  foresaw  was  to 
take  place. 

"  But  I  learned  very  soon,  what  my  own  re- 
flections indeed  prompted  me  to  suppose  would 
take  place,  that  there  would  be  an  extra  session; 
and  being  desirous,  prior  to  my  retirement,  to 
co-operate  with  my  friends  in  the  Senate  in  re- 
storing, by  the  adoption  of  measures  best  calcu- 
lated to  accomplish  that  purpose,  that  degree  of 
prosperity  to  the  country,  which  had  been,  for  a 
time,  destroyed,  I  determined  upon  attending 
the  extra  session,  which  was  called,  as  was  well 
known,  by  the  lamented  Harrison.  His  death, 
and  the  succession  which  took  place  in  conse- 
quence of  it,  produced  a  new  aspect  in  the  aifairs 
of  the  country.  Had  he  lived,  I  do  not  enter- 
tain a  particle  of  doubt  that  those  measures 
which,  it  was  hoped,  might  be  accomplished  at 
that  session,  would  have  been  consummated  by 
a  candid  co-operation  between  the  executive 
branch  of  the  government  and  Congress ;  and, 
sir,  allow  me  to  say  (and  it  is  only  with  respect 
to  the  extra  session),  that  I  believe  if  there  be 
any  one  free  from  party  feelings,  and  free  from 
bias  and  from  prejudice,  who  will  look  at  its 
transactions  in  a  spirit  of  candor  and  of  justice, 
but  must  come  to  the  conclusion  to  which,  I 
think,  the  country  generally  will  come,  that  if 
there  be  any  thing  to  complain  of  in  connection 
with  that  session,  it  is  not  as  to  what  was  done 
and  concluded,  but  as  to  that  which  was  left  un- 
finished and  unaccomplished." 

Disappointed  in  his  expectations  from  the  ex- 
tra session,  by  means  which  he  did  not  feel  it  ne- 
cessary to  recapitulate,  Mr.  Clay  proceeds  to  give 
the  reasons  why  he  still  deferred  his  proposed 
resignation,  and  appeared  in  the  Senate  again  at 
its  ensuing  regular  session. 

"  After  the  termination  of  that  session,  had 
Harrison  lived,  and  had  the  measures  which  it 
appeared  to  me  it  was  desirable  to  have  accom- 
plished, been  carried,  it  was  my  intention  to 
have  retired ;  but  I  reconsidered  that  determina- 
tion, with  the  vain  hope  that,  at  the  regular  ses- 
sion of  Congress,  what  had  been  unaccomplished 
at  the  extra  session,  might  then  be  effected, 
either  upon  the  terms  proposed  or  in  some  man- 
ner which  would  be  equivalent.  But  events 
were  announced  after  the  extra  session — events 
resulting,  I  believe,  in  the  failure  to  accomplish 
certain  objects  at  the  extra  session — events 
which  seemed  to  throw  upon  our  friends  every 
where  present  defeat — this  hope,  and  the  occur- 
rence of  these  events,  induced  me  to  attend  the 
regular  session,  and  whether  in  adversity  or  in 


prosperity,  to  share  in  the  fortunes  of  my 
friends.  But  I  came  here  with  the  purpose^ 
which  I  am  now  about  to  effectuate,  of  retiring 
as  soon  as  I  thought  I  could  retire  with  pro- 
priety and  decency,  from  the  public  councils." 

Events  after  the  extra  session,  as  well  as  the 
events  of  the  session,  determined  him  to  return 
to  the  regular  one.  He  does  not  say  what  those 
subsequent  events  were.  They  were  principally 
two — the  formation  of  a  new  cabinet  wholly 
hostile  to  him,  and  the  attempt  of  Messrs. 
Tyler,  Webster  and  Cushing  to  take  the  whig 
party  from  him.  The  hostility  of  the  cabinet 
was  nothing  to  him  personally ;  but  it  indicated 
a  fixed  design  to  thwart  him  on  the  part  of  the 
President,  and  augured  an  indisposition  to  pro- 
mote any  of  his  measures.  This  augury  was 
fulfilled  as  soon  as  Congress  met.  The  admin- 
istration came  forward  with  a  plan  of  a  govern- 
ment bank,  to  issue  a  national  currency  of  gov- 
ernment paper — a  thing  which  he  despised  as 
much  as  the  democracy  did  ;  and  which,  howso- 
ever impossible  to  succeed  itself,  was  quite 
sufficient,  by  the  diversion  it  created,  to  mar 
the  success  of  any  plan  for  a  national  bank. 
Instead  of  carrying  new  measures,  it  became 
clear  that  he  was  to  lose  many  already  adopted. 
The  bankrupt  act,  though  forced  upon  him,  had 
become  one  of  his  measures;  and  that  was 
visibly  doomed  to  repeal.  The  distribution  of 
the  land  revenue  had  become  a  political  mon- 
strosity in  the  midst  of  loans,  taxes  and  treasury 
notes  resorted  to  to  supply  its  loss :  and  the 
public  mind  was  in  revolt  against  it.  The  com- 
promise act  of  1833,  for  which  he  was  so  much 
lauded  at  the  time,  and  the  paternity  of  which 
he  had  so  much  contested  at  the  time,  had  run  its 
career  of  folly  and  delusion — had  left  the  Trea- 
sury without  revenue,  and  the  manufacturers 
without  protection ;  and,  crippled  at  the  extra 
session,  it  was  bound  to  die  at  this  regular  one 
— and  that  in  defiance  of  the  mutual  assurance 
for  continued  existence  put  into  the  land  bill ; 
and  which,  so  far  from  being  able  to  assure  the 
life  of  another  bill,  was  becoming  unable  to  save 
its  own.  Losing  his  own  measures,  he  saw 
those  becoming  established  which  he  had  most 
labored  to  oppose.  The  specie  circular  was  tak- 
ing effect  of  itself,  from  the  abundance  of  gold 
and  the  baseness  of  paper.  The  divorce  of  Bank 
and  State  was  becoming  absolute,  from  the  de- 
linquency of  the  banks.  There  was  no  prospect 
ahead  either  to  carry  new  measures,  or  to  save 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


401 


old  ones,  or  to  oppose  the  hated  ones.  All  was 
gloomy  ahead.  The  only  drop  of  consolation 
which  sweetened  the  cup  of  so  much  bitterness 
was  the  failure  of  his  enemies  to  take  the  whig 
party  from  him.  That  parricidal  design  (for 
these  enemies  owed  their  elevation  to  him)  ex- 
ploded in  its  formation — aborted  in  its  concep- 
tion ;  and  left  those  to  abjure  whiggism,  and  fly 
from  its  touch,  who  had  lately  combined  to  con- 
solidate Congress,  President  and  people  into  one 
solid  whig  mass.  With  this  comfort  he  determin- 
ed to  carry  into  effect  his  determination  to  resign, 
although  it  was  not  yet  the  middle  of  the  ses- 
sion, and  that  all-important  business  was  still 
on  the  anvil  of  legislation — to  say  nothing  of  the 
general  diplomatic  settlement,  to  embrace  ques- 
tions from  the  peace  of  1783,  which  it  was  then 
known  Great  Britain  was  sending  out  a  special 
mission  to  effect.  But,  to  proceed  with  the  va- 
ledictory. Having  got  to  the  point  at  which 
he  was  to  retire,  the  veteran  orator  naturally 
threw  a  look  back  upon  his  past  public  course. 

"  From  the  year  1806,  the  period  of  my  enter- 
ing upon  this  noble  theatre  of  my  public  service, 
with  but  short  intervals,  down  to  the  present 
time,  I  have  been  engaged  in  the  service  of  my 
country.  Of  the  nature  and  value  of  those  ser- 
vices which  I  may  have  rendered  during  my 
long  career  of  public  life,  it  does  not  become  me 
to  speak.  History,  if  she  deigns  to  notice  me, 
and  posterity — if  a  recollection  of  any  humble 
service  which  I  may  have  rendered  shall  be 
transmitted  to  posterity  —  will  be  the  best, 
truest,  and  most  impartial  judges ;  and  to  them 
I  defer  for  a  decision  upon  their  value.  But, 
upon  one  subject,  I  may  be  allowed  to  speak. 
As  to  my  public  acts  and  public  conduct,  they 
are  subjects  for  the  judgment  of  my  fellow-citi- 
zens ;  but  my  private  motives  of  action — that 
which  prompted  me  to  take  the  part  which  I 
may  have  done,  upon  great  measures  during 
their  progress  in  the  national  councils,  can  be 
known  only  to  the  Great  Searcher  of  the  human 
heart  and  myself;  and  I  trust  I  shall  be  par- 
doned for  repeating  again  a  declaration  which  I 
made  thirty  years  ago :  that  whatever  error  I 
may  have  committed — and  doubtless  I  have 
committed  many  during  my  public  service — I 
may  appeal  to  the  Divine  Searcher  of  hearts  for 
the  truth  of  the  declaration  which  I  now  make, 
with  pride  and  confidence,  that  I  have  been 
actuated  by  no  personal  motives — that  I  have 
sought  no  personal  aggrandizement — no  promo- 
tion from  the  advocacy  of  those  various  meas- 
ures on  which  I  have  been  called  to  act — that  I 
have  had  an  eye,  a  single  eye,  a  heart,  a  single 
heart,  ever  devoted  to  what  appeared  to  be  the 
best  interests  of  the  country." 

Vol.  II.— 26 


With  this  retrospection  of  his  own  course 
was  readily  associated  the  recollection  of  the 
friends  who  had  supported  him  in  his  long  and 
eventful,  and  sometimes,  stormy  career. 

"  But  I  have  not  been  unsustained  during  this 
long  course  of  public  service.  Every  where  on 
this  widespread  continent  have  I  enjoyed  the 
benefit  of  possessing  warm-hearted,  and  en- 
thusiastic, and  devoted  friends  —  friends  who 
knew  me,  and  appreciated  justly  the  motives  by 
which  I  have  been  actuated.  To  them,  if  I  had 
language  to  make  suitable  acknowledgments,  I 
would  now  take  leave  to  present  them,  as  being 
all  the  offering  that  I  can  make  for  their  long 
continued,  persevering  and  devoted  friendship." 

These  were  general  thanks  to  the  whole  body 
of  his  friends,  and  to  the  whole  extent  of  his 
country ;  but  there  were  special  thanks  due  to 
nearer  friends,  and  the  home  State,  which  had 
then  stood  by  him  for  forty-five  years  (and 
which  still  stood  by  him  ten  years  more,  and 
until  death),  and  fervidly  and  impressively  he 
acknowledged  this  domestic  debt  of  gratitude 
and  affection. 

"  But,  sir,  if  I  have  a  difficulty  in  giving  ut- 
terance to  an  expression  of  the  feelings  of  grati- 
tude which  fill  my  heart  towards  my  friends, 
dispersed  throughout  this  continent,  what  shall 
I  say — what  can  I  say — at  all  commensurate 
with  my  feelings  of  gratitude  towards  that  State 
whose  humble  servitor  I  am  1  I  migrated  to  the 
State  of  Kentucky  nearly  forty-five  years  ago.  I 
went  there  as  an  orphan,  who  had  not  yet  at- 
tained his  majority — who  had  never  recognized 
a  father's  smile — poor,  penniless,  without  the 
favor  of  the  great — with  an  imperfect  and  inade- 
quate education,  limited  to  the  means  applica- 
ble to  such  a  boy  ; — but  scarcely  had  I  set  foot 
upon  that  generous  soil,  before  I  was  caressed 
with  parental  fondness — patronized  with  boun- 
tiful munificence — and  I  may  add  to  this,  that 
her  choicest  honors,  often  unsolicited,  have  been 
freely  showered  upon  me ;  and  when  I  stood,  as 
it  were,  in  the  darkest  moments  of  human  ex- 
istence— abandoned  by  the  world,  calumniated 
by  a  large  portion  of  my  own  countrymen,  she 
threw  around  me  her  impenetrable  shield,  and 
bore  me  aloft,  and  repelled  the  attacks  of  ma- 
lignity and  calumny,  by  which  I  was  assailed. 
Sir,  it  is  to  me  an  unspeakable  pleasure  that  I 
am  shortly  to  return  to  her  friendly  limits; 
and  that  I  shall  finally  deposit  (and  it  will  not 
be  long  before  that  day  arrives)  my  last  remains 
under  her  generous  soil,  with  the  remains  of  her 
gallant  and  patriotic  sons  who  have  preceded  me." 

After  this  grateful  overflow  of  feelings  to 
faithful  friends  and  country,  came  some  notice 
of  foes,  whom  he  might  forgive,  but  not  forget.. 


402 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"  Yet,  sir,  during  this  long  period,  I  have  not 
escaped  the  fate  of  other  public  men,  in  this  and 
other  countries.  I  have  been  often,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, the  object  of  bitter  and  unmeasured  de- 
traction and  calumny.  I  have  borne  it,  I  will 
not  say  always  with  composure,  but  I  have 
borne  it  without  creating  any  disturbance.  I 
have  borne  it,  waiting  in  unshaken  and  un- 
doubting  confidence,  that  the  triumphs  of  truth 
and  justice  would  ultimately  prevail ;  and  that 
time  would  settle  all  things  as  they  ought  to  be 
settled.  I  have  borne  them  under  the  convic- 
tion, of  which  no  injustice,  no  wrong,  no  injury 
could  deprive  me,  that  I  did  not  deserve  them, 
and  that  He  to  whom  we  are  all  to  be  finally 
and  ultimately  responsible,  would  acquit  me, 
whatever  injustice  I  might  experience  at  the 
hands  of  my  fellow-men." 

This  was  a  general  reference  to  the  attacks 
and  misrepresentations  with  which,  in  common 
with  all  eminent  public  men  of  decided  charac- 
ter, he  had  been  assailed ;  but  there  was  a  re- 
cent and  offensive  imputation  upon  him  which 
galled  him  exceedingly — as  much  so  for  the 
source  from  which  it  came  as  for  the  offence 
itself:  it  was  the  imputation  of  the  dictator- 
ship, lavished  upon  him  during  the  extra  ses- 
sion ;  and  having  its  origin  with  Mr.  Tyler  and 
his  friends.  This  stung  him,  coming  from  that 
source — Mr.  Tyler  having  attained  his  highest 
honors  through  his  friendship :  elected  senator 
by  his  friends  over  Mr.  Randolph,  and  taken 
up  for  Vice-President  in  the  whig  convention 
(whereby  he  became  both  the  second  and  the 
first  magistrate  of  the  republic)  on  account  of 
the  excessive  affection  which  he  displayed  for 
Mr.  Clay.  To  this  recent,  and  most  offensive 
imputation,  he  replied  specially : 

"  Mr.  President,  a  recent  epithet  (I  do  not 
know  whether  for  the  purpose  of  honor  or  of 
degradation)  has  been  applied  to  me ;  and  I 
have  been  held  up  to  the  country  as  a  dictator  ! 
Dictator  !  The  idea  of  dictatorship  is  drawn 
from  Roman  institutions ;  and  there,  when  it 
was  created,  the  person  who  was  invested  with 
this  tremendous  authority,  concentrated  in  his 
own  person  the  whole  power  of  the  state.  He 
exercised  unlimited  control  over  the  property 
and  lives  of  the  citizens  of  the  commonwealth. 
He  had  the  power  of  raising  armies,  and  of  rais- 
ing revenue  by  taxing  the  people.  If  I  have 
been  a  dictator,  what  have  been  the  powers 
with  which  I  have  been  clothed  ?  Have  I  pos- 
sessed an  army,  a  navy,  revenue  ?  Have  I  had 
the  distribution  of  the  patronage  of  the  govern- 
ment 1  Have  I,  in  short,  possessed  any  power 
whatever?  Sir,  if  I  have  been  a  dictator,  I 
think  those  who  apply  the  epithet  to  me  must 
at  least  admit  two  things :   in  the  first  place, 


that  my  dictatorship  has  been  distinguished  by 
no  cruel  executions,  stained  by  no  deeds  of 
blood,  soiled  by  no  act  of  dishonor.  And  they 
must  no  less  acknowledge,  in  the  second  place 
(though  I  do  not  know  when  its  commencement 
bears  date,  but  I  suppose,  however,  that  it  is  in- 
tended to  be  averred,  from  the  commencement 
of  the  extra  session),  that  if  I  have  been  invest- 
ed with,  or  have  usurped  the  dictatorship,  I 
have  at  least  voluntarily  surrendered  the  power 
within  a  shorter  period  than  was  assigned  by 
the  Roman  laws  for  its  continuance." 

Mr.  Clay  led  a  great  party,  and  for  a  long 
time,  whether  he  dictated  to  it  or  not,  and  kept 
it  well  bound  together,  without  the  usual 
means  of  forming  and  leading  parties.  It  was 
a  marvel  that,  without  power  and  patronage 
(for  the  greater  part  of  his  career  was  passed  in 
opposition  as  a  mere  member  of  Congress),  he 
was  able  so  long  and  so  undividedly  to  keep  so 
great  a  party  together,  and  lead  it  so  unresist- 
ingly. The  marvel  was  solved  on  a  close  in- 
spection of  his  character.  He  had  great  talents, 
but  not  equal  to  some  whom  he  led.  He  had 
eloquence — superior  in  popular  effect,  but  not 
equal  in  high  oratory  to  that  of  some  others. 
But  his  temperament  was  fervid,  his  will  strong, 
and  his  courage  daring;  and  these  qualities, 
added  to  his  talents,  gave  him  the  lead  and  su- 
premacy in  his  party — where  he  was  always 
dominant,  but  twice  set  aside  by  the  politicians. 
It  was  a  galling  thing  to  the  President  Tyler, 
with  all  the  power  and  patronage  of  office,  to 
see  himself  without  a  party,  and  a  mere  opposi- 
tion member  at  the  head  of  a  great  one — the 
solid  body  of  the  whigs  standing  firm  around 
Mr.  Clay,  while  only  some  flankers  and  fol- 
lowers came  to  him  ;  and  they  importunate  for 
reward  until  they  got  it.  Dictatorship  was  a 
natural  expression  of  resentment  under  such 
circumstances ;  and  accordingly  it  was  applied 
— and  lavishly — and  in  all  places :  in  the  Sen- 
ate, in  the  House,  in  the  public  press,  in  con- 
versation, and  in  the  manifesto  which  Mr.  Cush- 
ing  put  out  to  detach  the  whigs  from  him.  But 
they  all  forgot  to  tell  that  this  imputed  dictator- 
ship at  the  extra  session,  took  place  after  the 
defection  of  Mr.  Tyler  from  the  whig  party,  and 
as  a  consequence  of  that  defection — some  leader 
being  necessary  to  keep  the  party  together 
after  losing  the  two  chiefs  they  had  elected — 
one  lost  by  Providence,  the  other  by  treachery. 
This  account  settled,  he  turned  to  a  more  genial 
topic — that  of  friendship ;  and  to  make  atone- 
ment, reconciliation  and  peace  with  all  the  sen- 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


403 


ators,  and  they  were  not  a  few,  with  whom  he 
had  had  some  rough  encounters  in  the  fierce 
debate.  Unaffectedly  acknowledging  some  im- 
perfection of  temper,  he  implored  forgiveness 
from  all  whom  he  had  ever  offended,  and  ex- 
tended the  hand  of  friendship  to  every  brother 
member. 

"  Mr.  President,  that  my  nature  is  warm,  my 
temper  ardent,  my  disposition  in  the  public  ser- 
vice enthusiastic,  I  am  ready  to  own.  But 
those  who  suppose  they  may  have  seen  any 
proof  of  dictation  in  my  conduct,  have  only 
mistaken  that  ardor  for  what  I  at  least  sup- 
posed to  be  patriotic  exertions  for  fulfilling  the 
wishes  and  expectations  by  which  I  hold  this 
seat ;  they  have  only  mistaken  the  one  for  the 
other.  Mr.  President,  during  my  long  and  ar- 
duous services  in  the  public  councils,  and  espe- 
cially during  the  last  eleven  years,  in  the  Sen- 
ate, the  same  ardor  of  temperament  has  charac- 
terized my  actions,  and  has  no  doubt  led  me,  in 
the  heat  of  debate,  in  endeavoring  to  maintain 
my  opinions  in  reference  to  the  best  course  to 
be  pursued  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs,  to 
use  language  offensive,  and  susceptible  of  un- 
gracious interpretation,  towards  my  brother 
senators.  If  there  be  any  who  entertain  a  feel- 
ing of  dissatisfaction  resulting  from  any  circum- 
stance of  this  kind,  I  beg  to  assure  them  that  I 
now  make  the  amplest  apology.  And,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  assure  the  Senate,  one  and  all, 
without  exception  and  without  reserve,  that  I 
leave  the  Senate  chamber  without  carrying 
with  me  to  my  retirement  a  single  feeling  of 
dissatisfaction  towards  the  Senate  itself  or  any 
one  of  its  members.  I  go  from  it  under  the 
hope  that  we  shall  mutually  consign  to  per- 
petual oblivion  whatever  of  personal  animosities 
or  jealousies  may  have  arisen  between  us  dur- 
ing the  repeated  collisions  of  mind  with  mind." 

This  moving  appeal  was  strongly  responded 
to  in  spontaneous  advances  at  the  proper  time 
— deferred  for  a  moment  by  a  glowing  and  mer- 
ited tribute  to  his  successor  (Mr.  Crittenden), 
and  his  own  solemn  farewell  to  the  Senate. 

"  And  now,  allow  me  to  submit  the  motion 
which  is  the  object  that  induced  me  to  arise 
upon  this  occasion.  It  is  to  present  the  cre- 
dentials of  my  friend  and  successor,  who  is 
present  to  take  my  place.  If,  Mr.  President, 
any  void  could  be  created  by  my  withdrawal 
from  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  it  will 
be  filled  to  overflowing  by  my  worthy  succes- 
sor, whose  urbanity,  gallant  bearing,  steady 
adherence  to  principle,  rare  and  uncommon 
powers  of  debate,  are  well  known  already  in 
advance  to  the  whole  Senate.  I  move  that  the 
credentials  be  received,  and  at  the  proper  mo- 
ment that  the  oath  required  be  administered. 
And  now,  in  retiring  as  I  am  about  to  do  from 
the  Senate,  1  beg  leave  to  deposit  with  it  my 


fervent  wishes,  that  all  the  great  and  patriotic 
objects  for  which  it  was  instituted,  may  be  ac- 
complished— that  the  destiny  designed  for  it  by 
the  framers  of  the  constitution  may  be  fulfilled 
— that  the  deliberations,  now  and  hereafter,  in 
which  it  may  engage  for  the  good  of  our  com- 
mon country,  may  eventuate  in  the  restoration 
of  its  prosperity,  and  in  the  preservation  and 
maintenance  of  her  honor  abroad,  and  her  best 
interests  at  home.  I  retire  from  you,  Mr.  Pre- 
sident, I  know,  at  a  period  of  infinite  distress 
and  embarrassment.  I  wish  I  could  have  taken 
leave  of  the  public  councils  under  more  favor- 
able auspices  :  but  without  meaning  to  say  at 
this  time,  upon  whom  reproaches  should  fall  on 
account  of  that  unfortunate  condition,  I  think  I 
may  appeal  to  the  Senate  and  to  the  country 
for  the  truth  of  what  I  say,  when  I  declare  that 
at  least  no  blame  on  account  of  these  embar- 
rassments and  distresses  can  justly  rest  at  my 
door.  May  the  blessings  of  Heaven  rest  upon 
the  heads  of  the  whole  Senate,  and  every  mem- 
ber of  it ;  and  may  every  member  of  it  advance 
still  more  in  fame,  and  when  they  shall  retire 
to  the  bosoms  of  their  respective  constituencies, 
may  they  all  meet  there  that  most  joyous  and 
grateful  of  all  human  rewards,  the  exclamation 
of  their  countrymen,  '  well  done,  thou  good  and 
faithful  servant.'  Mr.  President,  and  Mes- 
sieurs Senators,  I  bid  you,  one  and  all,  a  long, 
a  last,  a  friendly  farewell." 

Mr.  Preston  concluded  the  ceremony  by  a 
motion  to  adjourn.  He  said  he  had  well  ob- 
served from  the  deep  sensation  which  had  been 
sympathetically  manifested,  that  there  could  be 
but  little  inclination  to  go  on  with  business  in 
the  Senate,  and  that  he  could  not  help  partici- 
pating in  the  feeling  which  he  was  sure  univer- 
sally prevailed,  that  something  was  due  to  the 
occasion.  The  resignation  which  had  just  taken 
place  was  an  epoch  in  the  annals  of  the  country. 
It  would  undoubtedly  be  so  considered  in  his- 
tory. And  he  did  not  know  that  he  could  bet- 
ter consult  the  feelings  of  the  Senate  than  by 
moving  an  adjournment :  which  motion  was 
made  and  agreed  to.  Senators,  and  especially 
those  who  had  had  their  hot  words  with  the 
retiring  statesman,  now  released  from  official 
restraint,  went  up,  and  made  return  of  all  the 
kind  expressions  which  had  been  addressed  to 
them.  But  the  valedictory,  though  well  per- 
formed, did  not  escape  the  criticism  of  senators, 
as  being  out  of  keeping  with  the  usages  of  the 
body.  It  was  the  first  occasion  of  the  kind ; 
and,  thus  far,  has  been  the  last ;  and  it  might 
not  be  recommendable  for  any  one,  except 
another  Henry  Clay— if  another  should  ever 
appear— to  attempt  its  imitation. 


404 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER    XCVI. 

MILITARY  DEPARTMENT :  PROGRESS  OF  ITS  EX- 
PENSE. 

There  is  no  part  of  the  working  of  the  govern- 
ment, at  which  that  part  of  the  citizens  who 
live  upon  their  own  industry  should  look  more 
closely,  than  into  its  expenditures.  The  pro- 
gress of  expense  in  every  branch  of  the  public 
service  should  be  their  constant  care ;  and  for 
that  purpose  retrospective  views  are  necessary, 
and  comparisons  between  different  periods. 
A  preceding  chapter  has  given  some  view  of 
this  progress  and  comparison  in  the  Navy  De- 
partment :  the  present  one  will  make  the  same 
retrospect  with  respect  to  the  army,  and  on  the 
same  principles — that  of  taking  the  aggregate 
expense  of  the  department,  and  then  seeing  the 
effective  force  produced,  and  the  detailed  cost  of 
such  force.  Such  comparative  view  was  well 
brought  up  by  Mr.  Calhoun  for  a  period  of 
twenty  years— 1822  to  1842 — in  the  debate  on 
the  naval  appropriations ;  and  it  furnishes  in- 
structive data  for  this  examination.     He  said  : 

"  I  shall  now  pass  to  the  military,  with  which 
I  am  more  familiar.  I  propose  to  confine  my  re- 
marks almost  entirely  to  the  army  proper,  in- 
cluding the  Military  Academy,  in  reference  to 
which  the  information  is  more  full  and  minute. 
I  exclude  the  expenses  incident  to  the  Florida 
war,  and  the  expenditures  for  the  ordnance,  the 
engineer,  the  topographical,  the  Indian,  and  the 
pension  bureaus.  Instead  of  1823,  for  which 
there  is  no  official  and  exact  statement  of  the 
expenses  of  the  army,  I  shall  take  1821,  for 
which  there  is  one  made  by  myself,  as  Secretary 
of  War,  and  for  the  minute  correctness  of  which, 
I  can  vouch.  It  is  contained  in  a  report  made 
under  a  call  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  comprises  a  comparative  statement  of  the 
expenses  of  the  army  proper,  for  the  years  1818, 
'19,  '20,  and  '21,  respectively,  and  an  estimate 
of  the  expense  of  1823.  It  may  be  proper  to 
add,  which  I  can  with  confidence,  that  the  com- 
parative expense  of  1823,  if  it  could  be  ascer- 
tained, would  be  found  to  be  not  less  favorable 
than  1821.  It  would  probably  be  something 
more  so. 

"With  these  remarks,  I  shall  begin  with  a 
comparison,  in  the  first  place,  between  1821  and 
the  estimate  for  the  army  proper  for  this  year. 
The  average  aggregate  strength  of  the  army  in 
the  year  1821,  including  officers,  professors,  ca- 


dets, and  soldiers,  was  8,109,  and  the  proportion 
of  officers,  including  the  professors  of  the  Mili- 
tary Academy,  to  the  soldiers,  including  cadets, 
was  1  to  12  18-100,  and  the  expenditure  $2,180,- 
093  53,  equal  to  $263  91  for  each  individual. 
The  estimate  for  the  army  proper  for  1842,  in- 
cluding the  Military  Academy,  is  $4,453,370  16. 
The  actual  strength  of  the  army,  according  to 
the  return  accompanying  the  message  at  the 
opening  of  the  session,  was  11,169.  Assuming 
this  to  be  the  average  strength  for  this  year,  and 
adding  for  the  average  number  of  the  Academy, 
professors  and  cadets,  300,  it  will  give  within  a 
very  small  fraction  $390  for  each  individual, 
making  a  difference  of  $136  in  favor  of  1821. 
How  far  the  increase  of  <pay,  and  the  additional 
expense  of  two  regiments  of  dragoons,  compared 
to  other  descriptions  of  troops,  would  justify 
this  increase,  I  am  not  prepared  to  say.  In 
other  respects,  I  should  suppose,  there  ought 
to  be  a  decrease  rather  than  an  increase,  as  the 
prices  of  clothing,  provisions,  forage,  and  other 
articles  of  supply,  as  well  as  transportation,  are, 
I  presume,  cheaper  than  in  1821.  The  propor- 
tion of  officers  to  solders  I  would  suppose  to  be 
less  in  1842,  than  in  1821,  and  of  course,  as  far 
as  that  has  influence,  the  expense  of  the  former 
ought  to  be  less  per  man  than  the  latter.  With 
this  brief  and  imperfect  comparison  between  the 
expense  of  1821  and  the  estimates  for  this  year, 
I  shall  proceed  to  a  more  minute  and  full  com- 
parison between  the  former  and  the  year  1837. 
I  select  that  year,  because  the  strength  of  the 
army,  and  the  proportion  of  officers  to  men  (a 
very  material  point  as  it  relates  to  the  expendi- 
ture) are  almost  exactly  the  same. 

"  On  turning  to  document  165  (H.  R.,  2d  sess., 
26th  Con.),  a  letter  will  be  found  from  the  then 
Secretary  of  War  (Mr.  Poinsett)  giving  a  com- 
parative statement,  in  detail,  of  the  expense  of 
the  army  proper,  including  the  Military  Acad- 
emy, for  the  years  1837,  '38,  '39  and  '40.  The 
strength  of  the  army  for  the  first  of  these  years, 
including  officers,  professors,  cadets,  and  soldiers, 
was  8,107,  being  two  less  than  in  1821.  The 
proportion  of  officers  and  professors,  to  the  ca- 
dets and  soldiers,  11  46-100,  being  72-100  more 
than  1821.  The  expenditure  for  1837,  $3,308,- 
011,  being  $1,127,918  more  than  1821.  The 
cost  per  man,  including  officers,  professors,  ca- 
dets, and  soldiers,  was  in  1837  $408,03,  exceed- 
ing that  of  1821  by  $144  12  per  man.  It  appears 
by  the  letter  of  the  Secretary,  that  the  expense 
per  man  rose  in  1838  to  $464  35  ;  but  it  is  due 
to  the  head  of  the  department,  at  the  time,  to 
say,  that  it  declined  under  his  administration, 
the  next  year,  to  $381  65 ;  and  in  the  subse- 
quent, to  $380  63.  There  is  no  statement  for 
the  year  1841 ;  but  as  there  has  been  a  falling 
off  in  prices,  there  ought  to  be  a  proportionate 
reduction  in  the  cost,  especially  during  the 
present  year,  when  there  is  a  prospect  of  so 
great  a  decline  in  almost  every  article  which 
enters  into  the  consumption  of  the  army.     As- 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


405 


suming  that  the  average  strength  of  the  army 
will  be  kept  equal  to  the  return  accompanying 
the  President's  message,  and  that  the  expendi- 
ture of  the  year  should  be  reduced  to  the  stand- 
ard of  1821,  the  expense  of  the  army  would  not 
exceed  $2,895,686,  making  a  difference,  com- 
pared with  the  estimates,  of  $1,557,684;  but 
that,  from  the  increase  of  pay,  and  the  greater 
expense  of  the  dragoons,  cannot  be  expected. 
Having  no  certain  information  how  much  the 
expenses  are  necessarily  increased  from  those 
causes,  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  what  ought  to 
be  the  actual  reductions ;  but,  unless  the  increase 
of  pay,  and  the  increased  cost  because  of  the 
dragoons  are  very  great,  it  ought  to  be  very 
considerable. 

"  I  found  the  expense  of  the  army  in  1818,  in- 
cluding the  Military  Academy,  to  be  $3,702,495, 
at  a  cost  of  $451  57  per  man,  including  officers, 
professors,  cadets,  and  soldiers,  and  reduced  it 
in  1821  to  $2,180,098,  at  a  cost  of  $263  91 ;  and 
making  a  difference  between  the  two  years,  in  the 
aggregate  expenses  of  the  army,  of  $1,522,397, 
and  $185  66  per  man.  There  was,  it  is  true,  a 
great  fall  in  prices  in  the  interval ;  but  allowing 
for  that,  by  adding  to  the  price  of  every  article 
entering  into  the  supplies  of  the  army,  a  sum 
sufficient  to  raise  it  to  the  price  of  1818,  there 
was  still  a  difference  in  the  cost  per  man  of 
$163  95.  This  great  reduction  was  effected 
without  stinting  the  service  or  diminishing  the 
supplies,  either  in  quantity  or  quality.  They 
were,  on  the  contrary,  increased  in  both,  espe- 
cially the  latter.  It  was  effected  through  an 
efficient  organization  of  the  staff,  and  the  co- 
operation of  the  able  officers  placed  at  the  head 
of  each  of  its  divisions.  The  cause  of  the  great 
expense  at  the  former  period,  was  found  to  be 
principally  in  the  neglect  of  public  property,  and 
the  application  of  it  to  uses  not  warranted  by 
law.  There  is  less  scope,  doubtless,  for  refor- 
mation in  the  army  now.  I  cannot  doubt,  how- 
ever, but  that  the  universal  extravagance  which 
pervaded  the  country  for  so  many  years,  and 
which  increased  so  greatly  the  expenses  both 
of  government  and  individuals,  has  left  much 
room  for  reform  in  this,  as  well  as  other  branches 
of  the  service." 

This  is  an  instructive  period  at  which  to  look. 
In  the  year  1821,  when  Mr.  Calhoun  was  Secre- 
tary at  War,  the  cost  of  each  man  in  the  mili- 
tary service  (officers  and  cadets  included)  was, 
in  round  numbers,  264  dollars  per  man  :  in  the 
year  1839,  when  Mr.  Poinsett  was  Secretary, 
and  the  Florida  war  on  hand,  the  cost  per  man 
was  380  dollars  :  in  the  year  1842,  the  second 
year  of  Mr.  Tyler's  administration,  the  Florida 
war  still  continuing,  it  was  390  dollars  per  man  : 
now,  in  1855,  it  is  about  1,000  dollars  a  man. 
Thus,  the  cost  of  each  man  in  the  army  has  in- 
creased near  three  fold  in  the  short  space  of 


about  one  dozen  years.  The  same  result  will 
be  shown  by  taking  the  view  of  these  increased 
expenses  in  a  different  form — that  of  aggregates 
of  men  and  of  cost.  Thus,  the  aggregate  of 
the  army  in  1821  was  8,109  men,  and  the  ex- 
pense was  $2,180,093 :  in  1839  the  aggregate 
of  the  army  was  about  8,000  men — the  cost 
$3,308,000:  in  1842  the  return  of  the  army 
was  11,169 — the  appropriation  asked  for,  and 
obtained  $4,453,370.  Now,  1854,  the  aggregate 
of  the  army  is  10,342 — the  appropriations  ten 
millions  and  three  quarters  !  that  is  to  say, 
with  nearly  one  thousand  men  less  than  in 
1842,  the  cost  is  upwards  of  six  millions  more. 
Such  is  the  progress  of  waste  and  extravagance 
in  the  army — fully  keeping  up  with  that  in  the 
navy. 

In  a  debate  upon  retrenchment  at  this  ses- 
sion, Mr.  Adams  proposed  to  apply  the  pruning 
knife  at  the  right  place — the  army  and  navy : 
he  did  not  include  the  civil  and  diplomatic, 
which  gave  no  sign  at  that  time  of  attaining 
its  present  enormous  proportions,  and  confined 
himself  to  the  naval  and  military  expenditure. 
After  ridiculing  the  picayune  attempts  at  re- 
trenchment by  piddling  at  stationery  and  tape, 
and  messengers'  pay,  he  pointed  to  the  army 
and  navy  ;  and  said : 

"  There  you  may  retrench  millions  !  in  the 
expenses  of  Congress,  you  retrench  picayunes. 
You  never  will  retrench  for  the  benefit  of  the 
people  of  this  country,  till  you  retrench  the 
army  and  navy  twenty  millions.  And  yet  he 
had  heard  of  bringing  down  the  expenditures 
of  the  government  to  twenty  millions.  Was 
this  great  retrenchment  to  be  effected  by  cutting 
off  the  paper  of  members,  by  reducing  the  num- 
ber of  pages,  and  cutting  down  the  salaries  of 
the  door-keepers?  How  much  could  be  re- 
trenched in  that  way  ?  If  there  was  to  be  any 
real  retrenchment,  it  must  be  in  the  army  and 
navy.  A  sincere  and  honest  determination  to 
reduce  the  expenses  of  the  government,  was  the 
spirit  of  a  very  large  portion  of  the  two  parties 
in  the  House ;  and  that  was  a  spirit  in  which 
the  democracy  had  more  merit  than  the  other 
party.  Ho  came  here  as  an  humble  follower  of 
those  who  went  for  retrenchment ;  and,  so  help 
him  God,  so  long  as  he  kept  his  seat  here,  he 
would  continue  to  urge  retrenchment  in  the 
expenditures  of  the  military  and  naval  force. 
Well,  what  was  the  corresponding  action  of  the 
Executive  on  this  subject?  It  was  a  recom- 
mendation to  increase  the  expenditures  both  for 
the  army  and  navy.  They  had  estimates  from 
the  War  and  Navy  Departments  of  twenty  mil- 
lions.    The  additions  proposed  to  the  armed 


406 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


force,  as  he  observed  yesterday,  fifteen  millions 
would  not  provide  for.  Where  was  the  spirit 
of  retrenchment  on  the  part  of  the  Executive, 
which  Congress  had  a  right  to  expect  ?  How 
had  he  met  the  spirit  manifested  by  Congress 
for  retrenchment  of  the  expenditures  of  the 
government  ?  By  words — words — and  nothing 
else  but  words." 

A  retrenchment,  to  be  effectual,  requires  the 
President  to  take  the  lead,  as  Mr.  Jefferson  did 
at  the  commencement  of  his  administration. 
A  solitary  member,  or  even  several  members 
acting  together,  could  do  but  little :  but  they 
should  not  on  that  account  forbear  to  "cry 
aloud  and  spare  notP  Their  voice  may  wake 
up  the  people,  and  lead  to  the  election  of  a 
President  who  will  be  on  the  side  of  republican 
economy,  instead  of  royal  extravagance.  This 
writer  is  not  certain  that  20  millions,  on  these 
two  heads,  could  have  been  retrenched  at  the 
time  Mr.  Adams  spoke ;  but  he  is  sure  of  it 
now. 


CHAPTER    XCVII. 

PAPER  MONEY  PAYMENTS:  ATTEMPTED  BY  THE 
FEDERAL  GOYEKNMENT:  KESISTED:  ME.  BEN- 
TON'S SPEECH. 

The  long  continued  struggle  between  paper 
money  and  gold  was  now  verging  to  a  crisis. 
The  gold  bill,  rectifying  the  erroneous  valuation 
of  that  metal,  had  passed  in  1834  :  an  influx  of 
gold  coin  followed.  In  seven  years  the  specie 
currency  had  gone  up  from  twenty  millions  to 
one  hundred.  There  was  five  times  as  much 
specie  in  the  country  as  there  was  in  1832, 
when  the  currency  was  boasted  to  be  solid 
under  the  regulation  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States.  There  was  as  much  as  the  current 
business  of  the  country  and  of  the  federal  gov- 
ernment could  use :  for  these  100  millions,  if 
allowed  to  circulate  and  to  pass  from  hand  to 
hand,  in  every  ten  hands  that  they  passed 
through,  would  do  the  business  of  one  thou- 
sand millions.  Still  the  administration  was 
persistent  in  its  attempts  to  obtain  a  paper 
money  currency :  and  the  national  bank  having 
failed,  and  all  the  efforts  to  get  up  paper  money 
machines  (under  the  names  of  fiscal  agent, 
fiscal  corporation,  and  exchequer  board)  hav- 


ing proved  abortive,  recourse  was  had  to  trea 
sury  notes,  with  the  quality  of  re-issuability  at- 
tached to  them.  Previous  issues  had  been  upon 
the  footing  of  any  other  promissory  note :  when 
once  paid  at  the  treasury,  it  was  extinguished 
and  cancelled.  Now  they  were  made  re-issu- 
able,  like  common  bank  notes ;  and  a  limited 
issue  of  five  millions  of  dollars  became  unlimited 
from  its  faculty  of  successive  emission.  The 
new  administration  converted  these  notes  into 
currency,  to  be  offered  to  the  creditors  of  the 
government  in  the  proportion  of  two-thirds 
paper,  and  one-third  specie  ;  and,  from  the 
difficulty  of  making  head  against  the  govern- 
ment, the  mass  of  the  creditors  were  constrain- 
ed to  take  their  dues  in  this  compound  of  paper 
and  specie.  Mr.  Benton  determined  to  resist 
it,  and  to  make  a  case  for  the  consideration  and 
judgment  of  Congress  and  the  country,  with  the 
view  of  exposing  a  forced  unconstitutional  ten- 
der, and  inciting  the  country  to  a  general  resist- 
ance. For  this  purpose  he  had  a  check  drawn 
for  a  few  days'  compensation  as  senator,  and 
placed  it  in  the  hands  of  a  messenger  for  collec- 
tion, inscribed,  "  the  hard,  or  a  protest."  The 
hard  was  not  delivered :  the  protest  followed : 
and  Mr.  Benton  then  brought  the  case  before 
the  Senate,  and  the  people,  in  a  way  which  ap- 
pears thus  in  the  register  of  the  Congress  de- 
bates (and  which  were  sufficient  for  their  ob- 
jects as  the  forced  tender  of  the  paper  money 
was  immediately  stopped) : 

Mr.  Benton  rose  to  offer  a  resolution,  and  to 
precede  it  with  some  remarks,  bottomed  upon  a 
paper  which  he  held  in  his  hand,  and  which  he 
would  read.     He  then  read  as  follows  : 

[COMPENSATION  NO.  149.] 

Office  of  Secketaby  of  the  Senate  of  the  U.  S.  A. 
Washington,  31st  January,  1842. 

Cashier  of  the  Bank  of  Washington, 

Pay  to  Hon.  Thomas  H.  Benton,  or  order, 
one  hundred  and  forty-two  dollars. 
$142        (Signed)     Asbury  Dickens, 

Secretary  of  the  Senate. 
(Endorsed).      ^~  "  The  hard,  or  a  protest. 
"  Thomas  H.  Benton." 

Disteict  of  Columbia, 

Washington  County,  Set : 

Be  it  known,  That  on  the  thirty-first  day  of 
January,  1842, 1,  George  Sweeny,  Notary  Pub- 
lic, by  lawful  authority  duly  commissioned  and 
sworn,  dwelling  in  the  County  and  District 
aforesaid,  at  the  request  of  the  honorable 
Thomas  H.  Benton,  presented  at  the  bank  of 
Washington,  the  original  check  whereof  the 


ANNO  1842.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


407 


above  is  a  true  copy,  and  demanded  there  pay- 
ment of  the  sum  of  money  in  the  said  check 
specified,  whereunto  the  cashier  of  said  bank 
answered  :  "  The  whole  amount  cannot  be  paid 
in  specie,  as  treasury  notes  alone  have  been  de- 
posited here  to  meet  the  Secretary  of  the  Sen- 
ate's checks  ;  but  I  am  ready  to  pay  this  check 
in  one  treasury  note  for  one  hundred  dollars, 
bearing  six  per  cent,  interest,  and  the  residue 
in  specie." 

Therefore  I,  the  said  notary,  at  the  request 
aforesaid,  have  protested,  and  by  these  presents 
do  solemnly  protest,  against  the  drawer  and 
endorser  of  this  said  check,  and  all  others  whom 
it  doth  or  may  concern,  for  all  costs,  exchange, 
or  re-exchange,  charges,  damages,  and  interests, 
suffered  and  to  be  suffered  for  want  of  pay- 
ment thereof. 

In  testimony  whereof,  I  have  hereunto 

r        ,     set  my   hand  and  affixed  my  Seal 

lbEALJ     Notarial,    this   first   day   of  Febru- 
ary, 1842. 

George  Sweeny, 
Notary  Public. 

Protesting,  $1  75. 

Eecorded  in  Protest  Book,  G.  S.  No.  4,  page  315. 

Mr.  B.  said  this  paper  explained  itself.  It 
was  a  check  and  a  protest.  The  check  was 
headed  "  compensation."  and  was  drawn  by 
the  Secretary  of  the  Senate  for  so  much  pay  due 
to  him  (Mr.  B.)  for  his  per  diem  attendance  in 
Congress.  It  had  been  presented  at  the  proper 
place  for  payment,  and  it  would  be  seen  by  the 
protest  that  payment  was  refused,  unless  he 
(Mr.  B.)  would  consent  to  receive  two-thirds 
paper  and  about  one-third  specie.  He  objected 
to  this,  and  endorsed  upon  the  check,  as  an  in- 
struction to  the  messenger  who  carried  it,  these 
words :  "  The  hard,  or  a  protest."  Under  in- 
structions the  protest  came,  and  with  it  nota- 
rial fees  to  the  amount  of  $1,75,  which  were 
paid  in  the  hard.  Mr.  B.  said  this  was  what 
had  happened  to  himself,  here  at  the  seat  of 
government ;  and  he  presumed  the  same  thing 
was  happening  to  others,  and  all  over  the  Union. 
He  presumed  the  time  had  arrived  when  paper 
money  payments,  and  forced  tenders  of  treasury 
notes,  were  to  be  universal,  and  when  every 
citizen  would  have  to  decide  for  himself  whether 
he  would  submit  to  the  imposition  upon  his 
rights,  and  to  the  outrage  upon  the  Constitution, 
which  such  a  state  of  things  involved.  Some 
might  not  be  in  a  situation  to  submit.  Necessity, 
stronger  than  any  law,  might  compel  many  to 
submit ;  but  there  were  others  who  were  in  a 
situation  to  resist ;  and,  though  attended  with 


some  loss  and  inconvenience,  it  was  their  duty 
to  do  so.  Tyranny  must  be  resisted  ;  oppres- 
sion must  be  resisted ;  violation  of  the  Consti- 
tution must  be  resisted;  folly  or  wickedness 
must  be  resisted ;  otherwise  there  is  an  end  of 
law,  of  liberty,  and  of  right.  The  government 
becomes  omnipotent,  and  rides  and  rules  over  a 
prostrate  country,  as  it  pleases.  Resistance 
to  the  tyranny  or  folly  of  a  government  be- 
comes a  sacred  duty,  which  somebody  must 
perform,  and  the  performance  of  which  is  al- 
ways disagreeable,  and  sometimes  expensive 
and  hazardous.  Mr.  Hampden  resisted  the 
payment  of  ship  money  in  England :  and  his 
resistance  cost  him  money,  time,  labor,  losses 
of  every  kind,  and  eventually  the  loss  of  his 
life.  His  share  of  the  ship  money  was  only 
twenty  shillings,  and  a  suggestion  of  self-in- 
terest would  have  required  him  to  submit  to 
the  imposition,  and  put  up  with  the  injury. 
But  a  feeling  of  patriotism  prompted  him  to  re- 
sist for  others,  not  for  himself— to  resist  for  the 
benefit  of  those  who  could  not  resist  for  them- 
selves ;  and,  above  all,  to  resist  for  the  sake  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  country,  trampled  under 
foot  by  a  weak  king  and  a  profligate  minister. 
Mr.  Hampden  resisted  the  payment  of  ship 
money  to  save  the  people  of  England  from  op- 
pression, and  the  constitution  from  violation. 
Some  person  must  resist  the  payment  of  paper 
money  here,  to  save  the  people  from  oppression, 
and  the  Constitution  from  violation ;  and  if  per- 
sons in  station,  and  at  the  seat  of  government 
will  not  do  it,  who  shall  ?  Sir,  resistance  must 
be  made ;  the  safety  of  the  country,  and  of  the 
Constitution  demands  it.  It  must  be  made  here : 
for  here  is  the  source  and  presence  of  the 
tyranny.  It  must  be  made  by  some  one  in  sta- 
tion :  for  the  voice  of  those  in  private  life  could 
not  be  heard.  Some  one  must  resist,  and  for 
want  of  a  more  suitable  person,  I  find  my- 
self under  the  necessity  of  doing  it — and  I  do  it 
with  the  less  reluctance  because  it  is  in  my  lino, 
as  a  hard-money  man ;  and  because  I  do  not  deem 
it  quite  as  dangerous  to  resist  our  paper  money 
administration  as  Hampden  found  it  to  resist 
Charles  the  First  and  the  Duke  of  Buckingham. 
There  is  no  dispute  about  the  fact,  and  the 
case  which  I  present  is  neither  a  first  one,  nor 
a  solitary  one.  The  whig  administration,  in  the 
first  year  of  its  existence,  is  without  money, 
and  without  credit,  and  with  no  other  means  of 


408 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


keeping  up  but  by  forced  payments  of  paper 
money,  which  it  strikes  from  day  to  day  to  force 
into  the  hands,  and  to  stop  the  mouths  of  its 
importunate  creditors.  This  is  its  condition ; 
and  it  is  the  natural  result  of  the  folly  which 
threw  away  the  land  revenue — which  repealed 
the  hard  money  clause  of  the  independent  treas- 
ury— which  repealed  the  prohibition  against  the 
use  of  small  notes  by  the  federal  government — 
which  has  made  war  upon  gold,  and  protected 
paper — and  which  now  demands  the  establish- 
ment of  a  national  manufactory  of  paper  money 
for  the  general  and  permanent  use  of  the  federal 
government.  Its  present  condition  is  the  natu- 
ral result  of  these  measures ;  and  bad  as  it  is, 
it  must  be  far  worse  if  the  people  do  not  soon 
compel  a  return  to  the  hard  money  and  economy 
of  the  democratic  administrations.  This  ad- 
ministration came  into  power  upon  a  promise  to 
carry  on  the  government  upon  thirteen  millions 
per  annum ;  the  first  year  is  not  jret  out ;  it  has 
already  had  a  revenue  of  twenty  odd  millions,  a 
loan  bill  for  twelve  millions,  a  tax  bill  for  eight 
or  ten  millions,  a  treasury  note  bill  for  five  mil- 
lions :  and  with  all  this,  it  declares  a  deficit,  and 
shows  its  insolvency,  by  denying  money  to  its 
creditors,  and  forcing  them  to  receive  paper,  or 
to  go  without  pay.  In  a  season  of  profound 
peace,  and  in  the  first  year  of  the  whig  admin- 
istration, this  is  the  condition  of  the  country ! 
a  condition  which  must  fill  the  bosom  of  every 
friend  to  our  form  of  government  with  grief  and 
shame. 

Sir,  a  war  upon  the  currency  of  the  constitu- 
tion has  been  going  on  for  many  years ;  and  the 
heroes  of  that  war  are  now  in  power.  They 
have  ridiculed  gold,  and  persecuted  it  in  every 
way,  and  exhausted  their  wits  in  sarcasms  upon 
it  and  its  friends.  The  humbug  gold  bill  was 
their  favorite  phrase  ;  and  among  other  exhibi- 
tions in  contempt  of  this  bill  and  its  authors, 
were  a  couple  of  public  displays — one  in  May, 
1837,  the  other  in  the  autumn  of  1840— at  Wheel- 
ing, in  Virginia,  by  two  gentlemen  (Mr.  Tyler  and 
Mr.  Webster),  now  high  functionaries  in  this 
government,  in  which  empty  purses  were  held 
up  to  the  contemplation  of  the  crowd,  in  derision 
of  the  gold  bill  and  its  authors.  Sir,  that  bill 
was  passed  in  June,  1834 ;  and  from  that  day 
down  to  a  few  weeks  ago,  we  were  paid  in  gold. 
Every  one  of  us  had  gold  that  chose  it.  Now 
the  scene  is  reversed.     Gold  is  gone  ;  paper  has 


come.  Forced  payments,  and  forced  tenders  of 
paper,  is  the  law  of  the  whig  administration ! 
and  empty  purses  may  now  be  held  up  with 
truth,  and  with  sorrow,  as  the  emblem  both  of 
the  administration  and  its  creditors. 

The  cause  of  this  disgraceful  state  of  things, 
Mr.  B.  said,  he  would  not  further  investigate  at 
present.  The  remedy  was  the  point  now  to  be 
attended  to.  The  government  creditor  was  suf- 
fering j  the  constitution  was  bleeding ;  the  cha- 
racter of  the  country  was  sinking  into  disgrace ; 
and  it  was  the  duty  of  Congress  to  apply  a 
remedy  to  so  many  disasters.  He,  Mr.  B.,  saw 
the  remedy ;  but  he  had  not  the  power  to  apply 
it.  The  power  was  in  other  hands  ;  and  to  them 
he  would  wish  to  commit  the  inquiry  which  the 
present  condition  of  things  imperiously  required 
of  Congress  to  make. 

Mr.  B.  said  here  was  a  forced  payment  of  pa- 
per money — a  forced  tender  of  paper  money — 
and  forced  loans  from  the  citizens.  The  loan  to 
be  forced  out  of  him  was  $100,  at  6  per  cent. ; 
but  he  had  not  the  money  to  lend,  and  should 
resist  the  loan.  Those  who  have  money  will 
not  lend  it,  and  wisely  refuse  to  lend  it  to  an 
administration  which  throws  away  its  rich  pearl 
— tho  land  revenue.  The  senator  from  North 
Carolina  [Mr.  Mangum]  proposes  a  reduction  of 
the  pay  of  the  members  by  way  of  relief  to  the 
Treasury,  but  Mr.  B.  had  no  notion  of  submit- 
ting to  it :  he  had  no  notion  of  submitting  to  a 
deduction  of  his  pay  to  enable  an  administration 
to  riot  in  extravagance,  and  to  expend  in  a  sin- 
gle illegal  commission  in  New  York  (the  Poin- 
dexter  custom  house  inquisition),  more  than 
the  whole  proposed  saving  from  the  members' 
pay  would  amount  to.  He  had  no  notion  T5f 
submitting  to  such  curtailments,  and  would  pre- 
fer the  true  remedy,  that  of  restoring  the  land 
revenue  to  its  proper  destination ;  and  also  re- 
storing economy,  democracy,  and  hard  money  to 
power. 

Mr.  Benton  then  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tion, which  was  adopted : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Committee  on  Finance 
be  instructed  to  inquire  into  the  nature  of  the 
payments  now  made,  or  offered  to  be  made,  by 
the  federal  government  to  its  creditors.  Whe- 
ther the  same  are  made  in  hard  money  or  in  pa- 
per money  1  Whether  the  creditors  have  their 
option  ?  Whether  the  government  paper  is  at 
a  discount  1  And  what  remedy,  if  any,  is  neces- 
sary to  enable  the  government  to  keep  its  faith 


ANNO  1842.     JOKN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


409 


with  its  creditors,  so  as  to  save  them  from  loss, 
the  Constitution  from  violation,  and  the  country 
from  disgrace  ?  " 


CHAPTER  XCVIII. 

CASE  OF  THE  AMERICAN  BRIG  CREOLE,  WITH 
SLAVES  FOR  NEW  ORLEANS,  CARRIED  BY 
MUTINY  INTO  NASSAU,  AND  THE  SLAVES 
LIBERATED. 

At  this  time  took  place  one  of  those  liberations 
of  slaves  in  voyages  between  our  own  ports,  of 
which  there  had  already  been  four  instances; 
but  no  one  under  circumstances  of  such  crime 
and  outrage.  Mutiny,  piracy,  and  bloodshed 
accompanied  this  fifth  instance  of  slaves  libe- 
rated by  British  authorities  while  on  the  voy- 
age from  one  American  port  to  another.  The 
brig  Creole,  of  Richmond,  Virginia,  had  sailed 
from  Norfolk  for  New  Orleans,  among  other  cargo, 
having  135  slaves  on  board.  When  out  a  week, 
and  near  the  Bahama  Islands,  a  mutiny  broke 
out  among  the  slaves,  or  rather  nineteen  of 
them,  in  the  night,  manifesting  itself  instantly 
and  unexpectedly  upon  the  officers  and  crew  of 
the  brig,  and  the  passengers.  The  mutineers, 
armed  with  knives  and  handspikes,  rushed  to 
the  cabin,  where  the  officers  not  on  duty,  the 
wife  and  children  of  the  captain,  and  passengers 
were  asleep.  They  were  knocked  down,  stab- 
bed and  killed,  except  as  they  could  save  them- 
selves in  the  dark.  In  a  few  minutes  the  muti- 
neers were  masters  of  the  vessel,  and  proceeded 
to  arrange  things  according  to  their  mind.  All 
the  slaves  except  the  19  were  confined  in  the 
hold,  and  great  apprehensions  entertained  of 
them,  as  they  had  refused  to  join  in  the  mutiny, 
many  of  them  weeping  and  praying — some  en- 
deavoring to  save  their  masters,  and  others  hid- 
ing to  save  themselves.  The  living,  among  the 
officers,  crew  and  passengers  were  hunted  up, 
and  their  lives  spared  to  work  the  ship.  They 
first  demanded  that  they  should  be  carried  to 
Liberia — a  design  which  was  relinquished  upon 
representations  that  there  was  not  water  and 
provisions  for  a  quarter  of  the  voyage.  They 
then  demanded  to  go  to  a  British  island,  and 
placing  the  muzzle  of  a  musket  against  the 
breast  of  the  severely  wounded  captain,  menaced 
him  with  instant  death  if  he  did  not  comply 


with  their  demand.  Of  course  he  complied,  and 
steered  for  Nassau,  in  the  island  of  Providence. 
The  lives  of  his  wife  and  children  were  spared ; 
and  they,  with  other  surviving  whites,  were  or- 
dered into  the  forward  hold.  Masters  of  the 
ship,  the  19  mutineers  took  possession  of  the 
cabin — ate  there — and  had  their  consultations 
in  that  place.  All  the  other  slaves  were  rigor- 
ously confined  in  the  hold,  and  fears  expressed 
that  they  would  rise  on  the  mutineers.  Not 
one  joined  them.  The  affidavits  of  the  master 
and  crew  taken  at  Nassau,  say : 

"  None  but  the  19  went  into  the  cabin.  They 
ate  in  the  cabin,  and  others  ate  on  deck  as  they 
had  done  the  whole  voyage.  The  19  were  fre- 
quently closely  engaged  in  secret  conversation, 
but  the  others  took  no  part  in  it,  and  appeared 
not  to  share  in  their  confidence.  The  others 
were  quiet  and  did  not  associate  with  the  muti- 
neers. The  only  words  that  passed  between  the 
others  and  the  19,  were  when  the  others  asked 
them  for  water  or  (/rub,  or  somethiDg  of  the 
kind.  The  others  were  kept  under  as  much  as 
the  whites  were.  The  19  drank  liquor  in  the 
cabin  and  invited  the  whites  to  join  them,  but 
not  the  other  negroes.  Madison,  the  ring-leader, 
gave  orders  that  the  cooking  for  all  but  the  19 
should  be  as  it  was  before,  and  appointed  the 
same  cook  for  them.  The  nineteen  said  that  all 
they  had  done  was  for  their  freedom.  The 
others  said  nothing  about  it.  They  were  much 
afraid  of  the  nineteen.  They  remained  forward 
of  the  mainmast.  The  nineteen  took  possession 
of  the  after  part  of  the  brig,  and  stayed  there 
the  whole  time  or  were  on  watch.  The  only 
knives  found  after  the  affray,  were  two  sheath 
knives  belonging  to  the  sailors.  The  captain's 
bowie  knife  and  the  jack  knife.  None  of  the 
other  negroes  had  any  other  knives.  Madison 
sometimes  had  the  bowie  knife,  and  sometimes 
Ben  had  it.  No  other  negro  was  seen  with  that 
knife.  On  Monday  afternoon  Madison  got  the 
pistol  from  one  of  the  nineteen,  and  said  he  did 
not  wish  them  to  have  any  arms  when  they 
reached  Nassau.  The  nineteen  paraded  the 
deck  armed,  while  the  other  negroes  behaved 
precisely  as  they  had  done  before  the  mutiny. 
About  10  o'clock,  p.  m.,  on  the  8th  day  of  No- 
vember, 1841,  they  made  the  light  of  Abaco. 
Ben  had  the  gun.  About  10  o'clock  p.  m.  he 
fired  at  Stevens,  who  came  on  deck  as  already 
stated.  Merritt  and  Gifford  (officers  of  the 
vessel)  alternately  kept  watch.  Ben,  Madison, 
Ruffin  and  Morris  (four  principal  mutineers) 
kept  watch  by  turns,  the  whole  time  up  to  their 
arrival  at  Nassau,  with  knives  drawn.  So  close 
was  the  watch,  that  it  was  impossible  to  rescue 
the  brig.  Neither  passengers,  officers  or  sailors 
were  allowed  to  communicate  with  each  other. 
The  sailors  performed  their  usual  duties." 


410 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Arrived  at  Nassau,  a  pilot  came  on  board — 
all  the  men  in  his  boat  being  negroes.  He  and 
his  men  on  coming  on  board,  mingled  with  the 
slaves,  and  told  them  they  were  free  men — that 
they  should  go  on  shore,  and  never  be  carried 
away  from  there.  The  regular  quarantine  officer 
then  came  on  board,  to  whom  Gifford,  first 
mate  of  the  vessel,  related  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  mutiny.  Going  ashore  with  the  quaran- 
tine officer,  Gifford  related  all  the  same  circum- 
stances to  the  Governor  of  the  island,  and  to 
the  American  Consul  at  Nassau.  The  consul, 
in  behalf  of  the  vessel  and  all  interested,  re- 
quested that  a  guard  should  be  sent  on  board 
to  protect  the  vessel  and  cargo,  and  keep  the 
slaves  on  board  until  it  could  be  known  what 
was  to  be  done.  The  Governor  did  so — sending 
a  guard  of  twenty-four  negro  soldiers  in  British 
uniform,  with  loaded  muskets  and  fixed  bayo- 
nets.    The  affidavits  then  say  : 

"  From  Tuesday  the  10th,  till  Friday  the  12th 
day  of  November,  they  tied  Ben  Blacksmith, 
Addison,  Ruffin,  and  Morris,  put  them  in  the 
long  boat,  placed  a  sentry  over  them,  and  fed 
them  there.  They  mingled  with  the  negroes, 
and  told  the  women  they  were  free,  and  per- 
suaded them  to  remain  in  the  island.  Capt. 
Fitzgerald,  commanding  the  company,  told  many 
of  the  slaves  owned  by  Thomas  McCargo,  in 
presence  of  many  other  of  the  slaves,  how  fool- 
ish they  were,  that  they  had  not,  when  they 
rose,  killed  all  the  whites  on  board,  and  run  the 
vessel  ashore,  and  then  they  would  have  been 
free,  and  there  would  have  been  no  more  trouble 
about  it.  This  was  on  Wednesday.  Every  day 
the  officers  and  soldiers  were  changed  at  9 
o'clock,  a.m.  There  are  500  regular  soldiers 
on  the  island,  divided  into  four  equal  companies, 
commanded  by  four  officers,  called  captains. 
There  was  a  regular  sentry  stationed  every 
night,  and  they  put  all  the  men  slaves  below, 
except  the  four  which  were  tied,  and  placed  a 
guard  over  the  hatchway.  They  put  them  in  the 
hold  at  sunset,  and  let  them  out  at  sunrise.  There 
were  apparently  from  twelve  to  thirteen  thou- 
sand negroes  in  the  town  of  Nassau  and  vicinity, 
and  about  three  or  four  thousand  whites." 


The  next  day  the  Queen's  attorney-general  for 
this  part  of  her  West  Indian  possessions,  came 
on  board  the  brig,  attended  by  three  magistrates 
and  the  United  States  consul,  and  took  the  de- 
positions of  all  the  white  persons  on  board  in 
relation  to  the  mutiny.  That  being  done,  the 
attorney-general  placed  the  19  mutineers  in  the 
custody  of  the  captain  and  his  guard  of  24  negro 


soldiers,  and  ordered  them  upon  the  quarter- 
deck.    The  affidavits  then  continue  : 

"  There  were  about  fifty  boats  lying  round 
the  brig,  all  filled  with  men  from  the  shore, 
armed  with  clubs,  and  subject  to  the  order  of 
the  attorney-general,  and  awaiting  a  signal  from 
one  of  the  civil  magistrates  ;  a  sloop  was  towed 
from  the  shore  by  some  of  our  boats,  and  an- 
chored near  the  brig — this  sloop  was  also  filled 
with  men  armed  with  clubs  ;  all  the  men  in  the 
boats  were  negroes.  The  fleet  of  boats  was 
under  the  immediate  command  of  the  pilot  who 
piloted  the  brig  into  the  harbor.  This  pilot, 
partly  before  the  signal  was  given  by  one  of  the 
magistrates,  said  that  he  wished  they  would  get 
through  the  business  j  that  they  had  their  time 
and  he  wanted  his. 

"The  attorney-general  here  stepped  on  the 
quarter-deck,  and  addressing  himself  to  all  the 
persons  except  the  nineteen  who  were  in  cus- 
tody, said,  '  My  friends,  you  have  been  detained 
a  short  time  on  board  the  Creole  for  the  pur- 
pose of  ascertaining  the  individuals  who  were 
concerned  in  this  mutiny  and  murder.  They 
have  been  identified,  and  will  be  detained,  and 
the  rest  of  you  are  free,  and  at  liberty  to  go  on 
shore,  and  wherever  you  please.'  Then  ad- 
dressing the  prisoners  he  said :  '  Men,  there  are 
nineteen  of  you  who  have  been  identified  as  hav- 
ing been  engaged  in  the  murder  of  Mr.  Hewell, 
and  in  an  attempt  to  kill  the  captain  and  others. 
You  will  be  detained  and  lodged  in  prison  for 
a  time,  in  order  that  we  may  communicate  with 
the  English  government,  and  ascertain  whether 
your  trial  shall  take  place  here  or  elsewhere.' 
At  this  time  Mr.  Gifford,  the  mate  of  the  vessel, 
then  in  command,  the  captain  being  on  shore, 
under  the  care  of  a  physician,  addressed  the  at- 
torney-general in  the  presence  of  the  magis- 
trates, protested  against  the  boats  being  per- 
mitted to  come  alongside  of  the  vessel,  or  that 
the  negroes  other  than  the  mutineers  should  be 
put  on  shore.  The  attorney-general  replied  that 
Mr.  Gifford  had  better  make  no  objection,  but 
let  them  go  quietly  on  shore,  for  if  he  did,  there 
might  be  bloodshed.  At  this  moment  one  of 
the  magistrates  ordered  Mr.  Merritt,  Mr.  McCar- 
go, and  the  other  passengers,  to  look  to  their 
money  and  effects,  as  he  apprehended  that  the 
cabin  of  the  Creole  would  be  sacked  and  robbed. 
"  The  attorney-general  with  one  of  the  magis- 
trates, stepped  into  his  boat  and  withdrew  into 
the  stream,  a  short  distance  from  the  brig,  when 
they  stopped.  A  magistrate  on  the  deck  of  the 
Creole  gave  the  signal  for  the  boats  to  approach 
instantly.  With  a  hurrah  and  a  shout,  a  fleet 
of  boats  came  alongside  of  the  brig,  and  the 
magistrates  directed  the  men  to  remain  on  board 
of  their  own  boats,  and  commanded  the  slaves 
to  leave  the  brig  and  go  on  board  the  boats. 
They  obeyed  his  orders,  and  passing  from  the 
Creole  into  the  boats,  were  assisted,  many  of 
them,  by  this  magistrate.    During  this  proceed- 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


411 


ing,  the  soldiers  and  officers  -were  on  the  quar- 
ter deck  of  the  Creole,  armed  with  loaded  mus- 
kets and  bayonets  fixed,  and  the  attorney-gene- 
ral with  one  of  the  magistrates  in  his  boat,  lay 
at  a  convenient  distance,  looking  on.  After  the 
negroes  had  embarked  in  the  boats,  the  attor- 
ney-general and  magistrate  pushed  out  their 
boat,  and  mingled  with  the  fleet,  congratulating 
the  slaves  on  their  escape,  and  shaking  hands 
with  them.  Three  cheers  were  then  given,  and 
the  boats  went  to  the  shore,  where  thousands 
were  waiting  to  receive  them." 

The  19  mutineers  were  then  taken  on  shore, 
and  lodged  in  prison,  while  many  of  the  slaves — 
the  greater  part  of  them — who  were  proclaimed 
to  be  liberated,  begged  to  be  allowed  to  proceed 
with  their  masters  to  New  Orleans,  but  were 
silenced  by  threats,  and  the  captain  told  that 
his  vessel  should  be  forfeited  if  he  attempted  to 
carry  any  of  them  away.  Only  four,  by  hiding 
themselves,  succeeded  in  getting  off  with  their 
masters.  The  next  day  a  proceeding  took  place 
in  relation  to  what  was  called  "  the  baggage  of 
the  passengers  j"  which  is  thus  stated  in  the 
affidavits : 

"On  Monday  following  these  events,  being 
the  15th  day  of  November,  the  attorney-general 
wrote  a  letter  to  Captain  Ensor,  informing  him 
that  the  passengers  of  the  Creole,  as  he  called 
the  slaves,  had  applied  to  him  for  assistance  in 
obtaining  their  baggage  which  was  still  on  board 
the  brig,  and  that  he  should  assist  them  in  get- 
ting it  on  shore.  To  this  letter,  Gifford,  the 
officer  in  command  of  the  vessel,  replied  that 
there  was  no  baggage  on  board  belonging  to  the 
slaves  that  he  was  aware  of,  as  he  considered 
them  cargo,  and  the  property  of  their  owners, 
and  that  if  they  had  left  any  thing  on  board  the 
brig,  it  was  the  property  also  of  their  masters  ; 
and  besides  he  could  not  land  any  thing  without 
a  permit  from  the  custom  house,  and  an  order 
from  the  American  consul.  The  attorney-gen- 
eral immediately  got  a  permit  from  the  custom- 
house, but  no  order  from  the  American  consul, 
and  put  an  officer  of  the  customs  on  board  the 
brig,  and  demanded  the  delivery  of  the  baggage 
of  the  slaves  aforesaid  to  be  landed  in  the  brig's 
boat.  The  master  of  the  Creole,  not  feeling 
himself  at  liberty  to  refuse,  permitted  the  officer 
with  his  men  to  come  on  board  and  take  such 
baggage  and  property  as  they  chose  to  consider 
as  belonging  to  the  slaves.  They  went  into  the 
hold  of  the  vessel,  and  took  all  the  wearing  ap- 
parel, blankets,  and  other  articles,  as  also  one 
bale  of  blankets,  belonging  to  Mr.  Lockett,  which 
had  not  been  opened.  These  things  were  put 
on  board  of  the  boat  of  the  officer  of  the  customs, 
and  carried  on  shore." 

The  officers  of  the  American  brig  earnestly 


demanded  that  the  mutineers  should  be  left  with 
them  to  be  carried  into  a  port  of  the  United 
States  to  be  tried  for  their  mutiny  and  murder ; 
but  this  demand  was  positively  refused — the 
attorney-general  saying  that  they  would  take 
the  orders  of  the  British  government  as  to  the 
place.  This  was  tantamount  to  an  acquittal, 
and  even  justification  of  all  they  had  done,  as 
according  to  the  British  judicial  decisions  a  slave 
has  a  right  to  kill  his  master  to  obtain  his  free- 
dom. This  outrage  (the  forcible  liberation  of 
the  slaves,  refusal  to  permit  the  mutineers  to  be 
brought  to  their  own  country  for  trial,  and  the 
abstraction  of  articles  from  the  brig  belonging 
to  the  captain  and  crew),  produced  much  exas- 
peration in  the  slave  States.  Coming  so  soon 
after  four  others  of  kindred  character,  and  while 
the  outrage  on  the  Caroline  was  still  unatoned 
for,  it  bespoke  a  contempt  for  the  United  States 
which  was  galling  to  the  feelings  of  many  be- 
sides the  inhabitants  of  the  States  immediately 
interested.  It  was  a  subject  for  the  attention 
both  of  the  Executive  government  and  the  Con- 
gress ;  and  accordingly  received  the  notice  of 
both.  Early  in  the  session  of  '41-'42,  Mr.  Cal- 
houn submitted  a  call  in  the  Senate,  in  which 
the  President  was  requested  to  give  information 
of  what  he  had  heard  of  the  outrage,  and  what 
steps  he  had  taken  to  obtain  redress.  He  an- 
swered through  the  Secretary  of  State  (Mr. 
Webster),  showing  that  all  the  facts  had  been 
regularly  communicated,  and  that  he  (the  Secre- 
tary) had  received  instructions  to  draw  up  a 
despatch  on  the  subject  to  the  American  minis- 
ter in  London  (Mr.  Edward  Everett)  ;  which 
would  be  done  without  unnecessary  delay.  On 
receiving  this  message,  Mr.  Calhoun  moved  to 
refer  it  to  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations — 
prefacing  his  motion  with  some  remarks,  and 
premising  that  the  Secretary  had  answered  well 
as  to  the  facts  of  the  case. 

"  As  to  the  remaining  portion  of  the  resolu- 
tion, that  which  asked  for  information  as  to 
what  steps  had  been  taken  to  bring  the  guilty 
in  this  bloody  transaction  to  justice,  and  to  re- 
dress the  wrong  done  to  our  citizens,  and  the 
indignity  offered  to  our  flag,  he  regretted  to  say, 
the  report  of  the  Secretary  is  very  unsatisfac- 
tory. He,  Mr.  C,  had  supposed,  in  a  case  of 
such  gross  outrage,  that  prompt  measures  for 
redress  would  have  been  adopted.  He  had  not 
doubted,  but  that  a  vessel  had  been  despatched, 
or  some  early  opportunity  seized  for  transmit- 
ting directions  to  our  minister  at  the  court  of 


412 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


St.  James,  to  demand  that  the  criminals  should 
be  delivered  to  our  government  for  trial ;  more 
especially,  as  they  were  detained  with  the  view 
of  abiding  the  decision  of  the  government  at 
home.  But  in  all  this  he  had  been  in  a  mis- 
take. Not  a  step  has  been  yet  taken — no  de- 
mand made  for  the  surrender  of  the  murderers, 
though  the  Executive  must  have  been  in  full 
possession  of  the  facts  for  more  than  a  month. 
The  only  reply  is,  that  he  (the  Secretary)  had 
received  the  orders  of  the  President  to  prepare 
a  despatch  for  our  minister  in  London,  which 
would  be  'prepared  without  unnecessary  de- 
lay.' He  (Mr.  Calhoun)  spoke  not  in  the  spirit 
of  censure ;  he  had  no  wish  to  find  fault ;  but 
he  thought  it  due  to  the  country,  and  more  es- 
pecially, of  the  portion  that  has  so  profound  an 
interest  in  this  subject,  that  he  should  fearlessly 
state  the  facts  as  they  existed.  He  believed  our 
right  to  demand  the  surrender  of  the  murderers 
clear,  beyond  doubt,  and  that,  if  the  case  was 
fairly  stated,  the  British  government  would  be 
compelled,  from  a  sense  of  justice,  to  yield  to 
our  demand  ;  and  hence  his  deep  regret  that 
there  should  have  been  such  long  delay  in 
making  any  demand.  The  apparent  indiffer- 
ence which  it  indicates  on  the  part  of  the  gov- 
ernment, and  the  want  of  our  views  on  the  sub- 
ject, it  is  to  be  feared,  would  prompt  to  an  op- 
posite decision,  before  any  despatch  can  now 
be  received  by  our  minister. 

"  He  repeated  that  the  case  was  clear.  He 
knew  that  an  effort  had  been  made,  and  he  re- 
gretted to  say,  even  in  the  South,  and  through 
a  newspaper  in  this  District,  but  a  morning  or 
two  since,  to  confound  the  case  with  the  ordi- 
nary one  of  a  criminal  fleeing  from  the  country 
where  the  crime  was  perpetrated,  to  another. 
He  admitted  that  it  is  a  doubtful  question 
whether,  by  the  laws  of  nations,  in  such  a  case, 
the  nation  to  which  he  fled,  was  bound  to  sur- 
render him  on  the  demand  of  the  one  where 
the  crime  was  committed.  But  that  was  not 
this  case,  nor  was  there  any  analogy  between 
them.  This  was  mutiny  and  murder,  commit- 
ted on  the  ocean,  on  board  of  one  of  our  vessels, 
sailing  from  one  port  to  another  on  our  own 
coast,  in  a  regular  voyage,  committed  by  slaves, 
who  constituted  a  part  of  the  cargo,  and  forc- 
ing the  officers  and  crew  to  steer  the  vessel  into 
a  port  of  a  friendly  power.  Now  there  was 
nothing  more  clear,  than  that,  according  to  the 
laws  of  nations,  a  vessel  on  the  ocean  is  regard- 
ed as  a  portion  of  the  territory  of  the  State  to 
which  she  belongs,  and  more  emphatically  so, 
if  possible,  in  a  coasting  voyage ;  and  that  if 
forced  into  a  friendly  port  by  an  unavoidable 
necessity,  she  loses  none  of  the  rights  that  be- 
long to  her  on  the  ocean.  Contrary  to  these 
admitted  principles,  the  British  authorities  en- 
tered on  board  of  the  Creole,  took  the  criminals 
under  their  own  jurisdiction,  and  that  after  they 
had  ascertained  them  to  be  guilty  of  mutiny 
and  murder,  instead  (as  they  ought  to  have 


done)  of  aiding  the  officers  and  crew  in  confin- 
ing them,  to  be  conveyed  to  one  of  our  ports, 
where  they  would  be  amenable  to  our  laws. 
The  outrage  would  not  have  been  greater,  nor 
more  clearly  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nations,  if, 
instead  of  taking  them  from  the  Creole,  they 
had  entered  our  territory,  and  forcibly  taken 
them  from  one  of  our  jails  ;  and  such,  he  could 
scarcely  doubt,  would  be  the  decision  of  the 
British  government  itself,  if  the  facts  and  rea- 
sons of  the  case  be  fairly  presented  before  its 
decision  is  made.  It  would  be  clearly  the 
course  she  would  have  adopted  had  the  mu- 
tiny and  murder  been  perpetrated  by  a  portion 
of  the  crew,  and  it  can  scarcely  be  that  she  will 
regard  it  less  criminal,  or  less  imperiously  her 
duty,  to  surrender  the  criminals,  because  the 
act  was  perpetrated  by  slaves.  If  so,  it  is  time 
we  should  know  it." 

The  Secretary  soon  had  his  despatch  ready, 
and  as  soon  as  it  was  ready,  it  was  called  for  at 
the  instance  of  a  friend  of  the  Secretary,  com- 
municated to  the  Senate  and  published  for  gen- 
eral information,  clearly  to  counteract  the  im- 
pressions which  Mr.  Calhoun's  remarks  had 
made.  It  gave  great  satisfaction  in  its  mode 
of  treating  the  subject,  and  in  the  intent  it  de- 
clared to  demand  redress : 

"  The  British  government  cannot  but  see  that 
this  case,  as  presented  in  these  papers,  is  one 
calling  loudly  for  redress.  The  '  Creole '  was 
passing  from  one  port  of  the  United  States  to 
another,  in  a  voyage  perfectly  lawful,  with  mer- 
chandise on  board,  and  also  with  slaves,  or  per- 
sons bound  to  service,  natives  of  America,  and 
belonging  to  American  citizens,  and  which  are 
recognized  as  property  by  the  constitution  of 
the  United  States  in  those  States  in  which 
slavery  exists.  In  the  course  of  the  voyage 
some  of  the  slaves  rose  upon  the  master  and 
crew,  subdued  them,  murdered  one  man,  and 
caused  the  vessel  to  be  carried  into  Nassau. 
The  vessel  was  thus  taken  to  a  British  port, 
not  voluntarily,  by  those  who  had  the  lawful 
authority  over  her,  but  forcibly  and  violently, 
against  the  master's  will,  and  with  the  consent 
of  nobody  but  the  mutineers  and  murderers : 
for  there  is  no  evidence  that  these  outrages  were 
committed  with  the  concurrence  of  any  of  the 
slaves,  except  those  actually  engaged  in  them. 
Under  these  circumstances,  it  would  seem  to 
have  been  the  plain  and  obvious  duty  of  the 
authorities  at  Nassau,  the  port  of  a  friendly 
power,  to  assist  the  American  consul  in  putting 
an  end  to  the  captivity  of  the  master  and  crew, 
restoring  to  them  the  control  of  the  vessel,  and 
enabling  them  to  resume  their  voyage,  and  to 
take  the  mutineers  and  murderers  to  their  own 
country  to  answer  for  their  crimes  before  the 
proper  tribunal.  One  cannot  conceive  how  any 
other  course  could  justly  be  adopted,  or  how  the 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


413 


duties  imposed  by  that  part  of  the  code  regu- 
lating the  intercourse  of  friendly  states,  which 
is  generally  called  the  comity  of  nations,  could 
otherwise  be  fulfilled.  Here  was  no  violation 
of  British  law  attempted  or  intended  on  the 
part  of  the  master  of  the  c  Creole,'  nor  any  in- 
fringement of  the  principles  of  the  law  of  na- 
tions. The  vessel  was  lawfully  engaged  in 
passing  from  port  to  port,  in  the  United  States. 
By  violence  and  crime  she  was  carried,  against 
the  master's  will,  out  of  her  course,  into  the 
port  of  a  friendly  power.  All  was  the  result 
of  force.  Certainly,  ordinary  comity  and  hos- 
pitality entitled  him  to  such  assistance  from 
the  authorities  of  the  place  as  should  enable 
him  to  resume  and  prosecute  his  voyage  and 
bring  the  offenders  to  justice.  But,  instead  of 
this,  if  the  facts  be  as  represented  in  these  pa- 
pers, not  only  did  the  authorities  give  no  aid  for 
any  such  purpose,  but  they  did  actually  inter- 
fere to  set  free  the  slaves,  and  to  enable  them 
to  disperse  themselves  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
master  of  the  vessel  or  their  owners.  A  pro- 
ceeding like  this  cannot  but  cause  deep  feeling 
in  the  United  States." 

Mr.  Calhoun  was  so  well  satisfied  with  this 
despatch  that,  as  soon  as  it  was  read,  he  stood 
up,  and  said : 

"  The  letter  which  had  been  read  was  drawn 
up  with  great  ability,  and  covered  the  ground 
which  had  been  assumed  on  this  subject  by  all 
parties  in  the  Senate.  He  hoped  that  it  would 
have  a  beneficial  effect,  not  only  upon  the  United 
States,  but  Great  Britain.  Coming  from  the 
quarter  it  did,  this  document  would  do  more 
good  than  in  coming  from  any  other  quarter." 

This  was  well  said  of  the  letter,  but  there  was 
a  paragraph  in  it  which  damped  the  expectations 
of  some  senators — a  paragraph  which  referred 
to  the  known  intention  to  send  out  a  special 
minister  (Lord  Ashburton)  to  negotiate  a  gene- 
ral settlement  of  differences  with  Great  Britain 
— and  which  expressed  a  wish  that  this  special 
minister  should  be  clothed  with  power  to  settle 
this  case  of  the  Creole.  That  looked  like  defer- 
ring it  to  a  general  settlement,  which,  in  the 
opinion  of  some,  was  tantamount  to  giving  it  up. 


CHAPTER    XCIX. 

DISTRESS  OF  TIIE  TREASURY:  THREE  TARIFF 
BILLS,  AND  TWO  VETOES :  END  OF  THE  COM- 
PROMISE ACT. 

Never  were  the  coffers  and  the  credit  of  the 
Treasury — not  even  in  the  last  year  of  the  war 
with  Great  Britain  (1814) — at  a  lower  ebb,  or 
more  pitiable  point,  than  at  present.  A  deficit 
of  fourteen  millions  in  the  Treasury — a  total 
inability  to  borrow,  either  at  home  or  abroad, 
the  amount  of  the  loan  of  twelve  millions  au- 
thorized the  year  before — treasury-notes  below 
par — a  million  and  a  half  of  protested  demands 
— a  revenue  from  imports  inadequate  and  de- 
creasing :  -such  was  the  condition  of  the  Trea- 
sury, and  all  the  result  of  three  measures  forced 
upon  the  previous  administration  by  the  united 
power  of  the  opposition,  and  the  aid  of  tem- 
porizing friends,  too  prone  to  take  alarm  in 
transient  difficulties,  and  too  ready  to  join  the 
schemes  of  the  opposition  for  temporary  relief, 
though  more  injurious  than  the  evils  they  were 
intended  to  remedy.  These  three  measures  were : 
1.  Compromise  act  of  1833.  2.  The  distribution 
of  surplus  revenue  in  1837.  3.  The  surrender 
of  the  land  revenue  to  the  States.  The  com- 
promise act,  by  its  slow  and  imperceptible  re- 
ductions of  revenue  during  its  first  seven  years, 
created  a  large  surplus :  by  its  abrupt  and  pre- 
cipitous falling  off  the  last  two,  made  a  deficit. 
The  distribution  of  this  surplus,  to  the  amount 
of  near  thirty  millions,  took  away  the  sum 
which  would  have  met  this  deficiency.  And 
the  surrender  of  the  land  revenue  diverted  from 
its  course  the  second  largest  stream  of  revenue 
that  came  into  the  Treasury :  and  the  effect  of 
the  whole  was  to  leave  it  without  money  and 
without  credit :  and  with  a  deficit  which  was 
ostentatiously  styled,  "  the  debt  of  the  late  ad- 
ministration.'''' Personally  considered,  there 
was  retributive  justice  in  this  calamitous  visi- 
tation. So  far  as  individuals  were  concerned  it 
fell  upon  those  who  had  created  it.  Mr.  Tyler 
had  been  the  zealous  promoter  of  all  these 
measures  :  the  whig  party,  whose  ranks  he  had 
joined,  had  been  their  author :  some  obliging 
democrats  were  the  auxiliaries,  without  which 
they  could  not  have  been  carried.     The  admin- 


414 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


istration  of  President  Tyler  now  needed  the 
money  :  his  former  whig  friends  had  the  power 
to  grant,  or  withhold  it :  and  they  chose,  either 
to  withhold,  or  to  grant  upon  terms  which  Mr. 
Tyler  repulsed.  They  gave  him  two  tariff 
revenue  bills  in  a  month,  which  he  returned 
with  vetoes,  and  had  to  look  chiefly  to  that 
democracy  whom  he  had  left  to  join  the  whigs 
(and  of  whom  he  had  become  the  zealous  oppo- 
nent), for  the  means  of  keeping  his  administra- 
tion alive. 

A  bill  called  a  "provisional  tariff'"  was  first 
sent  to  him :  he  returned  it  with  the  objections 
which  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  approve 
it :  and  of  which  these  objections  were  the 
chief : 

"  It  suspends,  in  other  words,  abrogates  for 
the  time,  the  provision  of  the  act  of  1833,  com- 
monly called  the  '  compromise  act.'  The  only 
ground  on  which  this  departure  from  the  solemn 
adjustment  of  a  great  and  agitating  question 
seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  expedient  is, 
the  alleged  necessity  of  establishing,  by  legisla- 
tive enactments,  rules  and  regulations  for  as- 
sessing the  duties  to  be  levied  on  imports,  after 
the  30th  June,  according  to  the  home  valua- 
tion ;  and  yet  the  bill  expressly  provides  that 
'  if  before  the  1st  of  August  there  be  no  further 
legislation  upon  the  subject,  the  laws  for  laying 
and  collecting  duties  shall  be  the  same  as  though 
this  act  had  not  been  passed.'  In  other  words, 
that  the  act  of  1833,  imperfect  as  it  is  consider- 
ed, shall  in  that  case  continue  to  be,  and  to  be 
executed  under  such  rules  and  regulations  as 
previous  statutes  had  prescribed,  or  had  enabled 
the  executive  department  to  prescribe  for  that 
purpose,  leaving  the  supposed  chasm  in  the  rev- 
enue laws  just  as  it  was  before. 

"  The  bill  assumes  that  a  distribution  of  the 
proceeds  of  the  public  lands  is,  by  existing  laws, 
to  be  made  on  the  first  day  of  July,  1842,  not- 
withstanding there  has  been  an  imposition  of 
duties  on  imports  exceeding  twenty  per  cent, 
up  to  that  day,  and  directs  it  to  be  made  on  the 
1st  of  August  next.  It  seems  to  me  very  clear 
that  this  conclusion  is  equally  erroneous  and 
dangerous ;  as  it  would  divert  from  the  Trea- 
sury a  fund  sacredly  pledged  for  the  general 
purposes  of  the  government,  in  the  event  of  a 
rate  of  duty  above  twenty  per  cent,  being  found 
necessary  for  an  economical  administration  of 
the  government.  The  act  of  September  last, 
which  provides  for  the  distribution,  couples  it 
inseparably  with  the  condition  that  it  shall 
cease — first,  in  case  of  war ;  second,  as  soon 
and  so  long  as  the  rate  of  duties  shall,  for  any 
reason  whatever,  be  raised  above  twenty  per 
cent.  Nothing  can  be  more  clear,  express,  or 
imperative,  than  this  language.  It  is  in  vain  to 
allege  that  a  deficit  in  the  Treasury  was  known 


to  exist,  and  that  means  were  taken  to  supply 
this  deficit  by  loan  when  the  act  was  passed." 

These  reasons  show  the  vice  and  folly  of  the 
acts  which  a  pride  of  consistency  still  made 
him  adhere  to.  That  compromise  act  of  1833 
assumed  to  fix  the  tariff  to  eternity,  first,  by 
making  existing  duties  decline  through  nine 
years  to  a  uniform  ad  valorem  of  twenty  per 
centum  on  all  dutied  articles ;  next,  by  fixing 
it  there  for  ever,  giving  Congress  leave  to  work 
under  it  on  articles  then  free  ;  but  never  to  go 
above  it :  and  the  mutual  assurance  entered 
into  between  this  act  and  the  land  distribution 
act  of  the  extra  session,  was  intended  to  make 
sure  of  both  objects — the  perpetual  twenty  per 
centum,  and  the  land  distribution.  One  hardly 
knows  which  to  admire  most,  the  arrogance,  or 
the  folly,  of  such  presumptuous  legislation :  and 
to  add  to  its  complication  there  was  a  clear  di- 
vision of  opinion  whether  any  duty  at  all,  for 
want  of  a  law  appointing  appraisers,  could  be 
collected  after  the  30th  of  June.  Between  the 
impracticability,  and  the  unintelligibility  of  the 
acts,  and  his  consistency,  he  having  sanctioned 
all  these  complicated  and  dependent  measures, 
it  was  clear  that  Mr.  Tyler's  administration 
was  in  a  deplorable  condition.  The  low  credit 
of  the  government,  in  the  impossibility  of  get- 
ting a  small  loan,  was  thus  depicted : 

"  Who  at  the  time  foresaw  or  imagined  the 
possibility  of  the  present  real  state  of  things, 
when  a  nation  that  has  paid  off  her  whole  debt 
since  the  last  peace,  while  all  the  other  great 
powers  have  been  increasing  theirs,  and  whose 
resources  already  so  great,  are  yet  but  in  the 
infancy  of  their  development,  should  be  com- 
pelled to  haggle  in  the  money  market  for  a  pal- 
try sum,  not  equal  to  one  year's  revenue  upon 
her  economical  system." 

Not  able  to  borrow,  even  in  time  of  peace,  a 
few  millions  for  three  years  !  This  was  in  the 
the  time  of  paper  money.  Since  gold  became 
the  federal  currency,  any  amount,  and  in  time 
of  war,  has  been  at  the  call  of  the  government ; 
and  its  credit  so  high,  and  its  stock  so  much 
above  par,  that  twenty  per  centum  premium  is 
now  paid  for  the  privilege  of  paying,  before  they 
are  due,  the  amounts  borrowed  during  the  Mexi- 
can war : 

"  This  connection  (the  mutual  assurance  be- 
tween the  compromise  act  and  the  land  distri- 
bution) thus  meant  to  be  inseparable,  is  severed 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


415 


by  the  bill  presented  to  me.  The  bill  violates 
the  principle  of  the  acts  of  1833,  and  September, 
1841,  by  suspending  the  first,  and  rendering, 
for  a  time,  the  last  inoperative.  Duties  above 
twenty  per  cent,  are  proposed  to  be  levied,  and 
yet  the  proviso  in  the  distribution  act  is  disre- 
garded. The  proceeds  of  the  sales  are  to  be 
distributed  on  the  1st  of  August  ;  so  that, 
while  the  duties  proposed  to  be  enacted  exceed 
twenty  per  cent,  no  suspension  of  the  distribu- 
tion to  the  States  is  permitted  to  take  place. 
To  abandon  the  principle  for  a  month  is  to  open 
the  way  for  its  total  abandonment.  If  such  is 
not  meant,  why  postpone  at  all  ?  "Why  not  let 
the  distribution  take  place  on  the  1st  of  July, 
if  the  law  so  directs  ?  (which,  however,  is  re- 
garded as  questionable.)  But  why  not  have 
limited  the  provision  to  that  effect  ?  Is  it  for 
the  accommodation  of  the  Treasury  ?  I  see  no 
reason  to  believe  that  the  Treasury  will  be  in 
better  condition  to  meet  the  payment  on  the  1st 
of  August,  than  on  the  1st  of  July." 

Here  Mr.  Tyler  was  right  in  endeavoring  to 
get  back,  even  temporarily,  the  land  revenue ; 
but  slight  as  was  this  relaxation  of  their  policy, 
it  brought  upon  him  keen  reproaches  from  his 
old  friends.     Mr.  Fillmore  said : 

"  On  what  principle  was  this  veto  based  ? 
The  President  could  not  consent  that  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  proceeds  of  the  public  lands 
should  cease  for  a  single  day.  Now,  although 
that  was  the  profession,  yet  it  appeared  to  have 
been  but  a  pretence.  Mr.  F.  wished  to  speak 
with  all  respect  to  the  chief  magistrate,  but  of 
his  message  he  must  speak  with  plainness. 
What  was  the  law  which  that  message  vetoed  ? 
It  authorized  the  collection  of  duties  for  a  sin- 
gle month  as  they  were  levied  on  the  first  of 
January  last,  to  allow  time  for  the  consideration 
of  a  permanent  revenue  for  the  country ;  it 
postponed  the  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of 
the  public  lands  till  the  month  should  expire, 
and  Congress  could  provide  the  necessary  sup- 
plies for  the  exhausted  Treasury.  But  what 
would  be  the  effect  of  the  veto  now  on  the  ta- 
ble 1  Did  it  prevent  the  distribution  ?  By  no 
means  ;  it  reduced  the  duties,  in  effect,  to  twen- 
ty per  cent.,  and  authorized  the  distribution  of 
the  land  fund  among  the  States  ;  and  that  dis- 
tribution would,  in  fact,  take  place  the  day  after 
to-morrow.  That  would  be  the  practical  ope- 
ration of  this  paper.  When  Congress  had  post- 
poned the  distribution  for  a  month,  did  it  not 
appear  like  pretence  in  the  chief  magistrate  to 
say  that  he  was  forced  to  veto  the  bill  from 
Congress,  to  prevent  the  distribution,  which  his 
veto,  and  that  alone,  would  cause  to  take  place  ? 
Congress  had  been  willing  to  prevent  the  distri- 
bution, but  the  President,  by  one  and  the  same 
blow,  cut  down  the  revenue  at  a  moment  when 
his  Secretary  could  scarce  obtain  a  loan  on  any 
terms,  and  in  addition  to  this  distributed  the 


income  from  the  public  domain  !  In  two  days 
the  distribution  must  take  place.  Mr.  F.  said 
he  was  not  at  all  surprised  at  the  joy  with 
which  the  veto  had  been  hailed  on  the  other 
side  of  the  house,  or  at  the  joyful  countenances 
which  were  arrayed  there;  probably  this  act 
was  but  the  consummation  of  a  treaty  which 
had  been  long  understood  as  in  process  of  nego- 
tiation. If  this  was  the  ratification  of  such 
treaty,  Mr.  F.  gave  gentlemen  much  joy  on  the 
happy  event.  He  should  shed  no  tears  that 
the  administration  had  passed  into  its  appro- 
priate place.  This,  however,  was  a  matter  he 
should  not  discuss  now ;  he  should  desire  the 
message  might  be  laid  on  the  table  till  to-mor- 
row and  be  printed.  Mr.  F.  said  he  was  free  to 
confess  that  we  were  now  in  a  crisis  which 
would  shake  this  Union  to  its  centre.  Time 
would  determine  who  would  yield  and  who  was 
right ;  whether  the  President  would  or  would 
not  allow  the  representatives  of  the  people  to 
provide  a  revenue  in  the  way  they  might  think 
best  for  the  country,  provided  they  were  guilty 
of  no  violation  of  the  constitution.  The  Presi- 
dent had  now  told  them,  in  substance,  that  he 
had  taken  the  power  into  his  own  hands  ;  and 
although  the  highest  financial  officer  of  the  gov- 
ernment declared  it  as  his  opinion,  that  it  was 
doubtful  whether  the  duties  could  be  collected 
which  Congress  had  provided  by  law,  the  Pre- 
sident told  the  House  that  any  further  law  was 
unnecessary  ;  that  he  had  power  enough  in  his 
own  hands,  and  he  should  use  it ;  that  he  had 
authorized  the  revenue  officers  to  do  all  that 
was  necessary.  This  then  would  be  in  fact  the 
question  before  the  country  :  whether  Con- 
gress should  legislate  for  the  people  of  this 
country  or  the  Executive  1 " 

Mr.  Alexander  H.  H.  Stuart,  of  Virginia,  took 
issue  with  the  President  on  the  character  of  the 
land  distribution  bill,  and  averred  it  to  have 
been  an  intended  part  of  the  compromise  from 
the  beginning.     He  said : 

"  That  the  President  has  rested  his  veto  upon 
the  grounds  of  expediency  alone,  and  not  upon 
any  conscientious  or  constitutional  scruples. 
He  withholds  his  assent  because  of  its  sup- 
posed conflict  with  the  compromise  act  of  1833. 
I  take  issue  with  the  President  in  regard  to  this 
matter  of  fact,  and  maintain  that  there  is  no 
such  conflict.  The  President's  particular  point 
of  objection  to  the  temporary  tariff  bill  is  that 
it  contemplates  a  prospective  distribution  of  the 
land  proceeds.  Now,  conceding  that  the  Presi- 
dent has  put  a  correct  construction  on  our  bill, 
I  aver  that  it  is  no  violation  of  the  compromise 
act  to  withdraw  the  land  proceeds  from  the  or- 
dinary purposes  of  the  government,  and  dis- 
tribute them  among  the  States.  On  the  con- 
trary, I  maintain  that  that  act  distinctly  con- 
templates the  distribution  of  the  land  proceeds, 
that  the  distribution  was  one  of  the  essential 


416 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


elements  of  the  compromise^  and  that  the  fail- 
ure to  distribute  the  land  fund  now  would  of 
itself  be  a  violation  of  the  true  understanding 
of  those  who  adopted  the  compromise,  and  a 
palpable  fraud  upon  the  rights  of  one  of  the 
parties  to  it." 

Mr.  Caruthers.  of  Tennessee,  was  still  more 
pointed  to  the  same  effect,  referring  to  Mr.  Ty- 
ler's conduct  in  the  Virginia  General  Assembly  to 
show  that  he  was  in  favor  of  the  land  revenue 
distribution,  and  considered  its  cessation  as  a 
breach  of  the  compromise.    He  referred  to  his, 

"  Oft-quoted  resolutions  in  the  legislature  of 
Virginia,  in  1839,  urging  the  distribution,  and 
conveying  the  whole  proceeds  of  the  lands,  not 
only  ceded  but  acquired  by  purchase  and  by 
treaty.  Mr.  0.  also  referred  to  the  adroit  man- 
ner in  which  Mr.  Tyler  had  at  that  time  met 
the  charge  of  his  opponents  (that  he  desired  to 
violate  the  compromise  act)  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  well  known  proviso,  that  the  General 
Assembly  did  not  mean  to  infringe  or  disturb 
the  provisions  of  the  compromise  act." 

The  vote  was  taken  upon  the  returned  bill, 
as  required  by  the  constitution  ;  and  falling  far 
short  of  the  required  two- thirds,  it  was  rejected. 
But  the  exigencies  of  the  Treasury  were  so  great 
that  a  further  effort  to  pass  a  revenue  bill  was 
indispensable  ;  and  one  was  accordingly  imme- 
diately introduced  into  the  House.  It  differed 
but  little  from  the  first  one,  and  nothing  on  the 
land  revenue  distribution  clause,  which  it  retain- 
ed in  full.  That  clause  had  been  the  main  cause 
of  the  first  veto :  it  was  a  challenge  for  a  second ! 
and  under  circumstances  which  carried  embar- 
rassment to  the  President  either  way.  He  had 
been  from  the  beginning  of  the  policy,  a  sup- 
porter of  the  distribution ;  and  at  the  extra 
session  had  solemnly  recommended  it  in  his 
regular  message.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had 
just  disapproved  it  in  his  message  returning 
the  tariff  bill.  He  adhered  to  this  latter  view  ; 
and  said : 

"  On  the  subject  of  distributing  the  proceeds 
of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands,  in  the  existing 
state  of  the  finances,  it  has  been  my  duty  to 
make  known  my  settled  convictions  on  various 
occasions  during  the  present  session  of  Con- 
gress. At  the  opening  of  the  extra  session,  up- 
wards of  twelve  months  ago,  sharing  fully  in 
the  general  hope  of  returning  prosperity  and 
credit,  I  recommended  such  a  distribution ;  but 
that  recommendation  was  even  then  expressly 
coupled  with  the  condition  that  the  duties  on 
imports  should  not  exceed  the  rate  of  twenty 


per  cent,  provided  by  the  compromise  act  of 
1833.  The  bill  which  is  now  before  me  pro- 
poses, in  its  27th  section,  the  total  repeal  of  one 
of  the  provisos  in  the  act  of  September ;  and, 
while  it  increases  the  duties  above  twenty  per 
cent.,  directs  an  unconditional  distribution  of 
the  land  proceeds.  I  am  therefore  subjected  a 
second  time,  in  the  period  of  a  few  days,  to 
the  necessity  of  either  giving  my  approval  to  a 
measure  which,  in  my  deliberate  judgment,  is  in 
conflict  with  great  public  interests ;  or  of  re- 
turning it  to  the  House  in  which  it  originated, 
with  my  objections.  With  all  my  anxiety  for 
the  passage  of  a  law  which  would  replenish  an 
exhausted  Treasury,  and  furnish  a  sound  and 
healthy  encouragement  to  mechanical  industry, 
I  cannot  consent  to  do  so  at  the  sacrifice  of  the 
peace  and  harmony  of  the  country,  and  the 
clearest  convictions  of  public  duty." 

The  reasons  were  good,  and  ought  to  have 
prevented  Congress  from  retaining  the  clause ; 
but  party  spirit  was  predominant,  and  in  each 
House  the  motion  to  strike  out  the  clause  had 
been  determined  by  a  strict  party  vote.  An 
unusual  course  was  taken  with  this  second  veto 
message  :  it  was  referred  to  a  select  committee 
of  thirteen  members,  on  the  motion  of  Mr. 
Adams;  and  from  that  committee  emanated 
three  reports  upon  it — one  against  it,  and  two 
for  it;  the  committee  dividing  politically  in 
making  them.  The  report  against  it  was  signed 
by  ten  members  ;  the  other  two  by  the  remain- 
ing three  members ;  but  they  divided,  so  as  to 
present  two  signatures  to  one  report,  and  a  sin- 
gle one  to  the  other.  Mr.  Adams,  as  the  chair- 
man, was  the  writer  of  the  majority  report,  and 
made  out  a  strong  case  against  Mr.  Tyler  per- 
sonally, but  no  case  at  all  in  favor  of  the  distri- 
bution clause.     The  report  said : 

"Who  could  imagine  that,  after  this  most 
emphatic  coupling  of  the  revenue  from  duties 
of  impost,  with  revenue  from  the  proceeds  of 
the  sales  of  the  public  lands,  the  first  and  para- 
mount objection  of  the  President  to  this  bill 
should  be,  that  it  unites  two  subjects  which,  so 
far  from  having  any  affinity  to  one  another,  are 
wholly  incongruous  in  their  character ;  which 
two  subjects  are  identically  the  same  with  those 
which  he  had  coupled  together  in  his  recom- 
mendation to  Congress  at  the  extra  session  1 
If  there  was  no  affinity  between  the  parties, 
why  did  he  join  them  together  ?  If  the  union 
was  illegitimate,  who  was  the  administering 
priest  of  the  unhallowed  rites  ?  It  is  objected 
to  this  bill,  that  it  is  both  a  revenue  and  an  ap- 
propriation bill  ?  What  then  ?  Is  not  the  act 
of  September  4,  1841,  approved  and  signed  by 
the  President  himself,  both  a  revenue  and  an 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT 


417 


appropriation  bill  ?  Does  it  not  enact  that,  in 
the  event  of  an  insufficiency  of  impost  duties, 
not  exceeding  twenty  per  centum  ad  valorem, 
to  defray  the  current  expenses  of  the  govern- 
ment, the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  lands 
shall  be  levied  as  part  of  the  same  revenue,  and 
appropriated  to  the  same  purposes  ?  " 

The  report  concluded  with  a  strong  denun- 
ciation of,  what  it  considered,  an  abuse  of  the 
veto  power,  and  a  contradiction  of  the  Presi- 
dent's official  recommendation  and  conduct : 

"  The  power  of  the  present  Congress  to  enact 
laws  essential  to  the  welfare  of  the  people  has 
been  struck  with  apoplexy  by  the  Executive 
hand.  Submission  to  his  will,  is  the  only  con- 
dition upon  which  he  will  permit  them  to  act. 
For  the  enactment  of  a  measure  earnestly  re- 
commended by  himself,  he  forbids  their  action, 
unless  coupled  with  a  condition  declared  by 
himself  to  be  on  a  subject  so  totally  different, 
that  he  will  not  suffer  them  to  be  coupled  in 
the  same  law.  With  that  condition,  Congress 
cannot  comply.  In  this  state  of  things,  he  has 
assumed,  as  the  committee  fully  believe,  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  whole  legislative  power  to  himself, 
and  is  levying  millions  of  money  upon  the  peo- 
ple, without  any  authority  of  law.  But  the 
final  decision  of  this  question  depends  neither 
upon  legislative  nor  executive,  but  upon  judicial 
authority  ;  nor  can  the  final  decision  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  upon  it  be  pronounced  before  the 
close  of  the  present  Congress." 

The  returned  bill  being  put  to  the  vote,  was 
found  to  lack  as  much  as  the  first  of  the  two- 
thirds  majority,  and  was  rejected.  But  revenue 
was  indispensable.  Daily  demands  upon  the 
government  were  undergoing  protest.  The 
President  in  his  last  message  had  given  in 
$1,400,000  of  such  dishonored  demands.  The 
existing  revenue  from  imports,  deficient  as  it 
was,  was  subjected  to  a  new  embarrassment, 
that  of  questioned  legality  for  want  of  a  law  of 
appraisement  under  the  compromise,  and  mer- 
chants paid  their  duties  under  protest,  and  with 
notices  of  action  against  the  collector  to  recover 
them  back.  It  was  now  near  the  end  of  Au- 
gust. Congress  had  been  in  session  nine 
months — an  unprecedentedly  long  session,  and 
that  following  immediately  on  the  heels  of  an 
extra  session  of  three  months  and  a  half.  Ad- 
journment could  not  be  deferred,  and  could  not 
take  place  without  providing  for  the  Treasury. 
The  compromise  and  the  land  distribution  were 
the  stumbling-blocks:  it  was  determined  to 
sacrifice  them  together,  but  without  seeming  to 
Vol.  II.— 27 


do  so.  A  contrivance  was  fallen  upon  :  duties 
were  raised  above  twenty  per  centum :  and 
that  breach  of  the  mutual  assurance  in  relation 
to  the  compromise,  immediately  in  terms  of  the 
assurance,  suspended  the  land  revenue  distri- 
bution— to  continue  it  suspended  while  duties 
above  the  compromise  limit  continued  to  be 
levied.  And  as  that  has  been  the  case  ever 
since,  the  distribution  of  the  revenue  has  been 
suspended  ever  since.  Such  were  the  contri- 
vances, ridiculous  inventions,  and  absurd  cir- 
cumlocutions which  Congress  had  recourse  to 
to  get  rid  of  that  land  distribution  which  was 
to  gain  popularity  for  its  authors  ;  and  to  get 
rid  of  that  compromise  which  was  celebrated  at 
the  time  as  having  saved  the  Union,  and  the 
breach  of  which  was  deprecated  in  numerous 
legislative  resolves  as  the  end  of  the  Union,  and 
which  all  the  while  was  nothing  but  an  arro- 
gant piece  of  monstrosity,  patched  up  between 
two  aspiring  politicians,  to  get  rid  of  a  stum- 
bling-block in  each  other's  paths  for  the  period 
of  two  presidential  elections.  In  other  respects 
one  of  the  worst  features  of  that  personal  and 
pestiferous  legislation  has  remained — the  uni- 
versal ad  valorems — involving  its  army  of  ap- 
praisers, their  diversity  of  appraisement  from 
all  the  imperfections  to  which  the  human  mind 
is  subject — to  say  nothing  of  the  chances  for 
ignorance,  indifference,  negligence,  favoritism, 
bribery  and  corruption.  The  act  was  approved 
the  30th  day  of  August ;  and  Congress  forth- 
with adjourned. 


CHAPTER    C. 

ME.  TYLER  AND  THE  WHIG  PAETT  :  CONFIRMED 
SEPARATION. 

At  the  close  of  the  extra  session,  a  vigorous 
effort  was  made  to  detach  the  whig  party  from 
Mr.  Clay.  Mr.  Webster  in  his  published  letter, 
in  justification  of  his  course  in  remaining  in  the 
cabinet  when  his  colleagues  left  it,  gave  as  a 
reason  the  expected  unity  of  the  party  under 
a  new  administration.  "A  whig  president,  a 
whig  Congress,  and  a  whig  people,"  was  the 
vision  that  dazzled  and  seduced  him.  Mr. 
Cushing  published  his  address,  convoking  the 


418 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


whigs  to  the  support  of  Mr.  Tyler.  Mr.  Clay 
was  stigmatized  as  a  dictator,  setting  himself 
up  against  the  real  President.  Inducements  as 
well  as  arguments  were  addressed  to  the  whig 
ranks  to  obtain  recruits :  all  that  came  received 
high  reward.  The  arrival  of  the  regular  ses- 
sion was  to  show  the  fruit  of  these  efforts,  and 
whether  the  whig  party  was  to  become  a  unity 
under  Mr.  Tyler,  Mr.  Webster,  and  Mr.  Cush- 
ing,  or  to  remain  embodied  under  Mr.  Clay. 
It  remained  so  embodied.  Only  a  few,  and  they 
chiefly  who  had  served  an  apprenticeship  to 
party  mutation  in  previous  changes,  were  seen 
to  join  him :  the  body  of  the  party  remained 
firm,  and  militant — angry  and  armed  ;  and  giv- 
ing to  President  Tyler  incessant  proofs  of  their 
resentment.  His  legislative  recommendations 
were  thwarted,  as  most  of  them  deserved  to  be : 
his  name  was  habitually  vituperated  or  ridi- 
culed. Even  reports  of  committees,  and  legis- 
lative votes,  went  the  length  of  grave  censure 
and  sharp  rebuke.  The  select  committee  of 
thirteen,  to  whom  the  consideration  of  the 
second  tariff,  in  a  report  signed  by  nine  of  its 
members,  Mr.  Adams  at  their  head,  suggested 
impeachment  as  due  to  him  : 

"  The  majority  of  the  committee  believe  that 
the  case  has  occurred,  in  the  annals  of  our 
Union,  contemplated  by  the  founders  of  the 
constitution  by  the  grant  to  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives of  the  power  to  impeach  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  ;  but  they  are  aware 
that  the  resort  to  that  expedient  might,  in  the 
present  condition  of  public  affairs,  prove  abor- 
tive. They  see  that  the  irreconcilable  differ- 
ence of  opinion  and  of  action  between  the  legis- 
lative and  executive  departments  of  the  govern- 
ment is  but  sympathetic  with  the  same  discor- 
dant views  and  feelings  among  the  people." 

A  rebuking  resolve,  and  of  a  retributive  na- 
ture, was  adopted  by  the  House.  It  has  been 
related  (Vol.  I.)  that  when  President  Jackson 
sent  to  the  Senate  a  protest  against  the  senato- 
rial condemnation  pronounced  upon  him  in  1835, 
the  Senate  refused  to  receive  it,  and  adopted 
resolutions  declaring  the  protest  to  be  a  breach 
of  the  privileges  of  the  body  in  interfering  with 
the  discharge  of  their  duties.  The  resolves  so 
adopted  were  untrue,  and  the  reverse  of  the 
truth — the  whole  point  of  the  protest  being 
that  the  condemnation  was  extra-judicial  and 
void,  coming  under  no  division  of  power  which 
belonged  to  the  Senate :   not  legislative,  for  it 


proposed  no  act  of  legislation :  not  executive, 
for  it  applied  to  no  treaty  or  nomination :  not 
judicial,  for  it  was  founded  in  no  articles  of  im- 
peachment from  the  House,  and  without  form- 
ing the  Senate  into  a  court  of  impeachment. 
The  protest  considered  the  condemnatory  sen- 
tence, and  justly,  as  the  act  of  a  town  meeting, 
done  in  the  Senate-chamber,  and  by  senators  ; 
but  of  no  higher  character  than  if  done  by  the 
same  number  of  citizens  in  a  voluntary  town 
meeting.  This  was  the  point,  and  whole  com- 
plaint of  the  protest ;  but  the  Senate,  avoiding 
to  meet  it  in  that  form,  put  a  different  face 
upon  it,  as  an  interference  with  the  constitu- 
tional action  of  the  Senate,  attacking  its  inde- 
pendence ;  and,  therefore,  a  breach  of  its  privi- 
leges. Irritated  by  the  conduct  of  the  House 
in  its  reports  upon  his  tariff-veto  messages,  Mr. 
Tyler  sent  in  a  protest  also,  as  President  Jack- 
son had  done,  but  without  attending  to  the  dif- 
ference of  the  cases,  and  that,  in  its  action  upon 
the  veto  messages,  the  House  was  clearly  act- 
ing within  its  sphere — within  its  constitutional 
legislative  capacity ;  and,  consequently,  how- 
ever disagreeable  to  him  this  action  might  be.  it 
was  still  legislative  and  constitutional,  and  such 
as  the  House  had  a  legal  right  to  adopt,  whether 
just  or  unjust.  Overlooking  this  difference,  Mr. 
Tyler  sent  in  his  protest  also :  but  the  House 
took  the  distinction  ;  and  applied  legitimately 
to  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Tyler  what  had  been  ille- 
gally applied  to  General  Jackson,  with  the  ag- 
gravation of  turning  against  himself  his  own 
votes  on  that  occasion — Mr.  Tyler  being  one  of 
the  senators  who  voted  in  favor  of  the  three 
resolves  against  President  Jackson's  protest. 
When  this  protest  of  Mr.  Tyler  was  read  in  the 
House,  Mr.  Adams  stood  up,  and  said : 

"  There  seemed  to  be  an  expectation  on  the 
part  of  some  gentlemen  that  he  should  pro- 
pose to  the  House  some  measure  suitable  to 
be  adopted  on  the  present  occasion.  Mr.  A. 
knew  of  no  reason  for  such  an  expectation,  but 
the  fact  that  he  had  been  the  mover  of  the  reso- 
lution for  the  appointment  of  the  committe 
which  had  made  the  report  referred  to  in  the 
message ;  had  been  appointed  by  the  Speaker, 
chairman  of  the  committee ;  and  that  the  re- 
port against  which  the  President  of  the  United 
States  had  sent  to  the  House  such  a  multitude 
of  protests,  was  written  by  him.  So  far  as  it 
had  been  so  written,  Mr.  A.  held  himself  re- 
sponsible to  the  House,  to  the  country,  to  the 
world,  and  to  posterity ;  and,  so  far  as  he  was 


ANNO  1842.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


419 


the  author  of  the  report,  he  held  himself  respon- 
sible to  the  President  also.  The  President 
should  hear  from  him  elsewhere  than  here  on 
that  subject.  Mr.  A.  went  on  to  say  that  it 
was  because  the  report  had  been  adopted  by  the 
House,  and  not  because  it  had  been  written  by 
him,  that  the  President  had  sent  such  a  bundle 
of  protests  ;  and  therefore  Mr.  A.  felt  no  neces- 
sity or  obligation  upon  himself  to  propose  what 
measures  the  House  ought  to  adopt  for  the  vin- 
dication of  its  own  dignity  and  honor ;  and  per- 
haps, from  considerations  of  delicacy,  he  was 
indeed  the  very  last  man  in  the  House  who 
should  propose  any  measure,  under  the  circum- 
stances." 

Mr.  Botts,  of  Virginia,  a  member  of  the  com- 
mittee which  had  made  the  report,  after  some 
introductory  remarks,  went  on  to  say : 

"In  1834  the  Senate  had  adopted  certain 
resolutions,  condemning  the  course  of  President 
Jackson  in  the  removal  of  the  deposits  from  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States  to  the  State  banks. 
In  consequence  of  this  movement  on  the  part 
of  the  Senate,  President  Jackson  sent  to  that 
body  a  protest  against  the  right  of  the  Senate 
to  express  any  opinion  censuring  his  public 
course  ;  and,  what  made  the  case  then  stronger 
than  the  present  case,  was,  that  the  Senate  con- 
stituted the  jury  by  whom  he  was  to  be  tried, 
should  any  impeachment  be  brought  against 
him.  The  Senate,  after  a  long,  elaborate  dis- 
cussion of  the  whole  matter,  and  the  most  elo- 
quent and  overpowering  torrent  of  debate  that 
ever  was  listened  to  in  this  country,  adopted 
the  three  following  resolutions  : 

'1.  Resolved,  That,  while  the  Senate  is,  and  ever  will  be, 
ready  to  receive  from  the  President  all  such  messages  and 
communications  as  the  constitution  and  laws,  and  the  usual 
course  of  business,  authorize  him  to  transmit  to  it;  yet  it  can- 
not recognize  any  right  in  him  to  make  a  formal  protest 
against  votes  and  proceedings  of  the  Senate,  declaring  such 
votes  and  proceedings  to  be  illegal  and  unconstitutional,  and 
requesting  the  Senate  to  enter  such  protests  on  its  journal.' 

"  On  this  resolution  the  yeas  and  nays  were 
taken ;  and  it  was  adopted,  by  a  vote  of  27  to 
16 :  and,  among  the  recorded  votes  in  its  favor, 
stood  the  names  of  John  Tyler,  now  acting 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  Daniel 
Webster,  now  his  prime  minister. 

"  The  second  resolution  was  as  follows : 

'2.  Resolved,  That  the  aforesaid  protest  is  a  breach  of  the 
privileges  of  the  Senate,  and  that  it  be  not  entered  on  the 
journal.' 

"The  same  vote,  numerically,  was  given  in 
favor  of  this  resolution ;  and  among  the  yeas 
stood  the  names  of  John  Tyler,  now  acting 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  of  Daniel 
Webster,  now  his  prime  minister. 

"  The  third  resolutions  read  as  follows : 

ia  Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  United  States  has 
no  right  to  send  a  protest  to  the  Senate  against  any  of  its  pro- 
ceedings.' 

"  And  in  sanction  of  this  resolution  also,  the 


record  shows  the  names  of  the  same  John  Ty- 
ler and  Daniel  Webster." 

Mr.  Botts  forbore  to  make  any  remarks  of 
his  own  in  support  of  the  adoption  of  these 
resolutions,  but  read  copious  extracts  from  the 
speech  of  Mr.  Webster  in  support  of  the  same 
resolutions  when  offered  in  the  Senate;  and, 
adopting  them  as  his  own,  called  for  the  pre- 
vious question ;  which  call  was  sustained ;  and 
the  main  question  being  put,  and  the  vote  taken 
on  the  resolutions  separately,  they  were  all  car- 
ried by  large  majorities.  The  yeas  and  nays 
on  the  first  resolve,  were  : 

"Yeas — Messrs.  Adams,  LancStff  W.  An- 
drews, Arnold,  Babcock,  Barnard,  Birdseye, 
Blair,  Boardman,  Borden,  Botts,  Brockway, 
Jeremiah  Brown,  Calhoun,  William  B.  Camp- 
bell, Thomas  J.  Campbell,  Caruthers,  Chitten- 
den, John  C.  Clark,  Cowen,  Garrett  Davis, 
John  Edwards,  Everett,  Fillmore,  Gamble,  Gen- 
try, Graham,  Granger,  Green,  Habersham,  Hall, 
Halsted,  Howard,  Hudson,  Joseph  R.  Ingersoll, 
Isaac  D.  Jones,  John  P.  Kennedy,  King,  Linn, 
McKennan,  S.  Mason,  Mathiot,  Mattocks,  Max- 
well, Maynard,  Mitchell,  Moore,  Morrow,  Os- 
borne, Owsley,  Pope,  Powell,  Ramsey,  Benj. 
Randall,  A.  Randall,  Randolph,  Rayner,  Ridg- 
way,  Rodney,  William  Russell,  James  M.  Rus- 
sell, Saltonstall,  Shepperd,  Simonton,  Slade, 
Truman  Smith,  Sprigg,  Stanly,  Stratton,  Sum- 
mers, Taliaferro,  John  B.  Thompson,  Richard 
W.  Thompson,  Tillinghast,  Toland,  Tomlinson, 
Triplett,  Trumbull,  Underwood,  Van  Rensse- 
laer, Wallace,  Warren,  Washington,  Thomas 
W.  Williams,  Joseph  L.  Williams,  Yorke,  and 
Augustus  Young — 87. 

"  Nays — Messrs.  Arrington,  Atherton,  Black, 
Boyd,  Aaron  V.  Brown,  Burke,  Wm.  0.  Butler, 
P.  C.  Caldwell,  Casey,  Coles,  Cross,  Cushing, 
Richard  D.  Davis,  Dawson,  Gordon,  Harris, 
Hastings,  Hays,  Hopkins,  Hubbard,  William  W. 
Irwin,  Cave  Johnson,  John  W.  Jones,  Abra- 
ham McClellan,  Mallory,  Medill,  Newhard,  Oli- 
ver, Parmenter,  Payne,  Proffit  Read,  Reding, 
Reynolds,  Riggs,  Rogers,  Shaw,  Shields,  Steen- 
rod,  Jacob  Thompson,  Van  Buren,  Ward,  Wel- 
ler,  James  W.  Williams,  Wise,  and  Wood — 46." 

The  other  two  resolves  were  adopted  by, 
substantially,  the  same  vote — the  whole  body 
of  the  whigs  voting  for  the  adoption.  And  this 
may  be  considered,  so  far  as  Congress  was  con- 
cerned, as  the  authoritative  answer  to  that  idea 
of  whig  unity  which  had  induced  Mr.  Webster 
to  remain  in  the  cabinet.  General  Jackson  was 
then  alive,  and  it  must  have  looked  to  him  like 
retributive  justice  to  see  two  of  those  (Mr.  Ty- 
ler and  Mr.  Webster)  who  had  voted  his  pro- 


420 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


test  to  be  a  breach  of  privilege,  when  it  was 
not,  now  receiving  the  same  vote  from  their 
own  party  ;  and  that  in  a  case  where  the 
breach  of  privilege  was  real. 


CHAPTER    CI. 

LORD  ASHBURTON'S  MISSION,  AND  THE  BRITISH 
TREATY. 

Sixty  years  had  elapsed  since  the  treaty  of 
peace  between  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain  which  terminated  the  war  of  the  revo- 
lution, and  established  the  boundaries  between 
the  revolted  colonies,  now  independent  States, 
and  the  remaining  British  possessions  in  North 
America.  A  part  of  these  boundaries,  agreed 
upon  in  the  treaty  of  peace,  remained  without 
acknowledgment  and  without  sanction  on  the 
part  of  the  British  government :  it  was  the  part 
that  divided  the  (now)  State  of  Maine  from 
Lower  Canada,  and  was  fixed  by  the  words  of 
the  treaty,  "  along  the  highlands  which  divide 
the  waters  which  empty  themselves  into  the 
river  St.  Lawrence  from  those  which  fall  into 
the  Atlantic  Ocean?  Nothing  could  be  more 
simple,  or  of  more  easy  ascertainment  than  this 
line.  Any  man  that  knew  his  right  hand  from 
his  left,  and  who  could  follow  a  ridge,  and  not 
get  off  of  it  to  cross  any  water  flowing  to  the 
right  or  the  left,  could  trace  the  boundary,  and 
establish  it  in  the  very  words  of  the  treaty. 
In  fact  there  was  no  tangible  dispute  about  it. 
The  British  government  had  agreed  to  it  under 
a  misapprehension  as  to  the  course  of  these  high- 
lands; and  as  soon  as  their  true  course  was 
found  out,  that  government  refused  to  carry 
that  part  of  the  treaty  into  effect,  and  for  a  rea- 
son which  was  very  frankly  told,  after  the  trea- 
ty of  1842,  by  a  British  civil  engineer  who  had 
been  employed  by  his  government  to  search  out 
the  course  of  the  boundary  along  those  high- 
lands.    He  said : 

"The  treaty  of  1783  proposed  to  establish 
the  boundary  between  the  two  countries  along 
certain  highlands.  The  Americans  claimed 
these  highlands  to  run  in  a  northeasterly  direc- 
tion from  the  head  of  the  Connecticut  River,  in 
a  course  which  would  have  brought  the  boun- 
dary within  the  distance  of  twenty  miles  from 
tho  river  St.  Lawrence,  and  which,  besides  cut- 


ting off  the  posts  and  military  routes  leading 
from  the  province  of  New  Brunswick  to  Que- 
bec, would  have  given  them  various  military 
positions  to  command  and  overawe  that  river 
and  the  fortress  of  Quebec." 

This  was  the  objection  to  the  highland  boun- 
dary. It  brought  the  United  States  frontier 
within  twenty  miles  of  Quebec,  and  went  one 
degree  and  a  half  north  of  Quebec !  skirting 
and  overlooking  Lower  Canada  all  the  way,  and 
cutting  off  all  communication  between  that  in- 
land province  and  the  two  Atlantic  provinces 
of  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick,  and  be- 
tween Quebec  and  Halifax.  It  was  a  boundary 
which  commanded  the  capital  of  British  North 
America,  and  which  flanked  and  dominated  the 
principal  British  province  for  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles.  Military  considerations  rendered 
such  a  boundary  just  as  repugnant  to  the 
British  as  the  same  considerations  rendered  it 
acceptable  to  us ;  and  from  the  moment  it  was 
seen  that  the  State  of  Maine  was  projected  far 
north  of  Quebec  and  brought  up  to  the  long 
line  of  heights  which  looked  down  upon  that 
capital,  the  resolution  was  not  to  abide  that 
boundary.  Negotiation  began  immediately,  and 
continued,  without  fruit,  for  thirty  years.  That 
brought  the  parties  to  the  Ghent  Treaty,  at  the 
end  of  the  war  of  1812,  where  all  attempts  to 
settle  the  boundary  ended  in  making  provision 
for  referring  the  question  to  the  arbitrament  of 
a  friendly  sovereign.  This  was  done,  the  king 
of  the  Netherlands  being  agreed  upon  as  the 
arbiter.  He  accepted  the  trust — executed  it — 
and  made  an  award  nearly  satisfactory  to  the 
British  government  because  it  cut  off  a  part  of 
the  northern  projection  of  Maine,  and  so  admit- 
ted a  communication,  although  circuitous,  be- 
tween Halifax  and  Quebec ;  but  still  leaviDg  the 
highland  boundary  opposite  that  capital.  The 
United  States  rejected  the  award  because  it 
gave  up  a  part  of  the  boundary  of  1783  ;  and 
thus  the  question  remained  for  near  thirty 
years  longer — until  the  treaty  of  1842— Great 
Britain  demanding  the  execution  of  the  award 
— the  United  States  refusing  it.  And  thus  the 
question  stood  when  the  special  mission  arrived 
in  the  United  States.  That  mission  was  well 
constituted  for  its  purposes.  Lord  Ashburton, 
as  Mr.  Alexander  Baring,  and  head  of  the  great 
banking  house  of  Baring  and  Brothers,  had 
been  known  for  more  than  a  generation  for  his 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


421 


friendly  sentiments  towards  the  United  States, 
and  business  connection  with  the  people  and  the 
government ;  and  was,  besides,  married  to  an 
American  lady.  The  affability  of  his  manners 
was  a  further  help  to  his  mission,  the  whole  of 
which  was  so  composed  (Mr.  Mildmay,  Mr. 
Bruce  ana*  Mr.  Stepping,  all  gentlemen  of  mind, 
tact,  and  pleasing  deportment)  as  to  be  real 
auxiliaries  in  accomplishing  the  object  of  his 
mission.  It  was  a  special  mission,  sent  to  set- 
tle questions,  and  return ;  and  so  confined  to 
its  character  of  special,  that  Mr.  Fox,  the  resi- 
dent minister,  although  entirely  agreeable  to 
the  United  States  and  his  own  government,  was 
not  joined  in  it.  It  was  the  first  time  the 
United  States  had  been  so  honored  by  Great 
Britain,  and  the  mission  took  the  character  of 
beneficent,  in  professing  to  come  to  settfe-"all 
questions  between  the  two  governments;  but 
ended  in  only  settling  such  as  suited  Great 
Britain,  and  in  the  way  that  suited  her.  At 
the  head  of  those  questions  was  the  northeast- 
ern boundary,  which  was  settled  by  giving  up 
the  line  of  1783,  retiring  the  whole  line  from 
the  heights  which  flanked  Lower  Canada,  cut- 
ting off  as  much  of  Maine  as  admitted  of  a  pret- 
ty direct  communication  between  Halifax  and 
Quebec;  and  thus  granting  to  Great  Britain 
far  more  than  the  award  gave  her,  and  with 
which  she  had  been  content.  The  treaty  also 
made  a  new  boundary  in  the  northwest,  from 
Lake  Superior  to  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  also 
to  the  prejudice  of  the  United  States,  retiring 
the  line  to  the  south,  and  depriving  the  United 
States'  fur  traders  of  the  great  line  of  transpor- 
tation between  these  two  lakes,  which  the  trea- 
ty of  1783  gave  to  them.  The  treaty  also  bound 
the  United  States  to  pay  for  Rouse's  Point,  at 
the  outlet  of  Lake  Champlain,  which  the  treaty 
of  '83  and  the  award  of  the  king  of  the  Nether- 
lands gave  to  us  as  a  matter  of  right.  It  also 
bound  the  United  States  to  keep  up  a  squadron, 
in  conjunction  with  the  British,  on  the  coast  of 
Africa  for  the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade — 
nominally  for  five  years,  but  in  reality  indefi- 
nitely, by  the  addition  of  that  clause  (so  se- 
ductive and  insidious,  and  so  potent  in  sad- 
dling an  onerous  measure  permanently  upon  a 
people)  which  is  always  resorted  to  when  per- 
petuity is  intended,  and  cannot  be  stipulated — 
the  clause  which  continues  the  provision  in 
force,  after  its  limited  term,  until  one  of  the  par- 


ties give  notice  to  the  contrary.  An  extradi- 
tion clause  was  also  wanted  by  Great  Britain, 
and  she  got  it — broad  enough  to  cover  the  re- 
capture of  her  subjects  whether  innocent  or 
guilty,  and  to  include  political  offenders  while 
professing  to  take  only  common  felons.  These 
were  the  points  Great  Britain  wished  settled  ; 
and  she  got  them  all  arranged  according  to  her 
own  wishes :  others  which  the  United  States 
wished  settled,  were  omitted,  and  indefinitely 
adjourned.  At  the  head  of  these  was  the  boun- 
dary beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Oregon 
was  in  dispute.  The  United  States  wished  it 
settled  :  Great  Britain  wished  that  question  to 
remain  as  it  was,  as  she  had  the  possession,  and 
every  day  was  ripening  her  title.  Oregon  was 
adjourned.  The  same  of  the  Caroline,  the 
Schlosser  outrage — the  liberation  of  slaves  at 
Bermuda  and  Nassau — the  refusal  to  shelter 
fugitive  slaves  in  Canada:  all  were  laid  over, 
and  for  ever.  Every  thing  that  the  United 
States  wished  settled  was  left  unsettled,  espe- 
cially Oregon — a  question  afterwards  pregnant 
with  "inevitable  war."  Besides  obtaining  all 
she  wished  by  treaty.  Great  Britain  also  made 
a  great  acquisition  by  statute  law.  An  act  of 
Congress  was  passed  to  fit  the  case  of  McLeod 
(in  future),  and  to  take  such  offenders  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  States. 

Notwithstanding  its  manifold  objections  the 
treaty  was  so  framed  as  to  secure  its  ratifica- 
tion, and  to  command  acquiescence  in  the 
United  States  while  crowned  with  the  greatest 
applause  in  Great  Britain.  Lord  Ashburton 
received  the  formal  thanks  of  parliament  for 
his  meritorious  labors.  Ministers  and  orators 
united  in  declaring  that  he  had  accomplished 
every  object  that  Great  Britain  desired,  and  in 
the  way  she  desired  it — and  left  undone  every 
thing  which  she  wished  to  remain  as  it  was. 
The  northeastern  boundary  being  altered  to 
suit  her,  they  made  a  laugh,  even  in  parliament, 
of  the  manner  in  which  they  had  served  us.  It 
had  so  happened,  immediately  after  the  peace 
of  '83,  that  the  king's  geographer  made  a  map 
of  the  United  States  and  the  Canadas,  to  show 
their  respective  boundaries ;  and  on  that  map 
the  line  of  '83  was  laid  down  correctly,  along 
the  highlands,  overlooking  and  going  beyond 
Quebec ;  and  had  marked  it  with  a  broad  red 
line.  He  made  it  for  the  king,  George  the 
Third,  who  wrote  upon  it  with  his  own  hand — 


422 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


This  is  Oswald's  line.  (Mr.  Richard  Oswald 
being  the  British  negotiator  of  the  provisional 
treaty  of  peace  of  '82  which  established  that 
boundary,  and  which  was  adopted  in  the  defini- 
tive treaty  of  peace  in  '83.)  This  map  disap- 
peared from  its  accustomed  place  about  the 
time  Lord  Ashburton's  mission  was  resolved 
upon,  not  to  be  brought  over  to  America  by 
him  to  assist  in  finding  the  true  line,  but  to  be 
hid  until  the  negotiation  was  over.  Some  mem- 
ber of  parliament  hinted  at  this  removal  and 
hiding,  during  the  discussion  on  the  motion  of 
thanks,  with  an  intimation  that  he  thought 
British  honor  would  have  been  better  consulted 
by  showing  this  map  to  the  American  negotia- 
tor :  Lord  Brougham,  the  mover  of  the  motion, 
amused  himself  at  this  conception,  and  thought 
it  would  have  been  carrying  frankness  a  little 
too  far,  in  such  a  negotiation,  for  the  British  ne- 
gotiator to  have  set  out  with  showing,  "  that  he 
had  no  case" — "  that  he  had  not  a  leg  to  stand 
on."  His  lordship's  speech  on  the  occasion, 
which  was  more  amusing  to  himself  and  the 
parliament  than  it  can  be  to  an  American,  nev- 
ertheless deserves  a  place  in  this  history  of  the 
British  treaty  of  1842 ;  and,  accordingly,  here 
it  is: 

"It  does  so  happen  that  there  was  a  map 
published  by  the  King's  geographer  in  this 
country  in  the  reign  of  his  Majesty  George  III., 
and  here  I  could  appeal  to  an  illustrious  Duke 
whom  I  now  see,  whether  that  monarch  was  not 
as  little  likely  to  err  from  any  fulness  of  at- 
tachment towards  America,  as  any  one  of  his 
faithful  subjects  ?  [The  Duke  of  Cambridge.'] 
Because  he  well  knows  that  there  was  no  one 
thing  which  his  reverend  parent  had  so  much 
at  heart  as  the  separation  from  America,  and 
there  was  nothing  he  deplored  so  much  as  that 
separation  having  taken  place.  The  King's 
geographer,  Mr.  Faden,  published  his  map  1783, 
which  contains,  not  the  British,  but  the  Ameri- 
can line.  "Why  did  not  my  noble  friend  take 
over  a  copy  of  that  map  ?  My  noble  friend 
opposite  (Lord  Aberdeen)  is  a  candid  man ;  he 
is  an  experienced  diplomatist,  both  abroad  and 
at  home ;  he  is  not  unlettered,  but  thoroughly 
conversant  in  all  the  craft  of  diplomacy  and 
statesmanship.  Why  did  he  conceal  this  map  ? 
We  have  a  right  to  complain  of  that ;  and  I,  on 
the  part  of  America,  complain  of  that.  You 
ought  to  have  sent  out  the  map  of  Mr.  Faden, 
and  said,  '  this  is  George  the  Third's  map.'  But 
it  never  occurred  to  my  noble  friend  to  do  so. 
Then,  two  years  after  Mr.  Faden  published  that 
map,  another  was  published,  and  that  took  the 
British  line.    This,  however,  came  out  after  the 


boundary  had  become  matter  of  controversjr, 
post  litem  motam.   But,  at  all  events,  my  noble 
friend  had  to  contend  with   the  force  of    the 
argument  against  Mr.  Webster,  and  America 
had  a  right  to  the  benefit  of  both  maps.     My 
noble  friend  opposite  never   sent  it  over,  and 
nobody  ever  blamed  him  for  it.     But  that  was 
not  all.     What  if  there  was  another  map  con- 
taining the  American  line,  and  never  corrected 
at  all  by  any  subsequent  chart  coming  from  the 
same  custody  ?  And  what  if  that  map  came  out 
of  the  custody  of  a  person  high  in  office  in  this 
country — nay,  what  if  it  came  out  of  the  cus- 
tody  of   the    highest  functionary  of    all — of 
George   III.  himself?     I  know    that    map — I 
know  a  map  which  I  can  trace  to  the  custody 
of    George  III.,   and  on  which  there  is   the 
American  line  and  not  the  English   line,  and 
upon  which  there  is  a  note,  that  from  the  hand- 
writing, as  it  has  been  described  to  me,  makes 
me  think  it  was  the  note  of  George  III.  him- 
self:    '  This  is  the  line  of  Mr.  Oswald's  treaty 
in  1783,'  written  three  or  four  times  upon  the 
face  of  it.     Now,  suppose  this  should  occur — I 
do  not  say  that  it  has  happened — but  it  may 
occur  to  a  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
— either  to  my  noble  friend  or  Lord  Palmerston, 
who,  I  understand  by  common  report,  takes  a 
great  interest  in  the  question ;  and  though  he 
may  not  altogther  approve  of   the  treaty,  he 
may  peradventure  envy  the  success  which  at- 
tended it,  for  it  was  a  success  which  did  not 
attend  any  of  his  own  American  negotiations. 
But  it  is  possible  that  my  noble  friend,  or  Lord 
Palmerston,   may  have   discovered  that   there 
was  this  map,  because  George  III.'s  library  by 
the  munificence  of  George  IV.  was  given  to  the 
British  Museum,  and  this  map  must  have  been 
there ;  but  it  is  a  curious  circumstance  that  it 
is  no  longer  there.  I  suppose  it  must  have  been 
taken  out  of  the  British  Museum  for  the  pur- 
pose of  being  sent  over  to  my  noble  friend  in 
America ;  and  that,  according  to  the  new  doc- 
trines of  diplomacy,  he  was  bound  to  have  used 
it  when  there,  in  order  to  show  that  he  had  no 
case — that  he  had  not  a  leg  to  stand  upon. 
Why  did  he  not  take    it    over  with    him? 
Probably  he  did  not  know  of  its  existence.    I 
am  told  that  it  is  not  now  in  the   British 
Museum,  but  that  it  is  in  the  Foreign  Office.' 
Probably  it  was  known  to  exist ;  but  somehow 
or  other  that  map,  which  entirely  destroys  our 
contention  and    gives   all   to    the   Americans, 
has  been  removed  from  the  British  Museum, 
and  is  now  to  be  found  at  the  Foreign  Office. 
Explain  it  as  you  will,  that  is  the  simple  fact, 
that  this  important  map  was  removed  from  the 
Museum  to  the  Office,  and  not  in  the  time  of 
my  noble  friend  (Lord  Aberdeen)." 

Thus  did  our  simplicity,  and  their  own  dex- 
terity, or  ambi-dexterity,  as  the  case  may  be, 
furnish    sport    for    the    British    parliament: 


ANNO  1842.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


423 


and  thus,  "  without  a  case,"  and,  "  without  a 
leg  to  stand  upon,"  was  Lord  Ashburton  an 
overmatch  for  oar  Secretary-negotiator,  with  a 
good  case  to  show,  and  two  good  legs  to  rest 
on.  This  map  with  its  red  line,  and  the  King's 
autographic  inscription  upon  it,  was  afterwards 
shown  to  Mr.  Everett,  upon  his  request,  by 
Lord  Aberdeen  ;  and  the  fact  communicated  by 
him  to  the  Department  of  State.  But  the  effect 
of  the  altered  line  was  graphically  stated  at  a 
public  dinner  in  honor  of  it  by  the  same  gentle- 
man (Mr.  Featherstonhaugh),  whose  view  of  the 
old  boundary  has  already  been  given. 

"Now,  gentlemen,  if  you  will  divert  your 
attention  for  a  moment  from  the  conflicting 
statements  you  may  have  read  in  regard  to  the 
merits  of  the  compromise  which  has  been  made, 
I  will  explain  them  to  you  in  a  few  words.  The 
American  claim,  instead  of  being  maintained, 
has  been  altogether  withdrawn  and  abandoned ; 
the  territory  has  been  divided  into  equal 
moieties,  as  nearly  as  possible ;  we  have  re- 
tained that  moiety  which  secures  to  us  every 
object  that  was  essential  to  the  welfare  of  our 
colonies  ;  all  our  communications,  military  and 
civil,  are  for  ever  placed  beyond  hostile  reach  ; 
and  all  the  military  positions  on  the  highlands 
claimed  by  America  are,  without  exception, 
secured  for  ever  to  Great  Britain." 

So  spoke  a  person  who  had  searched  the 
country  under  the  orders  of  the  British  govern- 
ment— who  knew  what  he  said — and  who  says 
there  was  a  compromise,  in  which  our  territory 
(for  that  is  the  English  of  it)  was  divided  into 
two  equal  parts,  and  the  part  that  contained 
every  thing  that  gave  value  to  the  whole,  was 
retained  by  Great  Britain  for  her  share.  But 
there  were  some  members  of  the  American 
Senate,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  sequel,  who  had  no 
occasion  to  wait  for  parliamentary  revelations, 
or  dinner-table  exultations,  in  order  to  under- 
stand the  merits  of  this  treaty  of  1842 ;  and 
who  pat  their  opinions  in  a  form  and  place, 
while  the  treaty  was  undergoing  ratification,  to 
speak  for  themselves  in  after  time. 

Many  anomalies  attended  the  conducting  of  the 
negotiations  which  ended  in  the  production  of  the 
treaty.  As  far  as  could  be  seen  there  was  no  ne- 
gotiation— none  in  the  diplomatic  sense  of  the 
term.  There  were  no  protocols,  minutes,  or  re- 
cord to  show  the  progress  of  things — to  show 
what  was  demanded,  what  was  offered,  and  what 
was  agreed  upon.  Articles  came  forth  ripe  and 
complete,  without  a  trace  of  their  progression ; 


and  when  thus  produced  a  letter  would  be  drawn 
up  to  recommend  it— not  to  the  British  govern- 
ment, who  needed  no  recommendation  of  any 
part  of  it — but  to  the  American  people,  who 
otherwise  might  not  have  perceived  its  advan- 
tages. In  the  next  place  the  treaty  was  made 
by  a  single  negotiator  on  each  side,  Mr.  Fox  the 
resident  minister  not  having  been  joined  with 
Lord  Ashburton,  and  no  one  on  tho  American 
side  joined  with  Mr.  Webster,  and  he  left  with- 
out instructions  from  the  President.  On  this 
point  Mr.  Benton  remarked  in  the  debate  on 
the  treaty : 

"In  this  case  the  employment  of  a  single 
negotiator  was  unjustifiable.  The  occasion  was 
great,  and  required  several,  both  for  safety  and 
for  satisfaction.  The  negotiation  was  here. 
Our  country  is  full  of  able  men.  Two  other 
negotiators  might  have  been  joined  without 
delay,  without  trouble,  and  almost  without  ex- 
pense. The  British  also  had  another  negotiator 
here  (Mr.  Fox)  ;  a  minister  of  whom  I  can  say 
without  disparagement  to  any  other,  that,  in  the 
two  and  twenty  years  which  I  have  sat  in  this 
Senate,  and  had  occasion  to  know  the  foreign 
ministers,  I  have  never  known  his  superior  for 
intelligence,  dignity,  attention  to  his  business, 
fidelity  to  his  own  Government,  and  decorum 
to  ours.  Why  not  add  Mr.  Fox  to  Lord  Ash- 
burton, unless  to  prevent  an  associate  from 
being  given  to  Mr.  Webster  ?  Was  it  arranged 
in  London  that  the  whole  negotiation  should  be 
between  two,  and  that  these  two  should  act 
without  a  witness,  and  without  notes  or  minutes 
of  their  conferences  ?  Be  this  as  it  may,  the 
effect  is  the  same ;  and  all  must  condemn  this 
solitary  business  between  two  ministers,  when 
the  occasion  so  imperiously  demanded  several." 

The  want  of  instructions  was  also  animad- 
verted upon  by  Mr.  Benton,  as  a  departure  from 
the  constitutional  action  of  the  government, 
and  injurious  in  this  case,  as  the  three  great 
sections  of  the  Union  had  each  its  peculiar 
question  to  get  settled,  and  the  Secretary-ne- 
gotiator belonged  to  one  only  of  these  sections, 
and  the  only  one  whose  questions  had  been 
settled. 

"By  the  theory  of  our  government,  the 
President  is  the  head  of  the  Executive  Depart- 
ment, and  must  treat,  through  his  agents  and 
ministers,  with  foreign  powers.  He  must  tell 
them  what  to  do,  and  should  tell  that  in  un- 
equivocal language,  that  there  may  be  no  mis- 
take about  it.  He  must  command  and  direct 
the  negotiation ;  he  must  order  what  is  done. 
This  is  the  theory  of  our  government,  and  this 
has  been   its   practice   from   the  beginning  of 


424 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Washington's  to  the  end  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's 
administration ;  and  never  was  it  more  neces- 
sary than  now.  Being  but  one  negotiator,  and 
he  not  approved  by  the  Senate  for  that  purpose, 
and  being  from  an  interested  State,  it  was  the 
boundcn  duty  of  the  President  to  have  guided 
and  directed  every  thing.  He  is  the  head  of  the 
Union,  and  should  have  attended  to  the  interest 
of  the  whole  Union  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  aban- 
dons every  thing  to  his  Secretary,  and  this 
Secretary  takes  care  of  one  section  of  the  Union, 
and  of  his  own  State,  and  of  Great  Britain ; 
and  leaves  the  other  two  sections  of  the  Union 
out  of  the  treaty.  The  Northern  States,  coter- 
minous with  Canada,  get  their  boundaries  ad- 
justed; Massachusetts  gets  money,  which  her 
sister  States  are  to  pay;  and  Great  Britain  takes 
two  slices,  and  all  her  military  frontiers,  from 
the  State  of  Maine  !  the  Southern  and  Western 
States  are  left  as  they  were." 

It  was  known  that  certain  senators  were  con- 
sulted as  the  treaty  went  along,  not  publicly, 
but  privately,  visiting  the  negotiators  upon  re- 
quest for  that  purpose,  agreeing  to  it  in  these 
conferences ;  and  thus  forestalling  their  official 
action.  This  anomaly  Mr.  Benton  thus  ex- 
posed : 

"  The  irregular  manner  in  which  the  ratifica- 
tion of  this  treaty  has  been  sought,  by  consul- 
tations with  individual  members,  before  it  was 
submitted  to  the  Senate.  Here  I  tread  upon 
delicate  ground  ;  and  if  I  am  wrong,  this  is  the 
time  and  the  place  to  correct  me.  I  speak  in 
the  hearing  of  those  who  must  know  whether 
I  am  mistaken.  I  have  reason  to  believe  that 
the  treaty  has  been  privately  submitted  to  sena- 
tors— their  opinions  obtained — the  judgment  of 
the  body  forestalled  ;  and  then  sent  here  for  the 
forms  of  ratification.  [One  senator  said  he  had 
not  been  consulted.]  Mr.  B.  in  continuation : 
Certainly  not,  as  the  senator  says  so ;  and  so 
of  any  other  gentleman  who  will  say  the  same. 
I  interrogate  no  one.  I  have  no  right  to  inter 
rogate  any  one.  I  do  not  pretend  to  say  that 
all  were  consulted ;  that  would  have  been  un- 
necessary ;  and  besides,  I  know  I  was  not  con- 
sulted myself;  and  I  know  many  others  who 
were  not.  All  that  I  intend  to  say  is,  that  I 
have  reason  to  think  that  this  treaty  has  been 
ratified  out  of  doors !  and  that  this  is  a  great 
irregularity,  and  bespeaks  an  undue  solicitude 
for  it  on  the  part  of  its  authors,  arising  from  a 
consciousness  of  its  indefensible  character." 

The  war  argument  was  also  pressed  into  the 
service  of  the  ratification,  and  vehemently  relied 
upon  as  one  of  the  most  cogent  arguments  in  its 
favor.  The  treaty,  or  war!  was  the  constant 
alternative  presented,  and  not  without  effect 
upon  all  persons  of  gentle  and  temporizing  spirit. 


Mr.  Benton  also  exposed  the  folly  and  mischief 
of  yielding  to  such  a  threat — declaring  it  to  be 
groundless,  and  not  to  be  yielded  to  if  it  was 
not. 

"  The  fear  of  war.    This  Walpole  argument 
is  heavily  pressed  upon  us,  and  we  are  constantly 
told  that  the  alternatives  lie  between  this  treaty 
— the  whole  of  it,  just  as  it  is — or  war  !     This 
is  a  degrading  argument,  if  true  ;  and  infamous, 
if  false  !  and  false  it  is :  and  more  than  that,  it 
is  as  shameless  as  it  is  unfounded  !    What !  the 
peace  mission  come  to  make  war !    It  is  no 
such  thing.     It  comes  to  take  advantage  of  our 
deplorable  condition — to  take  what  it  pleases, 
and  to  repulse  the  rest.     Great  Britain  is  in  no 
condition  to  go  to  war  with  us,  and  every  child 
knows  it.     But  I  do  not  limit  myself  to  argu- 
ment, and  general  considerations,  to  disprove 
this  war  argument.     T  refer  to  the  fact  which 
stamps  it  with  untruth.     Look  to  the  notes  of 
Sir  Charles  Vaughan  and  Mr.  Bankhead,  de- 
manding the  execution  of  the  award,  and  declar- 
ing that  its  execution  would  remove  every  im- 
pediment to  the  harmony  of  the  two  countries. 
After  that,  and  while  holding  these  authentic 
declarations  in  our  hands,  are  we  to  be  told  that 
the  peace  mission  requires  more  than  the  award  ? 
requires  one  hundred   and  ten  miles  more  of 
boundary  ?  requires  $500,000  for  House's  Point, 
which  thfe  award  gave  us  without  money  ?  re- 
quires a  naval  and  diplomatic  alliance,  which  she 
dared  not  mention  in  the  time  of  Jackson  or 
Van  Buren  1  requires  the  surrender  of '  rebels ' 
under  the   name   of  criminals  ?  and   puts   the 
South  and  West  at  defiance,  while  conciliating 
the  non-slaveholding  States  ?  and  gives  us  war, 
if  we  do  not  consent  to  all  this  degradation,  in- 
sult, and  outrage  ?     Are  we  to  be  told  this  ? 
No,  sir,  no  !     There  is  no  danger  of  war ;  but 
this  treaty  may  make  a  war,  if  it  is  ratified.     It 
gives  up  all  advantages ;  leaves  us  with  great 
questions  unsettled ;  increases  the  audacity  of 
the  British ;  weakens  and  degrades  us ;  and 
leaves  us  no  alternative  but  war  to  save  the  Co- 
lumbia, to  prevent  impressment,  to  resist  search, 
to  repel  Schlosser  invasions,  and  to  avoid  a  San 
Domingo  insurrection  in  the  South,  excited  from 
London,  from  Canada,  and  from  Nassau." 

The  mission  had  been  heralded  as  one  of 
peace — as  a  beneficent  overture  for  a  universal 
settlement  of  all  difficulties — and  as  a  plan  to 
establish  the  two  countries  on  a  footing  of  friend- 
ship and  cordiality,  which  was  to  leave  each 
without  a  grievance,  and  to  launch  both  into  a 
career  of  mutual  felicity.  On  the  contrary  only 
a  few  were  settled,  and  those  few  the  only  ones 
which  concerned  Great  Britain  and  the  northern 
States  :  the  rest  which  peculiarly  concerned  the 
South  and  the  West,  were  adjourned  to  London 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


425 


— that  is  to  say,  to  the  Greek  calends*    On  this 
point  Mr.  Benton  said  : 

"  We  were  led  to  believe,  on  the  arrival  of  the 
special  minister,  that  he  came  as  a  messenger  of 
peace,  and  clothed  with  full  powers  to  settle 
every  thing  ;  and  believing  this,  his  arrival  was 
hailed  with  universal  joy.  But  here  is  a  disap- 
pointment— a  great  disappointment.  On  receiv- 
ing the  treaty  and  the  papers  which  accompany 
it,  we  find  that  all  the  subjects  in  dispute  have 
not  been  settled ;  that,  in  fact,  only  three  out 
of  seven  are  settled ;  and  that  the  minister  has 
returned  to  his  country,  leaving  four  of  the  con- 
tested subjects  unadjusted.  This  is  a  disappoint- 
ment ;  and  the  greater,  because  the  papers  com- 
municated confirm  the  report  that  the  minister 
came  with  full  powers  to  settle  every  thing. 
The  very  first  note  of  the  American  negotiator 
— and  that  in  its  very  first  sentence,  confirms 
this  belief,  and  leaves  us  to  wonder  how  a  mis- 
sion that  promised  so  much,  has  performed  so 
little.  Mr.  Webster's  first  note  runs  thus: 
'Lord  Ashburton  having  been  charged  by  the 
Queen's  government  with  full  powers  to  nego- 
tiate and  settle  all  matters  in  discussion  between 
the  United  States  and  England,  and  having  on 
his  arrival  at  Washington  announced,'  &c,  &c. 
Here  is  a  declaration  of  full  power  to  settle 
every  thing;  and  yet,  after  this,  only  part  is 
settled,  and  the  minister  has  returned  home. 
This  is  unexpected,  and  inconsistent.  It  con- 
tradicts the  character  of  the  mission,  balks  our 
hopes,  and  frustrates  our  policy.  As  a  confed- 
eracy of  States,  our  policy  is  to  settle  every 
thing  or  nothing ;  and  having  received  the  minis- 
ter for  that  purpose,  this  complete  and  univer- 
sal settlement,  or  nothing,  should  have  been  the 
sine  qua  non  of  the  American  negotiator. 

"  From  the  message  of  the  President  which 
accompanies  the  treaty,  we  learn  that  the  ques- 
tions in  discussion  between  the  two  countries 
were  :  1.  The  Northern  boundary.  2.  The  right 
of  search  in  the  African  seas,  and  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  African  slave  trade.  3.  The  surren- 
der of  fugitives  from  justice.  4.  The  title  to 
the  Columbia  River.  5.  Impressment.  6.  The 
attack  on  the  Caroline.  7.  The  case  of  the 
Creole,  and  of  other  American  vessels  which 
had  shared  the  same  fate.  These  are  the  sub- 
jects (seven  in  number)  which  the  President 
enumerates,  and  which  he  informs  us  occupied 
the  attention  of  the  negotiators.  He  does  not 
say  whether  these  were  all  the  subjects  which 
occupied  their  attention.  He  does  not  tell  us 
whether  they  discussed  any  others.  He  does 
not  say  whether  the  British  negotiator  opened 
the  question  of  the  State  debts,  and  their  as- 
sumption or  guarantee  by  the  Federal  govern- 
ment !  or  whether  the  American  negotiator 
mentioned  the  point  of  the  Canadian  asylum  for 
fugitive  slaves  (of  which  twelve  thousand  have 
already  gone  there)  seduced  by  the  honors  and 
rewards  which  they  receive,  and  by  the  protec- 


tion which  is  extended  to  them.  The  message 
is  silent  upon  these  further  subjects  of  difference, 
if  not  of  discussion,  between  the  two  countries ; 
and,  following  the  lead  of  the  President,  and 
confining  ourselves  (for  the  present)  to  tho 
seven  subjects  of  dispute  named  by  him,  and  wo 
find  three  of  them  provided  for  in  the  treaty — 
four  of  them  not :  and  this  constitutes  a  great 
objection  to  the  treaty — an  objection  which  is 
aggravated  by  the  nature  of  the  subjects  settled, 
or  not  settled.  For  it  so  happens  that,  of  the 
subjects  in  discussion,  some  were  general,  and 
affected  the  whole  Union  ;  others  were  local, 
and  affected  sections.  Of  these  general  sub- 
jects, those  which  Great  Britain  had  most  at 
heart  are  provided  for ;  those  which  most  con- 
cerned the  United  States  are  omitted :  and  of 
the  three  sections  of  the  Union  which  had  each 
its  peculiar  grievance,  one  section  is  quieted,  and 
two  are  left  as  they  were.  This  gives  Great 
Britain  an  advantage  over  us  as  a  nation :  it 
gives  one  section  of  the  L^nion  an  advantage 
over  the  two  others,  sectionally.  This  is  all 
wrong,  unjust,  unwise,  and  impolitic.  It  is 
wrong  to  give  a  foreign  power  an  advantage 
over  us  :  it  is  wrong  to  give  one  section  of  the 
Union  an  advantage  over  the  others.  In  their 
differences  with  foreign  powers,  the  States  should 
be  kept  united  :  their  peculiar  grievances  should 
not  be  separately  settled,  so  as  to  disunite  their 
several  complaints.  This  is  a  view  of  the  ob- 
jection which  commends  itself  most  gravely  to 
the  Senate.  We  are  a  confederacy  of  States, 
and  a  confederacy  in  which  States  classify  them- 
selves sectionally,  and  in  which  each  section  has 
its  local  feelings  and  its  peculiar  interests.  We 
are  classed  in  three  sections  ;  and  each  of  these 
sections  had  a  peculiar  grievance  against  Great 
Britain  ;  and  here  is  a  treaty  to  adjust  the  griev- 
ances of  one,  and  but  one,  of  these  three  sec- 
tions. To  all  intents  and  purposes,  we  have  a 
separate  treaty — a  treaty  between  the  Northern 
States  and  Great  Britain ;  for  it  is  a  treaty  in 
which  the  North  is  provided  for,  and  the  South 
and  West  left  out.  Virtually,  it  is  a  separate 
treaty  with  a  part  of  the  States  ;  and  this  forms 
a  grave  objection  to  it  in  my  eyes. 

"  Of  the  nine  Northern  States  whose  territo- 
ries are  coterminous  with  the  dominions  of  her 
Britannic  Majesty,  six  of  them  had  questions 
of  boundary  or  of  territory,  to  adjust ;  and  all 
of  these  are  adjusted.  The  twelve  Southern 
slaveholding  States  had  a  question  in  which  they 
were  all  interested — that  of  the  protection  and 
liberation  of  fugitive  or  criminal  slaves  in  Canada 
and  the  West  Indies :  this  great  question  finds 
no  place  in  the  treaty,  and  is  put  off  with  phrases 
in  an  arranged  correspondence.  The  whole  great 
West  takes  a  deep  interest  in  the  fate  of  the  Co- 
lumbia River,  and  demands  the  withdrawal  of 
the  British  from  it :  this  large  subject  finds  no 
place  in  the  treaty,  nor  even  in  the  correspon- 
dence which  took  place  between  the  negotiators. 
The  South  and  West  must  go  to  London  with 


426 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


their  complaints  :  the  North  has  been  accom- 
modated here.  The  mission  of  peace  has  found 
its  benevolence  circumscribed  by  the  metes  and. 
boundaries  of  the  sectional  divisions  in  the  Union. 
The  peace-treaty  is  for  one  section :  for  the  other 
two  sections  there  is  no  peace.  The  non-slave- 
holding  States,  coterminous  with  the  British 
dominions  are  pacified  and  satisfied  :  tfc*  slave- 
holding  and  the  Western  States,  remote  from 
the  British  dominions,  are  to  suffer  and  complain 
as  heretofore.  As  a  friend  to  the  Union — a 
friend  to  justice — and  as  an  inhabitant  of  the 
section  which  is  both  slaveholding  and  Western, 
I  object  to  the  treaty  which  makes  this  injurious 
distinction  amongst  the  States." 

The  merits  of  the  different  stipulations  in  the 
treaty  were  fully  spoken  to  by  several  senators 
— among  others,  by  Mr.  Benton— some  extracts 
from  whose  speech  will  constitute  some  ensuing 
chapters. 


CHAPTER    CII. 

BRITISH    TEEATY:    THE    PRETERMITTED    SUB- 
JECTS :  MR.  BENTON'S  SPEECH  :  EXTRACTS. 

I.  The  Columbia  River  and  its  valley. 
The  omitted  or  pretermitted  subjects  are  four : 
the  Columbia  River — impressment — the  outrage 
on  the  Caroline — and  the  liberation  of  American 
slaves,  carried  by  violence  or  misfortune  into 
the  British  West  India  islands,  or  enticed  into 
Canada.  Of  these,  I  begin  with  the  Columbia, 
because  equal  in  importance  to  any,  and,  from 
position,  more  particularly  demanding  my  at- 
tention. The  country  on  this  great  river  is 
ours :  diplomacy  has  endangered  its  title :  the 
British  have  the  possession,  and  have  repulsed 
us  from  the  whole  extent  of  its  northern  shore, 
and  from  all  the  fur  region  on  both  sides  of  the 
river,  and  up  into  all  the  valleys  and  gorges  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains.  Our  citizens  are  begin- 
ning to  go  there  ;  and  the  seeds  of  national  con- 
testation between  the  British  and  Americans  are 
deeply  and  thickly  sown  in  that  quarter.  From 
the  moment  that  we  discovered  it,  Great  Britain 
has  claimed  this  country ;  and  for  thirty  years 
past  this  claim  has  been  a  point  of  contested  and 
deferred  diplomacy,  in  which  every  step  taken 
has  been  a  step  for  the  benefit  of  her  claim,  and 
for  the  injury  of  ours.  The  germ  of  a  war  lies 
there;  and  this  mission  of  peace  should  have 


eradicated  that  germ.  On  the  contrary,  it  does 
not  notice  it !  Neither  the  treaty  nor  the  cor- 
respondence names  or  notices  it !  and  if  it  were 
not  for  a  meagre  and  stinted  paragraph  in  the 
President's  message,  communicating  and  recom- 
mending the  treaty,  we  should  not  know  that 
the  name  of  the  Oregon  had  occurred  to  the 
negotiators.     That  paragraph  is  in  these  words : 

"  After  sundry  informal  communications  with 
the  British  minister  upon  the  subject  of  the 
claims  of  the  two  countries  to  territory  west  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  so  little  probability  was 
found  to  exist  of  coming  to  any  agreement  on 
that  subject  at  present,  that  it  was  not  thought 
expedient  to  make  it  one  of  the  subjects  of  for- 
mal negotiation,  to  be  entered  upon  between 
this  government  and  the  British  minister,  as 
part  of  his  duties  under  his  special  mission." 

This  is  all  that  appears  in  relation  to  a  dis- 
puted country,  equal  in  extent  to  the  Atlantic 
portion  of  the  old  thirteen  United  States ;  su- 
perior to  them  in  climate,  soil,  and  configuration ; 
adjacent  to  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi ;  front- 
ing Asia  ;  holding  the  key  to  the  North  Pacific 
Ocean ;  the  only  country  fit  for  colonization  on 
the  extended  coast  of  Northwest  America ;  a 
country  which  belongs  to  the  United  States  by 
a  title  as  clear  as  their  title  to  the  District  of 
Columbia ;  which  a  resolve  of  Congress,  during 
Mr.  Monroe's  administration,  declared  to  be 
occluded  against  European  colonization ;  which 
Great  Britain  is  now  colonizing ;  and  the  title 
to  which  has  been  a  subject  of  diplomatic  dis- 
cussion for  thirty  years.  This  is  all  that  is  heard 
of  such  a  country,  and  such  a  dispute,  in  this 
mission  of  peace,  which  was  to  settle  every  thing. 
To  supply  this  omission,  and  to  erect  some  bar- 
rier against  the  dangers  of  improvident,  indiffer- 
ent, ignorant,  or  treacherous  diplomacy  in  future 
negotiations  in  relation  to  this  great  country,  it 
is  my  purpose  at  present  to  state  our  title  to 
it ;  and,  in  doing  so,  to  expose  the  fallacy  of  the 
British  pretensions ;  and  thus  to  leave  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Senate,  and  on  the  page  of  our 
legislative  history,  the  faithful  evidences  of  our 
right,  and  which  shall  attest  our  title  to  all  suc- 
ceeding generations. 

(Here  Mr.  Benton  went  into  a  full  derivation 
of  the  American  title  to  the  Columbia  River  and 
its  valley,  between  the  parallels  of  42  and  49 
degrees  of  north  latitude — taking  the  latter 
boundary  from  the  tenth  article  of  the  treaty 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER, 


of  Utrecht,  and  the  former  from  the  second  ar- 
ticle of  the  Florida  treaty  of  1819,  with  Spain. 
The  treaty  of  Utrecht  between  France  an 
England,  as  all  the  world  knows,  was  the  treaty 
which  put  an  end  to  the  wars  of  Queen  Anne 
and  Louis  XIV.,  and  settled  their  differences  in 
America  as  well  as  in  Europe.  Both  England 
and  France  were  at  that  time  large  territorial 
possessors  in  North  America  —  the  English 
holding  Hudson's  Bay  and  New  Britain,  beyond 
Canada,  and  her  Atlantic  colonies  on  this  side 
of  it;  and  France  holding  Canada  and  Louisi- 
ana. These  were  vast  possessions,  with  unfixed 
boundaries.  The  tenth  article  of  the  treaty  of 
Utrecht  provided  for  fixing  these  boundaries. 
Under  this  article,  British  and  French  commis- 
sioners were  appointed  to  define  the  possessions 
of  the  two  nations ;  and  by  these  commissioners 
two  great  points  were  fixed  (not  to  speak  of 
others),  which  have  become  landmarks  in  the 
definition  of  boundaries  in  North  America, 
namely :  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  and  the  49th 
parallel  of  north  latitude  west  of  that  lake. 
These  two  points  were  established  above  a  cen- 
tury and  a  quarter  ago,  as  dividing  the  French 
and  British  dominions  in  that  quarter.  As  suc- 
cessful rebels,  we  acquired  one  of  these  points  at 
the  end  of  the  Revolution.  The  treaty  of  Inde- 
pendence of  1783  gave  us  the  Lake  of  the  Woods 
as  a  landmark  in  the  (then)  north-west  corner  of 
the  Union.  As  successors  to  the  French  in  the 
ownership  of  Louisiana,  we  acquired  the  other ; 
the  treaty  of  1803  having  given  us  that  province 
as  France  and  Spain  had  held  it ;  and  that  was, 
on  the  north,  by  the  parallel  of  49  degrees.  Be- 
ginning in  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  our  northern 
Louisiana  boundary  followed  the  49th  parallel 
to  the  west.  How  far  ?  is  now  the  important 
question  ;  and  I  repeat  the  words  of  the  report, 
of  the  commissioners,  accepted  by  their  re- 
spective nations,  when  I  answer — "  indefinite- 
ly ! "  I  quote  the  words  of  the  report  when  I 
answer  (omitting  all  the  previous  parts  of  the 
line),  "  to  the  latitude  of  49  degrees  north  of 
the  equator,  and  along  that  parallel  indefinite- 
ly to  the  west."  [A  senator  asked  where  all  this 
was  found.]  Mr.  Benton.  I  find  it  in  the 
state  papers  of  France  and  England  above  an 
hundred  years  ago,  and  in  those  of  the  United 
States  since  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana.  I 
quote  now  from  Mr.  Madison's  instructions, 
when  Secretary  of  State  under  Mr.  Jefferson  in 


IDENT. 


dr.  Monroe,  then  our  minister  in  Lon- 
-nd  given  to  him  to  fortify  him  in  his  de- 
of  our  new  acquisition.  The  cardinal  word 
in  this  report  of  the  commissioners  is  the  word 
"  indefinitely  j  "  and  that  word  it  was  the  object 
of  the  British  to  expunge,  from  the  moment 
that  we  discovered  the  Columbia,  and  acquired 
Louisiana — events  which  were  of  the  same  era 
in  our  history,  and  almost  contemporaneous. 
In  the  negotiations  with  Mr.  Monroe  (which 
ended  in  a^  treaty,  rejected  by  Mr.  Jefferson 
without  communication  to  the  Senate),  the 
effort  was  to  limit  the  line,  and  to  terminate  it 
at  the  Rocky  Mountains ;  well  knowing  that  if 
this  line  was  suffered  to  continue  inclefitiitcly  to 
the  west,  it  would  deprive  them  Of  all  they 
wanted ;  for  it  would  strike  the  .ercean  three  de- 
grees north  of  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia. 
Without  giving  us  what  We  were  entitled  to  by 
right  of  discoveries,  and  as  successors  to  Spain, 
it  would  still  take  from  Great  Britain  all  that 
she  wanted — which  was  the  mouth  of  the  river, 
its  harbor,  the  position  which  commanded  it, 
and  its  right  bank,  in  the  rich  and  timbered  re- 
gion of  tide-water.  The  line  on  the  49th  parallel 
would  cut  her  off  from  all  these  advantages ; 
and,  therefore,  to  mutilate  that  line,  and  stop  it 
at  the  Rocky  Mountains,  immediately  became 
her  inexorable  policy.  At  Ghent,  in  1814,  the 
effort  was  renewed.  The  commissioners  of  the 
United  States  and  those  of  Great  Britain  could 
not  agree ;  and  nothing  was  done.  At  London, 
in  1818,  the  effort  was  successful ;  and  in  the 
convention  then  signed  in  that  city,  the  line  of 
the  treaty  of  Utrecht  was  stopped  at  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  The  country  on  the  Columbia  was 
laid  open  for  ten  years  to  the  joint  occupation  of 
the  citizens  and  subjects  of  both  powers ;  and, 
afterwards,  by  a  renewed  convention  at  London, 
this  joint  occupation  was  renewed  indefinitely, 
and  until  one  of  the  parties  should  give  notice 
for  its  termination.  It  is  under  this  privilege 
of  joint  occupation  that  Great  Britain  has  taken 
exclusive  possession  of  the  right  bank  of  the 
river,  from  its  head  to  its  mouth,  and  also  ex- 
clusive possession  of  the  fur  trade  on  both  sides 
of  the  river,  into  the  heart  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains. My  friend  and  colleague  [Mr.  Linn]  has 
submitted  a  motion  to  require  the  President  to 
give  the  stipulated  notice  for  the  termination  of 
this  convention — a  convention  so  unequal  in  its 
operation,  from  thev' inequality  of  title  between 


IRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  two  parties,  and  from  the  organize 
of  the  British  in  that  quarter  under  the 
ful  direction  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Fur  Compal 
Thus  our  title  as  far  as  latitude  49,  so  valid  un- 
der the  single  guarantee  of  the  treaty  of  Utrecht, 
without  looking  to  other  sources,  has  been  jeop- 
arded by  this  improvident  convention ;  and  the 
longer  it  stands,  the  worse  it  is  for  us. 

A  great  fault  of  the  treaty  of  1818  was  in  ad- 
mitting an  organized  and  powerful  portion  of 
the  British  people  to  come  into  possession  of  our 
territories  jointly  with  individual  and  discon- 
nected possessors  on  our  part.  The  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  held  dominion  there  on  the  north 
of  our  territories.  They  were  powerful  in  them- 
selves, perfectly  organized,  protected  by  their 
government,  united  with  it  in  policy,  and  con- 
trolling all  the  Indians  from  Canada  and  the 
Rocky  Mountains  out  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and 
north  to  Baffin's  Bay.  This  company  was  ad- 
mitted, by  the  convention  of  1818,  to  a  joint 
possession  with  us  of  all  our  territories  on  the 
Columbia  River.  The  effect  was  soon  seen. 
Their  joint  possession  immediately  became  ex- 
clusive on  the  north  bank  of  the  river.  Our  fur- 
traders  were  all  driven  from  beyond  the  Rocky 
Mountains ;  then  driven  out  of  the  mountains  ; 
more  than  a  thousand  of  them  killed:  forts 
were  built ;  a  chain  of  posts  established  to  com- 
municate with  Canada  and  Hudson's  Bay ;  set- 
tlers introduced;  a  colony  planted;  firm  pos- 
session acquired;  and,  at  the  end  of  the  ten 
years  when  the  joint  possession  was  to  cease, 
the  intrusive  possessors,  protected  by  their  gov- 
ernment, refused  to  go — began  to  set  up  title — 
and  obtained  a  renewal  of  the  convention,  with- 
out limit  of  time,  and  until  they  shall  receive 
notice  to  quit.  This  renewed  convention  was 
made  in  1828 ;  and,  instead  of  joint  possession 
with  us  for  ten  years,  while  we  should  have 
joint  possession  with  them  of  their  rivers,  bays, 
creeks  and  harbors,  for  the  same  time — instead 
of  this,  they  have  had  exclusive  possession  of 
our  territory,  our  river,  our  harbor,  and  our 
creeks  and  inlets,  for  above  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury. They  are  establishing  themselves  as  in  a 
permanent  possession — making  the  fort  Van- 
couver, at  the  confluence  of  the  Multnomah  and 
Columbia,  in  tide- water,  the  seat  of  their  power 
and  operations.  The  notice  required  never  will 
be  given  while  the  present  administration  is  in 
power ;  nor  obeyed  when  given,  unless  men  are 


in  power  who  will  protect  the  rights  and  the 
onor  of  their  country.  The  fate  of  Maine  has 
oubled  the  dangers  of  the  Columbia,  and  nearly 
placed  us  in  a  position  to  choose  between  war 
and  infamy,  in  relation  to  that  river. 

Another  great  fault  in  the  convention  was,  in 
admitting  a  claim  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain 
to  any  portion  of  these  territories.  Before  that 
convention,  she  stated  no  claim ;  but  asked  a 
favor  —  the  favor  of  joint  possession  for  ten 
years:  now  she  sets  up  title.  That  title  is 
backed  by  possession.  Possession  among  na- 
tions, as  well  as  among  individuals,  is  eleven 
points  out  of  twelve;  and  the  bold  policy  of 
Great  Britain  well  knows  how  to  avail  itself  of 
these  eleven  points.  The  Madawaska  settle- 
ment has  read  us  a  lesson  on  that  head;  and 
the  success  there  must  lead  to  still  greater  bold- 
ness elsewhere.  The  London  convention  of 
1818  is  to  the  Columbia,  what  the  Ghent  treaty 
of  1814  was  to  Maine;  that  is  to  say,  the  first 
false  step  in  a  game  in  which  we  furnish  the 
whole  stake,  and  then  play  for  it.  In  Maine 
the  game  is  up.  The  bold  hand  of  Great  Britain 
has  clutched  the  stake;  and  nothing  but  the 
courage  of  our  people  will  save  the  Columbia 
from  the  same  catastrophe. 

I  proceed  with  more  satisfaction  to  our  title 
under  the  Nootka  Sound  treaty,  and  can  state  it 
in  a  few  words.  All  the  world  knows  the  com- 
motion which  was  excited  in  1790  by  the 
Nootka  Sound  controversy  between  Great 
Britain  and  Spain.  It  was  a  case  in  which  the 
bullying  of  England  and  the  courage  of  Spain 
were  both  tried  to  the  ne  plus  ultra  point,  and 
in  which  Spanish  courage  gained  the  victory. 
Of  course,  the  British  writers  relate  the  story  in 
their  own  way ;  but  the  debates  of  the  Parlia- 
jnent,  and  the  terms  of  the  treaty  in  which  all 
ended,  show  things  as  they  were.  The  British, 
presuming  on  the  voyages  of  Captain  Cook,  took 
possession  of  Nootka;  the  Spanish  Viceroy  of 
Mexico  sent  a  force  to  fetch  the  English  away, 
and  placed  them  in  the  fortress  of  Acapulco. 
Pitt  demanded  the  release  of  his  English,  their 
restoration  to  Nootka,  and  an  apology  for  the  in- 
sult to  the  British  Crown,  in  the  violation  of  its 
territory  and  the  persons  of  its  subjects ;  the 
Spaniard  refused  to  release,  refused  the  restora- 
tion, and  the  apology,  on  the  ground  that  Nootka 
was  Spanish  territory,  and  declared  that  they 
would  fight  for  its  possession.     Then  both  par- 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


429 


ties  prepared  for  war.  The  preparations  fixed 
the  attention  of  all  Europe.  Great  Britain  bul- 
lied to  the  point  of  holding  the  match  over  the 
touch-hole  of  the  cannon ;  but  the  Spaniards  re- 
maining firm,  she  relaxed,  and  entered  into  a 
convention  which  abnegated  her  claim.  She  ac- 
cepted from  the  Spaniards  the  privilege  of  land- 
ing and  building  huts  on  the  unoccupied  parts 
of  the  coast,  for  the  purpose  of  fishing  and  trad- 
ins;  and  while  this  acceptance  nullified  her 
claim,  yet  she  took  nothing  under  it — not  even 
temporary  use — never  having  built  a  hut,  erect- 
ed a  tent,  or  commenced  any  sort  of  settlement 
on  any  part  of  the  coast.  Mr.  Fox  keenly  re- 
proached Mr.  Pitt  with  the  terms  of  this  con- 
vention, being,  as  he  showed,  a  limitation  instead 
of  an  acquisition  of  rights. 

Our  title  is  clear:  that  of  the  British  is  null. 
She  sets  up  none — that  is,  she  states  no  deri- 
vation of  title.  There  is  not  a  paper  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth,  in  which  a  British  minister 
has  stated  a  title,  or  even  a  claim.  They  have 
endeavored  to  obtain  the  country  by  the  arts  of 
diplomacy ;  but  never  have  stated  a  title,  and 
never  can  state  one.  The  fur-trader,  Sir  Alex- 
ander McKenzie,  prompted  the  acquisition,  gave 
the  reason  for  it,  and  never  pretended  a  title. 
His  own  discoveries  gave  no  title.  They  were 
subsequent  to  the  discovery  of  Captain  Gray, 
and  far  to  the  north  of  the  Columbia.  He  never 
saw  that  river.  He  missed  the  head  sources  of 
it,  fell  upon  the  Tacouche  Tesse,  and  struck  the 
Pacific  in  a  latitude  500  miles  (by  the  coast)  to 
the  north  of  the  Columbia.  His  subsequent 
discoveries  were  all  north  of  that  point.  He 
was  looking  for  a  communication  with  the  sea 
— for  a  river,  a  harbor,  and  a  place  for  a  colony 
— within  the  dominions  of  Great  Britain  ;  and, 
not  finding  any,  he  boldly  recommended  his  go- 
vernment to  seize  the  Columbia  River,  to  hold 
it,  and  to  expel  the  Americans  from  the  whole 
country  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  And 
upon  these  pretensions  the  British  claim  has 
rested,  until  possession  has  made  them  bold 
enough  to  exclude  it  from  the  subjects  of  formal 
negotiation  between  the  two  countries.  The 
peace-mission  refused  us  peace  on  that  point. 
The  President  tells  us  that  there  is  "  no  proba- 
bility of  coming  to  any  agreement  at  present !  " 
Then  when  can  the  agreement  be  made  ?  If  re- 
fused now,  when  is  it  to  come  ?    Never,  until 


we  show  that  we  prefer  war  to  ignominious 
peace. 

This  is  the  British  title  to  the  Columbia,  and 
tho  only  one  that  she  wants  for  any  thing.  It 
suits  her  to  have  that  river :  it  is  her  interest 
to  have  it:  it  strengthens  her,  and  weakens 
others,  for  her  to  have  it ;  and,  therefore,  have 
it  she  will.  This  is  her  title,  and  this  her  argu- 
ment. Upon  this  title  and  argument,  she  gets  a 
slice  from  Maine,  and  gains  the  mountain  bar- 
rier which  covers  Quebec ;  and,  upon  this  title 
and  argument,  she  means  to  have  the  Columbia 
River.  The  events  of  the  late  war,  and  the  ap- 
plication of  steam  power  to  ocean  navigation, 
begat  her  title  to  the  country  between  Halifax 
and  Quebec :  the  suggestions  of  McKenzie  begat 
her  title  to  the  Columbia.  Improvident  diplo- 
macy on  our  part,  a  war  countenance  on  her 
part,  and  this  strange  treaty,  have  given  success 
to  her  pretensions  in  Maine:  the  same  diplo- 
macy, and  the  same  countenance,  have  given  her 
a  foothold  on  the  Columbia.  It  is  for  the  Great 
West  to  see  that  no  traitorous  treaty  shall 
abandon  it  to  her.  The  President,  in  his  mes- 
sage, says  that  there  was  no  chance  for  any 
"  agreement "  about  it  at  present ;  that  it  would 
not  be  made  the  subject  of  a  "formal  negotia- 
tion "  at  present ;  that  it  could  not  be  included 
in  the  duties  of  the  "special  mission."  Why 
so  ?  The  mission  was  one  of  peace,  and  to  set- 
tle every  thing;  and  why  omit  this  pregnant 
question  ?  Was  this  a  war  question,  and  there- 
fore not  to  be  settled  by  the  peace  mission  ? 
Why  not  come  to  an  agreement  now,  if  agree- 
ment is  ever  intended  ?  The  answer  is  evident. 
Nc\  agreement  is  ever  intended.  Contented  with 
her  possession,  Great  Britain  wants  delay,  that 
time  may  ripen  possession  into  title,  and  for- 
tunate events  facilitate  her  designs.  My  col- 
league and  myself  were  sounded  on  this  point : 
our  answers  forbade  the  belief  that  we  would 
compromise  or  sacrifice  the  rights  and  interests 
of  our  country ;  and  this  may  have  been  the 
reason  why  there  were  no  "formal "  negotia- 
tions in  relation  to  it.  Had  we  been  "soft 
enough,"  there  might  have  been  an  agreement 
to  divide  our  country  by  the  river,  or,  to  refer 
the  whole  title  to  the  decision  of  a  friendly 
sovereign  !  We  were  not  soft  enough  for  that ; 
and  if  such  a  paper,  marked  B,  and  identified 
with  the  initials  of  our  Secretary,  had  been  sent 


430 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


to  the  Missouri  delegation,  as  was  sent  to  the 
Maine  commissioners,  instead  of  subduing  us  to 
the  purposes  of  Great  Britain,  it  would  have  re- 
ceived from  the  whole  delegation  the  answer 
due  to  treason,  to  cowardice,  and  to  insolence. 

But,  it  is  demanded,  what  do  we  want  with 
this  country,  so  far  off  from  us  ?  I  answer  by 
asking,  in  my  turn,  what  do  the  British  want 
with  it,  who  are  so  much  further  off?  They 
want  it  for  the  fur  trade ;  for  a  colony ;  for  an 
outlet  to  the  sea ;  for  the  communication  across 
the  continent ;  for  a  road  to  Asia ;  for  the  com- 
mand of  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand  In- 
dians against  us  ;  for  the  port  and  naval  station 
which  is  to  command  the  commerce  and  navi- 
gation of  the  North  Pacific  Ocean,  and  open 
new  channels  of  trade  with  China,  Japan,  Poly- 
nesia, and  the  great  East.  They  want  it  for 
these  reasons ;  and  we  want  it  for  the  same ; 
and  because  it  adjoins  us,  and  belongs  to  us, 
and  should  be  possessed  by  our  descendants, 
who  will  be  our  friends ;  and  not  by  aliens, 
who  will  be  our  enemies. 

Forty  years  ago,  it  was  written  by  Humboldt 
that  the  valley  of  the  Columbia  invited  Euro- 
peans to  found  a  fine  colony  there ;  and,  twenty 
years  ago,  the  American  Congress  adopted  a  re- 
solve, that  no  part  of  this  continent  was  open 
to  European  colonization.  The  remark  of 
Humboldt  was  that  of  a  sagacious  European ; 
the  resolve  of  Congress  was  the  work  of  pa- 
triotic Americans.  It  remains  to  be  seen  which 
will  prevail.  The  convention  of  1818  has  done 
us  the  mischief;  it  put  the  European  power  in 
possession :  and  possession  with  nations,  still 
more  than  with  individuals,  is  the  main  point 
in  the  contest.  It  will  require  the  western 
pioneers  to  recover  the  lost  ground ;  and  they 
must  be  encouraged  in  the  enterprise  by  liberal 
grants  of  lands,  by  military  protection,  and  by 
governmental  authority.  It  is  time  for  the  bill 
of  my  colleague  to  pass.  The  first  session  of 
the  first  Congress  under  the  new  census  should 
pass  it.  The  majority  will  be  democratic,  and 
the  democracy  will  demand  that  great  work  at 
their  hands.  I  put  no  faith  in  negotiation.  I 
expect  nothing  but  loss  and  shame  from  any 
negotiation  in  London.  Our  safety  is  in  the 
energy  of  our  people  ;  in  their  prompt  occupa- 
tion of  the  country  ;  and  in  their  invincible  de- 
termination to  maintain  their  rights. 

I  do  not  dilate  upon  the  value  and  extent  of 


this  great  country.  A  word  suffices  to  display 
both.  In  extent,  it  is  larger  than  the  Atlantic 
portion  of  the  old  thirteen  United  States;  in 
climate,  softer ;  in  fertility,  greater ;  in  salu- 
brity, superior ;  in  position,  better,  because 
fronting  Asia,  and  washed  by  a  tranquil  sea. 
In  all  these  particulars,  the  western  slope  of 
our  continent  is  far  more  happy  than  the  east- 
ern. In  configuration,  it  is  inexpressibly  fine 
and  grand — a  vast  oblong  square,  with  natural 
boundaries,  and  a  single  gateway  into  the  sea. 
The  snow-capped  Rocky  Mountains  enclose  it 
to  the  east,  an  iron-bound  coast  on  the  west :  a 
frozen  desert  on  the  north,  and  sandy  plains  on 
the  south.  All  its  rivers,  rising  on  the  segment 
of  a  vast  circumference,  run  to  meet  each  other 
in  the  centre  ;  and  then  flow  together  into  the 
ocean,  through  a  gap  in  the  mountain,  where 
the  heats  of  summer  and  the  colds  of  winter  are 
never  felt ;  and  where  southern  and  northern 
diseases  are  equally  unknown.  This  is  the  val- 
ley of  the  Columbia — a  country  whose  every 
advantage  is  crowned  by  the  advantages  of  po- 
sition and  configuration  :  by  the  unity  of  all  its 
parts — the  inaccessibility  of  its  borders — and 
its  single  introgression  to  the  sea.  Such  a 
country  is  formed  for  union,  wealth,  and 
strength.  It  can  have  but  one  capital,  and 
that  will  be  a  Thebes  ;  but  one  commercial  em- 
porium, and  that  will  be  Tyre,  queen  of  cities. 
Such  a  country  can  have  but  one  people,  one 
interest,  one  government:  and  that  people 
should  be  American — that  interest  ours — and 
that  government  republican.  Great  Britain 
plays  for  the  whole  valley :  failing  in  that,  she 
is  willing  to  divide  by  the  river.  Accursed  and 
infamous  be  the  man  that  divides  or  alienates  it ! 

II. — Impressment. 

Impressment  is  another  of  the  omitted  sub- 
jects. This  having  been  a  cause  of  war  in 
1812,  and  being  now  declared,  by  the  American 
negotiator,  to  be  a  sufficient  cause  for  future 
wars,  it  would  naturally,  to  my  mind,  have 
been  included  in  the  labors  of  a  special  mis- 
sion, dedicated  to  peace,  and  extolled  for  its  be- 
nevolent conception.  We  would  have  expected 
to  find  such  a  subject,  after  such  a  declaration, 
included  in  the  labors  of  such  a  mission.  Not 
so  the  fact.  The  treaty  does  not  mention  im- 
pressment. A  brief  paragraph  in  the  Presi- 
dent's message  informs  us  that  there  was  a  cor- 
respondence on  this  point ;  and,  on  turning  to 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


431 


this  correspondence,  we  actually  find  two  let- 
ters on  the  subject :  one  from  Mr.  Webster  to 
Lord  Ashburton — one  from  Lord  Ashburton  to 
Mr.  Webster :  both  showing,  from  their  dates, 
that  they  were  written  after  the  treaty  was 
signed;  and,  from  their  character,  that  they 
were  written  for  the  public,  and  not  for  the  ne- 
gotiators. The  treaty  was  signed  on  the  9th 
of  August ;  the  letters  were  written  on  the  8th 
and  9th  of  the  same  month.  They  are  a  plea, 
and  a  reply ;  and  they  leave  the  subject  pre- 
cisely where  they  found  it.  From  their  date 
and  character,  they  seem  to  be  what  the  law- 
yers call  the  postea — that  is  to  say,  the  after- 
wards ;  and  are  very  properly  postponed  to 
the  end  of  the  document  containing  the  corres- 
pondence, where  they  find  place  on  the  120th 
page.  They  look  ex  post  facto  there  ;  and, 
putting  all  things  together,  it  would  seem  as  if 
the  American  negotiator  had  said  to  the  British 
lord  (after  the  negotiation  was  over)  :  '  My  Lord, 
here  is  impressment — a  pretty  subject  for  a 
composition  ;  the  people  will  love  to  read  some- 
thing about  it ;  so  let  us  compose.'  To  which, 
it  would  seem,  his  lordship  had  answered :  '  You 
may  compose  as  much  as  you  please  for  your 
people ;  I  leave  that  field  to  you :  and  when 
3rou  are  done,  I  will  write  three  lines  for  my 
own  government,  to  let  it  know  that  I  stick  to 
impressment'  In  about  this  manner,  it  would 
seem  to  me  that  the  two  letters  were  got  up ; 
and  that  the  American  negotiator  in  this  little 
business  has  committed  a  couple  of  the  largest 
faults :  firsts  in  naming  the  subject  of  impress- 
ment at  all !  next,  in  ever  signing  a  treaty,  after 
having  named  it,  without  an  unqualified  renun- 
ciation of  the  pretension ! 

Sir,  the  same  thing  is  not  always  equally 
proper.  Time  and  circumstances  qualify  the 
proprieties  of  international,  as  well  as  of  indi- 
vidual intercourse ;  and  what  was  proper  and 
commendable  at  one  time,  may  become  im- 
proper, reprehensible,  and  derogatory  at  another. 
When  George  the  Third,  in  the  first  article  of 
his  first  treaty  with  the  United  States,  at  the 
end  of  a  seven  years'  war,  acknowledged  them 
to  be  free,  sovereign,  and  independent  States, 
and  renounced  all  dominion  over  them,  this  was 
a  proud  and  glorious  consummation  for  us,  and 
the  crowning  mercy  of  a  victorious  rebellion. 
The  same  acknowledgment  and  renunciation 
from  Queen  Victoria,  at  present,  would  be  an 


insult  for  her  to  offer — a  degradation  for  us  to 
accept.  So  of  this  question  of  impressment.  It 
was  right  in  all  the  administrations  previous  to 
the  late  war,  to  negotiate  for  its  renunciation. 
But  after  having  gone  to  war  for  this  cause ; 
after  having  suppressed  the  practice  by  war; 
after  near  thirty  years'  exemption  from  it — 
after  all  this,  for  our  negotiator  to  put  the 
question  in  discussion,  was  to  compromise  our 
rights  !  To  sign  a  treaty  without  its  renuncia- 
tion, after  having  proposed  to  treat  about  it, 
was  to  relinquish  them  !  Our  negotiator  should 
not  have  mentioned  the  subject.  If  mentioned 
to  him  by  the  British  negotiator,  he  should 
have  replied,  that  the  answer  to  that  preten- 
sion was  in  the  cannon's  mouth  ! 

But  to  name  it  himself,  and  then  sign  with- 
out renunciation,  and  to  be  invited  to  London 
to  treat  about  it — to  do  this,  was  to  descend 
from  our  position ;  to  lose  the  benefit  of  the 
late  war ;  to  revive  the  question ;  to  invite  the 
renewal  of  the  practice,  by  admitting  it  to  be 
an  unsettled  question — and  to  degrade  the 
present  generation,  by  admitting  that  they 
would  negotiate  where  their  ancestors  had 
fought.  These  are  fair  inferences ;  and  infer- 
ences not  counteracted  by  the  euphonious  de- 
claration that  the  American  government  is 
'"''prepared  to  say"  that  the  practice  of  im- 
pressment cannot  hereafter  be  allowed  to  take 
place ! — as  if,  after  great  study,  we  had  just  ar- 
rived at  that  conclusion  !  and  as  if  we  had  not 
declared  much  more  courageously  in  the  case 
of  the  Maine  boundary,  the  Schlosser  massacre, 
and  the  Creole  mutiny  and  murder  I  The 
British,  after  the  experience  they  have  had, 
will  know  how  to  value  our  courageous  decla- 
ration, and  must  pay  due  respect  to  our  flag  ! 
For  one,  I  never  liked  these  declarations,  and 
never  made  a  speech  in  favor  of  any  one  of 
them ;  and  now  I  like  them  less  than  ever,  and 
am  prepared  to  put  no  further  faith  in  the  de- 
clarations of  gentlemen  who  were  for  going  to- 
war  for  the  smallest  part  of  the  Maine  bounda- 
ry in  1838,  and  now  surrender  three  hundred 
miles  of  that  boundary  for  fear  of  war,  when 
there  is  no  danger  of  war.  I  am  prepared  to 
say  that  I  care  not  a  straw  for  the  heroic  de- 
clarations of  such  gentlemen.  I  want  actions,, 
not  phrases.  I  want  Mr.  Jefferson's  act  in 
1806— rejection  of  any  treaty  with  Great 
Britain  that  does  not  renounce  impressment  I 


432 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


And  after  having  declared,  by  law,  black  im- 
pressment on  the  coast  of  Africa  to  be  piracy ; 
after  stipulating  to  send  a  fleet  there,  to  en- 
force our  law  against  that  impressment — after 
this,  I  am  ready  to  do  the  same  thing  against 
white  impressment  on  our  own  coasts,  and  on 
the  high  seas.  I  am  ready  to  enact  that  the 
impressment  of  my  white  fellow-citizens  out  of 
an  American  ship  is  an  act  of  piracy ;  and  then 
to  follow  out  that  enactment  in  its  every  conse- 
quence. 

The  correspondence  between  our  Secretary 
negotiator  and  Lord  Ashburton  on  this  subject, 
has  been  read  to  you— that  correspondence 
which  was  drawn  up  after  the  treaty  was 
finished,  and  intended  for  the  American  public  : 
and  what  a  correspondence  it  is !  "What  an 
exchange  of  phrases !  One  denies  the  right  of 
impressment :  the  other  affirms  it.  Both  wish 
for  an  amicable  agreement ;  but  neither  attempts 
to  agree.  Both  declare  the  season  of  peace  to 
be  the  proper  time  to  settle  this  question ;  and 
both  agree  that  the  present  season  of  peace  is 
not  the  convenient  one.  Our  Secretary  rises  so 
high  as  to  declare  that  the  administration  :C  is 
now  prepared  "  to  put  its  veto  on  the  practice  : 
the  British  negotiator  shows  that  his  Govern- 
ment is  still  prepared  to  resume  the  practice 
whenever  her  interest  requires  it.  Our  nego- 
tiator hopes  that  his  communication  will  be 
received  in  the  spirit  of  peace:  the  British 
minister  replies,  that  it  will.  Our  secretary  then 
persuades  himself  that  the  British  minister  will 
communicate  his  sentiments  in  this  repect,  to 
his  own  government :  his  Lordship  promises  it 
faithfully.  And,  thereupon,  they  shake  hands 
and  part. 

How  different  this  holiday  scene  from  the 
firm  and  virile  language  of  Mr.  Jefferson  :  "  No 
treaty  to  be  signed  without  a  provision  against 
impressment ;  "  and  this  language  backed  by 
the  fact  of  the  instant  rejection  of  a  treaty  so 
signed !  Lord  Chatham  said  of  Magna Cfiarta 
that  it  was  homely  Latin,  but  worth  all  the 
classics.  So  say  I  of  this  reply  of  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son:  it  is  plain  English,  but  worth  all  the 
phrases  which  rhetoric  could  ever  expend  upon 
the  subject.  It  is  the  only  answer  which  our 
secretary  negotiator  should  have  given,  after 
committing  the  fault  of  broaching  the  subject. 
Instead  of  that,  he  commences  rhetorician,  new 
vamps  old  arguments,  writes  largely  and  pret- 


i  tily ;  and  loses  the  question  by  making  it  debat- 
able. His  adversaiy  sees  his  advantage,  and 
seizes  it.  He  abandons  the  field  of  rhetoric  to 
the  lawyer  negotiator ;  puts  in  a  fresh  claim  to 
impressment;  saves  the  question  from  being 
lost  by  a  non-user;  re-establishes  the  debate, 
and  adjourns  it  to  London.  He  keeps  alive  the 
pretension  of  impressment  against  us,  the  white 
race,  while  binding  us  to  go  to  Africa  to  fight 
it  down  for  the  black  race ;  and  has  actually 
left  us  on  lower  ground  in  relation  to  this  ques- 
tion, than  we  stood  upon  before  the  late  war. 
If  this  treaty  is  ratified,  we  must  begin  where 
we  were  in  1806,  when  Mr.  Monroe  and  Mr. 
Pinckney  went  to  London  to  negotiate  against 
impressment ;  we  must  begin  where  they  did, 
with  the  disadvantage  of  having  yielded  to 
Great  Britain  all  that  she  wanted,  and  having 
lost  all  our  vantage-ground  in  the  negotiation. 
We  must  go  to  London,  engage  in  a  humiliating 
negotiation,  become  the  spectacle  of  nations, 
and  the  sport  of  diplomacy ;  and  wear  out  years 
in  begging  to  be  spared  from  British  seizure, 
when  sitting  under  our  own  flag,  and  sailing  in 
our  own  ship  :  we  must  submit  to  all  this 
degradation,  shame  and  outrage,  unless  Congress 
redeems  us  from  the  condition  into  which  we 
have  fallen,  and  provides  for  the  liberty  of  our 
people  on  the  seas,  by  placing  American  im- 
pressment where  African  impressment  has  al- 
ready been  placed — piracy  by  law  !  For  one,  I 
am  ready  to  vote  the  act — to  execute  it — and  to 
abide  its  every  consequence. 
III. — The  liberated  slaves. 
The  case  of  the  Creole,  as  it  is  called,  is 
another  of  the  omitted  subjects.  It  is  only  one 
of  a  number  of  cases  (differing  in  degree,  but 
the  same  in  character)  which  have  occurred 
within  a  few  years,  and  are  becoming  more 
frequent  and  violent.  It  is  the  case  of  Ameri- 
can vessels,  having  American  slaves  on  board, 
and  pursuing  a  lawful  voyage,  and  being  driven 
by  storms  or  carried  by  violence  into  a  British 
port,  and  their  slaves  liberated  by  British  law. 
This  is  the  nature  of  the  wrong.  It  is  a  gene- 
ral outrage  liable  to  occur  in  any  part  of  the 
British  dominions,  but  happens  most  usually 
in  the  British  West  India  islands,  which  line 
the  passage  round  the  Florida  reefs  in  a  voyage 
between  New  Orleans  and  the  Atlantic  ports. 
I  do  not  speak  of  the  12,000  slaves  (worth  at  a 
moderate  computation,  considering  they  must 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


433 


be  all  grown,  and  in  youth  or  middle  life,  at 
least  $6,000,000)  enticed  into  Canada,  and  re- 
ceived with  the  honors  and  advantages  due  to 
the  first  class  of  emigrants.  I  do  not  speak  of 
these,  nor  of  the  liberation  of  slaves  carried 
voluntarily  by  their  owners  into  British  ports  : 
the  man  who  exposes  his  property  wilfully  to 
the  operation  of  a  known  law,  should  abide  the 
consequences  to  which  he  has  subjected  it.  I 
confine  myself  to  cases  of  the  class  mentioned — 
such  as  the  Encomium,  the  Comet,  the  Enter- 
prise, the  Creole,  and  the  Hermosa — cases  in 
which  wreck,  tempest,  violence,  mutiny  and 
murder  were  the  means  of  carrying  the  vessel 
into  the  interdicted  port;  and  in  which  the 
slave  property,  after  being  saved  to  the  owners 
from  revolt  and  tempests,  became  the  victim 
and  the  prey  of  British  law.  It  is  of  such  cases 
that  I  complain,  and  of  which  I  say  that  they 
furnish  no  subject  for  the  operation  of  injurious 
laws,  and  that  each  of  these  vessels  should  have 
been  received  with  the  hospitality  due  to  mis- 
fortune, and  allowed  to  depart  with  all  conve- 
nient despatch,  and  with  all  her  contents  of 
persons  and  property.  This  is  the  law  of 
nations :  it  is  what  the  civilization  of  the  age 
requires.  And  it  is  not  to  be  tolerated  in  this 
nineteenth  century  that  an  American  citizen, 
passing  from  one  port  to  another  of  his  own 
country,  with  property  protected  by  the  laws  of 
his  country,  should  encounter  the  perils  of  an  un- 
fortunate navigator  in  the  dark  ages,  shipwrecked 
on  a  rude  and  barbarian  coast.  This  is  not  to  be 
tolerated  in  this  age,  and  by  such  a  power  as 
the  United  States,  and  after  sending  a  fleet  to 
Africa  to  protect  the  negroes.  Justice,  like 
charity,  should  begin  at  home  ;  and  protection 
should  be  given  where  allegiance  is  exacted. 
We  cannot  tolerate  the  spoil  and  pillage  of  our 
own  citizens,  within  sight  of  our  own  coasts, 
after  sending  4,000  miles  to  redress  the  wrongs 
of  the  black  race.  But  if  this  treaty  is  ratified 
it  seems  that  we  shall  have  to  endure  it,  or  seek 
redress  by  other  means  than  negotiation.  The 
previous  cases  were  at  least  ameliorated  by 
compensation  to  their  owners  for  the  liberation 
of  the  slaves  ;  but  in  the  more  recent  and  most 
atrocious  case  of  the  Creole,  there  is  no  indem- 
nity of  any  kind — neither  compensation  to  the 
ewners  whose  property  has  been  taken;  nor 
apology  to  the  Government,  whose  flag  has 
been  insulted ;  nor  security  for  the  future,  by 
Vol.  II.— 28 


giving  up  the  practice.  A  treaty  is  signed  with- 
out a  stipulation  of  any  kind  on  the  subject ; 
and  as  it  would  seem,  to  the  satisfaction  of  those 
who  made  it,  and  of  the  President,  who  sends 
it  to  us.  A  correspondence  has  been  had ;  the 
negotiators  have  exchanged  diplomatic  notes  on 
the  subject ;  and  these  notes  are  expected  to  be 
as  satisfactory  to  the  country  as  to  those  who 
now  have  the  rule  of  it.  The  President  in  his 
message  says : 

"  On  the  subject  of  the  interference  of  the 
British  authorities  in  the  West  Indies,  a  confi- 
dent hope  is  entertained  that  the  correspondence 
which  has  taken  place,  showing  the  grounds 
taken  by  this  government,  and  the  engagements 
entered  into  by  the  British  minister,  will  be 
found  such  as  to  satisfy  the  just  expectation  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States." — Message. 
August  9. 

This  is  a  short  paragraph  for  so  large  a  sub 
ject;  but  it  is  all  the  message  contains.  But 
let  us  see  what  it  amounts  to,  and  what  it  is 
that  is  expected  to  satisfy  the  just  expectations 
of  the  country.  It  is  the  grounds  taken  in 
the  correspondence,  and  the  engagements 
entered  into  by  the  British  minister,  which  are 
to  work  out  this  agreeable  effect. 

And  it  is  of  the  grounds  stated  in  the  Secre- 
tarjr's  two  letters,  and  the  engagement  entered 
into  in  Lord  Ashburton's  note,  that  the  Presi- 
dent predicates  his  belief  of  the  public  satisfac- 
tion in  relation  to  this  growing  and  most  sensi- 
tive question.  This  brings  us  to  these  grounds, 
and  this  engagement,  that  we  may  see  the  nature 
and  solidity  of  the  one,  and  the  extent  and  va- 
lidity of  the  other.  The  grounds  for  the  public 
satisfaction  are  in  the  Secretary's  letters ;  the 
engagement  is  in  Lord  Ashburton's  letter ;  and 
what  do  they  amount  to  ?  On  the  part  of  the 
Secretary,  I  am  free  to  say  that  he  has  laid  down 
the  law  of  nations  correctly ;  that  he  has  well 
stated  the  principles  of  public  law  which  save 
from  hazard  or  loss,  or  penalty  of  any  kind,  the 
vessel  engaged  in  a  lawful  trade,  and  driven  or 
carried  against  her  will,  into  a  prohibited  port. 
He  has  well  shown  that,  under  such  circum- 
stances, no  advantage  is  to  be  taken  of  the  dis- 
tressed vessel ;  that  she  is  to  be  received  with 
the  hospitality  due  to  misfortune,  and  allowed 
to  depart,  after  receiving  the  succors  of  hu- 
manity, with  all  her  contents  of  persons  and 
things.  All  this  is  well  laid  down  by  our  Secre- 
tary.   Thus  far  his  grounds  are  solid.   But,  alas, 


434 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


this  is  all  talk !  and  the  very  next  paragraph, 
after  a  handsome  vindication  of  our  rights  under 
the  law  of  nations,  is  to  abandon  them  !  I  refer 
to  the  paragraph  commencing :  "  If  your  Lord- 
ship has  no  authority  to  enter  into  a  stipula- 
tion by  treaty  for  the  prevention  of  such  occur- 
rences hereafter"  &c.  This  whole  paragraph 
is  fatal  to  the  Secretary's  grounds,  and  pregnant 
with  strange  and  ominous  meanings.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  an  admission,  in  the  very  first 
line,  that  no  treaty  stipulation  to  prevent  future 
occurrences  of  the  same  kind  can  be  obtained 
here !  that  the  special  mission,  which  came  to 
settle  every  thing,  and  to  establish  peace,  will 
not  settle  this  thing ;  which  the  Secretary,  in 
numerous  paragraphs,  alleges  to  be  a  dangerous 
source  of  future  war  !  This  is  a  strange  contra- 
diction, and  most  easily  got  over  by  our  Secre- 
tary. In  default  of  a  treaty  stipulation  (which 
he  takes  for  granted,  and  evidently  makes  no 
effort  to  obtain),  he  goes  on  to  solicit  a  personal 
engagement  from  his  Lordship  ;  and  an  engage- 
ment of  what  1  That  the  law  of  nations  shall 
be  observed  ?  No  !  but  that  instructions  shall 
be  given  to  the  British  local  authorities  in  the 
islands,  which  shall  lead  them  to  regulate  their 
conduct  in  conformity  with  the  rights  of  citizens 
of  the  United  States,  and  the  just  expectations 
of  their  government,  and  in  such  manner  as 
shall,  in  future,  take  away  all  reasonable  ground 
of  complaint.  This  is  the  extent  of  the  engage- 
ment which  was  so  solicited,  and  which  was  to 
supply  the  place  of  a  treaty  stipulation  !  If  the 
engagement  had  been  given  in  the  words  pro- 
posed, it  would  not  have  been  worth  a  straw. 
But  it  is  not  given  in  those  words,  but  with 
glaring  and  killing  additions  and  differences. 
His  Lordship  follows  the  commencement  of  the 
formula  with  sufficient  accuracy  ;  'but,  lest  any 
possible  consequence  might  be  derived  from  it, 
he  takes  care  to  add,  that  when  these  slaves  do 
reach  them  "  no  matter  by  what  means,"  there 
is  no  alternative  !  Hospitality,  good  wishes, 
friendly  feeling,  the  duties  of  good  neighborhood 
— all  give  way  !  The  British  law  governs  !  and 
that  law  is  too  well  known  to  require  repetition. 
This  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  Lord  Ashbur- 
ton's  qualifications  of  the  engagement ;  and  they 
show  him  to  be  a  man  of  honor,  that  would  not 
leave  the  Secretary  negotiator  the  slightest  room 
for  raising  a  doubt  as  to  the  nature  of  the  instruc- 
tions which  he  engaged  to  have  given.     These 


instructions  go  only  to  the  mode  of  executing 
the  law.  His  Lordship  engages  only  for  the 
civility  and  gentleness  of  the  manner — the  sua- 
viter  in  modo  ;  while  the  firm  execution  of  the 
law  itself  remains  as  it  w&s—fortiter  in  re. 

Lord  Ashburton  proposes  London  as  the  best 
place  to  consider  this  subject.  Mr.  Webster 
accepts  London,  and  hopes  that  her  Majesty's 
government  will  give  us  treaty  stipulations  to 
remove  all  further  cause  for  complaint  on  this 
subject.  This  is  his  last  hope,  contained  in  the 
last  sentence  of  his  last  note.  And  now,  why 
a  treaty  stipulation  hereafter,  if  this  engagement 
is  such  (as  the  President  says  it  is)  as  to  satisfy 
the  just  expectations  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  ?  Why  any  thing  more,  if  that  is  enough  ? 
And  if  treaty  stipulations  are  wanting  (as  in 
fact  they  are),  why  go  to  London  for  them — 
the  head-quarters  of  abolitionism,  the  seat  of  the 
World's  Convention  for  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
and  the  laboratory  in  which  the  insurrection 
of  San  Domingo  was  fabricated  ?  Why  go  to 
London  ?  Why  go  any  where  ?  Why  delay  ? 
Why  not  do  it  here?  Why  not  include  it 
among  the  beatitudes  of  the  vaunted  peace 
mission  ?  The  excuse  that  the  minister  had  not 
powers,  is  contradictory  and  absurd.  The  Sec- 
retary negotiator  tells  us,  in  his  first  letter,  that 
the  minister  came  with  full  powers  to  settle 
every  subject  in  discussion.  This  was  a  subject 
in  discussion ;  and  had  been  since  the  time  of 
the  Comet,  the  Encomium,  and  the  Enterprise — 
years  ago.  If  instructions  were  forgotten,  why 
not  send  for  them  ?  What  are  the  steamers  for, 
that,  in  the  six  months  that  the  peace  mission 
was  here,  they  could  not  have  brought  these 
instructions  a  dozen  times  ?  No  !  the  truth  is, 
the  British  government  would  do  nothing  upon 
this  subject  when  she  found  she  could  accom- 
plish all  her  own  objects  without  granting  any 
thing. 

IV. — Burning  of  the  Caroline. 

The  Caroline  is  the  last  of  the  seven  subjects 
in  the  arrangement  which  I  make  of  them.  I  re- 
serve it  for  the  last ;  the  extreme  ignominy  of 
its  termination  making  it,  in  my  opinion,  the 
natural  conclusion  of  a  disgraceful  negotiation. 
It  is  a  case  in  which  all  the  sources  of  national 
degradation  seem  to  have  been  put  in  requisi- 
tion— diplomacy,  legislation ;  the  judiciary ;  and 
even  the  military.  To  volunteer  propitiations 
to  Great  Britain,  and  to  deprecate  her  wrath. 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


435 


seem  to  have  been  the  sole  concern  of  the  admin- 
istration, when  signal  reparation  was  due  from 
her  to  us.  And  here  again  we  have  to  lament 
the  absence  of  all  the  customary  disclosures  in 
the  progress  of  negotiations.  No  protocol,  no 
minutes,  no  memorandums :  nothing  to  show 
how  a  subject  began,  went  on,  and  reached  its 
consummation.  Every  thing  was  informal  in 
this  anomalous  negotiation.  Wat  Tyler  never 
hated  the  ink-horn  worse  than  our  Secretary- 
negotiator  hated  it  upon  this  occasion.  It  was 
only  after  a  thing  was  finished,  that  the  pen 
was  resorted  to  ;  and  then  merely  to  record  the 
agreement,  and  put  a  face  upon  it  for  the  public 
eye.  In  this  way  many  things  may  have  been 
discussed,  which  leave  no  written  trace  behind 
them  ;  and  it  would  be  a  curious  circumstance 
if  so  large  a  subject,  and  one  so  delicate  as  the 
State  debts,  should  find  itself  in  that  predica- 
ment. 

The  case  of  the  Caroline  is  now  near  four  years 
old.  It  occurred  in  December  of  the  year  1838, 
under  Mr.  Van  Buren's  administration ;  but  it 
was  not  until  March,  1841,  and  until  the  new 
administration  was  in  power,  that  the  question 
assumed  its  high  character  of  a  quarrel  between 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain.  Before 
that  time,  the  outrage  upon  the  Caroline  was 
only  the  act  of  the  individuals  engaged  in  it. 
The  arrest  of  one  of  these  individuals  brought 
out  the  British  government.  She  assumed  the 
offence ;  alleged  the  outrage  to  have  been  per- 
petrated by  her  authority ;  and  demanded  the 
release  of  McLeod,  under  the  clear  implication 
of  a  national  threat  if  he  was  not  surrendered. 
The  release  was  demanded  unconditionally — not 
the  slightest  apology  or  atonement  being  offered 
for  the  outrage  on  the  Caroline,  out  of  which 
the  arrest  of  McLeod  grew.  The  arrogant  de- 
mand of  the  British  was  delivered  to  the  new 
Secretary  of  State  on  the  12th  day  of  March. 
Instead  of  refusing  to  answer  under  a  threat,  he 
answered  the  sooner  j  and,  in  his  answer  went 
far  beyond  what  the  minister  [Mr.  Fox]  had 
demanded.  He  despatched  the  Attorney-general 
of  the  United  States  to  New  York,  to  act  as 
counsel  for  McLeod ;  he  sent  a  Major-general 
of  the  United  States  army  along  with  him,  to 
give  emphasis  to  his  presence ;  and  he  gave  a 
false  version  to  the  law  of  nations,  which  would 
not  only  cover  the  McLeod  case,  but  all  suc- 
ceeding cases  of  the  same  kind.  I  consider  all 
this  the  work  of  the  State  Department  j  for 


General  Harrison  was  too  new  in  his  office,  too 
much  overwhelmed  by  the  army  of  applicants 
who  besieged  him  and  soon  destroyed  his  life, 
to  have  the  time  to  study  the  questions  to  which 
the  arrest  of  McLeod,  and  the  demand  for  his 
release,  and  the  assumption  of  his  crime  by  the 
British  government  gave  rise.  The  Romans 
had  a  noble  maxim — grand  in  itself,  and 
worthy  of  them,  because  they  acted  upon  it. 
Parcere  subjectis,  debellare  superbos  : 
Spare  the  humble  —  humble  the  proud.  Our 
administration  has  invoked  this  maxim  to 
cover  its  own  conduct.  In  giving  up  McLeod 
they  say  it  is  to  lay  hold  of  the  sovereign — 
that  the  poor  servant  is  spared  while  the 
proud  master  is  to  be  held  to  account.  Fine 
phrases  these,  which  deceive  no  one :  for  both 
master  and  servant  are  let  go.  Our  people 
were  not  deceived  by  these  grave  professions. 
They  believed  it  was  all  a  pretext  to  get  out 
of  a  difficulty ;  that,  what  between  love  and 
fear  of  the  British,  the  federal  party  was  un- 
willing to  punish  McLeod,  or  to  see  him  pun- 
ished by  the  State  of  New  York ;  that  the  de- 
sign was  to  get  rid  of  responsibility,  by  getting 
rid  of  the  man ;  and,  that  when  he  was  gone, 
we  should  hear  no  more  of  these  new  Romans 
calling  his  sovereign  to  account.  This  was  the 
opinion  of  the  democracy,  very  freely  expressed 
at  the  time  ;  and  so  it  has  all  turned  out  to  be. 
McLeod  was  acquitted,  and  got  off;  the  British 
government  became  responsible,  on  the  adminis- 
tration's own  principles  ;  they  have  not  been 
held  to  that  responsibility ;  no  atonement  or 
apology  has  been  made  for  the  national  outrage 
at  Schlosser ;  and  the  President  informs  us  that 
no  further  complaint,  on  account  of  this  aggres- 
sion on  the  soil  and  sovereignty  of  the  Union, 
and  the  lives  of  its  citizens,  is  to  be  made  ! 

A  ncte  has  been  obtained  from  Lord  Ashbur- 
ton,  and  sent  to  us  by  the  President,  declaring 
three  things — first,  that  the  burning  of  the  Caro- 
line, and  killing  the  people,  was  a  serious  fact ; 
secondly,  that  no  disrespect  was  intended  to  the 
United  States  in  doing  it  j  thirdly,  that  the  Brit- 
ish government  unfeignedly  hopes  there  will  be 
no  necessity  for  doing  it  again.  This  is  the  ex- 
tent, and  the  whole  extent,  to  which  the  special 
minister,  with  all  his  politeness  and  good  nature, 
and  with  all  his  desire  to  furnish  the  administra- 
tion with  something  to  satisfy  the  public,  could 
possibly  go.  The  only  thing  which  I  see  him 
instructed  by  his  government  to  say,  or  which 


436 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


in  itself  amounts  to  a  positive  declaration,  is  the 
averment  that  her  Majesty's  government  "  con- 
siders it  a  most  serious  fact"  that,  in  the  hur- 
ried execution  of  this  necessary  service,  a  viola- 
tion of  the  United  States  territory  was  commit- 
ted. This  is  admitted  to  be  a  fact ! — a  serious 
fact ! — and  a  most  serious  fact !  But  as  for  any 
sorrow  for  it,  or  apology  for  it,  or  promise  not 
to  commit  such  serious  facts  again,  or  even  not 
to  be  so  hurried  the  next  time — this  is  what  the 
minister  nowhere  says,  or  insinuates.  On  the 
contrary,  just  the  reverse  is  declared ;  for  the 
justification  of  this  "most  serious  fact"  as 
being  the  result  of  a  hurried  execution  of  a 
" necessary  service"  is  an  explicit  averment 
that  the  aforesaid  "  most  serious  fact  "  will  be 
repeated  just  so  often  as  her  Majesty's  govern- 
ment shall  deem  it  necessary  to  her  service.  As 
to  the  polite  declaration,  that  no  disrespect  was 
intended  to  the  United  States  while  invading  its 
territory,  killing  its  citizens,  setting  a  steam- 
boat on  fire,  and  sending  her  in  flames  over  the 
falls  of  Niagara — such  a  declaration  is  about 
equivalent  to  telling  a  man  jthat  you  mean  him 
no  disrespect  while  cudgelling  him  with  both 
hands  over  the  head  and  shoulders. 

The  celebrated  Dr.  Johnson  was  accustomed 
to  say  that  there  was  a  certain  amount  of  gulli- 
bility in  the  public  mind,  which  must  be  pro- 
vided for.  It  would  seem  that  our  Secretary- 
negotiator  had  possessed  himself  of  this  idea, 
and  charged  himself  with  the  duties  under  it, 
and  had  determined  to  make  full  provision  for 
all  the  gullibility  now  extant.  He  has  certainly 
provided  quantum  sufficit  of  humbuggery  in  this 
treaty,  and  in  his  correspondence  in  defence  of 
it,  to  gorge  the  stomachs  of  all  the  gulls  of  the 
present  generation,  both  in  Europe  and  America. 

Our  Secretary  is  full  of  regret  that  McLeod 
was  so  long  imprisoned,  makes  excuses  for  the 
New  York  court's  decisions  against  him,  and 
promises  to  call  the  attention  of  Congress  to 
the  necessity  of  providing  against  such  deten- 
tion in  future.  He  says,  in  his  last  letter  to 
Lord  Ashburton : 

"  It  was  a  subject  of  regret  that  the  release 
of  McLeod  was  so  long  delayed.  A  State  court 
— and  that  not  of  the  highest  jurisdiction — de- 
cided that,  on  summary  application,  embarrass- 
ed, as  it  would  appear,  by  technical  difficulties, 
he  could  not  be  released  by  that  court.  His 
discharge,  shortly  afterward,  by  a  jury,  to  whom 
he  preferred  to  submit  his  case,  rendered  unne- 
cessary the  further  prosecution  of  the  legal  ques- 


tion. It  is  for  the  Congress  of  the  United  States, 
whose  attention  has  been  called  to  the  subject, 
to  say  what  further  provision  ought  to  be  made, 
to  expedite  proceedings  in  such  cases." 

Such  is  the  valedictory  of  our  Secretary — his 
sorrows  over  the  fate  of  McLeod.  That  indi- 
vidual had  been  released  for  a  year  past.  His 
arrest  continued  but  for  a  few  months,  with 
little  personal  inconvenience  to  himself  j  with 
no  danger  to  his  life,  if  innocent ;  and  with  the 
gratification  of  a  notoriety  flattering  to  his 
pride,  and  beneficial  to  his  interest.  He  is 
probably  highly  delighted  with  the  honors  of 
the  occurrence,  and  no  way  injured  by  his 
brief  and  comfortable  imprisonment.  Yet  the 
sorrow  of  our  Secretary  continues  to  flow.  At 
the  end  of  a  year,  he  is  still  in  mourning,  and 
renews  the  expression  of  his  regret  for  the  poor 
man's  detention,  and  gives  assurances  against 
such  delays  >a  future  ; — this  in  the  same  letter 
in  which  he  closes  the  door  upon  the  fate  of  his 
own  countrymen  burnt  and  murdered  in  the 
Caroline,  and  promises  never  to  disturb  the  Brit- 
ish government  about  them  again.  McLeod  and 
all  Canadians  are  encouraged  to  repeat  their  most 
serious  facts  upon  us,  by  the  perfect  immunity 
which  both  themselves  and  their  government 
have  experienced.  And  to  expedite  their  re- 
lease, if  hereafter  arrested  for  such  facts,  they 
are  informed  that  Congress  had  been  "  called  " 
upon  to  pass  the  appropriate  law — and  passed 
it  was  !  The  habeas  corpus  act  against  the 
States,  which  had  slept  for  many  months  in  the 
Senate,  and  seemed  to  have  sunk  under  the  pub- 
lic execration — this  bill  was  "  called  "  up,  and 
passed  contemporaneously  with  the  date  of  this 
letter.  And  thus  the  special  minister  was  en- 
abled to  carry  home  with  him  an  act  of  Con- 
gress to  lay  at  the  footstool  of  his  Queen,  and  to 
show  that  the  measure  of  atonement  to  McLoed 
was  complete :  that  the  executive,  the  military, 
the  legislative,  and  the  judicial  departments  had 
all  been  put  in  requisition,  and  faithfully  ex- 
erted themselves  to  protect  her  Majesty's  sub- 
jects from  being  harmed  for  a  past  invasion, 
conflagration,  and  murder ;  and  to  secure  them 
from  being  called  to  account  by  the  State  courts 
for  such  trifles  in  future. 

And  so  ends  the  case  of  the  Caroline  and 
McLeod.  The  humiliation  of  this  conclusion, 
and  the  contempt  and  future  danger  which  it 
brings  upon  the  country,  demand  a  pause,  and  a 
moment's  reflection  upon  the  catastrophe  of  this 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


437 


episode  in  the  negotiation.  The  whole  negotia- 
tion has  been  one  of  shame  and  injury ;  but  this 
catastrophe  of  the  McLeod  and  Caroline  affair 
puts  the  finishing  hand  to  our  disgrace.  I  do 
not  speak  of  the  individuals  who  have  done  this 
work,  but  of  the  national  honor  which  has  been 
tarnished  in  their  hands.  Up  to  the  end  of  Mr. 
Van  Buren's  administration,  all  was  safe  for  the 
honor  of  the  country.  Redress  for  the  outrage 
at  Schlosser  had  been  demanded ;  interference 
to  release  McLeod  had  been  refused;  the  false 
application  of  the  laws  of  war  to  a  state  of  peace 
had  been  scouted.  On  the  4th  day  of  March, 
1841,  the  national  honor  was  safe ;  but  on  that 
day  its  degradation  commenced.  Timing  their 
movements  with  a  calculated  precision,  the 
British  government  transmitted  their  assump- 
tion of  the  Schlosser  outrage,  their  formal  de- 
mand for  the  release  of  McLeod,  and  their  threat 
in  the  event  of  refusal,  so  as  to  arrive  here  on 
the  evening  of  the  day  on  which  the  new  admin- 
istration received  the  reins  of  government. 
Their  assumption,  demand,  and  threat,  arrived 
in  Washington  on  the  evening  of  the  4th  day  of 
March,  a  few  hours  after  the  inauguration  of 
the  new  powers  was  over.  It  seemed  as  if  the 
British  had  said  to  themselves:  This  is  the 
time — our  friends  are  in  power — we  helped  to 
elect  them — now  is  the  time  to  begin.  And 
begin  they  did.  On  the  8th  day  of  March,  Mr. 
Fox  delivered  to  Mr.  Webster  the  formal  notifi- 
cation of  the  assumption,  made  the  demand,  and 
delivered  the  threat.  Then  the  disgraceful  scene 
began.  They  reverse  the  decision  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren's  administration,  and  determine  to  inter- 
fere in  behalf  of  McLeod,  and  to  extricate  him 
by  all  means  from  the  New  York  courts.  To 
mask  the  ignominy  of  this  interference,  they 
pretend  it  is  to  get  at  a  nobler  antagonist ;  and 
that  they  are  going  to  act  the  Romans,  in  spar- 
ing the  humble  and  subduing  the  proud.  It  is 
with  Queen  Victoria  with  whom  they  will  deal ! 
McLeod  is  too  humble  game  for  them.  McLeod 
released,  the  next  thing  is  to  get  out  of  the 
scrape  with  the  Queen ;  and  for  that  purpose 
they  invent  a  false  reading  of  the  law  of  nations, 
and  apply  the  laws  of  war  to  a  state  of  peace. 
The  jus  belli,  and  not  the  jus  gentium,  then  be- 
comes their  resort.  And  here  ends  their  grand 
imitation  of  the  Roman  character.  To  assume 
the  laws  of  war  in  time  of  peace,  in  order  to 
cover  a  craven  retreat,  is  the  nearest  approach 
which  they  make  to  war.     Then  the  special 


minister  comes.  They  accept  from  him  private 
and  verbal  explanations,  in  full  satisfaction  to 
themselves  of  all  the  outrage  at  Schlosser :  but 
beg  the  minister  to  write  them  a  little  apology, 
which  they  can  show  to  the  people.  The  min- 
ister refuses  ;  and  thereupon  they  assume  that 
they  have  received  it,  and  proclaim  the  apology 
to  the  world.  To  finish  this  scene,  to  complete 
the  propitiation  of  the  Queen,  and  to  send  her 
minister  home  with  legal  and  parchment  evi- 
dence in  his  hand  of  our  humiliation,  the  ex- 
pression of  regret  for  the  arrest  and  detention 
of  McLeod  is  officiously  and  gratuitously  re- 
newed ;  the  prospect  of  a  like  detention  of  any 
of  her  Majesty's  subjects  in  future  is  patheti- 
cally deplcred ;  and,  to  expedite  their  delivery 
from  State  courts  when  they  again  invade  our 
soil,  murder  our  citizens,  and  burn  our  vessels. 
the  minister  is  informed  that  Congress  has 
been  "called"  upon  to  pass  a  law  to  protect 
them  from  these  courts.  And  here  "  a  most  se- 
rious/act "  presents  itself.  Congress  has  actu- 
ally obeyed  the  "call" — passed  the  act — se- 
cured her  Majesty's  subjects  in  future — and 
given  the  legal  parchment  evidence  of  his  suc- 
cess to  her  minister  before  he  departs  for  his 
home.  The  infamous  act — the  habeas  corpus 
against  the  States — squeamishly  called  the  "  re- 
medial justice  act " — is  now  on  the  statute- 
book  ;  the  original  polluting  our  code  of  law,  the 
copy  lying  at  the  footstool  of  the  British  Queen. 
And  this  is  the  point  we  have  reached.  In  the 
short  space  of  a  year  and  a  half,  the  national 
character  has  been  run  down,  from  the  pinnacle 
of  honor  to  the  abyss  of  disgrace.  I  limit  my- 
self now  to  the  affair  of  McLeod  and  the  Caro- 
line alone ;  and  say  that,  in  this  business,  ex- 
clusive of  other  disgraces,  the  national  character 
has  been  brought  to  the  lowest  point  of  con- 
tempt. It  required  the  Walpole  administration 
five-and-twenty  long  years  of  cowardly  submis- 
sion to  France  and  Spain  to  complete  the  degra- 
dation of  Great  Britain:  our  present  rulers 
have  completed  the  same  work  for  their  own 
country  in  the  short  space  of  eighteen  months. 
And  this  is  the  state  of  our  America!  that 
America  which  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  left  so 
proud  !  that  America  which,  with  three  millions 
of  people  fought  and  worsted  the  British  empire 
— with  seven  millions  fought  it,  and  worsted  it 
again— and  now,  with  eighteen  millions,  truckles 
to  the  British  Queen,  and  invents  all  sorts  of 
propitiatory  apologies  for  her,  when  the  most 


438 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ample  atonement  is  due  to  itself.  Are  we  the 
people  of  the  Revolution  ?— of  the  war  of  1812  ? 
— of  the  year  1834,  when  Jackson  electrified 
Europe  by  threatening  the  King  of  France  with 
reprisals ! 

McLeod  is  given  up  because  he  is  too  weak  ; 
the  Queen  is  excused,  because  she  is  too  strong ; 
propitiation  is  lavished  where  atonement  is  due ; 
an  apology  accepted  where  none  was  offered ; 
the  statute  of  limitations  pleaded  against  an 
insult,  by  the  party  which  received  it!  And 
the  miserable  performers  in  all  this  drama  of 
national  degradation  expect  to  be  applauded  for 
magnanimity,  when  the  laws  of  honor  and  the 
code  of  nations,  stamp  their  conduct  with  the 
brand  of  cowardice. 


CHAPTER    CIII. 

BRITISH   TREATY:    NORTHEASTERN   BOUNDARY 
ARTICLE:  MR.  BENTON'S  SPEECH:  EXTRACT. 

The  establishment  of  the  low-land  boundary 
in  place  of  the  mountain  boundary,  and  parallel 
to  it.  This  new  line  is  110  miles  long.  It  is 
on  this  side  of  the  awarded  line — not  a  con- 
tinuation of  it,  but  a  deflection  from  it ;  and 
evidently  contrived  for  the  purpose  of  weaken- 
ing our  boundary,  and  retiring  it  further  from 
Quebec.  It  will  be  called  in  history  the 
Webster  line.  It  begins  on  the  awarded  line, 
at  a  lake  in  the  St.  Francis  River ;  breaks  off 
at  right  angles  to  the  south,  passes  over  the 
valley  of  the  St.  John  in  a  straight  line,  and 
equidistant  from  that  river  and  the  mountain, 
until  it  reaches  the  north-west  branch  of  the 
St.  John,  when  approaching  within  forbidden 
distance  of  Quebec,  it  deflects  to  the  east ;  and 
then  holds  on  its  course  to  the  gorge  in  the 
mountain  at  the  head  of  Metjarmette  creek. 
A  view  of  the  map  will  show  the  character  of 
this  new  line  ;  the  words  of  the  treaty  show 
how  cautiously  it  was  guarded ;  and  the  want 
of  protocols  hides  its  paternity  from  our  view. 
The  character  of  the  line  is  apparent ;  and  it 
requires  no  military  man,  or  military  woman, 
or  military  child,  to  say  to  whose  benefit  it 
enures.  A  man  of  any  sort — a  woman  of  any 
kind — a  child  of  any  age — can  tell  that !  It  is 
a  British  line,  made  for  the  security  of  Quebec. 


Follow  its  calls  on  the  map,  and  every  eye  will 
see  this  design. 

The  surrender  of  the  mountain  boundary  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  on 
the  frontiers  of  Maine.  This  is  a  distinct  ques- 
tion from  the  surrender  of  territory.  The  lat- 
ter belonged  to  Maine:  the  former  to  the 
United  States.  They  were  national,  and  not 
State  boundaries — established  by  the  war  of 
the  Revolution,  and  not  by  a  State  law  or  an 
act  of  Congress ;  and  involving  all  the  consider- 
ations which  apply  to  the  attack  and  defence  of 
nations.  So  far  as  a  State  boundary  is  coter- 
minous with  another  State,  it  is  a  State  ques- 
tion, and  may  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the 
States  interested :  so  far  as  it  is  coterminous 
with  a  foreign  power,  it  is  a  national  question, 
and  belongs  to  the  national  authority.  A  State 
cannot  be  permitted  to  weaken  and  endanger 
the  nation  by  dismembering  herself  in  favor  of 
a  foreigner ;  by  demolishing  a  strong  frontier, 
delivering  the  gates  and  keys  of  a  country  into 
the  hands  of  a  neighboring  nation,  and  giving 
them  roads  and  passes  into  the  country.  The 
boundaries  in  question  were  national,  not  State ; 
and  the  consent  of  Maine,  even  if  given,  availed 
nothing.  Her  defence  belongs  to  the  Union ; 
is  to  be  made  by  the  blood  and  treasure  of  the 
Union ;  and  it  was  not  for  her,  even  if  she  had 
been  willing,  to  make  this  defence  more  difficult, 
more  costly,  and  more  bloody,  by  giving  up  the 
strong,  and  substituting  the  weak  line  of  de- 
fence. Near  three  hundred  miles  of  this  strong 
national  frontier  have  been  surrendered  by  this 
treaty — being  double  as  much  as  was  given  up 
by  the  rejected  award.  The  King  of  the 
Netherlands,  although  on  the  list  of  British 
generals,  and  in  the  pay  of  the  British  Crown, 
was  a  man  of  too  much  honor  to  deprive  us  of 
the  commanding  mountain  frontier  opposite  to 
Quebec;  and  besides,  Jackson  would  have 
scouted  the  award  if  he  had  attempted  it.  The 
King  only  gave  up  the  old  line  to  the  north  of 
the  head  of  the  St.  Francis  River ;  and  for  this 
he  had  some  reason,  as  the  mountain  there  sub- 
sided into  a  plain,  and  the  ridge  of  the  high- 
lands (in  that  part)  was  difficult  to  follow  :  our 
negotiator  gives  up  the  boundary  for  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles  on  this  side  the  head  of  the 
St.  Francis,  and  without  pretext ;  for  the  moun- 
tain ridge  was  there  three  thousand  feet  high. 
The  new  part  given  up,  from  the  head  of  the 
St.  Francis  to  Metjarmette  portage,  is  invaluable 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


439 


to  Great  Britain.  It  covers  her  new  road  to 
Quebec,  removes  us  further  from  that  city, 
places  a  mountain  between  us,  and  brings  her 
into  Maine.  To  comprehend  the  value  of  this 
new  boundary  to  Great  Britain,  and  its  injury 
to  us,  it  is  only  necessary  to  follow  it  on  a  map 
— to  see  its  form — know  its  height,  the  depth 
of  its  gorges,  and  its  rough  and  rocky  sides. 
The  report  of  Capt.  Talcott  will  show  its  cha- 
racter— three  thousand  feet  high :  any  map  will 
show  its  form.  The  gorge  at  the  head  of  the 
Metjarmette  creek — a  water  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
— is  made  the  terminus  ad  quern  of  the  new 
conventional  lowland  line :  beyond  that  gorge, 
the  mountain  barrier  is  yielded  to  Great  Britain. 
Now  take  up  a  map.  Begin  at  the  head  of  the 
Metjarmette  creek,  within  a  degree  and  a  half 
of  the  New  Hampshire  line — follow  the  moun- 
tain north — see  how  it  bears  in  upon  Quebec — 
approaching  within  two  marches  of  that  great 
city,  and  skirting  the  St.  Lawrence  for  some 
hundred  miles.  All  this  is  given  up.  One 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  this  boundary  is 
given  up  on  this  side  the  awarded  line ;  and  the 
country  left  to  guess  and  wonder  at  the  enor- 
mity and  fatuity  of  the  sacrifice.  Look  at  the 
new  military  road  from  Halifax  to  Quebec — 
that  part  of  it  which  approaches  Qubec  and  Hes 
between  the  mountain  and  the  St.  Lawrence. 
Even  by  the  awarded  line,  this  road  was  forced 
to  cross  the  mountain  at  or  beyond  the  head  of 
the  St.  Francis,  and  then  to  follow  the  base  of 
the  mountain  for  near  one  hundred  miles ;  with 
all  the  disadvantages  of  crossing  the  spurs  and 
gorges  of  the  mountain,  and  the  creeks  and 
ravines,  and  commanded  in  its  whole  extent  by 
the  power  on  the  mountain.  See  how  this  is 
changed  by  the  new  boundary  !  the  road  per- 
mitted to  take  either  side  of  the,  mountain — to 
cross  where  it  pleases — and  cohered  and  pro- 
tected in  its  whole  extent  by  the  mountain 
heights,  now  exclusively  British.  Why  this 
new  way,  and  this  security  for  the  road,  unless 
to  give  the  British  still  greater  advantages  over 
us  than  the  awarded  boundary  gave  ?  A  palli- 
ation is  attempted  for  it.  It  is  said  that  the 
mountain  is  unfit  for  cultivation ;  and  the  line 
along  it  could  not  be  ascertained;  and  that 
Maine  consented.  These  are  the  palliations — 
insignificant  if  true,  but  not  true  in  their  es- 
sential parts.  And,  first,  as  to  the  poverty  of 
the  mountain,  and  the  slip  along  its  base,  con- 
stituting this  area  of  893  square  miles  surren- 


dered on  this  side  the  awarded  line:  Captain 
Talcott  certifies  it  to  be  poor,  and  unfit  for  cul- 
tivation. I  say  so  much  the  better  for  a  fron- 
tier. As  to  the  height  of  the  mountains,  and 
the  difficulty  of  finding  the  dividing  ridge,  and 
the  necessity  of  adopting  a  conventional  line : 
I  say  all  this  has  no  application  to  the  surren- 
dered boundary  on  this  side  the  awarded  line  at 
the  head  of  the  St.  Francis.  On  this  side  of 
that  point,  the  mountain  ridge  is  lofty,  the 
heights  attain  three  thousand  feet ;  and  navi- 
gable rivers  rise  in  them,  and  flow  to  the  east 
and  to  the  west — to  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the 
Atlantic.  Hear  Captain  Talcott,  in  his  letter  to 
Mr.  Webster :     (The  letter  read.) 

This  letter  was  evidently  obtained  for  the 
purpose  of  depreciating  the  lost  boundary,  by 
showing  it  to  be  unfit  for  cultivation.  The  note 
of  the  Secretary-negotiator  which  drew  it  forth 
is  not  given,  but  the  answer  of  Captain  Talcott 
shows  its  character ;  and  its  date  (that  of  the 
14th  of  July)  classes  it  with  the  testimony 
which  was  hunted  up  to  justify  a  foregone  con- 
clusion. The  letter  of  Captain  Talcott  is  good 
for  the  Secretary's  purpose,  and  for  a  great  deal 
more.  It  is  good  for  the  overthrow  of  all 
the  arguments  on  which  the  pl&a  for  a  conven- 
tional boundary  stood.  What  was  that  plea? 
Simply,  that  the  highlands  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  north-west  corner  of  Nova  Scotia  could 
not  be  traced ;  and  that  it  was  necessary  to 
substitute  a  conventional  line  in  their  place. 
And  it  is  the  one  on  which  the  award  of  the 
King  of  the  Netherlands  turned,  and  was,  to  the 
extent  of  a  part  of  his  award,  a  valid  one.  But 
it  was  no  reason  for  the  American  Secretary  to 
give  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  mountain 
line  on  this  side  the  awarded  line,  where  the 
highlands  attained  three  thousand  feet  of  eleva- 
tion, and  turned  navigable  rivers  to  the  right 
and  left.  Lord  Ashburton,  in  his  letter  of  the 
13th  of  June,  commences  with  this  idea  :  that 
the  highlands  described  in  the  treaty  could  not 
be  found,  and  had  been  so  admitted  by  Ameri- 
can statesmen ;  and  quotes  a  part  of  a  despatch 
from  Mr.  Secretary  Madison  in  1802  to  Mr.  Rufus 
King,  then  U.  S.  Minister  in  London.  I  quote 
the  whole  despatch,  and  from  this  it  appears — 
1.  That  the  part  at  which  the  treaty  could  not 
be  executed,  for  want  of  finding  the  highlands, 
was  the  'point  to  be  constituted  by  the  intersec- 
tion of  the  due  north  line  from  the  head  of  the 
St.  Croix  with  the  line  drawn  along  the  high- 


440 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


lands.    2.  That  this  point  might  be  substituted 
by  a  conventional  one  agreed  upon  by  the  three 
commissioners.     3.  That  from  this  -point,   so 
agreed  upon,  the  line  was  to  go  to  the  highlands, 
and  to  follow  them  wherever  they  could  be 
ascertained,  to  the    head  of   the   Connecticut 
River.   This  is  the  clear  sense  of  Mr.  Madison's 
letter  and  Mr.  Jefferson's  message ;  and  it  is  to 
be  very  careless  to  confound  this  point  (which 
they  admitted  to  be  dubious,  for  want  of  high- 
lands at  that  place)  with  the  line  itself,  which 
was  to  run  near  300  miles  on  the  elevations  of 
a  mountain  reaching  3,000  feet  high.    The  King 
of  the  Netherlands  took  a  great  liberty  with 
this  point  when  he  brought  it  to  the  St.  John's 
River:    our  Secretary-negotiator  took    a    far 
greater  liberty  with  it  when  he  brought  it  to 
the  head  of  the  Metjarmette  creek;  for  it  is 
only  at  the  head  of  this  creek  that  our  line 
under  the  new  treaty  begins  to  climb  the  high- 
lands.    The  King  of  the  Netherlands  had  some 
apology  for  his  conventional  point  and  conven- 
tional line  to  the  head  of  the  St.  Francis — for 
the  highlands  were  sunk  into  table-land  where 
the  point  ought  to  be,  and  which  was  the  ter- 
minus a  quo  of  his  conventional  line :  but  our 
negotiator  had  no  apology  at  all  for  turning  this 
conventional  line  south,  and  extending  it  110 
miles  through  the  level  lands  of  Maine,  where 
the  mountain  highlands  were  all  along  in  sight 
to  the  west.    It  is  impossible  to  plead  the  diffi- 
culty of  finding  the  highlands  for  this  substitu- 
tion of  the  lowland  boundary,  in  the  whole 
distance  from  the  head  of  the  St.  Francis,  where 
the  King  of  the  Netherlands  fixed  the  com- 
mencement of  our  mountain  line,  to  the  head  of 
the  Metjarmette,  where  our  Secretary  fixed  its 
commencement.     Lord  Ashburton's  quotation 
from  Mr.  Madison's  letter  is  partial  and  incom- 
plete :  he  quotes  what  answers  his  purpose,  and 
is  justifiable  in  so  doing.     But  what  must  we 
think  of  our  Secretary-negotiator,  who  neglected 
to  quote  the  remainder  of  that  letter,  and  show 
that  it  was  a  conventional  point,  and  not  a  con- 
ventional line,  that  Mr.  Jefferson  and  Mr.  Madi- 
son proposed  ?  and  that  this  conventional  point 
was  merely  to  fix  the  north-west  angle  of  Nova 
Scotia,  where,  in  fact,  there  were  no  highlands  ; 
after  which,  the  line  was  to  proceed  to  the  ele- 
vated ground  dividing  the  waters,  &c,  and  then 
follow  the  highlands  to  the  head  of  the  Con- 
necticut?    Why  did  our  Secretary  omit  this 


correction  of  the  British  minister's  quotation, 
and  thus  enable  him  to  use  American  names 
against  us  ? 

To  mitigate  the  enormity  of  this  barefaced 
sacrifice,  our  Secretary-negotiator  enters  into  a 
description  of  the  soil,  and  avers  it  to  be  unfit 
for  cultivation.  What  if  it  were  so  ?  It  is  still 
rich  enough  to  bear  cannon,  and  to  carry  the 
smuggler's  cart;  and  that  is  the  crop  Great 
Britain  wishes  to  plant  upon  it.  .  Gibraltar  and 
Malta  are  rocks ;  yet  Great  Britain  would  not 
exchange  them  for  the  deltas  of  the  Nile  and  of 
the  Ganges.  It  is  not  for  growing  potatoes  and 
cabbages  that  she  has  fixed  her  eye,  since  the 
late  war,  on  this  slice  of  Maine  ;  but  for  trade 
and  war — to  consolidate  her  power  on  our  north- 
eastern border,  and  to  realize  all  the  advantages 
which  steam  power  gives  to  her  new  military 
and  naval,  and  commercial  staiw  a,  in  Passama- 
quoddy  Bay ;  and  her  new  route  for  trade  and 
war  through  Halifax  and  Maine  to  Quebec. 
She  wants  it  for  great  military  and  commercial 
purposes  ;  and  it  is  pitiful  and  contemptible  in 
our  negotiator  to  depreciate  the  sacrifice  as 
being  poor  land,  unfit  for  cultivation,  when 
power  and  dominion,  not  potatoes  and  cab- 
bages, is  the  object  at  stake.  But  the  fact  is, 
that  much  of  this  land  is  good ;  so  that  the  ex- 
cuse for  surrendering  it  without  compensation 
is  unfounded  as  well  as  absurd. 

I  do  not  argue  the  question  of  title  to  the 
territory  and  boundaries  surrendered.  That 
work  has  been  done  in  the  masterly  report 
of  the  senator  from  Pennsylvania  [Mr.  Bu- 
chanan], and  in  the  resolve  of  the  Senate,  unani- 
mously adopted,  which  sanctioned  it.  That  re- 
port and  that  resolve  were  made  and  adopted  in 
the  year  1838 — seven  years  after  the  award  of 
the  King  of  the  Netherlands — and  vindicated 
our  title  to  the  whole  extent  of  the  disputed 
territory.  After  this  vindication,  it  is  not  for 
me  to  argue  the  question  of  title.  I  remit  that 
task  to  abler  and  more  appropriate  hands — to 
the  author  of  the  report  of  1838.  It  will  be  for 
him  to  show  the  clearness  of  our  title  under 
the  treaty  of  1783 — how  it  was  submitted  to  in 
Mr.  Jay's  treaty  of  1794,  in  Mr.  Liston's  cor- 
respondence of  1798,  in  Mr.  King's  treaty  of 
1803,  in  Mr.  Monroe's  treaty  of  1807,  and  in  the 
conferences  at  Ghent — where,  after  the  late  war 
had  shown  the  value  of  a  military  communica- 
tion between  Quebec  and  Halifax,  a  variation  of 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


441 


the  line  was  solicited  as  a  favor,  by  the  British 
commissioners,  to  establish  that  communication. 
It  will  be  for  him  also  to  show  the  progress  of 
the  British  claim,  from  the  solicited  favor  of  a 
road,  to  the  assertion  of  title  to  half  the  terri- 
tory, and  all  the  mountain  frontier  of  Maine ; 
and  it  will  further  be  for  him  to  show  how  he 
is  deserted  now  by  those  who  stood  by  him  then. 
It  will  be  for  him  to  expose  the  fatal  blunder  at 
Ghent,  in  leaving  our  question  of  title  to  the 
arbitration  of  a  European  sovereign,  instead  of 
confiding  the  marking  of  the  line  to  three  com- 
missioners, as  proposed  in  all  the  previous  trea- 
ties, and  agreed  to  in  several  of  them.  To  him, 
also,  it  will  belong  to  expose  the  contradiction 
between  rejecting  the  award  for  adopting  a  con- 
ventional line,  and  giving  up  part  of  the  territory 
of  Maine  ;  and  now  negotiating  a  treaty  which 
adopts  two  conventional  lines,  gives  up  all  that 
the  award  did,  and  more  too,  and  a  mountain 
frontier  besides  ;  and  then  pays  money  for 
Rouse's  Point,  which  came  to  us  without  mone}- 
under  the  award.  It  will  be  for  him  to  do  these 
things.  For  what  purpose  ?  some  one  will  say. 
I  answer,  for  the  purpose  of  vindicating  our 
honor,  our  intelligence,  and  our  good  faith,  in 
all  this  affair  with  Great  Britain ;  for  the  pur- 
nose  of  showing  how  we  are  wronged  in  charac- 
ter and  in  rights  by  this  treaty ;  and  for  the 
purpose  of  preventing  similar  wrongs  and  blun- 
ders in  time  to  come.  Maine  may  be  dismem- 
bered, and  her  boundaries  lost,  and  a  great  mili- 
tary power  established  on  three  sides  of  her ; 
but  the  Columbia  is  yet  to  be  saved  ?  There 
we  have  a  repetition  of  the  Northeastern  comedj^ 
of  errors  on  our  part,  and  of  groundless  preten- 
sion on  the  British  part,  growing  up  from  a  pe- 
tition for  joint  possession  for  fishing  and  hunt- 
ing, to  an  assertion  of  title  and  threat  of  war  ; 
this  groundless  pretension  dignified  into  a  claim 
by  the  lamentable  blunder  of  the  convention  of 
London  in  1818.  We  may  save  the  Columbia 
by  showing  the  folly,  or  worse,  which  has  dis- 
membered Maine. 

The  award  of  the  King  of  the  Netherlands 
was  acceptable  to  the  British,  and  that  award 
was  infinitely  better  for  us ;  and  it  was  not 
only  accepted  by  the  British,  but  insisted  upon ; 
and  its  non-execution  on  our  part  was  made  a 
subject  of  remonstrance  and  complaint  against 
us.  After  this,  can  any  one  believe  that  the 
"peace  mission "  was  sent  out  to  make  war 


upon  us  if  we  did  not  yield  up  near  double  as 
much  as  she  then  demanded  ?  No,  sir  !  there 
is  no  truth  in  this  cry  of  war.  It  is  only  a 
phantom  conjured  up  for  the  occasion.  From 
Jackson  and  Van  Buren  the  British  would 
gladly  have  accepted  the  awarded  boundary: 
the  federalists  prevented  it,  and  even  refused  a 
new  negotiation.  Now,  the  same  federalists 
have  yielded  double  as  much,  and  are  thanking 
God  that  the  British  condescend  to  accept  it. 
Such  is  federalism  :  and  the  British  well  knew 
their  time,  and  their  men,  when  they  selected 
the  present  moment  to  send  their  special  mis- 
sion ;  to  double  their  demands  ;  and  to  use  ar- 
guments successfully,  which  would  have  been 
indignantly  repelled  when  a  Jackson  or  a  Van 
Buren  was  at  the  head  of  the  government — or, 
rather,  would  never  have  been  used  to  such 
Presidents.  The  conduct  of  our  Secretary-ne- 
gotiator is  inexplicable.  He  rejects  the  award, 
because  it  dismembers  Maine ;  votes  against 
new  negotiations  with  England  ;  and  announces 
himself  ready  to  shoulder  a  musket  and  march 
to  the  highland  boundary,  and  there  fight  his 
death  for  it.  This  was  under  Jackson's  admin- 
istration. He  now  becomes  negotiator  himself; 
gives  up  the  highland  boundary  in  the  first 
note;  gives  up  all  that  was  awarded  by  the 
King  of  the  Netherlands  ;  gives  up  110  miles  on 
this  side  of  that  award ;  gives  up  the  mountain 
barrier  which  covered  Maine,  and  commanded 
the  Halifax  road  to  Quebec;  gives  $500,000 
for  Rouse's  Point,  which  the  King  of  the  Nether- 
land's  allotted  us  as  our  right. 


CHAPTER    CIV. 

BRITISH  TEEATY:  NORTHWESTERN  BOUNDARY: 
MR.  BENTONS  SPEECH :  EXTRACTS. 

The  line  from  Lake  Superior  to  the  Lake  of 
the  Woods  never  was  susceptible  of  a  dispute. 
That  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  to  the  head 
of  the  Mississippi  was  disputable,  and  long  dis- 
puted; and  it  will  not  do  to  confound  these 
two  lines,  so  different  in  themselves,  and  in  their 
political  history.  The  line  from  Lake  Superior 
was  fixed  by  landmarks  as  permanent  and  no- 
torious as  the  great  features  of  nature  herself— 
the  Isle  Royale,  in  the  northwest  of  Lake  Su- 


442 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


perior,  and  the  chain  of  small  lakes  and  rivers 
which  led  from  the  north  of  that  isle  to  the 
Lake  of  the  Woods.  Such  were  the  precise 
calls  of  the  treaty  of  1783,  and  no  room  for  dis- 
pute existed  about  it.  The  Isle  Royale  was  a 
landmark  in  the  calls  of  the  treaty,  and  a  great 
and  distinguished  one  it  was — a  large  rocky 
island  in  Lake  Superior,  far  to  the  northwest,  a 
hundred  miles  from  the  southern  shore  ;  unin- 
habitable, and  almost  inaccessible  to  the  Indians 
in  their  canoes  ;  and  for  that  reason  believed  by 
them  to  be  the  residence  of  the  Great  Spirit, 
and  called  in  their  language,  Menong.  This 
isle  was  as  notorious  as  the  lake  itself,  and  was 
made  a  landmark  in  the  treaty  of  1783,  and  the 
boundary  line  directed  to  go  to  the  north  of  it, 
and  then  to  follow  the  chain  of  small  lakes  and 
rivers  called  "Long  Lake,"  which  constituted 
the  line  of  water  communication  between  Lake 
Superior  and  the  Lake  of  the  "Woods,  a  commu- 
nication which  the  Indians  had  followed  beyond 
the  reach  of  tradition,  which  was  the  highway 
of  nations,  and  which  all  travellers  and  traders 
have  followed  since  its  existence  became  known 
to  our  first  discoverers.  A  line  through  the 
Lake  Superior,  from  its  eastern  outlet  to  the 
northward  of  the  Isle  Royale,  leads  direct  to 
this  communication  ;  and  the  line  described  was 
evidently  so  described  for  the  purpose  of  going 
to  that  precise  communication.  The  terms  of 
the  call  are  peculiar.  Through  every  lake  and 
every  water-course,  from  Lake  Ontario  to  the 
Lake  Huron,  the  language  of  the  treaty  is  the 
same :  the  line  is  to  follow  the  middle  of  the 
lake.  Through  every  river  it  is  the  same : 
the  middle  of  the  main  channel  is  to  be  fol- 
lowed. On  entering  Lake  Superior,  this  lan- 
guage changes.  It  is  no  longer  the  middle  of 
the  lake  that  is  to  constitute  the  boundary,4but 
a  line  through  the  lake  to  the  "  northward  "  of 
Isle  Royale — a  boundary  which,  so  far  from 
dividing  the  lake  equally,  leaves  almost  two- 
thirds  of  it  on  the  American  side.  The  words 
of  the  treaty  are  these  : 

"  Thence  through  Lake  Superior,  northward 
of  the  isles  Royale  and  Philippeaux,  to  the  Long 
Lake  ;  thence  through  the  middle  of  said  Long 
Lake,  and  the  water  communication  between  it 
and  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  to  the  Lake  of  the 
Woods,"  &c. 

These  are  the  words  of  the  call ;  and  this  va- 
riation of  language,  and  this  different  mode  of 


dividing  the  lake,  were  for  the  obvious  purpose 
of  taking  the  shortest  course  to  the  Long  Lake, 
or  Pigeon  River,  which  led  to  the  Lake  of  the 
Woods.  The  communication  through  these  lit- 
tle lakes  and  rivers  was  evidently  the  object 
aimed  at ;  and  the  call  to  the  north  of  Isle 
Royale  was  for  the  purpose  of  getting  to  that 
object.  The  island  itself  was  nothing,  except 
as  a  landmark.  Though  large  (for  it  is  near 
one  hundred  miles  in  circumference),  it  has  no 
value,  neither  for  agriculture,  commerce,  nor 
war.  It  is  sterile,  inaccessible,  remote  from 
shore ;  and  fit  for  nothing  but  the  use  to  which 
the  Indians  consigned  it — the  fabulous  residence 
of  a  fabulous  deity.  Nobody  wants  it — neither 
Indians  nor  white  people.  It  was  assigned  to 
the  United  States  in  the  treaty  of  1783,  not  as 
a  possession,  but  as  a  landmark,  and  because  the 
shortest  line  through  the  lake,  to  the  well-known 
route  which  led  to  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  passed 
to  the  north  of  that  isle.  All  this  is  evident 
from  the  maps,  and  all  the  maps  are  here  the 
same ;  for  these  features  of  nature  are  so  well 
defined  that  there  has  never  been  the  least  dis- 
pute about  them.  The  commissioners  under  the 
Ghent  treaty  (Gen.  Porter  for  the  United  States, 
and  Mr.  Barclay  for  Great  Britain),  though  dis- 
agreeing about  several  things,  had  no  disagree- 
ment about  Isle  Royale,  and  the  passage  of  th? 
line  to  the  north  of  that  isle.  In  their  separate 
reports,  they  agreed  upon  this  ;  and  this  settled 
the  whole  question.  After  going  to  the  north 
of  Isle  Royale,  to  get  out  of  the  lake  at  a  known 
place,  it  would  be  absurd  to  turn  two  hundred 
miles  south,  to  get  out  of  it  at  an  unknown  place. 
The  agreement  upon  Isle  Royale  settled  the 
line  to  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  as  it  was,  and  as 
it  is  :  but  it  so  happened  that,  in  the  year  1790, 
the  English  traveller  and  fur-trader  Mr.  (after- 
wards Sir  Alexander)  McKenzie,  in  his  voyage 
to  the  Northwest,  travelled  up  this  line  of  water 
communication,  saw  the  advantages  of  its  exclu- 
sive possession  by  the  British ;  and  proposed  in 
his  "  History  of  the  Fur  Trade,"  to  obtain  it  by 
turning  the'  line  down  from  Isle  Royale,  near 
two  hundred  miles,  to  St.  Louis  River  in  the 
southwest  corner  of  the  lake.  The  Earl  of  Sel- 
kirk, at  the  head  of  the  Hudson's  Bay^  Company, 
repeated  the  suggestion ;  and  the  British  govern- 
ment, for  ever  attentive  to  the  interests  of  its 
subjects,  set  up  a  claim,  through  the  Ghent  com- 
missioners, to  the  St.  Louis  River  as  the  boun- 


ANNO  1842.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


443 


dary.  Mr.  Barclay  made  the  question,  but  too 
faintly  to  obtain  even  a  reference  to  the  arbitra- 
tor j  and  Lord  Ashburton  had  too  much  candor 
and  honor  to  revive  it.  He  set  up  no  pretension 
to  the  St.  Louis  River,  as  claimed  by  the  Ghent 
commissioners  :  he  presented  the  Pigeon  River 
as  the  "  long  lake  "  of  the  treaty  of  1783,  and 
only  asked  for  a  point  six  miles  south  of  that 
river ;  and  he  obtained  all  he  asked.  His  letter 
of  the  17th  of  July  is  explicit  on  this  point. 
He  says : 

"In  considering  the  second  point,  it  really 
appears  of  little  importance  to  either  party 
how  the  line  be  determined  through  the  wild 
country  between  Lake  Superior  and  the  Lake 
of  the  Woods,  but  it  is  important  that  some 
line  should  be  fixed  and  known.  I  would  pro- 
pose that  the  line  be  taken  from  a  point  about 
six  miles  south  of  Pigeon  River,  where  the 
Grand  Portage  commences  on  the  lake,  and 
continued  along  the  line  of  the  said  portage, 
alternately  by  land  and  water,  to  Lac  la  Pluie 
— the  existing  route  by  land  and  by  water 
remaining  common  by  both  parties.  This  line 
has  the  advantage  of  being  known,  and  attended 
with  no  doubt  or  uncertainty  in  running  it." 

These  are  his  Lordship's  words:  Pigeon 
River,  instead  of  St.  Louis  River !  making  no 
pretension  to  the  four  millions  of  acres  of  fine 
mineral  land  supposed  to  have  been  saved  be- 
tween these  two  rivers  ;  and  not  even  alluding 
to  the  absurd  pretension  of  the  Ghent  commis- 
sioner !  After  this,  what  are  we  to  think  of  the 
candor  and  veracity  of  an  official  paper,  which 
would  make  a  merit  of  having  saved  four  mil- 
lions of  acres  of  fine  mineral  land,  "  northward 
of  the  claim  set  up  by  the  British  commissioner 
under  the  Ghent  treaty?"  What  must  we 
think  of  the  candor  of  a  paper  which  boasts  of 
having  "  included  this  within  the  United  States," 
when  it  was  never  out  of  the  United  States  ? 
If  there  is  any  merit  in  the  case,  it  is  in  Lord 
Ashburton — in  his  not  having  claimed  the  200 
miles  between  Pigeon  River  and  St.  Louis  River. 
What  he  claimed,  he  got;  and  that  was  the 
southern  line,  commencing  six  miles  south  of 
Pigeon  River,  and  running  south  of  the  true 
line  to  Rainy  Lake.  He  got  this ;  making  a  dif- 
ference of  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres, 
and  giving  to  the  British  the  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  the  best  route ;  and  a  joint  possession  of 
the  one  which  is  made  the  boundary.  To  un- 
derstand the  value  of  this  concession,  it  must  be 


known  that  there  are  two  lines  of  communica- 
tion from  the  Lake  Superior  to  the  Lake  of  the 
Woods,  both  beginning  at  or  near  the  mouth  of 
Pigeon  River ;  that  these  lines  are  the  channels 
of  trade  and  travelling,  both  for  Indians,  and 
the  fur-traders ;  that  they  are  water  communi- 
cations ;  and  that  it  was  a  great  point  with  the 
British,  in  their  trade  and  intercourse  with  the 
Indians,  to  have  the  exclusive  dominion  of  the 
best  communication,  and  a  joint  possession  with 
us  of  the  other.  This  is  what  Lord  Ashburton 
claimed — what  the  treaty  gave  him — and  what 
our  Secretary-negotiator  became  his  agent  and 
solicitor  to  obtain  for  him.  I  quote  the  Secre- 
tary's letter  of  the  25th  of  July  to  Mr.  James 
Ferguson,  and  the  answers  of  Mr.  Ferguson  of 
the  same  date,  and  also  the  letter  of  Mr.  Joseph 
Delafield,  of  the  20th  of  July,  for  the  truth  of 
what  I  say.  From  these  letters,  it  will  be  seen 
that  our  Secretary  put  himself  to  the  trouble  to 
hunt  testimony  to  justify  his  surrender  of  the 
northern  route  to  the  British ;  that  he  put  lead- 
ing questions  to  his  witnesses,  to  get  the  infor- 
mation which  he  wanted ;  and  that  he  sought 
to  cover  the  sacrifice,  by  depreciating  the  agri- 
cultural value  of  the  land,  and  treating  the  dif- 
ference between  the  lines  as  a  thing  of  no  im- 
portance. Here  is  the  letter.  I  read  an  extract 
from  it : 

"  What  is  the  general  nature  of  the  country 
between  the  mouth  of  Pigeon  River  and  the 
Rainy  Lake  ?  Of  what  formation  is  it,  and  how 
is  its  surface  ?  and  will  any  considerable  part  of 
its  area  be  fit  for  cultivation  ?  Are  its  waters 
active  and  running  streams,  as  in  other  parts  of 
the  United  States?  Or  are  they  dead  lakes, 
swamps,  and  morasses  ?  If  the  latter  be  their 
general  character,  at  what  point,  as  you  proceed 
westward,  do  the  waters  receive  a  more  decided 
character  as  running  streams  ? 

"  There  are  said  to  be  two  lines  of  communi- 
cation, each  partly  by  water  and  partly  by  por- 
tages, from  the  neighborhood  of  Pigeon  River  to 
the  Rainy  Lake :  one  by  way  of  Fowl  Lake,  the 
Saganaga  Lake,  and  the  Cypress  Lake ;  the 
other  by  way  of  Arrow  River  and  Lake ;  then 
by  way  of  Saganaga  Lake,  and  through  the  river 
Maligne,  meeting  the  other  route  at  Lake  la 
Croix,  and  through  the  river  Namekan  to  the 
Rainy  Lake.  Do  you  know  any  reason  for  at- 
taching great  preference  to  either  of  these  two 
lines  ?  Or  do  you  consider  it  of  no  importance, 
in  any  point  of  view,  which  may  be  agreed  to  ? 
Please  be  full  and  particular  on  these  several 
points." 

Here  are  leading  questions,  such  as  the  rules 


444 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW 


of  evidence  forbid  to  be  put  to  any  witness,  and 
the  answers  to  which  would  be  suppressed  by 
the  order  of  any  court  in  England  or  America. 
They  are  called  "leading,"  because  they  lead 
the  witness  to  the  answer  which  the  lawyer 
wants ;  and  thereby  tend  to  the  perversion  of 
justice.  The  witnesses  are  here  led  to  two 
points :  first,  that  the  country  between  the  two 
routes  or  lines  is  worth  nothing  for  agriculture ; 
secondly,  that  it  is  of  no  importance  to  the 
United  States  which  of  the  two  lines  is  estab- 
lished for  the  boundary.  Thus  led  to  the  de- 
sired points,  the  witnesses  answer.  Mr.  Fergu- 
son says : 

"  As  an  agricultural  district,  this  region  will 
always  be  valueless.  The  pine  timber  is  of  high 
growth,  equal  for  spars,  perhaps,  to  the  Norway 
pine,  and  may,  perhaps,  in  time,  find  a  market ; 
but  there  are  no  alluvions,  no  arable  lands,  and 
the  whole  country  may  be  described  as  one 
waste  of  rock  and  water. 

"  You  have  desired  me  also  to  express  an 
opinion  as  to  any  preference  which  I  may  know 
to  exist  between  the  several  lines  claimed  as 
boundaries  through  this  country,  between  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain. 

"Considering  that  Great  Britain  abandons 
her  claim  by  the  Fond  du  Lac  and  the  St.  Louis 
River ;  cedes  also  Sugar  Island  (otherwise  called 
St.  George's  Island)  in  the  St.  Marie  River ; 
and  agrees,  generally,  to  a  boundary  following 
the  old  commercial  route,  commencing  at  the 
Pigeon  River,  I  do  not  think  that  any  reason- 
able ground  exists  to  prevent  a  final  determina- 
tion of  this  part  of  the  boundary." 

And  Mr.  Delafield  adds : 

"  As  an  agricultural  district,  it  has  no  value 
or  interest,  even  prospectively,  in  my  opinion. 
If  the  climate  were  suitable  (which  it  is  not),  I 
can  only  say  that  I  never  saw,  in  my  explora- 
tions there,  tillable  land  enough  to  sustain  any 
permanent  population  sufficiently  numerous  to 
justify  other  settlements  than  those  of  the  fur- 
traders  ;  and,  I  might  add,  fishermen.  The  fur- 
traders  there  occupied  nearly  all  those  places ; 
and  the  opinion  now  expressed  is  the  only  one  I 
ever  heard  entertained  by  those  most  experienced 
in  these  northwestern  regions. 

"  There  is,  nevertheless,  much  interest  felt  by 
the  fur-traders  on  this  subject  of  boundary.  To 
them,  it  is  of  much  importance,  as  they  con- 
ceive ;  and  it  is,  in  fact,  of  national  importance. 
Had  the  British  commissioner  consented  to  pro- 
ceed by  the  Pigeon  River  (which  is  the  Long 
Lake  of  Mitchell's  map),  it  is  probable  there 
would  have  been  an  agreement.  There  were 
several  reasons  for  his  pertinacity,  and  for  this 
disagreement;  which  belong,  however,  to  the 
private  history  of  the  commission,  and  can  be 


stated  when  required.  The  Pigeon  River  is  a 
continuous  water-course.  The  St.  George's 
Island,  in  the  St.  Marie  River,  is  a  valuable 
island,  and  worth  as  much,  perhaps,  as  most  of 
the  country  between  the  Pigeon  River  and  Dog 
River  route,  claimed  for  the  United  States,  in  an 
agricultural  sense." 

These  are  the  answers ;  and  while  they  are 
conclusive  upon  the  agricultural  character  of 
the  country  between  the  two  routes,  and  pre- 
sent it  as  of  no  value ;  yet,  on  the  relative  im- 
portance of  the  routes  as  boundaries,  they  re- 
fuse to  follow  the  lead  which  the  question  held 
out  to  them,  and  show  that,  as  commercial 
routes,  and,  consequently,  as  commanding  the 
Indians  and  their  trade,  a  question  of  national 
importance  is  involved.  Mr.  Delafield  says  the 
fur-traders  feel  much  interest  in  this  boundary : 
to  them,  it  is  of  much  importance  ;  and  it  is,  in 
fact,  of  national  importance.  These  are  the 
words  of  Mr.  Delafield ;  and  they  show  the 
reason  why  Lord  Ashburton  was  so  tenacious 
of  this  change  in  the  boundary.  He  wanted  it 
for  the  benefit  of  the  fur-trade,  and  for  the  con- 
sequent command  which  it  would  give  the  Brit- 
ish over  the  Indians  in  time  of  war.  All  this  is 
apparent ;  yet  our  Secretary  would  only  look  at 
it  as  a  corn  and  potato  region  !  And  finding  it 
not  good  for  that  purpose,  he  surrenders  it  to  % 
the  British !  Both  the  witnesses  look  upon  it 
as  a  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  United  States, 
and  suppose  some  equivalent  in  other  parts  of 
the  boundary  was  received  for  it.  There  was 
no  such  equivalent :  and  thus  this  surrender 
becomes  a  gratuitous  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States,  aggravated  by  the  condescension 
of  the  American  Secretary  to  act  as  the  at- 
torney of  the  British  minister,  and  seeking  tes- 
timony by  unfair  and  illegal  questions ;  and  then 
disregarding  the  part  of  the  answers  which 
made  against  his  design. 


CHAPTER    CV. 

BRITISH  TREATY  :    EXTRADITION  ARTICLE  :   MR. 
BENTON'S  SPEECH :  EXTRACT. 

I  proceed  to  the  third  subject  and  last  article 
in  the  treaty — the  article  which  stipulates  for 
the  mutual    surrender  of  fugitive    criminals. 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


445 


And  here  again  we  are  at  fault  for  these  same 
protocols.  Not  one  word  is  found  in  the  cor- 
respondence upon  this  subject,  the  brief  note 
excepted  of  Lord  Ashburton  of  the  9  th  of  Au- 
gust— the  day  of  the  signature  of  the  treaty — 
to  say  that  its  ratification  would  require  the 
consent  of  the  British  parliament,  and  would 
necessarily  be  delayed  until  the  parliament  met. 
Except  this  note,  not  a  word  is  found  upon  the 
subject ;  and  this  gives  no  light  upon  its  origin, 
progress,  and  formation — nothing  to  show  with 
whom  it  originated — what  necessity  for  it  in 
this  advanced  age  of  civilization,  when  the  com- 
ity of  nations  delivers  up  fugitive  offenders 
upon  all  proper  occasions — and  when  explana- 
tions upon  each  head  of  offences,  and  each  class 
of  fugitives,  is  so  indispensable  to  the  right  un- 
derstanding and  the  safe  execution  of  the  trea- 
ty. Total  and  black  darkness  on  all  these 
points.  Nor  is  any  ray  of  light  found  in  the 
President's  brief  paragraphs  in  relation  to  it. 
Those  paragraphs  (the  work  of  his  Secretary, 
of  course)  are  limited  to  the  commendation  of 
the  article,  and  are  insidiously  deceptive,  as  I 
shall  show  at  the  proper  time.  It  tells  us 
nothing  that  we  want  to  know  upon  the  origin 
and  design  of  the  article,  and  how  far  it  applies 
to  the  largest  class  of  fugitive  offenders  from 
the  United  States — the  slaves  who  escape  with 
their  master's  property,  or  after  taking  his  life 
— into  Canada  and  the  British  West  Indies. 
The  message  is  as  silent  as  the  correspondence 
on  all  these  points  ;  and  it  is  only  from  looking 
into  past  history,  and  contemporaneous  circum- 
stances, that  we  can  search  for  the  origin  and 
design  of  this  stipulation,  so  unnecessary  in  the 
present  state  of  international  courtesy,  and  so 
useless,  unless  something  unusual  and  extraor- 
dinary is  intended.  Looking  into  these  sources, 
and  we  are  authorized  to  refer  the  origin  and 
design  of  the  stipulation  to  the  British  minis- 
ter, and  to  consider  it  as  one  of  the  objects  of 
the  special  mission  with  which  we  have  been 
honored.  Be  this  as  it  may,  I  do  not  like  the 
article.  Though  fair  upon  its  face,  it  is  difficult 
of  execution.  As  a  general  proposition,  atro- 
cious offenders,  and  especially  between  neigh- 
boring nations,  ought  to  be  given  up  ;  but  that 
is  better  done  as  an  affair  of  consent  and  discre- 
tion, than  under  the  constraints  and  embarrass- 
ments of  a  treaty  obligation.  Political  offenders 
ought  not  to  be  given  up ;  but,  under  the  stern 


requisitions  of  a  treaty  obligation,  and  the  bene- 
fit of  an  ex  'parte  accusation,  political  offenders 
may  be  given  up  for  murder,  or  other  crimes, 
real  or  pretended ;  and  then  dealt  with  as  their 
government  pleases.  Innocent  persons  should 
not  be  harassed  with  groundless  accusations ; 
and  there  is  no  limit  to  these  vexations,  if  all 
emigrants  are  placed  at  the  mercy  of  malevo- 
lent informers,  subjected  to  arrest  in  a  new  and 
strange  land,  examined  upon  ex  parte  testimo- 
ny, and  sent  back  for  trial  if  a  probable  case  is 
made  out  against  them. 

This  is  a  subject  long  since  considered  in  our 
country,  and  on  which  we  have  the  benefit  both 
of  wise  opinions  and  of  some  experience.  Mr. 
Jefferson  explored  the  whole  subject  when  he 
was  Secretary  of  State  under  President  Wash- 
ington, and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  these 
surrenders  could  only  be  made  under  three 
limitations  : — 1.  Between  coterminous  coun- 
tries. 2.  For  high  offences.  3.  A  special  pro- 
vision against  political  offenders.  Under  these 
limitations,  as  far  back  as  the  }^ear  1793,  Mr. 
Jefferson  proposed  to  Great  Britain  and  Spain 
(the  only  countries  with  which  we  held  coter- 
minous dominions,  and  only  for  their  adjacent 
provinces)  a  mutual  delivery  of  fugitive  crimi- 
nals.    His  proposition  was  in  these  words  : 

"Any  person  having  committed  murder  of 
malice  prepense,  not  of  the  nature  of  treason,  or 
forgery,  within  the  United  States  or  the  Span- 
ish provinces  adjoining  thereto,  and  fleeing 
from  the  justice  of  the  country,  shall  be  deliv- 
ered up  by  the  government  where  he  shall  be 
found,  to  that  from  which  he  fled,  whenever  de- 
manded by  the  same." 

This  was  the  proposition  of  that  great  states- 
man :  and  how  different  from  those  which  we 
find  in  this  treaty  !  Instead  of  being  confined 
to  coterminous  dominions,  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  country  is  taken  for  the  theatre  of  the 
crime  ;  and  that  includes,  on  the  part  of  Great 
Britain,  possessions  all  over  the  world,  and 
every  ship  on  every  sea  that  sails  under  her 
flag.  Instead  of  being  confined  to  two  of- 
fences of  high  degree — murder  and  forgery — 
one  against  life,  the  other  against  property — 
this  article  extends  to  seven  offences  ;  some  of 
which  may  be  incurred  for  a  shilling's  worth 
of  property,  and  another  of  them  without 
touching  or  injuring  a  human  being.  Instead 
of  a  special  provision  in  favor  of  political  of- 


446 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


fenders,  the  insurgent  or  rebel  may  be  given  up 
for  murder,  and  then  hanged  and  quartered  for 
treason ;  and  in  the  long  catalogue  of  seven  of- 
fences, a  charge  may  be  made,  and  an  ex  parte 
case  established,  against  any  political  offender 
which  the  British  government  shall  choose  to 
pursue. 

To  palliate  this  article,  and  render  it  more 
acceptable  to  us,  we  are  informed  that  it  is 
copied  from  the  27th  article  of  Mr.  Jay's  trea- 
ty. That  apology  for  it,  even  if  exactly  true, 
would  be  but  a  poor  recommendation  of  it  to 
the  people  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Jay's 
treaty  was  no  favorite  with  the  American  peo- 
ple, and  especially  with  that  part  of  the  people 
which  constituted  the  republican  party.  Least 
of  all  was  this  27th  article  a  favorite  with  them. 
It  was  under  that  article  that  the  famous  Jona- 
than Robbins,  alias  Thomas  Nash,  was  surren- 
dered— a  surrender  which  contributed  largely 
to  the  defeat  of  Mr.  Adams,  and  the  overthrow 
of  the  federal  party,  in  1800.  The  apology 
would  be  poor,  if  true :  but  it  happens  to  be 
not  exactly  true.  The  article  in  the  Webster 
treaty  differs  widely  from  the  one  in  Jay's 
treaty — and  all  for  the  worse.  The  imitation 
is  far  worse  than  the  original — about  as  much 
worse  as  modern  whiggery  is  worse  than  an- 
cient federalism.  Here  are  the  two  articles ; 
let  us  compare  them : 

Mr.  Webster's  Treaty. 

"Article  10.— It  is  agreed  that  the  United 
States  and  her  Britannic  Majesty  shall,  upon 
mutual  requisitions  by  them,  or  their  ministers, 
officers,  or  authorities,  respectively  made,  de- 
liver up  to  justice  all  persons  who,  being 
charged  with  the  crime  of  murder,  or  assault 
with  intent  to  commit  murder,  or  piracy,  or  ar- 
son, or  robbery,  or  for^ry,  or  the  utterance  of 
forged  papers  committed  within  the  jurisdiction 
of  either,  shall  seek  an  asylum,  or  shall  be 
found,  within  the  territories  of  the  other :  pro- 
vided, that  this  shall  only  be  done,  upon  such 
evidence  of  criminality  as,  according  to  the 
laws  of  the  place  where  the  fugitive  or  person 
so  charged  shall  be  found,  would  justify  his  ap- 
prehension and  commitment  for  trial,  if  the 
crime  or  offence  had  there  been  committed; 
and  the  respective  judges  and  other  magistrates 
shall  have  power,  jurisdiction,  and  authority, 
upon  complaint  made  under  oath,  to  issue  a 
warrant  for  the  apprehension  of  the  fugitive  or 
person  so  charged,  that  he  may  be  brought  be- 
fore such  judges,  or  other  magistrates,  respec- 
tively, to  the  end  that  the  evidence  of  criminali- 


ty may  be  heard  and  considered;  and  if.  on 
such  hearing,  the  evidence  be  deemed  sufficient 
to  sustain  the  charge,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of 
the  examining  judge,  or  magistrate,  to  certify 
the  same  to  the  proper  executive  authority, 
that  a  warrant  may  issue  for  the  surrender  of 
such  fugitive.  The  expense  of  such  apprehen- 
sion and  delivery  shall  be  borne  and  defrayed 
by  the  party  who  makes  the  requisition,  and 
receives  the  fugitive." 

Mr.  Jay's  Treaty. 

"  Article  27. — It  is  further  agreed  that  his  Ma- 
jesty and  the  United  States,  on  mutual  requisi- 
tions by  them,  respectively,  or  by  their  respec- 
tive ministers,  or  officers,  authorized  to  make 
the  same,  will  deliver  up  to  justice  all  persons 
who,  being  charged  with  murder,  or  forgery, 
committed  within  the  jurisdiction  of  either, 
shall  seek  an  asylum  within  any  of  the  coun- 
tries of  the  other:  provided,  that  this  shall 
only  be  done  on  such  evidence  of  criminality  as, 
according  to  the  laws  of  the  place  where  the 
fugitive  or  person  so  charged  shall  be  found, 
would  justify  his  apprehension  and  commitment 
for  trial  if  the  offence  had  there  been  commit- 
ted. The  expense  of  such  apprehension  and 
delivery  shall  be  borne  and  defrayed  by  those 
who  make  the  requisition,  and  receive  the  fugi- 
tive." 

These  are  the  two  articles,  and  the  difference 
betweeen  them  is  great  and  striking.  First, 
the  number  of  offences  for  which  delivery  of  the 
offender  is  to  be  made,  is  much  greater  in  the 
present  treaty.  Mr.  Jay's  article  is  limited  to 
two  offences — murder  and  forgery :  the  two 
proposed  by  Mr.  Jefferson ;  but  without  his 
qualification  to  exclude  political  offences,  and  to 
confine  the  deliveries  to  offenders  from  cotermi- 
nous dominions.  The  present  treaty  embraces 
these  two,  and  five  others,  making  seven  in  the 
whole.  The  five  added  offences  are — assault, 
with  intent  to  commit  murder ;  piracy ;  rob- 
bery ;  arson ;  and  the  utterance  of  forged  pa- 
per. These  additional  five  offences,  though 
high  in  name,  might  be  very  small  in  degree. 
Assault,  with  intent  to  murder,  might  be  with- 
out touching  or  hurting  any  person  ;  for,  to  lift 
a  weapon  at  a  person  within  striking  distance, 
without  striking,  is  an  assault :  to  level  a  fire- 
arm at  a  person  within  carrying  distance,  and 
without  firing,  is  an  assault ;  and  the  offence 
being  in  the  intent,  is  difficult  of  proof.  Mr. 
Jefferson  excluded  it,  and  so  did  Jay's  treaty ; 
because  the  offence  was  too  small  and  too 
equivocal  to  be  made  a  matter  of  international 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


447 


arrangement.  Piracy  was  excluded,  because  it 
was  absurd  to  speak  of  a  pirate's  country.  He 
has  no  country.  He  is  hostis  humani  generis 
— the  enemy  of  the  human  race ;  and  is  hung 
wherever  he  is  caught.  The  robbery  might  be 
of  a  shilling's  worth  of  bread ;  the  arson,  of 
burning  a  straw  shed ;  the  utterance  of  forged 
paper,  might  be  the  emission  or  passing  of  a 
counterfeit  sixpence.  All  these  were  excluded 
from  Jay's  treaty,  because  of  their  possible  in- 
significance, and  the  door  they  opened  to  abuse 
in  harassing  the  innocent,  and  in  multiplying 
the  chances  for  getting  hold  of  a  political  of- 
fender for  some  other  offence,  and  then  punish- 
ing him  for  his  politics. 

Striking  as  these  differences  are  between  the 
present  article  and  that  of  Mr.  Jay's  treaty, 
there  is  a  still  more  essential  difference  in 
another  part ;  and  a  difference  which  nullifies 
the  article  in  its  only  material  bearing  in  our 
favor.  It  is  this  :  Mr.  Jay's  treaty  referred  the 
delivery  of  the  fugitive  to  the  executive  power. 
This  treaty  intervenes  the  judiciary,  and  re- 
quires two  decisions  from  a  judge  or  magistrate 
before  the  governor  can  act.  This  nullifies  the 
treaty  in  all  that  relates  to  fugitive  slaves  guil- 
ty of  crimes  against  their  masters.  In  the  eye 
of  the  British  law,  they  have  no  master,  and 
can  commit  no  offence  against  such  a  person  in 
asserting  their  liberty  against  him,  even  unto 
death.  A  slave  may  kill  his  master,  if  necessa- 
ry to  his  escape.  This  is  legal  under  British 
law ;  and,  in  the  present  state  of  abolition  feel- 
ing throughout  the  British  dominions,  such  kill- 
ing would  not  only  be  considered  fair,  but  in 
the  highest  degree  meritorious  and  laudable. 
What  chance  for  the  recovery  of  such  a  slave 
under  this  treaty?  Read  it — the  concluding 
part — after  the  word  "committed,"  and  see 
what  is  the  process  to  be  gone  through.  Com- 
plaint is  to  be  made  to  a  British  judge  or  jus- 
tice. The  fugitive  is  brought  before  this  judge 
or  justice,  that  the  evidence  of  the  criminality 
may  be  heard  and  considered — such  evidence  as 
would  justify  the  apprehension,  commitment, 
and  trial  of  the  party,  if  the  offence  had  been 
committed  there.  If,  upon  this  hearing,  the 
evidence  be  deemed  sufficient  to  sustain  the 
charge,  the  judge  or  magistrate  is  to  certify  the 
fact  to  the  executive  authority ;  and  then,  and 
not  until  then,  the  surrender  can  be  made. 
This  is  the  process ;   and  in  all  this  the  new 


treaty  differs  from  Jay's.  Under  his  treaty, 
the  delivery  was  a  ministerial  act,  referring 
itself  to  the  authority  of  the  governor :  under 
this  treaty,  it  becomes  a  judicial  act,  referring 
itself  to  the  discretion  of  the  judge,  who  must 
twice  decide  against  the  slave  (first,  in  issuing 
the  warrant ;  and  next,  in  trying  it)  before  the 
governor  can  order  the  surrender.  Twice  judi- 
cial discretion  interposes  a  barrier,  which  can- 
not be  forced ;  and  behind  which  the  slave,  who 
has  robbed  or  killed  his  master,  may  repose  in 
safety.  What  evidence  of  criminality  will  sat- 
isfy the  judge,  when  the  act  itself  is  no  crime 
in  his  eyes,  or  under  his  laws,  and  when  all  his 
sympathies  are  on  the  side  of  the  slave  ?  What 
chance  would  there  be  for  the  judicial  surren- 
der of  offending  slaves  in  the  British  dominions, 
under  this  treaty,  when  the  provisions  of  our 
own  constitution,  within  the  States  of  our  own 
Union,  in  relation  to  fugitive  slaves,  cannot  be 
executed  ?  We  all  know  that  a  judicial  trial  is 
immunity  to  a  slave  pursued  by  his  owner,  in 
many  of  our  own  States.  Can  such  trials  be 
expected  to  result  better  for-  the  owner  in  the 
British  dominions,  where  the  relation  of  mas- 
ter and  slave  is  not  admitted,  and  where  aboli- 
tionism is  the  policy  of  the  government,  the 
voice  of  the  law,  and  the  spirit  of  the  people  ? 
Killing  his  master  in  defence  of  his  liberty,  is 
no  offence  in  the  eye  of  British  law  or  British 
people ;  and  no  slave  will  ever  be  given  up 
for  it. 

(Mr.  Wright  here  said,  that  counterfeiting 
American  securities,  or  bank  notes,  was  no  of- 
fence in  Canada  ;  and  the  same  question  might 
arise  there  in  relation  to  forgers.) 

Mr.  Benton  resumed.  Better  far  to  leave 
things  as  they  are.  Forgers  are  now  given  up 
in  Canada,  by  executive  authority,  when  they 
fly  to  that  province.  This  is  done  in  the  spirit 
of  good  neighborhood ;  and  because  all  honest 
governments  have  an  interest  in  suppressing 
crimes,  and  repelling  criminals.  The  governor 
acts  from  a  sense  of  propriety,  and  the  dictates 
of  decency  and  justice.  Not  so  with  the  judge. 
He  must  go  by  the  law ;  and  when  there  is  no 
law  against  the  offence,  he  has  nothing  to  justi- 
fy him  in  delivering  the  offender. 

Conventions  for  the  mutual  surrender  of 
large  offenders,  where  dominions  are  coter- 
minous, might  be  proper.  Limited,  as  pro- 
posed by  Mr.  Jefferson  in  1793,  and  they  might 


448 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


be  beneficial  in  suppression  of  border  crimes 
and  the  preservation  of  order  and  justice.  But 
extended  as  this  is  to  a  long  list  of  offenders — 
unrestricted  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  murder — ap- 
plying to  dominions  in  all  parts  of  the  world, 
and  to  ships  in  every  sea — it  can  be  nothing 
but  the  source  of  individual  annoyance  and  na- 
tional recrimination.  Besides,  if  we  surrender 
to  Great  Britain,  why  not  to  Russia,  Prussia, 
Austria,  France,  and  all  the  countries  of  the 
world?  If  we  give  up  the  Irishman  to  Eng- 
land, why  not  the  Pole  to  Russia,  the  Italian  to 
Austria,  the  German  to  his  prince ;  and  so  on 
throughout  the  catalogue  of  nations  ?  Sir,  the 
article  is  a  pestiferous  one ;  and  as  it  is  deter- 
minable upon  notice,  it  will  become  the  duty  of 
the  American  people  to  elect  a  President  who 
will  give  the  notice,  and  so  put  an  end  to  its 
existence. 

Addressing  itself  to  the  natural  feelings  of 
the  country,  against  high  crimes  and  border 
offenders,  and  in  favor  of  political  liberty,  the 
message  of  the  President  communicating  and 
recommending  this  treaty  to  us,  carefully  pre- 
sents this  article  as  conforming  to  our  feelings 
in  all  these  particulars.  It  is  represented  as 
applicable  only  to  high  crimes — to  border  of- 
fenders ;  and  to  offences  not  political  In  all 
this,  the  message  is  disingenuous  and  deceptive, 
and  calculated  to  ravish  from  the  ignorant  and 
the  thoughtless  an  applause  to  which  the  treaty 
is  not  entitled.    It  says  : 

"  The  surrender  to  justice  of  persons  who, 
having  committed  high  crimes,  seek  an  asylum 
in  the  territories  of  a  neighboring  nation,  would 
seem  to  be  an  act  due  to  the  cause  of  general 
justice,  and  properly  belonging  to  the  present 
state  of  civilization  and  intercourse.  The  Brit- 
ish provinces  of  North  America  are  separated 
from  the  States  of  the  Union  by  a  line  of  sev- 
eral thousand  miles  ;  and,  along  portions  of  this 
line,  the  amount  of  population  on  either  side  is 
quite  considerable,  while  the  passage  of  the 
boundary  is  always  easy. 

"Offenders  against  the  law  on  the  one  side 
transfer  themselves  to  the  other.  Sometimes, 
with  great  difficulty  they  are  brought  to  jus- 
tice ;  but  very  often  they  wholly  escape.  A 
consciousness  of  immunity,  from  the  power  of 
avoiding  justice  in  this  way,  instigates  the  un- 
principled and  reckless  to  the  commission  of 
offences ;  and  the  peace  and  good  neighbor- 
hood of  the  border  are  consequently  often  dis- 
turbed. 

"  In  the  case  of  offenders  fleeing  from  Canada 
into  the  United  States,  the  governors  of  States 


are  often  applied  to  for  their  surrender  ;  and 
questions  of  a  very  embarrassing  nature  arise 
from  these  applications.  It  has  been  thought 
highly  important,  therefore,  to  provide  for  the 
whole  case  by  a  proper  treaty  stipulation.  The 
article  on  the  subject,  in  the  proposed  treaty,  is 
carefully  confined  to  such  offences  as  all  man- 
kind agree  to  regard  as  heinous  and  destructive 
of  the  security  of  life  and  of  property.  In  this 
careful  and  specific  enumeration  of  crimes,  the 
object  has  been  to  exclude  all  political  offences, 
or  criminal  charges  arising  from  wars  or  intes- 
tine commotions.  Treason,  misprision  of  trea- 
son, libels,  desertion  from  military  service,  and 
other  offences  of  a  similar  character,  are  ex- 
cluded." 

In  these  phrases  the  message  recommends 
the  article  to  the  Senate  and  the  country ;  and 
yet  nothing  could  be  more  fallacious  and  decep- 
tive than  such  a  recommendation.  It  confines 
the  surrender  to  border  offenders — Canadian 
fugitives  :  yet  the  treaty  extends  it  to  all  per- 
sons committing  offences  under  the  "jurisdic- 
tion "  of  Great  Britain — a  term  which  includes 
all  her  territory  throughout  the  world,  and 
every  ship  or  fort  over  which  her  flag  waves. 
The  message  confines  the  surrender  to  high 
crimes :  yet  we  have  seen  that  the  treaty  in- 
cludes crimes  which  may  be  of  low  degree — 
low  indeed  !  A  hare  or  a  partridge  from  a  pre- 
serve ;  a  loaf  of  bread  to  sustain  life  ;  a  sixpen- 
ny counterfeit  note  passed;  a  shed  burnt;  a 
weapon  lifted,  without  striking  !  The  message 
says  all  political  crimes,  all  treasons,  misprision 
of  treason,  libels,  and  desertions  are  excluded. 
The  treaty  shows  that  these  offences  are  not 
excluded — that  the  limitations  proposed  by  Mr. 
Jefferson  are  not  inserted ;  and,  consequently, 
under  the  head  of  murder,  the  insurgent,  the 
rebel,  and  the  traitor  who  has  shed  blood,  may 
be  given  up  ;  and  so  of  other  offences.  When 
once  surrendered,  he  may  be  tried  for  any  thing. 
The  fate  of  Jonathan  Robbins,  alias  Nash,  is  a 
good  illustration  of  all  this.  He  was  a  British 
sailor — was  guilty  of  mutiny,  murder,  and  pi- 
racy on  the  frigate  Hermione — deserted  to  the 
United  States— was  demanded  by  the  Brtish 
minister  as  a  murderer  under  Jay's  treaty — 
given  up  as  a  murderer — then  tried  by  a  court- 
martial  on  board  a  man-of-war  for  mutiny,  mur- 
der, desertion,  and  piracy — found  guilty — exe- 
cuted— and  his  body  hung  in  chains  from  the 
yard-arm  of  a  man-of-war.  And  so  it  would  be 
again.    The  man  given  up  for  one  offence,  would 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


449 


be  tried  for  another ;  and  in  the  number  and  in- 
significance of  the  offences  for  which  he  might 
be  surrendered,  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in 
reaching  any  victim  that  a  foreign  government 
chose  to  pursue.  If  this  article  had  been  in 
force  in  the  time  of  the  Irish  rebellion,  and  Lord 
Edward  Fitzgerald  had  escaped  to  the  United 
States  after  wounding,  as  he  did,  several  of  the 
myrmidons  who  arrested  him,  he  might  have 
been  demanded  as  a  fugitive  from  justice,  for 
the  assault  with  intent  to  kill ;  and  then  tried 
for  treason,  and  hanged  and  quartered ;  and  such 
will  be  the  operation  of  the  article  if  it  continues. 


CHAPTER    CVI. 

BEITISH  TREATY;  AFRICAN  SQUADRON  FOR  THE 
SUPPRESSION  OF  THE  SLAVE  TRADE  ;  MR.  BEN- 
TON'S SPEECH;  EXTRACT. 

The  suppression  of  the  African  slave-trade  is 
the  second  subject  included  in  the  treaty  ;  and 
here  the  regret  renews  itself  at  the  absence  of 
all  the  customary  lights  upon  the  origin  and 
progress  of  treaty  stipulations.  No  minutes  of 
conference ;  no  protocols ;  no  draughts  or 
counterdraughts ;  no  diplomatic  notes ;  not  a 
word  of  any  kind  from  one  negotiator  to  the 
other.  Nothing  in  relation  to  the  subject,  in 
the  shape  of  negotiation,  is  communicated  to  us. 
Even  the  section  of  the  correspondence  entitled 
"Suppression  of  the  slave-trade" — even  this 
section  professedly  devoted  to  the  subject,  con- 
tains not  a  syllable  upon  it  from  the  negotiators 
to  each  other,  or  to  their  Governments ;  but 
opens  and  closes  with  communications  from 
American  naval  officers,  evidently  extracted 
from  them  by  the  American  negotiator,  to  justify 
the  forthcoming  of  preconceived  and  foregone 
conclusions.  Never  since  the  art  of  writing  was 
invented  could  there  have  been  a  treaty  of  such 
magnitude  negotiated  with  such  total  absence  of 
necessary  light  upon  the  history  of  its  forma- 
tion. Lamentable  as  is  this  defect  of  light 
upon  the  formation  of  the  treaty  generally,  it 
becomes  particularly  so  at  this  point,  where  a 
stipulation  new,  delicate,  and  embarrassing,  has 
been  unexpectedly  introduced,  and  falls  upon 
us  as  abruptly  as  if  it  fell  from  the  clouds. 
In  the  absence  of  all  appropriate  information 

Vol.  II.— 29 


from  the  negotiators  themselves,  I  am  driven  to 
glean  among  the  scanty  paragraphs  of  the 
President's  message,  and  in  the  answers  of  the 
naval  officers  to  the  Secretary's  inquiries. 
Though  silent  as  to  the  origin  and  progress  of 
the  proposition  for  this  novel  alliance,  they  still 
show  the  important  particular  of  »;he  motives 
which  caused  it. 

Passing  from  the  political  consequences  of 
this  entanglement — consequences  which  no 
human  foresight  can  reach — I  come  to  the  im- 
mediate and  practical  effects  which  lie  within 
our  view,  and  which  display  the  enormous  in- 
expediency of  the  measure.  First :  the  expense 
in  money — an  item  which  would  seem  to  be 
entitled  to  some  regard  in  the  present  deplorable 
state  of  the  treasury — in  the  present  cry  for  re- 
trenchment— and  in  the  present  heavy  taxation 
upon  the  comforts  and  necessaries  of  life.  This 
expense  for  80  guns  will  be  about  $750,000  per 
annum,  exclusive  of  repairs  and  loss  of  lives. 
I  speak  of  the  whole  expense,  as  part  of  the 
naval  establishment  of  the  United  States,  and 
not  of  the  mere  expense  of  working  the  ships 
after  they  have  gone  to  sea.  Nine  thousand 
dollars  per  gun  is  about  the  expense  of  the 
establishment ;  80  guns  would  be  $720,000  per 
annum,  which  is  $3,600,000  for  five  years.  But 
the  squadron  is  not  limited  to  a  maximum  of 
80  guns ;  that  is  the  minimum  limit :  it  is  to  be 
80  guns  "  at  the  least."  And  if  the  party  which 
granted  these  80  shall  continue  in  power,  Great 
Britain  may  find  it  as  easy  to  double  the  num- 
ber, as  it  was  to  obtain  the  first  eighty.  Nor 
is  the  time  limited  to  five  years ;  it  is  only  de- 
terminable after  that  period  by  giving  notice ; 
a  notice  not  to  be  expected  from  those  who  made 
the  treaty.  At  the  least,  then,  the  moneyed  ex- 
pense is  to  be  $3,600,000 ;  if  the  present  party 
continues  in  power,  it  may  double  or  treble  that 
amount ;  and  this,  besides  the  cost  of  the  ships. 
Such  is  the  moneyed  expense.  Tn  ships,  the  wear 
and  tear  of  vessels  must  be  great.  We  are  to 
prepare,  equip,  and  maintain  in  service,  on  a 
coast  4,000  miles  from  home,  the  adequate 
number  of  vessels  to  carry  these  80  guns.  It 
is  not  sufficient  to  send  the  number  there; 
they  must  be  kept  up  and  maintained  in  ser- 
vice there ;  and  this  will  require  constant  ex- 
penses to  repair  injuries,  supply  losses  and  cover 
casualties.  In  the  employment  of  men,  and  the 
waste  of  life  and  health,  the  expenditure  must 


450 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


be  large.  Ten  men  and  two  officers  to  the  gun, 
is  the  smallest  estimate  that  can  be  admitted. 
This  would  require  a  complement  of  960  men. 
Including  all  the  necessary  equipage  of  the  ship, 
and  above  1.000  persons  will  be  constantly  re- 
quired. These  are  to  be  employed  at  a  vast 
distance  from  home ;  on  a  savage  coast ;  in  a 
perilous  service  ;  on  both  sides  of  the  equator ; 
and  in  a  climate  which  is  death  to  the  white 
race.  This  waste  of  men — this  wear  and  tear 
of  life  and  constitution — should  stand  for  some- 
thing in  a  Christian  land,  and  in  this  age  of 
roaming  philanthrophy ;  unless,  indeed,  in  ex- 
cessive love  for  the  blacks,  it  is  deemed  meri- 
torious to  destroy  the  whites.  The  field  of  ope- 
rations for  this  squadron  is  great ;  the  term 
"  coast  of  Africa  "  having  an  immense  applica- 
tion in  the  vocabulary  of  the  slave-trade.  On 
the  western  coast  of  Africa,  according  to  the 
replies  of  the  naval  officers  Bell  and  Paine,  the 
trade  is  carried  on  from  Senegal  to  Cape  Frio — 
a  distance  of  3.600  miles,  following  its  windings 
as  the  watching  squadrons  would  have  to  go. 
But  the  track  of  the  slavers  between  Africa  and 
America  has  to  be  watched,  as  well  as  the  im- 
mediate coast ;  and  this  embraces  a  space  in  the 
ocean  of  35  degrees  on  each  side  of  the  equator 
(say  four  thousand  miles),  and  covering  the 
American  coast  from  Cuba  to  Rio  Janeiro ;  so 
that  the  coast  of  Africa — the  western  coast 
alone — embraces  a  diagram  of  the  ocean  of  near 
4,000  miles  every  way,  having  the  equator  in 
the  centre,  and  bounded  east  and  west  by  the 
New  and  the  Old  World.  This  is  for  the  western 
coast  only  :  the  eastern  is  nearly  as  large.  The 
same  naval  officers  say  that  a  large  trade  in  ne- 
groes is  carried  on  in  the  Mahometan  countries 
bordering  on  the  Red  Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf, 
and  in  the  Portuguese  East  India  colonies ;  and, 
what  is  worthy  to  be  told,  it  is  also  carried  on 
in  the  British  presidency  of  Bombay,  and  other 
British  Asiatic  possessions.  It  is  true,  the 
officers  say  the  American  slavers  are  not  yet 
there  ;  but  go  there  they  will,  according  to  all 
the  laws  of  trading  and  hunting,  the  moment 
they  are  disturbed,  or  the  trade  fails  on  the 
western  coast.  Wherever  the  trade  exists,  the 
combined  powers  must  follow  it:  for  good  is 
not  to  be  done  by  halves,  and  philanthropy  is 
not  to  be  circumscribed  by  coasts  and  latitudes. 
Among  all  the  strange  features  in  the  comedy 
of  errors  which  has  ended  in  this  treaty,  that 


of  sending  American  ministers  abroad,  to  close 
the  markets  of  the  world  against  the  slave-trade, 
is  the  most  striking.  Not  content  with  the  ex- 
penses, loss  of  life,  and  political  entanglement 
of  this  alliance,  we  must  electioneer  for  insults, 
and  send  ministers  abroad  to  receive,  pocket, 
and  bring  them  home. 

In  what  circumstances  do  we  undertake  all 
this  fine  work?  What  is  our  condition  at 
home,  while  thus  going  abroad  in  search  of  em- 
ployment? We  raise  1,000  men  for  foreign 
service,  while  reducing  our  little  army  at  home! 
We  send  ships  to  the  coast  of  Africa,  while  dis- 
mounting our  dragoons  on  the  frontiers  of  Mis- 
souri and  Arkansas  !  We  protect  Africa  from 
slave-dealers,  and  abandon  Florida  to  savage 
butchery  !  We  send  cannon,  shot,  shells,  pow- 
der, lead,  bombs,  and  balls,  to  Africa,  while  de- 
nying arms  and  ammunition  to  the  young  men 
who  go  to  Florida  !  We  give  food,  clothes,  pay, 
to  the  men  who  go  to  Africa,  and  deny  rations 
even  to  those  who  go  to  Florida !  We  cry  out 
for  retrenchment,  and  scatter  $3,600,000  at  one 
broad  cast  of  the  hand !  We  tax  tea  and 
coffee,  and  send  the  money  to  Africa !  We  are 
borrowing  and  taxing,  and  striking  paper  money, 
and  reducing  expenses  at  home,  when  engaging 
in  this  new  and  vast  expense  for  the  defence  of 
Africa  !  What  madness  and  folly  !  Has  Don 
Quixote  come  to  life,  and  placed  himself  at  the 
head  of  our  Government,  and  taken  the  negroes 
of  Africa,  instead  of  the  damsels  of  Spain,  for 
the  objects  of  his  chivalrous  protection  ? 

The  slave-trade  is  diabolical  and  infamous; 
but  Great  Britain  is  not  the  country  to  read  us 
a  lesson  upon  its  atrocity,  or  to  stimulate  our 
exertions  to  suppress  it.  The  nation  which,  at 
the  peace  of  Utrecht,  made  the  asiento — the 
slave  contract — a  condition  of  peace,  fighting  on 
till  she  obtained  it j  the  nation  which  entailed 
African  slavery  upon  us — which  rejected  our 
colonial  statutes  for  its  suppression* — which 

*  He  has  waged  cruel  war  against  human  nature  itself  vio- 
lating its  most  sacred  rights  of  life  and  liberty  in  the  persons 
of  a  distant  people  who  never  offended  him,  captivating  and 
carrying  them  into  slavery  in  another  hemisphere,  or  to  incur 
miserable  death  in  their  transportation  thither.  This  piratical 
warfare — the  opprobrium  of  infidel  powers — is  the  warfare  of 
the  Christian  king  of  Great  Britain,  determined  to  keep  open 
a  market  where  men  should  be  bought  and  sold.  He  baa 
prostituted  his  negative  for  suppressing  every  legislative  at- 
tempt to  prohibit  or  restrain  this  execrable  commerce ;  and, 
that  this  assemblage  of  horrors  might  want  no  fact  of  distin- 
guished dye,  he  is  now  exciting  the  very  people  to  rise  in  arms 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


451 


has  many,  many  ten  millions,  of  white  subjects 
in  Europe  and  in  Asia  in  greater  slavery  of  body 
and  mind,  in  more  bodily  misery  and  mental 
darkness,  than  any  black  slaves  in  the  United 
States; — such  a  nation  has  no  right  to  cajole  or 
to  dragoon  us  into  alliances  and  expenses  for 
the  suppression  of  slavery  on  the  coast  of  Africa. 
We  have  done  our  part  on  that  subject.  Con- 
sidering the  example  and  instruction  we  had 
from  Great  Britain,  we  have  done  a  wonderful 
part.  The  constitution  of  the  United  States, 
mainly  made  by  slaveholding  States,  authorized 
Congress  to  put  an  end  to  the  importation  of 
slaves  by  a  given  day.  Anticipating  the  limited 
day  by  legislative  action,  the  Congress  had  the 
law  ready  to  take  effect  on  the  day  permitted 
by  the  constitution.  On  the  1st  day  of  Janu- 
ary, 1808,  Thomas  Jefferson  being  President  of 
the  United  States,  the  importation  of  slaves  be- 
came unlawful  and  criminal.  A  subsequent  act 
of  Congress  following  up  the  idea  of  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son in  his  first  draught  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, qualified  the  crime  as  piratical,  and 
delivered  up  its  pursuers  to  the  sword  of  the 
law,  and  to  the  vengeance  of  the  world,  as  the 
enemies  of  the  human  race.  Vessels  of  war 
cruising  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  under  our  act  of 
1819,  have  been  directed  to  search  our  own  ves- 
sels— to  arrest  the  violators  of  the  law,  and 
bring  them  in — the  ships  for  confiscation,  and 
the  men  for  punishment.  This  was  doing 
enough — enough  for  a  young  country,  far  re- 
mote in  the  New  World,  and  whose  policy  is  to 
avoid  foreign  connections  and  entangling  alli- 
ances. We  did  this  voluntarily,  without  insti- 
gation, and  without  supervision  from  abroad; 
and  now  there  can  be  no  necessity  for  Great 
Britain  to  assume  a  superiority  over  us  in  this 
particular,  and  bind  us  in  treaty  stipulations, 
which  destroy  all  the  merit  of  a  voluntary  ac- 
tion. We  have  done  enough ;  and  it  is  no  part 
of  our  business  to  exalt  still  higher  the  fanati- 
cal spirit  of  abolition,  which  is  now  become  the 
stalking-horse  of  nations  and  of  political  powers. 
Our  country  contains  many  slaves,  derived  from 
Africa ;  and,  while  holding  these,  it  is  neither 

among  us,  and  to  purchase  that  liberty  of  which  he  has  de- 
prived them,  by  murdering  the  people  on  -whom  he  has  ob- 
truded them;  thus  paying  off  former  crimes  committed  against 
the  liberties  of  one  people,  with  crimes  which  he  urges  them 
to  commit  against  the  Uvea  of  another." — [Original  draught 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  as  drawn  by  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson, and  before  it  was  altered  by  the  committee.] 


politic  nor  decent  to  join  the  crusade  of  Euro- 
pean powers  to  put  down  the  African  slave- 
trade.  From  combinations  of  powers  against 
the  present  slave-takers,  there  is  but  a  step  to 
the  combination  of  the  same  powers  against  the 
present  slaveholders ;  and  it  is  not  for  the 
United  States  to  join  in  the  first  movement, 
which  leads  to  the  second.  "No  entangling 
alliances "  should  be  her  motto !  And  as  for 
her  part  in  preventing  the  foreign  slave-trade,  it 
is  sufficient  that  she  prevents  her  own  citizens, 
in  her  own  way,  from  engaging  in  it ;  and  that 
she  takes  care  to  become  neither  the  instru- 
ment, nor  the  victim,  of  European  combinations 
for  its  suppression. 

The  eighth  and  ninth  articles  of  the  treaty 
bind  us  to  this  naval  alliance  with  Great  Britain. 
By  these  articles  we  stipulate  to  keep  a  squad- 
ron of  at  least  80  guns  on  the  coast  of  Africa  for 
five  years  for  the  suppression  of  this  trade — 
with  a  further  stipulation  to  keep  it  up  until 
one  or  the  other  party  shall  give  notice  of  a  de- 
sign to  retire  from  it.  This  is  the  insidious 
way  of  getting  an  onerous  measure  saddled  upon 
the  country.  Short-sighted  people  are  fasci- 
nated with  the  idea  of  being  able  to  get  rid  of 
the  burden  when  they  please ;  but  such  burdens 
are  always  found  to  be  the  most  interminable. 
In  this  case  Great  Britain  will  never  give  the 
notice :  our  government  will  not  without  a  con- 
gressional recommendation,  and  it  will  be  found 
difficult  to  unite  the  two  Houses  in  a  request. 
The  stipulation  may  be  considered  permanent 
under  the  delusion  of  a  five  years'  limit,  and  an 
optional  continuance. 

The  papers  communicated  do  not  show  at 
whose  instance  these  articles  were  inserted ; 
and  the  absence  of  all  minutes  of  conferences 
leaves  us  at  a  loss  to  trace  their  origin  and  pro- 
gress in  the  hands  of  the  negotiators.  The  little 
that  is  seen  would  indicate  its  origin  to  be 
wholly  American;  evidence  aliunde  proves  it 
to  be  wholly  British ;  and  that  our  Secretary- 
negotiator  was  only  doing  the  work  of  the  Brit- 
ish minister  in  assuming  the  ostensible  pater- 
nity of  the  articles.  In  the  papers  communi- 
cated, there  is  not  a  syllable  upon  the  subject 
from  Lord  Ashburton.  His  finger  is  not  seen 
in  the  afiair.  Mr.  Webster  appears  as  sole 
mover  and  conductor  of  the  proposition.  In  his 
letter  of  the  30th  of  April  to  Captains  Bell  and 
Paine  of  the  United  States  navy,  he  first  ap- 


y 


452 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


proaches  the  subject,  and  opens  it  with  a  series 
of  questions  on  the  African  slave-trade.  This 
draws  forth  the  answers  which  I  have  already 
shown.  This  is  the  commencement  of  the  busi- 
ness. And  here  we  are  struck  with  the  curious 
fact,  that  this  letter  of  inquiry,  laying  the  foun- 
dation for  a  novel  and  extraordinary  article  in 
the  treaty,  bears  date  44  days  before  the  first 
written  communication  from  the  British  to  the 
American  negotiator!  and  47  days  before  the 
first  written  communication  from  Mr.  "Webster 
to  Lord  Ashburton !  It  would  seem  that  much 
was  done  by  word  of  mouth  before  pen  was  put 
to  paper ;  and  that  in  this  most  essential  part 
of  the  negotiations,  pen  was  not  put  to  paper  at 
all,  from  one  negotiator  to  the  other,  through- 
out the  whole  affair.  Lord  Ashburton's  name 
is  never  found  in  connection  with  the  subject ! 
Mr.  Webster's  only  in  the  notes  of  inquiry  to 
the  American  naval  officers.  Even  in  these  he 
does  not  mention  the  treaty,  nor  allude  to  the 
negotiation,  nor  indicate  the  purpose  for  which 
information  was  sought !  So  that  this  most  ex- 
traordinary article  is  without  a  clew  to  its  his- 
tory, and  stands  in  the  treaty  as  if  it  had  fallen 
from  the  clouds,  and  chanced  to  lodge  there ! 
Even  the  President's  message,  which  undertakes 
to  account  for  the  article,  and  to  justify  it,  is 
silent  on  the  point,  though  laboring  through  a 
mass  of  ambiguities  and  obscurities,  evidently 
calculated  to  raise  the  inference  that  it  originated 
with  us.  From  the  papers  communicated,  it  is 
an  American  proposition,  of  which  the  British 
negotiator  knew  nothing  until  he  signed  the 
treaty.  That  is  the  first  place  where  his  name 
is  seen  in  conjunction  with  it,  or  seen  in  a  place 
to  authorize  the  belief  that  he  knew  of  it.  Yet, 
it  is  certainly  a  British  proposition ;  it  is  cer- 
tainly a  British  article.  Since  the  year  1806 
Great  Britain  has  been  endeavoring  to  get  the 
United  States  into  some  sort  of  arrangement  for 
co-operation  in  the  suppression  of  the  African 
slave-trade.  It  was  slightly  attempted  in  Mr. 
Jefferson's  time  —  again  at  Ghent;  but  the 
warning-voice  of  the  Father  of  his  country — no 
entangling  alliances — saved  us  on  each  occa- 
sion. Now  we  are  yoked — yoked  in  with  the 
British  on  the  coast  of  Africa ;  and  when  we 
can  get  free  from  it,  no  mortal  can  foresee. 


CHAPTER    CVII. 

EXPENSE  OF  THE  NAVY:  WASTE  OP  MONEY 
NECESSITY  OF  A  NAVAL  PEACE  ESTABLISH 
MENT,  AND  OF  A  NAVAL  POLICY. 

The  naval  policy  of  the  United  States  was  a 
question  of  party  division  from  the  origin  of 
parties  in  the  early  years  of  the  government— 
the  federal  party  favoring  a  strong  and  splendid 
navy,  the  republican  a  moderate  establishment, 
adapted  to  the  purposes  of  defence  more  than  of 
offence:  and  this  line  of  division  between  the 
parties  (under  whatsoever  names  they  have  since 
worn),  continues  more  or  less  perceptible  to  the 
present  time.  In  this  time  (the  administration 
of  Mr.  Tyler)  all  the  branches  being  of  the  same 
political  party,  and  retaining  the  early  principles 
of  the  party  under  the  name  of  whig,  the  policy 
for  a  great  navy  developed  itself  with  great 
vigor.  The  new  Secretary,  Mr.  Upshur,  recom- 
mended a  large  increase  of  ships,  seamen,  and 
officers,  involving  an  additional  expense  of  about 
two  millions  and  a  half  in  the  naval  branch  of 
the  service ;  and  that  at  a  time  when  a  deficit 
of  fourteen  millions  was  announced,  and  a  resort 
to  taxes,  loans  and  treasury  notes  recommended 
to  make  it  up ;  and  when  no  emergency  required 
increase  in  that  branch  of  the  public  service. 
Such  a  recommendation  brought  on  a  debate  in 
which  the  policy  of  a  great  navy  was  discussed 
— the  necessity  of  a  naval  peace  establishment 
was  urged — the  cost  of  our  establishment  ex- 
amined— and  the  waste  of  money  in  the  naval 
department  severely  exposed.  Mr.  Calhoun, 
always  attentive  to  the  economical  working  of 
the  government,  opened  the  discussion  on  this 
interesting  point. 

"  The  aggregate  expense  of  the  British  navy 
in  the  year  1840  amounted  to  4,980,353  pounds 
sterling,  deducting  the  expense  of  transport  for 
troops  and  convicts,  which  does  not  properly 
belong  to  the  navy.  That  sum,  at  $4  80  to  the 
pound  sterling,  is  equal  to  $23,905,694  46.  The 
navy  was  composed  of  392  vessels  of  war  of  all 
descriptions,  leaving  out  36  steam  vessels  in  the 
packet  service,  and  23  sloops  fitted  for  foreign 
packets.  Of  the  392,  98  were  line  of  battle 
ships,  of  which  19  were  building;  116  frigates, 
of  which  14  were  building ;  68  sloops,  of  which 
13  were  building  j  44  steam  vessels,  of  which  16 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


453 


were  building ;  and  66  gun  brigs,  schooners,  and 
cutters,  of  which  12  were  building. 

"  The  effective  force  of  the  year — that  which 
was  in  actual  service,  consisted  of  3,400  officers, 
3,998  petty  officers,  12.846  seamen,  and  9,000 
marines,  making  an  aggregate  of  29,244.  The 
number  of  vessels  in  actual  service  were  175,  of 
which  24  were  line  of  battle  ships.  31  frigates, 
30  steam  vessels,  and  45  gun  brigs,  schooners, 
and  cutters,  not  including  the  30  steamers  and 
24  sloops  in  the  packet  service,  at  an  average 
expenditure  of  $573  for  each  individual,  includ- 
ing officers,  petty  officers,  seamen,  and  marines. 

"  Our  navy  is  composed,  at  present,  according 
to  the  report  of  the  Secretary  accompanying  the 
President's  message,  of  67  vessels — of  which  11 
are  line  of  battle  ships,  17  frigates,  18  sloops  of 
war,  2  brigs,  4  schooners,  4  steamers,  3  store 
ships,  3  receiving  vessels,  and  5  small  schooners. 
The  estimates  for  the  year  are  made  on  the  as- 
sumption, that  there  will  be  in  service  during 
the  year,  2  ships  of  the  line,  1  razee,  6  frigates, 
20  sloops,  11  brigs  and  schooners,  3  steamers,  3 
store  ships  and  8  small  vessels  ;  making  in  the 
aggregate,  53  vessels.  The  estimates  for  the 
year,  for  the  navy  and  marine  corps,  as  has  been 
stated,  is  $8,705,579  83,  considerably  exceeding 
one-third  of  the  entire  expenditures  of  the  Brit- 
ish navy  for  1840. 

"  Mr.  C.  contended  there  should  be  no  differ- 
ence in  the  expenses  of  the  two  navies.  We 
should  build  as  cheap  and  employ  men  as  cheap, 
or  we  should  not  be  able  to  compete  with  the 
British  navy.  If  our  navy  should  prove  vastly 
more  expensive  than  the  British  navy,  we  might 
as  well  give  up,  and  he  recommended  this  matter 
to  the  consideration  of  the  Senate. 

"  Among  the  objects  of  retrenchment,  I  place 
at  the  head  the  great  increase  that  is  proposed 
to  be  made  to  the  expenditures  of  the  navy, 
compared  with  that  of  last  year.  It  is  no  less 
than  $2,508,032  13,  taking  the  expenditures  of 
last  year  from  the  annual  report  of  the  Secre- 
tary. I  see  no  sufficient  reason,  at  this  time, 
and  in  the  present  embarrassed  condition  of  the 
Treasury,  for  this  great  increase.  T  have  looked 
over  the  report  of  the  Secretary  hastily,  and 
find  none  assigned,  except  general  reasons,  for 
an  increased  navy,  which  I  am  not  disposed  to 
controvert.  But  I  am  decidedly  of  the  opinion, 
that  the  commencement  ought  to  be  postponed 
till  some  systematic  plan  is  matured,  both  as  to 
the  ratio  of  increase  and  the  description  of  force 
of  which  the  addition  should  consist,  and  till 
the  department  is  properly  organized,  and  in  a 
condition  to  enforce  exact  responsibility  and 
economy  in  its  disbursements.  That  the  de- 
partment is  not  now  properly  organized,  and  in 
that  condition,  we  have  the  authority  of  the 
Secretary  himself,  in  which  I  concur.  I  am  satis- 
fied that  its  administration  cannot  be  made  ef- 
fective under  the  present  organization,  particu- 
larly as  it  regards  its  expenditures." 

"  The  expenses  of  this  government  were  of 


three  classes :  the  civil  list,  the  army  and  the 
navy  ;  and  all  of  these  had  been  increased  enor- 
mously since  1823.  The  remedy  now  was  to 
compare  the  present  with  the  past,  mark  the 
difference,  and  compel  the  difference  to  be  ac- 
counted for.  He  cited  1823,  and  intended  to 
make  that  the  standard,  because  that  was  the 
standard  for  him,  the  government  being  then 
economically  administered.  He  selected  1823, 
also,  because  in  1824  we  commenced  a  new  sys- 
tem, and  that  of  protection,  which  had  done  so 
much  evil.  We  had  made  two  tariffs  since 
then,  the  origin  of  all  evils.  The  civil  list  rose 
in  seventeen  years  from  about  $2,000,000  to 
$6,000,000 — nearly  a  threefold  proportion  com- 
pared with  the  increase  of  population.  In  Con- 
gress the  increase  had  been  enormous.  The 
increase  of  contingent  expenses  had  been  five- 
fold, and  compared  with  population,  sixfold. 
The  aggregate  expenses  of  the  two  Houses  now 
amounted  to  more  than  $250,000.  The  expense 
of  collecting  revenue  had  also  been  enormously 
increased.  From  1823  it  had  gone  up  from 
$700,000  to  $1,700,000— an  increase  of  one  mil- 
lion of  dollars.  The  expense  on  collection  in 
1823  was  but  one  per  cent.,  now  one  per  cent, 
and  5-100.  Under  the  tariff  these  increases 
were  made  from  1824  to  1828.  Estimating 
the  expenses  of  collection  at  $800,000,  about 
$1,000,000  would  be  saved.  The  judiciary  had 
increased  in  this  proportion,  and  the  light-house 
department  also.  In  the  war  department,  in 
1822  (the  only  year  for  which  he  had  estimates), 
the  expenses  per  man  were  but  $264  ;  now  the 
increase  had  gone  up  to  $400  for  each  individual. 
At  one  time  it  had  been  as  much  as  $480  for 
each  individual — $1,400,000  could  be  saved  here 
in  the  army  proper,  including  the  military 
academy  alone.  It  might  be  said  that  one  was 
a  cheap  and  the  other  a  dear  year.  Far  other- 
wise ;  meat  was  never  cheaper,  clothing  never 
as  cheap  as  now.  All  this  resulted  from  the 
expansive  force  of  a  surplus  revenue.  In  1822 
he  had  reduced  the  expenses  of  every  man  in 
the  army. 

"  It  had  been  proposed  to  increase  the  expen- 
ditures of  the  navy  two  and  a  half  millions  of 
dollars  over  the  past  year,  and  he  wag  not  ready 
for  this.  Deduct  two  millions  from  this  recom- 
mendation, and  it  would  be  two  millions  saved. 
These  appropriations,  at  least,  might  go  over  to 
the  next  session.  The  expenses  of  the  marine 
corps  amounted  to  nearly  six  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  nearly  six  hundred  dollars  a  head — two 
hundred  dollars  a  head  higher  than  the  army, 
cadets  and  all.  He  hoped  the  other  expenses 
of  the  navy  department  were  not  in  proportion 
so  high  as  this.  Between  the  reductions  which 
might  be  made  in  the  marine  corps  and  the 
navy,  two  millions  and  a  half  might  be  saved. 

"  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  estimates  for 
32  millions  of  dollars  for  the  expenses  of  the 
current  year.  I  am  satisfied  that  $17,000,000 
were  sufficient  to  meet  the  per  annum  expenses 


454 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  the  government,  and  that  this  sum  would 
have  been  according  to  the  ratio  of  population. 
This  sum,  by  economy,  could  be  brought  down 
to  fifteen  millions,  and  thus  save  nine  millions 
over  the  present  estimates.  This  could  be  done 
in  three  or  four  years — the  Executive  leading 
the  way,  and  Congress  co-operating  and  follow- 
ing the  Executive." 

This  was  spoken  in  the  year  1842.  Mr.  Cal- 
houn was  then  confident  that  the  ordinary  ex- 
penses of  the  government  should  not  exceed  17 
millions  of  dollars,  and  that,  with  good  economy 
that  sum  might  be  further  reduced  two  millions, 
making  the  expenses  but  15  millions  per  annum. 
The  navy  was  one  of  the  great  points  to  which 
he  looked  for  retrenchment  and  reduction  ;  and 
on  that  point  he  required  that  the  annual  ap- 
propriation for  the  navy  should  be  decreased 
instead  of  being  augmented ;  and  that  the  money 
appropriated  should  be  more  judiciously  and 
economically  applied.  The  President  should 
lead  the  way  in  economy  and  retrenchment. 
Organization  as  well  as  economy  was  wanted  in 
the  navy — a  properly  organized  peace  establish- 
ment. The  peace  establishment  of  the  British 
navy  in  1840,  was  24  millions — there  being  173 
vessels  in  commission.  Instead  of  reduction, 
the  expense  of  our  navy,  also  in  time  of  peace,  is 
gaining  largely  upon  hers.  It  is  nearly  doubled 
since  Mr.  Calhoun  spoke — 15  millions  in  1855. 

Mr.  Woodbury,  who  had  been  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  under  President  Jackson,  spoke  de- 
cidedly against  the  proposed  increase,  and 
against  the  large  expenditure  in  the  depart- 
ment, and  its  unfavorable  comparison  with  the 
expenses  of  the  British  navy  in  time  of  peace. 
He  said : 

"  There  are  twenty-nine  or  thirty  post-cap- 
tains now  on  leave  or  waiting  orders,  and  from 
thirty  to  forty  commanders.  Many  of  them  are 
impatient  to  be  called  into  active  service — hating 
a  life  of  indolence — an  idle  loafing  life — and 
who  are  anxious  to  be  performing  some  public 
service  for  the  pay  they  receive.  It  was,  gene- 
rally, not  their  fault  that  they  were  not  on  duty ; 
but  ours,  in  making  them  so  numerous  that 
they  could  not  be  employed.  He  dwelt  on  the 
peace  establishment  of  England — for  her  navy 
averaged  £18,000,000  in  time  of  war,  before  the 
year  1820 — but  her  peace  establishment  was 
now  only  £5,000,000  to  6,000,000.  Gentlemen 
talk  of  103  post-captains  being  necessary,  for 
employment  in  commission ;  while  England  has 
only  70  post-captains  employed  in  vessels  in 
commission.     She  had  fewer  commanders   so 


employed  than  our  whole  number  of  the  same 
grade. 

"  The  host  of  English  navy  officers  was  on  re- 
tired and  half-pay — less  in  amount  than  ours 
by  one-third  when  full,  and  not  one-half  of  full 
pay  often,  when  retired  5  and  her  seamen  only 
half.  Her  vessels  afloat,  also,  were  mostly 
small  ones — 63  of  them  being  steamers,  with 
only  one  or  two  guns  on  an  average. 

"  That  the  navy  ought  to  be  regulated  by  law, 
every  gentleman  admits.  Without  any  express 
law,  was  there  not  a  manifest  propriety  in  any 
proviso  which  should  prevent  the  number  of 
appointments  from  being  carried  half  up.  or  quite 
up  to  the  standard  of  the  British  navy,  on  full 
pay  ?  It  would  be  a  great  relief  to  the  Execu- 
tive, and  the  head  of  the  Navy  Department,  to 
fix  some  limitation  on  appointments,  by  which 
the  importunities  with  which  they  are  beset 
shall  not  be  the  occasion  of  overloading  the 
Government  with  a  greater  numbor  of  officers 
in  any  grade  than  the  exigencies  of  the  service 
actually  demand.  A  clerk  in  any  public  office, 
a  lieutenant  in  the  army,  a  judge  could  not  be 
appointed  without  authority  of  law;  and  why 
should  there  not  be  a  similar  check  with  regard 
to  officers  in  the  navy  ? 

"  It  was  urged  heretofore,  in  official  communi- 
cations by  himself,  that  it  would  be  proper  to 
limit  Executive  discretion  in  this ;  and  a  benefit 
to  the  Executive  and  the  departments  would 
also  accrue  by  passing  laws  regulating  the  peace 
establishment.  He  had  submitted  a  resolution 
for  that  purpose,  in  December  last,  which  had 
not  been  acted  on ;  though  he  hoped  it  yet  would 
be  acted  upon  before  our  adjournment.  It  was 
better  to  bring  this  matter  forward  in  an  appro- 
priation bill,  than  that  there  should  be  no  check 
at  all.  It  is  the  only  way  in  which  the  House 
now  finds  it  practicable  to  effect  any  control  on 
this  question.  It  could  only  be  done  in  an  ap- 
propriation bill,  which  gives  that  House  the 
power  of  control  as  to  navy  officers.  There 
should  be  no  reflection  on  the  House  on  this 
account ;  for  there  is  no  reflection  on  the  Ex- 
ecutive or  the  Senate.  It  is  their  right  and  duty 
in  the  present  exigency.  He  considered  the 
introduction  of  it  into  this  bill  under  all  the 
circumstances,  not  only  highly  excusable,  but 
justifiable.  He  did  not  mean  to  say  that  a 
separate  law  would  not,  in  itself,  if  prepared 
early  and  seasonably,  be  more  desirable ;  but  he 
contended  this  check  was  better  than  none  at 
all.  When  acting  on  this  proviso  the  Senate  is 
acting  on  the  whole  bill.  It  was  not  put  in 
without  some  meaning.  It  was  not  merely  to 
strip  the  Executive  and  the  Senate  of  the  ap- 
pointing power,  now  unlimited  :  its  object  was 
to  reduce  the  expenses  of  the  navy,  from  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy's  estimate  of  eight  and  a 
half  millions  of  dollars,  to  about  $6,293,000. 
That  was  the  whole  effect  of  the  whole  measure, 
and  of  all  the  changes  in  the  bill. 

"The  difference  between  both  sides  of  the 


ANNO  1842.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


455 


Senate  on  this  subject  seemed  to  be,  that  one 
believed  the  navy  ought  to  be  kept  upon  a  quasi 
war  establishment ;  and  the  other,  in  peace  and 
not  expecting  war,  believed  it  ought  to  be  on 
a  peace  establishment; — not  cut  down  below 
that,  but  left  liberally  for  peace. 

"  During  the  administration  of  the  younger 
Adams,  there  was  a  peace  establishment  of  the 
navy;  and  was  it  not  then  perfectly  efficient 
and  prosperous  for  all  peace  purposes?  Yet 
the  average  expenditure  then  was  only  from 
three  to  four  millions.  It  was  so  under  Gene- 
ral Jackson.  Under  Mr.  Adams,  piracy  was  ex- 
tirpated in  the  West  Indies.  Under  his  succes- 
sor, the  Malays  in  the  farthest  India  were 
chastised ;  and  a  semi-banditti  broken  up  at  the 
Falkland  Islands.  It  was  not  till  1836  '37  that 
a  large  increase  commenced.  But  why  ?  Be- 
cause there  was  an  overflowing  treasury.  We 
were  embarrassed  with  money,  rather  than  for 
money.  An  exploring  expedition  was  then 
decided  upon.  But  even  with  that  expedition 
— so  noble  and  glorious  in  some  respects — six 
millions  and  a  fraction  were  the  whole  expenses. 
But  why  should  it  now  at  once  be  raised  to 
eight  and  a  half  millions  ?  " 

The  British  have  a  peace  as  well  as  a  war 
establishment  for  their  navy ;  and  the  former  was 
usually  about  one-third  of  the  latter.  We  have 
no  naval  peace  establishment.  It  is  all  on  the 
war  footing,  and  is  now  (1855)  nearly  double 
the  expense  of  what  it  was  in  the  war  with 
Great  Britain.  A  perpetual  war  establishment, 
when  there  is  no  war.  This  is  an  anomaly 
which  no  other  country  presents,  and  which  no 
country  can  stand,  and  arises  from  the  act  of 
1806,  which  authorizes  the  President "  to  keep  in 
actual  service,  in  time  of  peace,  so  many  of  the 
frigates  and  other  armed  public  vessels  of  the 
United  States  as  in  his  judgment  the  nature 
of  the  service  might  require,  and  to  cause  the 
residue  thereof  to  be  laid  up  in  ordinary  in 
convenient  ports."  This  is  the  discretion  which 
the  act  of  1806  gives  to  the  President — un- 
limited so  far  as  that  clause  goes ;  but  limited 
by  two  subsequent  clauses  limiting  the  number 
of  officers  to  be  employed  to  94,  and  the  whole 
number  of  seamen  and  boys  to  925  ;  and  placing 
the  unemployed  officers  on  half  pay  without 
rations — a  degree  of  reduction  which  made 
them  anxious  to  be  at  sea  instead  of  remaining 
unemployed  at  home.  Under  Mr.  Jefferson, 
then,  the  act  of  1806  made  a  naval  peace  estab- 
lishment ;  but  doing  away  all  the  limitations  of 
that  act,  and  leaving  nothing  of  it  in  force  but 
the  presidential  discretion  to  employ  as  many 


vessels  as  the  service  might  require,  the  whole 
navy  is  thrown  into  the  hands  of  the  President : 
and  the  manner  in  which  he  might  exercise  that 
discretion  might  depend  entirely  upon  the  view 
which  he  would  take  of  the  naval  policy  which 
ought  to  be  pursued— whether  great  fleets  for 
offence,  or  cruisers  for  defence.  All  the  limita- 
tions of  the  act  of  1806  have  been  thrown 
down — even  the  limitation  to  half  pay;  and 
unemployed  pay  has  been  placed  so  high  as  to 
make  it  an  object  with  officers  to  be  unemployed. 
Mr.  Reuel  Williams,  of  Maine,  exposed  this 
solecism  in  a  few  pertinent  remarks.    He  said  : 

"  Half  of  the  navy  officers  are  now  ashore, 
and  there  can  be  no  necessity  for  such  a  number 
of  officers  as  to  admit  of  half  being  at  sea,  and 
the  other  half  on  land.  Such  was  not  the  case 
heretofore.  It  was  in  1835  that  such  increase 
of  shore  pay  was  made,  as  caused  it  to  be  the 
interest  of  the  officers  to  be  off  duty.  The  only 
cure  for  this  evil  was,  either  to  reduce  the  pay 
when  off  duty,  or  to  limit  the  time  of  relaxa- 
tion, and  to  adjust  the  number  to  the  actual  re- 
quirements of  the  service." 

The  vote  was  taken  upon  the  increase  pro- 
posed by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  recom- 
mended by  the  President,  and  it  was  carried  by 
one  vote — the  yeas  and  nays  being  well  defined 
by  the  party  line. 

"  Yeas— Messrs.  Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Ber- 
rien, Choate,  Clayton,  Conrad,  Crittenden, 
Evans,  Graham,  Henderson,  Huntington,  Kerr, 
Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead,  Porter, 
Preston,  Rives,  Simmons,  Tallmadge,  and  Wood- 
bridge— 23." 

"  Nays— Messrs.  Allen,  Bagby,  Benton,  Bu- 
chanan, Crafts,  Cuthbert,  Fulton,  King,  Linn, 
McRoberts,  Sevier,  Smith  of  Connecticut,  Smith 
of  Indiana,  Sturgeon,  Tappan,  Walker,  White, 
Wilcox,  Williams,  Woodbury,  Wright  and 
Young— 22." 

Mr.  Benton  spoke  chiefly  to  the  necessity  of 
having  a  naval  policy — a  policy  which  would 
determine  what  was  to  be  relied  on— a  great 
navy  for  offence,  or  a  moderate  one  for  defence ; 
and  a  peace  establishment  in  time  of  peace,  or 
a  war  establishment  in  peace  as  well  as  war. 
Some  extracts  from  his  speech  are  given  in  the 
next  chapter. 


456 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER    CVIII. 

EXPENSES  OF  THE  NAVY:  MR.  BENTON'S  SPEECH : 
EXTRACTS. 

I  propose  to  recall  to  the  recollection  of  the 
Senate  the  attempt  which  was  made  in  1822 — 
being  seven  years  after  the  war — to  limit  and 
fix  a  naval  peace  establishment ;  and  to  fix  it  at 
about  one-fourth  of  what  is  now  proposed,  and 
that  that  establishment  was  rejected  because  it 
was  too  large.  Going  upon  the  plan  of  Mr. 
Jefferson's  act  of  1806,  it  took  the  number  of 
men  and  officers  for  the  limitation,  discouraged 
absence  on  shore  by  reducing  the  pay  one-half 
and  withholding  rations ;  collected  timber  for 
future  building  of  vessels  ;  and  directed  all  to 
remain  in  port  which  the  public  service  did  not 
require  to  go  abroad.  It  provided  for  one  rear- 
admiral;  five  commodores;  twenty-five  cap- 
tains ;  thirty  masters  commandant ;  one  hun- 
dred and  ninety  lieutenants ;  four  hundred 
midshipmen  ;  thirty-five  surgeons  ;  forty-five 
surgeon's  mates :  six  chaplains  ;  forty  pursers  ; 
and  three  thousand  five  hundred  men  and  boys 
— in  all  a  little  over  four  thousand  men.  Yet 
Congress  refused  to  adopt  this  number.  This 
shows  what  Congress  then  thought  of  the  size 
of  a  naval  peace  establishment.  Mr.  B.  was 
contemporary  with  that  bill — supported  it — 
knows  the  reason  why  it  was  rejected — and 
that  was,  because  Congress  would  not  sanction 
so  large  an  establishment.  To  this  decision 
there  was  a  close  adherence  for  many  years. 
In  the  year  1833 — eleven  years  after  that  time, 
and  when  the  present  senator  from  New  Hamp- 
shire [Mr.  Woodbury]  was  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  the  naval  establishment  was  but  little 
above  the  bill  of  1822.  It  was  about  five  thou- 
sand men,  and  cost  about  four  millions  of  dol- 
lars, and  was  proposed  by  that  Secretary  to  be 
kept  at  about  that  size.  Here  Mr.  B.  read  sev- 
eral extracts  from  Mr.  Woodbury's  report  of 
1833 — the  last  which  he  made  as  Secretary  of 
the  Navy — which  verified  these  statements. 
Mr.  B.  then  looked  to  the  naval  establishment 
on  the  1st  of  January,  1841,  and  showed  that 
the  establishment  had  largely  increased  since 
Mr.  Woodbury's  report,  and  was  far  beyond 
any  calculation  in  1822.    The  total  number  of 


men,  of  all  grades,  in  the  service  in  1841,  was 
a  little  over  eight  thousand;  the  total  cost 
about  six  millions  of  dollars — being  double  the 
amount  and  cost  of  the  proposed  peace  estab- 
lishment of  the  United  States  in  the  year  1822, 
and  nearly  double  the  actual  establishment 
of  1833.  Mr.  B.  then  showed  the  additions 
made  by  executive  authority  in  1841,  and  that 
the  number  of  men  was  carried  up  to  upwards 
of  eleven  thousand,  and  the  expense  for  1842 
was  to  exceed  eight  millions  of  dollars  !  This 
(he  said)  was  considered  an  excessive  increase  ; 
and  the  design  now  was  to  correct  it,  and  carry 
things  back  to  what  they  were  a  year  before. 
This  was  the  design  ;  and  this,  so  far  from  be- 
ing destructive  to  the  navy,  was  doing  far  more 
for  it  than  its  most  ardent  friends  proposed  or 
hoped  for  a  few  years  before. 

Mr.  B.  here  exhibited  a  table  showing  the 
actual  state  of  the  navy,  in  point  of  numbers,  at 
the  commencement  of  the  years  1841  and  1842 ; 
and  showed  that  the  increase  in  one  year  was 
nearly  as  great  as  it  had  been  in  the  previous 
twenty  years  ;  and  that  its  totality  at  the  lat- 
ter of  these  periods  was  between  eleven  and 
twelve  thousand  men,  all  told.  This  is  what 
the  present  administration  has  done  in  one  year 
— the  first  year  of  its  existence  :  and  it  is  only 
the  commencement  of  their  plan — the  first  step 
in  a  long  succession  of  long  steps.  The  further 
increases,  still  contemplated  were  great,  and 
were  officially  made  known  to  the  Congress, 
and  the  estimates  increased  accordingly.  To 
say  nothing  of  what  was  in  the  Senate  in  its 
executive  capacity,  Mr.  B.  would  read  a  clause 
from  the  report  of  the  Senate's  Committee  on 
Naval  Affairs,  which  showed  the  number  of  ves- 
sels which  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  proposed 
to  have  in  commission,  and  the  consequent  vast 
increase  of  men  and  money  which  would  be  re- 
quired. (The  following  is  the  extract  from  Mr. 
Bayard's  report)  : 

"  The  second  section  of  the  act  of  Congress 
of  the  21st  April,  1806,  expressly  authorizes 
the  President '  to  keep  in  actual  service,  in  time 
of  peace,  so  many  of  the  frigates  and  other  pub- 
lic armed  vessels  of  the  United  States,  as  in  his 
judgment  the  nature  of  the  service  may  require.' 
In  the  exercise  of  this  discretion,  the  commit- 
tee are  informed  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
that  he  proposes  to  employ  a  squadron  in  the 
Mediterranean,  consisting  of  two  ships  of  the 
line,  four  frigates,  and  four  sloops  and  brigs — 
in  all,  ten  vessels ;   another  squadron  on  the 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


457 


Brazil  station,  consisting,  also,  of  two  ships-of 
the-line,  four  frigates,  and  four  sloops  and  brigs ; 
which  two  squadrons  will  be  made  from  time 
to  time  to  exchange  their  stations,  and  thus  to 
traverse  the  intermediate  portion  of  the  Atlan- 
tic. He  proposes,  further,  to  employ  a  squad- 
ron in  the  Pacific,  consisting  of  one  ship-of-the- 
line,  two  frigates,  and  four  sloops ;  and  a  simi- 
lar squadron  of  one  ship  of  the  line,  two  fri- 
gates, and  four  sloops  in  the  East  Indies ;  which 
squadrons,  in  like  manner,  exchanging  from  time 
to  time  their  stations,  will  traverse  the  inter- 
mediate portion  of  the  Pacific,  giving  counte- 
nance and  protection  to  the  whale  fishery  in 
that  ocean.  He  proposes,  further,  to  employ  a 
fifth  squadron,  to  be  called  the  home  squadron, 
consisting  of  one  ship-of-the-line,  three  frigates, 
and  three  sloops,  which,  besides  the  duties 
which  its  name  indicates,  will  have  devolved 
upon  it  the  duties  of  the  West  India  squadron, 
whose  cruising  ground  extended  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Amazon,  and  as  far  as  the  30th  degree  of 
west  longitude  from  London*  He  proposes,  ad- 
ditionally, to  employ  on  the  African  coast  one 
frigate  and  four  sloops  and  brigs — in  all,  five 
vessels ;  four  steamers  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
and  four  steamers  on  the  lakes.  There  will 
thus  be  in  commission  seven  ships-of-the-line, 
sixteen  frigates,  twenty-three  sloops  and  brigs, 
and  eight  steamers — in  all,  fifty-four  vessels." 

This  is  the  report  of  the  committee.  This  is 
what  we  are  further  to  expect.  Five  great 
squadrons,  headed  by  ships  of  the  line;  and 
one  of  them  that  famous  home  squadron  hatch- 
ed into  existence  at  the  extra  session  one  year 
ago,  and  which  is  the  ridicule  of  all  except  those 
who  live  at  home  upon  it,  enjoying  the  emolu- 
ments of  service  without  any  service  to  per- 
form. Look  at  it.  Examine  the  plan  in  its 
parts,  and  see  the  enormity  of  its  proportions. 
Two  ships-of-the-line,  four  frigates,  and  four 
sloops  and  brigs  for  the  Mediterranean— a  sea 
as  free  from  danger  to  our  commerce  as  is  the 
Chesapeake  Bay.  Why,  sir,  our  Secretary  is 
from  the  land  of  Decatur,  and  must  have  heard 
of  that  commander,  and  how  with  three  lit- 
tle frigates,  one  sloop,  and  a  few  brigs  and 
schooners,  he  humbled  Algiers,  Tripoli,  and  Tu- 
nis, and  put  an  end  to  their  depredations  on 
American  ships  and  commerce.  He  must  have 
heard  of  Lord  Exmouth,  who,  with  less  force 
than  he  proposes  to  send  to  the  Mediterranean, 
went  there  and  crushed  the  fortifications  of  Al- 
giers, and  took  the  bond  of  the  pirates  never  to 
trouble  a  Christian  again.  And  he  must  have 
heard  of  the  French,  who,  since  1830,  are  the 
owners  of  Algiers.     Certainly  the  Mediterra- 


nean is  as  free  from  danger  to-day  as  is  the 
Chesapeake  Bay ;  and  yet  our  Secretary  pro- 
poses to  send  two  ships-of-the-line,  four  fri- 
gates, and  four  sloops  to  that  safe  sea,  to  keep 
holiday  there  for  three  years.  Another  squad- 
ron of  the  same  magnitude  is  to  go  to  Brazil, 
where  a  frigate  and  a  sloop  would  be  the  extent 
that  any  emergency  could  require,  and  more 
than  has  ever  been  required  yet.  The  same  of 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  where  Porter  sailed  in  tri- 
umph during  the  war  with  one  little  frigate ;  and 
a  squadron  to  the  East  Indies,  where  no  power 
has  any  navy,  and  where  our  sloops  and  brigs 
would  dominate  without  impediment.  In  all 
fifty-four  men-of-war  !  Seven  ships-of-the-line, 
sixteen  frigates,  twenty-three  sloops  and  brigs, 
and  eight  steamers.  And  all  this  under  Jeffer- 
son's act  of  1806,  when  there  was  not  a  ship-of- 
the-line,  nor  a  large  frigate,  nor  twenty  vessels 
of  all  sorts,  and  part  of  them  to  remain  in  port 
— only  the  number  going  forth  that  would  re- 
quire nine  hundred  and  twenty-five  men  to  man 
them  !  just  about  the  complement  of  one  of 
these  seven  ships-of-the-line.  Does  not  presi- 
dential discretion  want  regulating  when  such 
things  as  these  can  be  done  under  the  act  of 
1806  ?  Has  any  one  calculated  the  amount  of 
this  increase,  and  counted  up  the  amount  of 
men  and  money  which  it  will  cost  ?  The  re- 
port does  not,  and,  in  that  respect,  is  essential- 
ly deficient.  It  ought  to  be  counted,  and  Mr. 
B.  would  attempt  it.  He  acknowledged  the 
difficulty  of  such  an  undertaking ;  how  easy  it 
was  for  a  speaker — and  especially  such  a  speaker 
as  he  was — to  get  into  a  fog  when  he  got  into 
masses  of  millions,  and  so  bewilder  others  as 
well  as  himself.  To  avoid  this,  details  must  be 
avoided,  and  results  made  plain  by  simplifying 
the  elements  of  calculation.  He  would  endea- 
vor to  do  so,  by  taking  a  few  plain  data,  in  this 
case — the  data  correct  in  themselves,  and  the 
results,  therefore,  mathematically  demonstrated. 
He  would  take  the  guns  and  the  men — show 
what  we  had  now,  and  what  we  proposed  to 
have ;  and  what  was  the  cost  of  each  gun  afloat, 
and  the  number  of  men  to  work  it.  The  num- 
ber of  guns  we  now  have  afloat  is  nine  hundred 
and  thirty-seven ;  the  number  of  men  between 
eleven  and  twelve  thousand ;  and  the  estimated 
cost  for  the  whole,  a  fraction  over  eight  millions 
of  dollars.  This  would  give  about  twelve  men 
and  about  nine  thousand  dollars  to  each  gun. 


458 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


[Mr.  Bayard  asked  how  could  these  nine  thou- 
sand dollars  a  gun  be  made  out  ?]  Mr.  Ben- 
ton replied.  By  counting  every  thing  that 
was  necessary  to  give  you  the  use  of  the  gun — 
every  thing  incident  to  its  use — every  thing  be- 
longing to  the  whole  naval  establishment.  The 
end,  design,  and  effect  of  the  whole  establish- 
ment, was  to  give  you  the  use  of  the  gun.  That 
was  all  that  was  wanted.  But,  to  get  it,  an  es- 
tablishment had  to  be  kept  up  of  vast  extent 
and  variety — of  shops  and  yards  on  land,  as 
well  as  ships  at  sea — of  salaries  and  pensions, 
as  well  as  powder  and  balls.  Every  expense  is 
counted,  and  that  gives  the  cost  per  gun.  Mr. 
B.  said  he  would  now  analyze  the  gentleman's 
report,  and  see  what  addition  these  five  squad- 
rons would  make  to  the  expense  of  the  naval 
establishment.  The  first  point  was,  to  find  the 
number  of  guns  which  they  were  to  bear,  and 
which  was  the  element  in  the  calculation  that 
would  lead  to  the  results  sought  for.  Recur- 
ring to  the  gentleman's  report,  and  taking  the 
number  of  each  class  of  vessels,  and  the  num- 
ber of  guns  which  each  would  carry,  and  the 
results  would  be : 


7  ships-of-the-line,  rating  74,  but  carry- 
ing 80  guns, 

16  frigates,  44  guns  each,    . 
13  sloops,  20  guns  each, 
10  brigs,  10  guns  each, 

8  steamers,  10  guns  each, 


560 
704 
260 
100 

80 


1,704 


Here  (said  Mr.  B.)  is  an  aggregate  of  1,704 
guns,  which,  at  $9,000  each  gun,  would  give 
$15,336,000,  as  the  sum  -which  the  Treasury 
would  have  to  pay  for  a  naval  establishment 
which  would  give  us  the  use  of  that  number. 
Deduct  the  difference  between  the  937,  the  pres- 
ent number  of  guns,  and  this  1.704,  and  you 
have  767  for  the  increased  number  of  guns, 
which,  at  $9,000  each,  will  give  $6,903,000  for 
the  increased  cost  in  money.  This  was  the 
moneyed  result  of  the  increase.  Now  take  the 
personal  increase — that  is  to  say,  the  increased 
number  of  men  which  the  five  squadrons  would 
require.  Taking  ten  men  and  two  officers  to 
the  gun — in  all,  twelve — and  the  increased 
number  of  men  and  officers  required  for  767 
guns  would  be  8,204.  Add  these  to  the  11,000 
or  12,000  now  in  service,  and  you  have  close 
upon  20,000  men  for  the  naval  peace  establish- 


ment of  1843,  costing  about  fifteen  millions  and 
a  half  of  dollars. 

But  I  am  asked,  and  in  a  way  to  question  my 
computation,  how  I  get  at  these  nine  thousand 
dollars  cost  for  each  gun  afloat  ?  I  answer — by 
a  simple  and  obvious  process.  I  take  the  whole 
annual  cost  of  the  navy  department,  and  then 
see  how  many  guns  we  have  afloat.  The  ob- 
ject is  to  get  guns  afloat,  and  the  whole  estab- 
lishment is  subordinate  and  incidental  to  that 
object.  Not  only  the  gun  itself,  the  ship  which 
carries  it,  and  the  men  who  work  it,  are  to  be 
taken  into  the  account,  but  the  docks  and  navy- 
yards  at  home,  the  hospitals  and  pensions,  the 
marines  and  guards — every  thing,  in  fact,  which 
constituted  the  expense  of  the  naval  establish- 
ment. The  whole  is  employed,  or  incurred,  to 
produce  the  result — which  is,  so  many  guns  at 
sea  to  be  fired  upon  the  enemy.  The  whole  is 
incurred  for  the  sake  of  the  guns,  and  therefore 
all  must  be  counted.  Going  by  this  rule  (said 
Mr.  B.),  it  would  be  easily  shown  that  his 
statement  of  yesterday  was  about  correct — 
rather  under  than  over ;  and  this  could  be  seen 
by  making  a  brief  and  plain  sum  in  arithmetic. 
We  have  the  number  of  guns  afloat,  and  the  es- 
timated expense  for  the  year :  the  guns  936 ; 
the  estimate  for  the  year  is  $8,705,579.  Now, 
divide  this  amount  by  the  number  of  guns,  and 
the  result  is  a  little  upwards  of  $9,200  to  each 
oae.  This  proves  the  correctness  of  the  state- 
ment made  yesterday;  it  proves  it  for  the 
present  year,  which  is  the  one  in  controversy. 
The  result  will  be  about  the  same  for  several 
previous  years.  Mr.  B.  said  he  had  looked 
over  the  years  1841  and  1838,  and  found  this 
to  be  the  result :  in  1841,  the  guns  were  747, 
and  the  expense  of  the  naval  establishment 
$6,196,516.  Divide  the  money  by  the  guns, 
and  you  have  a  little  upwards  of  $8,300.  In 
1838,  the  guns  were  670,  and  the  expense 
$5,980,971.  This  will  give  a  little  upwards  of 
$8,900  to  the  gun.  The  average  of  the  whole 
three  years  will  be  just  about  $9,000. 

Thus,  the  senator  from  New  Hampshire  [Mr. 
Woodbury]  and  himself  were  correct  in  their 
statement,  and  the  figures  proved  it.  At  the 
same  time,  the  senator  from  Delaware  [Mr. 
Bayard]  is  undoubtedly  correct  in  taking  a 
small  number  of  guns,  and  saying  they  may  be 
added  without  incurring  an  expense  of  more 
than  three  or  four  thousand  dollars.    Small  ad- 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


459 


ditions  may  be  made,  without  incurring  any 
thing  but  the  expense  of  the  gun  itself,  and  the 
men  who  work  it.  But  that  is  not  the  ques- 
tion here.  The  question  is  to  almost  double 
the  number ;  it  is  to  carry  up  937  to  1,700. 
Here  is  an  increase  intended  by  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  of  near  800  guns — perhaps  quite 
800,  if  the  seventy-fours  carry  ninety  guns,  as 
intimated  by  the  senator  [Mr.  Bayard]  this 
day.  These  seven  or  eight  hundred  guns  could 
not  be  added  without  ships  to  carry  them,  and 
all  the  expense  on  land  which  is  incident  to  the 
construction  of  these  ships.  These  seven  or 
eight  hundred  additional  guns  would  require 
seven  or  eight  thousand  men,  and  a  great  many 
officers.  Ten  men  and  two  officers  to  the  gun 
is  the  estimate.  The  present  establishment  is 
near  that  rate,  and  the  increase  must  be  in  the 
same  proportion.  The  present  number  of  men 
in  the  navy,  exclusive  of  officers,  is  9,784  : 
which  is  a  fraction  over  ten  to  the  gun.  The 
number  of  officers  now  in  service  (midshipmen, 
surgeons,  &c,  included)  is  near  1,300,  besides 
the  list  of  nominations  not  yet  confirmed.  This 
is  in  the  proportion  of  nearly  one  and  a  half 
to  a  gun.  Apply  the  whole  to  the  intended 
increase — the  increase  which  the  report  of  the 
committee  discloses  to  us — and  you  will  have 
close  upon  17,000  men  and  2,000  officers  for 
the  peace  establishment  of  the  navy — in  all, 
near  20,000  men !  and  this,  independent  of  those 
employed  on  land,  and  the  2,000  mechanics  and 
laborers  who  are  usually  at  our  navy-yards. 
Now,  these  men  and  officers  cost  money :  two 
hundred  and  twenty-six  dollars  per  annum  per 
man,  and  eight  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  per 
annum  per  officer,  was  the  average  cost  in  1833, 
as  stated  in  the  report  of  the  then  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  the  present  senator  from  New  Hamp- 
shire [Mr.  Woodbury].  What  it  is  now,  Mr. 
B.  did  not  know,  but  knew  it  was  greater  for 
the  officers  now,  than  it  was  then.  But  one 
thing  he  did  know— and  that  was,  that  a  naval 
peace  establishment  of  the  magnitude  disclosed 
in  the  committee's  report  (six  squadrons,  54 
vessels,  1,700  guns,  17,000  men,  and  2,000  or 
3,000  officers)  would  break  down  the  whole 
navy  of  the  United  States. 

Mr.  B.  said  we  had  just  had  a  presidential 
election  carried  on  a  hue-and-cry  against  ex- 
travagance, and  a  hurrah  for  a  change,  and  a 


promise  to  carry  on  the  government  for  thirteen 
millions  of  dollars ;  and  here  were  fifteen  and  a 
half  millions  for  one  branch  of  the  service !  and 
those  who  oppose  it  are  to  be  stigmatized  as 
architects  of  ruin,  and  enemies  of  the  navy  ;  and 
a  hue-and-cry  raised  against  them  for  the  op- 
position. He  said  we  had  just  voted  a  set  of  re- 
solutions [Mr.  Clay's]  to  limit  the  expenses  of 
the  government  to  twenty-two  millions;  and 
yet  here  are  two-thirds  of  that  sum  proposed 
for  one  branch  of  the  service — a  branch  which, 
under  General  Jackson's  administration,  cost 
about  four  millions,  and  was  intended  to  be 
limited  to  about  that  amount.  This  was  the 
economy — the  retrenchment — the  saving  of  the 
people's  money,  which  was  promised  before  the 
election ! 

Mr.  B.  would  not  go  into  points  so  well  stated 
by  the  senator  from  New  Hampshire  [Mr.  Wood- 
bury] on  yesterday,  that  our  present  peace  naval 
establishment  exceeds  the  cost  of  the  war  estab- 
lishment during  the  late  war ;  that  we  pay  far 
more  money,  and  get  much  fewer  guns  and  men 
than  the  British  do  for  the  same  money.  He 
would  omit  the  tables  which  he  had  on  hand  to 
prove  these  important  points,  and  would  go  on  to 
say  that  it  was  an  obligation  of  imperious  duty 
on  Congress  to  arrest  the  present  state  of  things; 
to  turn  back  the  establishment  to  what  it  was  a 
year  ago  ;  and  to  go  to  work  at  the  next  session 
of  Congress  to  regulate  the  United  States  naval 
peace  establishment  by  law.  When  that  bill 
came  up,  a  great  question  would  have  to  be  de- 
cided— the  question  of  a  navy  for  defence,  or  for 
offence  !  When  that  question  came  on,  he  would 
give  his  opinion  upon  it,  and  his  reasons  for  that 
opinion.  A  navy  of  some  degree,  and  of  some 
kind,  all  seemed  to  be  agreed  upon ;  but  what  it 
is  to  be — whether  to  defend  our  homes,  or  carry 
war  abroad — is  a  question  yet  to  be  decided,  and 
on  which  the  wisdom  and  the  patriotism  of  the 
country  would  be  called  into  requisition.  He 
would  only  say,  at  present,  that  coasts  and  cities 
could  be  defended  without  great  fleets  at  sea. 
The  history  of  continental  Europe  was  full  of 
the  proofs.  England,  with  her  thousand  ships, 
could  do  nothing  after  Europe  was  ready  for 
her,  during  the  late  wars  of  the  French  revolu- 
tion. He  did  not  speak  of  attacks  in  time  of 
peace,  like  Copenhagen,  but  of  Cadiz  and  Tene- 
riffe  in  1797,  and  Boulogne  and  Flushing  in 


460 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


1804,  where  Nelson,  with  all  his  skill  and  per- 
sonal daring,  and  with  vast  fleets,  was  able  to 
make  no  impression. 

Mr.  B.  said  the  navy  was  popular,  and  had 
many  friends  and  champions;  but  there  was 
such  a  thing  as  killing  by  kindness.  He  had 
watched  the  progress  of  events  for  some  time, 
and  said  to  his  friends  (for  he  made  no  speeches 
about  it)  that  the  navy  was  in  danger — that  the 
expense  of  it  was  growing  too  fast — that  there 
would  be  reaction  and  revulsion.  And  he  now 
said  that,  unless  things  were  checked,  and  mode- 
rate counsels  prevailed,  and  law  substituted  for 
executive  discretion  (or  indiscretion,  as  the  case 
might  be),  the  time  might  not  be  distant  when 
this  brilliant  arm  of  our  defence  should  become 
as  unpopular  as  it  was  in  the  time  of  the  elder 
Mr.  Adams. 


CHAPTER    CIX. 

MESSAGE  OF  THE  PRESIDENT  AT  THE  OPENING 
OF  THE  PwEGULAE  SESSION  OF  1842-3. 

The  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  and  its  com- 
mendation, was  the  prominent  topic  in  the  fore- 
part of  the  message.  The  President  repeated, 
in  a  more  condensed  form,  the  encomiums  which 
had  been  passed  upon  it  by  its  authors,  but 
without  altering  the  public  opinion  of  its  cha- 
racter— which  was  that  it  was  really  a  British 
treaty,  Great  Britain  getting  every  thing  settled 
which  she  wished,  and  all  to  her  own  satisfac- 
tion ;  while  all  the  subjects  of  interest  to  the 
United  States  were  adjourned  to  an  indefinite 
future  time,  as  well  known  then  as  now  never  to 
occur.  One  of  these  deferred  subjects  was  a 
matter  of  too  much  moment,  and  pregnant  with 
too  grave  consequences,  to  escape  general  repro- 
bation in  the  United  States :  it  was  that  of  the 
Columbia  River,  exclusively  possessed  by  the 
British  under  a  joint-occupation  treaty :  and 
which  possession  only  required  time  to  ripen  it 
into  a  valid  title.  The  indefinite  adjournment 
of  that  question  was  giving  Great  Britain  the 
time  she  wanted ;  and  the  danger  of  losing  the 
country  was  turning  the  attention  of  the  "West- 
ern people  towards  saving  it  by  sending  emi- 
grants to  occupy  it.  Many  emigrants  had  gone: 


more  were  going :  a  tide  was  setting  in  that  di- 
rection. In  fact  the  condition  of  this  great 
American  territory  was  becoming  a  topic  of 
political  discussion,  and  entering  into  the  con- 
tests of  party ;  and  the  President  found  it  ne- 
cessary to  make  further  excuses  for  omitting  to 
settle  it  in  the  Ashburton  treaty,  and  a  neces- 
sity to  attempt  to  do  something  to  soothe  the 
public  mind.     He  did  so  in  this  message : 

"  It  would  have  furnished  additional  cause  for 
congratulation,  if  the  treaty  could  have  embraced 
all  subjects  calculated  in  future  to  lead  to  a  mis- 
understanding between  the  two  governments. 
The  territory  of  the  United  States,  commonly 
called  the  Oregon  Territory,  lying  on  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  north  of  the  forty-second  degree  of  lati- 
tude, to  a  portion  of  which  Great  Britain  lays 
claim,  begins  to  attract  the  attention  of  our  fel- 
low-citizens ;  and  the  tide  of  population,  which 
has  reclaimed  what  was  so  lately  an  unbroken 
wilderness  in  more  contiguous  regions,  is  pre- 
paring to  flow  over  those  vast  districts  which 
stretch  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  In  advance  of  the  acquirement  of  indi- 
vidual rights  to  these  lands,  sound  policy  dic- 
tates that  every  effort  should  be  resorted  to  by 
the  two  governments  to  settle  their  respective 
claims.  It  became  manifest,  at  an  early  hour  of 
the  late  negotiations,  that  any  attempt,  for  the 
time  being,  satisfactorily  to  determine  those 
rights,  would  lead  to  a  protracted  discussion 
which  might  embrace,  in  its  failure,  other  more 
pressing  matters ;  and  the  Executive  did  not  re- 
gard it  as  proper  to  waive  all  the  advantages  of 
an  honorable  adjustment  of  other  difficulties  of 
great  magnitude  and  importance,  because  this, 
not  so  immediately  pressing,  stood  in  the  way. 
Although  the  difficulty  referred  to  may  not,  for 
several  years  to  come,  involve  the  peace  of  the 
two  countries,  yet  I  shall  not  delay  to  urge  on 
Great  Britain  the  importance  of  its  early  settle- 
ment." 

The  excuse  given  for  the  omission  of  this  sub- 
ject in  the  Ashburton  negotiations  is  lame  and 
insufficient.  Protracted  discussion  is  incident 
to  all  negotiations,  and  as  to  losing  other  mat- 
ters of  more  pressing  importance,  all  that  were 
of  importance  to  the  United  States  were  given 
up  any  way,  and  without  getting  any  equiva- 
lents for  them.  The  promise  to  urge  an  early 
settlement  could  promise  but  little  fruit  after 
Great  Britain  had  got  all  she  wanted ;  and  the 
discouragement  of  settlement,  by  denying  land 
titles  to  the  emigrants  until  an  adjustment  could 
be  made,  was  the  effectual  way  to  abandon  the 
country  to  Great  Britain.  But  this  subject  will 
have  an  appropriate  chapter  in  the  history  of 


ANNO  1842.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


461 


the  proceedings  of  Congress  to  encourage  that 
emigration  which  the  President  would  repress. 
The  termination  of  the  Florida  war  was  a 
subject  of  just  congratulation  with  the  Presi- 
dent, and  was  appropriately  communicated  to 
Congress. 

"The  vexatious,  harassing,  and  expensive 
war  which  so  long  prevailed  with  the  Indian 
tribes  inhabiting  the  peninsula  of  Florida,  has 
happily  been  terminated ;  whereby  our  army 
has  been  relieved  from  a  service  of  the  most  dis- 
agreeable character,  and  the  Treasury  from  a 
large  expenditure.  Some  casual  outbreaks  may 
occur,  such  as  are  incident  to  the  close  prox- 
imity of  border  settlers  and  the  Indians ;  but 
these,  as  in  all  other  cases,  may  be  left  to  the 
care  of  the  local  authorities,  aided,  when  occa- 
sion may  require,  by  the  forces  of  the  United 
States." 

The  President  does  not  tell  by  what  treaty  of 
peace  this  war  was  terminated,  nor  by  what 
great  battle  it  was  brought  to  a  conclusion :  and 
there  were  none  such  to  be  told — either  of  treaty 
negotiated,  or  of  battle  fought.  The  war  had 
died  out  of  itself  under  the  arrival  of  settlers 
attracted  to  its  theatre  by  the  Florida  armed 
occupation  act.  No  sooner  did  the  act  pass, 
giving  land  to  each  settler  who  should  remain 
in  the  disturbed  part  of  the  territory  five  years, 
than  thousands  repaired  to  the  spot.  They 
went  with  their  arms  and  ploughs — the  weapons 
of  war  in  one  hand  and  the  implements  of 
husbandry  in  the  other — their  families,  flocks 
and  herds,  established  themselves  in  block- 
houses, commenced  cultivation,  and  showed  that 
they  came  to  stay,  and  intended  to  stay.  Bred 
to  the  rifle  and  the  frontier,  they  were  an  over- 
match for  the  Indians  in  their  own  mode  of  war- 
fare ;  and,  interested  in  the  peace  of  the  coun- 
try, they  soon  succeeded  in  obtaining  it.  The 
war  died  out  under  their  presence,  and  no  per- 
son could  tell  when,  nor  how ;  for  there  was  no 
great  treaty  held,  or  great  battle  fought,  to  sig- 
nalize its  conclusion.  And  this  is  the  way  to 
settle  all  Indian  wars — the  cheap,  effectual  and 
speedy  way  to  do  it :  land  to  the  armed  settler, 
and  rangers,  when  any  additional  force  is  wanted 
— rangers,  not  regulars. 

But  a  government  bank,  under  the  name  of 
exchequer,  was  the  prominent  and  engrossing 
feature  of  the  message.  It  was  the  same  paper- 
money  machine,  borrowed  from  the  times  of 
Sir  Robert  Walpole,  which  had  been  recom- 


mended to  Congress  at  the  previous  session, 
and  had  been  so  unanimously  repulsed  by  all 
parties.  Like  its  predecessor  it  ignored  a  gold 
and  silver  currency,  and  promised  paper.  The 
phrases  "  sound  currency  " — "  sound  circulating 
medium" — "safe  bills  convertible  at  will  into 
specie,"  figured  throughout  the  scheme  ;  and  to 
make  this  government  paper  a  local  as  well  as 
a  national  currency,  the  denomination  of  its 
notes  was  to  be  carried  down  at  the  start  to 
the  low  figure  of  five  dollars — involving  the  ne- 
cessity of  reducing  it  to  one  dollar  as  soon  as 
the  banishment  of  specie  which  it  would  create 
should  raise  the  usual  demand  for  smaller  paper. 
To  do  him  justice,  his  condensed  argument  in 
favor  of  this  government  paper,  and  against  the 
gold  and  silver  currency  of  the  constitution,  is 
here  given : 

"  There  can  be  but  three  kinds  of  public  cur- 
rency :  1st.  Gold  and  silver ;  2d.  The  paper  of 
State  institutions ;  or,  3d.  A  representative  of 
the  precious  metals,  provided  by  the  general 
government,  or  under  its  authority.  The  sub- 
treasury  system  rejected  the  last,  in  any  form ; 
and,  as  it  was  believed  that  no  reliance  could  be 
placed  on  the  issues  of  local  institutions,  for  the 
purposes  of  general  circulation,  it  necessarily  and 
unavoidably  adopted  specie  as  the  exclusive 
currency  for  its  own  use.  And  this  must  ever 
be  the  case,  unless  one  of  the  other  kinds  be 
used.  The  choice,  in  the  present  state  of  public 
sentiment,  lies  between  an  exclusive  specie  cur- 
rency on  the  one  hand,  and  government  issues 
of  some  kind  on  the  other.  That  these  issues 
cannot  be  made  by  a  chartered  institution,  is 
supposed  to  be  conclusively  settled.  They  must 
be  made,  then,  directly  by  government  agents. 
For  several  years  past,  they  have  been  thus 
made  in  the  form  of  treasury  notes,  and  have 
answered  a  valuable  purpose.  Their  usefulness 
has  been  limited  by  their  being  transient  and 
temporary ;  their  ceasing  to  bear  interest  at 
given  periods,  necessarily  causes  their  speedy 
return,  and  thus  restricts  their  range  of  circula- 
tion ;  and  being  used  only  in  the  disbursements 
of  government,  they  cannot  reach  those  points 
where  they  are  most  required.  By  rendering 
their  use  permanent,  to  the  moderate  extent 
already  mentioned,  by  offering  no  inducement 
for  their  return,  and  by  exchanging  them  for 
coin  and  other  values,  they  will  constitute,  to  a 
certain  extent,  the  general  currency  so  much 
needed  to  maintain  the  internal  trade  of  the 
country.  And  this  is  the  exchequer  plan,  so  far 
as  it  may  operate  in  furnishing  a  currency." 

It  would  seem  impossible  to  carry  a  passion 
for  paper  money,  and  of  the  worst  kind,  that  of 
government  paper,  farther  than  President  Tyler 


462 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


did ;  but  he  found  it  impossible  to  communicate 
his  passion  to  Congress,  which  repulsed  all  the 
exchequer  schemes  with  the  promptitude  which 
was  due  to  an  unconstitutional,  pernicious,  and 
gratuitous  novelty.  The  low  state  of  the  public 
credit,  the  impossibility  of  making  a  loan,  and 
the  empty  state  of  the  Treasury,  were  the  next 
topics  in  the  message. 

"  I  cannot  forego  the  occasion  to  urge  its  im- 
portance to  the  credit  of  the  government  in  a 
financial  point  of  view.  The  great  necessity  of 
resorting  to  every  proper  and  becoming  expe- 
dient, in  order  to  place  the  Treasury  on  a  foot- 
ing of  the  highest  respectability,  is  entirely  ob- 
vious. The  credit  of  the  government  may  be 
regarded  as  the  very  soul  of  the  government  it- 
self— a  principle  of  vitality,  without  which  all 
its  movements  are  languid,  and  all  its  operations 
embarrassed.  In  this  spirit  the  Executive  felt 
itself  bound,  by  the  most  imperative  sense  of 
duty,  to  submit  to  Congress,  at  its  last  session, 
the  propriety  of  making  a  specific  pledge  of  the 
land  fund,  as  the  basis  for  the  negotiation  of  the 
loans  authorized  to  be  contracted.  I  then  thought 
that  such  an  application  of  the  public  domain 
would,  without  doubt,  have  placed  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  government  ample  funds  to  relieve 
the  Treasury  from  the  temporary  embarrass- 
ments under  which  it  labored.  American  credit 
had  suffered  a  considerable  shock  in  Europe, 
from  the  large  indebtedness  of  the  States,  and 
the  temporary  inability  of  some  of  them  to  meet 
the  interest  on  their  debts.  The  utter  and  dis- 
astrous prostration  of  the  United  States  Bank 
of  Pennsylvania  had  contributed  largely  to  in- 
crease the  sentiment  of  distrust,  by  reason  of 
the  loss  and  ruin  sustained  by  the  holders  of  its 
stock — a  large  portion  of  whom  were  foreigners, 
and  many  of  whom  were  alike  ignorant  of  our 
political  organization,  and  of  our  actual  respon- 
sibilities. It  was  the  anxious  desire  of  the 
Executive  that,  in  the  effort  to  negotiate  the 
loan  abroad,  the  American  negotiator  might  be 
able  to  point  the  money-lender  to  the  fund 
mortgaged  for  the  redemption  of  the  principal 
and  interest  of  any  loan  he  might  contract,  and 
thereby  vindicate  the  government  from  all  sus- 
picion of  bad  faith,  or  inability  to  meet  its  en- 
gagements. Congress  differed  from  the  Execu- 
tive in  this  view  of  the  subject.  It  became, 
nevertheless,  the  duty  of  the  Executive  to  resort 
to  every  expedient  in  its  power  to  negotiate  the 
authorized  loan.  After  a  failure  to  do  so  in  the 
American  market,  a  citizen  of  high  character 
and  talent  was  sent  to  Europe — with  no  better 
success  ;  and  thus  the  mortifying  spectacle  has 
been  presented,  of  the  inability  of  this  govern- 
ment to  obtain  a  loan  so  small  as  not  in  the 
whole  to  amount  to  more  than  one-fourth  of  its 
ordinary  annual  income  j  at  a  time  when  the 
governments  of  Europe,  although  involved  in 
debt,  and  with  their  subjects  heavily  burdened 


with  taxation,  readily  obtain  loans  of  any  amount 
at  a  greatly  reduced  rate  of  interest.  It  would 
be  unprofitable  to  look  further  into  this  anoma- 
lous state  of  things  ;  but  I  cannot  conclude  with- 
out adding,  that,  for  a  government  which  has 
paid  off  its  debts  of  two  wars  with  the  largest 
maritime  power  of  Europe,  and  now  owing  a 
debt  which  is  almost  next  to  nothing,  when  com- 
pared with  its  boundless  resources — a  govern- 
ment the  strongest  in  the  world,  because  ema- 
nating from  the  popular  will,  and  firmly  rooted 
in  the  affections  of  a  great  and  free  people — and 
whose  fidelity  to  its  engagements  has  never  been 
questioned — for  such  a  government  to  have  ten- 
dered to  the  capitalists  of  other  countries  an 
opportunity  for  a  small  investment  of  its  stock, 
and  yet  to  have  failed,  implies  either  the  most 
unfounded  distrust  in  its  good  faith,  or  a  purpose, 
to  obtain  which,  the  course  pursued  is  the  most 
fatal  which  could  have  been  adopted.  It  has 
now  become  obvious  to  all  men  that  the  govern- 
ment must  look  to  its  own  means  for  supplying 
its  wants ;  and  it  is  consoling  to  know  that  these 
means  are  altogether  adequate  for  the  object. 
The  exchequer,  if  adopted,  will  greatly  aid  in 
bringing  about  this  result.  Upon  what  I  regard 
as  a  well-founded  supposition,  that  its  bills  would 
be  readily  sought  for  by  the  public  creditors,  and 
that  the  issue  would,  in  a  short  time,  reach  the 
maximum  of  $15,000,000,  it  is  obvious  that 
$10,000,000  would  thereby  be  added  to  the 
available  means  of  the  treasury,  without  cost  or 
charge.  Nor  can  I  fail  to  urge  the  great  and 
beneficial  effects  which  would  be  produced  in 
aid  of  all  the  active  pursuits  of  life.  Its  effects 
upon  the  solvent  State  banks,  while  it  would 
force  into  liquidation  those  of  an  opposite  char- 
acter, through  its  weekly  settlements,  would 
be  highly  beneficial ;  and,  with  the  advantages 
of  a  sound  currency,  the  restoration  of  confidence 
and  credit  would  follow,  with  a  numerous  train 
of  blessings.  My  convictions  are  most  strong 
that  these  benefits  would  flow  from  the  adoption 
of  this  measure  ;  but,  if  the  result  should  be  ad- 
verse, there  is  this  security  in  connection  with 
it — that  the  law  creating  it  may  be  repealed  at 
the  pleasure  of  the  legislature,  without  the 
slightest  implication  of  its  good  faith." 

It  is  impossible  to  read  this  paragraph  with- 
out a  feeling  of  profound  mortification  at  seeing 
the  low  and  miserable  condition  to  which  the 
public  credit  had  sunk,  both  at  home  and  abroad ; 
and  equally  mortifying  to  see  the  wretched  ex- 
pedients which  were  relied  upon  to  restore  it : 
a  government  bank,  issuing  paper  founded  on 
its  credit  and  revenues,  and  a  hypothecation  of 
the  lands,  their  proceeds  to  help  to  bolster  up 
the  slippery  and  frail  edifice  of  governmental 
paper :  the  United  States  unable  to  make  a 
loan  to  the  amount  of  one-fourth  of  its  reve- 


ANNO  1843.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


463 


nues  !  unable  to  borrow  five  millions  of  dollars  ! 
unable  to  borrow  any  thing,  while  the  over- 
loaded governments  of  Europe  could  borrow  as 
much  as  they  pleased.  It  was  indeed  a  low 
point  of  depressed  credit — the  lowest  that  the 
United  States  had  ever  seen  since  the  declaration 
of  Independence.  It  was  a  state  of  humiliation 
and  disgrace  which  could  not  be  named  without 
offering  some  reason  for  its  existence  ;  and  that 
reason  was  given :  it  was  the  "  disastrous  pros- 
tration." as  it  was  called — the  crimes  and  bank- 
ruptcy, as  should  have  been  called,  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Bank  of  the  United  States  !  that  bank 
which,  in  adding  Pennsylvania  to  its  name,  did 
not  change  its  identity,  or  its  nature  ;  and  which 
for  ten  long  years  had  been  the  cherished  idol 
of  the  President,  his  Secretary  of  State,  and  his 
exchequer  orator  on  the  floor  of  the  House — for 
which  General  Jackson  had  been  condemned 
and  vituperated — and  on  the  continued  existence 
of  which  the  whole  prosperity  of  the  govern- 
ment and  the  people,  and  their  salvation  from 
poverty  and  misery,  was  made  to  depend.  That 
bank  was  now  given  as  the  cause  of  the  woful 
plight  into  which  the  public  credit  was  fallen — 
and  truly  so  given !  for  while  its  plunderings 
were  enormous,  its  crimes  were  still  greater: 
and  the  two  put  together — an  hundred  millions 
plundered,  and  a  mass  of  crimes  committed — 
the  effect  upon  the  American  name  was  such  as 
to  drive  it  with  disgrace  from  every  exchange 
in  Europe.  And  the  former  champions  of  the 
bank,  uninstructed  by  experience,  unabashed  by 
previous  appalling  mistakes,  now  lavish  the 
same  encomiums  on  an  exchequer  bank  which 
they  formerly  did  on  a  national  bank  ;  and  chal- 
lenge the  same  faith  for  one  which  they  had  in- 
voked for  the  other.  The  exchequer  is  now, 
according  to  them,  the  sole  hope  of  the  country : 
the  independent  treasury  and  hard  money,  its 
only  danger.  Yet  the  exchequer  was  repulsed 
— the  independent  treasury  and  gold  was  estab- 
lished :  and  the  effect,  that  that  same  country 
which  was  unable  to  borrow  five  millions  of 
dollars,  has  since  borrowed  many  ten  millions, 
and  is  now  paying  a  premium  of  20  per  centum 
— actually  paying  twenty  dollars  on  the  hun- 
dred— to  purchase  the  privilege  of  paying  loans 
before  they  are  due. 


CHAPTER   CX. 

EEPEAL  OF  THE  BANKRUPT  ACT:  MR.  BENTON'S 
SPEECH;  EXTRACTS. 

The  spectacle  was  witnessed  in  relation  to  the 
repeal  of  this  act  which  has  rarely  been  seen 
before — a  repeal  of  a  great  act  of  national  legis- 
lation by  the  same  Congress  that  passed  it — by 
the  same  members  sitting  in  the  same  seats — 
and  the  repeal  approved  by  the  same  President 
who  had  approved  the  enactment.  It  was  a 
homage  to  the  will  of  the  people,  and  the  result 
of  the  general  condemnation  which  the  act  re- 
ceived from  the  community.  It  had  been 
passed  as  a  party  measure :  its  condemnation 
was  general  without  regard  to  party  :  and  the 
universality  of  the  sentiment  against  it  was 
honorable  to  the  virtue  and  intelligence  of  the 
people.  In  the  commencement  of  the  session 
1842-'43,  motions  were  made  in  both  Houses  to 
repeal  the  act ;  and  in  the  Senate  the  practical 
bad  working  of  the  act,  and  of  the  previous  act, 
was  shown  as  an  evidence  of  the  unfruitfulness 
of  the  whole  system,  and  of  the  justice  and  wis- 
dom of  leaving  the  whole  relation  of  debtor  and 
creditor  in  relation  to  insolvency,  or  bankrupt- 
cy, to  the  insolvent  laws  of  the  States.  In  of- 
fering a  petition  in  the  Senate  for  the  repeal  of 
the  act  from  the  State  of  Vermont,  Mr.  Benton 
said: 

"  He  would  take  the  opportunity  which  the 
presentation  of  this  petition  offered,  to  declare 
that,  holding  the  bankrupt  act  to  be  unconsti- 
tutional at  six  different  points  (the  extinction 
of  the  debt  without  the  consent  of  a  given  ma- 
jority of  the  creditors  being  at  the  head  of  these 
points),  he  would  vote  for  no  repeal  which 
would  permit  the  act  to  continue  in  force  for 
the  trial  of  depending  cases,  unless  with  pro- 
visions which  would  bring  the  action  of  the  law 
within  the  constitution.  To  say  nothing,  at 
present,  of  other  points  of  unconstitutionality, 
he  limited  himself  to  the  abolition  of  debts 
without  the  consent  of  a  given  majority  of  the 
creditors.  This,  he  held,  no  power  in  our  coun- 
try can  do.  Congress  can  only  go  as  far  as  the  i 
bankrupt  systems  of  England  and  other  coun- 
tries go  ;  and  that  is,  to  require  the  consent  of 
a  given  majority  of  the  creditors  (four-fifths  in 
number  and  value  in  England  and  Scotland), 
and  that  founded  upon  a  judicial  certificate  of 
integrity  by  the  commissioners  who  examined 
the  case,  and  approved  afterwards  by  the  Lord 
Chancellor.    Upon  these  principles  only  could 


464 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Congress  act :  upon  these  principles  the  Con- 
gress of  1800  acted,  in  making  a  bankrupt  act : 
and  to  these  principles  he  would  endeavor  to 
conform  the  action  of  the  present  act  so  long  as 
it  might  run.  He  held  all  the  certificates  grant- 
ed by  the  courts  to  be  null  and  void ;  and  that 
the  question  of  the  validity  would  be  carried 
before  the  courts,  and  before  the  tribunal  of 
public  opinion.  The  federal  judges  decided  the 
alien  and  sedition  law  to  be  constitutional. 
The  people  reversed  that  decision,  and  put  down 
the  men  who  held  it.  This  bankrupt  act  was 
much  more  glaringly  unconstitutional — much 
more  immoral — and  called  more  loudly  upon 
the  people  to  rise  against  it.  If  he  was  a  United 
States  judge,  he  would  decide  the  act  to  be  un- 
constitutional. If  he  was  a  State  court,  and  one 
of  these  certificates  of  discharge  from  debts 
should  be  pleaded  in  bar  before  him,  on  an  ac- 
tion brought  for  the  recovery  of  the  old  debt, 
he  would  treat  the  certificate  as  a  nullity,  and 
throw  it  out  of  court.  If  commanded  by  the 
Supreme  Court,  he  would  resign  first.  The 
English  law  held  all  bankrupts,  whose  certifi- 
cates were  not  signed  by  the  given  majority  of 
the  creditors,  to  be  uncertificated;  and,  as 
such,  he  held  all  these  to  be  who  had  received 
certificates  under  our  law.  They  had  no  cer- 
tificate of  discharge  from  a  given  majority  of 
the  creditors ;  and  were,  therefore,  what  the 
English  law  called  ''uncertificated  bankrupts.'' 
He  said  the  bankrupt  systems  formed  the  cred- 
itors into  a  partnership  for  the  management  of 
the  debtor's  estate,  and  his  discharge  from  debt ; 
and,  in  this  partnership,  a  given  majority  acted 
for  the  whole,  all  having  the  same  interest  in 
what  was  lost  or  saved ;  and,  therefore,  to  be 
governed  by  a  given  majority,  doing  what  was 
best  for  the  whole.  But  even  to  this  there  were 
limitations.  The  four-fifths  could  not  release 
the  debt  of  the  remaining  fifth,  except  upon  a 
certificate  of  integrity  from  the  commissioners 
who  tried  the  case,  and  a  final  approval  by  the 
Lord  Chancellor.  The  law  made  itself  party  to 
the  discharge,  as  it  does  in  a  case  of  divorce,  and 
for  the  sake  of  good  morals ;  and  required  the 
judicial  certificate  of  integrity,  without  which 
the  release  of  four-fifths  of  the  creditors  would 
not  extinguish  the  debt  of  the  other  fifth.  It 
is  only  in  this  way  that  Congress  can  act.  It 
can  only  act  according  to  the  established  princi- 
ples of  the  bankrupt  systems.  It  had  no  inhe- 
rent or  supreme  authority  over  debts.  It  could 
not  abolish  debts  as  it  pleased.  It  could  not 
confound  bankruptcy  and  insolvency,  and  so 
get  hold  of  all  debts,  and  sweep  them  off  as  it 
pleased.  All  this  was  despotism,  such  as  only 
could  be  looked  for  in  a  government  which  had 
no  limits,  either  on  its  moral  or  political  powers. 
The  attempt  to  confound  insolvency  and  bank- 
ruptcy, and  to  make  Congress  supreme  over 
both,  was  the  most  daring  attack  on  the  consti- 
tution, on  the  State  laws,  on  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty, and  on  public  morals,  which  the  history 


of  Europe  or  America  exhibited.  There  was 
no  parallel  to  it  in  Europe  or  America.  It  was 
repudiation — universal  repudiation  of  all  debts 
— at  the  will  of  the  debtor.  The  law  was  sub- 
versive of  civil  society ;  and  he  called  upon 
Congress,  the  State  legislatures,  the  federal  and 
State  judiciaries — and,  above  all,  the  people — to 
brand  it  for  unconstitutionality  and  immorality, 
and  put  it  down. 

"  Mr.  B.  said  he  had  laid  down  the  law,  but  he 
would  refer  to  the  forms  which  the  wisdom  of 
the  law  provided  for  executing  itself.     These 
forms  were  the  highest  evidences  of  the  law. 
They  were  framed  by  men  learned  in  the  law — 
approved  by  the  courts — and  studied  by  the 
apprentices  to  the  law.      They  should  also  be 
studied  by  the  journeymen — by  the  professors 
— and  by  the  ermined  judges.     In  this  case, 
especially,  they  should  be  so  studied.     Bank- 
ruptcy was  a  branch  of  the  law  but  little  studied 
in  our  country.     The  mass  of  the  community 
were  uninformed  upon  it ;  and  the  latitudina- 
rians,  who  could  find  no  limits  to  the  power  of 
our  government  were  daringly  presuming  upon 
the  general  ignorance,  by  undertaking  to  con- 
found bankruptcy  and  insolvency,  and  claiming 
for  Congress  a  despotic  power  over  both.     This 
daring  attempt  must  be  chastised.     Congress 
must  be  driven  back  within  the  pale  of  the  con- 
stitution ;  and  for  that  purpose,  the  principles 
of  the  bankrupt  systems  must  be  made  known 
to  the  people.     The  forms  are  one  of  the  best 
modes  of  doing  this :  and  here  are  the  forms  of 
a  bankrupt's  certificate  in  Great  Britain — the 
country  from  which  our  constitution  borrowed 
the  system.     [Mr.  B.  then  read  from  Jacob's 
Law  Dictionary,  title  Bankruptcy,  at  the  end 
of  the  title,  the  three  forms  of  the  certificates 
which  were  necessary  to  release  a  debtor  from 
his  debts.]     The  first  form  was  that  of  the  com- 
missioners who  examined  the  case,  and  who 
certified  to  the  integrity  of  the  bankrupt,  and 
that  he  had  conformed  in  all  particulars  to  the  act. 
The  second  form  was  that  of  the  certificate  of 
four-fifths  of  his  creditors,  '  allowing  him  to  be 
discharged  from  his  debts.''     The  third  was 
the  certificate  of  the  Lord  Chancellor,  certifying 
that  notice  of  these  two  certificates  having  been 
published  for  twenty-one  days  in  the  London 
Gazette,  and  no  cause  being  shown  to  the  con- 
trary, the  certificates  granted  by  the  commis- 
sioners and  by  the  creditors  were  '  confirmed.'' 
Then,  and  not  till  then,  could  the  debtor  be  dis- 
charged from  his  debts ;  and  with  all  this,  the 
act  of  1800  in  the  United  States  perfectly  agreed, 
only  taking  two-thirds  instead  of  four-fifths  of 
the  creditors.      Congress  could  only  absolve 
debts  in  this  way,  and  that  among  the  proper 
subjects  of  a  bankrupt  law :  and  the  moral  sense 
of  the  community  must  revolt  against  any  at- 
tempt to  do  it  in  any  other  form.     The  present 
act  was  repudiation — criminal  repudiation,  as 
far  as  any  one  chose  to  repudiate — and  must  be 
put  down  by  the  community." 


ANNO  1843.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


465 


On  the  question  for  the  repeal  of  the  act,  Mr. 
Benton  took  occasion  to  show  it  to  be  an  in- 
vasion of  the  rights  of  the  States,  over  the  ordi- 
nary relations  of  debtor  and  creditor  within  their 
own  limits,  and  a  means  of  eating  up  estates  to 
the  loss  of  both  debtor  and  creditor,  and  the 
enrichment  of  assignees,  who  make  the  settle- 
ment of  the  estate  a  life-long  business,  and  often 
a  legacy  to  his  children. 

"  A  question  cannot  arise  between  two  neigh- 
bors about  a  dozen  of  eggs,  without  being  liable 
to  be  taken  from  the  custody  of  the  laws  of  the 
States,  and  brought  up  to  the  federal  courts. 
And  now,  when  this  doctrine  that  insolvency 
and  bankruptcy  are  the  same,  if  a  continuance 
of  the  law  is  to  be  contrived,  it  must  be  done  in 
conformity  with  such  a  fallacy.  The  law  has 
proved  to  be  nothing  but  a  great  insolvent  law, 
for  the  abolition  of  debts,  for  the  benefit  of 
debtors ;  and  would  it  be  maintained  that  a 
permanent  system  ought  to  be  built  up  on  such 
a  foundation  as  that  ? 

"  Some  months  ago,  he  read  in  a  Philadelphia 
paper  a  notice  to  creditors  to  come  forward  for 
a  dividend  of  half  a  cent  in  the  dollar,  in  a  case 
of  bankruptcy  pending  under  the  old  law  of 
1800,  since  the  year  1801.  And.  three  or  four 
days  ago,  he  read  a  notice  in  a  London  paper, 
calling  on  creditors  to  come  in  for  a  dividend  of 
five-sixths  of  a  penny  in  the  pound,  in  a  case  of 
bankruptcy  pending  since  the  year  1793.  Here 
has  been  a  case  where  the  waste  of  property 
has  been  going  on  for  fifty  years  in  England,  and 
another  case  where  it  has  been  going  on  in  this 
country  forty-one  or  forty-two  years.  He  had 
been  himself  twenty-three  years  in  the  Senate, 
and,  during  that  time,  various  efforts  were  made 
to  revive  the  old  law  of  1800  in  some  shape  or 
other  ;  but  never,  till  last  session,  in  the  shape 
in  which  the  present  law  passed.  And  how 
could  this  law  be  expected  to  stand,  when  even 
the  law  of  1800  (which  was  in  reality  a  bank- 
rupt law)  could  not  stand ;  but  was,  in  the  first 
year  of  its  operation,  condemned  by  the  whole 
country  ?  " 

The  passage  of  the  act  had  been  a  reproach  to 
Congress  :  its  repeal  should  do  them  honor,  and 
still  more  the  people,  under  whose  manifest  and 
determined  will  it  was  to  be  done.  The  repeal  bill 
readily  passed  the  Senate,  and  then  went  to  the 
House,  where  it  was  quickly  passed,  and  under 
pressure  of  the  previous  question,  by  a  vote  128 
to  98.  The  history  of  the  passage  of  these  two 
measures  (bankrupt  and  distribution)  each  of 
which  came  to  an  untimely  end,  is  one  of  those 
legislative  arcana  which  should  be  known,  that 
such  legislation  may  receive  the  reprobation 
which  it  deserves.  The  public  only  sees  the  out- 
Vol.  II.— 30 


side  proceeding,  and  imagines  a  wise  and  patriotic 
motive  for  the  enactment  of  important  laws.  Too 
often  there  is  neither  wisdom  nor  patriotism  in 
such  enactment,  but  bargain,  and  selfishness,  and 
duresse  of  circumstances.  So  it  was  in  this  case. 
The  misconduct  and  misfortunes  of  the  banks, 
and  the  yices  inherent  in  paper  money,  which 
had  so  long  been  the  currency  of  the  country, 
had  filled  the  Union  with  pecuniary  distress,  and 
created  an  immense  body  of  insolvent  debtors, 
estimated  by  some  at  five  hundred  thousand : 
and  all  these  were  clamorous  for  a  bankrupt 
act.  The  State  of  Mississppi  was  one  of  those 
most  sorely  afflicted  with  this  state  of  things,  and 
most  earnest  for  the  act.  Her  condition  gov- 
erned the  conduct  of  her  senators,  and  their 
votes  made  the  bankrupt  act,  and  passed  the 
fiscal  bank  through  the  Senate.  Such  are  the 
mysteries  of  legislation. 

A  bankrupt  act,  though  expressly  authorized 
by  the  constitution,  had  never  been  favored  by 
the  American  people.  It  was  tried  fifty  years 
ago.  and  condemned  upon  a  two  years'  experience. 
Persevering  efforts  had  since  been  made  for  a 
period  of  twenty  years  to  obtain  another  act, 
but  in  vain.  It  was  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Lowndes, 
expressed  at  the  last  session  that  he  served,  that 
no  act  framed  upon  the  principles  of  the  British 
system  would  ever  be  suitable  to  our  country — 
that  the  complex  and  expensive  machinery  of 
the  system,  so  objectionable  in  England,  where 
debtors  and  creditors  were  comparatively  near 
together,  would  be  intolerable  in  the  United 
States,  where  they  were  so  widely  separated, 
and  the  courts  so  sparsely  scattered  over  the 
land,  and  so  inconvenient  to  the  majority  of 
parties  and  witnesses.  He  believed  a  simple 
system  might  be  adopted,  reducing  the  process 
to  a  transaction  between  the  debtor  and  his 
creditors,  in  which  courts  would  have  but  little 
to  do  except  to  give  effect  to  their  agreement. 
The  principle  of  his  plan  was  that  there  should 
be  a  meeting  of  the  creditors,  either  on  the 
invitation  of  the  failing  debtor,  or  the  summons 
of  a  given  number  of  creditors ;  and  when  to- 
gether, and  invested  with  power  to  examine  into 
the  debtor's  affairs,  and  to  examine  books  and 
take  testimony,  that  they  themselves,  by  a  given 
majority  of  two-thirds  or  three-fourths  in  value, 
should  decide  every  question,  make  a  pro  rata 
division  of  the  effects,  and  grant  a  certificate 
of  release:  the  release  to   be  of  right  if  the 


466 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


effects  were  taken.  This  simple  process  would 
dispense  with  the  vexatious  question,  of  what 
constitutes  an  act  of  bankruptcy  ?  And  substi- 
tute for  it  the  broad  inquiry  of  failing  circum- 
stances—in the  solution  of  which,  those  most 
interested  would  be  the  judges.  It  would  also 
save  the  devouring  expenses  of  costs  and  fees, 
and  delays  equally  devouring,  and  the  commis- 
sioners that  must  be  paid,  and  the  assignees 
who  frequently  become  the  beneficiaries  of  the 
debtor's  effects— taking  what  he  collects  for  his 
own  fees,  and  often  making  a  life  estate  of  it. 
The  estate  of  a  bankrupt,  in  the  hands  of  an 
assignee,  Mr.  Randolph  was  accustomed  to  call, 
"'a  lump  of  butter  in  a  dog's  mouth  ; "  a  desig- 
nation which  it  might  sometimes  bear  from  the 
rapidity  with  which  it  was  swallowed;  but 
more  frequently  it  was  a  bone  to  gnaw,  and  to 
be  long  gnawed  before  it  was  gnawed  up.  As 
an  evidence  of  this,  Mr.  Benton  read  a  notice 
from  a  Philadelphia  paper,  published  while  this 
debate  was  going  on,  inviting  creditors  to  come 
forward  and  receive  from  the  assignee  a  divi- 
dend of  half  a  cent  in  the  dollar,  in  a  case  of 
bankruptcy  under  the  old  act  of  1800 ;  also  a 
notice  in  a  London  paper  for  the  creditors  to 
come  in  and  receive  a  dividend  of  five-sixths  of 
a  penny  in  the  pound  in  a  case  depending  since 
1793 — the  assignees  respectively  having  been 
administering,  one  of  them  forty-one  years,  and 
the  other  fifty- two  years,  the  estate  of  the 
debtor  ;  and  probably  collecting  each  year  about 
as  much  as  paid  his  own  fees. 

The  system  has  become  nearly  intolerable  in 
England.  As  far  back  as  the  year  1817,  the 
British  Parliament,  moved  by  the  pervading  be- 
lief of  the  injustice  and  abuses  under  their  bank- 
rupt laws,  appointed  a  commissioner  to  examine 
into  the  subject,  and  to  report  the  result  of  their 
investigation.  It  was  done;  and  such  a  mass 
of  iniquity  revealed,  as  to  induce  the  Lord 
Chancellor  to  say  that  the  system  was  a  disgrace 
to  the  country — that  the  assignees  had  no 
mercy  either  upon  the  debtor  or  his  creditors — 
and  that  it  would  be  better  to  repeal  every  law 
on  the  subject.  The  system,  however,  was  too 
much  interwoven  with  the  business  of  the 
country  to  be  abandoned.  The  report  of  the 
commissioners  only  led  to  a  revision  of  the  laws 
and  attempted  ameliorations;  the  whole  of 
which  were  disregarded  by  our  Congress  of 
1841,  as  were  the  principles  of  all  previous 
bankrupt  acts  either  in  Great  Britain,  on  the 


European  Continent,  or  in  the  United  States. 
That  Congress  abandoned  the  fundamental 
principle  of  all  bankrupt  systems — that  of  a 
proceeding  of  the  creditors  for  their  own  bene- 
fit, and  made  it  practically  an  insolvent  law  at 
the  will  of  the  debtor,  for  the  abolition  of  his 
debt  at  his  own  pleasure.  Iniquitous  in  itself, 
vicious  in  its  mode  of  being  passed,  detested  by 
the  community,  the  life  of  the  act  was  short  and 
ignominious.  Mr.  Buchanan  said  it  would  be 
repealed  in  two  years  :  and  it  was.  Yet  it  was 
ardently  contended  for.  Crowds  attended  Con- 
gress to  demand  it.  Hundreds  of  thousands 
sent  up  tlieir  petitions.  The  whole  number  of 
bankrupt,  was  stated  by  the  most  moderate  at 
one  hundred  thousand:  and  Mr.  Walker  declared 
in  his  place  that,  if  the  act  was  not  passed,  thou- 
sands of  unfortunate  debtors  would  have  to  wear 
the  chains  of  slavery,  or  be  exiled  from  their 
native  land. 


CHAPTER    CXI. 

MILITAEY  ACADEMY  AND  AEMY  EXPENSES. 

The  instincts  of  the  people  have  been  against 
this  academy  from  the  time  it  took  its  present 
form  under  the  act  of  1812,  and  those  subse- 
quent and  subsidiary  to  it :  many  efforts  have 
been  made  to  abolish  or  to  modify  it :  and  all 
unsuccessful — partly  from  the  intrinsic  difficul- 
ty of  correcting  any  abuse — partly  from  the 
great  number  interested  in  the  Academy  as  an 
eleemosynary  institution  of  which  they  have 
the  benefit — and  partly  from  the  wrong  way  in 
which  the  reformers  go  to  work.  They  gen- 
erally move  to  abolish  the  whole  system,  and 
are  instantly  met  by  Washington's  recommen- 
dation in  favor  of  it.  In  the  mean  time  Wash- 
ington never  saw  such  an  institution  as  now 
shelters  behind  his  name ;  and  possibly  would 
never  have  been  in  the  army,  except  as  a  private 
soldier,  if  it  had  existed  when  he  was  a  young 
man.  He  never  recommended  such  an  acade- 
my as  we  have :  he  never  dreamed  of  such  a 
thing :  he  recommended  just  the  reverse  of  it, 
in  recommending  that  cadets,  serving  in  the 
field  with  the  companies  to  which  they  were 
attached,  and  receiving  the  pay,  clothing,  and 
ration  of  a  sergeant,  should  be  sent — such  of 


ANNO  1843      JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


467 


them  as  showed  a  stomach  for  the  hardships,  as 
well  as  a  taste  for  the  pleasures  and  honors  of 
the  service,  and  who  also  showed  a  capacity  for 
the  two  higher  branches  of  the  profession  (engi- 
neering and  artillery) — to  West  Point,  to  take 
instruction  from  officers  in  these  two  branches 
of  the  military  art :  and  no  more.  At  this  ses- 
sion one  of  the  usual  movements  was  made 
against  it — an  attack  upon  the  institution  in  its 
annual  appropriation  bill,  by  moving  to  strike 
out  the  appropriation  for  its  support,  and  sub- 
stitute a  bill  for  its  abolition.  Mr.  Hale  made 
the  motion,  and  was  supported  in  it  by  several 
members.  Mr.  McKay,  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee, which  had  the  appropriation  bill  in 
charge,  felt  himself  bound  to  defend  it,  but  in 
doing  so  to  exclude  the  conclusion  that  he  was 
favorable  to  the  academy.  Begging  gentlemen, 
therefore,  to  withdraw  their  motion,  he  went  on 
to  say : 

"  He  was  now,  and  always  had  been,  in  favor 
of  a  very  material  alteration  in  the  organization 
of  this  institution.  He  did  not  think  that  the 
government  should  educate  more  young  men 
than  were  necessary  to  fill  the  annual  vacancies 
in  the  army.  It  was  beyond  dispute,  that  the 
number  now  educated  was  more  than  the  aver- 
age annual  vacancies  in  the  army  required ;  and 
hence  the  number  of  supernumerary  second 
lieutenants — which  he  believed  was  now  some- 
thing like  seventy;  and  would  be  probably 
thirty  more  the  next  year.  This,  however,  did 
not  present  the  true  state  of  the  question.  In 
a  single  year,  in  consequence  of  an  order  issued 
from  the  war  department,  that  all  the  officers 
who  were  in  the  civil  service  of  the  railroad  and 
canal  companies,  &c.  should  join  their  respec- 
tive regiments,  there  were  upwards  of  one  hun- 
dred resignations.  Now,  if  these  resignations 
had  not  taken  place,  the  army  would  have  been 
overloaded  with  supernumerary  second  lieu- 
tenants. He  was  for  reducing  the  number  of 
cadets,  but  at  the  same  time  would  make  a  pro- 
vision by  which  parents  and  guardians  should 
have  the  privilege  of  sending  their  sons  and 
wards  there  to  be  educated,  at  their  own  ex- 
pense. This  (Mr.  M.  said)  was  the  system 
adopted  in  Great  Britain  ;  and  it  appeared,  by 
a  document  he  had  in  his  hand,  that  there  were 
three  hundred  and  twenty  gentlemen  cadets, 
and  fifteen  officers  educated  at  the  English  Mil- 
itary Academy,  at  a  much  less  expense  than  it 
required  to  educate  two  hundred  and  twenty 
cadets  at  West  Point.  He  agreed  with  much  of 
what  had  been  said  by  the  gentleman  from  Con- 
necticut, Mr.  Seymour,  that  it  would  be  an  ame- 
lioration of  our  military  service,  to  open  the 
door  of  promotion  to  meritorious  non-commis- 
sioned officers  and  privates.     Under  the  present 


system,  no  man  who  was  a  non-commissioned 
officer  or  private,  however  meritorious,  had  the 
least  chance  of  promotion.  It  was  true  that 
there  were  instances  of  such  men  getting  com- 
missions, but  they  were  very  rare  ;  and  the 
consequence  was,  that  the  ranks  of  the  army 
were  filled  with  some  of  the  worst  men  in  the 
country,  and  desertions  had  prevailed  to  an 
enormous  extent.  Mr.  McK.  here  gave  from 
the  documents,  the  number  of  annual  deser- 
tions, from  the  year  1830  to  1836,  showing  an 
average  of  one  thousand.  He  would  not  now, 
hoAvever,  enlarge  on  this  subject,  but  would  re- 
serve his  remarks  till  the  bill  for  reorganizing 
the  academy,  which  he  understood  was  to  be 
reported   by  the  Military  Committee,    should 


Mr.  McKay  was  not  counted  among  the  ora- 
tors of  the  House :  he  made  no  pretension  to 
fine  speaking :  but  he  was  one  of  those  busi- 
ness, sensible,  upright  men,  who  always  spoke 
sense  and  reason,  and  to  the  point,  and  general- 
ly gave  more  information  to  the  House  in  a  few 
sentences  than  could  often  be  found  in  one  of 
the  most  pretentious  speeches.  Of  this  charac- 
ter were  the  remarks  which  he  made  on  this 
occasion ;  and  in  the  four  statements  that  he 
made,  first,  that  upwards  of  one  hundred  West 
Point  officers  had  resigned  their  commissions  in 
one  year  when  ordered  to  quit  civil  service  and 
join  their  corps ;  secondly,  that  there  was  a 
surplus  of  seventy  graduates  at  that  time  for 
whom  there  was  no  place  in  the  army ;  thirdly, 
that  at  the  English  Military  Academy,  three 
hundred  and  thirty-five  cadets  and  officers  were 
instructed  at  much  less  expense  than  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty  with  us ;  fourthly,  that  the 
annual  desertions  from  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
army  had  averaged  one  thousand  men  per  an- 
num for  six  years  together,  these  desertions  re- 
sulting from  want  of  promotion  and  disgust  at 
a  service  which  was  purely  necessary.  Mr. 
McKay  was  followed  by  another  speaker  of  the 
same  class  with  himself — Mr.  Cave  Johnson, 
of  Tennessee  ;  who  stood  up  and  said : 

"That  there  was  no  certainty  that  the  bill  to 
be  reported  by  the  Military  Committee,  which 
the  gentleman  referred  to,  would  be  reached 
this  session  ;  and  he  was  therefore  for  effecting 
a  reform  now  that  the  subject  was  before  them. 
He  would,  therefore,  suggest  to  the  gentleman 
from  New  Hampshire  to  withdraw  his  amend- 
ment, and  submit  another,  to  the  following  ef- 
fect :  That  no  money  appropriated  in  this  bill, 
or  hereafter  to  be  appropriated,  shall  be  applied 
to  the  payment  of  any  cadet  hereafter  to  be  ap- 


468 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


pointed  ;  and  the  terms  of  service  of  those  who 
have  warrants  now  in  the  academy  shall  be 
held  to  cease  from  and  after  four  years  from 
the  time  of  their  respective  appointments.  The 
limitation  of  this  appropriation  now,  would  put 
an  end  to  the  academy,  unless  the  House  would 
act  on  the  propositions  which  would  be  hereaf- 
ter made.  He  was  satisfied  it  ought  to  be  abol- 
ished, and  he  would  at  once  abolish  it,  but  for 
the  remarks  of  his  friend  from  North  Carolina ; 
he  therefore  hoped  his  friend  from  New  Hamp- 
shire would  adopt  the  suggestions  which  had 
been  made." 

Mr.  Harralson,  of  Georgia,  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Military  Affairs,  felt  himself 
called  upon  by  his  position  to  come  to  the  de- 
fence of  the  institution,  which  he  did  in  a  way 
to  show  that  it  was  indefensible.     He 

"  Intimated  that  that  committee  would  pro- 
pose some  reductions  in  the  number  of  cadets  ; 
and  when  that  proposition  came  before  the 
House,  these  amendments  could  be  appropriate- 
ly offered.  The  proposition  would  be  made  to 
reduce  the  number  of  the  cadets  to  the  wants 
of  the  army.  But  this  appropriation  should 
now  be  made;  and  if,  by  any  reductions  here- 
after made,  it  should  be  found  more  than  ade- 
quate to  the  wants  of  the  institution,  the  bal- 
ance would  remain  in  the  Treasury,  and  would 
not  be  lost  to  the  country.  He  explained  the 
circumstances  under  which,  in  1836,  some  per- 
sons educated  as  cadets  at  West  Point  became 
civil  engineers,  and  accepted  employment  on 
projected  lines  of  railroad  5  and  asserted  that 
no  class  of  our  countrymen  were  more  ready  to 
obey  the  call  of  their  country,  in  any  exigency 
which  might  arise." 

Mr.  Orlando  Ficklin,  of  Illinois,  not  satisfied 
with  the  explanations  made  by  the  chairman  on 
military  affairs,  returned  to  the  charge  of  the 
one  hundred  resignations  in  one  year;  and 
said : 

"  He  had  listened  to  the  apology  or  excuse 
rendered  by  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Military  Affairs,  for  the  cadets  who  resigned  in 
1836.  And  what  was  that  excuse?  Why 
forsooth,  though  they  had  been  educated  at  the 
government  expense,  yet,  because  they  could 
get  better  pay  by  embarking  in  other  pursuits, 
they  deserted  the  service  of  the  country  which 
had  educated  them,  and  prepared  them  for  her 
service.  He  did  not  intend  to  detain  the  com- 
mittee at  present,  but  he  must  be  permitted  to 
say  to  those  who  were  in  favor  of  winding  up 
the  concern,  that  they  ought  not  to  vote  an  ap- 
propriation of  a  single  dollar  to  that  institution, 
unless  the  same  bill  contained  a  provision,  in 
language  as  emphatic  as  it  could  be  made,  de- 
claring that  this  odious,  detestable,  and  aristo- 


cratic institution,  shall  be  brought  to  a  close. 
If  it  did  not  cost  this  governmeut  a  single  dol- 
lar, he  would  still  be  unwilling  that  it  should 
be  kept  up.  He  was  not  willing  that  the  door 
of  promotion  should  be  shut  against  the  honest 
and  deserving  soldier,  and  that  a  few  dandies 
and  band-box  heroes,  educated  at  that  insti- 
tution, should  enjoy  the  monopoly  of  all  the 
offices.  Mr.  F.  adverted  to  the  present  condi- 
tion of  the  army.  It  was  filled  up,  he  saW,  by 
foreigners.  Native  Americans,  to  whom  they 
should  naturally  look  as  the  defenders  of  the 
country,  were  deterred  from  entering  it.  It 
would  be  well,  he  thought,  to  have  a  committee 
of  investigation,  that  the  secrets  of  the  prison- 
house  might  be  disclosed,  and  its  abuses  brought 
to  light." 

Mr.  Bs^fc,  of  Georgia,  proposed  an  amend- 
ment, compelling  the  cadets  to  serve  ten  years, 
and  keeping  up  the  number :  upon  which  Mr. 
Hale  remarked : 

"The  amendment  of  the  gentleman  from 
Georgia  would  seem  to  imply  that  there  were 
not  officers  enough:  whereas  the  truth  was 
there  were  more  than  enough.  The  difficulty 
was,  there  were  already  too  many.  The  Army- 
Register  showed  a  list  already  of  seventy  su- 
pernumeraries ;  and  more  were  being  turned 
out  upon  us  every  year.  The  gentleman  from 
New  York  had  made  a  most  unhappy  illustra- 
tion of  the  necessity  for  educating  cadets  for  the 
army,  by  comparing  them  with  the  midshipmen 
in  the  navy.  Wliat  was  the  service  rendered 
by  midshipmen  on  board  our  national  vessels  ? 
Absolutely  none.  They  were  of  no  sort  of  use ; 
and  precisely  so  was  it  with  these  cadets.  He 
denied  that  General  Washington  ever  recom- 
mended a  military  academy  like  the  present  in- 
stitution ;  and,  if  he  had  done  so,  he  would,  in- 
stead of  proclaiming  it,  have  endeavored  to 
shield  his  great  name  from  such  a  reproach." 

The  movement  ended  as  usual,  in  showing 
necessity  for  a  reform,  and  in  failing  to  get  it. 


CHAPTER    CXII. 

EMIGRATION  TO  THE  COLUMBIA  RIVER,  AND 
FOUNDATION  OF  ITS  SETTLEMENT  BY  AMERI- 
CAN CITIZENS:  FREMONT'S  FIRST  EXPEDI- 
TION. 

The  great  event  of  carrying  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  to  the  shore  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and 
planting  that  race  firmly  on  that  sea,  took  place 
at  this  time,  beginning  in  1842,  and  largely  in- 
creasing in  1843.    It  was  not  an  act  of  the  gov- 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


469 


vernment,  leading  the  people  and  protecting 
them ;  but,  like  all  the  other  great  emigrations 
and  settlements  of  that  race  on  our  continent, 
it  was  the  act  of  the  people,  going  forward  with- 
out government  aid  or  countenance,  establishing 
their  possession,  and  compelling  the  government 
to  follow  with  its  shield,  and  spread  it  over 
them.  So  far  as  the  action  of  the  government 
was  concerned,  it  operated  to  endanger  our  title 
to  the  Columbia,  to  prevent  emigratx.ii,  and  to 
incur  the  loss  of  the  country.  The  first  great 
step  in  this  unfortunate  direction  was  the  treaty 
of  joint  occupation,  as  it  was  called,  of  1818  ;  by 
which  the  British,  under  the  fallacious  idea  of 
mutuality,  where  there  was  nothing  mutual, 
were  admitted  to  a  delusive  joint  occupation, 
with  ourselves,  intended  to  be  equal — but  which 
quickly  became  exclusive  on  their  part:  and 
was  obliged  to  become  so,  from  the  power  and 
organization  of  their  Hudson  Bay  Company, 
already  flanking  the  country  and  ready  to  cross 
over  and  cover  it.  It  is  due  to  the  memory  of 
President  Monroe,  under  whose  administration 
this  unfortunate  treaty  was  made,  to  say  that, 
since  the  publication  of  the  first  volume  of  this 
View,  the  author  has  been  informed  by  General 
Jesup  (who  had  the  fact  from  Mr.  Monroe  him- 
self at  the  time),  that  his  instructions  had  not 
authorized  this  arrangement  (which  in  fact  the 
commissioners  intimated  in  their  correspond- 
ence), and  only  after  much  hesitation  prevailed 
on  himself  to  send  it  to  the  Senate.  That  treaty 
was  for  ten  years,  and  the  second  false  step  was 
in  its  indefinite  extension  by  another  of  1828,  un- 
til one  or  the  other  of  the  parties  should  give  no- 
tice for  its  discontinuance — the  most  insidious 
and  pernicious  of  all  agreements,  being  so  easy 
to  be  adopted,  and  so  hard  to  be  got  rid  of.  The 
third  great  blunder  was  in  not  settling  the  Ore- 
gon question  in  the  Ashburton  negotiation,  when 
we  had  a  strong  hold  upon  the  British  govern- 
ment in  its  earnest  desire  to  induce  us  to  with- 
draw our  northeastern  boundary  from  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Lower  Canada,  and  to  surrender  a 
part  of  Maine  for  the  road  from  Halifax  to  Que- 
bec. The  fourth  step  in  this  series  of  govern- 
mental blunders,  was  the  recommendation  of 
President  Tyler  to  discountenance  emigration 
to  Oregon,  by  withholding  land  from  the  emi- 
grants, until  the  two  governments  had  settled 
the  title — a  contingency  too  remote  to  be  count- 
ed upon  within  any  given  period,  and  which 


every  year's  delay  would  make  more  difficult. 
The  title  to  the  country  being  thus  endangered 
by  the  acts  of  the  government,  the  saving  of  it 
devolved  upon  the  people — and  they  saved  it. 
In  1842,  incited  by  numerous  newspaper  publi- 
cations, upwards  of  a  thousand  American  emi- 
grants went  to  the  country,  making  their  long 
pilgrimage  overland  from  the  frontiers  of  Mis- 
souri, with  their  wives  and  children,  their  flocks 
and  herds,  their  implements  of  husbandry  and 
weapons  of  defence — traversing  the  vast  inclined 
plane  to  the  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
crossing  that  barrier  (deemed  impassable  by 
Europeans),  and  descending  the  wide  slope 
which  declines  from  the  mountains  to  the 
Pacific.  Six  months  would  be  consumed  in 
this  journey,  filled  with  hardships,  beset  by 
dangers  from  savage  hostility,  and  only  to  be 
prosecuted  in  caravans  of  strength  and  deter- 
mination. The  Burnets  and  Applegates  from 
Missouri  were  among  the  first  leaders,  and  in 
1843,  some  two  thousand  more  joined  the  first 
emigration.  To  check  these  bold  adventurers 
was  the  object  of  the  government :  to  encourage 
them,  was  the  object  of  some  Western  members 
of  Congress,  on  whom  (in  conjunction  with  the 
people)  the  task  of  saving  the  Columbia  evi- 
dently devolved.  These  members  were  ready 
for  their  work,  and  promptly  began.  Early  in 
the  session,  Mr.  Linn,  a  senator  from  Missouri, 
introduced  a  bill  for  the  purpose,  of  which  these 
were  the  leading  provisions : 

"  That  the  President  of  the  United  States  is 
hereby  authorized  and  required  to  cause  to  be 
erected,  at  suitable  places  and  distances,  a  line 
of  stockade  and  blockhouse  forts,  not  exceeding 
five  in  number,  from  some  point  on  the  Missouri 
and  Arkansas  rivers  into  the  best  pass  for  enter- 
ing the  valley  of  the  Oregon ;  and,  also,  at  or 
near  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  River. 

"  That  provision  hereafter  shall  be  made  by 
law  to  secure  and  grant  six  hundred  and  forty 
acres,  or  one  section  of  land,  to  every  white 
male  inhabitant  of  the  territory  of  Oregon,  of 
the  age  of  eighteen  years  and  upward,  who  shall 
cultivate  and  use  the  same  for  five  consecutive 
years ;  or  to  his  heir  or  heirs-at-law,  if  such 
there  be,  in  case  of  his  decease.  And  to  every 
such  inhabitant  or  cultivator  (being  a  married 
man)  there  shall  be  granted,  in  addition,  one 
hundred  and  sixty  acres  to  the  wife  of  said  hus- 
band, and  the  like  quantity  of  one  hundred  and 
sixty  acres  to  the  father  for  each  child  under  the 
age  of  eighteen  years  he  may  have,  or  which 
may  be  born  within  the  five  years  aforesaid. 

"  That  no  sale,  alienation,  or  contract  of  any 


470 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


kind,  shall  be  valid,  of  such  lands,  before  the 
patent  is  issued  therefor ;  nor  shall  the  same  be 
liable  to  be  taken  in  execution,  or  bound  by  any 
judgment,  mortgage,  or  lien,  of  any  kind,  before 
the  patent  is  so  issued ;  and  all  pretended  alien- 
ations or  contracts  for  alienating  such  lands, 
made  before  the  issuing  of  the  patents,  shall  be 
null  and  void  against  the  settler  himself,  his 
wife,  or  widow,  or  against  his  heirs-at-law,  or 
against  purchasers,  after  the  issuing  of  the  pa- 
tent. 

':  That  the  President  is  hereby  authorized 
and  required  to  appoint  two  additional  Indian 
agents,  with  a  salary  of  two  thousand  dollars 
each,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  (under  his  direction 
and  control)  to  superintend  the  interests  of  the 
United  States  with  any  or  every  Indian  tribe 
west  of  any  agency  now  established  by  law. 

"  That  the  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars be  appropriated,  out  of  any  money  in  the 
Treasury  not  otherwise  appropriated,  to  carry 
into  effect  the  provisions  of  this  act. 

"  Sec  2.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  the 
civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction  of  the  supreme 
court  and  district  courts  of  the  territory  of  Iowa, 
be,  and  the  same  is  hereby,  extended  over  that 
part  of  the  Indian  territories  lying  west  of  the 
present  limits  of  the  said  territory  of  Iowa,  and 
south  of  the  forty-ninth  degree  of  north  latitude, 
and  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  north  of 
the  boundary  line  between  the  United  States 
and  the  Republic  of  Texas,  not  included  within 
the  limits  of  any  State ;  and  also,  over  the  In- 
dian territories  comprising  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  the  country  between  them  and  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  south  of  fifty-four  degrees  and 
forty  minutes  of  north  latitude,  and  north  of  the 
forty-second  degree  of  north  latitude ;  and  jus- 
tices of  the  peace  may  be  appointed  for  the  said 
territory,  in  the  same  manner  and  with  the  same 
powers  as  now  provided  by  law  in  relation  to 
the  territory  of  Iowa :  Provided,  That  any  sub- 
ject of  the  government  of  Great  Britain,  who 
shall  have  been  arrested  under  the  provisions  of 
this  act  for  any  crime  alleged  to  have  been  com- 
mitted within  the  territory  westward  of  the 
Stony  or  Rocky  Mountains,  while  the  same  re- 
mains free  and  open  to  the  vessels,  citizens,  and 
subjects  of  the  United  States  and  of  Great 
Britain,  pursuant  to  stipulations  between  the 
two  powers,  shall  be  delivered  up,  on  proof  of 
his  being  such  British  subject,  to  the  nearest  or 
most  convenient  anthorities  having  cognizance 
of  such  offence  by  the  laws  of  Great  Britain,  for 
the  purpose  of  being  prosecuted  and  tried  accord- 
ing to  such  laws. 

"  Sec.  3.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  one 
associate  judge  of  the  supreme  court  of  the 
territory  of  Iowa,  in  addition  to  the  number 
now  authorized  by  law,  may,  in  the  discretion 
of  the  President,  be  appointed,  to  hold  his  office 
by  the  same  tenure  and  for  the  same  time,  re- 
ceive the  same  compensation,  and  possess  all  the 
powers  and  authority  conferred  by  law  upon 


the  associate  judges  of  the  said  territory ;  and 
one  judicial  district  shall  be  organized  by  the 
said  supreme  court,  in  addition  to  the  existing 
number,  in  reference  to  the  jurisdiction  con- 
ferred by  this  act ;  and  a  district  court  shall  be 
held  in  the  said  district  by  the  judge  of  the  su- 
preme court,  at  such  times  and  places  as  the 
said  court  shall  direct;  and  the  said  district 
court  shall  possess  all  the  powers  and  authority 
vested  in  the  present  district  courts  of  the  said 
territory,  and  may,  in  like  manner,  appoint  its 
own  clerk. 

"  Sec  4.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  any 
justice  of  the  peace,  appointed  in  and  for  the 
territories  described  in  the  second  section  of  this 
act,  shall  have  power  to  cause  all  offenders 
against  the  laws  of  the  United  States  to  be  ar- 
rested by  such  persons  as  they  shall  appoint  for 
that  purpose,  and  to  commit  such  offenders  to 
safe  custody  for  trial,  in  the  same  cases  and  in 
the  manner  provided  by  law  in  relation  to  the 
Territory  of  Iowa ;  and  to  cause  the  offenders 
so  committed  to  be  conveyed  to  the  place  ap- 
pointed for  the  holding  of  a  district  court  for 
the  said  Territory  of  Iowa,  nearest  and  most  con- 
venient to  the  place  of  such  commitment,  there 
to  be  detained  for  trial,  by  such  persons  as  shall 
be  authorized  for  that  purpose  by  any  judge  of 
the  supreme  court,  or  any  justice  of  the  peace 
of  the  said  Territory  ;  or  where  such  offenders 
are  British  subjects,  to  cause  them  to  be  de- 
livered to  the  nearest  and  most  convenient  Brit- 
ish authorities,  as  hereinbefore  provided;  and 
the  expenses  of  such  commitment,  removal,  and 
detention,  shall  be  paid  in  the  same  manner  as 
provided  by  law  in  respect  to  the  fees  of  the 
marshal  of  the  said  territory." 

These  provisions  are  all  just  and  necessary 
for  the  accomplishment  of  their  object,  and 
carefully  framed  to  promote  emigration,  and  to 
avoid  collisions  with  the  British,  or  hostilities 
with  the  Indians.  The  land  grants  were  the 
grand  attractive  feature  to  the  emigrants :  the 
provision  for  leaving  British  offenders  to  British 
jurisdiction  was  to  avoid  a  clash  of  jurisdictions, 
and  to  be  on  an  equality  with  the  British 
settlers  over  whom  the  British  Parliament  had 
already  extended  the  laws  of  Canada ;  and  the 
boundaries  within  which  our  settlers  were  to 
be  protected,  were  precisely  those  agreed  upon 
three  years  later  in  a  treaty  between  the  two 
powers.  The  provisions  were  all  necessary  for 
their  object,  and  carefully  framed  to  avoid  infrac- 
tion of  any  part  of  the  unfortunate  treaty  of 
1818 ;  but  the  bill  encountered  a  strenuous,  and 
for  a  long  time  a  nearly  balanced,  opposition 
in  the  Senate — some  opposed  to  the  whole  ob- 
ject of  settling  the  country  at  any  time — some 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


471 


to  its  present  settlement,  many  to  the  fear  of 
collision  with  the  British  subjects  already  there, 
or  infraction  of  the  treaty  of  1818.  Mr.  Mc- 
Duffie  took  broad  ground  against  it. 

"  For  whose  benefit  are  we  bound  to  pass  this 
bill  ?  Who  are  to  go  there,  along  the  line  of 
military  posts,  and  take  possession  of  the  only 
part  of  the  territory  fit  to  occupy — that  part 
lying  upon  the  sea-coast,  a  strip  less  than  one 
hundred  miles  in  width ;  for,  as  I  have  already 
stated,  the  rest  of  the  territory  consists  of 
mountains  almost  inaccessible,  and  low  lands 
which  are  covered  with  stone  and  volcanic  re- 
mains, where  rain  never  falls,  except  during  the 
spring ;  and  even  on  the  coast  no  rain  falls,  from 
April  to  October,  and  for  the  remainder  of  the 
year  there  is  nothing  but  rain.  Why,  sir,  of 
what  use  will  this  be  for  agricultural  purposes  ? 
I  would  not  for  that  purpose  give  a  pinch  of 
snuff'  for  the  whole  territory.  I  wish  to  God 
we  did  not  own  it.  I  wish  it  was  an  impassable 
barrier  to  secure  us  against  the  intrusion  of 
others.  This  is  the  character  of  the  country. 
Who  are  we  to  send  there?  Do  you  think 
your  honest  farmers  in  Pennsylvania,  New 
York,  or  even  Ohio  or  Missouri,  will  abandon 
their  farms  to  go  upon  any  such  enterprise  as 
this?  God  forbid!  if  any  man  who  is  to  go 
to  that  country,  under  the  temptations  of  this 
bill,  was  my  child — if  he  was  an  honest  indus- 
trious man,  I  would  say  to  him,  for  God's  sake 
do  not  go  there.  You  will  not  better  your  con- 
dition. You  will  exchange  the  comforts  of 
home,  and  the  happiness  of  civilized  life,  for  the 
pains  and  perils  of  a  precarious  existence.  But 
if  I  had  a  son  whose  conduct  was  such  as  made 
him  a  fit  subject  for  Botany  Bay,  I  would  say 
in  the  name  of  God,  go.  This  is  my  estimate 
of  the  importance  of  the  settlement.  Now, 
what  are  we  to  gain  by  making  the  settlement  ? 
In  what  shape  are  our  expenditures  there  to  be 
returned  ?  When  are  we  to  get  any  revenue 
from  the  citizens  of  ours  who  go  to  that  distant 
territory — 3,300  miles  from  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment, as  I  have  it  from  the  senator  from  Mis- 
souri ?  What  return  are  they  going  to  make  us 
for  protecting  them  with  military  posts,  at  the 
expense  at  the  outset  of  $200,000,  and  swelling 
hereafter  God  knows  how  much — probably 
equalling  the  annual  expenses  of  the  Florida 
war.  What  will  they  return  us  for  this  enormous 
expense,  after  we  have  tempted  them,  by  this  bill, 
to  leave  their  pursuits  of  honest  industry,  to  go 
upon  this  wild  and  gambling  adventure,  in  winch 
their  blood  is  to  be  staked  ?  " 

Besides  repulsing  the  country  as  worthless, 
Mr.  McDuffie  argued  that  there  was  danger  in 
taking  possession  of  it — that  the  provisions  of 
the  bill  conflicted  with  the  stipulations  of  the 
treaty  of  1818 — and  that  Great  Britain,  though 
desirous  of  peace  with  the  United  States,  would 


be  forced  into  war  in  defence  of  her  rights  and 
honor.  Mr.  Calhoun  was  equally  opposed  as 
his  colleagae  to  the  passage  of  the  bill,  but  not 
for  the  same  reasons.  He  deemed  the  country 
well  worth  having,  and  presenting  great  com- 
mercial advantages  in  communicating  with 
China  and  Japan,  which  should  not  be  lost. 

"  I  do  not  agree  with  my  eloquent  and  able 
colleague  that  the  country  is  worthless.  He 
has  underrated  it,  both  as  to  soil  and  climate. 
It  contains  a  vast  deal  of  land,  it  is  true,  that  is 
barren  and  worthless ;  but  not  a  little  that  is 
highly  productive.  To  that  may  be  added  its 
commercial  advantages*  which  will,  in  time, 
prove  to  be  great.  We  must  not  overlook  the 
important  events  to  which  I  have  alluded  as 
having  recently  occurred  in  the  Eastern  portion 
of  Asia.  As  great  as  they  are,  they  are  but  the 
beginning  of  a  series  of  a  similar  character, 
which  must  follow  at  no  distant  day.  What 
has  taken  place  in  China,  will,  in  a  few  years, 
be  followed  in  Japan,  and  all  the  eastern  por- 
tions of  that  continent.  Their  ports,  like  the 
Chinese,  will  be  opened,  and  the  whole  of  that 
large  portion  of  Asia,  containing  nearly  half  of 
the  population  and  wealth  of  the  globe,  will  be 
thrown  open  to  the  commerce  of  the  world,  and  be 
placed  within  the  pales  of  European  and  Ameri- 
can intercourse  and  civilization.  A  vast  market 
will  be  created,  and  a  mighty  impulse  will  be 
given  to  commerce.  No  small  portion  of  the 
share  that  would  fall  to  us  with  this  populous 
and  industrious  portion  of  the  globe,  is  destined 
to  pass  through  the  ports  of  the  Oregon  Terri- 
tory to  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  instead  of 
taking  the  circuitous  and  long  voyage  round 
Cape  Horn  ;  or  the  still  longer,  round  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope.  It  is  mainly  because  I  place 
this  high  estimate  on  its  prospective  value,  that 
I  am  so  solicitous  to  preserve  it,  and  so  adverse 
to  this  bill,  or  any  other  precipitate  measure 
which  might  terminate  in  its  loss.  If  I  thought 
less  of  its  value,  or  if  I  regarded  our  title  less 
clear,  my  opposition  would  be  less  decided." 

Infraction  of  the  treaty  and  danger  of  war — 
the  difficulty  and  expense  of  defending  a  pos 
session  so  remote — the  present  empty  condition 
of  the  treasury — were  further  reasons  urged  by 
Mr.  Calhoun  in  favor  of  rejecting  the  bill ;  but 
having  avowed  himself  in  favor  of  saving  our 
title  to  the  country,  it  became  necessary  to 
show  his  mode  of  doing  so,  and  fell  upon  the 
same  plan  to  ripen  and  secure  our  title,  which 
others  believed  was  wholly  relied  upon  by 
Great  Britain  to  ripen  and  secure  hers— Time  ! 
an  element  which  only  worked  in  favor  of  the 
possessor;  and  that  possessor  was  now  Great 
Britain.     On  this  head  he  said : 


472 


THIRTY  YEARS*  VIEW. 


"  The  question  presents  itself,  how  shall  we 
preserve  this  country  ?  There  is  only  one  means 
by  which  it  can  be  ;  but  that,  fortunately,  is  the 
most  powerful  of  all — time.  Time  is  acting 
for  us ;  and,  if  we  shall  have  the  wisdom  to 
trust  its  operation,  it  will  assert  and  maintain 
our  right  with  resistless  force,  without  costing  a 
cent  of  money,  or  a  drop  of  blood.  There  is 
often  in  the  affairs  of  government,  more  effi- 
ciency and  wisdom  in  non-action,  than  in  action. 
All  we  want  to  effect  our  object  in  this  case,  is 
'a  wise  and  masterly  inactivity.'  Our  popula- 
tion is  rolling  towards  the  shores  of  the  Pacific, 
with  an  impetus  greater  than  what  we  realize.  It 
is  one  of  those  forward  movements  which  leaves 
anticipation  behind.  In  the  period  of  thirty- 
two  years  which  have  elapsed  since  I  took  my 
seat  in  the  other  House,  the  Indian  frontier  has 
receded  a  thousand  miles  to  the  West.  At  that 
time,  our  population  was  much  less  than  half 
what  it  is  now.  It  was  then  increasing  at  the 
rate  of  about  a  quarter  of  a  million  annually ; 
it  is  now  not  less  than  six  hundred  thousand ; 
and  still  increasing  at  the  rate  of  something 
more  than  three  per  cent,  compound  annually. 
At  that  rate,  it  will  soon  reach  the  yearly 
increase  of  a  million.  If  to  this  be  added,  that 
the  region  west  of  Arkansas  and  the  State  of 
Missouri,  and  south  of  the  Missouri  River,  is 
occupied  by  half  civilized  tribes,  who  have  their 
lands  secured  to  them  by  treaty  (and  which 
will  prevent  the  spread  of  population  in  that 
direction),  and  that  this  great  and  increasing  tide 
will  be  forced  to  take  the  comparatively  narrow 
channel  to  the  north  of  that  river  and  south  of 
our  northern  boundary,  some  conception  may 
be  formed  of  the  strength  with  which  the  cur- 
rent will  run  in  that  direction,  and  how  soon  it 
will  reach  the  eastern  gorges  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  It  will  soon — far  sooner  than  an- 
ticipated— reach  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  be 
ready  to  pour  into  the  Oregon  Territory,  when 
it  will  come  into  our  possession  without  resist- 
ance or  struggle ;  or,  if  there  should  be  resist- 
ance, it  would  be  feeble  and  ineffectual.  We 
would  then  be  as  much  stronger  there,  compa- 
ratively, than  Great  Britain,  as  she  is  now 
stronger  than  we  are ;  and  it  would  then  be  as 
idle  in  her  to  attempt  to  assert  and  maintain 
her  exclusive  claim  to  the  territory  against  us. 
as  it  would  now  be  in  us  to  attempt  it  against 
her.  Let  us  be  wise,  and  abide  our  time,  and  it 
will  accomplish  all  that  we  desire,  with  far 
more  certainty  and  with  infinitely  less  sacrifice, 
than  we  can  without  it." 

Mr.  Calhoun  averred,  and  very  truly,  that  his 
opposition  to  the  bill  did  not  grow  out  of  any 
opposition  to  the  growth  of  the  West — declared 
himself  always  friendly  to  the  interests  of  that 
great  section  of  our  country,  and  referred  to  his 
course  when  he  was  Secretary  at  war  to  prove 
it. 


"  I  go  back  to  the  time  when  I  was  at  the 
head  of  the  War  Department.  At  that  early 
period  I  turned  my  attention  particularly  to  the 
interest  of  the  West.  I  saw  that  it  required 
increased  security  to  its  long  line  of  frontier, 
and  greater  facility  of  carrying  on  intercourse 
with  the  Indian  tribes  in  that  quarter,  and  to 
enable  it  to  develope  its  resources — especially 
that  of  its  fur-trade.  To  give  the  required 
security,  I  ordered  a  much  larger  portion  of  the 
army  to  that  frontier  ;  and  to  afford  facility  and 
protection  for  carrying  on  the  fur-trade,  the 
military  posts  were  moved  much  higher  up  the 
Mississippi  and  Missouri  rivers.  Under  the 
increased  security  and  facility  which  these 
measures  afforded,  the  fur-trade  received  a 
great  impulse.  It  extended  across  the  continent 
in  a  short  time,  to  the  Pacific,  and  north  and 
south  to  the  British  and  Mexican  frontiers; 
3'ielding  in  a  few  years,  as  stated  by  the  Senator 
from  Missouri  [Mr.  Linn],  half  a  million  of  dol- 
lars annually.  But  I  stopped  not  there.  I  saw 
that  individual  enterprise  on  our  part,  however 
great,  could  not  successfully  compete  with  the 
powerful  incorporated  Canadian  and  Hudson 
Bay  Companies,  and  that  additional  measures 
were  necessary  to  secure  permanently  our  fur- 
trade.  For  that  purpose  I  proposed  to  establish 
a  post  still  higher  up  the  Missouri,  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Yellow  Stone  River,  and  to  give  such 
unity  and  efficiency  to  our  intercourse  and  trade 
with  the  Indian  tribes  between  our  Western 
frontier  and  the  Pacific  ocean,  as  would  enable 
our  citizens  engaged  in  the  fur-trade  to  compete 
successfully  with  the  British  traders.  Had 
the  measures  proposed  been  adopted,  we  would 
not  now  have  to  listen  to  the  complaint,  so  fre- 
quently uttered  in  this  discussion,  of  the  loss  of 
that  trade." 

The  inconsistent  argument  of  Mr.  McDuifie, 
that  the  country  was  worthless,  and  yet  that 
Great  Britain  would  go  to  war  for  it,  was  thus 
answered  by  Mr.  Linn : 

"  The  senator  from  South  Carolina  somewhat 
inconsistently  urges  that  the  country  is  bleak, 
barren,  volcanic,  rocky,  a  waste  always  flooded 
when  it  is  not  parched ;  and  insists  that,  worth- 
less as  it  is,  Great  Britain  will  go  at  once  to  war 
for  it.  Strange  that  she  should  in  1818  have 
held  so  tenaciously  to  what  is  so  worthless ! 
Stranger  still,  that  she  should  have  stuck  yet 
closer  to  it  in  1827,  when  she  had  had  still 
ampler  time  to  learn  the  bootlessness  of  the 
possession!  And  strangest  of  all,  that  she 
should  still  cling  to  it  with  the  grasp  of  death  ! 
Sir,  I  cannot  for  my  life  help  thinking  that  she 
and  the  senator  have  formed  a  very  different 
estimate  of  the  territory,  and  that  she  is  (as  she 
ought  to  be)  a  good  deal  the  better  informed. 
She  knows  well  its  soil,  climate,  and  physical  re- 
sources, and  perfectly  comprehends  its  commer- 
cial and  geographical  importance.  And  know- 
ing all  this,  she  was  ready  to  sink  all  sense  of 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


473 


justice,  stifle  all  respect  for  our  clear  title,  and 
hasten  to  root  her  interests  in  the  soil,  so  as  to 
secure  the  strong,  even  when  most  wrongful, 
title  of  possession." 

The  danger  of  waiting  for  Great  Britain  to 
strengthen  her  claim  was  illustrated  by  Mr. 
Linn,  by  what  had  happened  in  Maine.  In  1814 
she  proposed  to  purchase  the  part  she  wanted. 
She  afterwards  endeavored  to  negotiate  for  a 
right  of  way  across  the  State.  Failing  in  that 
attempted  negotiation,  as  in  the  offer  to  pur- 
chase, she  boldly  set  up  a  claim  to  all  she  wanted 
— demanded  it  as  matter  of  right — and  obtained 
it  by  the  Ashburton  treaty — the  United  States 
paying  Massachusetts  and  Maine  for  the  dis- 
membered part.  Deprecating  a  like  result  from 
temporizing  measures  with  respect  to  Oregon, 
Mr.  Linn  said : 

"So  little  before  1813  or  1814  did  Great 
Britain  ever  doubt  your  claim  to  the  lately  con- 
tested territory  in  Maine,  that  in  1814  she  pro- 
posed to  purchase  that  part  of  it  which  she  de- 
sired. She  next  treated  for  a  right  of  way.  It 
was  refused  ;  and  she  then  set  up  a  claim  to  the 
soil.  This  method  has  sped  no  ill  with  her ; 
for  she  has  got  what  she  wanted,  and  made  you 
pay  for  it.  Her  Oregon  game  is  the  same. 
She  has  set  her  heart  upon  a  strip  of  territory 
north  of  the  Oregon,  and  seems  determined  to 
pluck  it  from  us,  either  by  circumvention  or 
force.  Aware  of  the  political  as  well  as  legal 
advantages  of  possession,  she  is  strengthening 
hers  in  every  way  not  too  directly  responsible. 
She  is  selecting  and  occupying  the  best  lands, 
the  most  favorable  sites.  These  she  secures  to 
the  settlers  under  contracts.  For  any  counter- 
action of  yours,  she  may  take,  and  is  taking, 
possession  of  the  whole  territory.  She  has  ap- 
propriated sites  for  mills,  manufactories,  and 
farms.  If  one  of  these  has  been  abandoned  for 
a  better,  she  reverts  to  it,  if  a  citizen  of  yours 
occupies  it,  and  ejects  him.  She  tells  her  people 
she  will  protect  them  in  whatever  they  have 
laid,  or  may  lay,  their  hands  upon.  If  she  can 
legitimately  do  this,  why  may  not  we  ?  Is  this 
a  joint  occupation  of  which  she  is  to  have  the 
sole  benefit  7  Had  you  as  many  citizens  there 
as  she,  you  would  be  compelled  to  protect  them ; 
and  if  you  have  not,  why  is  it  but  because  she 
keeps  them  off.  and  you  refuse  to  offer  them  the 
inducements  which  she  holds  out  1  Give  them 
a  prospective  grant  of  lands,  and  insure  them 
the  shelter  of  your  laws,  and  they  will  soon  con- 
gregate there  in  force  enough  to  secure  your 
rights  and  their  own." 

The  losses  already  sustained  by  our  citizens 
from  the  ravages  of  Indians,  incited  against  them 
by  the  British  Hudson  Bay  company,  were 


stated  by  Mr.  Linn  upon  good  authority,  to  be 
five  hundred  men  in  lives  taken  in  the  first  ten 
years  of  the  joint  occupation  treaty,  and  half  a 
million  of  dollars  in  property  robbed  or  de- 
stroyed, besides  getting  exclusive  possession  of 
our  soil,  and  the  command  of  our  own  Indians 
within  our  own  limits :  and  he  then  contrasted 
this  backwardness  to  protect  our  own  citizens 
on  their  own  soil  with  the  readiness  to  expend 
untold  amounts  on  the  protection  of  our  citizens 
engaged  in  foreign  commerce  ;  and  even  in  going 
to  the  coast  of  .vfrica  to  guard  the  freedom  of 
the  negro  race. 

"  Wherever  your  sails  whiten  the  sea,  in  no 
matter  what  clime,  against  no  matter  whom, 
the  national  arm  stretches  out  its  protection. 
Every  where  but  in  this  unhappy  territory,  the 
persons  and  the  pursuits  of  your  citizens  are 
watched  over.  You  count  no  cost  when  other 
interests  are  concerned,  when  other  rights  are 
assailed  ;  but  you  recoil  here  from  a  trifling  ap- 
propriation to  an  object  of  the  highest  national 
importance,  because  it  enlists  no  sectional  in- 
fluence. Contrast,  for  instance,  your  supineness 
about  the  Oregon  Territory,  with  your  alacrity 
to  establish,  for  guarding  the  slave  coast  and 
Liberia,  a  squadron  costing  $600,000  annually, 
and  which  you  have  bound  yourself  by  treaty 
to  keep  up  for  five  years,  with  great  exposure 
of  lives  and  vessels.  By  stipulation,  eighty 
guns  (one-twelfth  of  your  force  afloat)  is  kept 
upon  this  service ;  and,  as  your  naval  expendi- 
ture amounts  to  about  seven  millions  a  year, 
this  (its  twelfth  part)  will  make,  in  five  years, 
three  millions  bestowed  in  watching  the  coast 
of  Africa,  and  guarding  the  freedom  of  the  negro 
race !  For  this  you  lavish  millions ;  and  you 
grudge  $100,000  to  the  great  American  and  na- 
tional object  of  asserting  your  territorial  rights 
and  settling  your  soil.  You  grant  at  once  what 
furthers  the  slave  policy  of  a  rival  power,  and 
deny  the  means  of  rescuing  from  its  grasp  your 
own  property  and  soil." 

This  African  squadron  has  now  been  kept  up 
more  than  twice  five  years,  and  promises  to  be 
perpetual ;  for  there  was  that  delusive  clause  in 
the  article,  so  tempting  to  all  temporizing  spirits, 
that  after  the  lapse  of  the  five  years,  the  squad- 
ron was  still  to  be  kept  up  until  the  United  States 
should  give  notice  to  terminate  the  article.  This 
idea  of  notice  to  terminate  a  treaty,  so  easy  to 
put  in  it,  and  so  difficult  to  be  given  when  en- 
tanglement and  use  combine  to  keep  things  as 
they  are,  was  shown  to  be  almost  impossible  in 
this  treaty  of  joint  occupation  of  the  Columbia. 
Mr.  Calhoun  had  demanded  of  Mr.  Linn,  why 


474 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


not  give  the  notice  to  terminate  the  treaty  be- 
fore proceeding  to  settle  the  country  1  to  which 
he  answered : 

"  The  senator  from  South  Carolina  [Mr.  Cal- 
houn], has  urged  that  we  should,  first  of  all, 
give  the  twelve  months'  notice  of  our  renuncia- 
tion of  the  treaty.  He  [Mr.  Linn]  could  only 
answer  that  he  had  repeatedly,  by  resolutions, 
urged  that  course  in  former  years  ;  but  always 
in  vain.  He  had  ever  been  met  with  the  answer : 
'  This  is  not  the  proper  time — wait.'  Mean- 
while, the  adverse  possession  was  going  on,  for- 
tifying from  year  to  year  the  British  claim  and 
the  British  resources,  to  make  it  good.  Mr. 
Madison  had  encouraged  the  bold  and  well-ar- 
ranged scheme  of  Astor  to  fortify  and  colonize. 
He  was  dispossessed  ;  and  the  nucleus  of  empire 
which  his  establishments  formed,  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company,  now 
the  great  instrument  of  English  aggrandizement 
in  that  quarter.  The  senator  insists  that,  by 
the  treaty,  there  should  be  a  joint  possession. 
Be  it  so,  if  you  will.  But  where  is  our  part  of 
this  joint  possession  ?  In  what  does  it  consist, 
or  has  it  consisted  ?  We  have  no  posts  there, 
no  agent,  no  military  power  to  protect  traders. 
Nay,  indeed,  no  traders  !  For  they  have  disap- 
peared before  foreign  competition ;  or  fallen  a 
sacrifice  to  the  rifle,  the  tomahawk,  or  the  scalp- 
ing knife  of  those  savages  whom  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company  can  always  make  the  instruments 
of  systematic  massacre  of  adventurous  rivals." 

Mr.  Benton  spoke  at  large  in  defence  of  the 
bill,  and  first  of  the  clause  in  it  allotting  land 
to  the  settlers,  saying  : 

"  The  objections  to  this  bill  grew  out  of  the 
clause  granting  land  to  the  settlers,  not  so  much 
on  account  of  the  grants  themselves,  as  on  ac- 
count of  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  over  the  coun- 
try, which  the  grants  would  seem  to  imply. 
This  was  the  objection  ;  for  no  one  defended  the 
title  of  the  British  to  one  inch  square  of  the 
valley  of  Oregon.  The  senator  from  Arkansas 
[Mr.  Sevier],  who  has  just  spoken,  had  well 
said  that  this  was  an  objection  to  the  whole  bill ; 
for  the  rest  would  be  worth  nothing,  without 
these  grants  to  the  settlers.  Nobody  would  go 
there  without  the  inducement  of  land.  The 
British  had  planted  a  power  there — the  Hudson 
Bay  Fur  Company — in  which  the  old  Northwest 
Company  was  merged ;  and  this  power  was  to 
them  in  the  New  World  what  the  East  India 
company  was  to  them  in  the  Old  World:  it 
was  an  arm  of  the  government,  and  did  every 
thing  for  the  government  which  policy,  or  trea- 
ties prevented  it  from  doing  for  itself.  This 
company  was  settling  and  colonizing  the  Colum- 
bia for  the  British  government,  and  we  wish 
American  citizens  to  settle  and  colonize  it  for 
us.  The  British  government  gives  inducement 
to  this  company.   It  gives  them  trade,  commerce, 


an  exclusive  charter,  laws,  and  national  protec- 
tion. We  must  give  inducement  also  ;  and  our 
inducement  must  be  land  and  protection.  Grants 
of  land  will  carry  settlers  there  ;  and  the  sena- 
tor from  Ohio  [Mr.  Tappan]  was  treading  in 
the  tracks  of  Mr.  Jefferson  (perhaps  without 
having  read  his  recommendation,  although  he 
has  read  much)  when  he  proposed,  in  his  speech 
of  yesterday,  to  plant  50,000  settlers,  with  their 
50,000  rifles,  on  the  banks  of  the  Oregon.  Mr. 
Jefferson  had  proposed  the  same  thing  in  regard 
to  Louisiana.  He  proposed  that  we  should  set- 
tle that  vast  domain  when  we  acquired  it ;  and 
for  that  purpose,  that  donations  of  land  should 
be  made  to  the  first  30,000  settlers  who  should 
go  there.  This  was  the  right  doctrine,  and  the 
old  doctrine.  The  white  race  were  a  land-loving 
people,  and  had  a  right  to  possess  it,  because 
they  used  it  according  to  the  intentions  of  the 
Creator.  The  white  race  went  for  land,  and 
they  will  continue  to  go  for  it,  and  will  go  where 
they  can  get  it.  Europe,  Asia,  and  America, 
have  been  settled  by  them  in  this  way.  All  the 
States  of  this  Union  have  been  so  settled.  The 
principle  is  founded  in  their  nature  and  in  God's 
command ;  and  it  will  continue  to  be  obeyed. 
The  valley  of  the  Columbia  is  a  vast  field  open 
to  the  settler.  It  is  ours,  and  our  people  are 
beginning  to  go  upon  it.  They  go  under  the 
expectation  of  getting  land  ;  and  that  expecta- 
tion must  be  confirmed  to  them.  This  bill  pro- 
poses to  confirm  it ;  and  if  it  fails  in  this  par- 
ticular, it  fails  in  all.  There  is  nothing  left  to 
induce  emigration ;  and  emigration  is  the  only 
thing  which  can  save  the  country  from  the 
British,  acting  through  their  powerful  agent — 
the  Hudson  Bay  Company." 

Mr.  Benton  then  showed  from  a  report  of 
Major  Pilcher,  Superintendent  of  Indian  Affairs, 
and  who  had  visited  the  Columbia  River,  that 
actual  colonization  was  going  on  there,  attended 
by  every  circumstance  that  indicated  ownership 
and  the  design  of  a  permanent  settlement.  Fort 
Vancouver,  the  principal  of  these  British  es- 
tablishments, for  there  are  many  of  them  within 
our  boundaries,  is  thus  described  by  Major 
Pilcher :       % 

"  This  fort  is  on  the  north  side  of  the  Colum- 
bia, nearly  opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Multnomah, 
in  the  region  of  tide-water,  and  near  the  head 
of  ship  navigation.  It  is  a  grand  position,  both 
in  a  military  and  commercial  point  of  view,  and 
formed  to  command  the  whole  region  watered 
by  the  Columbia  and  its  tributaries.  The  sur- 
rounding country,  both  in  climate  and  soil,  is 
capable  of  sustaining  a  large  population  ;  and 
its  resources  in  timber  give  ample  facilities  for 
ship-building.  This  post  is  fortified  with  can- 
non ;  and,  having  been  selected  as  the  principal 
or  master  position,  no  pains  have  been  spared 
to  strengthen  or  improve  it.     For  this  purpose. 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


47£ 


the  old  post  near  the  mouth  of  the  river  has 
been  abandoned.  About  one  hundred  and 
twenty  acres  of  ground  are  in  cultivation  ;  and 
the  product  in  wheat,  barley,  oats,  corn,  pota- 
toes, and  other  vegetables,  is  equal  to  what  is 
known  in  the  best  parts  of  the  United  States. 
Domestic  animals  are  numerous — the  horned 
cattle  having  been  stated  to  me  at  three  hun- 
dred ;  hogs,  horses,  sheep,  and  goats,  in  propor- 
tion ;  also,  the  usual  domestic  fowls :  every 
tiling,  in  fact,  indicating  a  permanent  establish- 
ment. Ship-building  has  commenced  at  this 
place.  One  vessel  has  been  built  and  rigged, 
sent  to  sea,  and  employed  in  the  trade  of  the 
Pacific  Ocean.  I  also  met  a  gentleman,  on  my 
way  to  Lake  Winnipec,  at  the  portage  between 
the  Columbia  and  Athabasca,  who  was  on  his 
way  from  Hudson's  Bay  to  Fort  Colville,  with 
a  master  ship-carpenter,  and  who  was  destined 
for  Fort  Vancouver,  for  the  purpose  of  building 
a  ship  of  considerable  burden.  Both  grist  and 
saw-mills  have  been  built  at  Fort  Vancouver : 
with  the  latter,  they  saw  the  timber  which  is 
needed  for  their  own  use,  and  also  for  exporta- 
tion to  the  Sandwich  Islands  ;  upon  the  former, 
their  wheat  is  manufactured  into  flour.  And, 
from  all  that  I  could  learn,  this  important  post 
is  silently  growing  up  into  a  colony ;  and  is, 
perhaps,  intended  as  a  future  military  and  na- 
val station,  which  was  not  expected  to  be 
delivered  up  at  the  expiration  of  the  treaty 
which  granted  them  a  temporary  and  joint  pos- 


Mr.  Benton  made  a  brief  deduction  of  our 
title  to  the  Columbia  to  the  49th  parallel  under 
the  treaty  of  Utrecht,  and  rapidly  traced  the 
various  British  attempts  to  encroach  upon  that 
line,  the  whole  of  which,  though  earnestly  made 
and  perseveringly  continued,  failed  to  follow 
that  great  line  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  to 
the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  He  thus  made  this 
deduction  of  title : 

"  Louisiana  was  acquired  in  1803.  In  the 
very  instant  of  signing  the  treaty  which  brought 
us  that  province,  another  treaty  was  signed  in 
London  (without  a  knowledge  of  what  was 
done  in  Paris),  fixing,  among  other  things,  the 
line  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  to  the  Missis- 
sippi. This  treaty,  signed  by  Mr.  Rufus  King 
and  Lord  Hawkesbury,  was  rejected  by  Mr. 
Jefferson,  without  reference  to  the  Senate,  on 
account  of  the  fifth  article  (which  related  to  the 
line  between  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  and  the 
head  of  the  Mississippi),  for  fear  it  might  com- 
promise the  northern  boundary  of  Louisiana 
and  the  line  of  49  degrees.  In  this  negotiation 
of  1803,  the  British  made  no  attempt  on  the 
line  of  the  49th  degree,  because  it  was  not  then 
known  to  them  that  we  had  acquired  Louisiana; 
but  Mr.  Jefferson,  having  a  knowledge  of  this 


acquisition,  was  determined  that  nothing  should 
be  done  to  compromise  our  rights,  or  to  unset- 
tle the  boundaries  established  under  the  treaty 
of  Utrecht. 

"Another  treaty  was  negotiated  with  Great 
Britain  in  1807,  between  Messrs.  Monroe  and 
William  Pinckney  on  one  side,  and  Lords  Hol- 
land and  Auckland  on  the  other.  The  English 
were  now  fully  possessed  of  the  fact  that  we 
had  acquired  Louisiana,  and  become  a  party  to 
the  line  of  49  degrees ;  and  they  set  themselves 
openly  to  work  to  destroy  that  line.  The  cor- 
respondence of  the  ministers  shows  the  perti- 
nacity of  these  attempts  ;  and  the  instructions 
of  Mr.  Adams,  in  1818  (when  Secretary  of 
State,  under  Mr.  Monroe),  to  Messrs.  Hush  and 
Gallatin,  then  in  London,  charged  with  negotia- 
ting a  convention  on  points  left  unsettled  at 
Ghent,  condense  the  history  of  the  mutual  pro- 
positions then  made.  Finally,  an  article  was 
agreed  upon,  in  which  the  British  succeeded  in 
mutilating  the  line,  and  stopping  it  at  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  This  treaty  of  1807  shared  the 
fate  of  that  of  1803,  but  for  a  different  reason. 
It  was  rejected  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  without  refer- 
ence to  the  Senate,  because  it  did  not  contain  an 
explicit  renunciation  of  the  pretension  of  im- 
pressment ! 

"  At  Ghent  the  attempt  was  renewed :  the 
arrest  of  the  line  at  the  Rocky  Mountains  was 
agreed  upon,  but  the  British  coupled  with  their 
proposition  a  demand  for  the  free  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  access  to  it  through  the 
territories  of  the  United  States  ;  and  this  de- 
mand occasioned  the  whole  article  to  be  omit- 
ted. The  Ghent  treaty  was  signed  without  any 
stipulation  on  the  subject  of  the  line  along  the 
49th  degree,  and  that  point  became  a  principal 
object  of  the  ministers  charged  with  completing 
at  London,  in  1818,  the  subjects  unfinished  at 
Ghent  in  1814.  Thus  the  British  were  again 
foiled;  but,  true  to  their  design,  they  perse- 
vered and  accomplished  it  in  the  convention 
signed  at  London  in  1818.  That  convention 
arrested  the  line  at  the  mountains,  and  opened 
the  Columbia  to  the  joint  occupation  of  the 
British;  and,  being  ratified  by  the  United 
States,  it  has  become  binding  and  obligatory 
on  the  country.  But  it  is  a  point  not  to  be 
overlooked,  or  undervalued,  in  this  case,  that  it 
was  in  the  year  1818  that  this  arrestation  of  the 
line  took  place  ;  that  up  to  that  period  it  was 
in  full  force  in  all  its  extent,  and,  consequently, 
in  full  force  to  the  Pacific  Ocean ;  and  a  com- 
plete bar  (leaving  out  all  other  barriers)  to  any 
British  acquisition,  by  discover}^,  south  of  49 
degrees  in  North  America." 

The  President  in  his  message  had  said  that 
"informal  conferences"  had  taken  place  be- 
tween Mr.  Webster  and  Lord  Ashburton  on  the 
subject  of  the  Columbia,  but  he  had  not  com- 
municated them.     Mr.  Benton  obtained  a  call 


476 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  the  Senate  for  them :  the  President  answered 
it  was  incompatible  with  the  public  interest  to 
make  them  public.  That  was  a  strange  answer, 
seeing  that  all  claims  by  either  party,  and  all 
negotiations  on  the  subjects  between  them, 
whether  concluded  or  not,  and  whether  suc- 
cessful or  not  should  be  communicated. 

"  The  President,  in  his  message  recommend- 
ing the  peace  treaty,  informs  us  that  the  Co- 
lumbia was  the  subject  of  "  informal  confer- 
ences "  between  the  negotiators  of  that  treaty ; 
but  that  it  could  not  then  be  included  among 
the  subjects  of  formal  negotiation.  This  was 
an  ominous  annunciation,  and  should  have  open- 
ed the  eyes  of  the  President  to  a  great  danger. 
If  the  peace  mission,  which  came  here  to  settle 
every  thing,  and  which  had  so  much  to  gain  in 
the  Maine  boundary  and  the  African  alliance ; — if 
this  mission  could  not  agree  with  us  about  the 
Columbia,  what  mission  ever  can  ?  To  an  inquiry 
from  the  Senate  to  know  the  nature  and  extent 
of  these  "  informal  conferences  "  between  Mr. 
Webster  and  Lord  Ashburton,  and  to  learn  the 
reason  why  the  Columbia  question  could  not 
have  been  included  among  the  subjects  of  formal 
negotiation — to  these  inquiries,  the  President 
answers,  that  it  is  incompatible  with  the  public 
interest  to  communicate  these  things.  This 
is  a  strange  answer,  and  most  unexpected. 
"We  have  no  political  secrets  in  our  country, 
neither  among  ourselves  nor  with  foreigners. 
On  this  subject  of  the  Columbia,  especially,  we 
have  no  secrets.  Every  thing  in  relation  to  it 
has  been  published.  All  the  conferences  hereto- 
fore have  been  made  public.  The  protocols,  the 
minutes,  the  conversations,  on  both  sides,  have 
all  been  published.  The  British  have  published 
their  claim,  such  as  it  is:  we  have  published 
ours.  The  public  documents  are  full  of  them, 
and  there  can  be  nothing  in  the  question  itself 
to  require  secrecy.  The  negotiator^  and  not  the 
subject,  may  require  secrecy.  Propositions  may 
have  been  made,  and  listened  to,  which  no  pre- 
vious administration  would  tolerate,  and  which 
it  may  be  deemed  prudent  to  conceal  until  it 
has  taken  the  form  of  a  stipulation,  and  the  cry 
of  war  can  be  raised  to  ravish  its  ratification 
from  us.  All  previous  administrations,  while 
claiming  the  whole  valley  of  the  Columbia,  have 
refused  to  admit  a  particle  of  British  claim  south 
of  49  degrees.  Mr.  Adams,  under  Mr.  Monroe, 
peremptorily  refused  to  submit  any  such  claim 
even  to  arbitration.  The  Maine  boundary,  set- 
tled by  the  treaty  of  1783,  had  been  submitted 
to  arbitration  ;  but  this  boundary  of  49  was  re- 
fused. And  now,  if,  after  all  this,  any  proposi- 
tion has  been  made  by  our  government  to  give 
up  the  north  bank  of  the  river,  I,  for  one,  shall 
not  fail  to  brand  such  a  proposition  with  the 
name  of  treason." 

This  paragraph  was  not  without  point,  and 


even  inuendo.  The  north  bank  of  the  Columbia, 
with  equal  rights  of  navigation  in  the  river,  and 
to  the  harbor  at  its  mouth,  had  been  the  object 
of  the  British  from  the  time  that  the  fur-trader, 
and  explorer,  Sir  Alexander  McKenzie,  had 
shown  that  there  was  no  river  and  harbor  suit- 
able to  commerce  and  settlement  north  of  that 
stream.  They  had  openly  proposed  it  in  negoti- 
ations :  they  had  even  gone  so  far  as  to  tell  our 
commissioners  of  1818,  that  no  treaty  of  boun- 
daries could  be  made  unless  that  river  became 
the  line,  and  its  waters  and  the  harbor  at  the 
mouth  made  common  to  both  nations — a  decla- 
ration which  should  have  utterly  forbid  the  idea 
of  a  joint  occupation,  as  such  occupation  was  ad- 
mitting an  equality  of  title  and  laying  a  founda- 
tion for  a  division  of  the  territory.  This  cherish- 
ed idea  of  dividing  by  the  river  had  pervaded 
every  British  negotiation  since  1818.  It  was  no 
secret:  the  British  begged  it:  we  refused  it. 
Lord  Ashburton,  there  is  reason  to  know, 
brought  out  the  same  proposition.  In  his  first 
diplomatic  note  he  stated  that  he  came  pre- 
pared to  settle  all  the  questions  of  difference 
between  the  two  countries;  and  this  affair  of 
the  Columbia  was  too  large,  and  of  too  long 
standing,  and  of  too  much  previous  negotiation 
to  have  been  overlooked.  It  was  not  over- 
looked. The  President  says  that  there  were 
conferences  about  it,  qualified  as  informal :  which 
is  evidence  there  would  have  been  formal  negoti- 
ation if  the  informal  had  promised  success.  The 
informal  did  not  so  promise;  and  the  reason 
was,  that  the  two  senators  from  Missouri  being 
sounded  on  the  subject  of  a  conventional  divi- 
sional line,  repulsed  the  suggestion  with  an 
earnestness  which  put  an  end  to  it;  and  this 
knowledge  of  a  proposition  for  a  conventional 
line  induced  the  indignant  language  which  those 
two  senators  used  on  the  subject  in  all  their 
speeches.  If  they  had  yielded,  the  valley  of  the 
Columbia  would  have  been  divided ;  for  that  is 
the  way  the  whole  Ashburton  treaty  was  made. 
Senators  were  sounded  by  the  American  negoti- 
ator, each  on  the  point  which  lay  nearest  to 
him ;  and  whatever  they  agreed  to  was  put  into 
the  treaty.  Thus  the  cases  of  the  liberated 
slaves  at  Nassau  and  Bermuda  were  given 
up — the  leading  southern  senators  agreeing  to 
it  beforehand,  and  voting  for  the  treaty  af- 
terwards. The  writer  of  this  View  had  this 
fact  from  Mr.  Bagby,  who  refused  to  go  with 


ANNO  1843.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


477 


them,  and  voted  against  the  ratification  of  the 
treaty. 

"  This  pretension  to  the  Columbia  is  an  en- 
croachment upon  our  rights  and  possession.  It 
is  a  continuation  of  the  encroachments  which 
Great  Britain  systematically  practises  upon  us. 
Diplomacy  and  audacity  carry  her  through,  and 
gain  her  position  after  position  upon  our  bor- 
ders. It  is  in  vain  that  the  treaty  of  1783  gave 
us  a  safe  military  frontier.  We  have  been  los- 
ing it  ever  since  the  late  war,  and  are  still  losing 
it.  The  commission  under  the  treaty  of  Ghent 
took  from  us  the  islands  of  Grand  Menan,  Campo 
Bello,  and  Indian  Island,  on  the  coast  of  Maine, 
and  which  command  the  bays  of  Fundy  and 
Passamaquoddy.  Those  islands  belonged  to  us 
by  the  treaty  of  peace,  and  by  the  laws  of  God 
and  nature ;  for  they  are  on  our  coast,  and  within 
wading  distance  of  it.  Can  we  not  wade  to  these 
islands  ?  [Looking  at  senator  Williams,  who 
answered,  '  We  can  wade  to  one  of  them."]  Yes, 
wade  to  it !  And  yet  the  British  worked  them 
out  of  us ;  and  now  can  wade  to  us,  and  com- 
mand our  land,  as  well  as  our  water.  By  these 
acquisitions,  and  those  of  the  late  treaty,  the 
Bay  of  Fundy  will  become  a  great  naval  station 
to  overawe  and  scourge  our  whole  coast,  from 
Maine  to  Florida.  Under  the  same  commission 
of  the  Ghent  treaty,  she  got  from  us  the  island 
of  Boisblanc,  in  the  mouth  of  the  Detroit  River, 
and  which  commands  that  river  and  the  entrance 
into  Lake  Erie.  It  was  ours  under  the  treaty 
of  1783 ;  it  was  taken  from  us  by  diplomacy. 
And  now  an  American  ship  must  pass  between 
the  mouths  of  two  sets  of  British  batteries — one 
on  Boisblanc;  the  other  directly  opposite,  at 
Maiden ;  and  the  two  batteries  within  three  or 
four  hundred  yards  of  each  other.  Am  I  right 
as  to  the  distance  ?  [Looking  at  Senator  Wood- 
bridge,  who  answered,  '  The  distance  is  three 
hundred  yards.']  Then  comes  the  late  treaty, 
which  takes  from  us  (for  I  will  say  nothing  of 
what  the  award  gave  up  beyond  the  St.  John) 
the  mountain  frontier,  3,000  feet  in  height,  150 
miles  long,  approaching  Quebec  and  the  St. 
Lawrence,  and,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Feather- 
stonhaugh,  'commanding  all  their  communica- 
tions, and  commanding  and  overawing  Quebec 
itself.'  This  we  have  given  up ;  and,  in  doing 
so,  have  given  up  our  military  advantages  in 
that  quarter,  and  placed  them  in  the  hands  of 
Great  Britain,  to  be  used  against  ourselves  in 
future  wars.  The  boundary  between  the  Lake 
Superior  and  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  has  been 
altered  by  the  late  treaty,  and  subjected  us  to 
another  encroachment,  and  to  the  loss  of  a  mili- 
tary advantage,  which  Great  Britain  gains.  To 
say  nothing  about  Pigeon  River  as  being  or  not 
being  the  '  long  lake '  of  the  treaty  of  1783  ;  to 
say  nothing  of  that,  there  are  yet  two  routes 
commencing  in  that  stream — one  bearing  far  to 
the  south,  and  forming  the  large  island  called 
'  Hunter's.'  By  the  old  boundary,  the  line  went 


the  northern  route ;  by  the  new,  it  goes  to  tho 
south ;  giving  to  the  British  a  large  scope  of  our 
territory  (which  is  of  no  great  value),  but  giving 
them,  also,  the  exclusive  possession  of  the  old 
route,  the  best  route,  and  the  one  commanding 
the  Indians,  which  is  of  great  importance.  The 
encroachment  now  attempted  upon  the  Colum- 
bia, is  but  a  continuation  of  this  system  of  en- 
croachments which  is  kept  up  against  us,  and 
which,  until  1818,  labored  even  to  get  the  navi- 
gation of  the  Mississippi,  by  laboring  to  make 
the  line  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  reach  its 
head  spring.  If  Great  Britain  had  succeeded  in 
getting  this  line  to  touch  the  Mississippi,  she 
was  then  to  claim  the  navigation  of  the  river, 
under  the  law  of  nations,  contrary  to  her  doctrine 
in  the  case  of  the  people  of  Maine  and  the  river 
St.  John.  The  line  of  the  49th  parallel  of  north 
latitude  is  another  instance  of  her  encroaching 
policy ;  it  has  been  mutilated  by  the  persever- 
ing efforts  of  British  diplomacy ;  and  the  break- 
ing of  that  line  was  immediately  followed  by 
the  most  daring  of  all  her  encroachments — that 
of  the  Columbia  River." 

The  strength  of  the  bill  was  tested  by  a 
motion  to  strike  out  the  land-donation  clause, 
which  failed  by  a  vote  of  24  to  22.  The  bill 
was  then  passed  by  the  same  vote — the  yeas 
and  nays  being : 

"Yeas. — Messrs.  Allen,  Benton,  Buchanan, 
Clayton,  Fulton,  Henderson,  King,  Linn,  Mc- 
Roberts,  Magnum,  Merrick,  Phelps,  Sevier, 
Smith,  of  Connecticut,  Smith  of  Indiana,  Stur- 
geon, Tappan,  Walker,  White,  Wilcox,  Wil- 
liams, Woodbury,  Wright,  Young." 

"Nays. — Messrs.  Archer,  Bagby,  Barrow, 
Bates,  Bayard,  Berrien,  Calhoun,  Choate,  Con- 
rad, Crafts,  Dayton,  Evans,  Graham,  Hunting- 
ton, McDuffie,  Miller.  Porter,  Rives,  Simmons, 
Sprague,  Tallmadge,  Woodbridge." 

The  bill  went  to  the  House,  where  it  remained 
unacted  upon  during  the  session ;  but  the  effect 
intended  by  it  was  fully  produced.  The  vote 
of  the  Senate  was  sufficient  encouragement  to  the 
enterprising  people  of  the  West.  Emigration 
increased.  An  American  settlement  grew  up  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Columbia.  Conventional  agree- 
ments among  themselves  answered  the  purpose 
of  laws.  A  colony  was  planted— had  planted 
itself— and  did  not  intend  to  retire  from  its 
position— and  did  not.  It  remained  and  grew  ; 
and  that  colony  of  self-impulsion,  without  the 
aid  of  government,  and  in  spite  of  all  its  blun- 
ders, saved  the  Territory  of  Oregon  to  the 
United  States  :  one  of  the  many  events  which 
show  how  little  the  wisdom  of  government  has 


478 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


to  do  with  great  events  which  fix  the  fate  of 
countries. 

Connected  with  this  emigration,  and  auxiliary 
to  it,  was  the  first  expedition  of  Lieutenant 
Fremont  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  under- 
taken and  completed  in  the  summer  of  1842 — 
upon  its  outside  view  the  conception  of  the 
government,  but  in  fact  conceived  without  its 
knowledge,  and  executed  upon  solicited  orders, 
of  which  the  design  -was  unknown.  Lieutenant 
Fremont  was  a  young  officer,  appointed  in  the 
topographical  corps  from  the  class  of  citizens 
by  President  Jackson  upon  the  recommendation 
of  Mr.  Poinsett,  Secretary  at  War.  He  did  not 
enter  the  army  through  the  gate  of  West  Point, 
and  was  considered  an  intrusive  officer  by  the 
graduates  of  that  institution.  Having,  before 
his  appointment,  assisted  for  two  years  the 
learned  astronomer,  Mr.  Nicollet,  in  his  great 
survey  of  the  country  between  the  Missouri 
and  Mississippi,  his  mind  was  trained  to  such 
labor ;  and  instead  of  hunting  comfortable 
berths  about  the  towns  and  villages,  he  solicited 
employment  in  the  vast  regions  beyond  the 
Mississippi.  Col.  Abert,  the  chief  of  the  corps, 
gave  him  an  order  to  go  to  the  frontier  beyond 
the  Mississippi.  That  order  did  not  come  up 
to  his  views.  After  receiving  it  he  carried  it 
back,  and  got  it  altered,  and  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains inserted  as  an  object  of  his  exploration, 
and  the  South  Pass  in  those  mountains  named 
as  a  particular  point  to  be  examined,  and  its 
position  fixed  by  him.  It  was  through  this 
Pass  that  the  Oregon  emigration  crossed  the 
mountains,  and  the  exploration  of  Lieutenant 
Fremont  had  the  double  effect  of  fixing  an 
important  point  in  the  line  of  the  emigrants' 
travel,  and  giving  them  encouragement  from  the 
apparent  interest  which  the  government  took 
in  their  enterprise.  At  the  same  time  the  gov- 
ernment, that  is,  the  executive  administration, 
knew  nothing  about  it.  The  design  was  con- 
ceived by  the  young  lieutenant :  the  order  for 
its  execution  was  obtained,  upon  solicitation, 
from  his  immediate  chief — importing,  of  course, 
to  be  done  by  his  order,  but  an  order  which  had 
its  conception  elsewhere. 


CHAPTER   CXIII. 

LIEUTENANT    FREMONTS     FIRST    EXPEDITION: 
SPEECH,  AND  MOTION  OF  SENATOR  LINN. 

A  communication  was  received  from  the  War 
Department,  in  answer  to  a  call  heretofore 
made  for  the  report  of  Lieutenant  Fremont's 
expedition  to  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Mr.  Linn 
moved  that  it  be  printed  for  the  use  of  the 
Senate  ;  and  also  that  one  thousand  extra  copies 
be  printed. 

"  In  support  of  his  motion,"  Mr.  L.  said,  u  that 
in  the  course  of  the  last  summer  a  very  interest- 
ing expedition  had  been  undertaken  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  ordered  by  Col.  Abert,  chief 
of  the  Topographical  Bureau,  with  the  sanction 
of  the  Secretary  at  War,  and  executed  by  Lieu- 
tenant Fremont  of  the  topographical  engineers. 
The  object  of  the  expedition  was  to  examine 
and  report  upon  the  rivers  and  country  between 
the  frontiers  of  Missouri  and  the  base  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains ;  and  especially  to  examine 
the  character,  and  ascertain  the  latitude  and 
longitude  of  the  South  Pass,  the  great  crossing 
place  to  these  mountains  on  the  way  to  the 
Oregon.  All  the  objects  of  the  expedition  have 
been  accomplished,  and  in  a  waj'  to  be  beneficial 
to  science,  and  instructive  to  the  general  reader, 
as  well  as  useful  to  the  government. 

"Supplied  with  the  best  astronomical  and 
barometrical  instruments,  well  qualified  to  use 
them,  and  accompanied  by  twenty-five  voya- 
geurs,  enlisted  for  the  purpose  at  St.  Louis,  and 
trained  to  all  the  hardships  and  dangers  of  the 
prairies  and  the  mountains,  Mr.  Fremont  left  the 
mouth  of  the  Kansas,  on  the  frontiers  of  Mis- 
souri, on  the  10th  of  June  ;  and,  in  the  almost 
incredibly  short  space  of  four  months  returned 
to  the  same  point,  without  an  accident  to  a 
man,  and  with  a  vast  mass  of  useful  observa- 
tions, and  many  hundred  specimens  in  botany 
and  geology. 

"  In  executing  his  instructions,  Mr.  Fremont 
proceeded  up  the  Kansas  River  far  enough  to 
ascertain  its  character,  and  then  crossed  over  to 
the  Great  Platte,  and  pursued  that  river  to  its 
source  in  the  mountains,  where  the  Sweet  Water 
(a  head  branch  of  the  Platte)  issues  from  the 
neighborhood  of  the  South  Pass.  He  reached 
the  Pass  on  the  8th  of  August,  and  describes  it 
as  a  wide  and  low  depression  of  the  mountains, 
where  the  ascent  is  as  easy  as  that  of  the  hill  on 
which  this  Capitol  stands,  and  where  a  plainly 
beaten  wagon  road  leads  to  the  Oregon  through 
the  valley  of  Lewis's  River,  a  fork  of  the  Co- 
lumbia. He  went  through  the  Pass,  and  saw 
the  head-waters  of  the  Colorado,  of  the  Gulf 
of  California  j  and,  leaving  the  valleys  to  indulge 
a  laudable  curiosity,  and  to  make  some  useful 


ANNO  ^43.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


479 


observations,  and  attended  by  four  of  his  men, 
he  climbed  the  loftiest  peak  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, until  then  untrodden  by  any  known  human 
being ;  and,  on  the  15th  of  August,  looked  down 
upon  ice  and  snow  some  thousand  feet  below, 
and  traced  in  the  distance  the  valleys  of  the 
rivers  which,  taking  their  rise  in  the  same  ele- 
vated ridge,  flow  in  opposite  directions  to  the 
Pacific  Ocean  and  to  the  Mississippi.  From 
that  ultimate  point  he  returned  by  the  valley  of 
the  Great  Platte,  following  the  stream  in  its 
whole  course,  and  solving  all  questions  in  rela- 
tion to  its  navigability,  and  the  character  of  the 
country  through  which  it  flows. 

"  Over  the  whole  course  of  this  extended 
route,  barometrical  observations  were  made  by 
Mr.  Fremont,  to  ascertain  elevations  both  of  the 
plains  and  of  the  mountains ;  astronomical  ob- 
servations were  taken,  to  ascertain  latitudes  and 
longitudes ;  the  face  of  the  country  was  marked 
as  arable  or  sterile ;  the  facility  of  travelling, 
and  the  practicability  of  routes,  noted ;  the  grand 
features  of  nature  described,  and  some  presented 
in  drawings  ;  military  positions  indicated  ;  and 
a  large  contribution  to  geology  and  botany  was 
made  in  the  varieties  of  plants,  flowers,  shrubs, 
trees,  and  grasses,  and  rocks  and  earths,  which 
were  enumerated.  Drawings  of  some  grand  and 
striking  points,  and  a  map  of  the  whole  route, 
illustrate  the  report,  and  facilitate  the  under- 
standing of  its  details.  Eight  carts,  drawn  by 
two  mules  each,  accompanied  the  expedition ;  a 
fact  which  attests  the  facility  of  travelling  in  this 
vast  region.  Herds  of  buffaloes  furnished  sub- 
sistence to  the  men ;  a  *short,  nutritious  grass, 
sustained  the  horses  and  mules.  Two  boys 
(one  of  twelve  years  of  age,  the  other  of 
eighteen),  besides  the  enlisted  men,  accompanied 
the  expedition,  and  took  their  share  of  its  hard- 
ships ;  which  proves  that  boys,  as  well  as  men, 
are  able  to  traverse  the  country  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains. 

';  The  result  of  all  his  observations  Mr.  Fre- 
mont had  condensed  into  a  brief  report — enough 
to  make  a  document  of  ninety  or  one  hundred 
pages ;  and  believing  that  this  document  would 
be  of  general  interest  to  the  whole  country,  and 
beneficial  to  science,  as  well  as  useful  to  the 
government,  I  move  the  printing  of  the  extra 
number  which  has  been  named. 

"  In  making  this  motion,  and  in  bringing  this 
report  to  the  notice  of  the  Senate,  I  take  a  great 
pleasure  in  noticing  the  activity  and  importance 
of  the  Topographical  Bureau.  Under  its  skil- 
ful and  vigilant  head  [Colonel  Abert],  numerous 
valuable  and  incessant  surveys  are  made ;  and 
a  mass  of  information  collected  of  the  highest 
importance  to  the  country  generally,  as  well  as 
to  the  military  branch  of  the  public  service. 
This  report  proves  conclusively  that  the  country, 
for  several  hundred  miles  from  the  frontier  of 
Missouri,  is  exceedingly  beautiful  and  fertile  ; 
alternate  woodland  and  prairie,  and  certain  por- 
tions well  supplied  with  water.    It  also  proves 


that  the  valley  of  the  river  Platte  has  a  very 
rich  soil,  affording  great  facilities  for  emigrants 
to  the  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
"  The  printing  was  ordered." 


CHAPTER    CXIV. 

OREGON  COLONIZATION  ACT :  MR.  BENTON'S 
SPEECH. 

Mr.  Benton  said :  On  one  point  there  is  una- 
nimity on  this  floor ;  and  that  is,  as  to  the  title 
to  the  country  in  question.  All  agree  that  the 
title  is  in  the  United  States.  On  another  point 
there  is  division ;  and  that  is,  on  the  point  of 
giving  offence  to  England,  by  granting  the  land 
to  our  settlers  which  the  bill  proposes.  On  this 
point  we  divide.  Some  think  it  will  offend  her 
— some  think  it  will  not.  For  my  part,  I  think 
she  will  take  offence,  do  what  we  may  in  rela- 
tion to  this  territory.  She  wants  it  herself,  and 
means  to  quarrel  for  it,  if  she  does  not  fight  for 
it.  I  think  she  will  take  offence  at  our  bill, 
and  even  at  our  discussion  of  it.  The  nation 
that  could  revive  the  question  of  impressment 
in  1842 — which  could  direct  a  peace  mission  to 
revive  that  question — the  nation  that  can  insist 
upon  the  right  of  search,  and  which  was  ready 
to  go  to  war  with  us  for  what  gentlemen  call  a 
few  acres  of  barren  ground  in  a  frozen  region — 
the  nation  that  could  do  these  things,  and  which 
has  set  up  a  claim  to  our  territory  on  the  west- 
ern coast  of  our  own  continent,  must  be  ripe 
and  ready  to  take  offence  at  any  thing  that  we 
may  do.  I  grant  that  she  will  take  offence; 
but  that  is  not  the  question  with  me.  Has  she 
a  right  to  take  offence  ?  That  is  my  question  ! 
and  this  being  decided  in  the  negative,  I  neither 
fear  nor  calculate  consequences.  I  take  for  my 
rule  of  action  the  maxim  of  President  Jackson 
in  his  controversy  with  France— ask  nothing 
but  what  is  right,  submit  to  nothing  wrong, 
and  leave  the  consequences  to  God  and  the 
country.  That  maxim  brought  us  safely  and 
honorably  out  of  our  little  difficulty  with 
France,  notwithstanding  the  fears  which  so 
many  then  entertained ;  and  it  will  do  the  same 
with  Great  Britain,  in  spite  of  our  present  ap- 
prehensions. Courage  will  keep  her  off;  fear 
will  bring  her  upon  us.     The  assertion  of  our 


480 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


rights  will  command  her  respect ;  the  fear  to 
assert  them  will  bring  us  her  contempt.  The 
question,  then,  with  me,  is  the  question  of  right, 
and  not  of  fear !  Is  it  right  for  us  to  make 
these  grants  on  the  Columbia?  Has  Great 
Britain  just  cause  to  be  offended  at  it  ?  These 
are  my  questions  ;  and  these  being  answered  to 
my  satisfaction,  I  go  forward  with  the  grants, 
and  leave  the  consequences  to  follow  at  their 
pleasure. 

The  fear  of  Great  Britain  is  pressed  upon  us ; 
at  the  same  time  her  pacific  disposition  is  en- 
forced and  insisted  upon.     And  here  it  seems 
to  me,  that  gentlemen  fall  into  a  grievous  incon- 
sistency.    While  they  dwell  on  the  peaceable 
disposition  of  Great  Britain,  they  show  her 
ready  to  go  to  war  with  us  for  nothing,  or  even 
for  our  own  !     The  northeastern  boundary  is 
called  a  dispute  for  a  few  acres  of  barren  land 
in  a  frozen  region,  worth  nothing ;  yet  we  are 
called  upon  to  thank  God  Almighty  and  Daniel 
Webster  for  saving  us  from  a  war  about  these 
few  frozen  and  barren  acres.     Would  Great 
Britain  have  gone  to  war  with  us  for  these  few 
acres  ?  and  is  that  a  sign  of  her  pacific  temper  ? 
The  Columbia  is  admitted  on  all  hands  to  be 
ours ;    yet   gentlemen   fear  war    with    Great 
Britain  if  we  touch  it — worthless  as  it  is  in 
their  eyes.     Is  this  a  sign  of  peace  ?    Is  it  a 
pacific  disposition  to  go  to  war  with  us,  for 
what  is  our  own  ;  and  which  is  besides,  accord- 
ing to  their  opinion,  not  worth  a  straw  ?    Is 
this  peaceful  ?    If  it  is,  I  should  like  to  know 
what  is  hostile.     The  late  special  minister  is 
said  to  have  come  here,  bearing  the  olive  branch 
of  peace  in  his  hand.     Granting  that  the  olive 
branch  was  in  one  hand,  what  was  in  the  other  ? 
Was  not  the  war  question  of  impressment  in  the 
other  ?  also,  the  war  question  of  search,  on  the 
coast  of  Africa  ?  also,  the  war  question  of  the 
Columbia,  which  he  refused  to  include  in  the 
peace  treaty  ?    Were  not  these  three  war  ques- 
tions in  the  other  hand  ? — to  say  nothing  of  the 
Caroline  ;  for  which  he  refused  atonement ;  and 
the  Creole,  which  he  says  would  have  occa- 
sioned the  rejection  of  the  treaty,  if  named  in  it. 
All   these  war    questions  were  in  the  other 
hand  ;   and  the  special  mission,  having  accom- 
plished its  peace  object  in  getting  possession  of 
the  military  frontiers  of  Maine,  has  adjourned 
all  the  war  questions  to  London,  where  we  may 
follow  them  if  we  please.    But  there  is  one  of 


these  subjects  for  which  we  need  not  go  to  Lon- 
don— the  Creole,  and  its  kindred  cases.  The 
conference  of  Lord  Ashburton  with  the  aboli- 
tion committee  of  New  York  shows  that  that 
question  need  not  go  to  London — that  England 
means  to  maintain  all  her  grounds  on  the  sub- 
ject of  slaves,  and  that  any  treaty  inconsistent 
with  these  grounds  would  be  rejected.  This  is 
what  he  says : 

"  Lord  Ashburton  said  that,  when  the  dele- 
gation came  to  read  his  correspondence  with 
Mr.  Webster,  they  would  see  that  he  had  taken 
all  possible  care  to  prevent  any  injury  being 
done  to  the  people  of  color  ;  that,  if  he  had  been 
willing  to  introduce  an  article  including  cases 
similar  to  that  of  the  Creole,  his  government 
would  never  have  ratified  it,  as  they  will  adhere 
to  the  great  principles  they  have  so  long  avowed 
and  maintained;  and  that  the  friends  of  the 
slave  in  England  would  be  very  watchful  to  see 
that  no  wrong  practice  took  place  under  the 
tenth  article." 

This  is  what  his  lordship  said  in  New  York, 
and  which  shows  that  it  was  not  want  of  in- 
structions to  act  on  the  Creole  case,  as  alleged 
in  Mr.  Webster's  correspondence,  but  want  of 
inclination  in  the  British  government  to  settle 
the  case.     The  treaty  would  have  been  rejected, 
if  the  Creole  case  had  been  named  in  it ;  and  if 
we  had  had  a  protocol  showing  that  fact,  I  pre- 
sume the  important  note  of  Lord  Ashburton 
would  have  stood  for  as  little  in  the  eyes  of 
other  senators  as  it  did  in  mine,  and  that  the 
treaty  would  have  found  but  few  supporters. 
The  Creole  case  would  not  be  admitted  into  the 
treaty ;  and  what  was  put  in  it,  is  to  give  the 
friends  of  the  slaves  in  England  a  right  to 
watch  us,  and  to  correct  our  wrong  practices 
under  the  treaty !     This  is  what  the  protocol 
after  the  treaty  informs  us ;  and  if  we  had  had 
a  protocol  before  it,  it  is  probable  that  there 
would  have  been  no  occasion  for  this  conference 
with  the  New  York  abolitionists.     Be  that  as 
it  may,  the  peace  mission,  with  its  olive  branch 
in  one  hand,  brought  a  budget  of  war  questions 
in  the  other,  and  has  carried  them  all  back  to 
London,  to  become  the  subject  of  future  nego- 
tiations.   All  these  subjects  are  pregnant  with 
danger.     One  of  them  will  force  itself  upon  us 
in  five  years — the  search  question — which  we 
have  purchased  off  for  a  time ;  and  when  the 
purchase  is  out  we  must  purchase  again,  or  sub- 
mit to  be  searched,  or  resist  with  arms.    I  re- 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


481 


peat  it:  the  pacific  England  has  a  budget  of 
war  questions  now  in  reserve  for  us,  and  that 
we  cannot  escape  them  by  fearing  war.  Neither 
nations  nor  individuals  ever  escaped  danger  by 
fearing  it.  They  must  face  it,  and  defy  it.  An 
abandonment  of  a  right,  for  fear  of  bringing  on 
an  attack,  instead  of  keeping  it  off,  will  inevita- 
bly bring  on  the  outrage  that  is  dreaded. 

Other  objections  are  urged  to  this  bill,  to 
which  I  cannot  agree.  The  distance  is  objected 
to  it.  It  is  said  to  be  eighteen  thousand  miles 
by  water  (around  Cape  Horn),  and  above  three 
thousand  miles  by  land  and  water,  through  the 
continent.  Granted.  The  very  distance,  by 
Cape  Horn,  was  urged  by  me,  twenty  years 
ago,  as  a  reason  for  occupying  and  fortifying 
the  mouth  of  the  Columbia.  My  argument  was, 
that  we  had  merchant  ships  and  ships  of  war  in 
the  North  Pacific  Ocean ;  that  these  vessels 
were  twenty  thousand  miles  from  an  Atlantic 
port ;  that  a  port  on  the  western  coast  of 
America  was  indispensable  to  their  safety ;  and 
that  it  would  be  suicidal  in  us  to  abandon  the 
port  we  have  there  to  any  power,  and  especial- 
ly to  the  most  formidable  and  domineering  na- 
val power  which  the  world  ever  saw.  And  I 
instanced  the  case  of  Commodore  Porter,  his 
prizes  lost,  and  his  own  ship  eventually  cap- 
tured in  a  neutral  port,  because  we  had  no  port 
of  our  own  to  receive  and  shelter  him.  The 
twenty  thousand  miles  distance,  and  dangerous 
and  tempestuous  cape  to  be  doubled,  were  with 
me  arguments  in  favor  of  a  port  on  the  western 
coast  of  America,  and,  as  such,  urged  on  this 
floor  near  twenty  years  ago.  The  distance 
through  the  continent  is  also  objected  to.  It  is 
said  to  exceed  three  thousand  miles.  Granted. 
But  it  is  further  than  that  to  Africa,  where  we 
propose  to  build  up  a  colony  of  negroes  out  of 
our  recaptured  Africans.  Our  eighty-gun  fleet 
is  to  carry  her  intercepted  slaves  to  Liberia :  so 
says  the  correspondence  of  the  naval  captains 
(Bell  and  Paine)  with  Mr.  Webster.  Hunting 
in  couples  with  the  British,  at  an  expense  of 
money  (to  say  nothing  of  the  loss  of  lives  and 
ships)  of  six  hundred  thousand  dollars  per  an- 
num, to  recapture  kidnapped  negroes,  we  are  to 
carry  them  to  Liberia,  and  build  up  a  black 
colony  there,  four  thousand  miles  from  us, 
while  the  Columbia  is  too  far  off  for  a  white 
colony  !  The  English  are  to  carry  their  re- 
deemed captives  to  Jamaica,  and  make  appren- 
Vol.  II.— 31 


tices  of  them  for  life.  We  are  to  carry  ours  to 
Liberia ;  and  then  we  must  go  to  Liberia  to  pro- 
tect and  defend  them.  Liberia  is  four  thousand 
miles  distant,  and  not  objected  to  on  account  of 
the  distance ;  the  Columbia  is  not  so  far,  and 
distance  becomes  a  formidable  objection. 

The  expense  is  brought  forward  as  another 
objection,  and  repeated,  notwithstanding  the 
decisive  answer  it  has  received  from  my  col- 
league. He  has  shown  that  it  is  but  a  fraction 
of  the  expense  of  the  African  squadron ;  that 
this  squadron  is  the  one-twelfth  part  of  our 
whole  naval  establishment,  which  is  to  cost  us 
seven  millions  of  dollars  per  annum,  and  that 
the  annual  cost  of  the  squadron  must  be  near 
six  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  its  expense 
for  five  years  three  millions.  For  the  forts  in 
the  Oregon — forts  which  are  only  to  be  stock- 
ades and  block-houses,  for  security  against  the 
Indians — for  these  forts,  only  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  is  appropriated;  being  the 
sixth  part  of  the  annual  expense,  and  the  thir- 
tieth part  of  the  whole  expense,  of  the  African 
fleet.  Thus  the  objection  of  expense  becomes 
futile  and  ridiculous.  But  why  this  everlasting 
objection  of  expense  to  every  thing  western  ? 
Our  dragoons  dismounted,  because,  they  say, 
horses  are  too  expensive.  The  western  rivers 
unimproved,  on  account  of  the  expense.  No 
western  armory,  because  of  the  expense.  Yet 
hundreds  of  thousands,  and  millions,  for  the 
African  squadron ! 

Another  great  objection  to  the  bill  is  the  land 
clause — the  grants  of  land  to  the  settler,  his 
wife,  and  his  children.  Gentlemen  say  they 
will  vote  for  the  bill  if  that  clause  is  stricken 
out ;  and  I  say,  I  will  vote  against  it  if  that 
clause  is  stricken  out.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  whole 
strength  and  essence  of  the  bill.  Without 
these  grants,  the  bill  will  be  worth  nothing. 
Nobody  will  go  three  thousand  miles  to  settle 
a  new  country,  unless  he  gets  land  by  it.  The 
whole  power  of  the  bill  is  in  this  clause  ;  and  if 
it  is  stricken  out,  the  friends  of  the  bill  will 
give  it  up.  They  will  give  it  up  now,  and  wait 
for  the  next  Congress,  when  the  full  represen- 
tation of  the  people,  under  the  new  census,  will 
be  in  power,  and  when  a  more  auspicious  re- 
sult might  be  expected. 

Time  is  invoked,  as  the  agent  that  is  to  help 
us.  Gentlemen  object  to  the  present  time,  re- 
fer us  to  the  future,  and  beg  us  to  wait,  and 


482 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


rely  upon  time  and  negotiations  to  accom- 
plish all  our  wishes.  Alas  !  time  and  negotia- 
tion have  been  fatal  agents  to  us,  in  all  our  dis- 
cussions with  Great  Britain.  Time  has  been 
constantly  working  for  her,  and  against  us. 
She  now  has  the  exclusive  possession  of  the 
Columbia ;  and  all  she  wants  is  time,  to  ripen 
her  possession  into  title.  For  above  twenty 
years — from  the  time  of  Dr.  Floyd's  bill,  in 
1820,  down  to  the  present  moment — the  present 
time,  for  vindicating  our  rights  on  the  Colum- 
bia, has  been  constantly  objected  to ;  and  we 
were  bidden  to  wait.  Well,  we  have  waited : 
and  what  have  we  got  by  it  ?  Insult  and  de- 
fiance ! — a  declaration  from  the  British  minis- 
ters that  large  British  interests  have  grown  up 
on  the  Columbia  during  this  time,  which  they 
will  protect ! — and  a  flat  refusal  from  the  olive- 
branch  minister  to  include  this  question  among 
those  which  his  peaceful  mission  was  to  settle  ! 
No,  sir;  time  and  negotiation  have  been  bad 
agents  for  us,  in  our  controversies  with  Great 
Britain.  They  have  just  lost  us  the  military 
frontiers  of  Maine,  which  we  had  held  for  sixty 
years  ;  and  the  trading  frontier  of  the  North- 
west, which  we  had  held  for  the  same  time. 
Sixty  years'  possession,  and  eight  treaties,  se- 
cured these  ancient  and  valuable  boundaries : 
one  negotiation,  and  a  few  days  of  time,  have 
taken  them  from  us  !  And  so  it  may  be  again. 
The  Webster  treaty  of  1842  has  obliterated  the 
great  boundaries  of  1783 — placed  the  British, 
their  fur  company  and  their  Indians,  within  our 
ancient  limits  :  and  I,  for  one,  want  no  more 
treaties  from  the  hand  which  is  always  seen  on 
the  side  of  the  British.  I  go  now  for  vindicat- 
ing our  rights  on  the  Columbia ;  and,  as  the 
first  step  towards  it,  passing  this  bill,  and  mak- 
ing these  grants  of  land,  which  will  soon  place 
the  thirty  or  forty  thousand  rifles  beyond  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  which  will  be  our  effective 
negotiators. 


CHAPTER    CXV. 

NAYY  PAT  AND  EXPENSES:  PROPOSED  REDUC- 
TION: SPEECH  OF  MR.  MERIWETHER,  OF 
GEORGIA:  EXTRACTS. 

Mr.  Meriwether  said  "  that  it  was  from  no 
hostility  to  the  service  that  he  desired  to  reduce 
the  pay  of  the  navy.  It  had  been  increased  in 
1835  to  meet  the  increase  of  labor  elsewhere, 
&c. ;  and  a  decline  having  taken  place  there,  he 
thought  a  corresponding  decline  should  take 
place  in  the  price  of  labor  in  the  navy.  At  the 
last  session  of  Congress,  this  House  called  on 
the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  for  a  statement  of 
the  pay  allowed  each  officer  previous  to  the  act 
of  1835.  From  the  answer  to  that  resolution, 
Mr.  M.  derived  the  facts  which  he  should  state 
to  the  House.  He  was  desirous  of  getting  the 
exact  amount  received  by  each  grade  of  officers, 
to  show  the  precise  increase  by  the  act  of  1835. 
Aided  by  that  report,  the  Biennial  Register  of 
1822,  and  the  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
for  1822,  furnishing  the  estimates  for  the  '  full 
pay  and  full  rations '  of  each  grade  of  officers,  he 
was  enabled  to  present  the  entire  facts  accurately. 
Previous  to  that  time,  the  classification  of  offi- 
cers was  different  from  what  it  has  been  since  ; 
but,  as  far  as  like  services  have  been  rendered 
under  each  classification,  the  comparative  pay  is 
presented  under  each.  Previous  to  1835,  the  pay 
of  the  '  commanding  officer  of  the  navy '  was  $100 
per  month,  and  sixteen  rations  per  day,  valued  at 
25  cents  each  ration ;  which  amounted, '  full  pay 
and  full  rations,'  to  $2,660  per  annum.  The 
same  officer  as  senior  captain  in  service  receives 
now  $4,500  ;  while  '  on  leave,'  he  receives 
$3,500  per  annum.  Before  1835,  a  'captain 
commanding  a  squadron '  received  the  same  pay 
as  the  commanding  officer  of  the  navy,  and  the 
same  rations;  amounting,  in  all,  to  $2,660; 
that  same  officer,  exercising  the  same  command, 
receives  now  $4,000.  Before  1835,  a  captain 
commanding  a  vessel  of  32  guns  and  upwards, 
received  $100  per  month  and  eight  rations  per 
day — being  a  total  of  $1,930  per  annum ;  a  cap- 
tain commanding  a  vessel  of  20  and  under  32  guns, 
received  $75  per  month  and  six  rations  per  day 
— amounting  to  $1,447  50  per  annum.  Since 
1835,  these  same  captains,  when  performing 
these  same  duties,  receive  $3,500 ;  and  when  at 
home,  by  their  firesides,  'waiting  orders,'  re- 
ceive $2,500  per  annum.  Before  1835,  a  '  mas- 
ter commanding '  received  $60  per  month  and 
five  rations  per  day — amounting  to  $1,176  per 
annum.  Since  that  time,  the  same  officer,  in 
sea  service,  receives  $2,500  per  annum ;  at  other 
duty,  $2,100  per  annum ;  and  '  waiting  orders,' 
$1,800  per  annum.  Before  1835,  a  'lieutenant 
commanding '  received  $50  per  month  and  four 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


483 


rations  per  day ;  which  amounted  to  $965  per 
annum.  Since  that  time,  the  same  officer  re- 
ceives, for  similar  services,  $1,800  per  annum. 
Before  1835,  a  lieutenant  on  other  duty  received 
$40  per  month,  and  three  rations  per  day — 
amounting  to  $761  per  annum.  Since  that  time, 
for  the  same  services,  that  same  officer  has  re- 
ceived $1,500  per  annum;  and  when  'waiting 
orders,'  $1,200  per  annum.  Before  1835,  a  mid- 
shipman received  $19  per  month  and  one  ration 
per  day — making  $319  25  per  annum.  Since 
that  time,  a  passed  mipshipman  on  duty  received 
$750  per  annum ;  if  '  waiting  orders,'  $600  ;  a 
midshipman  received,  in  sea  service,  $400 ;  on 
other  duty,  $350;  and  'waiting  orders,'  $300 
per  annnm.  Surgeons,  before  1835,  received 
$50  per  month  and  two  rations  per  day — 
amounting  to  $787  50 ;  they  now  receive  from 
$1,000  to  $2,700  per  annum.  Before  1835,  a 
'  schoolmaster '  received  $25  per  month  and  two 
rations  per  day ;  now,  under  the  name  of  a  pro- 
fessor, he  receives  $1,200  per  annum. 

"  Before  1835.  a  carpenter,  boatswain,  and  gun- 
ner received  $20  per  month  and  two  rations  per 
day — making  $427  50  each  per  annum ;  they 
now  receive,  if  employed  on  a  ship-of-the-line, 
$750,  on  a  frigate  $600,  on  other  duty  $500, 
and  '  waiting  orders '  $360  per  annum.  A  simi- 
lar increase  has  been  made  in  the  pay  of  all  other 
officers.  The  pay  of  seamen  has  not  been  en- 
larged, and  it  is  proposed  to  leave  it  as  it  is.  In 
several  instances,  an  officer  idle, '  waiting  orders,' 
receives  more  pay  now  than  one  of  similar  grade 
received  during  the  late  war,  when  he  exposed 
his  life  in  battle  in  defence  of  his  country.  At 
the  navy-yards  the  pay  of  officers  was  greater 
than  at  sea.  Before  1835,  a  captain  command- 
ant received  for  pay,  rations,  candles,  and  ser- 
vants' hire,  $3,013  per  annum,  besides  fuel ;  the 
same  officer,  for  the  same  services,  receives  now 
$3,500  per  annum.  A  master  commandant  re- 
ceived $1,408  per  annum,  with  fuel ;  the  same 
officer  now  receives  $2,100  per  annum.  A  lieu- 
tenant received  $877,  with  fuel ;  the  same  officer 
receives  now  $1,500.  At  naval  stations,  before 
the  act  of  1835,  a  captain  received  $2,660  per 
annum  ;  he  now  receives  $3,500  per  annum.  A 
lieutenant  received  $761  per  annum,  and  he 
now  receives  $1,500  per  annum.  Before  and 
since  the  act  of  1835,  quarters  were  furnished 
the  officers  at  navy  yards  and  stations.  Before 
that  time,  the  pay  and  emoluments  were  esti- 
mated for  in  dollars  and  cents,  and  appropriated 
for  as  pay ;  and  the  foregoing  statements  are 
taken  from  the  actual  '  estimates  '  of  the  navy 
department,  and,  as  such,  show  the  whole  pay 
and  emoluments  received  by  each  officer. 

"  The  effect  of  this  increase  of  pay  has  been  re- 
alized prejudicially  in  more  ways  than  one.  In 
the  year  1824,  there  were  afloat  in  the  navy,  404 
guns ;  in  1843,  946  guns.  The  cost  of  the  item 
of  pay  alone  for  each  gun,  then,  was  $2,360 ; 
now  the  cost  is  $3,500. 

"  The  naval  service  has  become,  to  a  great  ex- 


tent, one  of  ease  and  of  idleness.  The  high  pay 
has  rendered  its  offices  mostly  sinecures ;  hence 
the  great  effort  to  increase  the  number  of  offi- 
cers. Every  argument  has  been  used,  every  en- 
treaty resorted  to,  to  augment  that  corps.  We 
have  seen  the  effect  of  this,  that  in  one  year 
(1841)  there  were  added  13  captains,  41  com- 
manders, 42  lieutenants,  and  163  midshipmen, 
without  any  possibly  conceivable  cause  for  the 
increase ;  and  when,  at  the  same  time,  these  ap- 
pointments were  made,  there  were  20  captains 
'  waiting  orders,'  and  6  '  on  leave ; '  26  com- 
manders 'waiting  orders,'  and  3  'on  leave;' 
103  lieutenants  '  on  leave  and  waiting  orders,' 
and  16  midshipmen  'on  leave  and  waiting  or- 
ders.' The  pay  of  officers  'waiting  orders' 
amounted,  during  the  year  1841,  to  $261,000; 
and  now  the  amount  required  for  the  pay  of  that 
same  idle  corps,  increased  by  a  useless  and  un- 
necessary increase  of  the  navy,  is  $395,000 ! 
It  is  a  fact  worthy  of  notice,  that,  under  the  old 
pay  in  1824,  there  were  28  captains,  4  of  whom 
were  '  waiting  orders,'  of  30  commanders,  only 
7  were  '  waiting  orders.'  Under  the  new  pay, 
in  1843,  there  are  68  captains,  of  whom  38  are 
'  waiting  orders ; '  97  commanders,  of  whom  57 
are  '  waiting  orders  and  on  leave.'  The  item  of 
pay,  in  1841,  amounted  to  $2,335,000,  and  we 
are  asked  to  appropriate  for  the  next  twelve 
months  $3,333,139.  To  give  employment  to  as 
many  officers  as  possible,  it  is  proposed  to  ex- 
tend greatly  our  naval  force;  increasing  the 
number  of  our  vessels  in  commission  largely, 
and  upon  every  station,  notwithstanding  our 
commerce  is  reduced,  and  we  are  at  peace  with 
all  the  world,  and  have  actually  purchased  our 
peace  from  the  only  nation  from  which  we  ap- 
prehended difficulty. 

"  It  was  stated  somewhere,  in  some  of  the  re- 
ports, that  the  appropriation  necessary  to  defray 
the  expenses  of  courts-martial  in  the  navy 
would  be,  this  year  $50,000.  This  was  a  very 
large  amount,  when  contrasted  with  the  service. 
The  disorderly  conduct  of  the  navy  was  noto- 
rious— no  one  could  defend  it.  The  country 
was  losing  confidence  in  it  daily,  and  becoming 
more  unwilling  to  bear  the  burdens  of  taxation 
to  foster  or  sustain  it.  A  few  years  since,  its 
expenditures  did  not  exceed  four  millions  and  a 
half:  they  are  now  up  to  near  eight  millions  of 
dollars.  Its  expense  is  greater  now  than  during 
the  late  war  with  England.  Notwithstanding 
the  unequivocal  declarations  of  Congress,  at  the 
last  session,  against  the  increase  of  the  navy, 
and  in  favor  of  its  reduction,  the  Secretary 
passes  all  unheeded,  and  moves  on  in  his  bold 
career  of  folly  and  extravagance,  without  abid- 
ing for  a  moment  any  will  but  his  own. 
Nothing  more  can  be  hoped  for,  so  long  as  the 
navy  has  such  a  host  of  backers,  urging  its  in- 
crease and  extravagance— from  motives  of  per- 
sonal interest  too  often.  The  axe  should  be  laid 
at  once  to  the  root  of  the  evil :  cut  down  the 
pay,  and  it  will  not  then  be  sought  after  so 


484 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


much  as  a  convenient  resort  for  idlers,  who  seek 
the  offices  for  pay,  expecting  and  intending  that 
but  little  service  shall  be  rendered  in  return,  be- 
cause but  very  little  is  needed.  The  salaries  are 
far  beyond  any  compensation  paid  to  any  other 
officer  of  government,  either  State  or  Federal, 
for  corresponding  services.  A  lieutenant  re- 
ceives higher  pay  than  a  very  large  majority  of 
the  judges  of  the  highest  judicatories  known  to 
the  States;  a  commander  far  surpasses  them, 
and  equals  the  salaries  of  a  majority  of  the  Gov- 
ernors of  the  States.  Remove  the  temptation 
which  high  pay  and  no  labor  present,  and  you 
will  obviate  the  evil.  Put  down  the  salaries  to 
where  they  were  before  the  year  1835,  and  you 
will  have  no  greater  effort  after  its  offices  than 
you  had  before.  So  long  as  the  salaries  are 
higher  than  similar  talents  can  command  in 
civil  life,  so  long  will  applicants  flock  to  the 
navy  for  admission,  and  the  constant  tendency 
will  be  to  increase  its  expenses.  The  policy  of 
our  government  is  to  keep  a  very  small  army 
and  navy  during  time  of  peace,  and  to  insure 
light  taxes,  and  to  induce  the  preponderance  of 
the  civil  over  the  military  authorities.  In  time 
of  peace  we  shall  meet  with  no  difficulty  in  sus- 
taining an  efficient  navy,  as  we  always  have 
done.  In  time  of  war,  patriotism  will  call  forth 
our  people  to  the  service.  Those  who  would 
not  heed  this  call  are  not  wanted ;  for  those 
who  fight  for  pay  will,  under  all  circumstances, 
fight  for  those  who  will  pay  the  best.  The 
navy  cannot  complain  of  this  proposed  reduc- 
tion ;  for  its  pay  was  increased  in  view  of  the 
increasing  value  of  labor  and  property  through- 
out the  whole  country.  No  other  pay  was 
increased ;  and  why  should  not  this  be  reduced  'I 
— not  the  whole  amount  actually  increased,  but 
only  a  small  portion  of  the  increase  ?  It  is  due 
to  the  country  ;  and  no  one  should  object.  We 
are  now  supporting  the  government  on  borrowed 
money.  The  revenues  will  not  be  sufficient  to 
support  it  hereafter ;  and  reduction  has  to  take 
place  sooner  or  later,  and  upon  some  one  or  all 
of  the  departments.  Upon  which  ought  it  to 
fall  more  properly  than  on  that  which  has  been 
defended  against  the  prejudices  resulting  from 
the  high  prices  which  have  recently  fallen  upon 
every  department  of  labor  and  property  ? 

"  By  the  adoption  of  the  amendment  proposed, 
there  will  be  a  permanent  and  annual  saving  of 
about  $400,000  in  the  single  item  of  pay.  And 
from  the  embarrassed  condition  of  the  treasury, 
so  large  a  sum  of  money  might,  with  the  greatest 
propriety,  be  saved ;  more  especially  since  by 
the  late  British  treaty  concluded  at  this  place, 
an  annual  increase  is  to  be  made  to  the  navy 
expenditures  of  some  $600,000,  as  it  is  stated,  to 
keep  a  useless  squadron  on  the  coast  of  Africa. 
The  estimates  for  pay  for  the  present  year 
greatly  exceed  those  of  the  last  year.  We  ap- 
propriated for  the  last  year's  service  for  pay, 
&c,  $2,335,000.  The  sum  asked  for  the  same 
service  this  year  is  $2,953,139.    Besides,  there 


is  the  sum  of  $380,000  asked  for  clothing — a 
new  appropriation,  never  asked  for  before.  The 
clothing  for  seamen  being  paid  for  by  them- 
selves, so  much  of  the  item  of  pay  as  was  neces- 
sary had  hitherto  been  expended  in  clothing  for 
them,  which  was  received  by  them  in  lieu  of 
money.  Now  a  separate  fund  is  asked,  which 
is  to  be  used  as  pay,  and  will  increase  that  item  so 
much,  making  a  sum-total  of  $3,333,139 ;  which 
is  an  excess  of  $998,139  over  and  above  that 
appropriated  for  the  like  purpose  last  session. 

"  The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  says  that  his 
plan  of  keeping  the  ships  sailing  over  the  ocean 
(where  possibly  no  vessel  can  or  will  see  them,  and 
where  the  people  with  whom  we  trade  can  never 
learn  any  thing  of  our  greatness,  on  account  of 
the  absence  of  our  ships  from  their  ports,  being 
kept  constantly  sailing  from  station  to  station) 
will  'require  larger  squadrons  than  we  have 
heretofore  employed.'  He  then  states  that  his 
estimates  are  prepared  for  squadrons  upon  this 
large  and  expensive  scale.  '  This,'  he  says,  '  it  is 
my  duty  to  do,  submitting  to  Congress  to  de- 
termine whether,  under  the  circumstances,  so 
large  a  force  can  properly  be  put  in  commission 
or  not.  If  the  condition  of  the  treasury  will 
warrant  it  (of  which  they  are  the  judges),  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  recommending  the  largest 
force  estimated  for.'  It  is  well  known  that  the 
condition  of  the  treasury  will  not  warrant  this 
force.  We  must  fall  back  upon  the  force  of  last 
year,  as  the  ultimatum  that  can  be  sustained. 
Our  appropriations  for  pay  last  year  were 
$1,000,000  less  than  those  now  asked  for.  This 
can  be  cut  off  without  prejudice  to  the  service  ; 
and  with  the  reduction  proposed  in  the  salaries, 
$1,400,000  can  be  saved  from  waste,  and  applied 
to  sustain  a  depleted  treasury.  Increase  is  now 
unreasonable  and  impracticable. 

"  A  portion  of  the  home  squadron,  authorized 
in  September,  1841,  has  not  yet  gone  to  sea  for 
the  want  of  seamen.  While  our  commerce  is  fail- 
ing, and  our  sailors  are  idle,  they  will  not  enter 
the  service.  The  flag-ship  of  that  squadron  is 
yet  in  port  without  her  complement  of  men. 
Why  then  only  increase  officers  and  build  ships, 
when  you  cannot  get  men  to  man  them  ? 

"From  1829  to  1841,  the  sums  paid  to 
officers  'waiting  orders,'  were,  1829,  $197,684  ; 
in  1830,  $156,025;  in  1831,  $231,378  ;  in  1832, 
$204,290 ;  in  1833, $205,233 ;  in  1834,  $202,914; 
in  1835,  $219,036  ;  in  1836,  $212,362;  in  1837, 
$250,930;  in  1838,  $297,000;  in  1839,  $265,043 ; 
in  1840,  $265,000;  in  1841,  $252,856. 

"The  honorable  member  also  showed  from 
the  report  of  the  chief  of  the  medical  depart- 
ment, that,  out  of  the  appropriation  for  medi- 
cine there  had  been  purchased  in  one  year  31 
blue  cloth  frock  coats  with  navy  buttons  and  a 
silver  star  on  them,  31  pairs  of  blue  cassimere  pan- 
taloons, and  31  blue  cassimere  vests  with  navy 
buttons — all  for  pensioners.  He  also  shows 
that  under  the  head  of  medicine  there  had  been 
purchased  out  of  the  same  fund,  whiskey,  coal, 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


485 


clothing,  spirits,  harness,  stationery,  hay,  corn, 
oats,  stoves,  beef,  mutton,  fish,  bread,  charcoal, 
&c,  to  the  amount  of  some  $4,000;  and,  in  gene- 
ral, that  purchases  of  all  articles  were  generally 
made  from  particular  persons,  and  double  prices 
paid.  Many  examples  of  this  were  given,  among 
them  the  purchase  of  certain  surgical  instru- 
ments in  Philadelphia  from  the  favored  sellers 
for  the  sum  of  $1,224  and  54  cents,  which  it 
was  proved  had  been  purchased  by  them  from 
the  maker,  in  the  same  city,  for  $669  and  81 
cents  :  and  in  the  same  proportion  in  the  pur- 
chases generally." 


CHAPTER    CXVI. 

EULOGY  ON  SENATOR  LINN:  SPEECHES  OF  MR. 
BENTON  AND  MR.  CRITTENDEN. 

In  Senate:    Tuesday,  December  12,  1843. — 

The  death  of  Senator  Linn. 

The  journal  having  been  read,  Mr.  Benton 
rose  and  said : 

"  Mr.  President  : — I  rise  to  make  to  the 
Senate  the  formal  communication  of  an  event 
which  has  occurred  during  the  recess,  and  has 
been  heard  by  all  with  the  deepest  regret.  My 
colleague  and  friend,  the  late  Senator  Linn,  de- 
parted this  life  on  Tuesday,  the  3d  day  of  Octo- 
ber last,  at  the  early  age  of  forty-eight  years, 
and  without  the  warnings  or  the  sufferings 
which  usually  precede  our  departure  from  this 
world.  He  had  laid  him  down  to  sleep,  and 
awoke  no  more.  It  was  to  him  the  sleep  of 
death  !  and  the  only  drop  of  consolation  in  this 
sudden  and  calamitous  visitation  was,  that  it 
took  place  in  his  own  house,  and  that  his  un- 
conscious remains  were  immediately  surround- 
ed by  his  family  and  friends,  and  received  all 
the  care  and  aid  which  love  and  skill  could  give. 

"  I  discharge  a  mournful  duty,  Mr.  President, 
in  bringing  this  deplorable  event  to  the  formal 
notice  of  the  Senate ;  in  offering  the  feeble 
tribute  of  my  applause  to  the  many  virtues  of 
my  deceased  colleague,  and  in  asking  for  his 
memory  the  last  honors  which  the  respect  and 
affection  of  the  Senate  bestow  upon  the  name 
of  a  deceased  brother. 

"  Lewis  Field  Linn,  the  subject  of  this  an- 
nunciation, was  born  in  the  State  of  Kentucky, 
in  the  year  1795,  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of 
Louisville.  His  grandfather  was  Colonel  Wil- 
liam Linn,  one  of  the  favorite  officers  of  General 
George  Rodgers  Clark,  and  well  known  for  his 
courage  and  enterprise  in  the  early  settlement 
of  the  Great  West.  At  the  age  of  eleven  he 
had  fought  in  the  ranks  of  men,  in  the  defence 
of  a  station  in  western  Pennsylvania,  and  was 


seen  to  deliver  a  deliberate  and  effective  fire. 
He  was  one  of  the  first  to  navigate  the  Ohio 
and  Mississippi  from  Pittsburg  to  New  Or- 
leans, and  back  again — a  daring  achievement, 
which  himself  and  some  others  accomplished 
for  the  public  service,  and  amidst  every  species 
of  danger,  in  the  year  1776.  He  was  killed 
by  the  Indians  at  an  early  period ;  leaving  a 
family  of  young  children,  of  whom  the  worthy 
Colonel  William  Pope  (father  of  Governor  Pope, 
and  head  of  the  numerous  and  respectable  fami- 
ly of  that  name  in  the  West)  became  the  guar- 
dian. The  father  of  Senator  Linn  was  among 
these  children;  and,  at  an  early  age,  skating 
upon  the  ice  near  Louisville,  with  three  other 
boys,  he  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  Shawanee 
Indians,  carried  off,  and  detained  captive  for 
three  years,  when  all  four  made  their  escape 
and  returned  home,  by  killing  their  guard,  tra- 
versing some  hundred  miles  of  wilderness,  and 
swimming  the  Ohio  River.  The  mother  of 
Senator  Linn  was  a  Pennsylvanian  by  birth ; 
her  maiden  name  Hunter ;  born  at  Carlisle ; 
and  also  had  heroic  blood  in  her  veins.  Tradi- 
tion, if  not  history,  preserves  the  recollection 
of  her  courage  and  conduct  at  Fort  Jefferson,  at 
the  Iron  Banks,  in  1781,  when  the  Indians  at- 
tacked and  were  repulsed  from  that  post.  Wo- 
men and  boys  were  men  in  those  days. 

"The  father  of  Senator  Linn  died  young, 
leaving  this  son  but  eleven  years  of  age.  The 
cares  of  an  elder  brother*  supplied  (as  far  as 
such  a  loss  could  be  supplied)  the  loss  of  a  fa- 
ther ;  and  under  his  auspices  the  education  of 
the  orphan  was  conducted.  He  was  intended 
for  the  medical  profession,  and  received  his  edu- 
cation, scholastic  and  professional,  in  the  State 
of  his  nativity.  At  an  early  age  he  was  quali- 
fied for  the  practice  of  medicine,  and  commenced 
it  in  the  then  territory,  now  State,  of  Missouri ; 
and  was  immediately  amongst  the  foremost  of 
his  profession.  Intuitive  sagacity  supplied  in 
him  the  place  of  long  experience  ;  and  bound- 
less benevolence  conciliated  universal  esteem. 
To  all  his  patients  he  was  the  same ;  flying  with 
alacrity  to  every  call,  attending  upon  the  poor 
and  humble  as  zealously  as  on  the  rich  and 
powerful,  on  the  stranger  as  readily  as  on  the 
neighbor,  discharging  to  all  the  duties  of  nurse 
and  friend  as  well  as  of  physician,  and  wholly 
regardless  of  his  own  interest,  or  even  of  his 
own  health,  in  his  zeal  to  serve  and  to  save 
others. 

"The  highest  professional  honors  and  rewards 
were  before  him.  Though  commencing  on  a 
provincial  theatre,  there  was  not  a  capital  in 
Europe  or  America  in  which  he  would  not  have 
attained  the  front  rank  in  physic  or  surgery. 
But  his  fellow-citizens  perceived  in  his  varied 
abilities,  capacity  and  aptitude  for  service  in  a 
different  walk.  He  was  called  into  the  politi- 
cal field  by  an  election  to  the  Senate  of  his 
adopted  State.     Thence  he  was  called  to  the 

*  General  now  Senator  Henry  Dodge. 


486 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


performance  of  judicial  duties,  by  a  federal  ap- 
pointment to  investigate  land  titles.  Thence 
he  was  called  to  the  high  station  of  senator  in 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States — first  by  an 
executive  appointment,  then  by  three  successive 
almost  unanimous  elections.  The  last  of  those 
elections  he  received  but  one  year  ago,  and  had 
not  commenced  his  duties  under  it — had  not 
sworn  in  under  the  certificate  which  attested  it 
— when  a  sudden  and  premature  death  put  an 
end  to  his  earthly  career.  He  entered  this  body 
in  the  year  1833  ;  death  dissolved  his  connec- 
tion with  it  in  1843.  For  ten  years  he  was  a 
beloved  and  distinguished  member  of  this  body ; 
and  surely  a  nobler  or  a  finer  character  never 
adorned  the  chamber  of  the  American  Senate. 

"  He  was  my  friend  ;  but  I  speak  not  the  lan- 
guage of  friendship  when  I  speak  his  praise.  A 
debt  of  justice  is  all  that  I  can  attempt  to  dis- 
charge :  an  imperfect  copy  of  the  true  man  is 
all  that  I  can  attempt  to  paint. 

"  A  sagacious  head,  and  a  feeling  heart,  were 
the  great  characteristics  of  Dr.  Linn.  He  had 
a  judgment  which  penetrated  both  men  and 
things,  and  gave  him  near  and  clear  views  of  far 
distant  events.  He  saw  at  once  the  bearing — 
the  remote  bearing  of  great  measures,  either  for 
good  or  for  evil ;  and  brought  instantly  to  their 
support,  or  opposition,  the  logic  of  a  prompt  and 
natural  eloquence,  more  beautiful  in  its  delivery, 
and  more  effective  in  its  application,  than  any 
that  art  can  bestow.  He  had  great  fertility  of 
mind,  and  was  himself  the  author  and  mover  of 
many  great  measures — some  for  the  benefit  of 
the  whole  Union — some  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Great  West — some  for  the  benefit  of  his  own 
State — many  for  the  benefit  of  private  indi- 
viduals. The  pages  of  our  legislative  history 
will  bear  the  evidences  of  these  meritorious  la- 
bors to  a  remote  and  grateful  posterity. 

"  Brilliant  as  were  the  qualities  of  his  head, 
the  qualities  of  his  heart  still  eclipse  them.  It 
is  to  the  heart  we  look  for  the  character  of  the 
man ;  and  what  a  heart  had  Lewis  Linn  !  The 
kindest,  the  gentlest,  the  most  feeling,  and  the 
most  generous  that  ever  beat  in  the  bosom  of 
bearded  man  !  And  yet,  when  the  occasion  re- 
quired it,  the  bravest  and  the  most  daring  also. 
He  never  beheld  a  case  of  human  woe  without 
melting  before  it ;  he  never  encountered  an  ap- 
parition of  earthly  danger  without  giving  it  de- 
fiance. Where  is  the  friend,  or  even  the  stran- 
ger, in  danger,  or  distress,  to  whose  succor  he 
did  not  fly,  and  whose  sorrowful  or  perilous 
case  he  did  not  make  his  own  ?  When — where 
— was  he  ever  called  upon  for  a  service,  or  a 
sacrifice,  and  rendered  not,  upon  the  instant,  the 
one  or  the  other,  as  the  occasion  required  ? 

"  The  senatorial  service  of  this  rare  man  fell 
upon  trying  times — high  party  times — when  the 
collisions  of  party  too  often  embittered  the  ar- 
dent feelings  of  generous  natures  ;  but  who  ever 
knew  bitterness,  or  party  animosities  in  him  ? 
He  was,  indeed,  a  party  man — as  true  to  his 


party  as  to  his  friend  and  his  country ;  but, 
beyond  the  line  of  duty  and  of  principle — beyond 
the  debate  and  the  vote — he  knew  no  party,  and 
saw  no  opponent.  Who  among  us  all,  even  after 
the  fiercest  debate,  ever  met  him  without  meet- 
ing the  benignant  smile  and  the  kind  salutation  ? 
Who  of  us  all  ever  needed  a  friend  without 
finding  one  in  him  ?  Who  of  us  all  was  ever 
stretched  upon  the  bed  of  sickness  without  find- 
ing him  at  its  side  ?  Who  of  us  all  ever  knew 
of  a  personal  difficulty  of  which  he  was  not,  as 
far  as  possible,  the  kind  composer  ? 

;'  Such  was  Senator  Linr,  in  high  party  times, 
here  among  us.  And  what  he  was  here,  among 
us,  he  was  every  where,  and  with  every  body. 
At  home  among  his  friends  and  neighbors  ;  on 
the  high  road  among  casual  acquaintances ;  in 
foreign  lands  among  strangers ;  in  all,  and  in 
every  of  these  situations,  he  was  the  same  thing. 
He  had  kindness  and  sjonpathy  for  every  human 
being  ;  and  the  whole  voyage  of  his  life  was  one 
continued  and  benign  circumnavigation  of  all 
the  virtues  which  adorn  and  exalt  the  character 
of  man.  Piety,  charity,  benevolence,  generosity, 
courage,  patriotism,  fidelity,  all  shone  conspicu- 
ously in  him,  and  might  extort  from  the  be- 
holder the  impressive  interrogatory,  '  For  what 
place  was  this  man  made?''  Was  it  for  the 
Senate,  or  the  camp  ?  For  public  or  for  private 
life  ?  For  the  bar  or  the  bench  ?  For  the  art 
which  heals  the  diseases  of  the  body,  or  that 
which  cures  the  infirmities  of  the  State  ?  For 
which  of  all  these  was  he  born  ?  And  the  an- 
swer is,  '  For  all ! '  He  was  born  to  fill  the 
largest  and  most  varied  circle  of  human  excel- 
lence ;  and  to  crown  all  these  advantages,  Nature 
had  given  him  what  the  great  Lord  Bacon  calls 
a  perpetual  letter  of  recommendation — a  coun- 
tenance, not  only  good,  but  sweet  and  winning — 
radiant  with  the  virtues  of  his  soul — captivating 
universal  confidence ;  and  such  as  no  stranger 
could  behold — no  traveller,  even  in  the  desert, 
could  meet,  without  stopping  to  reverence,  and 
saying  '  Here  is  a  man  in  whose  hands  I  could 
deposit  life,  liberty,  fortune,  honor ! '  Alas  ! 
that  so  much  excellence  should  have  perished 
so  soon !  that  such  a  man  should  have  been 
snatched  away  at  the  early  age  of  forty-eight, 
and  while  all  his  faculties  were  still  ripening 
and  developing ! 

"  In  the  life  and  character  of  such  a  man,  so 
exuberant  in  all  that  is  grand  and  beautiful  in 
human  nature,  it  is  difficult  to  particularize  ex- 
cellences or  to  pick  out  any  one  quality,  or  cir- 
cumstance, which  could  claim  pre-eminence  over 
all  others.  If  I  should  attempt  it,  I  should 
point,  among  his  measures  for  the  benefit  of  the 
whole  Union,  to  the  Oregon  Bill ;  among  his 
measures  for  the  benefit  of  his  own  State,  to  the 
acquisition  of  the  Platte  Country ;  among  his 
private  virtues,  to  the  love  and  affection  which 
he  bore  to  that  brother — the  half-brother  only — 
who,  only  thirteen  years  older  than  himself, 
had  been  to  him  the  tenderest  of  fathers.    For 


ANNO  1843.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


487 


twenty-nine  years  I  had  known  the  depth  of 
that  affection,  and  never  saw  it  burn  more 
brightly  than  in  our  last  interview,  only  three 
weeks  before  his  death.  He  had  just  travelled 
a  thousand  miles  out  of  his  way  to  see  that 
brother;  and  his  name  was  still  the  dearest 
theme  of  his  conversation — a  conversation, 
strange  to  tell !  which  turned,  not  upon  the 
empty  and  fleeting  subjects  of  the  day,  but  upon 
things  solid  and  eternal — upon  friendship,  and 
upon  death,  and  upon  the  duties  of  the  living  to 
the  dead.  He  spoke  of  two  friends  whom  it 
was  natural  to  believe  that  he  should  survive, 
and  to  whose  memories  he  intended  to  pay  the 
debt  of  friendship.  Vain  calculation  !  Vain  im- 
pulsion of  generosity  and  friendship  !  One  of 
these  two  friends  now  discharges  that  mournful 
debt  to  him  :  the  other*  has  written  me  a  letter, 
expressing  his  '  deep  sorrow  for  the  untimely 
death  of  our  friend,  Dr.  Linn." 

Mr.  Benton  then  offered  the  following  reso- 
lutions : 

"  Resolved  unanimously,  That  the  members  of  the  Senate, 
from  sincere  desire  of  showing  every  mark  of  respect  due  to 
the  memory  of  the  Hon.  Lewis  F.  Linn,  deceased,  late  a  mem- 
ber thereof,  will  go  into  mourning,  by  wearing  crape  on  the 
left  arm  for  thirty  days. 

"Resolved  unanimously,  That,  as  an  additional  mark  of 
respect  for  the  memory  of  the  Hon.  Lewis  F.  Linn,  the  Senate 
do  now  adjourn." 

"  Mr.  Crittenden  said :  I  rise,  Mr.  President, 
to  second  the  motion  of  the  honorable  senator 
from  Missouri,  and  to  express  my  cordial  con- 
currence in  the  resolutions  he  has  offered. 

"The  highest  tribute  of  our  respect  is  justly 
due  to  the  honored  name  and  memory  of  Sena- 
tor Linn,  and  there  is  not  a  heart  here  that  does 
not  pay  it  freely  and  plenteously.  These  reso- 
lutions are  but  responsive  to  the  general  feeling 
that  prevails  throughout  the  land,  and  will  afford 
to  his  widow  and  his  orphans  the  consolatory 
evidence  that  their  country  shares  their  grief, 
and  mourns  for  their  bereavement. 

"  I  am  very  sensible,  Mr.  President,  that  the 
very  appropriate,  interesting,  and  eloquent  re- 
marks of  the  senator  from  Missouri  [Mr.  Ben- 
ton] have  made  it  difficult  to  add  any  thing  that 
will  not  impair  the  effect  of  what  he  has  said  ; 
but  I  must  beg  the  indulgence  of  the  Senate  for 
a  few  moments.  Senator  Linn  was  by  birth  a 
Kentuckian,  and  my  couutryman.  I  do  not  dis- 
pute the  claims  of  Missouri,  his  adopted  State ; 
but  I  wish  it  to  be  remembered,  that  I  claim  for 
Kentucky  the  honor  of  his  nativity  ;  and  by  the 
great  law  that  regulates  such  precious  inherit- 
ances, a  portion,  at  least,  of  his  fame  must  de- 
scend to  his  native  land.  It  is  the  just  ambition 
and  right  of  Kentucky  to  gather  together  the 
bright  names  of  her  children,  no  matter  in  what 
lands  their  bodies  may  be  buried,  and  to  pre- 
serve them  as  her  jewels  and  her  crown.  The 
name  of  Linn  is  one  of  her  jewels ;  and  its  pure 
and  unsullied  lustre  shall  long  remain  as  one  of 
her  richest  ornaments. 

*  General  Jackson. 


"  The  death  of  such  a  man  is  a  national  ca- 
lamity. Long  a  distinguished  member  of  this 
body,  he  was  continually  rewarded  with  the 
increasing  confidence  of  the  great  State  he  so 
honorably  represented  ;  and  his  reputation  and 
usefulness  increased  at  every  step  of  his  pro- 
gress. 

"  In  the  Senate  his  death  is  most  sensibly  felt. 
We  have  lost  a  colleague  and  friend,  whose  noble 
and  amiable  qualities  bound  us  to  him  as  with 
'  hooks  of  steel.'  Who  of  us  that  knew  him  can 
forget  his  open,  frank,  and  manly  bearing — that 
smile,  that  seemed  to  be  the  pure,  warm  sun- 
shine of  the  heart,  and  the  thousand  courtesies 
and  kindnesses  that  gave  a  '  daily  beauty  to  his 
life?' 

"  He  possessed  a  high  order  of  intellect ;  was 
resolute,  courageous,  and  ardent  in  all  his  pur- 
suits. A  decided  party  man,  he  participated 
largely  and  conspicuously  in  the  business  of  the 
Senate  and  the  conflicts  of  its  debates  ;  but  there 
was  a  kindliness  and  benignity  about  him,  that, 
like  polished  armor,  turned  aside  all  feelings  of 
ill-will  or  animosity.  He  had  political  oppo- 
nents in  the  Senate,  but  not  one  enemy. 

ei  The  good  and  generous  qualities  of  our  na- 
ture were  blended  in  his  character  ; 
" and  the  elements 


So  mixed  in  hiin,  that  Nature  might  stand  up 
And  say  to  all  the  world—  This  was  a  man.'''' 

The  resolutions  were  then  adopted,  and  the 
Senate  adjourned. 


CHAPTER    CXVII. 

THE  COAST  SURVEY :  ATTEMPT  TO  DIMINISH  ITS 
EXPENSE,  AND  TO  EXPEDITE  ITS  COMPLETION, 
BY  RESTORING  THE  WORK  TO  NAVAL  AND 
MILITARY  OFFICERS. 

Under  the  British  government,  not  remarkable 
for  its  economy,  the  survey  of  the  coasts  is  ex- 
clusively made  by  naval  officers,  and  the  whole 
service  presided  by  an  admiral,  of  some  de- 
gree— usually  among  the  lowest ;  and  these 
officers  survey  not  only  the  British  coasts 
throughout  all  their  maritime  possessions,  but 
the  coasts  of  other  countries  where  they  trade, 
when  it  has  not  been  done  by  the  local  au- 
thority. The  survey  of  the  United  States  be- 
gan in  the  same  way,  being  confined  to  army 
and  navy  officers  ;  and  costing  but  little :  now 
it  is  a  civil  establishment,  and  the  office  which 
conducts  it  has  almost  grown  up  into  a  depart- 
ment, under  a  civil  head,  and  civil  assistance, 
costing  a  great  annual  sum.    From  time  to  time 


488 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


efforts  have  been  made  to  restore  the  naval 
superintendence  of  this  work,  as  it  was  when 
it  was  commenced  under  Mr.  Jefferson :  and  as 
it  now  is,  and  always  has  been,  in  Great  Britain. 
At  the  session  1842-3,  this  effort  was  renewed  ; 
but  with  the  usual  fate  of  all  attempts  to  put  an 
end  to  any  unnecessary  establishment,  or  ex- 
penditure. A  committee  of  the  House  had  been 
sitting  on  the  subject  for  two  sessions,  and  not 
being  able  to  agree  upon  any  plan,  proposed  an 
amendment  to  the  civil  and  diplomatic  appro- 
priation bill,  by  which  the  legislation,  which 
they  could  not  agree  upon,  was  to  be  referred 
to  a  board  of  officers ;  and  their  report,  when 
accepted  by  the  President,  was  to  become  law, 
and  to  be  carried  into  effect  by  him.  Their  pro- 
position was  in  these  words  : 

"  That  the  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars be  appropriated,  out  of  any  money  in  the 
Treasury  not  otherwise  appropriated,  for  con- 
tinuing the  survey  of  the  coast  of  the  United 
States :  Provided,  That  this,  and  all  other  ap- 
propriations hereafter  to  be  made  for  this  work, 
shall,  until  otherwise  provided  by  law,  be  ex- 
pended in  accordance  with  a  plan  of  re-organiz- 
ing the  mode  of  executing  the  survey,  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  President  of  the  United  States  by 
a  board  of  officers  which  shall  be  organized  by 
him,  to  consist  of  the  present  superintendent, 
his  two  principal  assistants,  and  the  two  naval 
officers  now  in  charge  of  the  hydrographical 
parties,  and  four  from  among  the  principal  offi- 
cers of  the  corps  of  topographical  engineers ; 
none  of  whom  shall  receive  any  additional  com- 
pensation whatever  for  this  service,  and  who 
shall  sit  as  soon  as  organized.  And  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  shall  adopt  and  carry 
into  effect  the  plan  of  said  board,  as  agreed  upon 
by  a  majority  of  its  members ;  and  the  plan  of 
said  board  shall  cause  to  be  employed  as  many 
officers  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United 
States  as  will  be  compatible  with  the  successful 
prosecution  of  the  work ;  the  officers  of  the  navy 
to  be  employed  on  the  hydrographical  parts, 
and  the  officers  of  the  army  on  the  topographical 
parts  of  the  work.  And  no  officer  of  the  army 
or  navy  shall  hereafter  receive  any  extra  pay, 
out  of  this  or  any  future  appropriations,  for 
surveys." 

In  support  of  this  proposition,  Mr.  Mallory, 
the  mover  of  it,  under  the  direction  of  the  com- 
mittee, said : 

"  It  would  be  perceived  by  the  House,  that 
this  amendment  proposed  a  total  re-organization 
of  the  work  ;  and  if  it  should  be  carried  out  in 
the  spirit  of  that  amendment,  it  would  correct 
many  of  the  abuses  which  some  of  them  believed 
to  exist    and  would  effect  a  saving  of  some 


$20,000  or  $30,000,  by  dispensing  with  the 
services  of  numerous  civil  officers,  believed  not 
to  be  necessary,  and  substituting  for  them  offi- 
cers of  the  topographical  corps  and  officers  of 
the  navy.  The  committee  had  left  the  plan  of 
the  survey  to  be  decided  on  by  a  board  of  offi- 
cers, and  submitted  to  the  President  for  his  ap- 
proval, as  they  had  not  been  able  to  agree  among 
themselves  on  any  detailed  plan.  He  had,  to  be 
sure,  his  own  views  as  to  how  the  work  should 
be  carried  on ;  but  as  they  did  not  meet  the 
concurrence  of  a  majority  of  the  committee,  he 
could  not  bring  them  before  the  House  in  the 
form  of  a  report." 

This  was  the  explanation  of  the  proposition. 
Not  being  able  to  agree  to  any  act  of  legislation 
themselves,  they  refer  it  to  the  President,  and  a 
board,  to  do  what  they  could  not,  but  with  an 
expectation  that  abuses  in  the  work  would  be 
corrected,  expense  diminished,  and  naval  and 
military  officers  substituted,  as  far  as  compatible 
with  the  successful  prosecution  of  the  work. 
This  was  a  lame  way  of  getting  a  reform  ac- 
complished. To  say  nothing  of  the  right  to 
delegate  legislative  authority  to  a  board  and  the 
President,  that  mode  of  proceeding  was  the 
most  objectionable  that  could  have  been  devised. 
It  is  a  proverb  that  these  boards  are  a  machine 
in  the  hands  of  the  President,  in  which  he  and 
they  equally  escape  responsibility — they  shel- 
tering themselves  under  his  approval — he,  un- 
der their  recommendation  *  and,  to  make  sure 
of  his  approval,  it  is  usually  obtained  before 
the  recommendation  is  made.  This  proposed 
method  of  effecting  a  reform  was  not  satisfactory 
to  those  who  wished  to  see  this  branch  of  the 
service  subjected  to  an  economical  administra- 
tion, and  brought  to  a  conclusion  within  some 
reasonable  time.  With  that  view,  Mr.  Charles 
Brown,  of  Pennsylvania,  moved  a  reduction  of 
the  appropriation  of  more  than  one  half,  and  a 
transference  of  the  work  from  the  Treasury  de- 
partment (where  it  then  was)  to  the  navy  de- 
partment where  it  properly  belonged  ;  and  pro- 
posed the  work  to  be  done  by  army  and  naval 
officers.    In  support  of  his  proposal,  he  said  : 

"  The  amendment  offered  under  the  instruc- 
tions of  the  committee,  did  not  look  to  the  prac- 
tical reform  which  the  House  expected  when  this 
subject  was  last  under  discussion.  He  believed, 
that  there  was  a  decided  disposition  manifested 
in  the  House  to  get  clear  of  the  present  head  of 
the  survey  ;  yet  the  amendment  of  the  gentle- 
man brought  him  forward  as  the  most  prominent 
member  of  it.     He  thought  the  House  decided, 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


489 


when  the  subject  was  up  before,  that  the  survey- 
should  be  carried  on  by  the  officers  of  the  gen- 
eral government ;  and  he  wished  it  to  be  carried 
on  in  that  way  now.  He  did  not  wish  to  pay 
some  hundred  thousand  dollars  as  extra  pay  for 
officers  taken  from  private  life,  when  there  were 
so  many  in  the  navy  and  army  perfectly  com- 
petent to  perform  this  service.  This  work  had 
cost  nearly  a  million  of  dollars  ($720,000)  by 
the  employment  of  Mr.  Hassler  and  his  civil 
assistants  alone,  without  taking  into  considera- 
tion the  pay  of  the  officers  of  the  navy  and  army 
who  were  engaged  in  it." 

The  work  had  then  been  in  hand  for 
thirty  years,  and  the  average  expense  of  each 
year  would  be  $22,000 ;  but  it  was  now  in- 
creased to  a  hundred  thousand ;  and  Mr.  Brown 
wished  it  carried  back  more  than  half — a  saving 
to  be  effected  by  transferring  the  work  to  the 
Navy  Department,  where  there  were  so  many 
officers  without  employment — receiving  pay, 
and  nothing  to  do.  In  support  of  his  proposal, 
Mr.  Brown  went  into  an  examination  of  the 
laws  on  the  subject,  to  show  that  this  work  was 
begun  under  a  law  to  have  it  done  as  he  pro- 
posed ;  and  he  agreed  that  the  army  and  navy 
officers  (so  many  of  whom  were  without  com- 
mands), were  competent  to  it ;  and  that  it  was 
absurd  to  put  it  under  the  Treasury  Department. 

"  The  law  of  February  10,  1807,  created  the 
coast  survey,  put  it  in  the  hands  of  the  Presi- 
dent, and  authorized  him  to  use  army  and  navy 
officers,  navy  vessels,  astronomers,  and  other 
persons.  In  August,  1816.  Mr.  Hassler  was  ap- 
pointed superintendent.  His  agreement  was  to 
"make  the  principal  triangulation  and  conse- 
quent calculations  himself;  to  instruct  the 
engineer  and  naval  officers  employed  under  him ; 
and  he  wanted  two  officers  of  engineers,  topo- 
graphical or  others,  and  some  cadets  of  said 
corps,  in  number  according  to  circumstances. 
April  14,  1818,  that  part  of  the  law  of  1807  was 
repealed  which  authorized  the  employment  of 
other  persons  than  those  belonging  to  the  army 
and  navy.  Up  to  this  time  over  $55,000  were 
expended  in  beginning  the  work  and  buying 
instruments,  for  which  purpose  Mr.  Hassler  was 
in  England  from  August  1811,  to  1815. 

"  June  10,  1832,  the  law  of  1807  was  revived, 
and  Mr.  Hassler  was  again  appointed  superin- 
tendent. The  work  has  been  going  on  ever 
since.  The  coast  has  been  triangulated  from 
Point  Judith  to  Cape  Henlopen  (say  about  300 
miles)  ;  but  only  a  part  of  the  off-shore  sound- 
ings have  been  taken,  There  are  about  3,000 
miles  of  seaboard  to  the  United  States.  $720,000 
have  been  expended  already.  It  is  stated,  in 
Captain  Swift's  pamphlet,  that  the  survey  of  the 
coast  was  under  the  Treasury  Department,  be- 


cause Mr.  Hassler  was  already  engaged  under 
that  department,  making  weights  and  measures. 
These  are  all  made  now.  When  the  coast  sur- 
vey was  begun,  the  topographical  corps  existed 
but  in  name.  In  1838,  it  was  organized  and 
enlarged,  and  is  now  an  able  and  useful  corps. 
Last  year  Congress  established  a  hydrographical 
bureau  in  the  Navy  Department.  There  are 
numbers  of  naval  officers  capable  of  doing  hy- 
drographical duties  under  this  bureau.  The 
coast  survey  is  the  most  important  topographi- 
cal and  hydrographical  work  in  the  country. 
We  have  a  topographical  and  a  hydrographical 
bureau,  yet  neither  of  them  has  any  connection 
with  this  great  national  work.  Mr.  Hassler  has 
just  published  from  the  opinion  of  the  Marquis 
de  La  Place  (Chamber  of  Peers,  session  of 
181(3-'17),upon  the  French  survey,  this  valuable 
suggestion,  viz  :  '  Perhaps  even  the  great  num- 
ber of  geographical  engineers  which  our  present 
state  of  peace  allows  to  employ  in  this  work,  to 
which  it  is  painful  to  see  them  strangers,  would 
render  an  execution  more  prompt,  and  less  ex- 
pensive.' 

"  The  Florida  war  is  now  over ;  many  works 
of  internal  improvement  are  suspended ;  there 
must  be  topographical  officers  enough  for  the 
coast  survey.  The  Russian  government  has 
employed  an  able  American  engineer  to  perform 
an  important  scientific  work;  but  that  wise 
government  requires  that  all  the  assistants  shall 
come  from  its  corps  of  engineers,  which  is  com- 
posed of  army  and  navy  officers.  If  the  coast 
survey  is  to  be  a  useful  public  work,  let  the 
officers  conduct  it  under  their  bureaus.  The 
officers  would  then  take  a  pride  in  this  duty, 
and  do  it  well,  and  do  it  cheap.  The  supervision 
of  the  bureaus  would  occasion  system,  fidelity, 
and  entire  responsibility.  More  than  $30,000 
are  now  paid  annually  to  citizens,  for  salary  out 
of  the  coast  survey  appropriation.  This  could 
be  saved  by  employing  officers.  Make  exclusive 
use  of  them,  and  half  the  present  annual  appro- 
priation would  suffice.  Can  the  treasury  de- 
partment manage  the  survey  understandingly  ? 
The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  has  already 
enough  to  do  in  the  line  of  his  duty ;  and,  as 
far  as  the  survey  is  concerned,  a  clerk  in  the 
Treasury  Department  is  the  secretary.  Can  a 
citizen  superintendent,  of  closet  and  scientific 
habits ;  or  can  a  clerk  in  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment, manage,  with  efficiency  and  economy,  so 
many  land  and  water  parties,  officers,  men,  ves- 
sels, and  boats  ?  The  Navy  Department  paj^s 
out  of  the  navy  appropriation  the  officers  and 
men  now  lent  to  the  Treasury  for  the  survey. 
The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  appears  to  have  no 
control  over  the  expenditures  of  this  part  of 
the  naval  appropriation.  He  does  not  even 
select  the  officers  detailed  for  this  duty,  though 
he  knows  his  own  material  best,  and  those  who 
are  most  suitable.  This  navy  duty  has  be- 
come treasury  patronage,  with  commands,  extra 
pay,  &c. 


490 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"  The  Treasury  Department  has  charge  of  the 
vessels;  they  are  bought  by  the  coast-survey 
appropriation ;  the  off-shore  soundings  are  only 
in  part  taken.  There  arc  not  vessels  enough, 
and  of  the  right  sort,  to  take  these  soundings, 
and  in  the  right  way.  Steamers  are  wanted. 
The  survey  appropriation  cannot  bear  the  ex- 
pense ;  but  if  the  Navy  Department  had  charge 
of  the  hydrography,  it  could  put  suitable  ves- 
sels on  the  coast  squadron,  and  employ  them 
on  the  coast  survey,  agreeably  to  the  law  of 
1807.  Last  year  the  vessels  did  no  soundings 
until  about  the  1st  of  June,  although  the  spring 
opened  early.  The  Treasury  had  not  the  means 
to  equip  the  vessels  until  the  appropriation  bill 
passed  Congress.  But  if  the  navy  had  charge 
of  vessels,  the  few  naval  stores  they  wanted 
might  have  been  furnished  from  the  navy  stores, 
or  given  from  second-hand  articles  not  on  charge 
at  the  yards.  Had  good  arrangements  been 
made,  the  Delaware  Bay  might  readily  have 
been  finished  last  fall,  and  the  chart  of  it  got 
out  at  once.  Now,  the  topographical  corps 
makes  surveys  for  defences ;  the  navy  officers 
make  charts  along  the  coast ;  and  the  coast  sur- 
vey goes  over  the  same  place  a  third  time.  If 
the  officers  did  this  work,  the  army  might  get 
the  military  information,  and  the  navy  the  hy- 
drographical  knowledge,  which  the  interest  of 
the  country  requires  that  each  of  these  branches 
of  the  public  defence  should  have  ;  and  this,  at 
the  expense  of  but  one  survey ;  for,  at  places 
where  defences  might  be  required,  the  survey 
could  be  done  with  the  utmost  minuteness. 
The  officers  of  the  army  and  navy  need  not 
clash.  The  topographical  corps  (aided  by 
junior  navy  officers  willing  to  serve  under  that 
bureau — and  the  recent  Florida  war  and  the 
present  coast  survey  system,  show  that  navy 
officers  are  willing  to  serve,  for  the  public  good, 
under  other  departments  than  their  own)  would 
do  the  topography  and  furnish  the  shore  line. 
The  hydrographical  officers  would  receive  the 
shore  line,  take  the  soundings,  and  make  the 
chart.  The  same  principle  is  now  at  work,  and 
works  well.  The  navy  officers  now  get  the 
shore  line  from  the  citizens  in  the  shore  par- 
ties. The  President  could  direct  the  War  and 
Navy  Secretaries  to  make  such  rules,  through 
the  bureaus,  as  would  obviate  every  difficulty. 
Employing  officers  would  secure  for  the  public, 
system,  economy,  and  despatch.  The  informa- 
tion obtained  would  be  got  by  the  right  persons 
and  kept  in  the  right  hands.  Government 
would  have  complete  command  of  the  persons 
employed ;  and  should  the  work  ever  be  sus- 
pended, might,  at  pleasure,  set  them  to  work 
again  on  the  same  duty.  The  survey  he  wished 
to  be  prosecuted  without  delay;  and  all  he 
wanted  was  to  have  it  under  the  most  efficient 
management.  If  it  was  found  that  the  officers 
of  the  navy  and  army  were  not  competent,  it 
could  be  remedied  hereafter ;  but  it  was  due  to 
them  to  give  them  a  fair  trial,  before  they  were 


condemned.  Certainly  they  ought  not  to  be 
disgraced  and  condemned  in  advance.  It  was 
an  insult  to  them  to  suppose  that  Mr.  Hassler 
was  the  only  man  in  the  country  capable  of  su- 
perintending this  work ;  and  that  they  could 
not  carry  on  the  survey  of  our  coast  by  trian- 
gulation.  They  had  been  for  some  time,  and 
were  now,  surveying  the  lakes ;  and  he  believed 
their  surveys  would  be  equally  correct  with 
Mr.  Hassler's.  We  had  a  bureau  of  hydrogra- 
phy of  the  navy,  and  a  corps  of  topographical 
engineers,  which  were  expressly  created  to  per- 
form this  kind  of  service  ;  while  there  was  the 
military  academy  at  West  Point,  which  quali- 
fied the  officers  to  perform  it.  The  people 
would  hardly  believe  that  these  officers  (edu- 
cated at  the  expense  of  the  government)  were 
not  capable  of  performing  the  services  for  which 
they  were  educated ;  and  if  they  thought  so, 
they  would  be  for  abolishing  that  institution. 
They  would  say  that  these  officers  should  be 
dismissed,  and  others  appointed  in  their  places, 
who  were  qualified. 

"  He  never  could  acknowledge  that  there  was 
no  other  man  but  Mr.  Hassler  in  the  country 
capable  of  carrying  on  the  work.  This  might 
have  been  the  case  when  he  was  first  appointed, 
thirty  years  ago  ;  but  since  that  time  they  had 
a  number  of  officers  educated  at  the  military 
academy,  while  many  others  in  the  civil  walks 
of  life  had  qualified  themselves  for  scientific 
employments.  He  was  sure  that  the  officers 
of  the  army  and  navy  were  competent  to  per- 
form this  work.  There  was  but  little  now  for 
the  topographical  engineers  to  do ;  and  he  had 
no  doubt  that  many  of  them,  as  well  as  officers 
of  the  navy,  would  be  glad  to  be  employed  on 
the  coast  survey.  Indeed,  several  officers  of  the 
navy  had  told  him  that  they  would  like  such 
employment,  rather  than  be  idle,  as  they  then 
were.  From  the  rate  the  coast  survey  had  thus 
far  proceeded,  it  would  take  more  than  a  hun- 
dred years  to  complete  it.  Certainly  this  was 
too  slow.  He  hoped,  therefore,  a  change  would 
be  made.  In  the  language  of  the  report  of  Mr. 
Aycrigg  :  "  We  should  then  have  the  survey 
conducted  on  a  system  of  practical  utility,  and 
moving  right  end  foremost." 

These  were  wise  suggestions,  and  unanswer- 
able ;  but  although  they  could  not  be  answered, 
they  could  be  prevented  from  becoming  law. 
Instead  of  reform  of  abuses,  reduction  of  ex- 
pense, and  speedy  termination  of  the  work,  all 
the  evils  intended  to  be  reformed  went  on  and 
became  greater  than  ever,  and  all  are  still  kept 
up  upon  the  same  arguments  that  sustained  the 
former.  It  is  worthy  of  note  to  hear  the  same 
reason  now  given  for  continuing  the  civilian, 
Mr.  Bache,  at  the  head  of  this  work,  which  was 
given  for  thirty  years  for  retaining  Mr.  Hassler 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


491 


in  the  same  place,  namely,  that  there  is  no 
other  man  in  the  country  that  can  conduct  the 
work.  But  that  is  a  tribute  which  servility 
and  interest  will  pay  to  any  man  who  is  at  the 
head  of  a  great  establishment ;  and  is  always 
paid  more  punctually  where  the  establishment 
ought  to  be  abolished  than  where  it  ought  to 
be  preserved ;  and  for  the  obvious  reason,  that 
the  better  one  can  stand  on  its  own  merits, 
while  the  worse  needs  the  support  of  incessant 
adulation.  Mr.  Brown's  proposal  was  rejected 
— the  other  adopted ;  and  the  coast  survey  now 
costs  above  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  a 
year  in  direct  appropriations,  besides  an  im- 
mense amount  indirectly  in  the  employment  of 
government  vessels  and  officers :  and  no  pros- 
pect of  its  termination.  But  the  friends  of  this 
great  reform  did  not  abandon  their  cause  with 
the  defeat  of  Mr.  Brown's  proposition.  Another 
was  offered  by  Mr.  Aycrigg  of  New  Jersey,  who 
moved  to  discontinue  the  survey  until  a  report 
could  be  made  upon  it  at  the  next  session ;  and 
for  this  motion  there  were  75  yeas — a  respect- 
able proportion  of  the  House,  but  not  a  majori- 
ty.   The  yeas  were : 

"  Messrs.  Landaff  W.  Andrews,  Sherlock  J. 
Andrews,  Thomas  D.  Arnold,  John  B.  Aycrigg, 
Alfred  Babcock,  Henry  W.  Beeson,  Benjamin 
A.  Bidlack,  David  Bronson,  Aaron  V.  Brown, 
Milton  Brown,  Edmund  Burke,  William  B. 
Campbell,  Thomas  J.  Campbell,  Robert  L. 
Caruthers,  Zadok  Casey,  Reuben  Chapman, 
Thomas  C.  Chittenden,  James  Cooper,  Mark 
A.  Cooper,  Benjamin  S.  Cowen,  James  H.  Cra- 
vens, John  R.  J.  Daniel,  Garrett  Davis,  Ezra 
Dean,  Edmund  Deberry,  Andrew  W.  Doig, 
John  Edwards,  John  C.  Edwards,  Joseph  Eg- 
bert, William  P.  Fessenden,  Roger  L.  Gamble, 
Thomas  W.  Gilmer,  Willis  Green,  William  Hal- 
sted,  Jacob  Houck,  jr.,  Francis  James,  Cave 
Johnson,  Nathaniel  S.  Littlefield,  Abraham 
McClellan,  James  J.  McKay,  Alfred  Marshall, 
John  Mattocks,  John  P.  B.  Maxwell,  John 
Maynard,  William  Medill,  Christopher  Morgan, 
William  M.  Oliver,  Bryan  Y.  Owsley,  William 
W.  Payne,  Nathaniel  G.  Pendleton,  Francis  W. 
Pickens,  John  Pope,  Joseph  F.  Randolph,  Ken- 
neth Rayner,  Abraham  Rencher,  John  Rey- 
nolds, Romulus  M.  Saunders,  Tristram  Shaw, 
Augustine  H.  Shepperd,  Benjamin  G.  Shields, 
William  Slade,  Samuel  Stokely,  Charles  C. 
Stratton,  John  T.  Stuart,  John  B.  Thompson, 
Philip  Triplett.  Hopkins  L.  Turney,  David 
Wallace,  Aaron  Ward,  Edward  D.  White,  Jo- 
seph L.  White,  Joseph  L.  Williams,  Thomas 
Jones  Yorke,  John  Young." 

The  friends  of  economy  in  Congress,  when 


once  more  strong  enough  to  form  a  party,  will 
have  a  sacred  duty  to  perform  to  the  country — 
that  of  diminishing,  by  nearly  one-half,  the 
present  mad  expenditures  of  the  government: 
and  the  abolition  of  the  present  coast-survey 
establishment  should  be  among  the  primary  ob- 
jects of  retrenchment.  It  is  a  reproach  to  our 
naval  and  military  officers,  and  besides  untrue 
in  point  of  fact,  to  assume  them  to  be  incapable 
of  conducting  and  of  performing  this  work  :  it 
is  a  reproach  to  Congress  to  vote  annually  an 
immense  sum  on  the  civil  superintendence  and 
conduct  of  this  work,  when  there  are  more  idle 
officers  on  the  pay-roll  than  could  be  employed 
upon  it. 


CHAPTER    CXVIII. 

DEATH  OF  COMMODORE  PORTER,  AND  NOTICE 
OF  HIS  LIFE  AND  CHARACTER. 

The  naval  career  of  Commodore  Porter  illus- 
trates in  the  highest  degree  that  which  almost 
the  whole  of  our  naval  officers,  each  according 
to  his  opportunity,  illustrated  more  or  less — 
the  benefits  of  the  cruising  system  in  our  naval 
warfare.  It  was  the  system  followed  in  the 
war  of  the  Revolution,  in  the  quasi  war  with 
France,  and  in  the  war  of  1812 — imposed  upon 
us  by  necessity  in  each  case,  not  adopted 
through  choice.  In  neither  of  these  wars  did 
we  possess  ships-of-the-line  and  fleets  to  fight 
battles  for  the  dominion  of  the  seas  ;  fortunate- 
ly, we  had  not  the  means  to  engage  in  that  ex- 
pensive and  fatal  folly  ;  but  we  had  smaller  ves- 
sels (frigates  the  largest)  to  penetrate  every 
sea,  attack  every  thing  not  too  much  over  size, 
to  capture  merchantmen,  and  take  shelter  when 
pressed  where  ships-of-the-line  and  fleets  could 
not  follow.  We  had  the  enterprising  officers 
which  a  system  of  separate  commands  so  favor- 
ably developes,  and  the  ardent  seamen  who 
looked  to  the  honors  of  the  service  for  their 
greatest  reward.  Wages  were  low;  but  re- 
ward was  high  when  the  man  before  the  mast, 
or  the  boy  in  the  cabin,  could  look  upon  his 
officer,  and  see  in  his  past  condition  what  he 
himself  was,  and  in  his  present  rank  what  he 
himself  might  be.  Merit  had  raised  one  and 
might  raise  the  other. 


492 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


The  ardor  for  the  service  was  then  great; 
the  service  itself  heroic.  A  crew  for  a  frigate 
has  been  raised  in  three  hours.  Instant  sailing 
followed  the  reception  of  the  order.  Distant 
and  dangerous  ground  was  sought,  fierce  and 
desperate  combat  engaged ;  and  woe  to  the  ene- 
my that  was  not  too  much  over  size !  Five, 
ten,  twenty  minutes  would  make  her  a  wreck 
and  a  prize.  Almost  every  officer  that  obtained 
a  command  showed  himself  an  able  commander. 
Every  crew  was  heroic ;  every  cruise  daring : 
every  combat  a  victory,  where  proximate  equal- 
ity rendered  it  possible.  Never  did  any  ser- 
vice, in  any  age  or  country,  exhibit  so  large  a 
proportion  of  skilful,  daring,  victorious  com- 
manders, mainly  developed  by  the  system  of 
warfare  which  gave  so  many  a  chance  to  show 
what  they  were.  Necessity  imposed  that  sys- 
tem ;  judgment  should  continue  it.  Economy, 
efficiency,  utility,  the  impossibility  of  building 
a  navy  to  cope  with  the  navies  of  the  great 
maritime  Powers,  and  the  insanity  of  doing  it 
if  we  could,  all  combine  to  recommend  to  the 
United  States  the  system  of  naval  warfare 
which  does  the  most  damage  to  the  enemy  with 
the  least  expense  to  ourselves,  which  avoids 
the  expensive  establishments  which  oppress 
the  finances  of  other  nations,  and  which  ren- 
ders useless,  for  want  of  an  antagonist,  the 
great  fleets  which  they  support  at  so  much 
cost. 

Universally  illustrated  as  the  advantages  of 
this  system  were  by  almost  all  our  officers  in 
the  wars  of  the  Revolution,  of  '98,  and  1812,  it 
was  the  fortune  of  Commodore  Porter,  in  the 
late  war  with  Great  Britain,  to  carry  that  illus- 
tration to  its  highest  point,  and  to  show,  in 
the  most  brilliant  manner,  what  an  American 
cruiser  could  do.  Of  course  we  speak  of  his 
cruise  in  the  Pacifie  Ocean,  prefaced  by  a  little 
preliminary  run  to  the  Grand  Banks,  which 
may  be  considered  as  part  of  it — a  cruise  which 
the  boy  at  school  would  read  for  its  romance, 
the  mature  man  for  its  history,  the  statesman 
for  the  lesson  which  it  teaches. 

The  Essex,  a  small  frigate  of  thirty-two  guns, 
chiefly  carronades,  and  but  little  superior  to  a 
first-class  sloop-of-war  of  the  present  day,  with 
a  crew  of  some  three  hundred  men,  had  the 
honor  to  make  this  illustrious  cruise.  Leaving 
New  York  in  June,  soon  after  the  declaration 
of  war,  and  making  some  small  captures,  she 


ran  up  towards  the  Grand  Banks,  and  in  the 
night  discovered  a  fleet  steering  north,  all  un- 
der easy  sail  and  in  open  order,  wide  spaces 
being  between  the  ships.  From  their  numbers 
and  the  course  they  steered  Captain  Porter 
judged  them  to  be  enemies,  and  wished  to  know 
more  about  them. 

Approaching  the  sternmost  vessel  and  enter- 
ing into  conversation  with  her,  he  learnt  that 
the  fleet  was  under  the  convoy  of  a  frigate,  the 
Minerva,  thirty-six  guns,  and  a  bomb-vessel, 
both  then  ahead ;  and  that  the  vessels  of  the 
fleet  transported  one  thousand  soldiers.  He 
could  have  cut  off  this  vessel  easily,  but  the  in- 
formation he  had  received  opened  a  more  bril- 
liant prospect.  He  determined  to  pass  along 
through  the  fleet,  the  Essex  being  a  good  sailer, 
speaking  the  different  vessels  as  he  quietly 
passed  them,  get  alongside  of  the  frigate,  and 
carry  her  by  an  energetic  attack.  In  execution 
of  this  plan  he  passed  on  without  exciting  the 
least  suspicion,  and  came  up  with  the  next  ves- 
sel ;  but  this  second  one  was  more  cautious 
than  the  first,  and,  on  the  Essex's  ranging  up 
alongside  of  her,  she  took  alarm  and  announced 
her  intention  to  give  the  signal  of  a  stranger 
having  joined  the  fleet.  This  put  an  end  to 
disguise  and  brought  on  prompt  action.  The 
vessel,  under  penalty  of  being  fired  into,  was 
instantly  ordered  to  surrender  and  haul  out  of 
the  convoy.  This  was  so  quietly  done  as  to  be 
unnoticed  by  the  other  ships.  On  taking  pos- 
session of  her  she  was  found  to  be  filled  with 
soldiers,  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  them,  and  all 
made  prisoners  of  war. 

A  few  days  afterwards  the  Essex  fell  in  with 
the  man-of-war  Alert,  of  twenty  guns  and  a  full 
crew.  The  Alert  began  the  action.  In  eight 
minutes  it  was  finished,  and  the  British  ship 
only  saved  from  sinking  by  the  help  of  her 
captors.  It  was  the  first  British  man-of-war 
taken  in  this  contest,  and  so  easily,  that  not 
the  slightest  injury  was  done  to  the  Essex, 
either  to  the  vessel  or  her  crew.  Crowded 
now  with  prisoners  (for  the  crew  of  the  Alert 
had  to  be  taken  on  board,  in  addition  to  the 
one  hundred  and  fifty  soldiers  and  the  previous 
captures),  all  chafing  in  their  bondage,  and 
ready  to  embrace  the  opportunity  of  the  first 
action  to  rise,  Captain  Porter  agreed  with  the 
commander  of  the  Alert  to  convert  her  into  a 
cartel,  and  send  her  into  port  at  St.  John's, 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


493 


with  the  prisoners,  to  await  their  exchange. 
Continuing  her  cruise,  the  Essex  twice  fell  in 
with  the  enemy's  frigates  having  other  vessels 
of  war  in  company,  so  that  a  fair  engagement 
was  impossible.  The  Essex  then  returned  to 
the  Delaware  to  replenish  her  stores,  and,  sail- 
ing thence  in  October,  1812,  she  fairly  com- 
menced her  great  cruise. 

Captain  Porter  was  under  orders  to  proceed 
to  the  coast  of  Brazil,  and  join  Commodore 
Bainbridge  at  a  given  rendezvous,  cruising  as 
he  went.  It  was  not  until  after  he  had  run  the 
greater  part  of  the  distance,  crossing  the  equa- 
tor, that  he  got  sight  of  the  first  British  vessel, 
a  small  man-of-war  brig,  discovered  in  the  after- 
noon, chased,  and  come  up  with  in  the  night, 
having  previously  boldly  shown  her  national 
colors.  The  two  vessels  were  then  within 
musket  shot.  Not  willing  to  hurt  a  foe  too 
weak  to  fight  him,  Captain  Porter  hailed  and 
required  the  brig  to  surrender.  Instead  of 
complying,  the  arrogant  little  man-of-war  turned 
upon  its  pursuer,  attempting  to  cross  the  stern 
of  the  Essex,  with  the  probable  design  to  give 
her  a  raking  fire  and  escape  in  the  dark.  Still 
the  captain  would  not  open  his  guns  upon  so 
diminutive  a  foe  until  he  had  tried  the  effect  of 
musketry  upon  her.  A  volley  wras  fired  into 
her,  killing  one  man,  when  she  struck.  It  wras 
the  British  government  packet  Nocton,  ten 
guns,  thirty-one  men,  and  having  fifty-five 
thousand  silver  dollars  on  board. 

Pursuing  his  cruise  south  to  the  point  of  ren- 
dezvous, an  English  merchant  vessel  was  cap- 
tured, one  of  a  convoy  of  six  which  had  left 
Rio  the  evening  before  in  charge  of  a  man-of- 
war  schooner.  The  rest  of  the  convoy  was  out 
of  sight,  but.  taking  its  track,  a  long  and  fruit- 
less chase  was  given ;  and  the  Essex  repaired 
to  the  point  of  rendezvous,  without  meeting 
with  further  incident.  Commodore  Bainbridge 
had  been  there,  and  had  left ;  and,  being  now 
under  discretionary  orders,  Captain  Porter  de- 
termined to  use  the  discretion  with  which  he 
was  invested,  and  took  the  bold  resolution  to 
double  Cape  Horn,  enter  the  Pacific  Ocean,  put 
twenty  thousand  miles  between  his  vessel  and 
an  American  port,  and  try  his  fortune  among 
British  whalers,  merchantmen,  and  ships-of-war 
in  that  vast  and  remote  sea. 

It  was  a  bold  enterprise,  such  as  few  govern- 
ments would  have  ordered,  which  many  would 


have  forbid,  and  which  the  undaunted  resolu- 
tion of  a  bold  commander  alone  could  take. 
He  had  every  thing  against  him :  no  depots,  no 
means  of  repairing  or  refitting ;  only  one  chart ; 
the  Spanish  American  States  subservient  to  the 
British,  and  unreliable  for  the  impartiality  of 
neutrals,  much  less  for  the  sympathy  of  neigh- 
bors. He  was  deficient  both  in  provisions  and 
naval  stores,  but  expected  to  furnish  himself 
from  the  enemy,  whose  vessels  in  that  capacious 
and  distant  sea,  were  always  well  supplied ; 
and  the  silver  taken  from  the  British  govern- 
ment packet  would  be  a  means  towards  paying 
wages. 

In  the  middle  of  January,  after  a  most  tem- 
pestuous passage,  he  had  doubled  the  Cape,  en- 
tered the  Pacific,  his  characteristic  motto,  Free 
Trade  and  Sailors'  Rights,  at  the  mast-head, 
and  ran  for  Valparaiso — the  great  point  of  mar- 
itime resort  in  the  South  Pacific.  He  had  ex- 
pected to  find  it  a  Spanish  town,  as  it  wras 
when  he  left  the  United  States :  he  found  it 
Chilian,  for  Chili,  in  the  meantime,  had  declared 
her  independence:  and  this  change  he  had  a 
right  to  deem  favorable,  as,  in  addition  to  the 
advantages  of  conventional  neutrality,  it  was 
fair  to  count  upon  the  good  feeling  of  a  young 
and  neighboring  republic.  In  this  he  was  not 
disappointed,  being  well  received,  meeting  good 
treatment,  obtaining  supplies,  and  acquiring  val- 
uable information.  He  learnt  that  the  Ameri- 
can whalers  were  in  great  danger,  most  of  them 
ignorant  of  the  war,  cruisers  in  pursuit  of  them, 
and  one  already  taken.  He  learnt  also  that  the 
Viceroy  of  Peru  had  sent  out  corsairs  against 
American  shipping — a  piece  of  information  of 
the  highest  moment,  as  it  showed  him  an  ene- 
my where  he  expected  a  neutral,  and  enabled 
him  to  know  how  to  deal  with  Peruvian  ships 
when  he  should  meet  them.  This  criminality 
on  the  part  of  the  viceroy  was  the  result  of  a 
conclusion  of  his  own,  that  as  Spain  and  Great 
Britain  were  allies  against  France,  so  they 
would  soon  be  allies  against  the  United  States ; 
and  that  he,  as  a  good  Spanish  viceroy  should 
begin  without  waiting  for  the  orders.  This  let 
Captain  Porter  see  that  he  had  two  enemies  in- 
stead of  one  to  contend  with  in  the  Pacific ;  and 
this  information,  as  it  showed  increase  of  dan- 
ger to  American  interests,  increased  his  ardor 
to  go  to  their  protection;  which  he  promptly 
did. 


494 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Barely  taking  time  to  hurry  on  board  the  sup- 
plies, which  six  months  already  at  sea  rendered 
indispensable,  he  was  again  in  pursuit  of  the 
enenry,  and  soon  had  the  good  fortune  to  fall  in 
with  an  American  whale-ship,  which  gave  the 
important  intelligence  that  a  Peruvian  corsair 
had  just  captured  two  American  whalers  off 
Coquimbo  and  was  making  for  that  place,  with 
a  British  vessel  in  company.  This  was  excit- 
ing information,  and  presented  a  three-fold  en- 
terprise to  the  chivalrous  spirit  of  Porter — to 
rescue  the  American,  punish  the  Peruvian,  and 
capture  the  Englishman.  Instantly  all  sail  was 
set  for  Coquimbo,  the  American  whaler  which 
had  given  the  information  in  company,  and  all 
hearts  beating  high  with  expectation,  and  with 
the  prospect  of  performing  some  generous  and 
gallant  deed. 

In  a  few  hours  a  strange  sail  was  descried  in 
the  distance,  with  a  smaller  vessel  in  company ; 
and  soon  the  sail  was  suspected  to  be  a  cruiser, 
disguised  as  a  whaler.  Then  some  pretty  play 
took  place,  allowable  in  maritime  war,  although 
entirely  a  game  of  deception.  The  stranger 
showed  Spanish  colors ;  the  Essex  showed 
English,  and  then  fired  a  gun  to  leeward.  The 
whaler  in  company  with  the  Essex  hoisted  the 
American  flag  beneath  the  English  jack.  All 
these  false  indications  are  allowable  to  gain  ad- 
vantages before  fighting,  but  not  to  fight  under, 
when  true  colors  must  be  shown  by  the  attack- 
ing ship  under  the  penalty  of  piracy. 

Gun  signals  were  then  resorted  to.  The 
stranger  fired  a  shot  ahead  of  the  Essex,  as 
much  as  to  say  slop  and  talk  ;  the  Essex  fired 
a  shot  over  him,  signifying  come  nearer.  She 
came,  for  the  implication  was  that  the  next  shot 
would  be  into  her.  When  nearer,  the  stranger 
sent  an  armed  boat  to  board  the  Essex ;  but  the 
boat  was  directed  to  return  with  an  order  to 
the  stranger  to  pass  under  the  frigate's  lee 
(t.  e.  under  her  guns),  and  to  send  an  officer  on 
board  to  apologise  for  the  shots  he  had  fired 
at  an  English  man-of-war.  The  order  was 
promptly  complied  with.  The  stranger  came 
under  the  lee  of  the  Essex  and  sent  her  lieu- 
tenant on  board,  who,  not  suspecting  where  he 
was,  readily  told  him  that  his  ship  was  the 
Nereyda,  Peruvian  privateer,  of  fifteen  guns 
and  a  full  crew ;  that  they  were  cruising  for 
Americans,  and  had  already  taken  two  (the 
same    menti&ned    by  the  whaler)  j    and  that 


the  smaller  vessel  in  company  was  one  of 
these. 

After  giving  this  information  he  made  the 
apology  for  the  shot,  which  was  that,  having 
put  one  of  their  American  prizes  in  charge  of  a 
small  crew,  the  English  letter-of-marque  Nim- 
rod  had  fallen  in  with  it  and  taken  it  from  the 
crew,  and  that  they  were  cruising  for  this  Nim- 
rod  with  a  view  to  obtain  redress,  and  had  mis- 
taken this  frigate  for  her,  and  hence  the  shot 
ahead  of  her ;  and  hoped  the  explanation  would 
constitute  a  sufficient  apology.  It  did  so  ;  Capt. 
Porter  was  perfectly  satisfied  with  it,  and  still 
more  so,  with  the  information  which  accom- 
panied it.  It  placed  the  accomplishment  of  one 
of  his  three  objects  immediately  in  his  hands, 
and  the  one  perhaps  dearest  to  his'  heait — that 
of  catching  the  Peruvian  corsair  which  was 
preying  upon  American  commerce.  So,  civilly 
dismissing  the  lieutenant,  he  waited  until  he 
had  got  aboard  of  the  Nereyda,  then  run  up 
the  American  flag,  fired  a  shot  over  the  corsair, 
and  stood  ready  to  fire  into  her.  The  caution 
was  sufficient :  the  Peruvian  surrendered  im- 
mediately, with  her  prize.  Thus  was  the  pirati- 
cal capture  of  two  American  whalers  promptly 
chastised,  and  one  of  them  released,  and  the 
Peruvian  informed  that  he  and  his  countrymen 
were  cruising  against  Americans  in  mistake, 
and  would  be  treated  as  pirates  if  they  con- 
tinued the  practice.  This  admonition  put  an 
end  to  Peruvian  seizure  of  American  vessels. 

Believing  that  the  other  American  whaler 
captured  by  the  Nereyda,  and  taken  from  her 
prize-crew  by  the  Nimrod  would  be  carried  to 
Lima,  Captain  Porter  immediately  bore  away 
for  its  port  (Callao),  approached  it,  hauled  off 
to  watch,  saw  three  vessels  standing  in,  prepared 
to  cut  them  off,  and  especially  the  foremost, 
which  he  judged  to  be  an  American.  She  was 
so,  and  was  cut  off— the  very  whaler  he  was  in 
search  of.  It  was  the  Barclay  ;  and  the  master, 
crew  and  all,  so  rejoiced  at  their  release  that 
they  immediately  joined  their  deliverer.  The 
Barclay  became  the  consort  of  the  Essex ;  her 
crew  enlisted  under  Porter ;  the  master  became 
(what  he  greatly  needed)  a  pilot  for  him  in  the 
vast  and  unknown  sea  he  was  traversing.  There 
was  now  a  good  opportunity  to  look  into  this 
most  frequented  of  Peruvian  ports,  which  Cap- 
tain Porter  did,  showing  English  colors ;  and, 
seeing  nothing  within  that  he  would  have  a 


ANNO  184S.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


495 


right  to  catch  when  it  came  out,  nor  gaining 
any  special  information,  and  finding  that  nothing 
had  occurred  there  to  make  known  his  arrival 
in  the  Pacific,  he  immediately  sailed  again,  to 
make  the  most  of  his  time  before  the  fact  of 
his  presence  should  be  known  and  the  alarm 
spread. 

He  stood  across  the  main  towards  Chatham 
Island  and  Charles  Island,  approaching  which 
three  sail  were  discovered  in  the  same  moment — 
two  in  company,  the  other  apart  and  in  a  different 
direction.  The  one  apart  was  attended  to  first, 
pursued,  summoned,  captured,  and  proved  to  be 
the  fine  British  whaler  Montezuma,  with  four- 
teen hundred  barrels  of  oil  on  board.  A  crew 
was  put  on  board  of  her,  and  chase  given  to 
the  other  two.  They  had  taken  the  alarm, 
seeing  what  was  happening  to  the  Montezuma, 
and  were  doing  their  best  to  escape.  The  Essex 
gained  upon  them ;  but  when  within  eight  miles 
it  fell  calm,  dead  still — one  of  those  atmospheric 
stagnations  frequent  in  the  South  Sea.  Sailing 
ceased ;  boats  were  hoisted  out ;  the  first  lieu- 
tenant, Downes,  worthy  second  to  Porter,  was 
put  in  command.  Approached  within  a  quarter 
of  a  mile,  the  two  ships  showed  English  colors 
and  fired  several  guns.  Economizing  powder 
and  time,  the  boats  only  replied  with  their  oars, 
pulling  hard  to  board  quick ;  seeing  which  the 
two  ships  struck,  each  in  succession,  as  the 
boarders  were  closing.  They  proved  to  be  the 
Georgiana  and  the  Policy,  both  whalers,  the 
former  built  for  the  East  India  service,  pierced 
for  eighteen  guns,  and  having  six  mounted  when 
taken.  Having  the  reputation  of  a  fast  vessel, 
the  captain  determined  to  equip  her  as  a  cruiser, 
which  was  done  with  her  own  guns  and  those  of 
the  Policy — this  latter,  like  the  Georgiana, 
pierced  for  eighteen  guns,  but  mounting  ten. 

A  very  proper  compliment  was  paid  to  Lieut. 
Downes  in  giving  him  the  command  of  this 
British  ship,  thus  added  to  the  American  navy 
with  his  good  exertions.  An  armament  of  16 
guns,  and  a  crew  of  41  men,  and  her  approved 
commander,  it  was  believed  would  make  her  an 
over-match  for  any  English  letters  of  marque, 
supposed  to  be  cruising  among  these  islands, 
and  justify  occasional  separate  expeditions. 

By  these  three  captures  Capt.  Porter  was  en- 
abled to  consummate  the  second  part  of  his  plan 
— that  of  living  upon  the  enemy.  He  got  out 
of  them  ample  supplies  of  beeij  bread,  pork, 


water,  and  Gallipagos  tortoises.  Besides  food 
for  the  men,  many  articles  were  obtained  for 
repairing  his  own  ship:  and  accordingly  the 
rigging  was  overhauled  and  tarred  down,  many 
new  spars  were  fitted,  new  cordage  supplied, 
the  Essex  repainted — all  in  the  middle  of  the 
Pacific,  and  at  the  expense  of  a  Power  boasting 
great  fleets,  formidable  against  other  fleets,  but 
useless  against  a  daring  little  cruiser. 

Getting  into  his  field  of  operation  in  the 
month  of  April,  Capt.  Porter  had  already  five 
vessels  under  his  command — the  Montezuma, 
the  Georgiana,  the  Barclay,  and  the  Policy,  in 
addition  to  the  Essex.  All  cruising  together 
towards  the  middle  of  that  month,  and  near 
sunset  in  the  evening,  a  sail  was  perceived  in 
the  distant  horizon.  A  night-chase  might  per- 
mit her  to  escape ;  a  judicious  distribution  of 
his  little  squadron,  without  alarming,  might 
keep  her  in  view  till  morning.  It  was  dis- 
tributed accordingly.  At  daylight  the  sail  was 
still  in  sight,  and,  being  chased,  she  was  soon 
overtaken  and  captured.  It  was  the  British 
whaler  Atlantic,  355  tons,  24  men,  pierced  for 
20  guns,  and  carrying  8  18-pounder  carronades. 
While  engaged  in  this  chase  another  sail  was 
discovered,  pursued,  and  taken.  It  was  the 
Greenwich,  of  338  tons,  18  guns,  and  25  men ; 
and  like  the  other  was  an  English  letter  of 
marque. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  now  little  man-of-war, 
the  Georgiana,  under  Lieut.  Downes,  made  a 
brief  excursion  o,f  her  own  among  the  islands, 
apart  from  the  Essex,  and  with  brilliant  success. 
He  took,  without  resistance,  the  British  whale 
ships  Catherine,  of  270  tons,  8  guns,  and  29  men, 
and  Rose,  of  220  tons,  8  guns  and  21  men;  and, 
after  a  sharp  combat,  a  third  whaler,  the  Hector, 
270  tons,  25  men,  pierced  for  20  guns  and  11 
mounted.  In  this  action  the  lieutenant,  after 
having  manned  his  two  prizes,  had  but  21  men 
and  boys  left  to  manage  his  ship,  fight  the 
Hector,  and  keep  down  fifty  prisoners.  After 
manning  the  Hector  and  taking  her  crew  on 
board  his  own  vessel,  he  had  but  ten  men  to 
perform  the  double  duty  of  working  the  vessel 
and  guarding  seventy-three  prisoners;  yet  he 
brought  all  safe  to  his  captain,  who  then  had  a 
little  fleet  of  nine  sail  under  his  command,  all 
of  his  own  creation,  and  created  out  of  the 
enemy. 

The  class  of  some  of  his  prizes  enabled  the 


496 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


captain  to  increase  the  efficiency  of  his  force 
by  some  judicious  changes.  The  Atlantic, 
being  nearly  one  hundred  tons  larger  than  the 
Georgiana,  a  faster  ship,  and  every  way  a  better 
cruiser,  was  converted  into  a  sloop-of-war, 
armed  with  twenty  guns,  manned  by  sixty  men, 
named  the  Essex  Junior ;  and  the  intrepid 
Downes  put  in  command  of  her.  The  Green- 
wich, also  armed  with  guns,  but  only  a  crew  to 
work  her  (for  so  many  prizes  to  man  left  their 
cruisers  with  their  lowest  number,)  was  con- 
verted into  a  store-ship,  and  received  all  the 
spare  stores  of  the  other  ships.  A  few  days 
afterwards  the  Sir  Andrew  Hammond  was 
captured,  believed  to  be  about  the  last  of  the 
British  whalers  in  those  parts,  and  among  the 
finest.  She  was  a  ship  of  three  hundred  and 
ten  tons,  twelve  guns,  and  thirty-one  men ;  and 
had  a  large  supply  of  beef,  pork,  bread,  wood, 
and  water — adding  sensibly  to  the  supplies  of 
the  little  fleet. 

The  fourth  of  July,  arrived  and  was  gaily 
kept,  and  with  the  triumph  of  victorious  feel- 
ings, firing  salutes  with  British  guns,  charged 
with  British  powder.  It  was  a  proud  celebra- 
tion, and  must  have  looked  like  an  illusion  of 
the  senses  to  the  British  prisoners,  accustomed 
to  extol  their  country  as  the  mistress  of  the 
seas,  and  to  consider  American  ships  as  the 
impressment  ground  of  the  British  navy.  The 
celebration  over,  the  little  fleet  divided ;  Essex 
Junior  bound  to  Valparaiso,  with  the  Hector, 
Catherine,  Policy,  and  Montezuma,  prizes,  and 
the  Barclay,  re-captured  ship,  under  convoy. 
The  Essex,  with  the  Greenwich  and  Georgiana, 
steered  for  the  Gallipagos  Islands,  and  fell  in 
with  three  sail  at  once,  the  whole  of  which  were 
eventually  captured:  one,  the  English  whaler 
Charlton,  of  274  tons,  ten  guns,  and  21  men  ; 
another,  the  largest  of  the  three,  the  Seringa- 
patam,  of  357  tons,  14  guns,  and  40  men ;  the 
smallest  of  the  three,  the  New  Zealander,  260 
tons,  8  guns,  and  23  men.  Here  were  900  tons 
of  shipping,  32  guns,  and  75  men  all  taken  at 
once,  and,  as  it  were,  at  a  single  glance  at  the 
sea. 

The  Seringapatam  had  been  built  for  a  cruiser, 
and,  of  all  the  ships  in  the  Pacific,  was  the  most 
dangerous  to  American  commerce.  It  had  just 
come  out,  and  had  already  made  a  prize.  Find- 
ing that  the  master  had  no  commission,  and 
that  he  had  commenced  cruising  in  anticipation 


of  one,  and  thereby  subjected  himself  to  be 
treated  as  a  pirate,  Captain  Porter  had  him  put 
in  irons,  and  sent  to  the  United  States  to  be 
tried  for  his  life.  While  finding  himself  encum- 
bered with  prisoners,  and  his  active  strength 
impaired  by  the  guards  they  required,  he  re- 
leased a  number  on  parole,  and  gave  them  up 
one  of  the  captured  ships  (the  Charlton)  to 
proceed  to  Rio  Janeiro.  The  Georgiana  and  the 
New  Zealander  were  despatched  to  the  United 
States,  each  laden  with  the  oil  taken  from  the 
British  whalers.  Encumbered  with  prizes,  as 
well  as  with  prisoners,  and  no  American  port  in 
which  to  place  them  (for  the  mouth  of  the  Co- 
lumbia, though  claimed  by  the  United  States 
since  1804.  and  settled  under  Mr.  John  Jacob 
Astor  since  1811,  had  not  then  been  nationally 
occupied),  Captain  Porter  undertook  to  provide 
a  place  of  his  own.  Repairing  to  the  wild  and 
retired  island  of  Nooaheevah,  he  selected  a  se- 
questered inlet,  built  a  little  fort  upon  it,  warped 
three  of  his  prizes  under  its  guns,  left  a  little 
garrison  of  twenty-one  men  under  Lieutenant 
Gamble  to  man  it,  and  then  went  upon  another 
cruise. 

The  story  of  the  remainder  of  his  cruise  is 
briefly  told.  He  had  learnt  that  the  British 
government,  thoroughly  aroused  by  his  opera- 
tions in  the  Pacific,  had  sent'out  a  superior  force 
to  capture  him.  Taking  the  Essex  Junior  with 
him,  he  sailed  for  Valparaiso,  entered  the  har- 
bor, and  soon  a  superior  British  frigate  and  a 
sloop  of  war  entered  also.  Captain  Hillyar,  for 
that  was  the  British  captain's  name,  saluted  the 
American  frigate  courteously,  inquiring  for  the 
health  of  Captain  Porter ;  but  the  British  frigate 
(the  Phoebe)  came  so  near  that  a  collision  seemed 
inevitable,  and  looked  as  if  intended,  her  men 
being  at  quarters  and  ready  for  action.  In  a 
moment  Captain  Porter  was  equally  ready,  and 
that  either  for  boarding  or  raking,  for  the  ves- 
sels had  got  so  close  that  the  Phcebe,  in  hauling 
off,  passed  her  jib-boom  (that  spar  which  runs 
out  from  the  bowsprit)  over  the  deck  of  the 
Essex,  and  lay  with  her  bow  to  the  broadside 
of  the  American.  It  was  a  fatal  position,  and 
would  have  subjected  her  to  immediate  capture 
or  destruction,  justifiable  by  the  undue  intimacy 
of  an  enemy.  Captain  Porter  might  have  fired 
into  her ;  but,  reluctant  to  attack  in  a  neutral 
port,  he  listened  to  the  protestations  of  the 
British  captain,  accepted  his  declaration  of  in- 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


497 


nocent  intentions  and  accidental  contact,  and 
permitted  him  to  haul  off  from  a  situation  in 
which  he  could  have  been  destroyed  in  a  few 
minutes.  Could  he  have  foreseen  what  was  to 
happen  to  himself  soon  after  in  the  same  port, 
he  could  not  have  been  so  forbearing  to  the  foe 
nor  so  respectful  to  the  Chilian  authorities. 

For  six  weeks  the  hostile  vessels  watched 
each  other,  the  British  vessel  sometimes  lying 
off  and  on  outside  of  the  harbor,  and  when  so 
at  sea  the  Essex  going  out  and  offering  to  fight 
her  single  handed;  for  the  Essex  Junior  was 
too  light  to  be  of  any  service  in  a  frigate  fight. 
Other  British  ships  of  war  being  expected  at 
Valparaiso,  and  no  combat  to  be  had  with  the 
Phcebe  without  her  attendant  sloop,  Captain 
Porter  determined  to  take  his  opportunity  to 
escape  from  the  harbor — which  the  superior 
sailing  of  the  Essex  would  enable  him  to  do 
when  the  British  ships  were  a  few  miles  off,  as 
they  often  were — Essex  Junior  escaping  at  the 
same  time  by  parting  company,  as  it  was  certain 
that  both  the  British  ships  would  follow  the 
American  frigate. 

March  28th,  1813,  was  a  favorable  day  for  the 
attempt — the  wind  right,  the  enemy  far  enough 
out,  and  the  Essex  in  perfect  order  for  fighting 
or  sailing.  The  attempt  was  made,  and  with 
success,  until,  doubling  a  headland  which  formed 
part  of  the  harbor,  a  squall  carried  away  the 
maintopmast,  crippling  the  ship  and  greatly  dis- 
abling her.  Capt.  Porter  put  back  for  the  har- 
bor, and  though  getting  within  it,  and  within 
pistol  shot  of  the  shore,  and  within  half  a  mile 
from  a  detached  battery,  could  not  reach  the 
usual  anchoring  ground  before  the  approach  of 
the  enemy  compelled  him  to  clear  for  action. 
A  desperate  but  most  unequal  combat  raged  for 
near  three  hours — an  inferior  crippled  frigate 
contending  with  a  frigate  and  a  sloop  in  perfect 
order.  The  crippled  mast  of  the  Essex  allowed 
the  enemy  to  choose  his  distance,  which  he  al- 
ways did  with  good  regard  to  his  own  safety, 
using  his  long  eighteens  at  long  distances — 
keeping  out  of  the  reach  of  Porter's  carronades, 
out  of  the  reach  of  boarding,  and  only  within 
range  of  six  long  twelves  which  played  with 
such  effect  that  at  the  end  of  half  an  hour  both 
British  ships  hauled  off  to  repair  damages. 
Having  repaired,  both  returned,  and  got  such  a 
position  that  not  a  gun  of  the  crippled  Essex 
could  bear  upon  them.  An  attempt  was  made 
Vol.  IL— 32 


to  close  upon  them  and  get  near  enough  to  crip- 
ple the  sloop  and  drive  her  out  of  the  fight  for 
the  remainder  of  the  action  ;  but  the  frigate 
edged  away,  choosing  her  distance,  and  using 
her  long  guns  with  terrible  effect  upon  the  Es- 
sex, which  could  not  send  back  a  single  shot. 

The  brave  and  faithful  Downes  pulled  through 
the  fire  of  the  enemy  in  an  open  boat  to  take 
the  orders  of  his  captain ;  but  his  light  guns 
could  be  of  no  service,  and  he  was  directed  to 
look  to  his  own  ship.  Twice  more  the  Essex 
endeavored  to  close  upon  the  British  frigate, 
but  she  edged  away  each  time,  keeping  the  dis 
tance  which  was  safe  to  himself  and  destructive 
to  the  Essex.  By  this  time  half  the  whole  crew 
were  killed  or  wounded,  and  the  ship  on  fire. 
Capt.  Porter  then  attempted  to  run  her  on 
shore  ;  but  the  wind  failed  when  within  musket 
shot  of  the  land.  Leave  was  then  given  to  the 
crew  to  save  themselves  by  swimming,  which 
but  few  would  do.  At  last  the  surrender  be 
came  imperative.  The  Essex  struck,  and  her 
heroic  commander  and  surviving  men  and  offi 
cers  became  prisoners  of  war.  Thousands  ol 
persons — all  Valparaiso — witnessed  the  combat. 
The  American  consul,  Mr.  Poinsett,  witnessed 
it  and  claimed  the  protection  of  the  fort,  only  to 
receive  evasive  answers,  as  the  authorities  were 
now  favorable  to  the  British.  It  was  a  clear 
case  of  violated  neutrality,  tried  by  any  rule. 
First,  the  Essex  was  within  the  harbor,  though 
not  at  the  usual  anchoring  place,  which  she 
could  not  reach ;  secondly,  she  was  under  the 
guns  of  the  detached  fort,  only  half  a  mile  dis- 
tant;  thirdly,  she  was  within  the  territorial 
jurisdiction  of  Chili,  whether  measured  by  the 
league  or  by  the  range  of  cannon,  and  no  dispute 
about  either,  as  the  shore  was  at  hand,  and  the 
British  balls  which  missed  the  Essex  hit  the 
land. 

After  the  surrender  some  arrangements  were 
made  with  Capt.  Hillyar.  Some  prisoners  were 
exchanged  upon  the  spot,  part  of  those  made 
by  Capt.  Porter  being  available  for  an  equal 
number  of  his  own  people.  Essex  Junior  be- 
came a  cartel  to  carry  home  himself  and  officers 
and  others  of  his  men  on  parole  ;  but  this  man 
of  daring  deeds  was  not  allowed  to  reach  home 
without  another  proof  of  his  determined  spirit 
When  within  thirty  miles  of  New  York,  Essex 
Junior  was  brought  to  by  the  British  razee 
Saturn,  Capt.  Nash,  who  denied  the  right  of' 


498 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Capt.  Hillyar  to  allow  the  cartel,  and  ordered 
her  to  lie  by  him  during  the  night.  Capt  Por- 
ter put  off  in  a  whale-boat,  and,  though  long 
chased,  saved  himself  by  the  chance  of  a  fog 
coming  to  the  aid  of  hard  rowing. 

And  thus  ended  this  unparalleled  cruise — 
ending  with  a  disaster.  But  the  end  could  not 
efface  the  past ;  could  not  undo  the  captures 
which  had  been  made ;  could  not  obscure  the 
glory  which  had  been  acquired ;  cannot  impair 
the  lesson  which  its  results  impress  on  the 
minds  of  statesmen.  It  had  lasted  eighteen 
months,  and  during  that  time  the  little  frigate 
had  done  every  thing  for  itself  and  the  country. 
It  had  lived  and  flourished  upon  the  enemy. 
Not  a  dollar  had  been  drawn  from  the  public 
Treasury,  either  for  pay  or  supplies ;  all  came 
from  the  foe.  Money,  provisions,  munitions, 
additional  arms,  spars,  cordage,  rigging,  and 
vessels  to  constitute  a  little  fleet,  all  came  from 
the  British.  Far  more  than  enough  for  all  pur- 
poses was  taken  and  much  destroyed ;  for  dam- 
age as  well  as  protection  was  an  object  of  the 
expedition — damage  to  the  British,  protection  to 
Americans ;  and  nobly  were  both  objects  ac- 
complished. Surpluses,  as  far  as  possible,  were 
sent  home;  and,  though  in  part  recaptured, 
these  accidents  did  not  diminish  the  merit  of 
the  original  capture.  The  great  whale  trade  of 
the  British  in  the  Pacific  was  broken  up,  the 
supply  of  oil  was  stopped,  the  London  lamps 
were  in  the  condition  of  those  of  the  "  foolish 
virgins,"  and  a  member  of  Parliament  declared 
in  his  place  that  the  city  had  burnt  dark  for  a 
year. 

The  personal  history  of  Commodore  Porter, 
for  such  he  became,  was  full  of  incident  and  ad- 
venture, all  in  keeping  with  his  generous  and 
heroic  character.  Twice  while  a  lad  and  serving 
in  merchant  vessels  in  the  West  Indies,  he  was 
impressed  by  the  British,  and,  by  his  eourage 
and  conduct  made  his  escape,  each  time.  A  third 
attempt  at  impressment  was  repulsed  by  the 
bloody  defeat  of  the  press-gang.  The  same  at- 
tempt, renewed  with  increased  numbers,  was 
again  repulsed  with  loss  to  the  British  party — 
young  Porter,  only  sixteen,  among  the  most 
courageous  defenders  of  the  vessel.  He  was 
upwards  of  a  year  a  prisoner  at  Tripoli,  being 
first  lieutenant  on  board  the  Philadelphia  when 
she  grounded  before  that  city  and  was  captured. 
He  was  midshipman  with  the  then  Lieutenant 


Rodgers,  when  the  two  young  officers  and  eleven 
men  performed  that  marvel  of  endurance,  firm- 
ness, steadiness,  and  seamanship,  in  working  for 
three  days  and  nights,  without  sleep  or  rest,  on 
the  French  frigate  Insurgent,  guarding  all  the 
time  their  173  prisoners,  and  conducting  the 
prize  safe  into  port — as  related  in  the  notice  of 
Commodore  Rodgers. 

After  his  return  from  the  Pacific,  he  was  em- 
ployed in  suppressing  piracy  in  the  West  Indies, 
which  he  speedily  accomplished ;  but  for  punish- 
ing an  insult  to  the  flag  in  the  island  of  Porto 
Rico,  he  incurred  the  displeasure  of  his  govern- 
ment, and  the  censure  of  a  court  martial.  His 
proud  spirit  would  not  brook  a  censure  which 
he  deemed  undeserved ;  and  he  resigned  his 
commission  in  the  navy,  of  which  he  was  so 
brilliant  an  ornament.  TJie  writer  of  this  View 
was  a  close  observer  of  that  trial,  and  believed 
the  Commodore  to  have  been  hardly  dealt  by, 
and  considered  the  result  a  confirmation  of  his 
general  view  of  courts  martial  where  the  govern- 
ment interferes — an  interference  (when  it  hap- 
pens) generally  for  a  purpose,  either  to  convict 
or  acquit ;  and  rarely  failing  of  its  object  in 
either  case,  as  the  court  is  appointed  by  the 
government,  dependent  upon  it  for  future  honor 
and  favor,  acts  in  secret,  and  subject  to  the  ap- 
proval of  the  Executive. 

Stung  to  the  quick  by  such  requital  of  his 
services,  the  brave  officer  resigned  his  commis- 
sion, and  left  the  country  which  he  had  served 
so  faithfully,  and  loved  so  well,  and  took  ser- 
vice in  the  Republic  of  Mexico,  then  lately  be- 
come independent  and  desirous  to  create  a  navy. 
But  he  was  not  allowed  to  live  and  mourn  an 
exile  in  a  foreign  land.  President  Jackson  pro- 
posed to  restore  him  to  his  place  in  the  navy, 
but  he  refused  the  restoration  upon  the  same 
ground  that  he  had  resigned  upon — would  not 
remain  in  a  service  under  an  unreversed  sentence 
of  unjust  censure.  President  Jackson  then  gave 
him  the  place  of  Consul  General  at  Algiers  ;  and, 
upon  the  reduction  of  that  place  by  the  French, 
appointed  him  the  United  States  Charge  d' Af- 
faires to  the  Sublime  Porte — a  mission  after- 
wards raised  to  Minister  Resident  by  act  of 
Congress  for  his  special  benefit.  The  Sultan 
Mahmoud — he  who  suppressed  the  Janissaries, 
introduced  European  reforms,  and  so  greatly 
favored  Christians  and  strangers — was  then  on 
the  throne,  and  greatly  attached  to  the  Com- 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


499 


modore,  whose  conversation  and  opinions  he 
often  sought.  He  died  in  this  post,  and  was 
brought  home  to  be  buried  in  the  country  which 
gave  him  birth,  and  which  no  personal  wrong 
could  make  him  cease  to  love.  A  national  ship 
of  war,  the  Trux'ton,  brought  him  home — a  deli- 
cate compliment  in  the  selection  of  the  vessel 
bearing  the  name  of  the  commander  under 
whom  he  first  served. 

Humanity  was  a  ruling  feature  in  his  charac- 
ter, and  of  this  he  gave  constant  proof— humane 
to  the  enemy  as  well  as  to  his  own  people.  Of 
his  numerous  captures  he  never  made  one  by 
bloodshed  when  milder  means  could  prevail ; 
always  preferring,  by  his  superior  seamanship, 
to  place  them  in  predicaments  which  coerced 
surrender.  Patriotism  was  a  part  of  his  soul. 
He  was  modest  and  unpretentious  ;  never  seem- 
ing to  know  that  he  had  done  things  of  which 
the  world  talked,  and  of  which  posterity  would 
hear.  He  was  a  "lion"  nowhere  but  on  the 
quarter-deck,  and  in  battle  with  the  enemies  of 
his  country.  He  was  affectionate  to  his  friends 
and  family,  just  and  kind  to  his  men  and  officers, 
attaching  all  to  him  for  life  and  for  death.  His 
crew  remaining  with  him  when  their  terms  were 
expiring  in  the  Pacific,  and  refusing  to  quit  their 
commander  when  authorized  to  do  so  at  Valpa- 
raiso, were  proofs  of  their  devotion  and  affec- 
tion. 

Detailed  history  is  not  the  object  of  this  no- 
tice, but  character  and  instruction — the  deeds 
which  show  character,  and  the  actions  which 
instruct  posterity ;  and  in  this  view  his  career 
is  a  lesson  for  statesmen  to  study — to  study  in 
its  humble  commencement  as  well  as  in  its  daz- 
zling and  splendid  culmination.  Schools  do  not 
form  such  commanders;  and,  if  they  did,  the 
wisdom  of  government  would  not  detect  the 
future  illustrious  captain  in  the  man  before  the 
mast,  or  in  the  boy  in  the  cabin.  Born  in  Bos- 
ton, the  young  Porter  came  to  man's  estate  in 
Baltimore,  and  went  to  sea  at  sixteen  in  the 
merchant  ship  commanded  by  his  father — the 
worthy  father  of  such  a  son — making  many 
voyages  to  the  West  Indies.  There  he  earned 
his  midshipman's  warrant,  and  there  he  learned 
the  seamanship  which  made  him  the  worthy 
second  of  Rodgers  in  that  marvellous  manage- 
ment of  the  Insurgent,  which  faithful  history 
will  love  to  commemorate.  Self-made  in  the 
beginning,  he  was  self-acting  through  life,  and 


will  continue  to  act  upon  posterity,  if  amenable 
to  the  lesson  taught  by  his  life :  the  merchant 
service,  the  naval  school,  cruisers,  the  naval 
force,  separate  commands  for  young  men.  With 
a  little  32  gun  frigate,  all  carronades  except  a 
half-dozen  stern  chasers,  and  they  only  twelve- 
pounders,  he  dominated  for  a  year  in  the  vast 
Pacific  Ocean ;  with  a  44  and  her  attendant 
sloop-of-war,  brig,  and  schooner,  he  would  have 
dominated  there  to  the  end  of  the  war.  He 
was  the  Paul  Jones  of  the  "  second  war  of  Inde- 
pendence," with  a  more  capacious  and  better 
regulated  mind,  and  had  the  felicity  to  trans- 
mit as  well  as  to  inherit  the  qualities  of  a  com- 
mander. The  name  of  Porter  is  yet  borne  with 
honorable  promise  on  the  roll  of  the  American 
navy. 


CHAPTER    CXIX. 

REFUNDING  OF  GENERAL  JACKSON'S  FINE, 

During  his  defence  of  New  Orleans  in  the 
winter  of  1814-'15,  General  Jackson  was  ad- 
judged to  have  committed  a  contempt  of  court, 
in  not  producing  the  body  of  a  citizen  in  obedi- 
ence to  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  whom  he  had 
arrested  under  martial  law  which  he  had  pro- 
claimed and  enforced  for  the  defence  of  the 
city.  He  was  fined  for  the  contempt,  and  paid 
it  himself,  refusing  to  permit  his  friends,  and 
even  the  ladies  of  New  Orleans  who  presented 
the  money  ($1,000),  to  pay  it  for  him.  He 
submitted  to  the  judgment  of  the  court,  paying 
the  amount  before  he  left  the  court  room,  but 
protesting  against  it  as  an  illegal  exaction,  and 
as  involving  the  imputation  of  illegality  on  his 
conduct.  This  conveyed  a  reproach  under 
which  he  was  always  sensitive,  but  to  relieve 
himself  from  which  he  would  countenance  no 
proceeding  while  he  was  still  on  the  theatre  of 
public  action,  and  especially  while  he  was 
President.  His  retirement  to  private  life  re- 
moved the  obstacle  to  the  action  of  his  friends, 
and  soon  thereafter  Mr.  Linn,  a  senator  from 
the  State  of  Missouri,  brought  in  a  bill  for  re- 
funding the  fine.  This  was  a  quarter  of  a 
century  after  it  had  been  imposed.  On  getting 
notice  of  this  proceeding  General  Jackson  wrote 


500 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


a  letter  to  Senator  Linn,  of  which  the  leading 
paragraphs  are  here  given. 

"Having  observed  in  the  newspapers  that 
you  had  given  notice  of  your  intention  to  intro- 
duce a  bill  to  refund  to  me  the  fine  (principal 
and  interest)  imposed  by  Judge  Hall,  for  the 
declaration  of  martial  law  at  New  Orleans,  it  was 
my  determination  to  address  you  on  the  sub- 
ject ;  but  the  feeble  state  of  my  health  has  here- 
tofore prevented  it.  I  felt  that  it  was  my  duty 
to  thank  you  for  this  disinterested  and  voluntary 
act  of  justice  to  my  character,  and  to  assure  you 
that  it  places  me  under  obligations  which  I 
shall  always  acknowledge  with  gratitude. 

"  It  is  not  the  amount  of  the  fine  that  is  im- 
portant to  me :  but  it  is  the  fact  that  it  was 
imposed  for  reasons  which  were  not  well 
founded  ;  and  for  the  exercise  of  an  authority 
which  was  necessary  to  the  successful  defence 
of  New  Orleans ;  and  without  which,  it  must 
be  now  obvious  to  all  the  world,  the  British 
would  have  been  in  possession,  at  the  close 
of  the  war,  of  that  great  emporium  of  the 
West.  In  this  point  of  view  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  country  is  interested  in  the  passage  of 
the  bill ;  for  exigencies  like  those  which  existed 
at  New  Orleans  may  again  arise ;  and  a  com- 
manding-general ought  not  to  be  deterred  from 
taking  the  necessary  responsibility  by  the  re- 
flection that  it  is  in  the  power  of  a  vindictive 
judge  to  impair  his  private  fortune,  and  place  a 
stain  upon  his  character  which  cannot  be  re- 
moved. I  would  be  the  last  man  on  earth  to 
do  any  act  which  would  invalidate  the  principle 
that  the  military  should  always  be  subjected  to 
the  civil  power ;  but  I  contend,  that  at  New 
Orleans  no  measure  was  taken  by  me  which 
was  at  war  with  this  principle,  or  which,  if 
properly  understood,  was  not  necessary  to  pre- 
serve it. 

"When  I  declared  martial  law,  Judge  Hall 
was  in  the  city ;  and  he  visited  me  often,  when 
the  propriety  of  its  declaration  was  discussed, 
and  was  recommended  by  the  leading  and  pa- 
triotic citizens.  Judging  from  his  actions,  he 
appeared  to  approve  it.  The  morning  the  order 
was  issued  he  was  in  my  office ;  and  when  it 
was  read,  he  was  heard  to  exclaim :  '  Now  the 
country  may  be  saved :  without  it,  it  was  lost/ 
How  he  came  afterwards  to  unite  with  the 
treacherous  and  disaffected,  and,  by  the  exercise 
of  his  power,  endeavored  to  paralyze  my  exer- 
tions, it  is  not  necessary  here  to  explain.  It 
was  enough  for  me  to  know,  that  if  I  was  ex- 
cusable in  the  declaration  of  martial  law  in 
order  to  defend  the  city  when  the  enemy  were 
besieging  it,  it  was  right  to  continue  it  until  all 
danger  Was  over.  For  full  information  on  this 
part  of  the  subject,  I  refer  you  to  my  defence 
under  Judge  Hall's  rule  for  me  to  appear  and 
show  cause  why  an  attachment  should  not  issue 
for  a  contempt  of  court.  This  defence  is  in  the 
appendix  to  '  Eaton's  Life  of  Jackson.' 

"  There  is  no  truth  in  the  rumor  which  you 


notice,  that  the  fine  he  imposed  was  paid  by 
others.  Every  cent  of  it  was  paid  by  myself. 
When  the  sentence  was  pronounced,  Mr.  Abner 
L.  Duncan  (who  had  been  one  of  my  aides-de- 
camp, and  was  one  of  my  counsel),  hearing  me 
request  Major  Reed  to  repair  to  my  quarters 
and  bring  the  sum — not  intending  to  leave  the 
room  until  the  fine  was  paid — asked  the  clerk 
if  he  would  take  his  check.  The  clerk  replied 
in  the  affirmative,  and  Mr.  Duncan  gave  the 
check.  I  then  directed  my  aide  to  proceed  forth- 
with, get  the  money,  and  meet  Mr.  Duncan's 
check  at  the  bank  and  take  it  up ;  which  was 
done.  These  are  the  facts  ;  and  Major  Davezac, 
now  in  the  Assembly  of  New  York,  can  verify 
them. 

"  It  is  true,  as  I  was  informed,  that  the  ladies 
did  raise  the  amount  to  pay  the  fine  and  costs  ; 
but  when  I  heard  of  it,  I  advised  them  to  apply 
it  to  the  relief  of  the  widows  and  orphans  that 
had  been  made  so  by  those  who  had  fallen  in 
the  defence  of  the  country.  It  was  so  applied, 
as  I  had  every  reason  to  believe ;  but  Major 
Davezac  can  tell  you  more  particularly  what 
was  done  with  it." 

The  refunding  of  the  fine  in  the  sense  of  a 
pecuniary  retribution,  was  altogether  refused 
and  repulsed  both  by  General  Jackson  and  his 
friends.  He  would  only  have  it  upon  the 
ground  of  an  illegal  exaction — as  a  wrongful 
exercise  of  authority — and  as  operating  a  decla- 
ration that,  in  declaring  martial  law,  and  im- 
prisoning the  citizen  under  it,  and  in  refusing 
to  produce  his  body  upon  a  writ  of  habeas  cor- 
pus, and  sending  the  judge  himself  out  of  the 
city,  he  was  justified  by  the  laws  of  the  land 
in  all  that  he  did.  Congress  was  quite  ready, 
by  a  general  vote,  to  refund  the  fine  in  a  way 
that  would  not  commit  members  on  the  point  of 
legality.  It  was  a  thing  constantly  done  in  the 
case  of  officers  sued  for  official  acts,  and  without 
strict  inquiry  into  the  legality  of  the  act  where 
the  officer  was  acting  in  good  faith  for  the  public 
service.  In  all  such  cases  Congress  readily  as- 
sumed the  pecuniary  consequences  of  the  act, 
either  paying  the  fine,  or  damages  awarded,  or 
restoring  it  after  it  had  been  paid.  General 
Jackson  might  have  had  his  fine  refunded  in 
the  same  way  without  opposition ;  but  it  was 
not  the  money,  but  release  from  the  impu- 
tation of  illegal  conduct  that  he  desired ;  and 
with  a  view  to  imply  that  release  the  bill  was 
drawn:  and  that  made  it  the  subject  of  an 
earnestly  contested  debate  in  both  Houses.  In 
the  Senate,  where  the  bill  originated,  Mr.  Tap- 
pan  of  Ohio,  vindicated  the  recourse  to  martial 


ANNO  1843.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


501 


law,  and  as  being  necessary  for  the  safety  of 
the  city. 

"  I  ask  you  to  consider  the  position  in  which 
he  was  placed ;  the  city  of  New  Orleans  was, 
from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  his  camp ;  the 
British,  in  superior  force,  had  landed,  and  were 
eight  or  nine  miles  below  the  city ;  within  three 
hours'  march;  in  his  camp  were  many  over 
whom  he  had  no  control,  whom  he  could  not 
prevent  (or  punish  by  any  process  of  civil  law) 
from  conveying  intelligence  to  the  enemy  of  his 
numbers,  means  of  defence  or  offence,  as  well 
as  of  his  intended  or  probable  movements ;  was 
not  the  entire  command  of  his  own  camp  neces- 
sary to  any  efficient  action  ?  It  seems  to  me 
that  this  cannot  be  doubted.  In  time  of  war, 
when  the  enemy's  force  is  near,  and  a  battle  is 
impending,  if  your  general  is  obliged,  by  the 
necessities  of  his  position,  and  the  propriety  of 
his  operations,  to  occupy  a  city  as  his  camp,  he 
must  have  the  entire  command  of  such  city,  for 
the  plain  reason  that  it  is  impossible,  without 
such  command,  to  conduct  his  operations  with 
that  secrecy  which  is  necessary  to  his  success. 
The  neglect,  therefore,  to  take  such  command, 
would  be  to  neglect  the  duty  which  his  country 
had  imposed  upon  him.  I  perceive  but  two 
ways  in  which  General  Jackson  could  have  ob- 
tained the  command  of  his  own  camp ;  one  was 
by  driving  all  the  inhabitants  out  of  the  city, 
the  other  by  declaring  martial  law.  He  wisely 
and  humanely  chose  the  latter,  and  by  so  doing, 
saved  the  city  from  being  sacked  and  plundered, 
and  its  inhabitants  from  being  outraged  or  de- 
stroyed by  the  enemy." 

But  this  arrest  of  a  citizen,  and  refusal  to 
obey  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  was  after  the 
British  had  been  repulsed,  and  after  a  rumor  of 
peace  had  arrived  at  the  city,  but  a  rumor  com- 
ing through  a  British  commander,  and  therefore 
not  to  be  trusted  by  the  American  general. 
He  thought  the  peace  a  probable,  but  by  no  means 
a  certain  event :  and  he  could  not  upon  a  prob- 
ability relax  the  measures  which  a  sense  of 
danger  had  dictated.  The  reasons  for  this  were 
given  by  the  General  himself  in  his  answer  to 
show  cause  why  the  rule  which  had  been 
granted  should  not  be  made  absolute. 

"  The  enemy  had  retired  from  their  position, 
it  is  true  ;  but  they  were  still  on  the  coast,  and 
within  a  few  hours'  sail  of  the  city.  They  had 
been  defeated,  and  with  loss;  but  that  loss 
was  to  be  repaired  by  expected  reinforcements. 
Their  numbers  much  more  than  quadrupled  all 
the  regular  forces  which  the  respondent  could 
command ;  and  the  term  of  service  of  his  most 
efficient  militia  force  was  about  to  expire. 
Defeat,  to  a  powerful  and  active  enemy,  was 
more  likely  to  operate  as  an  incentive  to  renewed 


and  increased  exertion,  than  to  inspire  them 
with  despondency,  or  to  paralyze  their  efforts. 
A  treaty,  it  is  true,  had  been  probably  signed, 
but  yet  it  might  not  be  ratified.  Its  contents 
even  had  not  transpired  ;  so  that  no  reasonable 
conjecture  could  be  formed  whether  it  would 
be  acceptable  ;  and  the  influence  which  the  ac- 
count of  the  signature  had  on  the  army  was 
deleterious  in  the  extreme,  and  showed  a  neces- 
sity for  increased  energy,  instead  of  relaxation 
of  discipline.  Men  who  had  shown  themselves 
zealous  in  the  preceding  part  of  the  campaign, 
became  lukewarm  in  the  service.  Wicked  and 
weak  men,  who,  from  their  situation  in  life, 
ought  to  have  furnished  a  better  example, 
secretly  encouraged  the  spirit  of  insubordina- 
tion. They  affected  to  pity  the  hardships  of 
those  who  were  kept  in  the  field ;  they  fomented 
discontent,  by  insinuating  that  the  merits  of 
those  to  whom  they  addressed  themselves,  had 
not  been  sufficiently  noticed  or  applauded ;  and 
disorder  rose  to  such  an  alarming  height,  that  at 
one  period  only  fifteen  men  and  one  officer  were 
found  out  of  a  whole  regiment,  stationed  to 
guard  the  very  avenue  through  which  the 
enemy  had  penetrated  into  the  country.  At 
another  point,  equally  important,  a  whole  corps, 
on  which  the  greatest  reliance  had  been  placed, 
operated  upon  by  the  acts  of  a  foreign  agent, 
suddenly  deserted  their  post.  If,  trusting  to  an 
uncertain  peace,  the  respondent  had  revoked  his 
proclamation,  or  ceased  to  act  under  it,  the  fatal 
security  by  which  they  were  lulled,  would  have 
destroyed  all  discipline,  dissolved  all  his  force, 
and  left  him  without  any  means  of  defending 
the  country  against  an  enemy  instructed  by  the 
traitors  within  our  bosom,  of  the  time  and  place 
at  which  he  might  safely  make  his  attack.  In 
such  an  event,  his  life,  which  would  certainly 
have  been  offered  up,  would  have  been  but  a 
feeble  expiation  for  the  disgrace  and  misery  into 
which  his  criminal  negligence  would  have 
plunged  the  country." 

A  newspaper  in  the  city  published  an  inflam- 
matory article,  assuming  the  peace  to  be  cer- 
tain, though  not  communicated  by  our  govern- 
ment, inveighed  against  the  conduct  of  the 
General  in  keeping  up  martial  law  as  illegal 
and  tyrannical,  incited  people  to  disregard  it, 
and  plead  the  right  of  volunteers  to  disband 
who  had  engaged  to  serve  during  the  war. 
Louallier,  a  member  of  the  General  Assembly, 
was  given  up  as  the  author  of  the  article  :  the 
General  had  him  arrested  and  confined :  Judge 
Hall  issued  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  to  release 
his  body :  General  Jackson  ordered  the  Judge 
out  of  the  city,  and  sent  a  guard  to  conduct  him 
out.  All  this  took  place  on  the  10th  and  11th 
of  March :   on  the  13th  authentic  news  of  the 


502 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


peace  arrived,  and  the  martial  law  ceased  to 
exist.  Judge  Hall  returned  to  the  city,  and 
Mr.  Tappan  thus  relates  what  took  place  : 

"  Instead  of  uniting  with  the  whole  popula- 
tion, headed  by  their  venerable  bishop,  in  joy 
and  thankfulness  for  a  deliverance  almost  mi- 
raculous, achieved  by  the  wisdom  and  energy 
of  the  General  and  the  gallantry  of  his  army, 
he   was    brooding    over    his    own    imaginary 
wrongs,  and  planning  some  method  to  repair 
his  wounded  dignity.      On  this  day,  twenty- 
seven  years  ago,  he  caused  a  rule  of  the  district 
court  to  be  served  on  General  Jackson,  to  ap- 
pear before  him  and  show  cause  why  an  attach- 
ment should  not  issue  against  him  for : — 1st. 
Refusing  to  obey  a  writ  issued  by  Judge  Hall. 
2d.  Detaininig  an  original  paper  belonging  to 
the  court.     And  3d,  for  imprisoning  the  Judge. 
The  first  cause  was  for  the  General  refusing  to 
obey  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  the  case  of 
Louallier ;  the  second  for  detaining  the  writ. 
The  whole  of  these  three  causes  assigned  are  | 
founded  on  the  hypothesis,  that  instead  of  Gen-  j 
eral  Jackson  having  command  of  his  camp,  he 
exercised  a  limited  authority  under  the  control 
of  the  civil  magistracy.     I  trust  I  have  satisfied  ! 
you  that  martial  law  did  in  fact  exist,  and  of  \ 
necessary  consequence,  that  Judge  Hall's  au-  j 
thority  was  suspended.     If  he  was  injured  by  I 
it,  surely  he  was  not  the  proper  person  to  try  j 
General  Jackson  for  that  injur}r.     The  princi-  i 
pal  complaint  against  General  Jackson  was  for  | 
imprisoning    the    Judge.      The   imprisonment 
consisted  in  sending  an  officer  to  escort  him  out 
of  camp ;   and  for  this,  instead  of  taking  the 
regular  legal  remedy,  by  an  action  for  assault 
and  false  imprisonment,  in  the  State  court,  which 
was  open  to  him  as  well  as  every  other  citizen, 
he  called  the  General  to  answer  before  himself. 
He  went  before  the  Judge  and  proffered  to  show 
cause  ;  the  Judge  would  not  permit  him  to  do 
this,  nor  would  he  allow  him  to  assign  his  rea- 
sons in  writing  for  his  conduct,  but,  without 
trial,  without  a  hearing  of  his  defence,  he  fined 
him  one  thousand  dollars.     You  all  know  the 
conduct  of  the  General  on  that  occasion;   he 
saved  the  Judge  from  the  rising  indignation  of 
the  people  and  paid  his  fine  to  the  United  States 
marshal.      These    proceedings   of  Judge  Hall 
were  not  only  exceedingly  outrageous,  but  they 
were  wholly  illegal  and  void ;  for,  as  says  an 
eminent  English  jurist,  '  even  an  act  of  parlia- 
ment cannot  make  a  man  a  judge  in  his  own 
cause.'     This  was  truly  and  wholly  the  cause 
of  the  Judge  himself.     If  a  law  of  Congress  had 
existed  which  authorized  him  to  sit  in  judgment 
upon  any  man  for  an  injury  inflicted  upon  him- 
self, such  a  law  would  have  been  a  mere  dead 
letter,  and  the  Judge  would  have  been  bound  to 
disregard  it.     It  was  the  violation  of  this  prin- 
ciple of  jurisprudence  which  aroused  the  indig- 
nation of  the  people  and  endangered  the  life  of 
this  contemptible  judge.     I  am  aware  of  the  law 


of  contempt ;  it  is  the  power  of  self-preserva- 
tion given  to  the  courts  ;  it  results  from  neces- 
sity alone,  and  extends  no  further  than  neces- 
sity strictly  requires ;  it  has  no  power  to  avenge 
the  wrongs  and  injuries  done  to  the  judge,  un- 
less those  wrongs  obstruct  the  regular  course 
of  justice.  I  am  aware  also  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  law  of  contempt  has  been  adminis- 
tered in  our  courts  where  no  statute  law  regu- 
lated it,  and  it  was  left  to  the  discretion  of  the 
judges  to  determine  what  was  or  was  not  a 
contempt.  In  one  case  a  man  was  fined  for 
contempt  for  reviewing  the  opinion  of  a  judge 
in  a  newspaper.  This  judge  was  impeached  be- 
fore this  body  and  acquitted,  because  not  quite 
two-thirds  of  the  Senate  voted  him  guilty. 
Some  senators,  thinking  probably  that  as  Con- ' 
gress  had  neglected  to  pass  a  law  on  the  sub- 
ject of  contempt,  the  judge  had  nothing  to 
govern  his  discretion  in  the  matter,  and  there- 
fore ought  not  to  be  convicted.  Congress  im- 
mediately passed  such  a  law,  and  no  contempts 
have  occurred  since  in  the  United  States  courts." 

The  speech  of  Judge  Tappan  covered  the  facts 
of  the  case,  upon  which,  and  other  speeches  de- 
livered,,  the  Senate  made  up  its  mind,  and  the 
bill  was  passed,  though  upon  a  good  division, 
and  a  visible  development  of  party  lines.  The 
yeas  were : 

"Messrs.  Allen,  Bagby,  Benton,  Buchanan, 
Calhoun,  Cuthbert,  Fulton,  Graham.  Hender- 
son, King,  Linn,  McDuffie,  McRoberts,  Man- 
gum,  Rives,  Sevier,  Smith  of  Connecticut,  Smith 
of  Indiana,  Sprague,  Sturgeon,  Tallmadge,  Tap- 
pan,  Walker,  Wilcox,  Williams,  Woodbury, 
Wright,  Young— 28." 

The  nays  were : 

"  Messrs.  Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Bayard,  Ber- 
rien, Choate,  Clayton,  Conrad,  Crafts,  Critten- 
den, Dayton,  Evans,  Huntington,  Kerr,  Merrick, 
Miller,  Morehead,  Phelps,  White,  Woodbridge 

—20." 

In  the  House  it  was  well  supported  by  Mr. 
Charles  Jared  Ingersoll,  and  others,  and  passed 
at  the  ensuing  session  by  a  large  majority — 158 
to  28.  This  gratifying  result  took  place  before 
the  death  of  General  Jackson,  so  that  he  had 
the  consolation  of  seeing  the  only  two  acts 
which  impugned  the  legality  of  any  part  of  his 
conduct — the  senatorial  condemnation  for  the 
removal  of  the  deposits,  and  the  proceedings  in 
New  Orleans  under  martial  law — both  con- 
demned by  the  national  representation,  and  the 
judicial  record  as  well  as  the  Senate  journal, 
left  free  from  imputation  upon  him. 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


503 


CHAPTER    CXX. 

EEPEAL  OF  THE  BANKRUPT  ACT:  ATTACK  OF 
ME.  CUSHING  ON  ME.  CLAY  :  ITS  EEBUKE. 

This  measure  was  immediately  commenced  in 
the  House  of  Representatives,  and  pressed  with 
vigor  to  its  conclusion.  Mr.  Everett,  of  Ver- 
mont, brought  in  the  repeal  bill  on  leave,  and 
after  a  strenuous  contest  from  a  tenacious  mi- 
nority, it  was  passed  by  the  unexpected  vote 
of  two  to  one — to  be  precise — 140  to  72.  In 
the  Senate  it  had  the  same  success,  and  greater, 
being  passed  by  nearly  three  to  one — 34  to  13  : 
and  the  repealing  act  being  carried  to  Mr.  Ty- 
ler, he  signed  it  as  promptly  as  he  had  signed 
the  bankrupt  act  itself.  This  was  a  splendid 
victory  for  the  minority  who  had  resisted  the 
passage  of  the  bill,  and  for  the  people  who  had 
condemned  it.  The  same  members,  sitting  in 
the  same  chairs,  who  a  year  and  a  half  before, 
passed  the  act,  now  repealed  it.  The  same 
President  who  had  recommended  it  in  a  mes- 
sage, and  signed  the  act  as  soon  as  it  passed, 
now  signed  the  act  which  put  an  end  to  its  ex- 
istence. A  vicious  and  criminal  law,  corruptly 
passed,  and  made  the  means  of  passing  two 
other  odious  measures,  was  itself  now  brought 
to  judgment,  condemned,  and  struck  from  the 
statute-book  ;  and  this  great  result  was  the 
work  of  the  people.  All  the  authorities — legis- 
lative, executive,  and  judicial — had  sustained 
the  act.  Only  one  judge  in  the  whole  United 
States  (R.  W.  Wells,  Esq.,  United  States  dis- 
trict judge  for  Missouri),  condemned  it  as  un- 
constitutional. All  the  rest  sustained  it,  and 
he  was  overruled.  But  the  intuitive  sense  of 
honor  and  justice  in  the  people  revolted  at  it. 
They  rose  against  it  in  masses,  and  condemned 
it  in  every  form — in  public  meetings,  in  legisla- 
tive resolves,  in  the  press,  in  memorials  to  Con- 
gress, and  in  elections.  The  tables  of  the  two 
Houses  were  loaded  with  petitions  and  remon- 
strances, demanding  the  repeal,  and  the  mem- 
bers were  simply  the  organs  of  the  people  in 
pronouncing  it.  Never  had  the  popular  voice 
been  more  effective — never  more  meritoriously 
raised.  The  odious  act  was  not  only  repealed, 
but  its  authors  rebuked,  and  compelled  to  pro- 
nounce the  rebuke  upon  themselves.    It  was  a 


proud  and  triumphant  instance  of  the  innate, 
upright  sentiment  of  the  people,  rising  above  all 
the  learning  and  wisdom  of  the  constituted  au- 
thorities. Nor  was  it  the  only  instance.  The 
bankrupt  act  of  forty  years  before,  though 
strictly  a  bankrupt  act  as  known  to  the  legisla- 
tion of  all  commercial  countries,  was  repealed 
within  two  years  after  its  passage — and  that  by 
the  democratic  administration  of  Mr.  Jefferson : 
this  of  1841,  a  bankrupt  act  only  in  name— an 
act  for  the  abolition  of  debts  at  the  will  of  the 
debtor  in  reality— had  a  still  shorter  course, 
and  a  still  more  ignominious  death.  Two  such 
condemnations  of  acts  for  getting  rid  of  debts, 
are  honorable  to  the  people,  and  bespeak  a  high 
degree  of  reverence  for  the  sacred  obligations 
between  debtor  and  creditor ;  and  while  credit 
is  due  to  many  of  the  party  discriminated  as 
federal  in  1800,  and  as  whig  in  1840  (but  al- 
ways the  same),  for  their  assistance  in  con- 
demning these  acts,  yet  as  party  measures,  the 
honor  of  resisting  their  passage  and  conducting 
their  repeal,  in  both  instances,  belongs  to  the 
democracy. 

The  repeal  of  this  act,  though  carried  by  such 
large  majorities,  and  so  fully  in  accordance  with 
the  will  of  the  people,  was  a  bitter  mortifica- 
tion to  the  administration.  It  was  their  mea- 
sure, and  one  of  their  measures  of  "relief"  to 
the  country.  Mr.  Webster  had  drawn  the  bill, 
and  made  the  main  speech  for  it  in  the  Senate, 
before  he  went  into  the  cabinet.  Mr.  Tyler 
had  recommended  it  in  a  special  message,  and 
promptly  gave  it  his  approving  signature.  To 
have  to  sign  a  repeal  bill,  so  soon,  condemning 
what  he  had  recommended  and  approved,  was 
most  unpalatable :  to  see  a  measure  intended 
for  the  "  relief  "  of  the  people  repulsed  by  those 
it  was  intended  to  relieve,  was  a  most  unwel- 
come vision.  From  the  beginning  the  repeal 
was  resisted,  and  by  a  species  of  argument,  not 
addressed  to  the  merits  of  the  measure,  but  to 
the  state  of  parties,  the  conduct  of  men,  and  the 
means  of  getting  the  government  carried  on. 
Mr.  Caleb  Cushing  was  the  organ  of  the  Presi- 
dent, and  of  the  Secretary  of  State  in  the 
House  ;  and,  identifying  himself  with  these  two 
in  his  attacks  and  defences,  he  presented  a  sort 
of  triumvirate  in  which  he  became  the  spokes 
man  of  the  others.  In  this  character  he  spoke 
often,  and  with  a  zeal  which  outran  discretion, 
and  brought  him  into  much  collision  with  the 


504 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


House,  and  kept  him  much  occupied  in  defend- 
ing himself,  and  the  two  eminent  personages 
who  were  not  in  a  position  to  speak  for  them- 
selves. A  few  passages  from  these  speeches, 
from  both  sides,  will  be  given  to  show  the  state 
of  men  and  parties  at  that  time,  and  how  much 
personal  considerations  had  to  do  with  transact- 
ing the  business  of  Congress.    Thus : 

"  Mr.  Cushing,  who  was  entitled  to  the  floor, 
addresed  the  House  at  length,  in  reply  to  the 
remarks  made  by  various  gentlemen,  during  the 
last  three  weeks,  in  relation  to  the  present  ad- 
ministration. He  commenced  by  remarking 
that  the  President  of  the  United  States  was  ac- 
cused of  obstructing  the  passage  of  whig  mea- 
sures of  relief,  and  was  charged  with  uncertain- 
ty and  vacillation  of  purpose.  As  these  charges 
had  been  made  against  the  President,  he  felt  it 
to  be  his  duty  to  ask  the  country  who  was 
chargeable  with  vacillation  and  uncertainty  of 

Eurpose,  and  the  destruction  of  measures  of  re- 
ef 1  Who  were  they  who,  with  sacrilegious 
hands,  were  seeking  to  expunge  the  last  mea- 
sure of  the  '  ill-starred '  extra  session  from  the 
statute-books  ?  Forty-seven  whigs,  he  an- 
swered, associated  with  the  democratic  party 
in  the  House,  and  formed  a  coalition  to  blot  out 
that  measure.  He  repeated  it :  forty-seven 
whigs  formed  a  coalition  with  the  democrats  to 
expunge  all  the  remains  of  the  extra  session 
which  existed.  For  three  weeks  past,  there 
had  been  constantly  poured  forth  the  most  elo- 
quent denunciations  of  the  President,  of  the 
Secretary  of  State,  and  of  himself.  He  might 
imagine,  as  was  said  by  Warren  Hastings  when 
such  torrents  of  denunciation  were  poured  out 
upon  him,  that  there  was  some  foundation  for 
the  imputation  of  the  orators.  He  should  in- 
quire into  the  merits  of  the  political  questions, 
and  into  the  accusations  made  against  him.  He 
was  told  that  he  had  thrown  a  firebrand  into 
the  House — that  he  had  brought  a  tomahawk 
here.  He  denied  it.  He  had  done  no  such 
thing.  It  was  not  true  that  he  commenced  the 
debate  which  was  carried  on ;  and  when  gen- 
tlemen said  that  he  had  volunteered  remarks 
out  of  the  regular  order,  in  reply  to  the  gentle- 
man from  Tennessee  [Mr.  Arnold],  he  told 
them  that  they  were  not  judges.  His  mode  of 
defence  was  counter-attack,  and  it  was  for  him 
to  judge  of  the  argument.  If  he  carried  the 
war  into  the  enemy's  camp,  the  responsibility 
was  with  those  who  commenced  the  attack." 

Mr.  Clay,  though  retiring  from  Congress,  and 
not  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
was  brought  into  the  debate,  and  accused  of 
setting  up  a  dictatorship,  and  baffling  or  con- 
trolling the  constitutional  administration : 

"  The  position  of  the  two  great  parties,  and 


those  few  who  stood  here  to  defend  the  acts  of 
the  administration,  was  peculiar.  Our  govern- 
ment was  now  undergoing  a  test  in  a  new  par- 
ticular. This  was  the  first  time  that  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  government  had  ever  de- 
volved upon  the  Vice-President.  Now,  he  had 
called  upon  the  people  and  the  House  to  adapt 
themselves  to  that  contingency,  and  support  the 
constitution  ;  for  with  the  'constitutional  fact' 
was  associated  the  party  fact ;  and  whilst  the 
President  was  not  a  party  chief,  there  was  a 
party  chief  of  the  party  in  power.  The  ques- 
tion was,  whether  there  could  be  two  adminis- 
trations— one,  a  constitutional  administration, 
by  the  President ;  and  the  other  a  party  ad- 
ministration, exercised  by  a  party  chief  in  the 
capitol  ?  With  this  issue  before  him — whether 
the  President,  or  the  party  leader — the  chief  in 
the  White  House,  or  the  chief  in  the  capitol — 
should  carry  on  the  administration — he  felt  it 
to  be  a  duty  which  he  owed  to  the  government 
of  his  country  to  give  his  aid  to  the  constitu- 
tional chief.  That  was  the  real  question  which 
had  pervaded  all  our  contests  thus  far." 

Such  an  unparliamentary  reference  to  Mr. 
Clay,  a  member  of  a  different  House,  could  not 
pass  without  reply  in  a  place  where  he  could 
not  speak  for  himself,  but  where  his  friends 
were  abundant.  Mr.  Garret  Davis,  of  Ken- 
tucky, performed  that  office,  and  found  in  the 
fifteen  years'  support  of  Mr.  Clay  by  Mr.  Cush- 
ing (previous  to  his  sudden  adhesion  to  Mr. 
Tyler  at  the  extra  session),  matter  of  personal 
recrimination : 

"  Mr.  Garret  Davis  replied  to  the  portion  of 
the  speech  of  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts 
[Mr.  Cushing]  relating  to  the  alleged  dictation 
of  the  ex-senator  from  Kentucky  [Mr.  Clay]. 
The  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  declared 
that  there  were  but  two  alternatives — one,  a 
constitutional  administration,  under  the  lead  of 
the  President ;  and  the  other,  a  faction,  under 
the  lead  of  the  senator  from  Kentucky.  Such 
remarks  were  no  more  nor  less  than  calumnies 
on  that  distinguished  man  ;  and  he  would  ask 
the  gentleman  what  principle  Mr.  Clay  had 
changed,  by  which  he  had  obtained  the  ill-will 
of  the  gentleman,  after  having  had  his  support 
for  fifteen  years  previous  to  the  extra  session  ? 
He  asked,  Did  the  senator  from  Kentucky  bring 
forward  any  new  measure  at  the  extra  session  ? 
Did  he  enter  upon  any  untrodden  path,  in  order 
to  embarrass  the  path  of  John  Tyler  ?  No,  was 
the  answer." 

Reverting  to  the  attacks  on  the  administra- 
tion, Mr.  Cushing  considered  them  as  the  im- 
potent blows  of  a  faction,  beating  its  brains  out 
against  the  immovable  rock  of  the  Tyler  gov- 
ernment : 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


505 


"  It  was  now  nearly  two  years  since,  in  ac- 
cordance with  a  vote  of  the  people,  a  change 
took  place  in  the  administration  of  the  govern- 
ment. Since  that  time,  an  internecine  war  had 
arisen  in  the  dominant  party.  The  war  had 
now  been  pursued  for  about  one  year  and  a  half; 
but,  in  the  midst  of  it,  the  federal  government, 
with  its  fixed  constitution,  had  stood,  like  the 
god  Terminus,  defying  the  progress  of  those 
who  were  rushing  against  it.  The  country  had 
seen  one  party  throw  itself  against  the  immov- 
able rock  of  the  constitution.  What  had  been 
the  consequence  ?  The  party  thus  hurling  it- 
self against  the  constitutional  rock  was  dashed 
to  atoms." 

Mr.  Cushing  did  not  confine  his  attempts  to 
gain  adherents  to  Mr.  Tyler,  to  the  terrors  of 
denunciations  and  anathemas :  he  superadded 
the  seductive  arguments  of  persuasion  and  en- 
ticement, and  carried  his  overtures  so  far  as  to 
be  charged  with  putting  up  the  administration 
favor  to  auction,  and  soliciting  bidders.  He 
had  said : 

"  Now  he  would  suppose  a  man  called  to  be 
President  of  the  United  States.  It  mattered 
not  whether  he  was  elected,  or  whether  the 
office  devolved  upon  him  by  contingencies  con- 
templated in  the  constitution.  He  was  Presi- 
dent. What,  then,  was  his  first  duty?  To 
consider  how  to  discharge  his  functions.  He 
(Mr.  C.)  thought  the  President  was  bound  to 
look  around  at  the  facts,  and  see  by  what 
circumstances  he  was  supported.  Gentlemen 
might  talk  of  treason ;  much  had  been  said  on 
that  subject ;  but  the  question  for  the  individual 
who  might  happen  to  be  President  to  consider 
was,  How  is  the  government  to  be  carried  out  ? 
By  whose  aid  ?  He  (Mr.  Cushing)  would  say 
to  that  party  now  having  the  majority  (and 
whom,  on  account  of  that  circumstance,  it  was 
more  important  he  should  address),  that  if  they 
gave  him  no  aid,  it  was  his  duty  to  seek  aid 
from  their  adversaries.  If  the  whigs  continue 
to  blockade  the  wheels  of  the  government,  he 
trusted  that  the  democrats  would  be  patriotic 
enough  to  carry  it  on." 

Up  to  this  point  Mr.  Cushing  had  addressed 
himself  to  the  whigs  to  come  to  the  support  of 
Mr.  Tyler :  despairing  of  success  there  he  now 
turned  to  the  democracy.  This  open  attempt 
to  turn  from  one  party  to  the  other,  and  to  take 
whichever  he  could  get,  turned  upon  him  a 
storm  of  ridicule  and  reproach*  Mr.  Thomp- 
son, of  Indiana,  said : 

"  The  gentleman  seemed  to  have  assumed  the 
character  of  auctioneer  for  this  bankrupt  ad- 
ministration, and  he  took  it  that  the  gentleman 
would  be  entitled  to  a  good  part  of  its  effects. 


This  was  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  any 
civilized  country  that  a  government  had,  through 
the  person  of  its  acknowledged  leader — a  man 
doing  most  of  its  speaking,  and  much  of  its 
thinking — stalked  into  a  representative  assem- 
bly, and  openly  put  up  the  administration  in 
the  common  market  to  the  highest  bidder." 

But  Mr.  Cushing  did  not  limit  himself  to  se- 
ductive appliances  in  turning  to  the  democracy 
for  support  to  Mr.  Tyler :  he  dealt  out  denun- 
ciation to  them  also,  and  menaced  them  with 
the  fate  of  the  shattered  whig  party  if  they  did 
not  come  to  the  rescue.  On  this  Mr.  Thomp- 
son remarked : 

"  The  gentleman  also  told  the  minority  that 
they  would  be  dashed  to  pieces,  like  their  pre- 
decessors, unless  they  came  into  the  measures  of 
the  President ;  but  it  yet  remained  to  be  seen 
whether  he  would  get  a  bid.  Judging  from  the 
expression  of  opinion  by  the  leading  organ  of 
the  democratic  party,  he  (Mr.  T.)  was  inclined 
to  think  that  no  bid  would  be  offered  by  a  por- 
tion of  that  party.  He  thought,  from  givings- 
oiit,  in  various  quarters,  that  the  President 
would  ultimately  have  to  resort  to  this  '  consti- 
tutional fact,'  to  defend  himself  against  a  large 
portion  even  of  that  party.  Indeed,  it  was 
doubtful  whether  there  would  be  bidders  from 
either  side." 

Mr.  Cushing  had  said  that  there  were  per- 
sons connected  with  the  administration  who 
would  yet  be  heard  of  for  the  Presidency,  and 
seemed  to  present  that  contingency  also  as  a 
reason  why  support  should  be  given  it.  To 
this  intimation  Mr.  Thompson  made  an  indig- 
nant reply : 

"  He  recollected  well— though  he  was  very 
young  at  the  time,  and  not  prepared  to  take 
part  in  the  political  discussions  of  the  day — 
that,  during  the  administration  of  the  distin- 
guished and  venerable  gentleman  from  Massa- 
chusetts [Mr.  Adams]  there  arose  in  this  coun- 
try a  party,  who,  upon  the  bare  supposition 
(which  was  dispelled  on  an  examination  of  the 
facts )— upon  the  bare  suspicion  that  there  was 
what  was  called  a  bargain,  intrigue,  and  man- 
agement between  the  then  head  of  the  adminis- 
tration, and  another  distinguished  citizen  who 
was  a  member  of  his  cabinet,  made  it  a  subject 
of  the  most  bitter  and  vindictive  denunciation. 
Yet,  notwithstanding  that  this  part  of  our  his- 
tory was  still  fresh  in  the  recollection  of  the 
gentleman  from  Massachusetts— when  we  see, 
in  this  age  of  republican  liberty,  a  gentleman 
descended  from  a  line  of  illustrious  Revolu- 
tionary ancestry— coming,  too,  almost  from  the 
very  Cradle  of  Liberty,  and  acting  as  the  organ 
of   the    administration   on   this   floor— boldly, 


506 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


shamelessly,  and  unblushingly  offering  the 
spoils  of  office  as  a  consideration  for  party  sup- 
port, we  may  well  have  cause  for  alarm.  How 
many  clerkships  were  there  in  Philadelphia  to 
be  disposed  of  in  this  manner  ?  From  the  col- 
lector down  to  the  lowest  tide-waiter,  the  power 
of  appointment  was  to  be  directed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  operating  on  the  coming  presidential 
contest.  Who,  now,  would  charge  the  whig 
party  with  shaping  their  measures  with  a  view 
to  the  elevation  of  a  particular  individual,  after 
hearing  the  bold  and  open  avowal  from  the  gen- 
tleman that  the  present  administration  would 
shape  their  measures  for  the  purpose  of  operat- 
ing on  the  coming  contest  ?  But  (said  Mr.  T.) 
there  was  something  exceedingly  ridiculous  in 
the  idea  of  the  administration  party — and  such 
a  party,  too  ! — coming  into  the  Representative 
hall,  and  telling  its  members  that  it  had  the 
power  to  dispose  of  the  various  candidates  for 
the  Presidency  at  its  pleasure,  and  controlling 
the  votes  of  nearly  three  millions  of  freemen  by 
means  of  its  veto  power,  and  the  power  of  ap- 
pointment and  removal." 

Mr.  Cushing  had  belonged  to  the  federal 
party,  since  called  whig,  up  to  the  time  that  he 
joined  Mr.  Tyler,  and  had  been  all  that  time  a 
fierce  assailant  of  the  democratic  party:  the 
energy  with  which  he  now  attacked  that  party, 
and  the  warmth  with  which  he  wooed  the 
other,  brought  on  him  many  reproaches,  some 
rough  and  cutting — some  tender  and  depreca- 
tory ;  as  this  from  Mr.  Thompson : 

"  The  gentleman  exulted  in  the  fate  of  the 
whig  party,  and  told  them  with  much  satisfac- 
tion that  their  party  was  destroyed.  Now,  let 
him  ask  the  gentleman,  in  the  utmost  sincerity 
of  his  heart,  whether  he  did  not  feel  some  little 
mortification  and  regret  when  he  saw  the  ban- 
ner under  which  he  had  so  often  rallied  trail- 
ing in  the  dust,  and  trampled  under  the  feet  of 
those  against  whom  he  had  fought  for  so  many 
years?" 

Foremost  of  the  whigs  in  zeal  and  activity, 
Mr.  Cushing,  as  one  of  the  most  prominent  men 
of  the  party  was  appointed  when  the  presiden- 
tial vote  of  1840  was  counted  in  the  House,  as 
one  of  the  committee  of  two  to  wait  upon  Gen- 
eral Harrison  and  formally  make  known  to  him 
his  election.  In  two  months  afterwards  Gene- 
ral Harrison  died — Mr.  Tyler  became  President 
and  quit  the  whigs:  Mr.  Cushing  quit  at  the 
same  time ;  and  not  content  with  quitting, 
threw  all  the  obloquy  upon  them  which,  for 
fifteen  years,  he  had  lavished  upon  the  de- 
mocracy ;  and  in  quitting  the  whigs  he  reversed 
his  conduct  in  all  the  measures  of  his  life,  and 


without  giving  a  reason  for  the  change  in  a 
single  instance.  Mr.  Garret  Davis  summed  up 
these  changes  in  a  scathing  peroration,  from 
which  some  extracts  are  here  given : 

"  The  gentleman  occupies  a  strange  position, 
and  puts  forth  extraordinary  notions,  consider- 
ing the  measures  and  principles  which  he  al- 
ways, until  the  commencement  of  this  adminis- 
tration, advocated  with  so  much  zeal  and  ability. 
I  had  read  many  of  his  speeches  before  I  knew 
him.  I  admired  his  talents  and  attainments ; 
I  approved  of  the  soundness  of  his  views,  and 
was  instructed  and  fortified  in  my  own.  But 
he  is  wonderfully  metamorphosed ;  and  I  think 
if  he  will  examine  the  matter  deliberately,  he 
will  find  it  to  be  quite  as  true,  that  he  has 
broken  his  neck  politically  in  jumping  his 
somersets,  as  that  '  the  whig  party  has  knocked 
out  its  brains  against  the  fixed  fact.'  He  tells 
us  that  party  is  nothing  but  an  association  of 
men  struggling  for  power;  and  that  he  con- 
temns measures — that  measures  are  not  princi- 
ples. The  gentleman  must  have  been  reading 
the  celebrated  treatise,  :  The  Prince,'  for  such 
dicta  are  of  the  school  of  Machiavelli ;  and  his 
sudden  and  total  abandonment  of  all  the  prin- 
ciples as  well  as  measures,  to  which  he  was  as 
strongly  pledged  as  any  whig,  good  and  true, 
proves  that  he  had  studied  his  lesson  to  some 
purpose.  At  the  extra  session  of  1837,  he  op- 
posed the  sub-treasury  in  a  very  elaborate 
speech,  in  which  we  find  these  passages :  'We 
are  to  have  a  government  paper  currency,  re- 
cognizable by  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  and  employed  in  its  dealings ;  but  it  is 
to  be  irredeemable  government  paper.'  '  If  the 
scheme  were  not  too  laughingly  absurd  to  spend 
time  in  arguing  about  it  seriously ;  if  the  mis- 
chiefs of  a  government  paper  currency  had  not 
had  an  out-and-out  trial  both  in  Europe  and 
America,  I  might  discuss  it  as  a  question  of  po- 
litical economy.  But  I  will  not  occupy  the 
committee  in  this  way.  I  am  astounded  at  the 
fatuity  of  any  set  of  men  who  can  think  of  any 
such  project.'  This  is  what  he  said  of  the  sub- 
treasury.  Now,  he  is  the  unscrupulous  advocate 
of  the  exchequer,  a  measure  embodying  both 
the  sub-treasury  and  a  great  organized  gov- 
ernment bank,  and  fraught  with  more  frightful 
dangers  than  his  own  excited  imagination  had 
pictured  in  the  whole  three  years. 

"  He  was  one  of  the  stanchest  supporters  of 
a  United  States  bank.  He  characterized  'the 
refusal  of  the  late  President  (Jackson)  to  sign 
the  bill  re-chartering  the  bank,  like  the  removal 
of  the  deposits,  to  be  in  defiance  and  violation 
of  the  popular  will,'  and  characterized  as  felicity 
ous  the  periods  of  time  when  we  possessed  a 
national  bank,  and  as  calamitous  the  periods 
that  we  were  without  them,  saying — '  Twice  for 
long  periods  of  time,  have  we  tried  a  national 
bank,  and  in  each  period  it  has  fulfilled  its  ap- 
pointed purpose  of  supplying  a  safe  and  equal 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


507 


currency,  and  of  regulating  and  controlling  the 
issues  of  the  State  banks.  Twice  have  we  tried 
for  a  few  years  to  drag  on  without  a  national 
bank,  and  each  of  these  experiments  has  been  a 
season  of  disaster  and  confusion.'  And  yet,  sir, 
he  has  denied  that  he  was  ever  the  supporter 
of  a  bank  of  the  United  States,  and  is  now  one 
of  the  most  rabid  revilers  of  such  an  institu- 
tion. 

"  He  was  for  Mr.  Clay's  land  bill ;  and  he  has 
abandoned,  and  now  contemns  it.  No  man  has 
been  more  frequent  and  unsparing  in  his  de- 
nunciations of  General  Jackson  ;  and  now  he  is 
the  sycophantic  eulogist  of  the  old  henp.  He 
was  the  unflinching  defender  of  the  constitu- 
tional rights  and  powers  of  Congress.  This  ad- 
ministration has  not  only  resorted  to  the  most 
flagitious  abuse  of  the  veto  power,  but  has  re- 
newed every  other  assault,  open  or  insidious,  of 
Presidents  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  upon  Con- 
gress, which  he,  at  the  time,  so  indignantly  re- 
buked; and  he  now  justifies  them  all.  He 
has  gone  far  ahead  of  the  extremest  parasites  of 
executive  power.  John  Tyler  vetoed  four  acts 
of  Congress  which  the  gentleman  had  voted  for, 
and  strange,  by  his  subtle  sophistry,  he  defend- 
ed each  of  the  vetoes  ;  and  most  strange,  when 
the  House,  in  conformity  to  the  provisions  of 
the  constitution,  voted  again  upon  the  measures, 
his  vote  was  recorded  in  their  favor,  and  to  over- 
rule the  very  vetoes  of  which  he  had  just  been 
the  venal  advocate." 

This  versatility  of  Mr.  Cushing,  in  the  sup- 
port of  vetoes,  was  one  of  the  striking  qualities 
developed  in  his  present  change  of  parties.  He 
had  condemned  the  exercise  of  that  power  in 
General  Jackson  in  the  case  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  and  dealt  out  upon  him  unmeas- 
ured denunciation  for  that  act:  now  he  became 
the  supporter  of  all  the  vetoes  of  Mr.  Tyler, 
even  when  those  vetoes  condemned  his  own 
votes,  and  when  they  condemned  the  fiscal  bank 
charter  which  Mr.  Tyler  himself  had  devised 
and  arranged  for  Congress.  He  became  the 
champion,  unrivalled,  of  Mr.  Webster  and  Mr. 
Clay,  defending  them  in  all  things ;  but  now  in 
attacking  Mr.  Clay  whom  he  had  so  long,  and 
until  so  recently,  so  closely,  followed  and  loudly 
applauded,  he  became  obnoxious  to  the  severe 
denunciations  of  that  gentleman's  friends. 


CHAPTER    CXXI* 

NAVAL  EXPENDITURES,  AND  ADMINISTRATION: 
ATTEMPTS  AT  REFORM:  ABORTIVE. 

The  annual  appropriation  for  this  branch  of  the 
service  being  under  consideration,  Mr.  Parmen- 
ter,  the  chairman  of  the  naval  committee,  pro- 
posed to  limit  the  whole  number  of  petty  offi- 
cers, seamen,  ordinary  seamen,  landsmen  and 
boys  in  the  service  to  7,500 ;  and  Mr.  Slidell 
moved  an  amendment  to  get  rid  of  some  50  or 
60  masters'  mates  who  had  been  illegally  ap- 
pointed by  Mr.  Secretary  Henshaw,  during  his 
brief  administration  of  the  naval  department  in 
the  interval  between  his  nomination  by  Mr. 
Tyler  and  his  rejection  by  the  Senate.  These 
motions  brought  on  a  debate  of  much  interest 
on  the  condition  of  the  navy  itself,  the  necessity 
of  a  peace  establishment,  and  the  reformation 
of  abuses.     Mr.  Cave  Johnson,  of  Tennessee — 

"  Expressed  himself  gratified  to  see  the  limita- 
tion proposed  by  the  chairman  of  the  Commit- 
tee on  Naval  Affairs ;  that  he  had  long  believed 
that  we  should  have  a  peace  establishment  for 
the  navy,  as  well  as  the  army;  and  that  the 
number  of  officers  and  men  in  each  should  be 
limited  to  the  necessities  of  the  public  service. 
Heretofore  the  navy  had  been  left  to  the  discre- 
tion of  the  Secretary,  only  limited  by  the  ap- 
propriation bills.  He  urged  upon  the  chairman 
of  the  Naval  Committee  the  propriety  of  reduc- 
ing still  further.  If  he  did  not  misunderstand 
the  amendment,  it  proposed  to  man  the  number 
of  vessels  required  for  the  next  year  in  the  same 
way  that  we  would  do  in  time  of  war,  as  we 
have  heretofore  done.  He  thought  there  should 
be  a  difference  in  the  complement  of  men  re- 
quired for  each  ship  in  war  and  in  peace.  He 
read  a  table,  showing  that  in  the  British  service, 
first  class  men-of-war  of  120  guns,  in  time  or 
peace  had  on  board  (officers,  men,  and  marines) 
886  men,  whilst  the  same  class  in  our  service 
had  on  board  1,200,  officers,  men,  and  marines 
— near  one-third  more  officers  and  men  in  the 
American  service  than  were  employed  in  the 
British.  The  table  showed  about  the  same  dif- 
ference in  vessels  of  inferior  size.  He  thought 
the  number  of  men  and  officers  should  be  regu- 
lated for  a  peace,  and  not  a  war  establishment 
He  expressed  the  hope  that  the  chairman  of  the 
Naval  Committee  would  so  shape  his  amend- 
ment as  to  fix  the  number  of  officers  and  men 
for  a  peace  establishment.  He  was  desirous  of 
having  a  peace  establishment,  and  the  expendi- 
tures properly  regulated.     This  branch  of  the 


508 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


service,  together  with  the  army,  were  the  great 
sources  of  expenditure.  He  read-a  table,  show- 
ing the  expenditures  of  these  branches  of  the 
public  service  from  1821  to  1842,  as  follows : 
($$235,000,000.)  He  said  the  country  would  be 
astonished  to  see  the  immense  sums  expended 
on  the  army  and  navy;  and,  as  he  thought, 
without  any  adequate  return  to  the  country. 
He  could  see  no  advantage  to  the  country  from 
this  immense  expenditure — no  adequate  return. 
He  was  aware  of  the  excuse  made  for  it — the  pro- 
tection of  our  commerce.  This  was  a  mere  pre- 
text— an  excuse  for  throwing  upon  the  public 
treasury  an  immense  number  of  men,  who  might 
be  much  more  profitably  to  the  country  employed 
in  other  occupations.  He  alluded  to  the  Medi- 
terranean squadron  and  the  expenditures  for  the 
protection  of  our  commerce  on  that  sea;  and 
expressed  the  opinion  that  our  expenditures  at 
that  station  equalled  the  whole  of  the  commerce 
east  of  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar— that  it  would 
be  better  for  the  country  to  pay  for  the  com- 
merce than  protect  it ;  that  there  was  no  more 
need  to  protect  our  commerce  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean than  there  was  in  the  Chesapeake  Bay. 
Such  a  thing  as  pirates  in  that  sea  had  been 
scarcely  heard  of  in  the  last  twenty  years.  He 
expressed  his  determination  to  vote  for  the 
amendment,  but  hoped  the  chairman  would  so 
shape  it  as  to  make  a  regular  peace  establish- 
ment." 

The  member  from  Tennessee  was  entirely 
right  in  his  desire  for  a  naval  peace  establish- 
ment, but  the  principle  on  which  such  an  es- 
tablishment should  be  formed,  was  nowhere  de- 
veloped. It  was  generally  treated  as  a  naval 
question,  dependent  upon  the  number  of  na- 
val marine — others  a  commercial  question,  de- 
pendent upon  our  amount  of  commerce  ;  while, 
in  fact,  it  is  a  political  question,  dependent  upon 
the  state  of  the  world.  Protection  of  commerce 
is  the  reason  always  alleged  :  that  reason,  pur- 
sued into  its  constituent  parts,  would  always  in- 
volve two  inquiries,  and  both  of  them  to  be  an- 
swered in  reference  to  the  amount  of  commerce, 
and  its  dangers  in  any  sea.  To  measure  the 
amount  of  a  naval  peace  establishment,  and  its 
distribution  in  different  seas,  the  amount  of 
danger  must  be  considered :  and  that  is  con- 
stantly varying  with  the  changing  state  of  the 
world.  The  great  seat  of  danger  was  formerly 
in  the  Mediterranean  Sea  ;  and  squadrons  pro- 
portioned to  the  amount  of  that  danger  were 
sent  there  :  since  the  extirpation  of  the  pirati- 
cal powers  on  the  coast  of  the  sea,  there  is  no 
danger  to  commerce  there,  and  no  need  for  any 
protection  ;  yet  larger  squadrons  are  sent  there 


than  ever.  Formerly  there  was  piracy  in  the 
West  Indies,  and  protection  was  needed  there  : 
now  there  is  no  piracy,  and  no  protection  need- 
ed, and  yet  a  home  squadron  must  watch  those 
islands.  So  of  other  places.  There  is  no  danger 
in  many  places  now  in  which  there  was  much 
formerly ;  and  where  we  have  most  commerce 
there  is  no  danger  at  all.  This  protection,  the 
object  of  a  naval  peace  establishment,  is  only  re- 
quired against  lawless  or  barbarian  powers : 
such  powers  require  the  presence  of  some  ships 
of  war-  to  restrain  their  piratical  disposition. 
The  great  powers  which  recognize  the  laws  of 
nations,  need  no  such  negotiators  as  men-of-war. 
They  do  not  commit  depredations  to  be  re- 
dressed by  a  broadside  into  a  town :  if  they  do 
injury  to  commerce  it  is  either  accidental,  or 
in  pursuance  to  some  supposed  right :  and  in 
either  case  friendly  ministers  are  to  negotiate, 
and  the  political  power  to  resolve,  before  cannon 
are  fired.  Here  then  is  the  measure  of  a  peace 
establishment :  it  is  in  the  number  and  power 
of  the  barbarian  or  half-barbarian  powers  which 
are  not  amenable  to  the  laws  of  nations,  and 
whose  lawless  propensities  can  only  be  re- 
strained by  the  fear  of  immediate  punishment. 
There  are  but  few  of  these  powers  at  present — 
much  fewer  than  there  were  fifty  years  ago, 
and  can  only  be  found  by  going  to  the  extremi- 
ties of  the  globe — and  are  of  no  force  when 
found,  and  can  be  kept  in  perfect  order  by 
cruisers.  As  for  the  squadrons  kept  up  in  the 
Mediterranean,  the  Pacific  coast,  Brazil,  and 
East  Indies,  they  are  there  without  a  reason, 
and  against  all  reason — have  nothing  to  do  but 
stay  abroad  three  years,  and  then  come  home — 
to  be  replaced  by  another  for  another  three 
years :  and  so  on,  until  there  shall  be  reform. 
Better  far,  if  all  these  squadrons  are  to  be  kept 
up,  that  they  should  remain  at  home,  spending 
their  money  at  home  instead  of  abroad,  and  just 
as  serviceable  to  commerce.  As  for  the  home 
squadron,  that  was  established  by  law,  without 
reason,  and  should  be  suppressed  without  delay : 
and  as  for  the  African  squadron,  that  was  estab- 
lished by  treaty  to  please  Great  Britain,  and 
ought,  in  the  first  place,  not  to  have  been  estab- 
lished at  all ;  and  in  the  second  place,  should 
have  been  suppressed  as  soon  as  the  five  years' 
obligation  to  keep  it  up  had  expired. 

Mr.  Hamlin,  of  Maine,  spoke  to  the  body  of 
the  case,  and  with  knowledge  of  the  subject. 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


509 


and  a  friendly  feeling  to  the  navy — but  not  such 
a  feeling  as  could  wink  at  its  abuses.     He  said  : 

"  He  trusted  he  was  the  very  last  person  who 
would  detract  from  the  well-merited  fame  of  the 
navy  ;  but  he  had  another  rule  of  action :  he 
would  endeavor  so  to  vote  in  relation  to  this 
subject,  as  to  check,  if  possible,  what  he  be- 
lieved the  gross  and  extravagant  expenditure 
of  public  money :  and  he  referred  gentlemen,  in 
corroboration  of  this  assertion  that  there  was 
extravagance  in  the  expenditures,  to  the  report 
of  the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs.  The  facts 
which  stared  them  in  the  face  from  every  quar- 
ter justified  him  in  the  assertion  that  there  was 
gross  extravagance.  Mr.  H.  referred  to  various 
items  of  expenditure,  in  proof  of  the  existence 
of  extravagance." 

"Mr.  Hamlin  pointed  to  the  enormous  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  officers  in  the  navy, 
constantly  augmenting  in  a  time  of  peace,  in- 
stead of  being  diminished  as  the  public  good  re- 
quired : 

"  He  produced  tables,  taken  from  official  re- 
turns, to  show  that  the  greater  number  of  these 
officers  were  necessarily  unemployed,  and  were 
spending  their  time  at  home  in  idleness.  He 
had  nothing  to  urge  against  any  officer  of  the 
navy  ;  they  could  not  be  blamed  for  receiving 
the  allowance  which  the  law  gave  them, 
whether  employed  or  not ; — but  he  asked  gen- 
tlemen to  examine  the  great  disparity  between 
the  number  of  naval  officers,  as  regulated  by 
statute,  and  the  number  now  in  existence." 

This  was  said  before  the  naval  school  was 
created :  since  the  establishment  of  that  school, 
enough  are  legally  appointed  to  officer  a  great 
navy.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  midshipmen  con- 
stantly there,  coming  off  by  annual  deliveries, 
and  demanding  more  ships  and  commissions 
than  the  public  service  and  the  public  Treasury 
can  bear.  Illegal  appointments  have  ceased,  but 
the  evil  of  excessive  appointments  is  greater 
than  ever. 

Mr.  Hamlin  produced  some  items  of  extrava- 
gance, one  of  which  he  summed  up,  showing 
as  the  result  that  $2,142  97  was  expended  at 
one  hospital  in  liquors  for  the  "  sick,"  and  $10,- 
288  53  for  provisions  :  and  then  went  on  to  say : 

"The  amount  expended  within  a  period  of 
one  year  on  the  coast  of  Florida  by  the  com- 
mander of  this  little  squadron,  was  five  hun- 
dred and  four  thousand  five  hundred  and  eighty 
dollars ;  and  yet  the  gentleman  from  South 
Carolina  found  in  this  nothing  to  induce  the 
House  to  restrict  the  appropriations.  Mr.  H. 
said  he  would  go  for  the  amendment.      He 


would  go  for  any  thing  to  stop  the  drafts  these 
leeches  were  making  on  the  Treasury.  His 
principal  object,  however,  in  rising,  was  to  call 
on  the  members  to  redeem  the  pledges  of  econo- 
my that  they  made  at  the  beginning  of  the  ses- 
sion, and  he  trusted  that  now  that  they  had  the 
opportunity  they  would  redeem  them.  He  was 
from  a  commercial  State,  and  would  be  the  last 
man  to  do  any  act  that  would  be  injurious  to 
commerce  ;  but  he  did  not  understand  how 
commerce  could  be  benefited  or  protected  by 
suffering  this  enormous  and  profligate  waste  of 
public  money  to  be  continued.  By  introducing 
a  proper  system  of  economy  and  accountability, 
the  navy  would  be  more  efficient,  and  the  gov- 
ernment would  be  able  to  employ  more  ships 
and  more  guns  to  protect  commerce  than  they 
now  did." 

Mr.  Hale  replied  to  several  members,  and 
went  on  to  speak  of  abuses  in  the  navy  expen- 
ditures, and  the  irresponsibility  of  officers  : 

"  There  was  an  old  maxim  in  the  navy,  that 
there  was  no  law  for  a  post-captain,  and  really 
the  adage  seemed  now  to  be  verified.  The  navy 
(said  Mr.  H.)  is  utterly  without  law,  and  the 
document  just  read  by  the  gentleman  from 
Maine  [Mr.  Hamlin]  showing  the  expenditures 
of  the  Florida  squadron,  proved  it.  Such  con- 
duct as  was  described  in  that  document  ought 
to  make  every  American  blush  ;  but  what  was 
the  result  of  it  ?  Why,  the  officer  came  forward 
and  demanded  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  (Mr. 
Henshaw)  extra  compensation  as  commander 
of  a  foreign  squadron,  and  the  Secretary  paid 
him  from  five  to  seven  thousand  dollars  more. 
It  was  to  correct  a  thousand  such  abuses  as  this, 
that  had  crept  into  the  navy,  that  he  would  of- 
fer the  amendment  which  had  been  read  for  the 
information  of  the  committee.  Mr.  H.  went  on 
to  comment  on  the  large  amount  of  money  un- 
necessarily expended  for  the  navy.  "We  have, 
said  he,  twice  as  many  officers  as  there  is  any 
use  for,  and  they  receive  higher  pay  than  the 
officers  of  any  navy  in  the  world." 

Mr.  Hale  believed  we  had  too  many  navy- 
yards,  and  mentioned  the  condition  of  the  one 
nearest  his  own  home,  as  an  exemplification  of 
his  opinion,  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire— 

"Where  were  stationed  twenty-six  officers, 
at  an  expense  of  $30,000  a  year,  and  all  to  com- 
mand six  seamen  and  twelve  ordinary  seamen. 
This  yard  was  commanded  by  a  post-captain  ; 
and  what  duties  had  he  to  perform '/  Why,  just 
nothing.  What  had  the  commander  to  do  ? 
Why,  to  help  the  captain ;  and  as  for  the  lieu- 
tenants, they  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  give  or- 
ders to  the  midshipmen." 

The  movement  ended  without  results,  and  so 
of  all  desultory  efforts  at  reform  at  any  time 


510 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Abuses  in  the  expenditure  of  public  money  are 
not  of  a  nature  to  surrender  at  the  first  sum- 
mons, nor  to  yield  to  any  thing  but  persevering 
and  powerful  efforts.  A  solitary  member,  or  a 
few  members,  can  rarely  accomplish  any  thing. 
The  ready  and  efficient  remedy  lies  with  the  ad- 
ministration, but  for  that  purpose  a  Jefferson  is 
wanted  at  the  head  of  the  government — a  man 
not  merely  of  the  right  principles,  but  of  admin- 
istrative talent,  to  know  how  to  apply  his  eco- 
nomical doctrines.  Such  a  President  would 
now  find  a  great  field  for  economy  and  re- 
trenchment in  reducing  our  present  expendi- 
tures about  the  one-half— -from  seventy  odd 
millions  to  thirty  odd.  Next  after  an  adminis- 
tration should  come  some  high-spirited  and  per- 
severing young  men,  who  would  lay  hold,  each 
of  some  great  abuse,  and  pursue  it  without  truce 
or  mercy — year  in,  and  year  out — until  it  was 
extirpated.  Some  such  may  arise — one  to  take 
hold  of  the  navy,  one  of  the  army,  one  of  the 
civil  and  diplomatic — and  gain  honor  for  them- 
selves and  good  for  their  country  at  the  same 
time. 


CHAPTER    CXXII. 

CHINESE  MISSION  :  ME.  CUSHING'S  APPOINT- 
MENT AND  NEGOTIATION. 

Ten  days  before  the  end  of  the  session  1842-'3, 
there  was  taken  up  in  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives a  bill  reported  from  the  Committee  of 
Foreign  Relations,  to  provide  the  means  of 
opening  future  intercourse  between  the  United 
States  and  China.  The  bill  was  unusually 
worded,  and  gave  rise  to  criticism  and  objec- 
tion.   It  ran  thus : 

"  That  the  sum  of  forty  thousand  dollars  be, 
and  the  same  is  hereby,  appropriated  and  placed 
at  the  disposal  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  to  enable  him  to  establish  the  future 
commercial  relations  between  the  United  States 
and  the  Chinese  Empire  on  terms  of  national 
equal  reciprocity  ;  the  said  sum  to  be  accounted 
for  by  the  President,  under  the  restrictions  and 
in  the  manner  prescribed  by  the  act  of  first  of 
July,  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and  ninety, 
entitled  '  An  act  providing  the  means  of  inter- 
course between  the  United  States  and  foreign 
nations,' " 


This  bill  was  unusual,  and  objectionable  in  all 
its  features.  It  appropriated  a  gross  sum  to 
be  disposed  of  for  its  object  as  the  President 
pleased,  being  the  first  instance  in  a  public  act 
of  a  departure  from  the  rule  of  specific  appro- 
priations which  Mr.  Jefferson  introduced  as  one 
of  the  great  reforms  of  the  republican  or  demo- 
cratic party.  It  withdrew  the  settlement  of 
the  expenditure  of  this  money  from  the  Treasury 
officers,  governed  by  law,  to  the  President  him- 
self, governed  by  his  discretion.  It  was  copied 
from  the  act  of  July  1st,  1790,  but  under  cir- 
cumstances wholly  dissimilar,  and  in  violation 
of  the  rule  which  condemned  gross,  and  required 
specific,  appropriations.  That  act  was  made  in 
the  infancy  of  our  government,  and  when  pre- 
liminary, informal,  and  private  steps  were  neces- 
sary to  be  taken  before  public  negotiations  could 
be  ventured.  It  was  under  that  act  that  Mr. 
Gouverneur  Morris  was  privately  authorized  by 
President  Washington  to  have  the  unofficial  in- 
terviews with  the  British  ministry  which  opened 
the  way  for  the  public  mission  which  ended  in 
the  commercial  treaty  of  1794.  Private  ad- 
vances were  necessary  with  several  powers,  in 
order  to  avoid  rebuff  in  a  public  refusal  to  treat 
with  us.  Great  latitude  of  discretion  was,  there- 
fore, entrusted  to  the  President ;  and  that  Presi- 
dent was  Washington.  A  gross  sum  was  put 
into  his  hands,  to  be  disposed  of  as  he  should 
deem  proper  for  its  object,  that  of  intercourse 
between  the  United  States  and  foreign  nations, 
and  to  account  for  such  part  of  the  expenditure 
of  the  sum  as.  in  his  judgment,  might  be  made 
public,  and  he  was  limited  in  the  sums  he  might 
allow  to  $9,000  outfit,  and  $9,000  salary  to  a 
full  minister — to  $4,500  per  annum  to  a  charge 
de  affaires — and  to  $1,350  to  a  secretary  of  le- 
gation. This  bill  for  the  Chinese  mission  was 
framed  upon  that  early  act  of  1790,  and  even 
adopted  its  mode  of  accounting  for  the  money 
by  leaving  it  to  the  President  to  suppress  the 
items  of  the  expenditure,  when  he  should  judge 
it  proper.  The  bill  was  loose  and  latitudinous 
enough  to  shock  the  democratic  side  of  the 
House  j  but  not  enough  so  to  satisfy  its  friends ; 
and  accordingly  the  first  movement  was  to  en- 
large the  President's  discretion,  by  striking 
from  the  bill  the  word  "restrictions"  which 
applied  to  his  application  of  the  money.  Mr, 
Adams  made  the  motion,  and  as  he  informed  the 
House  in  the  course  of  the  discussion  at  the  in- 


ANNO  1843.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


511 


stance  and  according  to  the  wish  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  (Mr.  Webster).  This  motion 
gave  rise  to  much  objection.  Mr.  Meriwether, 
a  member  of  the  committee  which  had  reported 
the  bill,  spoke  first ;  and  said : 

"He  opposed  the  amendment.  If  he  under- 
stood its  effect,  it  would  be  to  leave  the  mission 
without  any  restriction.  The  bill,  as  it  came 
from  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs,  placed 
this  mission  on  the  same  footing  as  other  mis- 
sions. The  Secretary  of  State,  however,  wished 
the  whole  sum  placed  at  his  own  disposal  and 
control — wished  it  left  to  him  to  pay  as  much 
as  he  pleased.  He  (Mr.  M.)  did  not  consider 
this  mission  to  China  as  a  matter  of  so  much 
importance  as  had  been  claimed  for  it.  He 
thought  it  would  be  difficult  to  persuade  the 
people  of  that  country  to  change  their  polity, 
give  up  their  aversion  to  foreigners,  and  enter 
into  commercial  intercourse  with  other  nations. 
He  wished,  at  any  rate,  to  have  this  mission 
placed  on  the  same  footing  as  other  missions. 
He  knew  not  how  the  whole  of  this  sum  of 
$40,000  was  to  be  expended,  although  he  was 
a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs. 
Our  ministers  generally  receive  $9,000  a  year 
salary,  and  $9,000  outfit.  Now,  if  the  amend- 
ment of  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  [Mr. 
Adams]  should  be  adopted,  it  would  be  in  the 
power  of  the  President  to  pay  the  minister  who 
might  be  sent  to  China  $20,000  outfit,  and 
$20,000  more  salary.  The  minister  would  be 
subject  to  no  expense,  would  go  out  in  a  na- 
tional vessel,  and  would  not  be  compelled  to 
land  until  it  suited  his  pleasure.  Why  make  a 
difference  in  the  case  of  China  ?  Was  that  mis- 
sion of  greater  importance  than  the  French? 
Look  at  Turkey — a  semi-barbarous  country — 
where  our  minister  received  $6,000  a  year.  He 
thought  if  $6,000  was  enough  for  the  services 
of  Commodore  Porter  at  Constantinople,  that 
sum  would  be  sufficient  for  any  minister  that 
might  be  sent  out  to  China.  When  the  amend- 
ment now  before  the  committee  should  have 
been  disposed  of,  he  should  move  to  place  the 
mission  to  China  upon  the  same  footing  with 
that  to  Turkey." 

In  these  remarks  Mr.  Meriwether  shows  it 
was  the  sense  of  the  committee  to  make  the  ap- 
propriation in  the  usual  specific  form,  leaving 
the  accountability  to  the  usual  Treasury  settle- 
ment ;  but  that  the  bill  was  changed  to  its 
present  shape  at  the  instance  of  the  Secretary 
of  State.  Some  members  placed  their  objec- 
tions on  the  ground  of  no  confidence  in  the  ad- 
ministration that  was  to  expend  the  money : 
thus,  Mr.  J.  C.  Clark,  of  New  York : 

"  In  the  British  Parliament,  it  is  a  legitimate 
ground  of  objection  to  a  supply  bill,  that  the 


objector  has  no  confidence  in  the  ministry. 
This  bill  proposes  to  vest  in  the  President  and 
Secretary  of  State  a  large  discretion  in  the  ex- 
penditure of  forty  thousand  dollars  ;  and  I 
agree  with  my  friend  from  Georgia  [Mr.  Meri- 
wether], that  there  is  good,  reason  to  doubt 
the  propriety  of  giving  to  these  men  the  dis- 
bursement of  any  money  not  imperiously  called 
for  by  the  exigencies  of  the  public  service.  I 
place  my  opposition  to  this  bill  solely  on  the 
ground  of  an  utter  want  of  confidence  in  the 
political  integrity  of  the  President  and  some  of 
his  official  advisers." 

Mr.  Adams  replied  to  these  objections  : 

"  He  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  waste  the 
time  of  the  House  in  arguing  the  propriety  of  a 
mission  to  China.  The  message  of  the  Presi- 
dent was  sufficient  on  that  point. 

"  He  then  replied  to  the  objections  urged 
against  the  bill,  on  the  ground  that  it  placed 
too  much  confidence  in  the  President,  and  that 
the  appropriation  was  to  be  made  without  re- 
striction. The  motion  which  he  had  submitted, 
to  strike  out  the  restrictions  of  law,  which  were 
applicable  to  other  diplomatic  appropriations, 
was  made  after  a  consultation  with  the  Secretary 
of  State,  who  thought  that  to  impose  restric- 
tions might  embarrass  the  progress  of  the  nego- 
tiations." 

Mr.  McKeon,  of  New  York,  opposed  the  whole 
scheme  of  the  mission  to  China,  believing  it  to 
be  unnecessary,  and  to  be  conducted  with  too 
much  pomp  and  expense,  and  to  lay  the  founda- 
tion for  a  permanent  mission.     He  said  : 

"  There  was  nothing  so  very  peculiar  in  the 
case  of  China,  that  Congress  should  depart  from 
the  usual  restrictions  of  law,  which  applied  to 
diplomatic  appropriations  generally.  He  thought 
it  would  be  better  to  take  the  matter  quietly,  and 
go  about  it  in  a  quiet  business  manner.  Should 
the  bill  pass  as  reported  by  the  committee,  it 
would  authorize  a  minister  at  a  salary  of  $9,000 
and  $9,000  outfit.  Pass  it  according  to  the 
amendment  of  the  gentleman  from  Massachu- 
setts [Mr.  Adams],  and  $40,000  would  thereby 
be  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  Executive — 
more  than  he  (Mr.  McK.)  was  willing  to  see 
placed  in  the  hands  of  any  President.  He 
should  be  as  liberal  as  any  man  in  fixing  the 
salaries  of  the  minister  and  secretary.  But  the 
appropriation  was  only  a  beginning.  The  largest 
ship  in  this  country  (the  Pennsylvania)  would 
no  doubt  be  selected  to  carry  out  whomsoever 
should  be  selected  as  minister,  in  order  to  give 
as  much  eclat  as  possible  to  our  country.  Then 
other  vessels  would  have  to  be  sent  to  accom- 
pany this  ship,  and  to  sail  where  her  size  would 
not  allow  her  to  go.  These,  and  other  parapher- 
nalia, would  have  to  be  provided  for  the  minis- 
ter ;  and  this  $40,000  would  be  but  a  beginning 


512 


THIRTY  YEARS'  YIEW. 


of  the  expense.  He  concluded  by  expressing 
the  hope  that  the  motion  to  strike  out  the  re- 
strictions contained  in  the  bill,  and  thereby  place 
the  whole  appropriation  at  the  disposal  of  the 
President,  would  not  prevail." 

Mr.  Bronson,  of  Maine,  expressed  it  as  his 
conviction,  that  we  should  possess  more  infor- 
mation before  such  a  measure  as  that  of  sending 
a  minister  plenipotentiary  to  China  should  be 
adopted.  He  should  prefer  having  a  commer- 
cial agent  for  the  present.  The  question  was 
then  taken  on  Mr.  Adams's  proposed  amend- 
ment, and  resulted  in  its  adoption — 80  votes  for 
it ;  55  against  it.  The  previous  question  being 
called,  the  bill  was  then  passed  without  further 
debate  or  amendment — yeas  96  :  nays  59.  The 
nays  were : 

"  Messrs. — Thomas  D.  Arnold,  Archibald  H. 
Arrington,  Charles  G.  Atherton,  Benjamin  A. 
Bidlack,  John  M.  Botts,  David  Bronson,  Milton 
Brown,  Charles  Brown,  Edmund  Burke,  Wil- 
liam 0.  Butler,  Patrick  C.  Caldwell,  William 
B.  Campbell,  Zadock  Casey,  John  C.  Clark, 
Nathan  Clifford,  Walter  Coles,  Benjamin  S. 
Cowen,  James  H.  Cravens,  George  W.  Craw- 
ford, Garrett  Davis,  Andrew  W.  Doig,  William 
P.  Fessenden,  Charles  A.  Floyd,  A.  Lawrence 
Foster,  Roger  L.  Gamble,  James  Gerry,  Wil- 
liam L.  Goggin,  William  0.  Goode,  Willis  Green, 
William  A.  Harris,  John  Hastings,  Samuel  L. 
Hays,  Jacob  Houck,  jr.,  Robert  M.  T.  Hunter, 
John  W.  Jones,  George  M.  Keim,  Nathaniel  S. 
Littlefield.  Abraham  McClellan,  James  J.  Mc- 
Kay, John  McKeon,  Albert  G.  Marchand, 
Alfred  Marshall,  John  Maynard,  James  A. 
Meriwether,  John  Moore,  Bryan  Y.  Owsley, 
Kenneth  Rayner,  John  R.  Reding,  John  Rey- 
nolds, R.  Barnwell  Rhett,  James  Rogers,  Wil- 
liam Smith,  John  Snyder,  James  C.  Sprigg, 
Edward  Stanley,  Lewis  Steenrod,  Charles  C. 
Stratton,  John  T.  Stuart,  Samuel  W.  Trotti." 

It  was  observed  that  Mr.  Cushing,  though  a 
member  of  the  committee  which  reported  the 
bill,  and  a  close  friend  to  the  administration, 
took  no  part  in  the  proceedings  upon  this 
bill — neither  speaking  nor  voting  for  or  against 
it:  a  circumstance  which  strengthened  the 
belief  that  he  was  to  be  the  beneficiary  of  it. 

It  was  midnight  on  the  last  day  of  the  session 
when  the  bill  was  called  up  in  the  Senate.  Mr. 
Wright  of  New  York,  desired  to  know  the 
reason  for  so  large  an  appropriation  in  this  case. 
He  was  answered  by  Mr.  Archer,  the  senatorial 
reporter  of  the  bill,  who  said  it  was  not  intended 
that  the  salary  of  the  minister,  or  agent,  together 
with  his  outfit,  should  exceed  $18,000  per  an- 


num— the  amount  usually  appropriated  for  such 
missions.  Supposing  the  mission  to  occupy  two 
years,  and  the  sum  is  not  too  much,  and  the  re- 
moteness of  the  country  to  be  negotiated  with, 
justifies  the  full  appropriation  in  advance.  Mr. 
Wright  replied  that  the  explanation  was  not  at 
all  satisfactory  to  him  :  the  compensation  to  an 
agent  in  China  could  be  voted  annually,  and  ap- 
plied annually,  as  conveniently  as  any  other. 
Mr.  Benton  objected  to  any  mission  at  all,  and 
especially  to  such  a  one  as  the  bill  provided  for. 
He  argued  that — 

"  There  was  no  necessity  for  a  treaty  with 
China,  was  proved  by  the  fact  that  our  trade 
with  that  country  had  been  going  on  well  with- 
out one  for  a  century  or  two,  and  was  now 
growing  and  increasing  constantly.  It  was  a 
trade  conducted  on  the  simple  and  elementary 
principle  of  'here  is  one,''  and  '  there  is  the 
other ' — all  ready-money,  and  hard  money,  or 
good  products — no  credit  system,  no  paper 
money.  For  a  long  time  this  trade  took  nothing 
but  silver  dollars.  At  present  it  is  taking  some 
other  articles,  and  especially  a  goodly  quantity 
of  Missouri  lead.  This  has  taken  place  without 
a  treaty,  and  without  an  agent  at  $40,000  ex- 
pense. All  things  are  going  on  well  between 
us  and  the  Chinese.  Our  relations  are  purely 
commercial,  conducted  on  the  simplest  principles 
of  trade,  and  unconnected  with  political  views. 
China  has  no  political  connection  with  us.  She 
is  not  within  the  system,  or  circle,  of  American 
policy.  She  can  have  no  designs  upon  us,  or 
views  in  relation  to  us ;  and  we  have  no  need  of 
a  minister  to  watch  and  observe  her  conduct. 
Politically  and  commercially  the  mission  is  use- 
less. By  the  Constitution,  all  the  ministers 
are  to  be  appointed  by  the  Senate ;  but  this 
minister  to  China  is  to  be  called  an  agent,  and 
sent  out  by  the  President  without  the  consent 
of  the  Senate ;  and  thus,  by  imposing  a  false 
name  upon  the  minister,  defraud  the  Senate 
of  their  control  over  the  appointment.  The 
enormity  of  the  sum  shows  that  the  mission  is 
to  be  more  expensive  than  any  one  ever  sent 
from  the  United  States  ;  and  that  it  is  to  be  one 
of  the  first  grade,  or  of  a  higher  grade  than  any 
known  in  our  country.  Nine  thousand  dollars 
per  annum,  and  the  same  for  an  outfit,  is  the 
highest  compensation  known  to  our  service ; 
yet  this  $40,000  mission  may  double  that 
amount,  and  still  the  minister  be  only  called  an 
agent,  for  the  purpose  of  cheating  the  Senate 
out  of  its  control  over  the  appointment.  The 
bill  is  fraudulent  in  relation  to  the  compensation 
to  be  given  to  this  ambassadorial  agent.  No 
sum  is  fixed,  but  he  is  to  take  what  he  pleases 
for  himself  and  his  suite.  He  and  they  are  to 
help  themselves  j  and,  from  the  amount  allowed, 
they  may  help  themselves  liberally.  In  all 
other  cases,  salaries  and  compensations  are  fixed 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


513 


by  law.  and  graduated  by  time ;  here  there 
is  no  limit  of  either  money  or  time.  This 
mission  goes  by  the  job — $40,000  for  tne 
job — without  regard  to  time  or  cost.  A  sum- 
mer's work,  or  a  year's  work,  it  is  all  the 
same  thing :  it  is  a  job,  and  is  evidently  in- 
tended to  enable  a  gentleman,  who  loves  to 
travel  in  Europe  and  Asia,  to  extend  his  travels 
to  the  Celestial  Empire  at  the  expense  of  the 
United  States,  and  to  write  a  book.  The  settle- 
ment of  the  accounts  is  a  fraud  upon  the  Trea- 
sury. In  all  cases  of  foreign  missions,  except 
where  secret  services  are  to  be  performed,  and 
spies  and  informers  to  be  dealt  with,  the  ac- 
counts are  settled  at  the  Treasury  Department, 
by  the  proper  accounting  officers  ;  when  secret 
services  are  to  be  covered,  the  fund  out  of  which 
they  are  paid  is  then  called  the  contingent 
foreign  intercourse  fund ;  and  are  settled  at  the 
State  Department,  upon  a  simple  certificate  from 
the  President,  that  the  money  has  been  applied 
according  to  its  intention.  It  was  in  this  way 
that  the  notorious  John  Henry  obtained  his 
$50,000  during  the  late  war  ;  and  that  various 
other  sums  have  been  paid  out  to  secret  agents 
at  different  times.  To  this  I  do  not  object. 
Every  government,  in  its  foreign  intercourse, 
must  have  recourse  to  agents,  and  have  the 
benefit  of  some  services,  which  would  be  de- 
feated if  made  public ;  and  which  must,  there- 
fore, be  veiled  in  secrecy,  and  paid  for  privately. 
This  must  happen  in  all  governments ;  but  not 
so  in  this  case  of  the  Chinese  mission.  Here, 
secrecy  is  intended  for  what  our  own  minister, 
his  secretary,  and  his  whole  suite,  are  to  receive. 
Not  only  what  they  may  give  in  bribes  to 
Chinese,  but  what  they  may  take  in  pay  to 
themselves,  is  to  be  a  secret.  All  is  secret  and 
irresponsible  !  And  it  will  not  do  to  assimilate 
this  mission  to  the  oldest  government  in  the 
world,  to  the  anomalous  and  anonymous  mis- 
sions to  revolutionary  countries.  Such  an  ana- 
logy has  been  attempted  in  defence  of  this 
mission,  and  South  American  examples  cited ; 
but  the  cases  are  not  analogous.  Informal 
agencies,  with  secret  objects,  are  proper  to  revo- 
lutionary governments  ;  but  here  is  to  be  a 
public  mission,  and  an  imposing  one — the 
grandest  ever  sent  out  from  the  United  States. 
— To  attempt  to  assimilate  such  a  mission  to  a 
John  Henry  case,  or  to  a  South  American  agency, 
is  absurd  and  impudent ;  and  is  a  fraud  upon 
the  system  of  accountability  to  which  all  our 
missions  are  subjected. 

"  The  sum  proposed  is  the  same  that  is  in  the 
act  of  1790,  upon  which  the  bill  is  framed. 
That  act  appropriated  $40,000  :  but  for  what  ? 
For  one  mission  ?  one  man  ?  one  agent  ?  one 
by  himself,  one  ?  No.  Not  at  all.  That  appro- 
priation of  1790  was  for  all  the  missions  of  the 
year — all  of  every  kind — public  as  well  as  secret: 
the  forty  thousand  dollars  in  this  bill  is  for  one 
man.  The  whole  diplomatic  appropriation  in 
the  time  of  Washington  is  now  to  be  given  to 

Yol.  II.— 33 


one  man :  and  it  is  known  pretty  well  who  it 
is  to  be.  Forty  thousand  dollars  to  enable  one 
of  our  citizens  to  get  to  Peking,  and  to  bump  his 
head  nineteen  times  on  the  ground,  to  get  the 
privilege  of  standing  up  in  the  presence  of  his 
majesty  of  the  celestial  empire.  And  this  is 
our  work  in  the  last  night  of  this  Congress. 
It  is  now  midnight:  and,  like  the  midnight 
which  preceded  the  departure  of  the  elder 
Adams  from  the  government,  the  whole  time  is 
spent  in  making  and  filling  offices.  Providing 
for  favorites,  and  feeding  out  of  the  public  crib, 
is  the  only  work  of  those  whose  brief  reign  is 
drawing  to  a  close,  and  who  have  been  already 
compelled  by  public  sentiment  to  undo  a  part  of 
their  work.  The  bankrupt  act  is  repealed  by 
the  Congress  that  made  it ;  the  distribution  act 
has  shared  the  same  fate ;  and  if  they  had 
another  session  to  sit,  the  mandamus  act  against 
the  States,  the  habeas  corpus  against  the  States, 
this  Chinese  mission,  and  all  the  other  acts,  would 
be  undone.  It  would  be  the  true  realization  of 
the  story  of  the  queen  who  unravelled  at  night 
the  web  that  she  wove  during  the  day.  As  it  is, 
enough  has  been  done,  and  undone,  to  characterize 
this  Congress — to  entitle  it  to  the  name  of 
Ulysses'  wife — not  because  (like  the  virtuous 
Penelope)  it  resisted  seduction — but  because, 
like  her.  its  own  hands  unravelled  its  own 
work." 

Mr.  Archer  replied  that  the  ignominious  pros- 
trations heretofore  required  of  foreign  ministers 
in  the  Imperial  Chinese  presence,  were  all  abol- 
ished by  the  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  and  that 
the  Chinese  government  had  expressed  a  desire 
to  extend  to  the  United  States  all  the  benefits 
of  that  treaty,  and  this  mission  was  to  conclude 
the  treaty  which  she  wished  to  make.  Mr. 
Benton  replied,  so  much  the  less  reason  for 
sending  this  expensive  mission.  We  now  have 
the  benefits  of  the  British  treaty,  and  we  have 
traded  for  generations  with  China  without  a 
treaty,  and  without  a  quarrel,  and  can  continue 
to  do  so.  She  extends  to  us  and  to  all  nations 
the  benefits  of  the  British  treaty  :  the  consul  at 
Canton,  Dr.  Parker,  or  any  respectable  mer- 
chant there,  can  have  that  treaty  copied,  and 
sign  it  for  the  United  States ;  and  deem  himself 
well  paid  to  receive  the  fortieth  part  of  this 
appropriation.  Mr.  Woodbury  wished  to  see  a 
limitation  placed  upon  the  amount  of  the  annual 
compensation,  and  moved  an  amendment,  that 
not  more  than  nine  thousand  dollars,  exclusive 
of  outfit,  be  allowed  to  any  one  person  for  his 
annual  compensation.  Mr.  Archer  concurred  in 
the  limitation,  and  it  was  adopted.  Mr.  Benton 
then  returned  to  one  of  his  original  objections — 


514 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  design  of  the  bill  to  cheat  the  Senate  out  of 
its  constitutional  control  over  the  appointment. 
He  said  the  language  of  the  bill  was  studiously 
ambiguous.  Whether  the  person  was  to  be  a 
minister,  a  charge,  or  an  agent,  was  not  expressed. 
He  now  desired  to  know  whether  it  was  to  be 
understood  that  the  person  intended  for  this 
mission  was  to  be  appointed  by  the  President 
alone,  without  asking  the  advice  and  consent  of 
the  Senate  ?  Mr.  Archer  replied  that  he  had  no 
information  on  the  subject.  Mr.  Conrad  of 
Louisiana,  said  that  he  would  move  an  amend- 
ment that  might  obviate  the  difficulty ;  he  would 
move  that  no  agent  be  appointed  without  the 
consent  of  the  Senate.  This  amendment  was 
proposed,  and  adopted — 31  yeas  ;  9  nays. 
These  amendments  were  agreed  to  by  the 
House;  and,  thus  limited  and  qualified,  the 
bill  became  a  law. 

The  expected  name  did  not  come.  The  Sen- 
ate adjourned,  and  no  appointment  could  be 
made  until  the  next  session.  It  was  not  a  va- 
cancy happening  in  the  recess  which  the  Presi- 
dent could  fill  by  a  temporary  appointment,  to 
continue  to  the  end  of  the  next  session.  It 
was  an  original  office  created  during  the  ses- 
sion, and  must  be  filled  at  the  session,  or  wait 
until  the  next  one.  The  President  did  neither. 
There  were  two  constitutional  ways  open  to 
him — and  he  took  neither.  There  was  one 
unconstitutional  way — and  he  took  it.  In 
brief,  he  made  the  appointment  in  the  recess ; 
and  not  only  so  made  it,  but  sent  off"  the  ap- 
pointee (Mr.  Caleb  Cushing)  also  in  the  recess. 
Scarcely  had  the  Senate  adjourned  when  it  was 
known  that  Mr.  Cushing  was  to  go  upon  this 
mission  as  soon  as  the  ships  could  be  got  ready 
to  convey  him  :  and  in  the  month  of  May  he  de- 
parted. This  was  palpably  to  avoid  the  action 
of  the  Senate,  where  the  nomination  of  Mr. 
Cushing  would  have  been  certain  of  rejection. 
He  had  already  been  three  times  rejected  in  one 
day  upon  a  nomination  for  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury— receiving  but  two  votes  on  the  last 
trial.  All  the  objections  which  applied  to  him 
for  the  Treasury  appointment,  were  equally  in 
force  for  the  Chinese  mission;  and  others  be- 
sides. It  was  an  original  vacancy,  and  could 
not  be  filled  during  the  recess  by  a  temporary 
appointment.  It  was  not  a  vacancy  "  happen- 
ing "  in  the  recess  of  the  Senate,  and  therefore 
to  be  temporarily  filled  without  the  Senate's 


previous  consent,  lest  the  public  interest  in  the 
meanwhile  should  suffer.  It  was  an  office 
created,  and  the  emolument  fixed,  during  the 
time  that  Mr.  Cushing  was  a  member  of  Con- 
gress: consequently  he  was  constitutionally  inter- 
dicted from  receiving  it  during  the  continuance 
of  that  term.  His  term  expired  on  the  third  of 
March  :  he  was  constitutionally  ineligible  up  to 
the  end  of  that  day :  and  this  upon  the  words 
of  the  constitution.  Upon  the  reasons  and  mo- 
tives of  the  constitution,  he  was  ineligible  for 
ever.  The  reason  was,  to  prevent  corrupt  and 
subservient  legislation — to  prevent  members  of 
Congress  from  conniving  or  assisting  at  the  en- 
actment of  laws  for  their  own  benefit,  and  to 
prevent  Presidents  from  rewarding  legislative 
subservience.  Tested  upon  these  reasons  Mr. 
Cushing  was  ineligible  after,  as  well  as  before, 
the  expiration  of  his  congressional  term :  and 
such  had  been  the  practice  of  all  the  previous 
Presidents.  Even  in  the  most  innocent  cases, 
and  where  no  connivance  could  possibly  be 
supposed  of  the  member,  would  any  previous 
President  appoint  a  member  to  a  place  after  his 
term  expired,  which  he  could  not  receive  before 
it :  as  shown  in  Chapter  XXX  of  the  first  vol- 
ume of  this  View.  In  the  case  of  Mr.  Cushing 
all  the  reasons,  founded  in  the  motives  of  the 
constitutional  prohibition,  existed  to  forbid  his 
appointment.  He  had  deserted  his  party  to 
join  Mr.  Tyler.  He  worked  for  him  in  and 
out  of  the  House,  and  even  deserted  himself  to 
support  him — as  in  the  two  tariff  bills  of  the 
current  session ;  for  both  of  which  he  voted, 
and  then  voted  against  them  when  vetoed :  for 
which  he  was  taunted  by  Mr.  Granger,  of  New 
York.*  There  was  besides  a  special  provision 
in  the  law  under  which  he  was  appointed  to 


*  "  Mr.  Granger  observed  that  he  had  a  few  words  to  say  to 
the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  [Mr.  Cushing].  When  he 
reflected  that  that  gentleman  had  voted  for  every  bill  that  the 
President  had  vetoed,  and  had  then  defended  every  veto 
which  the  President  had  sent  them,  he  had  been  not  a  little 
puzzled  to  know  how  to  defend  his  position.  The  gentleman 
was  like  a  man  he  saw  a  short  time  since  in  the  circus,  who 
came  forward  ready  dressed  and  equipped  to  ride  any  horse 
that  might  be  brought  out  for  him.  First  the  gentleman  from 
Massachusetts  rode  the  bank  pony;  and  that  having  run  to 
death,  he  mounted  the  veto  charger.  The  second  bank  road- 
ster, then  the  tariff  palfrey,  and  lastly,  the  stout-limbed  tariff 
hunter,  were  mounted  in  their  turn  ;  and  the  veto  animals 
were  as  complacently  mounted,  and  were  seated  with  as  much 
self-satisfaction.  The  gentleman  had  voted  for  every  bill,  and 
then  had  justified  every  veto,  and  every  act  of  executive  en- 
croachment on  this  House." 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


515 


prevent  the  appointment  from  being  made  with- 
out the  concurrence  of  the  Senate.  (The  notice 
of  the  proceedings  in  the  Senate  when  the  bill 
which  ripened  into  that  law,  have  shown  the 
terms  of  that  provision,  and  the  reasons  of  its 
adoption.)  It  is  no  answer  to  that  pregnant 
amendment  to  say  that  the  nomination  would 
be  sent  in  at  the  next  session.  That  session 
would  not  come  until  six  months  after  Mr. 
Cushing  had  sailed !  not  until  he  had  arrived 
at  his  post !  not  until  he  had  placed  the  entire 
diameter  of  the  terraqueous  globe  between  him- 
self and  the  Senate !  and  a  still  greater  distance 
between  the  Treasury  and  the  $40,000  which 
he  had  drawn  out  of  it ! 

Two  squadrons  of  ships-of-war  were  put  in 
requisition  to  attend  this  minister.  The  Pacific 
squadron,  then  on  the  coast  of  South  America, 
was  directed  to  proceed  to  China,  to  meet  him  : 
a  squadron  was  collected  at  Norfolk  to  convey 
him.  This  squadron  consisted  of  the  new  steam 
frigate,  Missouri — the  frigate  Brandywine,  the 
sloop-of-war  Saint  Louis,  and  the  brig  Perry — 
carrying  altogether  near  two  hundred  guns ;  a 
formidable  accompaniment  for  a  peace  mission, 
seeking  a  commercial  treaty.  Mr.  Cushing  had 
a  craving  to  embark  at  Washington,  under  a 
national  salute,  and  the  administration  gratified 
him:  the  magnificent  steam  frigate,  Missouri, 
was  ordered  up  to  receive  him.  Threading  the 
narrow  and  crooked  channel  of  the  Potomac 
River,  the  noble  ship  ran  on  an  oyster  bank, 
and  fifteen  of  her  crew,  with  a  promising  young 
officer,  were  drowned  in  getting  her  off.  The 
minister  had  a  desire  to  sail  down  the  Mediter- 
ranean, seeing  its  coasts,  and  landing  in  the  an- 
cient kingdom  of  the  Pharaohs  :  the  administra- 
tion deferred  to  his  wishes.  The  Missouri  was 
ordered  to  proceed  to  the  Mediterranean,  which 
the  ill-fated  vessel  was  destined  never  to  enter ; 
for,  arriving  at  Gibraltar,  she  took  fire  and 
burned  up — baptizing  the  anomalous  mission  in 
fire  and  blood,  as  well  as  in  enormous  expense. 
The  minister  proceeded  in  a  British  steamer  to 
Egypt,  and  then  by  British  conveyance  to  Bom- 
bay, where  the  Norfolk  squadron  had  been  or- 
dered to  meet  him.  The  Brandywine  alone 
was  there,  but  the  minister  entered  her,  and 
proceeded  to  the  nearest  port  to  Canton,  where, 
reporting  his  arrival  and  object,  a  series  of  di- 
plomatic contentions  immediately  commenced 
between  himself  and  "  Ching,  of  the  celestial 


dynasty,  Governor-general  of  that  part  of  the 
Central  Flowery  Kingdom."  Mr.  Cushing  in- 
formed this  governor  that  he  was  on  his  way  to 
Peking,  to  deliver  a  letter  from  the  President 
of  the  United  States  to  the  Emperor,  and  to  ne- 
gotiate a  treaty  of  commerce  ;  and,  in  the  mean 
time,  to  take  the  earliest  opportunity  to  inquire 
after  the  health  of  the  august  Emperor.  To  this 
inquiry  Ching  answered  readily  that,  "  At  the 
present  moment  the  great  Emperor  is  in  the 
enjoyment  of  happy  old  age  and  quiet  health, 
and  is  at  peace  with  all,  both  far  and  near :  " 
but  with  respect  to  the  intended  progress  to 
Peking,  he  demurs,  and  informs  the  minister 
that  the  imperial  permission  must  first  be  ob- 
tained. "I  have  examined,"  he  says,  "and  find 
that  every  nation's  envoy  which  has  come  to 
the  Central  Flowery  Kingdom  with  a  view  of 
proceeding  to  Peking,  there  to  be  presented  to 
the  august  Emperor,  has  ever  been  required  to 
wait  outside  of  the  nearest  port  on  the  frontier 
till  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  province  clearly 
memorialize  the  Emperor,  and  request  the  im- 
perial will,  pointing  out  whether  the  interview 
may  be  permitted."  With  respect  to  the  treaty 
of  friendship  and  commerce,  the  governor  de- 
clares there  is  no  necessity  for  it — that  China 
and  America  have  traded  together  two  hundred 
years  in  peace  and  friendship  without  a  treaty 
— that  all  nations  now  had  the  benefit  of  the 
treaty  made  with  Great  Britain,  which  treaty 
was  necessary  to  establish  relations  after  a  war ; 
and  that  the  United  States,  having  had  no  war 
with  China,  had  no  need  for  a  treaty.  He  sup- 
poses that,  having  heard  of  the  British  treaty, 
the  United  States  began  to  want  one  also,  and 
admits  the  idea  is  excellent,  but  unnecessary, 
and  urges  against  it : 

"  As  to  what  is  stated,  of  publicly  deliberat- 
ing upon  the  particulars  of  perpetual  peace,  in- 
asmuch as  it  relates  to  discoursing  of  good  faith, 
peace,  and  harmony,  the  idea  is  excellent ;  and 
it  may  seem  right,  because  he  has  heard  that 
England  has  settled  all  the  particulars  of  a 
treaty  with  China,  he  may  desire  to  do  and 
manage  in  the  same  manner.  But  the  circum- 
stances of  the  two  nations  are  not  the  same,  for 
England  had  taken  up  arms  against  China  for 
several  years,  and,  in  beginning  to  deliberate 
upon  a  treaty,  these  two  nations  could  not  avoid 
suspicion  ;  therefore,  they  settled  the  details  of 
a  treaty,  in  order  to  confirm  their  good  faith ; 
but  since  your  honorable  nation,  from  the  com- 
mencement   of  commercial    intercourse    with 


516 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


China,  during  a  period  of  two  hundred  years, 
all  the  merchants  who  have  come  to  Canton,  on 
the  one  hand,  have  observed  the  laws  of  China 
without  any  disagreement,  and  on  the  other, 
there  has  been  no  failure  of  treating  them  with 
courtesy,  so  that  there  has  not  been  the  slightest 
room  for  discord;  and,  since  the  two  nations 
are  at  peace,  what  is  the  necessity  of  negotiat- 
ing a  treaty  ?  In  the  commencement,  England 
was  not  at  peace  with  China ;  and  when  after- 
wards these  two  nations  began  to  revert  to  a 
state  of  peace,  it  was  indispensable  to  establish 
and  settle  details  of  a  treaty,  in  order  to  oppose 
a  barrier  to  future  difficulties.  I  have  now  dis- 
cussed this  subject,  and  desire  the  honorable 
plenipotentiary  maturely  to  consider  it.  Your 
honorable  nation,  with  France  and  England,  are 
the  three  great  foreign  nations  that  come  to 
the  south  of  China  to  trade.  But  the  trade  of 
America  and  England  with  China  is  very  great. 
Now,  the  law  regulating  the  tariff  has  changed 
the  old  established  duties,  many  of  which  have 
been  essentially  diminished,  and  the  customary 
expenditures  (exactions  ?)  have  been  abolished. 
Your  honorable  nation  is  treated  in  the  same 
manner  as  England ;  and,  from  the  time  of  this 
change  in  the  tariff,  all  kinds  of  merchandise 
have  flowed  through  the  channels  of  free  trade, 
among  the  people,  and  already  has  your  nation 
been  bedewed  with  its  advantages.  The  honor- 
able plenipotentiary  ought  certainly  to  look  at 
and  consider  that  the  Great  Emperor,  in  his 
'eniency  to  men  from  afar,  has  issued  edicts 
commanding  the  merchants  and  people  peace- 
ably to  trade,  which  cannot  but  be  beneficial  to 
the  nations.  It  is  useless,  with  lofty,  polished, 
and  empty  words,  to  alter  these  unlimited  ad- 
vantages." 

In  all  this  alleged  extension  of  the  benefits  of 
the  British  treaty  to  all  nations,  Ching  was  right 
in  what  he  said.  The  Emperor  had  already 
done  it,  and  the  British  government  had  so  de- 
termined it  from  the  beginning.  It  was  a  treaty 
for  the  commercial  world  as  well  as  for  them- 
selves, and  had  been  so  declared  by  the  young 
Queen  Victoria  in  her  speech  communicating  the 
treaty  to  Parliament.  "  Throughout  the  whole 
course  of  my  negotiations  with  the  government 
of  China,  I  have  uniformly  disclaimed  the  wish 
for  any  exclusive  advantages.  It  has  been  my 
desire  that  equal  favor  should  be  shown  to  the 
industry  and  commercial  enterprise  of  all  na- 
tions." There  was  really  no  necessity  for  a 
treaty,  which  as  often  begets  dissensions  as  pre- 
vents them ;  and  if  one  was  desirable,  it  might 
have  been  had  through  Dr.  Parker,  long  a  resident 
of  China,  and  now  commissioner  there,  and  who 
was  Secretary  of  Legation  and  interpreter  in 


Mr.  Cushing's  mission,  and  the  medium  of  his 
communications  with  the  Chinese ;  and  actually 
the  man  of  business  who  did  the  business  in 
conducting  the  negotiations.  But  Mr.  Cushing 
perseveres  in  his  design  to  go  to  Peking,  alleg- 
ing that,  "  He  deems  himself  bound  by  the  in- 
structions of  his  government  to  do  so."  Ching 
replies  that  he  has  received  the  imperial  order 
"  to  stop  and  soothe  him."  Ching  also  informs 
him  that  the  treaty  with  Great  Britain  was  ne- 
gotiated, not  at  Peking  but  at  Canton,  and  also 
its  duplicate  with  Portugal,  and  that  a  copy  of 
it  was  in  the  hands  of  the  American  consul  at 
Canton,  for  the  information  and  benefit  of 
American  merchants.  In  his  anxiety  to  pre- 
vent a  foreign  ship-of-war  from  approaching 
Peking,  the  Chinese  governor  intimated  that, 
if  a  treaty  was  indispensable,  a  commissioner 
might  come  to  Canton  for  that  purpose ;  and  on 
inquiry  from  Mr.  Cushing  how  long  it  would 
take  to  send  to  Peking  and  get  a  return,  Ching 
answered,  three  months — the  distance  being  so 
great.  Mr.  Cushing  objects  to  that  delay — de- 
clares he  cannot  wait  so  long,  as  the  season  for 
favorable  navigation  to  approach  Peking  may 
elapse ;  and  announces  his  determination  to  pro- 
ceed at  once  in  the  Brandywine,  without  waiting 
for  any  permission ;  and  declares  that  a  refusal 
to  receive  him  would  be  a  national  insult,  and  a 
just  cause  of  war.  Here  is  the  extract  from  his 
letter : 

"Under  these  circumstances,  inasmuch  as 
your  Excellency  does  not  propose  to  open  to 
me  the  inland  road  to  Peking,  in  the  event  of  my 
waiting  here  until  the  favorable  monsoon  for 
proceeding  to  the  north  by  sea  shall  have  passed 
away,  and  as  I  cannot,  without  disregard  of  the 
commands  of  my  government,  permit  the  season 
to  elapse  without  pursuing  the  objects  of  my 
mission,  I  shall  immediately  leave  Macao  in  the 
Brandywine.  I  feel  the  less  hesitation  in  pur- 
suing this  course,  in  consideration  of  the  tenor 
of  the  several  communications  which  I  have  re- 
ceived from  your  Excellency.  It  is  obvious, 
that  if  the  court  had  entertained  any  very  par- 
ticular desire  that  I  should  remain  here,  it 
would  have  caused  an  imperial  commissioner  to 
be  on  the  spot,  ready  to  receive  me  on  my  arri- 
val, or,  at  any  rate,  instructions  would  have 
been  forwarded  to  your  Excellency  for  the  re- 
ception of  the  legation ;  since,  in  order  that  no 
proper  act  of  courtesy  towards  the  Chinese  gov- 
ernment should  be  left  unobserved,  notice  was 
duly  given  last  autumn,  by  the  consul  of  the 
United  States,  that  my  government  had  ap- 
pointed a  minister  to  China.     The  omission  of 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


517 


the  court  to  take  either  of  these  steps  seems  to 
indicate  expectation,  on  its  part,  that  I  should 
probably  land  at  some  port  in  the  north." 

That  is  to  say,  at  some  port  in  the  Yellow  Sea, 
or  its  river  nearest  to  Peking.  This  must  have 
been  a  mode  of  reasoning  new  to  Governor 
Ching,  that  an  omission  to  provide  for  Mr. 
Cushing  at  the  port  where  foreigners  were  re- 
ceived, should  imply  a  license  for  him  to  land 
where  they  were  not,  except  on  express,  imperial 
permission.  Much  as  Ching  must  have  been  as- 
tonished at  this  American  logic,  he  must  have 
been  still  more  so  at  the  penalty  announced  for 
disregarding  it !  nothing  less  than  "  national  in- 
sult," and  "just  cause  of  war."  For  the  letter 
continues : 

"Besides  which,  your  Excellency  is  well 
aware,  that  it  is  neither  the  custom  in  China, 
nor  consistent  with  the  high  character  of  its 
Sovereign,  to  decline  to  receive  the  embassies 
of  friendly  states.  To  do  so,  indeed,  would 
among  Western  States  be  considered  an  act  of 
national  insult,  and  a  just  cause  of  war." 

This  sentence,  as  all  that  relates  to  Mr.  Cush- 
ing's  Chinese  mission,  is  copied  from  his  own  offi- 
cial despatches  ;  so  that,  what  would  be  incredi- 
ble on  the  relation  of  others,  becomes  undenia- 
ble on  his  own.  National  insult  and  just  cause 
of  war,  for  not  allowing  him  to  go  to  Peking  ! 

Mr.  Cushing  justifies  his  refusal  to  negotiate 
at  Canton  as  the  British  envoy  had  done,  and 
not  being  governed  by  the  ceremony  observed 
in  his  case,  on  the  ground  that  the  circum- 
stances were  not  analogous — that  Great  Britain 
had  chastised  the  Chinese,  and  taken  possession 
of  one  of  their  islands — and  that  it  would  be 
necessary  for  the  United  States  to  do  the  same 
to  bring  him  within  the  rules  which  were  ob- 
served with  Sir  Henry  Pottinger,  the  British 
minister.  This  intimation,  as  impertinent  as 
unfeeling,  and  as  offensive  as  unfounded,  was 
thus  expressed: 

"  In  regard  to  the  mode  and  place  of  deliber- 
ating upon  all  things  relative  to  the  perpetual 
peace  and  friendship  of  China  and  the  United 
States,  your  Excellency  refers  to  the  precedent 
of  the  late  negotiations  with  the  plenipotentiary 
of  Great  Britain.  The  rules  of  politeness  and 
ceremony  observed  by  Sir  Henry  Pottinger, 
were  doubtless  just  and  proper  in  the  particu- 
lar circumstances  of  the  case.  But,  to  render 
them  fully  applicable  to  the  United  States,  it 
would  be  necessary  for  my  government,  in  the 
first  instance,  to  subject  the  people  of  China  to 


all  the  calamities  of  war,  and  especially  to  take 
possession  of  some  island  on  the  coast  of  China 
as  a  place  of  residence  for  its  minister.  I  can- 
not suppose  that  the  imperial  government 
wishes  the  United  States  to  do  this.  Certainly 
no  such  wish  is  entertained  at  present  by  the 
United  States,  which,  animated  with  the  most 
amicable  sentiments  towards  China,  feels  as- 
sured of  being  met  with  corresponding  deport- 
ment on  the  part  of  China." 

The  Brandywine  during  this  time  was  still  at 
Macao,  the  port  outside  of  the  harbor,  where  for- 
eign men-of-war  are  only  allowed  to  come ;  but 
Mr.  Cushing,  following  up  the  course  he  had 
marked  out  for  himself,  directed  that  vessel  to 
enter  the  inner  port,  and  sail  up  to  Whampoa ; 
and  also  to  require  a  salute  of  twenty-one  guns 
to  be  fired.  Against  this  entrance  the  Chinese 
government  remonstrated,  as  being  against  the 
laws  and  customs  of  the  empire,  contrary  to 
what  the  British  had  done  when  they  nego- 
tiated their  treaty,  and  contrary  to  an  article  in 
that  treaty  which  only  permitted  that  entrance 
to  a  small  vessel  with  few  men  and  one  petty 
officer :  and  if  the  Brandywine  had  not  entered, 
he  forbids  her  to  come  ;  and  if  she  had,  requires 
her  to  depart :  and  as  for  the  salute,  he  declares 
he  has  no  means  of  firing  it ;  and,  besides,  it  was 
against  their  laws.  The  governor  expressed 
himself  with  animation  and  feeling  on  this  sub- 
ject, at  the  indignity  of  violating  their  laws, 
and  under  the  pretext  of  paying  him  a  compli- 
ment— for  that  was  the  only  alleged  cause  of 
the  intrusive  entrance  of  the  Brandywine.  He 
wrote : 

"  But  it  is  highly  necessary  that  I  should  also 
remark,  concerning  the  man-of-war  Brandywine 
coming  up  to  Whampoa.  The  Bogue  makes  an 
outer  portal  of  Kwang  Tung,  where  an  admiral 
is  stationed  to  control  and  guard.  Heretofore, 
the  men-of-war  of  foreign  nations  have  only 
been  allowed  to  cast  anchor  in  the  seas  without 
the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  have  not  been  per- 
mitted to  enter  within.  This  is  a  settled  law 
of  the  land,  made  a  long  time  past.  Whampoa 
is  the  place  where  merchant  ships  collect  to- 
gether, not  one  where  men-of-war  can  anchor. 
Now,  since  the  whole  design  of  merchantmen  is 
to  trade,  and  men-of-war  are  prepared  to  fight, 
if  they  enter  the  river,  fright  and  suspicion  will 
easily  arise  among  the  populace,  thus  causing 
an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  trade.  Furthermore, 
the  two  countries  are  just  about  deliberating 
upon  peace  and  good  will,  and  suddenly  to  have 
a  man-of-war  enter  the  river,  while  we  are 
speaking  of  good  faith  and  cultivating  good  feel- 
ing, has  not  a  little  the  aspect  of  distrust. 


518 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Among  the  articles  of  the  commercial  regula- 
tions it  is  provided,  that  an  English  government 
vessel  shall  be  allowed  to  remain  at  anchor  at 
Whampoa,  and  that  a  deputy  shall  be  appointed 
to  control  the  seamen.  The  design  of  this,  it 
was  evident,  was  to  put  an  end  to  strife,  and 
quell  disputes.  But  this  vessel  is  a  small  one, 
containing  but  few  troops,  and  moreover  brings 
a  petty  officer,  so  that  it  is  a  matter  of  but  lit- 
tle consequence,  one  way  or  another.  If  your 
country's  man-of-war  Brandywine  contains  five 
hundred  and  more  troops,  she  has  also  a  pro- 
portionately large  number  of  guns  in  her,  and 
brings  a  commodore  in  her ;  she  is  in  truth  far 
different  from  the  government  vessel  of  the 
British,  and  it  is  inexpedient  for  her  to  enter 
the  river ;  and  there  are,  in  the  aspect  of  the 
affair,  many  things  not  agreeable." 

Nevertheless  Mr.  dishing  required  the  ship 
to  enter  the  inner  port,  to  demand  a  return- 
salute  of  twenty-one  guns,  and  permission  to 
the  American  commodore  to  make  his  compli- 
ments in  person  to  the  Chinese  governor.  This 
governor  then  addressed  a  remonstrance  to  the 
American  commodore,  which  runs  thus  : 

"  When  your  Excellency  first  arrived  in  the 
Central  Flowery  Land,  you  were  unacquainted 
with  her  laws  and  prohibitions — that  it  was 
against  the  laws  for  men-of-war  to  enter  the 
river.  Having  previously  received  the  public 
officer's  (Cushing's)  communication,  I,  the  act- 
ing governor,  have  fully  and  clearly  stated  to 
him  that  the  ship  should  be  detained  outside. 
Your  Excellency's  present  coming  up  to  Blen- 
heim reach  is  therefore,  no  doubt,  because  the 
despatch  sent  previously  to  his  Excellency 
Cushing  had  not  been  made  known  to  you — 
whence  the  mistake.  Respecting  the  salute  of 
twenty-one  guns,  as  it  is  a  salute  among  western 
nations,  it  does  [not]  tally  with  the  customs  of 
China.  Your  Excellency  being  now  in  China, 
and,  moreover,  entered  the  river,  it  is  not  the 
same  as  if  you  were  in  your  own  country ;  and, 
consequently,  it  will  be  inexpedient  to  have  the 
salute  performed  here  ;  also,  China  has  no  such 
salute  as  firing  twenty-one  guns  ;  and  how  can 
we  imitate  your  country's  custom  in  the  num- 
ber, and  make  a  corresponding  ceremony  in  re- 
turn ?  It  will,  indeed,  not  be  easy  to  act  ac- 
cording to  it.  When  the  English  admirals  Par- 
ker and  Saltoun  came  up  to  Canton,  they  were 
both  in  a  passage  vessel,  not  in  a  man-of-war, 
when  they  entered  the  river ;  nor  was  there  any 
salute.     This  is  evidence  plain  on  this  matter. 

"  Concerning  what  is  said  regarding  a  perso- 
nal visit  to  this  officer  to  pay  respects,  it  is  cer- 
tainly indicative  of  good  intention  ;  but  the  laws 
of  the  land  direct  that  whenever  officers  from 
other  countries  arrive  upon  the  frontier,  the 
governor  and  other  high  officers,  not  having  re- 
ceived his  Majesty's  commands,  cannot  hold  any 


private  intercourse  with  them  ;  nor  can  a  depu- 
ty, not  having  received  a  special  commission 
from  the  superior  officers,  have  any  private  in- 
tercourse with  foreign  functionaries.  It  will 
consequently  be  inexpedient  that  your  Excel- 
lency (whose  sentiments  are  so  polite  and  cor- 
dial) and  I,  the  acting  governor,  should  have  an 
interview ;  for  it  is  against  the  settled  laws  of 
the  land." 

Having  thus  violated  the  laws  and  customs 
of  China  in  sending  the  Brandywine,  Mr.  Cush- 
ing follows  it  up  with  threats  and  menaces — as- 
sumes the  attitude  of  an  injured  and  insulted 
minister  of  peace — and,  for  the  sake  of  China, 
regrets  what  may  happen.  In  this  vein  he 
writes : 

"  It  is  customary,  among  all  the  nations  of  the 
West,  for  the  ships  of  war  of  one  country  to 
visit  the  ports  of  another  in  time  of  peace,  and, 
in  doing  so,  for  the  commodore  to  exchange  sa- 
lutes with  the  local  authorities,  and  to  pay  his 
compliments  in  person  to  the  principal  public 
functionary.  To  omit  these  testimonies  of 
good  will  is  considered  as  evidence  of  a  hostile, 
or  at  least  of  an  unfriendly  feeling.  But  your 
Excellency  says  the  provincial  government  has 
no  authority  to  exchange  salutes  with  Commo- 
dore Parker,  or  to  receive  a  visit  of  ceremony 
from  him.  And  I  deeply  regret,  for  the  sake 
of  China,  that  such  is  the  fact.  China  will  find 
it  very  difficult  to  remain  in  peace  with  any  of 
the  great  States  of  the  West,  so  long  as  her  pro- 
vincial governors  are  prohibited  either  to  give 
or  to  receive  manifestations  of  that  peace,  in  the 
exchange  of  the  ordinary  courtesies  of  national 
intercourse.  And  I  cannot  forbear  to  express 
my  surprise,  that,  in  the  great  and  powerful 
province  of  Kwang  Tung,  the  presence  of  a  sin- 
gle ship  of  war  should  be  cause  of  apprehension 
to  the  local  government.  Least  of  all,  should 
such  apprehension  be  entertained  in  reference 
to  any  ships  of  war  belonging  to  the  United 
States,  which  now  feels,  and  (unless  ill-treat- 
ment of  our  public  agents  should  produce  a 
change  of  sentiments)  will  continue  to  feel,  the 
most  hearty  and  sincere  good  will  towards 
China.  Coming  here,  in  behalf  of  my  govern- 
ment, to  tender  to  China  the  friendship  of  the 
greatest  of  the  Powers  of  America,  it  is  my 
duty,  in  the  outset,  not  to  omit  any  of  the 
tokens  of  respect  customary  among  western  na- 
tions. If  these  demonstrations  are  not  met  in 
a  correspondent  manner,  it  will  be  the  misfor- 
tune of  China,  but  it  will  not  be  the  fault  of  the 
United  States." 

In  these  sentences  China  is  threatened  with 
a  war  with  the  United  States  on  account  of 
her  ill-treatment  of  the  United  States'  public 
agents,  meaning  himself— the  ill-treatment  con- 
sisting in  not  permitting  him  to  trample,  with- 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


519 


out  restraint,  upon  the  laws  and  customs  of  the 
country.  In  this  sense,  Ching,  the  governor, 
understood  it,  and  answered  : 

"  Regarding  what  is  said  of  the  settled  usages 
of  western  nations — that  not  to  receive  a  high 
commissioner  from  another  state  is  an  insult  to 
that  state — this  certainly,  with  men,  has  a  war- 
like bearing.  But  during  the  two  hundred 
years  of  commercial  intercourse  between  China 
and  your  country,  there  has  not  been  the  least 
animosity  nor  the  slightest  insult.  It  is  for 
harmony  and  good  will  your  Excellency  has 
come  ;  and  your  request  to  proceed  to  the  capi- 
tal, and  to  have  an  audience  with  the  Emperor, 
is  wholly  of  the  same  good  mind.  If,  then,  in 
the  outset,  such  pressing  language  is  used,  it 
will  destroy  the  admirable  relations." 

To  this  Mr.  Cushing  rejoins,  following  up  the 
menace  of  war  for  the  "  ill-treatment "  he  was 
receiving— justifying  it  if  it  comes— reminds 
China  of  the  five  years'  hostilities  of  Great  Britain 
upon  her — points  to  her  antiquated  customs  as 
having  already  brought  disasters  upon  her ;  and 
suggests  a  dismemberment  of  her  empire  as  a 
consequence  of  war  with  the  United  States, 
provoked  by  ill-treatment  of  her  public  agents. 
Thus: 

"  I  can  only  assure  your  Excellency,  that  this 
is  not  the  way  for  China  to  cultivate  good  will 
and  maintain  peace.  The  late  war  with  Eng- 
land was  caused  by  the  conduct  of  the  authori- 
ties at  Canton,  in  disregarding  the  rights  of  pub- 
lic officers  who  represented  the  English  gov- 
ernment. If,  in  the  face  of  the  experience  of 
the  last  five  years,  the  Chinese  government 
now  reverts  to  antiquated  customs,  which  have 
already  brought  such  disasters  upon  her,  it  can 
be  regarded  in  no  other  light  than  as  evidence 
that  she  invites  and  desires  [war  with]  the 
other  great  western  Powers.  The  United 
States  would  sincerely  regret  such  a  result. 
We  have  no  desire  whatever  to  dismember  the 
territory  of  the  empire.  Our  citizens  have  at 
all  times  deported  themselves  here  in  a  just  and 
respectful  manner.  The  position  and  policy  of 
the  United  States  enable  us  to  be  the  most  dis- 
interested and  the  most  valuable  of  the  friends 
of  China.  I  have  flattered  myself,  therefore, 
and  cannot  yet  abandon  the  hope,  that  the 
imperial  government  will  see  the  wisdom  of 
promptly  welcoming  and  of  cordially  respond- 
ing to  the  amicable  assurances  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States." 

Quickly  following  this  despatch  was  another, 
in  which  Mr.  Cushing  rises  still  higher  in  his 
complaints  of  molestation  and  ill-treatment — 
refers  to  the  dissatisfaction  which  the  Ameri- 
can people  will  experience — thought  they  would 


have  done  better,  having  just  been  whipped 
by  the  British— confesses  that  his  exalted 
opinion  of  China  is  undergoing  a  decline — 
hopes  they  will  do  better— postpones  for  a 
while  his  measures  of  redress— suspends  his  re- 
sentment— and  by  this  forbearance  will  feel 
himself  the  better  justified  for  what  he  may  do 
if  forced  to  act.     But  let  his  own  words  speak : 

"I  must  not  conceal  from  your  Excellency 
the  extreme  dissatisfaction  and  disappointment 
which  the   people  of  America  will  experience 
when  they  learn  that  their  Envoy,  instead  of 
being  promptly  and  cordially  welcomed  by  the 
Chinese  government,  is  thus  molested  and  de- 
layed, on  the  very  threshold  of  the  province  of 
Yuh.     The  people  of  America  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  consider  China  the  most  refined  and 
the  most  enlightened  of  the  nations  of  the  East ; 
and  they  will  demand,  how  it  is  possible,  if 
China  be  thus  refined,  she  should  allow  herself 
to  be  wanting  in  courtesy  to  their  Envoy ;  and, 
if  China  be  thus  enlightened,  how  it  is  possible 
that,  having  just  emerged  from  a  war  with  Eng- 
land, and  being  in  the  daily  expectation  of  the 
arrival  of  the  Envoy  of  the  French,  she  should 
suffer  herself  to  slight  and  repel  the  good  will 
of  the  United  States.    And  the  people  of  America 
will  be  disposed  indignantly  to  draw  back  the 
proffered  hand  of  friendship,  when  they  learn 
how  imperfectly  the  favor  is  appreciated  by  the 
Chinese  government.     In  consenting,  therefore, 
to  postpone,  for  a  short  time  longer,  my  depar- 
ture for  the  North  (Peking),  and  in  omitting, 
for  however  brief  a  period,  to  consider  the  action 
of  the  Chinese  government  as  one  of  open  dis- 
respect to  the  United  States,  and  to  take  due 
measures  Of  redress,  I  incur  the  hazard  of  the 
disapprobation  and  censure  of  my  government ; 
for  the  American  government  is  peculiarly  sen- 
sitive to  any  act  of  foreign  governments  injurious 
to  the  honor  of  the  United  States.     It  is  the 
custom  of  American  citizens  to  demean  them- 
selves respectfully  towards  the  people  and  au- 
thorities of  any  foreign  nation  in  which  they 
may,  for  the  time  being,  happen  to  reside.    Your 
Excellency  has  frankly  and  truly  borne  witness 
to  the  just  and  respectful   deportment  which 
both   scholars   and    merchants   of  the   United 
States  have  at  all  times  manifested  in  China. 
But  I  left  America  as  a  messenger  of  peace. 
I  came  into  China  full  of  sentiments  of  respect 
and  friendship  towards   its  sovereign  and   its 
people.     And  notwithstanding  what  has  occur- 
red, since  my  arrival  here,  to  chill  the  warmth 
of  my  previous  good  will  towards  China,  and  to 
bring  down  the  high  conceptions  I  had  previously 
been  led  to  form  in  regard  to  the  courtesy  of  its 
government,  I  am  loth  to  give  these  up  entirely, 
and  in  so  doing  put  an  end  perhaps  to  the  exist- 
ing harmonious  relations  between  the  United 
States  and  China.     I  have  therefore  to  say  to 
your  Excellency,  that  I  accept,  for  the  present 


520 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


your  assurances  of  the  sincerity  and  friendship 
of  the  Chinese  government.  I  suspend  all  the 
resentment  which  I  have  just  cause  to  feel  on 
account  of  the  obstructions  thrown  in  the  way 
of  the  progress  of  the  legation,  and  other  par- 
ticulars of  the  action  of  the  Imperial  and  Pro- 
vincial governments,  in  the  hope  that  suitable 
reparation  will  be  made  for  these  acts  in  due 
time.  I  commit  myself,  in  all  this,  to  the  in- 
tegrity and  honor  of  the  Chinese  government ; 
and  if,  in  the  sequel,  I  shall  prove  to  have  done 
this  in  vain,  I  shall  then  consider  myself  the 
more  amply  justified,  in  the  sight  of  all  men,  for 
any  determination  which,  out  of  regard  for  the 
honor  of  the  United  States,  it  may  be  my  duty 
to  adopt  under  such  circumstances." 

It  was  now  the  middle  of  May,  1844 :  the 
correspondence  with  Ching  had  commenced  the 
last  of  February  :  the  three  months  had  nearly 
elapsed,  within  which  a  return  answer  was  to 
be  had  from  Peking :  and  by  extraordinary 
speed  the  answer  arrived.  It  contained  the 
Emperor's  positive  refusal  to  suffer  Mr.  Cushing 
to  come  to  Peking — enjoined  him  to  remain 
where  he  was — cautioned  him  not  to  "  agitate 
disorder  " — and  informing  him  that  an  Imperial 
commissioner  would  proceed  immediately  to 
Canton,  travelling  with  the  greatest  celerity, 
and  under  orders  to  make  one  hundred  and 
thirty-three  miles  a  day,  there  to  draw  up  the 
treaty  with  him.  This  information  took  away 
the  excuse  for  the  intrusive  journey,  or  voyage, 
to  Peking,  and  also  showed  that  a  commercial 
treaty  might  be  had  with  China,  without  inflict- 
ing upon  her  the  calamities  of  war,  or  breeding 
national  dissensions  out  of  diplomatic  conten- 
tions. It  made  a  further  suspension  of  his  re- 
sentment, and  postponement  of  the  measures 
which  the  honor  of  the  United  States  required 
him  to  take  for  the  molestations  and  ill  treat- 
ment which  the  federal  government  had  received 
in  his  person.  These  formidable  measures,  well 
known  to  be  belligerent,  were  postponed,  not 
abandoned ;  and  the  visit  to  Peking,  forestalled 
by  the  arrival  of  an  imperial  commissioner  to 
sign  a  treaty,  was  also  postponed,  not  given  up — 
its  pretext  now  diminished,  and  reduced  to  the 
errand  of  delivering  Mr.  Tyler's  letter  to  the 
Emperor.  He  consents  to  treat  at  Canton,  but 
makes  an  excuse  for  it  in  the  want  of  a  steamer, 
and  the  non-arrival  of  the  other  ships  of  the 
squadron,  which  would  have  enabled  him  to 
approach  Canton,  intimidate  the  government, 
and  obtain  from   their  fears  the  concessions 


which  their  manners  and  customs  forbid.  All 
this  he  wrote  himself  to  his  government,  and  he 
is  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  his  own  words  : 

"  So  far  as  regards  the  objects  of  adjusting  in 
a  proper  manner  the  commercial  relations  of 
the  United  States  and  China,  nothing  could  be 
more  advantageous  than  to  negotiate  with  Tsi- 
yeng  at  Canton,  instead  of  running  the  risk  of 
compromising  this  great  object  by  having  it 
mixed  up  at  Tien  Tsin,  or  elsewhere  at  the  north, 
with  questions  of  reception  at  Court.  Add  to 
which  the  fact  that,  with  the  Brandywine  alone, 
without  any  steamer,  and  without  even  the  St. 
Louis  and  the  Perry,  it  would  be  idle  to  repair 
to  the  neighborhood  of  the  Pih-ho,  in  any  expec- 
tation of  acting  upon  the  Chinese  by  intimida- 
tion, and  obtaining  from  their  fears  concessions 
contrary  to  the  feeling  and  settled  wishes  of  the 
Imperial  government.  To  remain  here,  there- 
fore, and  meet  Tsiyeng,  if  not  the  most  desirable 
thing,  is  at  present  the  only  possible  thing.  It 
is  understood  that  Tsiyeng  will  reach  Canton 
from  the  5th  to  the  10th  of  June." 

This  commissioner,  Tsiyeng,  arrived  at  the 
time  appointed,  and  fortunately  for  the  peace 
and  honor  of  the  country,  as  the  St.  Louis  sloop- 
of-war,  and  the  man-of-war  brig  Perry,  arrived 
two  days  after,  and  put  Mr.  Cushing  in  posses- 
sion of  the  force  necessary  to  carry  out  his  de- 
signs upon  China.  In  the  joy  of  receiving  this 
accession  to  his  force,  he  thus  writes  home  to 
his  government : 

"  It  is  with  great  pleasure  I  inform  you  that 
the  St.  Louis  arrived  here  on  the  6th  instant, 
under  the  command  of  Lieutenant  Keith,  Cap- 
tain Cocke  (for  what  cause  I  know  not,  and 
cannot  conceive),  after  detaining  the  ship  at  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  three  months,  having  at 
length  relinquished  the  command  to  Mr.  Keith. 
And  on  the  same  day  arrived  also  the  Perry, 
commanded  by  Lieutenant  Tilton.  The  arrival 
of  these  vessels  relieves  me  from  a  load  of  solici- 
tude in  regard  to  the  public  business  ;  for  if 
matters  do  not  go  smoothly  with  Tsiyeng,  the 
legation  has  now  the  means  of  proceeding  to 
and  acting  at  the  North." 

"If  matters  do  not  go  smoothly  with  Tsi- 
yeng ! "  and  the  very  first  step  of  Mr.  Cushing 
was  an  attempt  to  ruffle  that  smoothness.  The 
Chinese  commissioner  announced  his  arrival  at 
Canton,  and  made  known  his  readiness  to  draw 
up  the  treaty  instantly.  In  this  communica- 
tion, the  name  of  the  United  States,  as  according 
to  Chinese  custom  with  all  foreign  nations,  was 
written  in  a  lower  column  than  that  of  the 
Chinese  government — in  the  language  of  Mr. 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


521 


Cushing,  "  the  name  of  the  Chinese  government 
stood  higher  in  column  by  one  character  than 
that  of  the  United  States."  At  this  collocation 
of  the  name  of  his  country,  Mr.  Cushing  took 
fire,  and  instantly  returned  the  communication 
to  the  Imperial  commissioner,  "even  at  the 
hazard  (as  he  informed  his  government)  of  at 
once  cutting  off  all  negotiation."  Fortunately 
Tsiyeng  was  a  man  of  sense,  and  of  elevation  of 
character,  and  immediately  directed  his  clerk  to 
elevate  the  name  of  the  United  States  to  the 
level  of  the  column  which  contained  that  of 
China.  By  this  condescension  on  the  part  of 
the  Chinese  commissioner,  the  negotiation  was 
saved  for  the  time,  and  the  cannon  and  ammuni- 
tion of  our  three  ships  of  war  prevented  from 
being  substituted  for  goose-quills  and  ink.  The 
commissioner  showed  the  greatest  readiness, 
amounting  to  impatience,  to  draw  up  and  exe- 
cute the  treaty ;  which  was  done  in  as  little 
time  as  the  forms  could  be  gone  through :  and 
the  next  day  the  commissioner,  taking  his  for- 
mal leave  of  the  American  legation,  departed 
for  Peking — a  hint  that,  the  business  being 
finished,  Mr.  Cushing  might  depart  also  for  his 
home.  But  he  was  not  in  such  a  hurry  to  re- 
turn. "  His  pride  and  his  feelings  (to  use  his 
own  words)  had  been  mortified  "  at  not  being 
permitted  to  go  to  Peking — at  being  in  fact 
stopped  at  a  little  island  off  the  coast,  where  he 
had  to  transact  all  his  business  ;  and  his  mind 
still  reverted  to  the  cherished  idea  of  going  to 
Peking,  though  his  business  would  be  now 
limited  to  the  errand  of  carrying  Mr.  Tyler's 
letter  to  the  Emperor.  In  his  despatch,  imme- 
diately after  the  conclusion  of  this  treaty,  he 
justifies  himself  for  not  having  gone  before  the 
Chinese  commissioner  arrived,  placing  the  blame 
on  the  slow  arrival  of  the  St.  Louis  and  the 
Perry,  the  non-arrival  at  all  of  the  Pacific  squad- 
ron, and  the  want  of  a  steamer. 

"  With  these  reflections  present  to  my  mind, 
it  only  needed  to  consider  further  whether  I 
should  endeavor  to  force  my  way  to  Peking,  or 
at  least,  by  demonstration  of  force  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Pih-ho,  attempt  to  intimidate  the  Impe- 
rial government  into  conceding  to  me  free  access 
to  the  Court.  In  regard  to  this  it  is  to  be  ob- 
served, that  owing  to  the  extraordinary  delays 
of  the  St.  Louis  on  her  way  here,  I  had  no 
means  of  making  any  serious  demonstration  of 
force  at  the  north,  prior  to  the  time  when  Tsi- 
yeng arrived  at  Canton,  on  his  way  to  Macao, 
there  to  meet  me  and  negotiate  a  treaty.  And 
with  an  Imperial  commissioner  near  at  hand, 


ready  and  willing  to  treat,  would  it  have  been 
expedient,  or  even  justifiable,  to  enter  upon  acts 
of  hostility  with  China,  in  order,  if  possible,  to 
make  Peking  the  place  of  negotiation  ?  " 

The  correspondence  does  not  show  what  was 
the  opinion  of  the  then  administration  upon 
this  problem  of  commencing  hostilities  upon 
China  after  the  commissioner  had  arrived  to 
make  the  treaty ;  and  especially  to  commit 
these  hostilities  to  force  a  negotiation  at  Peking, 
where  no  treaty  with  any  power  had  ever  been 
negotiated,  and  where  he  expected  serious  diffi- 
culties in  his  presentation  at  court,  as  Mr.  Cush- 
ing was  determined  not  to  make  the  prostra- 
tions (i.  e.  bumping  his  head  nineteen  times 
against  the  floor),  which  the  Chinese  ceremonial 
required. 

"  I  have  never  disguised  from  myself  the  seri- 
ous difficulties  which  I  might  have  to  encounter 
in  forcing  my  way  to  Peking;  and,  if  volun- 
tarily admitted  there,  the  difficulties  almost 
equally  serious  connected  with  the  question 
of  presentation  at  court;  for  I  had  firmly  re- 
solved not  to  perform  the  acts  of  prostration  to 
the  Emperor.  I  struggled  with  the  objections 
until  intelligence  was  officially  communicated 
to  me  of  the  appointment  of  Tsiyeng  as  imperial 
commissioner,  and  of  his  being  actually  on  his 
way  to  Canton.  To  have  left  Macao  after  re- 
ceiving this  intelligence  would  have  subjected 
me  to  the  imputation  of  fleeing  from,  and,  as  it 
were,  evading  a  meeting  with  Tsiyeng ;  and 
such  an  imputation  would  have  constituted  a 
serious  difficulty  (if  not  an  insuperable  one)  in 
the  way  of  successful  negotiation  at  the  North." 

The  despatch  continues : 

"  On  the  other  hand,  I  did  not  well  see  how 
the  United  States  could  make  war  on  China  to 
change  the  ceremonial  of  the  court.  And  for 
this  reason,  it  had  always  been  with  me  an  ob- 
ject of  great  solicitude  to  dispose  of  all  the 
commercial  questions  by  treaty,  before  ventur- 
ing on  Peking." 

"Did  not  well  see  how  the  United  States 
could  make  war  on  China  to  change  the  cere- 
monial of  the  court."  This  is  very  cool  lan- 
guage, and  implies  that  Mr.  Cushing  was  ready 
to  make  the  war— (assuming  himself  to  be  the 
United  States,  and  invested  with  the  war  power) 
—but  could  not  well  discover  any  pretext  on 
which  to  found  it.  He  then  excuses  himself  for 
not  having  done  better,  and  gone  on  to  Peking 
without  stopping  at  the  outer  port  of  Canton, 
and  so  giving  the  Chinese  time  to  send  down  a 
negotiator  there,  and  so  cutting  off  the  best  pre- 
text for  forcing  the  way  to  China:  and  this  ex- 


522 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


cuse  resolves  itself  into  the  one  so  often  given — 
the  want  of  a  sufficient  squadron  to  force  the 
way.     Thus : 

"  If  it  should  be  suggested  that  it  would  have 
been  better  for  me  to  have  proceeded  at  once  to 
the  North  (Peking),  without  stopping  at  Macao, 
I  reply,  that  this  was  impracticable  at  the  time 
of  my  arrival,  with  the  Brandywine  alone,  be- 
fore the  southerly  monsoon  had  set  in,  and 
without  any  steamer ;  that  if  at  any  time  I  had 
gone  to  the  North  in  the  view  of  negotiating 
there,  I  should  have  been  wholly  dependent  on 
the  Chinese  for  the  means  of  lodging  and  sub- 
sisting on  shore,  and  even  for  the  means  of  land- 
ing at  the  mouth  of  the  Pih-ho ;  that  only  at 
Macao  could  I  treat  independently,  and  that 
here,  of  necessity,  must  all  the  pecuniary  and 
other  arrangements  of  the  mission  be  made,  and 
the  supplies  obtained  for  the  squadron.  Such 
are  the  considerations  and  the  circumstances 
which  induced  me  to  consent  to  forego  proceed- 
ing to  Peking." 

So  that,  after  all,  it  was  only  the  fear  of  being 
whipt  and  starved  that  prevented  Mr.  dishing 
from  fighting  his  way  to  the  foot-stool  of  power 
in  the  Tartar  half  of  the  Chinese  Empire.  The 
delay  of  the  two  smaller  vessels,  the  non-arrival 
of  the  Pacific  squadron,  and  the  want  of  a 
steamer,  were  fortunate  accidents  for  the  peace 
and  honor  of  the  United  States ;  and  even  the 
conflagration  of  the  magnificent  steam  frigate, 
Missouri,  with  all  her  equipments,  was  a  bless- 
ing, compared  to  the  use  to  which  she  would 
have  been  put  if  Mr.  Cushing's  desire  to  see  the 
coasts  of  the  Mediterranean  and  the  banks  of 
the  Nile  had  not  induced  him  to  take  her  to  Gib- 
raltar, instead  of  doubling  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  in  company  with  the  Brandywine. 
Finally,  he  gives  the  reason  for  all  this  craving 
desire  to  get  to  Peking,  which  was  nothing 
more  nor  less  (and  less  it  could  not  be)  than 
the  gratification  of  his  own  feelings  of  pride  and 
curiosity.     Hear  him : 

"  And  in  regard  to  Peking  itself,  I  have  ob- 
tained the  means  of  direct  correspondence  be- 
tween the  two  governments  immediately,  and 
an  express  engagement,  that  if  hereafter  a  min- 
ister of  the  French,  or  any  other  power,  should 
be  admitted  to  the  court,  the  same  privilege 
shall  be  accorded  to  the  United  States.  If  the 
conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  be  one  less 
agreeable  to  my  own  feelings  of  pride  or  curi- 
osity, it  is,  at  any  rate,  the  most  important  and 
useful  to  my  country,  and  will  therefore,  I  trust, 
prove  satisfactory  to  the  President." 

It  does  not  appear  from  any  published  in- 
structions  of   the   administration   (then   con- 


sisting of  Mr.  Tyler  and  his  new  cabinet 
after  the  resignation  of  all  the  whig  members 
except  Mr.  Webster),  how  far  Mr.  Cushing  was 
warranted  in  his  belligerent  designs  upon 
China ;  but  the  great  naval  force  which  was 
assigned  to  him,  the  frankness  with  which  he 
communicated  all  his  bellicose  intentions,  the 
excuse52  which  he  made  for  not  having  pro- 
ceeded to  hostilities  and  the  dismemberment  of 
the  Empire,  and  the  encomiums  with  which  his 
treaty  was  communicated  to  the  Senate — all  be- 
speak a  consciousness  of  approbation  on  the 
part  of  the  administration,  and  the  existence  of 
an  expectation  which  might  experience  disap- 
pointment in  his  failing  to  make  war  upon  the 
Chinese.  In  justice  to  Mr.  Webster,  it  must 
be  told  that,  although  still  in  the  cabinet  when 
Mr.  Cushing  went  to  China,  yet  his  day  of  in- 
fluence was  over :  he  was  then  in  the  process  of 
being  forced  to  resign:  and  Mr.  Upshur,  then 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  was  then  virtually,  as 
he  was  afterwards  actually,  Secretary  of  State, 
when  the  negotiations  were  carried  on. 

The  publication  of  Mr.  Cushing's  correspond- 
ence, which  was  ordered  by  the  Senate,  excited 
astonishment,  and  attracted  the  general  repro- 
bation of  the  country.  Their  contents  were  re- 
volting, and  would  have  been  incredible  except 
for  his  own  revelations.  Narrated  by  himself 
they  coerced  belief,  and  bespoke  an  organization 
void  of  the  moral  sense,  and  without  the  know- 
ledge that  any  body  else  possessed  it.  The  con- 
duct of  the  negotiator  was  condemned,  his  treaty 
was  ratified,  and  the  proceedings  on  his  nomina- 
tion remain  a  senatorial  secret — the  injunction 
of  secrecy  having  never  been  removed  from 
them. 


CHAPTER    CXXIII. 

THE  ALLEGED  MUTINY,  AND  THE  EXECUTIONS 
(AS  THEY  WERE  CALLED)  ON  BOAED  THE 
UNITED  STATES  MAN-OF-WAR,  SOMERS. 

In  the  beginning  of  this  year  the  public  mind  was 
suddenly  astounded  and  horrified,  at  the  news 
of  a  mutiny  on  board  a  national  ship-of-war, 
with  a  view  to  convert  it  into  a  pirate,  and  at 
the  same  time  excited  to  admiration  and  grati- 
tude at  the  terrible  energy  with  which  the 
commander  of  the  ship  had  suppressed  it — 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


523 


hanging  three  of  the  ringleaders  on  the  spot 
without  trial,  bringing  home  twelve  others  in 
irons  —  and  restraining  the  rest  by  the  un- 
daunted front  which  the  officers  assumed,  and 
the  complete  readiness  in  which  they  held  them- 
selves to  face  a  revolt.  It  was  a  season  of  pro- 
found peace,  and  the  astounding  news  was  like 
claps  of  thunder  in  a  clear  sky.  It  was  an  un- 
precedented event  in  our  navy,  where  it  had  been 
the  pride  and  glory  of  the  seamen  to  stand  by 
their  captain  and  their  ship  to  the  last  man,  and 
to  die  exultingly  to  save  either.  Unlike  almost 
all  mutinies,  it  was  not  a  revolt  against  oppres- 
sion, real  or  imagined,  and  limited  to  the  seizure 
of  the  ship  and  the  death  or  expulsion  of  the 
officers,  but  a  vast  scheme  of  maritime  depreda- 
tion, in  which  the  man-of-war,  converted  into  a 
piratical  cruiser,  was  to  roam  the  seas  in  quest 
of  blood  and  plunder,  preying  upon  the  com- 
merce of  all  nations — robbing  property,  slaugh- 
tering men,  and  violating  women.  A  son  of  a 
cabinet  minister,  and  himself  an  officer,  was  at  the 
head  of  the  appalling  design ;  and  his  name  and 
rank  lent  it  a  new  aspect  of  danger.  Every  ag- 
gravation seemed  to  attend  it,  and  the  horrify- 
ing intelligence  came  out  in  a  way  to  magnify 
its  terrors,  and  to  startle  the  imagination  as  well 
as  to  overpower  the  judgment.  The  vessel  was 
the  bearer  of  her  own  news,  and  arriving  on  the 
coast,  took  a  reserve  and  mystery  which  lent  a 
terrific  force  to  what  leaked  out.  She  stopped 
oft*  the  harbor  of  New  York,  and  remained  out- 
side two  days,  severely  interdicting  all  communi- 
cation with  the  shore.  A  simple  notice  of  her 
return  was  all  that  was  made  public.  An  offi- 
cer from  the  vessel,  related  to  the  commander, 
proceeded  to  Washington  city — giving  out  fear- 
ful intimations  as  he  went  along — and  bearing  a 
sealed  report  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 
The  contents  of  that  report  went  direct  into 
the  government  official  paper,  and  thence  flew 
resounding  through  the  land.  It  was  the  offi- 
cial and  authentic  report  of  the  fearful  mutiny. 
The  news  being  spread  from  the  official  source, 
and  the  public  mind  prepared  for  his  reception, 
the  commander  brought  his  vessel  into  port — 
landed  :  and  landed  in  such  a  way  as  to  increase 
the  awe  and  terror  inspired  by  his  naftrative. 
He  went  direct,  in  solemn  procession,  at  the 
head  of  his  crew  to  the  nearest  church,  and  re- 
turned thanks  to  God  for  a  great  deliverance. 
Taken  by  surprise,  the  public  mind  delivered 
itself  up  to  joy  and  gratitude  for  a  marvellous 


escape,  applauding  the  energy  which  had  saved 
a  national  ship  from  mutiny,  and  the  commerce 
of  nations  from  piratical  depredation.  The  cur- 
rent was  all  on  one  side.  Nothing  appeared  to 
weaken  its  force,  or  stop  its  course.  The  dead 
who  had  been  hanged,  and  sent  to  the  bottom  of 
the  sea,  could  send  up  no  voice :  the  twelve 
ironed  prisoners  on  the  deck  of  the  vessel,  were 
silent  as  the  dead :  the  officers  and  men  at  largo, 
actors  in  what  had  taken  place,  could  only  con- 
firm the  commander's  official  report.  That  re- 
port, not  one  word  of  which  would  be  heard  in 
a  court  of  justice,  was  received  as  full  evidence 
at  the  great  tribunal  of  public  opinion.  The  re- 
ported confessions  which  it  contained  (though 
the  weakest  of  all  testimony  in  the  eye  of  the 
law,  and  utterly  repulsed  when  obtained  by 
force,  terror  or  seduction),  were  received  by  the 
masses  as  incontestable  evidence  of  guilt. 

The  vessel  on  which  all  this  took  place  was 
the  United  States  man-of-war,  Somers  —  her 
commander  Alexander  Slidell  Mackenzie,  Esq., 
with  a  crew  of  120  all  told,  96  of  which  were 
apprentice  boys  under  age.  She  had  gone  out 
on  one  of  those  holiday  excursions  which  are 
now  the  resource  of  schools  to  make  seamen. 
She  had  crossed  the  Atlantic  and  was  returning 
to  the  United  States  by  way  of  the  West  Indies, 
when  this  fearful  mutiny  was  discovered.  It 
was  communicated  by  the  purser's  steward  to 
the  purser — by  him  to  the  first  lieutenant — by 
him  to  the  commander :  and  the  incredulous 
manner  in  which  he  received  it  is  established  by 
two  competent  witnesses — the  lieutenant  who 
gave  it  to  him,  and  the  commander  himself: 
and  it  is  due  to  each  to  give  the  account  of  this 
reception  in  his  own  words :  and  first  the  lieu- 
tenant shall  speak : 

"I  reported  the  thing  (the  intended  mutiny) 
to  the  commander  immediately.  He  took  it 
very  coolly,  said  the  vessel  was  in  a  good  state 
of  discipline,  and  expressed  his  doubts  as  to  the 
truth  of  the  report." 

This  is  the  testimony  of  the  lieutenant  before 
the  court-martial  which  afterwards  sat  upon  the 
case,  and  two  points  are  to  be  noted  in  it— first, 
that  the  commander  did  not  believe  it;  and, 
secondly,  that  he  declared  the  vessel  to  be  in  a 
good  state  of  discipline :  which  was  equivalent 
to  saying,  there  was  no  danger,  even  if  the  in- 
formation was  true.  Now  for  the  commander's 
account  of  the  same  scene,  taken  from  his  offi- 
cial report : 


524 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"  Such  was  the  purport  of  the  information  laid 
before  me  by  Lieut.  Gansevoort,  and  although 
he  was  evidently  impressed  with  the  reality  of 
the  project,  yet  it  seemed  to  me  so  monstrous, 
so  improbable,  that  I  could  not  forbear  treating 
it  with  ridicule.  I  was  under  the  impression 
that  Mr.  Spencer  had  been  reading  piratical 
stories,  and  had  amused  himself  with  Mr. 
Wales  " — (the  informer). 

Ridicule  was  the  only  answer  which  the  com- 
mander deemed  due  to  the  information,  and  in 
that  he  was  justified  by  the  nature  of  the  infor- 
mation itself.  A  purser's  steward  (his  name 
Wales)  had  told  the  lieutenant  that  midship- 
man Spencer  had  called  him  into  a  safe  place 
the  night  before,  and  asked  him  right  off — "  Do 
you  fear  death  ?  do  you  fear  a  dead  man  1  are 
you  afraid  to  kill  a  man  ?  " — and  getting  satisfac- 
tory answers  to  these  questions,  he  immediately 
unfolded  to  him  his  plan  of  capturing  the  ship, 
with  a  list  of  four  certain  and  ten  doubtful  as- 
sociates, and  eighteen  nolens  volens  assistants  to 
be  forced  into  the  business ;  and  then  roaming 
the  sea  with  her  as  a  pirate,  first  calling  at  the 
Isle  of  Pines  (Cuba)  for  confederates.  It 
was  a  ridiculous  scheme,  both  as  to  the  force 
which  was  to  take  the  ship,  and  her  employ- 
ment as  a  buccaneer — the  state  of  the  ocean  and 
of  navigation  being  such  at  that  time  as  to  leave 
a  sea-rover,  pursued  as  he  would  be  by  the 
fleets  of  all  nations,  without  a  sea  to  sail  in, 
without  a  coast  to  land  on,  without  a  rock  or 
corner  to  hide  in.  The  whole  conception  was 
an  impossibility,  and  the  abruptness  of  its  com- 
munication to  Wales  was  evidence  of  the  design 
to  joke  him.  As  such  it  appeared  to  the  com- 
mander at  the  time.  It  was  at  10  o'clock  in  the 
morning  of  the  26th  of  November,  1842,  ap- 
proaching the  West  Indies  from  the  coast  of 
Africa,  that  this  information  was  given  by  the 
lieutenant  to  the  commander.  Both  agree  in 
their  account  of  the  ridicule  with  which  it  was 
received ;  but  the  commander,  after  the  deaths 
of  the  implicated,  and  when  making  out  his 
official  report  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  for- 
got to  add  what  he  said  to  the  lieutenant — that 
the  vessel  was  in  a  good  state  of  discipline — 
equivalent  to  saying  it  could  not  be  taken. 
Further,  he  not  only  forgot  to  add  what  he  said, 
but  remembered  to  say  the  contrary:  and  on 
his  trial  undertook  to  prove  that  the  state  of 
the  ship  was  bad,  and  had  been  so  for  weeks ; 
and  even  since  they  left  the  coast  of  Africa.  In 
this  omission  to  report  to  the  Secretary  a  fact 


so  material,  as  he  had  remarked  it  to  his  lieu- 
tenant, and  afterwards  proving  the  contrary  on 
his  trial,  there  is  room  for  a  pregnant  reflection 
which  will  suggest  itself  to  every  thinking  mind 
— still  more  when  the  silence  of  the  log-book 
upon  this  "  bad  "  state  of  the  crew,  corresponds 
with  the  commander's  account  that  it  was  good. 
But,  take  the  two  accounts  in  what  they  agree, 
and  it  is  seen  that  at  10  o'clock  in  the  morning 
Lieutenant  Gansevoort's  whole  report  of  the  con- 
spiracy and  mutiny,  as  derived  from  the  purser's 
steward  (Wales)  was  received  with  ridicule — 
as  the  romance  of  a  boy  who  had  been  reading 
piratical  stories,  and  was  amusing  himself  with 
the  steward — a  landsman,  of  whom  the  com- 
mander gives  a  bad  account  as  having  bought  a 
double  quantity  of  brandy — twice  as  much  as 
his  orders  justified,  before  leaving  New  York ; — 
and  afterwards  stealing  it  on  the  voyage.  By 
five  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  and 
without  hearing  any  thing  additional,  the  com- 
mander became  fully  impressed  with  the  truth 
of  the  whole  story,  awfully  impressed  with  the 
danger  of  the  vessel,  and  fully  resolved  upon  a 
course  of  terrible  energy  to  prevent  the  success 
of  the  impending  mutiny.  Of  this  great  and 
sudden  change  in  his  convictions  it  becomes  the 
right  of  the  commander  to  give  his  own  account 
of  its  inducing  causes :  and  here  they  are,  taken 
from  his  official  report : 

"In  the  course  of  the  day,  Lieut.  Gansevoort 
informed  me  that  Mr.  Spencer  had  been  in  the 
wardroom  examining  a  chart  of  the  West  Indies, 
and  had  asked  the  assistant  surgeon  some  ques- 
tions about  the  Isle  of  Pines,  and  the  latter  had 
informed  him  that  it  was  a  place  much  fre- 
quented by  pirates,  and  drily  asked  if  he  had 
any  acquaintances  there. — He  passed  the  day 
rather  sullenly  in  one  corner  of  the  steerage,  as 
was  his  usual  custom,  engaged  in  examining  a 
small  piece  of  paper,  and  writing  upon  it  with 
his  pencil,  and  occasionally  finding  relaxation  in 
working  with  a  penknife  at  the  tail  of  a  devil- 
fish, one  of  which  he  had  formed  into  a  sliding 
ring  for  his  cravat.  Lieut.  Gansevoort  also 
made  an  excuse  of  duty  to  follow  him  to  the 
foretop,  where  he  found  him  engaged  in  having 
some  love  device  tattooed  on  his  arm  by  Benja- 
min F.  Green,  ordinary  seaman,  and  apprentice. 
Lieut.  Gansevoort  also  learned  that  he  had 
been  endeavoring  for  some  days  to  ascertain  the 
rate  of  the  chronometer,  by  applying  to  Mid. 
Rodgers,  to  whom  it  was  unknown,  and  who 
referred  him  to  the  master.  He  had  been  seen 
in  secret  and  nightly  conferences  with  the  boat- 
swain's mate,  S.  Cromwell,  and  seaman  Elisha 
Small.  I  also  heard  that  he  had  given  money 
to  several  of  the  crew ;  to  Elisha  Small  on  the 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


525 


twelfth  of  September,  the  day  before  our  de- 
parture from  New  York ;  the  same  day  on 
which,  in  reply  to  Commodore  Perry's  injunc- 
tions to  reformation,  he  had  made  the  most 
solemn  promises  of  amendment ;  to  Samuel 
Cromwell  on  the  passage  to  Madeira ;  that  he 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  distributing  tobacco 
extensively  among  the  apprentices,  in  defiance 
of  the  orders  of  the  navy  department,  and  of 
my  own  often  reiterated ;  that  he  had  corrupted 
the  ward-room  steward,  caused  him  to  steal 
brandy  from  the  ward-room  mess,  which  he, 
Mr.  Spencer,  had  drunk  himself,  occasionally 
getting  drunk  when  removed  from  observation, 
and  had  also  administered  to  several  of  the 
crew ;  that,  finally,  he  was  in  the  habit  of  amus- 
ing the  crew  by  making  music  with  his  jaw. 
He  had  the  faculty  of  throwing  his  jaw  out  of 
joint,  and  by  contact  of  the  bones,  playing  with 
accuracy  and  elegance  a  variety  of  airs.  Servile 
in  his  intercourse  with  me,  when  among  the 
crew  he  loaded  me  with  blasphemous  vitupera- 
tion, and  proclaimed  that  it  would  be  a  pleasing 
task  to  roll  me  overboard  off  the  round-house. 
He  had  some  time  before  drawn  a  brig  with  a 
black  flag,  and  asked  one  of  the  midshipmen 
what  he  thought  of  it ;  he  had  repeatedly  as- 
serted in  the  early  part  of  the  cruise,  that  the 
brig  might  easily  be  taken ;  he  had  quite 
recently  examined  the  hand  of  midshipman 
Rodgers,  told  his  fortune,  and  predicted  for  him 
a  speedy  and  violent  death." 

Surely  the  historian,  as  well  as  the  poet 
may  say :  To  the  jealous  mind,  trifles  light 
as  air  are  confirmations  strong  as  proofs  from 
holy  writ.  Here  are  fourteen  causes  of  sus- 
pected mutiny  enumerated,  part  of  which  causes 
are  eminently  meritorious  in  a  young  naval 
oflicer,  as  those  of  studying  the  chart  of  the 
West  Indies  (whither  the  vessel  was  going), 
and  that  of  learning  the  rate  of  the  chronome- 
ter ;  another  part  of  which  is  insignificant,  as 
giving  tobacco  to  the  apprentice  boys,  and  giv- 
ing money  to  two  of  the  seamen  ;  others  again 
would  show  a  different  passion  from  that  of 
piracy,  as  having  love  devices  tattooed  on  his 
arm ;  others  again  would  bespeak  the  lassitude  of 
idleness,  as  whittling  at  the  tail  of  a  devilfish,  and 
making  a  ring  for  his  cravat,  and  drawing  a  brig 
with  a  black  flag  ;  others  again  would  indicate 
playfulness  and  humor,  as  examining  the  palm 
of  young  Rodgers'  hand,  and  telling  his  fortune, 
which  fortune,  of  course,  was  to  be  startling,  as 
a  sudden  and  violent  death,  albeit  this  young 
Rodgers  was  his  favorite,  and  the  only  one  he 
asked  to  see  when  he  was  about  to  be  hung 
up — (a  favor  which  was  denied  him)  ;  others 


again  are  contradicted  by  previous  statements, 
as,  that  Spencer  corrupted  the  purser's  steward 
and  made  him  steal  brandy,  the  commander 
having  before  reported  that  steward  for  the 
offence  of  purchasing  a  double  quantity  of 
brandy  before  he  left  New  York— a  circum- 
stance which  implied  a  sufficient  inclination  to 
use  the  extra  supply  he  had  laid  in  (of  which 
he  had  the  custody),  without  being  corrupted 
by  Spencer  to  steal  it ;  others  of  these  causes 
again  were  natural,  and  incidental  to  Spencer's 
social  condition  in  the  vessel,  as  that  of  talking 
with  the  seamen,  he  being  objected  to  by  his 
four  roommates  (who  were  the  commander's 
relations  and  connections),  and  considered  one 
too  many  in  their  room,  and  as  such  attempted 
to  be  removed  to  another  ship  by  the  com- 
mander himself;  another,  that  occasionally  he 
got  drunk  when  removed  from  observation,  a 
fault  rather  too  common  (even  when  in  the 
presence  of  observation)  to  stand  for  evidence 
of  a  design  to  commit  mutiny  on  board  a  man- 
of-war  ;  another,  that  blasphemous  vituperation 
of  the  commander  which,  although  it  might  be 
abusive,  could  neither  be  blasphemous  (which 
only  applies  to  the  abuse  of  God),  nor  a  sign  of 
a  design  upon  the  vessel,  but  only  of  contempt 
for  the  commander ;  finally,  as  in  that  marvel- 
lous fine  music  with  the  jaw  out  of  joint,  playing 
with  skill  and  accuracy  a  variety  of  elegant  airs  by 
the  contaction  of  the  luxated  ends  of  the  bones. 
Taken  as  true,  and  this  musical  habit  might 
indicate  an  innocency  of  disposition.  But  it  is 
ridiculously  false,  and  impossible,  and  as  such 
ridiculous  impossibility  it  was  spared  the  men- 
tion even  of  contempt  during  the  whole  court- 
martial  proceedings.  Still  it  was  one  of  the 
facts  gravely  communicated  to  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  as  one  of  the  means  used  by  Spencer 
to  seduce  the  crew.  While  ridicule,  contempt 
and  scorn  are  the  only  proper  replies  to  such 
absurd  presumptions  of  guilt,  there  were  two 
of  them  presented  in  such  a  way  as  to  admit  of 
an  inquiry  into  their  truth,  namely,  the  fortune- 
telling  and  the  chronometer :  Midshipman  Rod- 
gers testified  before  the  court  that  this  fortune- 
telling  was  a  steerage  amusement,  and  that  he 
was  to  die,  not  only  suddenly  and  violently,  but 
also  a  gambler;  and  that  as  for  the  examination 
of  the  chronometer,  it  was  with  a  view  to  a  bet 
between  himself  and  Rodgers  as  to  the  time  that 
the  vessel  would  get  to  St.  Thomas— the  bet  on 


526 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Spencer's  side,  being  on  eight  days.  Yet,  the 
diseased  mind  of  the  commander  could  see 
nothing  in  those  little  incidents,  but  proof  of  a 
design  to  kill  Rodgers  (with  the  rest)  before  the 
ship  got  to  St.  Thomas,  and  afterwards  to  run 
to  the  Isle  of  Pines.  Preposterous  as  these 
fourteen  reasons  were,  they  were  conclusive 
with  the  commander,  who  forthwith  acted  upon 
them,  and  made  the  arrest  of  Spencer." 

"  At  evening  quarters  I  ordered  through  my 
clerk,  0.  H.  Perry,  doing  the  duty  also  of  mid- 
shipman and  aid,  all  the  officers  to  lay  aft  on 
the  quarter  deck,  excepting  the  midshipman 
stationed  on  the  forecastle.  The  master  was 
ordered  to  take  the  wheel,  and  those  of  the 
crew  stationed  abaft  sent  to  the  mainmast.  I 
approached  Mr.  Spencer,  and  said  to  him,  '  I 
learn,  Mr.  Spencer,  that  you  aspire  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  Somers.'  With  a  deferential,  but 
unmoved  and  gently  smiling  expression,  he  re- 
plied,'Oh  no,  sir.'  'Did  you  not  tell  Mr. 
Wales,  sir,  that  you  had  a  project  to  kill  the 
commander,  the  officers,  and  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  crew  of  this  vessel,  and  to  convert 
her  into  a  pirate  ? '  'I  may  have  told  him  so, 
sir,  but  it  was  in  a  joke.'  '  You  admit  then  that 
you  told  him  so  ? '  '  Yes,  sir,  but  in  joke  ! ' 
'  This,  sir,  is  joking  on  a  forbidden  subject — this 
joke  may  cost  you  your  life  ! '  " 

This  was  the  answer  of  innocence :  guilt 
would  have  denied  every  thing.  Here  all  the 
words  are  admitted,  with  a  promptitude  and 
frankness  that  shows  they  were  felt  to  be  what 
they  purported — the  mere  admission  of  a  joke. 
The  captain's  reply  shows  that  the  life  of  the 
young  man  was  already  determined  upon.  It 
was  certainly  a  punishable  joke — a  joke  upon  a 
forbidden  subject :  but  how  punishable  ?  cer- 
tainly among  the  minor  offences  in  the  navy, 
offences  prejudicial  to  discipline ;  and  to  be  ex- 
piated by  arrest,  trial,  condemnation  for  breach 
of  discipline,  and  sentence  to  reprimand,  sus- 
pension ;  or  some  such  punishment  for  incon- 
siderate offences.  But,  no.  The  commander 
replies  upon  the  spot,  '  this  joke  may  cost  you 
your  life : '  and  in  that  he  was  prophetic,  being 
the  fulfiller  of  his  own  prophecy.  The  informer 
Wales  had  reported  a  criminal  paper  to  be  in 
the  neckcloth  of  the  young  man:  the  next 
movement  of  the  commander  was  to  get  pos- 
session of  that  paper :  and  of  that  attempt  he 
gives  this  account : 

" '  Be  pleased  to  remove  your  neckhandker- 
chief.'  It  was  removed  and  opened,  but  nothing 
was  found  in  it.   I  asked  him  what  he  had  done 


with  a  paper  containing  an  account  of  his  project 
which  he  had  told  Mr.  Wales  was  in  the  back  of 
his  neckhandkerchief.  '  It  is  a  paper  containing 
my  day's  work;  and  I  have  destroyed  it.'  'It  is  a 
singular  place  to  keep  day's  work  in.'  '  It  is  a 
convenient  one,'  he  replied,  with  an  air  of  defer- 
ence and  blandness." 

Balked  in  finding  this  confirmation  of  guilt, 
the  commander  yet  proceeded  with  his  design, 
and  thus  describes  the  arrest : 

"  I  said  to  him,  '  l"ou  must  have  been  aware 
that  you  could  only  have  compassed  your 
designs  by  passing  over  my  dead  body,  and 
after  that  the  bodies  of  all  the  officers.  You 
had  given  yourself  a  great  deal  to  do.  It  will 
be  necessary  for  me  to  confine  you.'  I  turned 
to  Lieutenant  Gansevoort  and  said,  'Arrest  Mr. 
Spencer,  and  put  him  in  double  irons.'  Mr. 
Gansevoort  stepped  forward,  and  took  his 
sword ;  he  was  ordered  to  sit  down  in  the  stern 
port,  double  ironed,  and  as  an  additional  security 
handcuffed.  I  directed  Lieut.  Gansevoort  to 
watch  over  his  security,  to  order  him  to  be  put 
to  instant  death  if  he  was  detected  speaking  to, 
or  holding  intelligence  in  any  way,  with  any  of 
the  crew.  He  was  himself  made  aware  of  the 
nature  of  these  orders.  I  also  directed  Lieut. 
Gansevoort  to  see  that  he  had  every  comfort 
which  his  safe  keeping  would  admit  of.  In  con- 
fiding this  task  to  Lieut.  Gansevoort,  his  kind- 
ness and  humanity  gave  me  the  assurance  that 
it  would  be  zealously  attended  to ;  and  through- 
out the  period  of  Mr.  Spencer's  confinement, 
Lieut.  Gansevoort,  whilst  watching  his  person 
with  an  eagle  eye,  and  ready  at  any  moment  to 
take  his  life  should  he  forfeit  that  condition  of 
silence  on  which  his  safety  depended,  attended 
to  all  his  wants,  covered  him  with  his  own  grego 
when  squalls  of  rain  were  passing  over,  and 
ministered  in  every  way  to  his  comfort  with  the 
tenderness  of  a  woman." 

Double-ironed — handcuffed — bagged  (for  he 
was  also  tied  up  in  a  bag),  lying  under  the  sun 
in  a  tropical  clime,  and  drenched  with  squalls 
of  rain — silent — instant  death  for  a  word  or  a 
sign — Lieutenant  Gansevoort,  armed  to  the 
teeth,  standing  over  him,  and  watching,  with 
"  eagle  eye,"  for  the  sound  or  motion  which  was 
to  be  the  forfeit  of  life :  for  six  days  and  nights, 
his  irons  examined  every  half  hour  to  see  that 
all  were  tight  and  safe,  was  this  boy  (of  less 
than  nineteen)  thus  confined ;  only  to  be  roused 
from  it  in  a  way  that  will  be  told.  But  the 
lieutenant  could  not  stand  to  his  arduous 
watch  during  the  whole  of  that  time.  His  ea- 
gle eye  could  not  resist  winking  and  shutting 
during  all  that  time.  He  needed  relief— and 
had  it — and  in  the  person  of  one  who  showed 


ANNO  184S.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


527 


that  he  had  a  stomach  for  the  business — Wales, 
the  informer  :  who,  finding  himself  elevated 
from  the  care  of  pea-jackets,  molasses,  and  to- 
bacco, to  the  rank  of  sentinel  over  a  United 
States  officer,  improved  upon  the  lessons  which 
his  superiors  had  taught  him,  and  stood  ready, 
a  cocked  revolver  in  hand,  to  shoot,  not  only 
the  prisoners  (for  by  this  time  there  were 
three),  for  a  thoughtless  word  or  motion,  but 
also  to  shoot  any  of  the  crew  that  should 
make  a  suspicious  sign : — such  as  putting  the 
hand  to  the  chin,  or  touching  a  handspike  with- 
in forty  feet  of  the  said  Mr.  Wales.  Hear  him, 
as  he  swears  before  the  court-martial : 

"  I  was  officer  in  charge  of  the  prisoners  :  we 
were  holy-stoning  the  decks.  I  noticed  those 
men  who  missed  their  muster  kept  congregat- 
ing round  the  stern  of  the  launch,  and  kept 
talking  in  a  secret  manner.  I  noticed  them 
making  signs  to  the  prisoners  by  putting  their 
hands  up  to  their  chins  :  Cromwell  was  lying  on 
the  starboard  arm-chest :  he  rose  up  in  his  bed. 
I  told  him  if  I  saw  any  more  signs  passing  be- 
tween them  /  should  put  him  to  death :  my 
orders  were  to  that  effect.  He  laid  down  in  his 
bed.  I  then  went  to  the  stern  of  the  launch, 
found  Wilson,  and  a  number  of  small  holy- 
stones collected  there,  and  was  endeavoring  to 
pull  a  gun  handspike  from  the  stern  of  the 
launch :  what  his  intentions  were  I  dortt  know. 
I  cocked  a  pistol,  and  ordered  him  to  the  lee- 
gangway  to  draw  water.  I  told  him  if  I  saw 
him  pulling  at  the  handspike  I  should  blow  his 
brains  out." 

This  comes  from  Mr.  Wales  himself,  not  from 
the  commander's  report,  where  this  handspike- 
incident  is  made  to  play  a  great  part ;  thus  : 

"  Several  times  during  the  night  there  were 
symptoms  of  an  intention  to  strike  some  blow. 
Mr.  Wales  detected  Charles  A.  Wilson  attempt- 
ing to  draw  out  a  handspike  from  under  the 
launch,  with  an  evident  purpose  of  felling  him  ; 
and  when  Mr.  Wales  cocked  his  pistol  and  ap- 
proached, he  could  only  offer  some  lame  excuse 
for  his  presence  there.  I  felt  more  anxious 
than  I  had  yet  done,  and  remained  continually 
on  deck." 

Here  is  a  discrepancy.  Wales  swears  before 
the  court  that  he  did  not  know  what  Wilson's 
intentions  were  in  pulling  at  the  handspike: 
the  captain,  who  did  not  see  the  pulling,  reports 
to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  that  it  was  done 
with  the  evident  intent  of  felling  Wales  !  while 
Wales  himself,  before  the  court-martial,  not 
only  testified  to  his  ignorance  of  any  motive  for 
that  act,  but  admitted  upon  cross-examination, 


that  the  handspike  was  not  drawn  at  all — only 
attempted  !  and  that  he  himself  was  forty  feet 
from  Wilson  at  the  time  !  (but,  more  of  this 
handspike  hereafter.)  Still  the  impression 
upon  the  commander's  mind  was  awful.  He 
felt  more  anxious  than  ever :  he  could  not  rest : 
he  kept  continually  on  deck.  Armed  to  the 
teeth  he  watched,  listened,  interrogated,  and 
patrolled  incessantly.  Surely  the  man's  crazy 
terrors  would  excite  compassion  were  it  not  for 
the  deeds  he  committed  under  their  influence. 
— But  the  paper  that  was  to  have  been  found 
in  Spencer's  cravat,  and  was  not  found  there : 
it  was  found  elsewhere,  and  the  commander  in 
his  report  gives  this  account  of  it : 

"  On  searching  the  locker  of  Mr.  Spencer,  a 
small  razor-case  was  found,  which  he  had  re- 
cently drawn,  with  a  razor  in  it,  from  the 
purser.  Instead  of  the  razor,  the  case  was 
found  to  contain  a  small  paper,  rolled  in 
another ;  on  the  inner  one  were  strange  charac- 
ters, which  proved  to  be  Greek,  with  which  Mr. 
Spencer  was  familiar.  It  fortunately  happened 
that  there  was  another  midshipman  on  board 
the  Somers  who  knew  Greek — one  whose 
Greek,  and  every  thing  else  that  he  possessed, 
was  wholly  devoted  to  his  country.  The  Greek 
characters,  converted  by  midshipman  Henry 
Rodgers  into  our  own,  exhibited  well  known 
names  among  the  crew.  The  certain — the 
doubtful — those  who  were  to  be  kept  whether 
they  would  or  not — arranged  in  separate  rows  ; 
those  who  were  to  do  the  work  of  murder  in 
the  various  apartments,  to  take  the  wheel,  to 
open  the  arm-chests." 

The  paper  had  about  thirty  names  upon  it : 
four  under  the  head  of  "  certain : "  ten  under 
that  of  doubtful,  and  the  remainder  under  the 
head  of  nolens  volens — which  was  construed  by 
the  Latinists  on  board  to  signify  men  who  were 
to  be  made  to  join  in  the  mutiny  whether  they 
would  or  not :  and  these  nolens  volens  who 
were  to  be  forced  were  more  numerous  than 
those  who  were  to  force  them.  Eighteen  un- 
willing men  to  be  forced  into  mutiny  and  piracy 
by  four  willing  and  ten  uncertain  ;  and  of  the 
four  willing,  one  of  them  the  informer  himself! 
and  another  not  in  the  ship !  and  a  third  Spen- 
cer !  leaving  but  one  under  Spencer  to  do  the 
work.  The  names  of  all  were  spelt  with  the 
Greek  alphabet.  Of  course  these  nolens  volens 
men  could  not  have  been  counted  in  any  way 
among  the  mutineers;  yet  they  were  always 
counted  to  make  up  the  thirty,  as,  of  less  than 
that  number  it  would  not  have  been  seemly  for 


528 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


a  man-of-war  to  have  been  afraid ;  yet  some  of 
these  were  brought  home  in  irons.  The  ten 
marked  doubtful  should  not  have  been  held  to 
be  guilty  upon  any  principle  of  human  justice — 
the  humanity  of  the  law  always  giving  the  bene- 
fit of  the  doubt  to  the  suspected  criminal.  This 
brings  the  inquiry  to  the  four  "  certain  : "  and  of 
these  four,  it  turned  out  that  one  of  them  (An- 
drews)  was  a  personage  not  in  the  vessel !  An- 
other was  the  veritable  Mr.  Wales  himself!  who 
was  the  informer,  and  the  most  determined  oppo- 
ser  of  the  mutiny — leaving  but  two  (Spencer  and 
McKinley)  to  do  the  work  of  murder  in  the  va- 
rious departments  :  and  of  this  McKinley  it  will 
eventually  be  seen  with  what  justice  his  name 
was  there.  The  names  of  Small  and  Cromwell, 
both  of  whom  were  hung  with  Spencer,  were 
neither  of  them  in  this  certain  list — nor  that  of 
Cromwell  in  any :  in  fact,  there  was  nothing 
against  him,  and  Small  was  only  included  in 
Wales's  information.  So  that  the  "certain" 
mutineers  were  reduced  to  two,  both  of  whom 
were  in  irons,  and  bagged,  and  five  others  out 
of  the  doubtful  and  nolens  volens  classes. 
There  was  no  evidence  to  show  that  this  was 
Spencer's  razor-case  :  it  was  new,  and  like  the 
rest  obtained  from  the  purser.  There  was  no 
evidence  how  it  got  into  Spencer's  locker : 
Wales  and  Gansevoort  were  the  finders.  There 
was  no  evidence  that  a  single  man  whose  name 
was  in  the  list,  knew  it  to  be  there.  Justice 
would  have  required  these  points  to  have  been 
proven  ;  but  with  respect  to  the  writing  upon 
this  paper  it  was  readily  avowed  by  Spencer  to 
be  his — an  avowal  accompanied  by  a  declaration 
of  its  joking  character,  which  the  law  would  re- 
quire to  go  with  it  always,  but  which  was  dis- 
regarded. 

Small  and  Cromwell  were  not  arrested  with 
Spencer,  but  afterwards,  and  not  upon  accusa- 
tions, but  upon  their  looks  and  attitudes,  and 
accident  to  the  sky-sail-mast,  which  will  be 
noted  at  the  proper  time.  The  first  point  is  to 
show  the  arrestation  upon  looks  and  motions  ; 
and  of  that  the  commander  gave  this  account  in 
the  official  report : 

"  The  following  day  being  Sunday,  the  crew 
were  inspected  at  quarters,  ten  o'clock.  I  took 
my  station  abaft  with  the  intention  of  particu- 
larly observing  Cromwell  and  Small.  The 
third,  or  master's  division,  to  which  they  both 
belonged,  always  mustered  at  morning  quarters 
upon  the  after  part  of  the  quarter  deck,  in  con- 


tinuation of  the  line  formed  by  the  crews  of  the 
guns.  The  persons  of  both  were  faultlessly 
clean.  They  were  determined  that  their  ap- 
pearance in  this  respect  should  provoke  no  re 
proof.  Cromwell  stood  up  to  his  full  stature, 
his  muscles  braced,  his  battle-axe  grasped  reso- 
lutely, his  cheek  pale,  but  his  eye  fixed  as  if 
indifferently  at  the  other  side.  He  had  a  de- 
termined and  dangerous  air.  Small  made  a 
very  different  figure.  His  appearance  was 
ghastly  ;  he  shifted  his  weight  from  side  to 
side,  and  his  battle-axe  passed  from  one  hand 
to  the  other ;  his  eye  wandered  irresolutely,  but 
never  towards  mine.  I  attributed  his  conduct 
to  fear ;  I  have  since  been  led  to  believe  that 
the  business  upon  which  he  had  entered  was  re- 
pugnant to  his  nature,  though  the  love  of  money 
and  of  rum  had  been  too  strong  for  his  fidelity." 

Here  were  two  men  adjudged  guilty  of  mu- 
tiny and  piracy  upon  their  looks,  and  attitude, 
and  these  diametrically  opposed  in  each  case. 
One  had  a  dangerous  air — the  other  a  ghastly 
air.  One  looked  resolute — the  other  irresolute. 
One  held  his  battle-axe  firmly  griped — the 
other  shifted  his  from  hand  to  hand.  One 
stood  up  steadily  on  both  legs — the  other 
shifted  his  weight  uneasily  from  leg  to  leg. 
In  one  point  only  did  they  agree — in  that  of 
faultless  cleanliness :  a  coincidence  which  the 
commander's  judgment  converted  into  evidence 
of  guilt,  as  being  proof  of  a  determination  that, 
so  far  as  clean  clothes  went,  there  should  be  no 
cause  forjudging  them  pirates  :  a  conclusion  to 
the  benefit  of  which  the  whole  crew  would  be 
entitled,  as  they  were  proved  on  the  court- 
martial  to  be  all  "faultlessly  clean"  at  this 
Sunday  inspection — as  they  always  were  at 
such  inspection — as  the  regulations  required 
them  to  be — and  for  a  fault  in  which  any  one 
of  them  would  have  been  punished.  Yet  upon 
these  looks,  and  attitudes,  suspicions  were  ex- 
cited, which,  added  to  the  incident  of  a  mast 
broken  by  the  blundering  order  of  the  com- 
mander's nephew,  caused  the  arrest  and  death 
of  two  citizens. 

After  the  crew  had  been  inspected,  divine 
service  was  performed,  the  crew  attending  be- 
fore the  time,  and  behaving  well ;  and  the  com- 
mander again  availed  himself  of  the  occasion  to 
examine  the  countenances  of  the  men;  and, 
happily,  without  finding  any  thing  to  give  him 
distrust.     He  thus  describes  the  scene  : 

"  After  quarters  the  church  was  rigged.  The 
crew  mustered  up  with  their  prayer-books,  and 
took  their  seats  without  waiting  for  all  hands 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


529 


to  be  called,  and  considerably  before  five  bells, 
or  half-past  ten — the  usual  time  of  divine  ser- 
vice. The  first  lieutenant  reported  all  ready, 
and  asked  me  if  he  should  call  all  hands  to 
muster.  I  told  him  to  wait  for  the  accustomed 
hour.  Five  bells  were  at  length  struck,  and  all 
hands  called  to  muster.  The  crew  were  unu- 
sually attentive,  and  the  responses  more  than 
commonly  audible.  The  muster  succeeded,  and 
I  examined  very  carefully  the  countenances  of 
the  crew,  without  discovering  any  thing  that 
gave  me  distrust." 

This  Sunday  then  (Nov.  27th)  being  the  first 
Sunday,  and  the  first  day  after  the  arrest  of 
Spencer,  had  passed  half  by  without  any  thing 
discoverable  to  excite  distrust,  except  the  clean- 
liness, the  looks,  and  the  attitudes  of  Small  and 
Cromwell  at  the  morning  inspection.  At  the 
second  ordeal,  that  of  the  church  service,  the 
whole  crew  came  out  well,  and  all  seemed  to  be 
safe  and  right  up  to  this  time — being  twenty- 
four  hours  after  the  arrest  of  Spencer — the 
event  which  was  expected  to  rouse  his  accom- 
plices to  some  outbreak  for  his  rescue.  But 
that  critical  day  was  not  destined  to  pass  away 
without  an  event  which  confirmed  all  the  sus- 
picions of  the  commander,  and  even  indicated 
the  particular  criminals.  Before  the  sun  had 
gone  down,  this  event  occurred ;  and  as  it  be- 
came the  turning  point  in  the  case,  and  the  point 
of  departure  in  the  subsequent  tragic  work,  the 
commander  shall  have  the  benefit  of  telling  it 
himself : 

"  In  the  afternoon,  the  wind  having  moderat- 
ed, skysails  and  royal  studding-sails  were  set. 
Tn  going  large  I  had  always  been  very  particu- 
lar to  have  no  strain  upon  the  light  braces  lead- 
ing forward,  as  the  tendency  of  such  a  strain 
was  to  carry  away  the  light  yards  and  masts. 
Whilst  Ward  M.  Gagely,  one  of  the  best  and 
most  skilful  of  our  apprentices,  was  yet  on  the 
main  royal  yard,  after  setting  the  main  skysail, 
a  sudden  jerk  of  the  weather  main  royal  brace 
given  by  Small  and  another,  whose  name  I  have 
not  discovered,  carried  the  topgallant-mast 
away  in  the  sheeve  hole,  sending  forward  the 
royal  mast  with  royal  skysail,  royal  studding 
sail,  main- topgallant  staysail,  and  the  head  of 
the  gaff  topsail.  Gagely  was  on  the  royal  yard. 
I  scarcely  dared  to  look  on  the  booms  or  in  the 
larboard  gangways  where  he  should  have  fallen. 
For  a  minute  I  was  in  intense  agony :  in  the 
next  I  saw  the  shadow  of  the  boy  through  the 
topgallant  sail,  rising  rapidly  towards  the  top- 
gallant yard,  which  still  remained  at  the  mast 
head.  Presently  he  rose  to  view,  descended  on 
the  after  side  to  the  topgallant-mast  cap,  and 
began  to  examine  with  coolness  to  see  what  was 

Vol.  II.— 34 


first  to  be  done  to  clear  the  wreck.  I  did  not 
dream  at  the  time  that  the  carrying  away  of 
this  mast  was  the  work  of  treachery — but  I 
knew  that  it  was  an  occasion  of  this*  sort,  the 
loss  of  a  boy  overboard,  or  an  accident  to  a 
spar,  creating  confusion  and  interrupting  the 
regularity  of  duty,  which  was  likely  to  be  taken 
advantage  of  by  the  conspirators  were  they  still 
bent  on  the  prosecution  of  their  enterprise." 

The  commander  did  not  dream  at  the  time  of 
treachery :  did  not  dream  of  it  when  he  saw  the 
mast  fall :  and  well  he  might  not,  for  he  had 
given  the  order  himself  to  set  the  skysails,  the 
ship  running  "  large  "  at  the  time,  i.  e.  with  a 
favorable  wind,  and  when  a  slight  press  of  sail 
might  carry  away  the  elevated,  light,  and  un- 
supported mast  which  carried  the  skysail.  He 
did  not  dream  of  treachery  when  he  saw  it  fall 
under  an  order  which  himself  had  given  :  but 
quickly  he  had  that  dream,  and  he  must  tell 
himself  how  it  came  to  him  ;  thus  : 

"  To  my  astonishment,  all  those  who  were 
most  conspicuously  named  in  the  programme 
of  Mr.  Spencer,  no  matter  in  what  part  of  the 
vessel  they  might  be  stationed,  mustered  at  the 
main-top  masthead — whether  animated  by  some 
new-born  zeal  in  the  service  of  their  country,  or 
collected  there  for  the  purpose  of  conspiring,  it 
was  not  easy  to  decide.  The  coincidence  con- 
firmed the  existence  of  a  dangerous  conspiracy, 
suspended,  yet  perhaps  not  abandoned." 

This  is  the  way  the  dream  began,  in  aston 
ishment  at  seeing  all  those  most  conspicuously 
nominated  in  the  razor-case  paper,  rush  to  the 
scene  of  the  disaster.  Now,  for  the  misfortune 
of  this  paragraph,  it  came  to  be  proved  before 
the  court-martial,  and  after  the  men  were  dead, 
that  the  majority  of  those  who  ran  forward 
were  not  named  in  the  paper  at  all !  and  espe- 
cially that  one  of  the  two  was  not  upon  it  who 
were  presently  seized  as  guilty,  and  whose  haste 
to  perform  a  duty  was  the  passport  to  death. 
The  crew  ran  to  the  place.  This  would  seem 
to  be  the  most  natural  conduct  imaginable. 
They  ran  to  the  place  where  the  mast  and  boy 
were  expected  to  fall.  They  flew  to  the  place 
at  which  the  commander,  in  his  intense  agony, 
did  not  dare  to  look.  This  haste  to  such  a 
place  was  proof  of  guilt,  take  it  either  way, 
either  as  animated  by  some  new-born  zeal  to 
hide  past  defection,  or  to  collect  for  a  conspira 
cy.  The  commander  finds  it  hard  to  decide  be- 
tween these  two  purposes ;  but  take  which  he 
might,  it  was  confirmation  of  a  dangerous  con- 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


spiracy,  and  of  its  suspension,  not  abandon- 
ment. The  sudden  running  to  the  place  was 
the  proof  of  the  conspiracy:  the  jerk  which 
Small,  and  another  whose  name  has  never  yet 
been  discovered,  gave  to  the  weather  main  royal 
brace,  pointed  out  the  two  eminently  guilty. 
What  put  the  seal  upon  the  confirmation  of  all 
this  guilt  was  the  strange  and  stealthy  glances 
which  Spencer,  in  his  irons,  and  his  head  then 
out  of  the  bag  (for  the  heads  were  left  out  in 
the  day  time)  cast  at  it.     Hear  him  : 

"  The  eye  of  Mr.  Spencer  travelled  perpetually 
to  the  masthead,  and  cast  thither  many  of  those 
strange  and  stealthy  glances  which  I  had  be- 
fore noticed." 

The  commander  nowhere  tells  when  and  how 
he  had  previously  seen  these  sinister  glances — 
certainly  not  before  the  revelations  of  Wales, 
as,  up  to  that  time,  he  was  anxious  before  the 
court-martial  to  show  that  Spencer  was  kindly 
regarded  by  him.  But  the  glances.  What 
more  natural  than  for  Spencer  to  look  at  such 
a  startling  scene  !  a  boy  falling  in  the  wreck  of 
a  broken  mast,  and  tumbling  shrouds,  from 
fifty  feet  high:  and  look  he  did — a  fair  and 
honest  look,  his  eyes  steadfastly  fixed  upon  it, 
as  proved  by  the  commander's  own  witnesses 
on  the  court-martial — especially  midshipman 
Hays — who  testified  to  the  fixed  and  steady 
look ;  and  this  in  answer  to  a  question  from 
the  commander  tending  to  get  a  confirmation 
of  his  own  report.  Nor  did  any  one  whatever 
see  those  strange  and  furtive  glances  which  the 
commander  beheld.  Now  to  the  breaking  of 
the  mast.  This  incident  was  reviewed  at  the 
time  by  two  competent  judges — Mr.  Fenimore 
Cooper,  the  naval  historian,  and  himself  an  ex- 
naval  officer,  and  Captain  William  Sturgis  of 
Boston,  one  of  the  best  navigators  that  Boston 
ever  bred  (and  she  has  bred  as  good  as  the 
world  ever  saw).  They  deemed  the  breaking  of 
that  slender,  elevated,  unbraced  mast  the  natural 
result  of  the  order  which  the  commander  gave 
to  set  the  skysail,  going  as  the  vessel  then  was. 
She  was  in  the  trade-winds,  running  into  West 
Indies  from  the  coast  of  Africa,  and  running 
"  large,"  as  the  mariners  express  it ;  that  is  to 
say,  with  the  wind  so  crossing  her  course  as  to 
come  strong  upon  her  beam  or  quarter,  and 
send  her  well  before  it.  With  such  a  wind, 
these  experienced  seamen  say  that  the  order 
which  the  commander  gave  might  well  break 


that  mast.  It  would  increase  the  press  of  sail 
on  that  delicate  and  exposed  mast,  able  to  bear 
but  little  at  the  best,  and  often  breaking  with- 
out a  perceptible  increase  of  pressure  upon  it. 
But  the  order  which  he  gave  was  not  the  one 
given  to  the  men.  He  gave  his  order  to  his  re- 
lation, Mr.  0.  H.  Perry,  to  have  a  small  pull  on 
one  brace ;  instead  of  that  the  order  given  to 
the  men  was,  to  haul,  that  is,  pull  hard,  on 
another;  which  was  directly  contrary  to  the 
order  he  had  received — one  slacking,  the  other 
increasing  the  press  of  sail.  Under  that  order 
the  men  with  alacrity  threw  their  whole  weight 
on  the  wrong  brace ;  and  the  mast  cracked, 
reeled,  and  fell  immediately.  The  commander 
himself  saw  all  this — saw  the  fault  his  nephew 
had  committed — sent  for  him — reproved  him 
in  the  face  of  the  crew — told  him  it  was  his 
fault — the  effect  of  his  inattention.  All  this 
was  fully  proved  before  the  court-martial. 
Perry's  own  testimony  admitted  it.  Thus — 
questioned  by  the  judge  advocate  :  "  After  the 
mast  was  carried  away  were  you  sent  for  by  the 
commander  ?  "  Answer :  "  Yes,  sir."  "  Who 
came  for  you  ?  "  A.  "  I  don't  recollect  the  per 
son."  "Was  it  not  McKee?"  A.  "I  don't 
recollect."  "  What  then  occurred  between  yon 
and  the  commander  ?  "  A.  "  He  asked  me  why 
I  did  not  attend  to  my  duties  better '?  and  said 
I  must  do  it  better  in  future."  "  What  was  the 
commander  alluding  to  ?  "  A.  "  To  my  not  at- 
tending to  the  brace  at  the  time  they  were 
hauling  on  it."  "Did  he  say  to  you,  'this  is 
all  your  fault,  sir  ? '  or  words  to  that  effect  ?  " 
A.  "  I  don't  recollect."  "  What  reply  did  you 
make  the  commander  ?  "  A.  "  I  did  not  make 
any.  I  said,  I  think,  that  I  understood  the  or- 
der to  haul  on  the  brace."  There  was  also 
something  else  proved  there,  which,  like  the 
other,  was  not  reported  in  the  commander's  ac- 
count of  that  portentous  event,  which  was  the 
immediate  cause  of  a  new  and  terrible  line  of 
conduct.  First,  there  is  no  mention  on  the  log- 
book of  this  rush  of  the  men  aft :  secondly, 
there  is  no  mention  in  it  of  any  suspected  de- 
sign to  carry  away  this  topgallant  mast.  The 
commander  was  seeing  when  he  wrote  his  re- 
port what  the  keeper  of  the  log-book  did  not 
see  at  the  time  it  should  have  happened.  And 
this  point  is  here  dismissed  with  the  remark 
that,  in  this  case  (the  men  coming  fast  to  the 
work)  was  the  sign  of  guilt :    in  other  cases, 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


531 


coming  slow  was  the  same  sign :  so  that,  fast 
or  slow,  from  the  time  Wales  made  his  revela- 
tion, to  the  time  of  hanging,  all  motions,  how- 
ever opposite  to  each  other,  were  equally  signs 
of  the  same  guilt.  The  account  of  this  incident 
being  given,  the  report  proceeds  : 

"  The  wreck  being  cleared,  supper  was  piped 
down  before  sending  up  the  new  mast.  After 
supper  the  same  persons  mustered  again  at  the 
mast  head,  and  the  topgallant  mast  was  fidded. 
the  light  yards  crossed,  and  the  sails  set.  By 
this  time  it  was  dark,  and  quarters  had  been 
unavoidably  dispensed  with :  still  I  thought, 
under  all  the  circumstances,  that  it  was  scarcely 
safe  to  leave  Cromwell  at  large  during  the  night. 
The  night  was  the  season  of  danger.  After  con- 
sulting Lieutenant  Gansevoort,  I  determined  to 
arrest  Cromwell.  The  moment  he  reached  the 
deck,  an  officer  was  sent  to  leeward  to  guard 
the  lee-rigging ;  and  the  main  stays  were  also 
thought  of,  though  not  watched.  As  his  voice 
was  heard  in  the  top,  descending  the  rigging,  I 
met  him  at  the  foot  of  Jacob's  ladder,  surrounded 
by  the  officers,  guided  him  aft  to  the  quarter- 
deck, and  caused  him  to  sit  down.  On  ques- 
tioning him  as  to  the  secret  conversation  he  had 
held  the  night  before  with  Mr.  Spencer,  he  de- 
nied its  being  he.  He  said  ;  '  It  was  not  me, 
sir,  it  was  Small ! '  Cromwell  was  the  tallest 
man  on  board,  and  Small  the  shortest.  Crom- 
well was  immediately  ironed ;  and  Small,  then 
pointed  out  by  an  associate  to  increased  suspi- 
cion, was  also  sent  for,  interrogated,  and  ironed. 
Increased  vigilance  was  now  enjoined  upon  all 
the  officers  ;  henceforward,  all  were  perpetually 
armed.  Either  myself,  or  the  first  lieutenant 
was  always  on  deck  ;  and,  generally,  both  of  us 
were." 

Two  more  were  now  arrested ;  and  in  giving 
an  account  of  these  arrests,  as  of  all  others 
(fifteen  in  the  whole),  the  commander  forgets 
to  tell  that  the  arrested  persons  were  bagged, 
as  well  as  double-ironed  and  handcuffed,  and 
their  irons  ordered  to  be  examined  every  half 
hour  day  and  night — a  ceremony  which  much 
interfered  with  sleep  and  rest.  And  now  for 
the  circumstances  which  occasioned  these  ar- 
rests :  and  first  of  Cromwell.  There  are  but 
two  points  mentioned  ;  first,  "  under  all  the  cir- 
cumstances." These  have  been  mentioned,  and 
comprise  his  looks  and  attitudes  at  the  morning 
inspection,  and  his  haste  in  getting  to  the  scene 
of  the  wreck  when  the  mast  fell.  The  next 
was  his  answer  to  the  question  upon  his  secret 
conversation  with  Spencer  the  night  before. 
This  "  night  before,"  seems  to  be  a  sad  blunder 
in  point  of  time.  Spencer  was  in  irons  on  the 
larboard  arm-chest  at  that  time,  a  guard  over 


him,  and  holding  his  life  from  minute  to  minute 
by  the  tenure  of  silence,  the  absence  of  signs, 
and  the  absence  of  understanding  looks  with 
any  person.  It  does  not  seem  possible  that  he 
could  have  held  a  conversation,  secret  or  public, 
with  any  person  during  that  night,  or  after  his 
arrest  until  his  death;  nor  is  any  such  any 
where  else  averred  :  and  it  is  a  stupid  contradic- 
tion in  itself.  If  it  was  secret,  it  could  not  be 
known :  if  it  was  open,  both  the  parties  would 
have  been  shot  instantly.  Upon  its  stupid  con- 
tradiction, as  well  as  upon  time,  the  story  is 
falsified.  Besides  this  blunder  and  extreme  im- 
probability, there  is  other  evidence  from  the 
commander  himself,  to  make  it  quite  sure  that 
nobody  could  have  talked  with  Spencer  that 
night.  The  men  were  in  their  hammocks,  and 
the  ship  doubly  guarded,  and  the  officers  pa- 
trolling the  deck  with  pistols  and  cutlasses.  Of 
this,  the  report  says :  "  That  night  the  officers 
of  the  watch  were  armed  with  cutlasses  and  pis- 
tols, and  the  rounds  of  both  decks  made  fre- 
quently, to  see  that  the  crew  were  in  their 
hammocks,  and  that  there  were  no  suspicious 
collections  of  individuals  about  the  deck."  Un- 
der these  circumstances,  it  would  seem  impos- 
sible that  the  previous  night's  conversation 
could  have  been  held  by  any  person  with  Mr. 
Spencer.  Next,  supposing  there  was  a  secret 
conversation.  It  might  have  been  innocent  or 
idle ;  for  its  subject  is  not  intimated  j  and  its 
secret  nature  precludes  all  knowledge  of  it.  So 
much  for  Cromwell :  now  for  Small.  His  case 
stands  thus :  "  Pointed  out  by  an  associate  to 
increased  suspicion."  Here  association  in  guilt 
is  assumed ;  a  mode  of  getting  at  the  facts  he 
wanted,  almost  invariable  with  the  commander, 
Mackenzie.  Well,  the  answer  of  Cromwell,  "It 
was  not  me,  it  was  Small ! "  would  prove  no 
guilt  if  it  was  true  ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  have 
been  true.  But  this  was  only  cause  of  "in- 
creased "  suspicion  :  so  that  there  was  suspicion 
before  ;  and  all  the  causes  of  this  had  been  de- 
tailed in  the  official  report.  First,  there  were 
the  causes  arising  at  inspection  that  morning — 
faultless  cleanliness,  shifting  his  battle-axe  from 
one  hand  to  the  other,  resting  alternately  on  the 
legs,  and  a  ghastly  look— to  wit:  a  ghostly 
look.  He  was  interrogated:  the  report  does 
not  say  about  what :  nor  does  it  intimate  the 
character  of  the  answers.  But  there  were  per- 
sons present  who  heard  the  questions  and  the 
answers,  and  who  told  both  to  the  court-martial. 


532 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


The  questions  were  as  to  the  conversation  with 
Spencer,  which  Wales  reported ;  and  the  an- 
swers were,  yes — that  he  had  foolish  conversa- 
tions with  Spencer,  but  no  mutiny.  Still  there 
was  a  stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  arresting 
Small.  His  name  was  nowhere  made  out 
as  certain  by  Spencer.  This  was  a  balk :  but 
there  was  the  name  of  a  man  in  the  list  who 
was  not  in  the  vessel :  and  this  circumstance  of 
a  man  too  few,  suggested  an  idea  that  there 
should  be  a  transaction  between  these  names  ; 
and  the  man  on  the  list  who  had  no  place  in  the 
ship,  should  give  place  to  him  who  had  a  place 
in  the  ship,  and  no  place  on  the  list :  so  Small 
was  assumed  to  be  Andrews ;  and  by  that  he 
was  arrested,  though  proved  to  be  Small  by  all 
testimony — that  of  his  mother  inclusive. 

The  three  prisoners  were  bagged,  and  how 
that  process  was  performed  upon  them,  they 
did  not  live  to  tell :  but  others  who  had  under- 
gone the  same  investment,  did :  and  from  them 
the  operation  will  be  learnt.  With  the  arrest 
of  these  two,  the  business  of  Sunday  closed ;  and 
Monday  opened  with  much  flogging  of  boys,  and 
a  speech  from  the  commander,  of  which  he  gives 
an  abstract,  and  also  displays  its  capital  effects : 

"  The  effect  of  this  (speech  of  the  28th)  upon 
the  crew  was  various  :  it  filled  many  with  hor- 
ror at  the  idea  of  what  they  had  escaped  from  : 
it  inspired  others  with  terror  at  dangers  await- 
ing them  from  their  connection  with  the  con- 
spiracy. The  thoughts  of  returning  to  that 
home,  and  those  friends  from  whom  it  had  been 
intended  to  cut  them  off  for  ever,  caused  many 
of  them  to  weep.  I  now  considered  the  crew 
tranquillized  and  the  vessel  safe." 

Now,  whether  this  description  of  the  emo- 
tions excited  by  the  captain's  oratory,  be  reality 
or  fancy,  it  is  still  good  for  one  thing :  it  is  good 
for  evidence  against  himself !  good  evidence,  at 
the  bar  of  all  courts,  and  at  the  high  tribunal 
of  public  opinion.  It  shows  that  the  captain, 
only  two  days  before  the  hanging,  was  perfect 
master  of  his  ship — that  the  crew  was  tranquil- 
lized, and  the  vessel  safe  !  and  all  by  the  effect 
of  his  oratory :  and  consequently,  that  he  had 
a  power  within  himself  by  which  he  could  con- 
trol the  men,  and  mould  them  into  the  emotions 
which  he  pleased.  The  28th  day  came.  The 
commander  had  much  flogging  done,  and  again 
made  a  speech,  but  not  of  such  potency  as  the 
other.  He  stopped  Spencer's  tobacco,  and  re- 
ports that,  "  the  day  after  it  was  stopped,  his 
spirits  gave  way  entirely.    He  remained  the 


whole  day  with  his  face  buried  in  the  gregoe, 
and  when  it  was  raised,  it  was  bathed  in  tears." 
So  passed  the  28th.  "  On  the  29th  (continues 
the  report)  all  hands  were  again  called  to  wit- 
ness punishment,"  and  the  commander  made 
another  speech.  But  the  whole  crew  was  far 
from  being  tranquillized.  During  the  night  se- 
ditious cries  were  heard.  Signs  of  disaffection 
multiplied.  The  commander  felt  more  uneasy 
than  he  had  ever  done  before.  The  most  se- 
riously implicated  collected  in  knots.  They 
conferred  together  in  low  tones,  hushing  up,  or 
changing  the  subject  when  an  officer  approached. 
Some  of  the  petty  officers  had  been  sounded  by 
the  first  lieutenant,  and  found  to  be  true  to  their 
colors  :  they  were  under  the  impression  that  the 
vessel  was  yet  far  from  being  safe — that  there 
were  many  still  at  liberty  that  ought  to  be  con- 
fined— that  an  outbreak,  having  for  its  object 
the  rescue  of  the  prisoners,  was  seriously  con- 
templated. Several  times  during  the  night  there 
were  symptoms  of  an  intention  to  strike  some 
blow.  Such  are  a  specimen  of  the  circumstances 
grouped  together  under  vague  and  intangible 
generalities  with  which  the  day  of  the  29th  is 
ushered  in,  all  tending  to  one  point,  the  danger 
of  a  rescue,  and  the  necessity  for  more  arrests. 
Of  these  generalities,  only  one  was  of  a  character 
to  be  got  hold  of  before  the  court-martial,  and 
it  will  take  a  face,  under  the  process  of  judicial 
examination  of  witnesses,  very  different  from 
that  which  it  wore  in  the  report.  After  these 
generalities,  applying  to  the  mass  of  the  crew, 
come  special  accusations  against  four  seamen — 
Wilson,  Green,  McKee,  McKinley  :  and  of  these 
special  accusations,  a  few  were  got  hold  of  by 
the  judge  advocate  on  the  court-martial.    Thus : 

1.  The  handspike  sign. — "Mr.  Wales  de- 
tected Charles  A.  Wilson  attempting  to  draw 
out  a  handspike  from  under  the  launch,  with 
an  evident  purpose  of  felling  him ;  and  when 
Wales  cocked  his  pistol,  and  approached,  he 
could  only  offer  some  lame  excuse  for  his  pres- 
ence there." 

This  is  the  amount  of  the  handspike  portent, 
as  reported  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  among 
the  signs  which  indicated  the  immediate  danger 
of  the  rising  and  the  rescue.  This  Wales,  of 
course,  was  a  witness  for  the  commander,  and 
on  being  put  on  the  stand,  delivered  his  testi- 
mony in  a  continued  narrative,  covering  the 
whole  case.  In  that  narrative,  he  thus  intro- 
duces the  handspike  incident : 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


533 


"  T  then  went  to  the  stem  of  the  launch,  found 
Wilson  had  a  number  of  small  holystones  col- 
lected there,  and  was  endeavoring  to  pull  a  gun 
handspike  from  the  stern  of  the  launch :  what 
his  intentions  were  I  don't  know.  I  cocked  a 
pistol,  and  ordered  him  in  the  gangway  to  draw 
water.  I  told  him  if  I  saw  him  pulling  on  the 
handspike,  I  should  blow  his  brains  out." 

u  I  then  went  to  the  stern,"  &c.  This  period 
of  time  of  going  to  the  stern  of  the  launch,  was 
immediately  after  this  Wales  had  detected  per- 
sons making  signs  to  the  prisoners  by  putting 
their  hands  to  their  chins,  and  when  he  told 
Cromwell  if  he  saw  any  more  signs  between 
them  he  should  put  him  to  death.  It  was  in- 
stantly after  this  detection  and  threat,  and  of 
course  at  a  time  when  this  purser's  steward  was 
in  a  good  mood  to  see  signs  and  kill,  that  he  had 
this  vision  of  the  handspike :  but  he  happens 
to  swear  that  he  does  not  know  with  what  in- 
tent the  attempt  to  pull  it  out  was  made.  Far 
from  seeing,  as  the  commander  did  when  he 
wrote  the  report,  that  the  design  to  fell  him 
was  evident,  he  does  not  know  what  the  design 
was  at  all ;  but  he  gives  us  a  glimpse  at  the  in- 
side of  his  own  heart,  when  he  swears  that  he 
would  blow  out  the  brains  of  Wilson  if  he  saw 
him  again  attempting  to  pull  out  the  handspike, 
when  he  did  not  know  what  it  was  for.  Here 
is  a  murderous  design  attributed  to  Wilson  on 
an  incident  with  Wales,  in  which  Wales  himself 
saw  no  design  of  any  kind  ;  and  thus,  upon  his 
direct  examination,  and  in  the  narrative  of  his 
testimony,  he  convicts  the  commander  of  a  cruel 
and  groundless  misstatement.  But  proceed  to 
the  cross-examination :  the  judge  advocate  re- 
quired him  to  tell  the  distance  between  himself 
and  Wilson  when  the  handspike  was  being 
pulled  by  Wilson?  He  answered  forty  feet, 
more  or  less  !  and  so  this  witness  who  had  gone 
to  the  stern  of  the  launch,  was  forty  feet  from 
that  stern  when  he  got  there. 

2.  Missing  their  muster. — "  M cKinley,  Green, 
and  others,  missed  their  musters.  Others  of 
the  implicated  also  missed  their  musters.  I 
could  not  contemplate  this  growth  of  disaffec- 
tion without  serious  uneasiness.  Where  was  this 
thing  to  end?  Each  new  arrest  of  prisoners 
seemed  to  bring  a  fresh  set  of  conspirators  for- 
ward to  occupy  the  first  place." 

The  point  of  this  is  the  missing  the  musters  ; 
and  of  these  the  men  themselves  give  this  ac- 
count, in  reply  to  questions  from  the  judge  ad- 
vocate • 


"  It  was  after  the  arrest  (of  Spencer),  me  and 
McKee  (it  is  McKinlcy  speaks)  turned  in  and 
out  with  one  another  when  the  watch  was 
called :  we  made  a  bargain  in  the  first  of  the 
cruise  to  wake  one  another  up  when  the  watches 
were  called.  I  came  up  on  deck,  awaked  by 
the  noise  of  relieving  guards,  15  minutes  too 
late,  and  asked  McKee  why  he  did  not  call  me  ? 
He  told  me  that  the  officer  would  not  let  him 
stir  :  that  they  were  ordered  to  lie  down  on  the 
deck,  and  when  he  lay  down  he  fell  asleep,  and 
did  not  wake  up :  that  was  why  I  missed  my 
muster,  being  used  to  be  waked  up  by  one  an- 
other." 

Such  is  the  natural  account,  veracious  upon 
its  face,  which  McKinley  gives  for  missing,  by 
15  minutes,  his  midnight  muster,  and  which  the 
commander  characterized  as  a  lame  excuse,  fol- 
lowed by  immediate  punishment,  and  a  con- 
firmed suspicion  of  mutiny  and  piracy.  All 
the  others  who  missed  masters  had  their  ex- 
cuses, true  on  their  face,  good  in  their  nature, 
and  only  varying  as  arising  from  the  different 
conditions  of  the  men  at  the  time. 

3.  The  African  knife  sign. — "  In  his  sail-bag 
(Wilson's)  was  found  an  African  knife  of  an  ex- 
traordinary shape — short,  and  gradually  expand- 
ding  in  breadth,  sharp  on  both  sides.  It  was  of 
no  use  for  any  honest  purpose.  It  was  only  fit 
to  kill.  It  had  been  secretly  sharpened,  by  his 
own  confession,  the  day  before  with  a  file  to  a 
perfect  edge." 

The  history  of  this  knife,  as  brought  out  be- 
fore the  court-martial  was  this  (McKinley,  the 
witness) : 

"  I  was  ashore  on  the  coast  of  Africa, — I  be- 
lieve it  was  at  Monrovia  that  I  went  ashore,  I 
having  no  knife  at  the  time.  I  went  ashore 
there,  and  saw  one  of  the  natives  with  a  knife. 
I  spoke  to  Mr.  Heiskill  (the  purser)  about 
buying  it  for  me.  He  sent  me  aboard  the  brig 
(Somers)  with  some  things  in  the  second  cutter. 
When  I  came  back  Warner  had  bought  the 
knife  I  looked  at,  and  Mr.  Heiskill  bought  an 
African  dirk  instead  of  that,  and  gave  it  to  me. 
I  came  on  board  with  the  knife,  and  wore  it  for 
two  or  three  days.  Wilson  saw  it,  and  said  he 
wanted  to  buy  it  as  a  curiosity  to  take  to  New 
York.  I  would  not  let  him  have  it  then.  I 
went  up  on  the  topgallant  yard,  and  it  nearly 
threw  me  off.  It  caught  in  some  of  the  rigging. 
When  I  came  down,  I  told  Wilson  he  might 
have  it  for  one  dollar.  He  promised  to  give  a 
dollar  out  of  the  first  grog  money,  or  the  first 
dollar  he  could  get." 

So  much  for  this  secret  and  formidable  wea- 
pon in  the  history  of  its  introduction  to  the 
ship— coming  through  the  purser  Heiskill,  one 


534 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  the  supporters  of  Commander  Mackenzie  in 
all  the  affairs  of  these  hangings — given  as  a 
present  to  McKinley,  a  cot-boy,  i.  e.  who  made 
up  the  cots  for  the  officers,  who  had  been  a 
waiter  at  Howard's  Hotel  (N.  Y.),  and  who  was 
a  favorite  in  the  ship's  crew.  As  for  the  uses 
to  which  it  could  only  be  put — no  honest  use, 
and  only  fit  to  kill — it  was  proved  to  be  in  cur- 
rent use  as  a  knife,  cutting  holes  in  hammocks, 
shifting  their  numbers,  &c. 

4.  The  battle-axe  alarm. — "He  had  begun 
also  to  sharpen  his  battle-axe  with  the  same  as- 
sistant (the  file)  :  one  part  of  it  he  had  brought 
to  an  edge." 

The  proof  was  the  knife  and  the  battle-axe 
were  publicly  sharpened  as  often  as  needed,  and 
that  battle-axes,  like  all  other  arms,  were  re- 
quired to  be  kept  in  perfect  order;  and  that, 
sharp  and  shining  was  their  desired  condition. 
Every  specified  sign  of  guilt  was  cleared  up  be- 
fore the  court-martial — one  only  excepted ;  and 
the  mention  of  that  was  equally  eschewed  by 
each  party.  It  was  the  sign  of  music  from  the 
luxated  jaw !  Both  parties  refrained  from  al- 
luding to  that  sign  on  the  trial — one  side  from 
shame,  the  other  from  pityi  Yet  it  was  gravely 
reported  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  as  fact,  and 
as  a  means  of  seducing  the  crew.  Returning  to 
generalities,  the  informer  Wales,  presents  himself 
prominently  on  this  day — this  29th  of  November, 
memorable  for  its  resolves ;  and  groups  a  picture 
which  was  to  justify  all  that  was  to  be  done 
in  two  days  more,  and  of  which  the  initiation 
and  preliminary  steps  were  then  taken. 

"  The  crew  still  continued  very  much  dissatis- 
fied, grumbling  the  whole  time.  The  master- 
at-arms  was  sick  at  the  time,  and  I  attended  to 
his  duties,  and  had  charge  of  the  berth  deck. 
Their  manner  was  so  insulting  that  I  had  to 
bring  three  or  four  up  for  punishment  (with 
the  cat-and-nine-tails.)  The  dissatisfaction  con- 
tinued to  increase  (this  was  the  30th  I  think), 
and  continued  till  the  execution  took  place, 
when  I  noticed  a  marked  change  in  their  man- 
ner :  those  who  were  the  most  unruly  and  in- 
solent were  the  first  to  run  and  obey  an  order : 
they  seemed  to  anticipate  an  order." — "  Before 
that,  an  order  had  to  be  given  two  or  three 
times  before  it  was  executed,  and  when  they  did 
execute  it,  they  would  go  growling  along,  as 
though  they  did  not  care  whether  it  was  done 
or  not.     They  went  slow." 

This  swearing  of  Wales  tallies  with  the  report 
of  the  commander  in  bringing  the  mutiny  up  to 
the  bursting  point  on  the  29th  of  November. 


That  was  a  point  necessary  to  be  reached,  as  it 
will  be  seen  hereafter,  and  to  be  reached  on  that 
day.  There  was  one  other  point  necessary  to 
be  made  out,  and  that  was,  the  mutiny  was  to 
break  forth  before  they  arrived  at  the  island 
of  St.  Thomas,  as  at  that  place  the  mutineers 
could  be  landed,  or  transhipped,  and  so  the 
whole  thing  evaporate.  They  were  now  within 
less  than  four  days  of  that  island.  Spencer  had 
bet  just  before  they  would  be  there  in  eight 
days — a  bet  which  seemed  to  say  that  he  had  no 
thought  of  preventing  her  from  arriving  there. 
But  it  was  now  necessary  to  have  the  mutiny 
to  take  place  before  they  got  to  that  island; 
and  this  essential  point  was  established  by 
Wales,  by  an  addition  to  his  previous  testimony, 
fixing  that  point.  This  addition  to  his  testi- 
mony caused  an  inquiry  to  be  put  to  him  by  the 
judge  advocate  before  the  court :  "  When  did 
you  first  swear  that  Mr.  Spencer  told  you  that 
the  mutiny  would  break  out  shortly  before  your 
arrival  at  St.  Thomas  ?  "  Answer  :  "  At  the  ex- 
amination of  officers,  and  of  men  by  the  officers. 
I  forget  what  day,  but  I  think  it  was  on  the 
30th  of  November."  This  was  corroborated  in 
the  view  of  the  commander  by  the  fortune-tell- 
ing of  the  young  Rodgers'  fate — to  die  suddenly, 
i.  e.  in  the  mutiny  before  they  got  to  St.  Thomas, 
without  adding  the  remainder  of  the  prediction, 
that  he  was  to  die  a  gambler ;  and  without  add- 
ing the  essential  fact,  that  Spencer  had  a  bet 
that  she  would  arrive  there  by  a  given  day. 

On  the  30th  day  of  November,  at  nine  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  a  letter  was  delivered  by  the 
commander  to  Lieutenant  Gansevoort,  Surgeon 
Leecock  and  Purser  Heiskill,  and  four  midship- 
men, stating  the  dangers  of  the  ship,  and  calling 
upon  them  to  enlighten  the  commander  with 
their  opinion  as  to  what  should  be  done  with 
Spencer,  Small  and  Cromwell.  The  letter  was 
not  addressed  to  any  of  the  acting  midshipmen, 
the  reason  why  being  thus  stated :  "  Though 
they  had  done  men's  duty  in  the  late  transac- 
tion, they  were  still  boys :  their  opinion  could 
add  but  little  force  to  that  of  the  other  offi- 
cers :  it  would  have  been  hard,  at  their  early 
age,  to  call  upon  them  to  say  whether  three  of 
their  fellow-creatures  should  live  or  die."  So 
reasoned  the  commander  with  respect  to  the 
acting  midshipmen.  It  would  seem  that  the 
same  reasoning  should  have  excused  the  four 
midshipmen  on  whom  this  hard  task  was  im- 
The  letter  was  delivered  at  9  o'clock  in 


ANNO  1843.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


535 


the  morning:  the  nominated  officers  met  in 
(what  was  called)  a  council :  and  proceeded  im- 
mediately to  take,  what  they  called  testimony,  to 
be  able  to  give  the  required  opinion.  Thirteen 
seamen  were  examined,  under  oath — an  extra-ju- 
dicial oath  of  no  validity  in  law,  and  themselves 
punishable  at  common  law  for  administering  it : 
and  this  testimony  written  down  in  pencil  on 
loose  and  separate  slips  of  paper — the  three 
persons  whose  lives  were  to  be  passed  upon, 
having  no  knowledge  of  what  was  going  on. 
Purser  Heiskill  being  asked  on  the  court-mar- 
tial, why,  on  so  important  occasion  pen  and  ink 
was  not  used,  answered,  he  did  not  know — "  that 
there  were  no  lawyers  there :  "  as  if  lawyers 
were  necessary  to  have  pen  and  ink  used.  The 
whole  thirteen,  headed  by  Wales,  swore  to  a 
pattern  :  and  such  swearing  was  certainly  never 
heard  before,  not  even  in  the  smallest  magis- 
trate's court,  and  where  the  value  of  a  cow  and 
calf  was  at  stake :  hearsays,  beliefs,  opinions ; 
preposterous  conclusions  from  innocent  or  frivo- 
lous actions :  gratuitous  assumptions  of  any  fact 
wanted :  and  total  disregard  of  every  maxim 
which  would  govern  the  admissibility  of  evi- 
dence.    Thus : 

Henry  King  :  "  Believed  the  vessel  was  in 
danger  of  being  taken  by  them :  thinks  Crom- 
well the  head  man :  thinks  they  have  been  en- 
gaged in  it  ever  since  they  left  New  York : 
thinks  if  they  could  get  adrift,  there  would  be 
danger  of  the  vessel  being  taken :  thinks  Spen- 
cer, Small,  Cromwell  and  Wilson  were  the  lead- 
ers: thinks  if  Golderman  and  Sullivan  could 
get  a  party  among  the  crew  now  that  they  would 
release  the  prisoners  and  take  the  vessel,  and 
that  they  are  not  to  be  trusted." — Charles 
Stewart  :  "  Have  seen  Cromwell  and  Spencer 
talking  together  often — talking  low :  don't  think 
the  vessel  safe  with  these  prisoners  on  board : 
this  is  my  deliberate  opinion  from  what  I've  heard 
King,  the  gunner's  mate,  say  (that  is)  that  he 
had  heard  the  boys  say  that  there  were  spies 
about:  I  think  the  prisoners  have  friends  on 
board  who  would  release  them  if  they  got  a 
chance.  I  can't  give  my  opinion  as  to  Crom- 
well's character  :  I  have  seen  him  at  the  galley 
getting  a  cup  of  coffee  now  and  then." — Charles 
Rogers  :  "  I  believe  Spencer  gave  Cromwell  15 
dollars  on  the  passage  to  Madeira — Cromwell 
showed  it  to  me  and  said  Spencer  had  given  it  to 
him.  If  we  get  into  hard  weather  I  think  it  will 
be  hard  to  look  out  for  all  the  prisoners :  I  believe 
if  there  are  any  concerned  in  the  plot,  it  would 
not  be  safe  to  go  on  our  coast  in  cold  or  bad 
weather  with  the  prisoners :  I  think  they  would 
rise  and  take  the  vessel :  I  think  if  Cromwell, 
Small,  and  Spencer  were  disposed  of,  our  lives 
would  be  much  safer.     Cromwell  and  Small  un- 


derstand navigation :  these  two  are  the  only 
ones  among  the  prisoners  capable  of  taking 
charge  of  the  vessel." — Andrew  Anderson  : 
"  Have  seen  Spencer  and  Cromwell  often  speak- 
ing together  on  the  forecastle,  in  a  private  way : 
never  took  much  notice :  I  think  it's  plain  proof 
they  were  plotting  to  take  this  vessel  out  of  the 
hands  of  her  officers :  from  the  first  night  Spen- 
cer was  confined,  and  from  what  I  heard  from 
my  shipmates,  I  suspected  that  they  were  plot- 
ting to  take  the  vessel :  I  think  they  are  safe 
from  here  to  Saint  Thomas  (West  Indies),  but 
from  thence  home  I  think  there  is  great  danger 
on  account  of  the  kind  of  weather  on  the  coast, 
and  squalls." — Oliver  B.  Browning  :  "  I  would 
not  like  to  be  on  board  the  brig  if  he  (Crom- 
well) was  at  large :  I  do  not  bear  him  any  ill 
will :  I  do  not  know  that  he  bears  me  any  ill 
will :  I  do  not  think  it  safe  to  have  Cromwell, 
Spencer  and  Small  on  board :  I  believe  that  if 
the  men  were  at  their  stations  taking  care  of 
the  vessel  in  bad  weather,  or  any  other  time 
when  they  could  get  a  chance,  they  would  try 
and  capture  the  vessel  if  they  could  get  a  chance : 
to  tell  you  God  Almighty's  truth,  I  believe  some 
of  the  cooks  about  the  galley,  I  think  they  are 
the  main  backers." — H.  M.  Garty  :  "  Believes 
Spencer,  Small  and  Cromwell  were  determined 
on  taking  the  brig  :  he  supposes  to  turn  pirates 
or  retake  slavers:  on  or  about  the  11th  of  Oc- 
tober heard  Spencer  say  the  brig  could  be  taken 
with  six  men  :  I  think  there  are  some  persons 
at  large  who  would  voluntarily  assist  the  pris- 
oners if  they  had  an  opportunity  :  thinks  if  the 
prisoners  were  at  large  the  brig  would  certainly 
be  in  great  danger:  thinks  there  are  persons 
adrift  yet  who  would,  if  any  opportunity  offered, 
rescue  the  prisoners :  thinks  the  vessel  would 
be  safer  if  Cromwell,  Spencer,  and  Small  were 
put  to  death." — George  W.  Warner  :  "  Have 
seen  Cromwell  and  Spencer  sitting  together  fre- 
quently: have  heard  Spencer  ask  Cromwell 
what  sort  of  a  slaver  this  vessel  would  make  ? 
he  replied,  he  thought  she  would  make  a  nice 
slaver :  have  no  doubt  he  had  joined  Spencer  iD 
the  project  of  taking  this  vessel :  thinks  Crom- 
well would  have  taken  the  vessel  to  the  north 
west  coast :  Cromwell  was  in  a  slaver  and  taken 
a  year  since  at  Cuba:  has  seen  Spencer  give 
Cromwell  cigars :  thinks  Cromwell  deserves  to 
be  hung :  thinks  he  is  the  most  dangerous  man 
in  the  ship :  if  I  had  my  way  I  would  hang 
him."— Van  Velson  :  "A  good  while  since 
Spencer  said  he  would  like  to  have  a  ship  to  go 
to  the  north-west  coast:  Cromwell  and  him 
was  thick:  should  think  Cromwell  meant  to 
join  Spencer  to  take  this  vessel:  Spencer 
thought  he  could  raise  money  to  get  a  ship.  My 
reason  for  thinking  that  Cromwell  meant  to  join 
Spencer  in  taking  this  vessel,  is  because  I  have 
frequently  seen  them  in  close  conversation." 

The  drift  of  all  this  swearing  was  to  show 
that  the  men  ought  not  only  to  be  put. to  death, 
but  immediately,  to  prevent  a  rescue,  and  before 


536 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


they  got  to  St.  Thomas,  and  to  make  an  excuse 
for  not  bringing  them  to  the  United  States, 
pleading  the  difficulty  to  guard  them  in  bad 
weather  on  the  coast  of  the  United  States. 
(Among  the  persons  examined,  and  one  of  those 
who  '•  thinks  the  vessel  would  be  safer  if  Crom- 
well, Spencer,  and  Small  were  put  to  death," 
was  one  Garty — Sergeant  Michael  H.  Garty — 
who  will  be  especially  noticed  hereafter.)  The 
examination  of  these  persons,  though  com- 
menced immediately  on  receiving  the  com- 
mander's letter,  was  not  finished  until  nine 
o'clock  of  the  next  morning,  December  the 
first ;  and  then  upon  the  pressing  application  of 
Gansevoort  (who  was  absent  much  of  the 
time),  and  telling  the  council  that  the  com- 
mander was  waiting  for  it.  The  answer  was 
soon  prepared,  and  delivered,  declaring  Spencer, 
Cromwell,  and  Small  to  be  guilty  of  mutiny  ac- 
cording to  the  evidence  which  had  come  to 
their  knowledge,  and  that  they  were  leagued 
with  others  still  at  large ;  and  then  goes  on  to 
say — "  We  are  convinced  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  carry  them  to  the  United  States,  and 
that  the  safety  of  the  public  property,  the  lives  of 
ourselves,  and  of  those  committed  to  our  charge, 
require  that  (giving  them  sufficient  time  to 
prepare)  they  should  be  put  to  death  in  a  man- 
ner best  calculated  to  make  a  beneficial  impres- 
sion upon  the  disaffected."  And  this  recom- 
mendation was  signed  by  the  whole  seven  to 
whom  the  commander's  letter  had  been  ad- 
dressed— among  them  two  names  illustrious  in 
the  annals  of  our  navy.  The  heart  grieves  over 
that  view,  but  draws  a  veil  over  the  names,  and 
absolves  the  boys  from  the  guilt  of  the  transac- 
tion. We  know  the  power  of  the  quarter  deck. 
The  midshipman  must  be  born  a  Cato,  or  a 
Macon  (and  such  men  are  only  born  once  in 
ages)  to  be  able  to  stand  up  against  the  irresisti- 
ble will  of  that  deck.  History  refuses  to  see 
these  boys  as  agents  in  the  transaction.  Mac- 
kenzie, Gansevoort,  Leecock  and  Heiskill,  are 
the  persons  with  whom  she  deals. 

The  narrative,  thus  far  following  the  com- 
mander's report,  is  here  suspended  for  the  pur- 
pose of  bringing  in  some  circumstances  not  re- 
lated in  that  report,  and  which  came  out  before 
the  court-martial ;  and  the  relation  of  which  is 
due  to  the  truth  of  history.  1.  That  the  three 
persons  whose  lives  were  thus  passed  upon 
were,  during  this  whole  time,  lying  on  the  deck 
in  their  multiplied  irons,  and  tied  up  in  strong 


tarpaulin  bags,  wholly  unconscious  of  any  pro- 
ceeding against  them,  and  free  from  fear  of 
death,  as  they  had  been  made  to  understand  by 
the  commander  that  they  were  to  be  brought 
home  to  the  United  States  for  trial ;  and  who 
reported  that  to  have  been  his  first  intention. 
2.  While  this  examination  was  going  on,  and 
during  the  first  day  of  it,  Gansevoort  (the  head 
of  the  council)  went  to  Spencer  (telling  him 
nothing  of  his  object),  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
proofs  of  his  guilt,  to  be  used  against  him. 
whereof  he  got  none ;  and  thus  tells  his  errand 
in  answer  to  a  question  before  the  court-mar- 
tial :  "  I  am  under  the  impression  it  was  the 
30th  (of  November),  for  the  purpose  of  his 
proving  more  clearly  his  guilt.  I  took  him  the 
paper  (razor-case  paper),  that  he  might  translate 
it  so  I  could  understand  it.  My  object  was 
to  obtain  from  him  an  acknowledgment  of  his 
guilt."  3.  That  it  had  been  agreed  among  the 
upper  officers  two  days  before  that,  if  any  more 
prisoners  were  made,  the  three  first  taken  should 
suffer  immediate  death  on  account  of  the  impos- 
sibility of  guarding  more  than  they  had.  This 
dire  conclusion  came  out  upon  question  and 
answer,  from  one  of  the  midshipmen  who  was 
in  the  council.  "  Had  you  any  discussion  on 
the  28th  of  November,  as  to  putting  the  three 
prisoners  to  death?"  Answer:  "I  don't  re- 
collect what  day  Gansevoort  asked  me  my 
opinion,  if  it  became  necessary  to  make  more 
prisoners,  if  we  should  be  able  to  guard  them  ? 
I  told  him  no."  "  Did  you  then  give  it  as  your 
opinion  that  Cromwell,  Small,  and  Spencer 
should  be  put  to  death  ?  "  Answer  :  "  Yes, 
sir."  Four  more  officers  of  the  council  were 
ascertained  to  have  been  similarly  consulted  at 
the  same  time,  and  to  have  answered  in  the 
same  way  :  so  that  the  deaths  of  the  three  men 
were  resolved  upon  two  days  before  the  council 
was  established  to  examine  witnesses,  and  en- 
lighten the  commander  with  their  opinions.  4. 
That  it  had  been  resolved  that,  if  more  prison- 
ers were  taken,  the  three  already  in  the  bags 
must  be  put  to  death ;  and,  accordingly,  while 
the  council  was  sitting,  and  in  the  evening  of 
their  session,  and  before  they  had  reported 
an  opinion,  four  more  arrests  were  made:  so 
that  the  condition  became  absolute  upon  which 
the  three  were  to  die  before  the  council  had 
finished  their  examination. 

This  is,  perhaps,  the  first  instance  in  the  an- 
nals of  military  or  naval  courts,  in  which  the 


ANNO  1843     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


537 


commander  fixed  a  condition  on  which  prison- 
ers were  to  be  put  to  death — which  condition 
was  to  be  an  act  of  his  own,  unknown  to  the 
prisoners,  but  known  to  the  court,  and  agreed 
to  be  acted  upon  before  it  was  done  :  and  which 
was  done  and  acted  upon ! 

These  are  four  essential  circumstances,  over- 
looked by  the  commander  in  his  report,  but 
brought  out  upon  interrogatories  before  the  court. 
The  new  arrests  are  duly  reported  by  the  com- 
mander. They  were :  Wilson,  Green,  McKin- 
ley, McKee.  The  commander  tells  how  the  ar- 
rests were  made.  "  These  individuals  were 
made  to  sit  down  as  they  were  taken,  and  when 
they  were  ironed,  I  walked  deliberately  round 
the  battery,  followed  by  the  first  lieutenant ; 
and  we  made  together  a  very  careful  inspection 
of  the  crew.  Those  who  (though  known  to  be 
very  guilty)  were  considered  to  be  the  least 
dangerous,  were  called  out  and  interrogated : 
care  was  taken  not  to  awaken  the  suspicions  of 
such  as  from  courage  and  energy  were  really 
formidable,  unless  it  were  intended  to  arrest 
them.  Our  prisoners  now  amounted  to  seven, 
filling  up  the  quarter  deck,  and  rendering  it 
very  difficult  to  keep  them  from  communicating 
with  each  other,  interfering  essentially  with  the 
management  of  the  vessel."  This  is  the  com- 
mander's account  of  the  new  arrests,  but  he  omits 
to  add  that  he  bagged  them  as  fast  as  taken  and 
ironed  ;  and  as  that  bagging  was  an  investment 
which  all  the  prisoners  underwent,  and  an  un- 
usual and  picturesque  (though  ugly)  feature 
in  the  transaction,  an  account  will  be  given  of  it 
in  the  person  of  one  of  the  four,  which  will 
stand  for  all.  It  is  McKinley  who  gives  it,  and 
who  was  bagged  quite  home  to  New  York,  and 
became  qualified,  to  give  his  experience  of  these 
tarpaulin  sacks,  both  in  the  hot  region  of  the 
tropics  and  the  cold  blasts  of  the  New  York 
latitude  in  the  dead  of  winter.  Question  by 
the  judge  advocate :  "  When  were  you  put  in 
the  bags  ?  "  Answer :  "  After  the  examination 
and  before  we  got  to  St.  Thomas."  "  How  were 
the  bags  put  on  you  ? "  Answer :  "  They 
were  laid  on  deck,  and  we  got  into  them  as  well 
as  we  could,  feet  foremost."  "  Was  your  bag 
ever  put  over  your  head  ?  "  Answer :  "  Yes, 
sir.  The  first  night  it  was  tied  over  my  head." 
"  Who  was  the  person  who  superintended,  and 
did  it  ?  "  Answer :  "  Sergeant  Garty  was 
always  there  when  we  were  put  into  the  bags. 
I  could  not  see.     I  could  not  say  who  tied  it 


over  my  head.  He  (Garty)  was  there  then." 
"  Did  you  complain  of  it?  "  Answer :  "  After 
a  while  the  bag  got  very  hot.  Whoever  was 
the  officer  I  don't  know.  I  told  him  I«was 
smothering.  I  could  not  breathe.  He  came 
back  with  the  order  that  I  could  not  have  it  un- 
tied. I  turned  myself  round  r  s  well  as  I  could, 
and  got  my  mouth  to  the  opening  of  the  bag, 
and  staid  so  till  morning."  Question  by  a  mem- 
ber of  the  court :  "  Did  you  find  the  bag  com- 
fortable when  not  tied  over  your  head?  "  Ans- 
wer :  "  No,  sir.  It  was  warm  weather  :  it  was 
uncomfortable.  On  the  coast  (of  the  United 
States  in  December)  they  would  get  full  of  rain 
water,  nearly  up  to  my  knees."  Catching  at 
this  idea  of  comfort  in  irons  and  a  bag,  Com- 
mander Mackenzie  undertook  to  prove  them  so ; 
and  put  a  leading  question,  to  get  an  affirmative 
answer  to  his  own  assertion  that  this  bagging 
was  done  for  the  "comfort"  of  the  prisoners 
— a  new  conception,  for  which  he  seemed  to  be  en- 
tirely indebted  to  this  hint  from  one  of  the  court. 
The  mode  of  McKinley's  arrest,  also  gives  an 
insight  into  the  manner  in  which  that  act 
was  performed  on  board  a  United  States  man- 
of-war;  and  is  thus  described  by  McKinley 
himself.  To  the  question,  when  he  was  arrested, 
and  how,  he  answers  :  "  On  the  30th  of  Novem- 
ber, at  morning  quarters  I  was  arrested.  The 
commander  put  Wilson  into  irons.  When  he 
was  put  in  irons  the  commander  cried,  '  Send 
McKinley  aft.'  I  went  aft.  The  commander 
and  Gansevoort  held  pistols  at  my  head,  and 
told  me  to  sit  down.  Mr.  Gansevoort  told 
King,  the  gunner,  to  stand  by  to  knock  out 
their  brains  if  they  should  make  a  false  motion. 
[  was  put  in  irons  then.  He  ordered  Green  and 
McKee  aft :  he  put  them  in  irons  also.  Mr. 
Gansevoort  ordered  me  to  get  on  all  fours,  and 
creep  round  to  the  larboard  side,  as  I  could  not 
walk."     And  that  is  the  way  it  was  done  ! 

The  three  men  were  thus  doomed  to  death, 
without  trial,  without  hearing,  without  know- 
ledge of  what  was  going  on  against  them ;  and 
without  a  hint  of  what  had  been  done.  One  of  the 
officiating  officers  who  had  sat  in  the  council, 
being  asked  before  the  court  if  any  suggestion, 
or  motion,  was  made  to  apprise  the  prisoners  of 
what  was  going  on,  and  give  them  a  hearing, 
answered  that  there  was  not.  When  Governor 
Wall  was  on  trial  at  the  Old  Bailey  for  causing 
the  death  of  a  soldier  twenty  years  before  at 
Goree,  in  Africa,  for  imputed  mutiny,  he  plead 


538 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  sentence  of  a  drum-head  court-martial  for 
his  justification.  The  evidence  proved  that  the 
men  so  tried  (and  there  were  just  three  of 
them)  were  not  before  that  court,  and  had  no 
knowledge  of  its  proceedings,  though  on  the 
ground  some  forty  feet  distant — about  as  far  off 
as  were  the  three  prisoners  on  board  the  Somers, 
with  the  difference  that  the  British  soldiers 
could  see  the  court  (which  was  only  a  little 
council  of  officers),  while  the  American  prison- 
ers could  not  see  their  judges.  This  sort  of  a 
court  which  tried  people  without  hearing  them, 
struck  the  British  judges ;  and  when  the  wit- 
ness (a  foot  soldier)  told  how  he  saw  the 
Governor  speaking  to  the  officers,  and  saw  them 
speaking  to  one  another  for  a  minute  or  two, 
and  then  turning  to  the  Governor,  who  ordered 
the  man  to  be  called  out  of  the  ranks  to  be  tied 
on  a  cannon  for  punishment  :  when  the  wit- 
ness told  that,  the  Lord  Chief  Baron  McDonald 
called  out — "  Repeat  that."  The  witness  re- 
peated it.  Then  the  Chief  Baron  inquired  into 
the  constitution  of  these  drum-head  courts,  and 
to  know  if  it  was  their  course  to  try  soldiers 
without  hearing  them :  and  put  a  question  to 
that  effect  to  the  witness.  Surprised  at  the 
question,  the  soldier,  instead  of  answering  it  di- 
rect, yes  or  no,  looked  up  at  the  judge,  and  said : 
"  My  Lord,  I  thought  an  Englishman  had  that 
privilege  every  where."  And  so  thought  the 
judge,  who  charged  the  jury  accordingly,  and 
that  even  if  there  was  a  mutiny  ;  and  so  thought 
the  jury,  who  immediately  brought  in  a  verdict 
for  murder;  and  so  thought  the  King  (George 
III.),  who  refused  to  pardon  the  Governor,  or 
to  respite  him  for  longer  than  eight  days,  or  to 
remit  the  anatomization  of  his  dead  body.  There 
was  law  then  in  England  against  the  oppressors 
of  the  humble,  and  judges  to  execute  it,  and  a 
king  to  back  them. 

The  narrative  will  now  be  resumed  at  the 
point  at  which  it  was  suspended,  and  Com- 
mander Mackenzie's  official  report  will  still  be 
followed  for  the  order  of  the  incidents,  and  his 
account  of  them. 

It  was  nine  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the 
first  of  December,  that  Gansevoort  went  into 
the  ward-room  to  hurry  the  completion  of  the 
letter  which  the  council  of  officers  was  drawing 
up,  and  which,  under  the  stimulating  remark 
that  the  commander  was  waiting  for  it,  was 
soon  ready.  Purser  Heiskill,  who  had  been  the 
pencil  scribe  of  the  proceedings,  carriod  the 


letter,  and  read  it  to  the  commander.     In  what 
manner  he  received  it,  himself  will  teU : 

"  I  at  once  concurred  in  the  justice  of  their 
opinion,  and  in  the  necessity  of  carrying  its  re- 
commendation into  immediate  effect.  There 
were  two  others  of  the  conspirators  almost  as 
guilty,  so  far  as  the  intention  was  concerned,  as 
the  three  ringleaders  who  had  been  first  confined, 
and  to  whose  cases  the  attention  of  the  officers 
had  been  invited.  But  they  could  be  kept  in 
confinement  without  extreme  danger  to  the  ulti- 
mate safety  of  the  vessel.  The  three  chief  con- 
spirators alone  were  capable  of  navigating  and 
sailing  her.  By  their  removal  the  motive  to  a 
rescue,  a  capture,  and  a  carrying  out  of  their 
original  design  of  piracy  was  at  once  taken 
away.  Their  lives  were  justly  forfeited  to  the 
country  which  they  had  betrayed ;  and  the  in- 
terests of  that  country  and  the  honor  and  se- 
curity of  its  flag  required  that  the  sacrifice,  how- 
ever painful,  should  be  made.  In  the  necessities 
of  my  position  I  found  my  law,  and  in  them  also 
I  must  trust  to  find  my  justification." 

The  promptitude  of  this  concurrence  pre- 
cludes the  possibility  of  deliberation,  for  which 
there  was  no  necessity,  as  the  deaths  had  been 
resolved  upon  two  days  before  the  council  met, 
and  as  Gansevoort  communicated  with  the  com- 
mander the  whole  time.  There  was  no  need  for 
deliberation,  and  there  was  none  ;  and  the 
rapidity  of  the  advancing  events  proves  there 
was  no  time  for  it.  And  in  this  haste  one  of 
the  true  reasons  for  hanging  Small  and  Crom- 
well broke  forth.  They  were  the  only  two  of 
all  the  accused  (Spencer  excepted)  who  could 
sail  or  navigate  a  vessel !  and  a  mutiny  to  take 
a  ship,  and  run  her  as  a  roving  pirate,  without 
any  one  but  the  chief  to  sail  and  navigate  her, 
would  have  been  a  solecism  too  gross  even  for 
the  silliest  apprehension.  Mr.  M.  C.  Perry  ad- 
mitted upon  his  cross-examination  that  this 
knowledge  was  "  one  of  the  small  reasons  "  for 
hanging  them — meaning  among  the  lesser  rea- 
sons. Besides,  three  at  least,  may  have  been 
deemed  necessary  to  make  a  mutiny.  Governor 
Wall  took  that  number ;  and  riots,  routs,  and 
unlawful  assemblies  require  it :  so  that  in  hav- 
ing three  for  a  mutiny,  the  commander  was 
taking  the  lowest  number  which  parity  of  cases, 
though  of  infinitely  lower  degree,  would  allow. 
The  report  goes  on  to  show  the  commander's 
preparations  for  the  sacrifice;  which  prepara- 
tions, from  his  own  showing,  took  place  before 
the  assembling  of  the  council,  and  in  which  he 
showed  his  skill  and  acumen. 

"  I  had  for  a  day  or  two  been  disposed  to  arm 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


539 


the  petty  officers.  On  this  subject  alone  the 
first  lieutenant  differed  from  me  in  opinion,  in- 
fluenced in  some  degree  by  the  opinions  of  some 
of  the  petty  officers  themselves,  who  thought  that 
in  the  peculiar  state  of  the  vessel  the  commander 
and  officers  could  not  tell  whom  to  trust,  and 
therefore  had  better  trust  no  one.  I  had  made  up 
my  own  mind,  reasoning  more  from  the  proba- 
bilities of  the  case  than  from  my  knowledge  of 
their  characters,  which  was  necessarily  less  inti- 
mate than  that  of  the  first  lieutenant,  that  they 
could  be  trusted,  and  determined  to  arm  them.  I 
directed  the  first  lieutenant  to  muster  them  on 
the  quarter  deck,  to  issue  to  each  a  cutlass, 
pistol  and  cartridge-box,  and  to  report  to  me 
when  they  were  armed.  I  then  addressed  them 
as  follows :  '  My  lads  !  you  are  to  look  to  me — 
to  obey  my  orders,  and  to  see  my  orders 
obeyed  !     Go  forward ! '  " 

This  paragraph  shows  that  the  arming  of  the 
petty  officers  for  the  crisis  of  the  hangings  had 
been  meditated  for  a  day  or  two — that  it  had 
been  the  subject  of  consultation  with  the  lieu- 
tenant, and  also  of  him  with  some  of  the  petty 
officers ;  and  it  was  doubtless  on  this  occasion 
that  he  took  the  opinions  of  the  officers  (as 
proved  on  the  court-martial  trial)  on  the  subject 
of  hanging  the  three  prisoners  immediately  if  any 
more  arrests  were  made.  The  commander  and 
his  lieutenant  differed  on  the  question  of  arming 
these  petty  officers — the  only  instance  of  a 
difference  of  opinion  between  them:  but  the 
commander's  calculation  of  probabilities  led 
him  to  overrule  the  lieutenant — to  make  up  his 
own  mind  in  favor  of  arming :  and  to  have  it 
done.  The  command  at  the  conclusion  is  emi- 
nently concise,  and  precise,  and  entirely  military ; 
and  the  ending  words  remind  us  of  the  French 
infantry  charging  command :  "  En  avant,  mes 
enfans !  "  in  English — "  Forward,  my  children." 

The  reception  of  the  council  recommendation, 
and  the  order  for  carrying  it  into  effect,  were 
simultaneous:  and  carried  into  effect  it  was 
with  horrible  rapidity,  and  to  the  utmost  letter 
— all  except  in  one  particular — which  forms  a 
dreadful  exception.  The  council  had  given  the 
recommendation  with  the  Christian  reservation 
of  allowing  the  doomed  and  helpless  victims 
"sufficient  time  to  prepare" — meaning,  of  course, 
preparation  for  appearance  at  the  throne  of  God. 
That  reservation  was  disregarded.  Immediate 
execution  was  the  word  !  and  the  annunciation 
of  the  death  decree,  and  the  order  for  putting  it 
in  force,  were  both  made  known  to  the  prisoners 
in  the  same  moment,  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
awful  preparations  for  death. 


"  I  gave  orders  to  make  immediate  preparation 
for  hanging  the  three  principal  criminals  at  the 
mainyard  arms.  All  hands  were  now  called  to 
witness  the  punishment.  The  afterguard  and 
idlers  of  both  watches  were  mustered  on  the 
quarterdeck  at  the  whip  (the  halter)  intended 
for  Mr.  Spencer :  forecastle-men  and  foretop- 
men  at  that  of  Cromwell,  to  whose  corruption 
they  had  been  chieily  exposed.  The  maintop 
of  both  watches,  at  that  intended  for  Small, 
who,  for  a  month,  had  filled  the  situation  of 
captain  of  the  maintop.  The  officers  were 
stationed  about  the  decks,  according  to  the 
watch  bill  I  had  made  out  the  night  before,  and 
the  pett}^  officers  were  similarly  distributed,  with 
orders  to  cut  down  whoever  should  let  go  the 
whip  (the  rope)  with  even  one  hand ;  or  fail  to 
haul  on  (pull  at  the  rope)  when  ordered." 

Here  it  is  unwittingly  told  that  the  guard 
stations  at  the  hangings  were  all  made  out  the 
night  before. 

For  the  information  of  the  unlearned  in  nautical 
language,  it  may  be  told  that  what  is  called  the 
whip  at  sea,  is  not  an  instrument  of  flagellation, 
but  of  elevation — a  small  tackle  with  a  single 
rope,  used  to  hoist  light  bodies  ;  and  so  called 
from  one  of  the  meanings  of  the  word  whip,  used 
as  a  verb,  then  signifying  to  snatch  up  suddenly. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  sailors  appointed  to 
haul  on  this  tackle  had  been  made  acquainted 
(though  the  commander's  report  does  not  say 
so)  with  the  penalty  which  awaited  them  if 
they  failed  to  pull  at  the  word,  or  let  go,  even 
with  one  hand.  The  considerate  arrangement 
for  hanging  each  one  at  the  spot  of  his  imputed 
worst  conduct,  and  under  an  appropriate  watch, 
shows  there  had  been  deliberation  on  that  part 
of  the  subject — deliberation  which  requires  time 
— and  for  which  there  was  no  time  after  the  re- 
ception of  the  council's  answer ;  and  which  the 
report  itself,  so  far  as  the  watch  is  concerned, 
shows  was  made  out  the  night  before.  The  re- 
port continues : 

"  The  ensign  and  pennant  being  bent  on,  and 
ready  for  hoisting,  I  now  put  on  my  full  uni- 
form, and  proceeded  to  execute  the  most  pain- 
ful duty  that  has  ever  devolved  on  an  Ameri- 
can commander — that  of  announcing  to  the 
criminals  their  fate." 

It  has  been  before  seen  that  these  victims  had 
no  knowledge  of  the  proceedings  against  them, 
while  the  seven  officers  were  examining,  in  a 
room  below,  the  thirteen  seamen  whose  answers 
to  questions  (or  rather,  whose  thought*,)  were 
to  justify  the  fate  which  was  now  to  be  an- 
nounced to  them.     They  had  no  knowledge  of 


540 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


it  at  the  time,  nor  afterwards,  until  standing  in 
the  midst  of  the  completed  arrangements  for 
their  immediate  death.  They  were  brought  into 
the  presence  of  death  before  they  knew  that 
any  proceedings  had  been  had  against  them,  and 
while  under  the  belief,  authorized  by  the  com- 
mander himself,  that  they  were  to  be  brought 
home  for  trial.  Their  fate  was  staring  them  in 
the  face  before  they  knew  it  had  been  doomed. 
The  full  uniform  of  a  commander  in  the  Ameri- 
can navy  had  been  put  on  for  the  occasion,  with 
what  view  is  not  expressed ;  and,  in  this  im- 
posing costume, — feathers  and  chapeau,  gold 
lace  and  embroidery,  sword  and  epaulettes — 
the  commander  proceeded  to  announce  their  fate 
to  men  in  irons — double  irons  on  the  legs,  and 
iron  cuffs  on  the  hands — and  surrounded  by 
guards  to  cut  them  down  on  the  least  attempt 
to  avoid  the  gallows  which  stood  before  them. 
In  what  terms  this  annunciation,  or  rather, 
these  annunciations  (for  there  was  a  separate 
address  to  each  victim,  and  each  address  adapted 
to  its  subject)  were  made,  the  captain  himself 
will  tell. 

"  I  informed  Mr.  Spencer  that  when  he  had 
been  about  to  take  my  life,  and  to  dishonor  me 
as  an  officer  when  in  the  execution  of  my  right- 
ful duty,  without  cause  of  offence  to  him,  on 
speculation,  it  had  been  his  intention  to  remove 
me  suddenly  from  the  world,  in  the  darkness  of 
the  night,  without  a  moment  to  utter  one  mur- 
mur of  affection  to  my  wife  and  children — one 
prayer  for  their  welfare.  His  life  was  now  for- 
feited to  his  couutry ;  and  the  necessities  of  the 
case  growing  out  of  his  corruption  of  the  crew, 
compelled  me  to  take  it.  I  would  not,  however, 
imitate  his  intended  example.  If  there  yet  re- 
mained one  feeling  true  to  nature,  it  should  be 
gratified.  If  he  had  any  word  to  send  to  his 
parents,  it  should  berecorded,  and  faithfully  de- 
livered. Ten  minutes  should  be  granted  him  for 
this  purpose ;  and  Midshipman  Egbert  Thompson 
was  called  to  note  the  time,  and  inform  me  when 
the  ten  minutes  had  elapsed." 

Subsequent  events  require  this  appeal  to 
Spencer,  and  promise  to  him,  to  be  noted.  He 
is  invoked,  in  the  name  of1  Nature,  to  speak  to 
his  parents,  and  his  words  promised  delivery. 
History  will  have  to  deal  with  that  invocation, 
and  promise. 

This  is  the  autographic  account  of  the  annun- 
ciation to  Spencer ;  and  if  there  is  a  parallel 
to  it  in  Christendom,  this  writer  has  yet  to 
learn  the  instance.  The  vilest  malefactors, 
convicts  of  the  greatest  crimes,  are  allowed  an 
interval  for  themselves  when  standing  between 


time  and  eternity ;  and  during  that  time  they 
are  left,  undisturbed,  to  their  own  thoughts. 
Even  pirates  allow  that  much  to  vanquished  and 
subdued  men.  The  ship  had  religious  exercises 
upon  it,  and  had  multiplied  their  performance 
since  the  mutiny  had  been  discovered.  The 
commander  was  a  devout  attendant  at  these 
exercises,  and  harangued  the  crew  morally  and 
piously  daily,  and  in  this  crisis  twice  or  thrice  a 
day.  He  might  have  been  of  some  consolation 
to  the  desolate  youth  in  this  supreme  moment. 
He  might  have  spoken  to  him  some  words  of  pity 
and  of  hope  :  he  might  at  least  have  refrained 
from  reproaches :  he  might  have  omitted  the 
comparison  in  which  he  assumed  to  himself  such  a 
superiority  over  Spencer  in  the  manner  of  taking 
life.  It  was  the  Pharisee  that  thanked  God  he 
was  not  like  other  men,  nor  like  that  Publican. 
But  the  Pharisee  did  not  take  the  Publican's 
life,  nor  charge  him  with  crimes.  Besides,  the 
comparison  was  not  true,  admitting  that  Spencer 
intended  to  kill  him  in  his  sleep.  There  is  no 
difference  of  time  between  one  minute  and  ten 
minutes  in  the  business  of  killing ;  and  the 
most  sudden  death — a  bullet  through  the  heart 
in  sleep — would  be  mercy  compared  to  the  ten 
minutes'  reprieve  allowed  Spencer:  and  that 
time  taken  up  (as  the  event  proved)  in  harass- 
ing the  mind,  enraging  the  feelings,  and  in  de- 
stroying the  character  of  the  young  man  before 
he  destroyed  his  body.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
the  greater  part  of  what  the  commander  says 
he  said  to  Spencer,  was  not  said  :  it  would  be  less 
discreditable  to  make  a  false  report  in  such  cases 
than  to  have  said  what  was  alleged ;  and  there 
were  so  many  errors  in  the  commander's  report 
that  disbelief  of  it  becomes  easy,  and  even  obli- 
gatory. It  is  often  variant  or  improbable  in  itself, 
and  sometimes  impossible  ;  and  almost  entirely 
contradicted  by  the  testimony.  In  the  vital — 
really  vital — case  of  holding  the  watch,  he  is  con- 
tradicted. He  says  Midshipman  Thompson  was 
called  to  note  the  time,  and  to  report  its  expira- 
tion. Mr.  0.  H.  Perry  swore  in  the  court  that  the 
order  was  given  to  him— that  he  reported  it — and 
that  the  commander  said,  "  very  well."  This  was 
clear  and  positive :  but  Mr.  Thompson  was  ex- 
amined to  the  same  point,  and  testified  thus : 
"  That  he  heard  him  (the  commander)  say  some- 
thing about  ten  minutes — that  he  told  Mr.  Perry, 
he  thinks,  to  note  the  time — that  Perry  and  him- 
self both  noted  it — thinks  he  reported  it — don't 
recollect  what  the  commander  said — is  under  an 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


541 


impression  he  said  "  very  good."  So  that  Mr. 
Perry  was  called  to  note  the  time,  and  did  it, 
and  reported  it,  and  did  not  know  that  Thomp- 
son had  done  it.  To  the  question,  "  What  did 
Mr.  Thompson  say  when  he  came  back  from  re- 
porting the  time  ?  "  the  answer  is  :  "  I  did  not 
know  that  he  reported  it."  At  best,  Mr. 
Thompson  was  a  volunteer  in  the  business,  and 
too  indifferent  to  it  to  know  what  he  did.  Mr. 
0.  H.  Perry  is  the  one  that  had  the  order,  and 
did  the  duty.  Now  it  is  quite  immaterial  which 
had  the  order :  but  it  is  very  material  that  the 
commander  should  remember  the  true  man. — 
The  manner  in  which  the  young  man  received 
this  dreadful  intelligence,  is  thus  reported : 

"This  intimation  quite  overpowered  him. 
He  fell  upon  his  knees,  and  said  he  was  not  fit 
to  die." 

"  Was  not  fit  to  die !  "  that  is  to  say,  was  not 
in  a  condition  to  appear  before  his  God.  The 
quick  perishing  of  the  body  was  not  the  thought 
that  came  to  his  mind,  but  the  perishing  of  his 
soul,  and  his  sudden  appearance  before  his 
Maker,  unpurged  of  the  sins  of  this  life.  Virtue 
was  not  dead  in  the  heart  which  could  forget 
itself  and  the  world  in  that  dread  moment,  and 
only  think  of  his  fitness  to  appear  at  the  throne 
of  Heaven.  Deeply  affecting  as  this  expression 
was — am  not  fit  to  die — it  was  still  more  so  as 
actually  spoken,  and  truly  stated  by  competent 
witnesses  before  the  court.  "When  he  told 
him  he  was  to  die  in  ten  minutes,  Spencer  told 
him  he  was  not  fit  to  die — that  he  wished  to 
live  longer  to  get  ready.  The  commander  said, 
I  know  you  are  not,  but  I  cannot  help  it." — A 
remark  which  was  wicked  in  telling  him  he 
knew  he  was  not  fit  to  die,  and  false,  in  saying 
he  could  not  help  it.  So  far  from  not  being  able 
to  help  it,  he  was  the  only  man  that  could  pre- 
vent the  preparation  for  fitness.  The  answer 
then  Was,  an  exclamation  of  unfitness  to  die, 
and  a  wish  to  live  longer  to  get  ready.  But 
what  can  be  thought  of  the  heart  which  was 
dead  to  such  an  appeal  ?  and  which,  in  return, 
could  occupy  itself  with  reproaches  to  the 
desolate  sinner ;  and  could  deliver  exhortations 
to  the  trembling  fleeting  shadow  that  was  before 
him,  to  study  looks  and  attitudes,  and  set  an 
example  of  decorous  dying  to  his  two  compan- 
ions in  death?  for  that  was  the  conduct  of 
Mackenzie :  and  here  is  his  account  of  it : 


"  I  repeated  to  him  his  own  catechism,  and 
begged  him  at  least  to  let  the  officer  set  to  the 
men  he  had  corrupted  and  seduced,  the  example 
of  dying  with  decorum." 

"  The  men  whom  he  had  corrupted  and  se- 
duced,"— outrageous  words,  and  which  the  com- 
mander says,  "immediately  restored  him  to 
entire  self-possession."  But  they  did  not  turn 
away  his  heart  from  the  only  thing  that  occu- 
pied his  mind — that  of  fitting  himself,  as  well 
as  he  could,  to  appear  before  his  God.  He  com- 
menced praying  with  great  fervor,  and  begging 
from  Heaven  that  mercy  for  his  soul  which  was 
denied  on  earth  to  his  body. 

The  commander  then  went  off  to  make  the 
same  annunciation  to  the  other  two  victims,  and 
returning  when  the  ten  minutes  was  about  half 
out — when  the  boy  had  but  five  minutes  to  live. 
as  he  was  made  to  believe — he  soon  made  ap- 
parent the  true  reason  which  all  this  sudden 
announcement  of  death  in  ten  minutes  was  in 
reality  intended  for.  It  was  to  get  confessions ! 
it  was  to  make  up  a  record  against  him !  to  ex- 
cite him  against  Small  and  Cromwell !  to  take 
advantage  of  terror  and  resentment  to  get 
something  from  him  for  justification  in  taking  his 
life !  and  in  that  work  he  spent  near  two  hours, 
making  up  a  record  against  himself  of  revolting 
atrocity,  aggravated  and  made  still  worse  by  the 
evidence  before  the  court.  The  first  movement 
was  to  make  him  believe  that  Cromwell  and 
Small  had  informed  upon  him,  and  thus  induce 
him  to  break  out  upon  them,  or  to  confess,  or 
to  throw  the  blame  upon  the  others.    He  says : 

"  I  returned  to  Mr.  Spencer.  I  explained  to 
him  how  Cromwell  had  made  use  of  him.  I 
told  him  that  remarks  had  been  made  about  the 
two,  and  not  very  flattering  to  him,  and  which 
he  might  not  care  to  hear ;  and  which  showed 
the  relative  share  ascribed  to  each  of  them  in 
the  contemplated  transaction.  He  expressed 
great  anxiety  to  hear  what  was  said." 

It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  Spencer  was  in 
prayer,  with  but  five  minutes  to  go  upon,  when 
Mackenzie  interrupts  him  with  an  intimation  of 
what  Small  and  Cromwell  had  said  of  him,  and 
piques  his  curiosity  to  learn  it  by  adding, "  which 
he  might  not  care  to  hear  "—artfully  exciting 
his  curiosity  to  know  what  it  was.  The  desire 
thus  excited,  he  goes  on  to  tell  him  that  one  had 
called  him  a  damn  fool,  and  the  other  had  con- 
sidered him  Cromwell's  tool :  thus : 


542 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"  One  had  told  the  first  lieutenant :  '  In  my 
opinion,  sir,  you  have  the  damned  fool  on  the 
larboard  arm-chest,  and  the  damned  villain  on  the 
starboard.'  And  another  had  remarked,  that 
after  the  vessel  should  have  been  captured  by 
Spencer,  Cromwell  might  allow  him  to  live,  pro- 
vided he  made  himself  useful ;  he  would  pro- 
bably make  him  his  secretary." 

Spencer  was  on  the  larboard  arm-chest ; 
Cromwell  on  the  starboard :  so  that  Small  was 
the  speaker,  and  the  damned  fool  applied  to  Spen- 
cer, and  the  damned  villain  to  Cromwell :  and 
Spencer,  who  had  all  along  been  the  chief,  was 
now  to  be  treated  as  an  instrument,  only 
escaping  with  his  life  if  successful  in  taking 
the  vessel,  and,  that  upon  condition  of  making 
himself  useful;  and  then  to  have  no  higher 
post  on  the  pirate  than  that  of  Cromwell's 
secretary.  This  was  a  hint  to  Spencer  to  turn 
States'  evidence  against  Cromwell,  and  throw 
the  whole  blame  on  him.  The  commander  con- 
tinues, still  addressing  himself  to  Spencer — 

"  /  think  this  would  not  have  suited  your 
temper." 

This  remark,  inquisitively  made,  and  evidently 
to  draw  out  something  against  Cromwell,  failed 
of  its  object.  It  drew  no  remark  from  Spencer ;  it 
merely  acted  upon  his  looks  and  spirit,  according 
to  the  commander — who  proceeds  in  this  strain : 

"  This  effectually  aroused  him,  and  his  coun- 
tenance assumed  a  demoniacal  expression.  He 
said  no  more  of  the  innocence  of  Cromwell. 
Subsequent  circumstances  too  surely  confirmed 
his  admission  of  his  guilt.  He  might  perhaps 
have  wished  to  save  him,  in  fulfilment  of  some 
mutual  oath." 

This  passage  requires  some  explanation.  Spen- 
cer had  always  declared  his  total  ignorance  of 
Cromwell,  and  of  his  visionary  schemes  :  he  re- 
peated it  earnestly  as  Mackenzie  turned  off  to 
go  and  announce  his  fate  to  him.  Having  en- 
raged him  against  the  man,  he  says  he  now  said 
no  more  about  Cromwell's  innocence  ;  and  catch- 
ing up  that  silence  as  an  admission  of  his  guilt, 
he  quotes  it  as  such ;  but  remembering  how 
often  Spencer  had  absolved  him  from  all  know- 
ledge even  of  his  foolish  joking,  he  supposes 
he  wished  to  save  him — in  fulfilment  of  some 
mutual  oath.  This  imagined  cause  for  saving 
him  is  shamefully  gratuitous,  unwarranted 
by  a  word  from  any  delator,  not  inferrible 
from  any  premises,  and  atrociously  wicked.  In 
fact  this  whole  story  after  the  commander  re- 


turned from  Small  and  Cromwell,  is  without 
warrant  from  any  thing  tangible.  Mackenzie 
got  it  from  Gansevoort ;  and  Gansevoort  got 
one  half  from  one,  and  the  other  half  from  an- 
other, without  telling  which,  or  when — and  it 
was  provably  not  then ;  and  considering  the 
atrocity  of  such  a  communication  to  Spencer  at 
such  time,  it  is  certainly  less  infamous  to  the 
captain  and  lieutenant  to  consider  it  a  falsehood 
of  their  own  invention,  to  accomplish  their  own 
design.  ^.lackenzie's  telling  it,  however,  was  in- 
fernal. The  commander  then  goes  on  with  a 
batch  of  gratuitous  assumptions,  which  shows 
he  had  no  limit  in  such  assumptions  but  in  his 
capacity  at  invention.     Hear  them ! 

"  He  (Spencer)  more  probably  hoped  that  he 
might  yet  get  possession  of  the  vessel,  and  carry 
out  the  scheme  of  murder  and  outrage  matured 
between  them.  It  was  in  Cromwell  that  he  had 
apparently  trusted,  in  fulfilment  of  some  agree- 
ment for  a  rescue ;  and  he  eloquently  plead  to 
Lieutenant  Gansevoort  when  Cromwell  was 
ironed,  for  his  release,  as  altogether  ignorant  of 
his  designs,  and  innocent.  He  had  endeavored 
to  make  of  Elisha  Andrews  appearing  on  the 
list  of  the  "  certain,"  an  alias  for  Small,  though 
his  name  as  Small  appeared  also  in  the  list  of 
those  to  effect  the  murder  in  the  cabin,  by  falsely 
asserting  that  Small  was  a  feigned  name,  when 
he  had  evidence  in  a  letter  addressed  by  Small's 
mother  to  him  that  Small  was  her  name  as  well 
as  his." 

Assumptions  without  foundations,  inferences 
without  premises,  beliefs  without  knowledge, 
thoughts  without  knowing  why,  suspicions 
without  reasons — are  all  a  species  of  inventions, 
but  little  removed  from  direct  falsehood,  and 
leaves  the  person  who  indulges  in  them  without 
credit  for  any  thing  he  may  say.  This  was  pre- 
eminently the  case  with  the  commander  Slidfell 
Mackenzie,  and  with  all  his  informers;  and 
here  is  a  fine  specimen  of  it  in  himself.  First : 
the  presumed  probability  that  Spencer  yet  hoped 
to  get  possession  of  the  vessel,  and  carry  out 
the  scheme  of  murder  and  piracy  which  he  had 
matured.  What  a  presumption  in  such  a  case  ! 
the  case  of  men,  ironed,  bagged  and  helpless, — 
standing  under  the  gallows  in  the  midst  of 
armed  men  to  shoot  and  stab  for  a  motion  or  a 
sign — and  a  presumption,  not  only  without  a 
shadow  to  rest  upon,  but  contradicted  by  the 
entire  current  of  all  that  was  sworn — even  by 
Garty  and  Wales.  "  Fulfilment  of  secret  agree- 
ment for  rescue."     Secret !     Yes  !  very  secret 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


543 


indeed !  There  was  not  a  man  on  board  the 
vessel  that  ever  heard  such  a  word  as  rescue  pro- 
nounced until  after  the  arrests !  The  crazy 
misgivings  of  a  terrified  imagination  could  alone 
have  invented  such  a  scheme  of  rescue.  The 
name  of  Small  was  a  sad  stumbling  block  in  the 
road  to  his  sacrifice,  as  that  of  Andrews  to  the 
truth  of  the  razor  case  paper.  One  was  not  in 
the  list,  and  the  other  was  not  in  the  ship :  and 
all  these  forced  assumptions  were  to  reconcile 
these  contradictions  ;  and  so  the  idea  of  an  alias 
dictns  was  fallen  upon,  though  no  one  had  ever 
heard  Small  called  Edward  Andrews,  and  his 
mother,  in  her  letter,  gave  her  own  name  as  her 
son's,  as  Small.  Having  now  succeeded  in  get- 
ting Spencer  enraged  against  his  two  companions 
in  death,  the  commander  takes  himself  to  his 
real  work — that  of  getting  confessions — or  get- 
ting up  something  which  could  be  recorded  as 
confessions,  under  the  pretext  of  writing  to  his 
father  and  mother  :  and  to  obtain  which  all  this 
refined  aggravation  of  the  terrors  of  death  had 
been  contrived.  But  here  recourse  must  be  had 
to  the  testimony  before  the  court  to  supply  de- 
tails on  which  the  report  is  silent,  or  erroneous, 
and  in  which  what  was  omitted  must  be  brought 
forward  to  be  able  to  get  at  the  truth.  McKinley 
swears  that  he  was  six  or  eight  feet  from  Spen- 
cer when  the  commander  asked  him  if  he  wished 
to  write.  Spencer  answered  that  he  did.  An  ap- 
prentice named  Dunn  was  then  ordered  to  fetch 
paper  and  campstool  out  of  the  cabin.  Spencer 
took  the  pen  in  his  hand,  and  said — "  I  cannot 
write."  "  The  commander  spoke  to  him  in  a 
low  tone.  I  do  not  know  what  he  then  said.  I 
saw  the  commander  writing.  Whether  Mr. 
Spencer  asked  him  to  write  for  him  or  not,  I 
can't  say." — Mr.  Oliver  H.  Perry  swears :  "  Saw 
the  commander  order  Dunn  to  bring  him  paper 
and  ink  :  saw  the  commander  write :  was  four 
or  five  feet  from  him  while  writing :  heard  no 
part  of  the  conversation  between  the  commander 
and  Spencer :  was  writing  ten  or  fifteen  min- 
utes."— Other  witnesses  guess  at  the  time  as 
high  as  half  an  hour.  The  essential  parts  of 
this  testimony,  a,re—jirst,  That  Spencer's  hands 
were  ironed,  and  that  he  could  not  write :  sec- 
ondly, that  the  commander,  instead  of  releasing 
his  hands,  took  the  pen  and  wrote  himself: 
thirdly,  that  he  carried  on  all  his  conversation 
with  Spencer  in  so  low  a  voice  that  those  within 
four  or  five  feet  of  him  (and  in  the  deathlike 


stillness  which  then  prevailed,  and  the  breathless 
anxiety  of  every  one)  heard  not  a  word  of 
what  passed  between  them  !  neither  what  Mac- 
kenzie said  to  Spencer,  nor  Spencer  said  to  him. 
Now  the  report  of  the  commander  is  silent  upon 
this  lowness  of  tone  which  could  not  be  heard 
four  or  five  feet — silent  upon  the  handcuffs  of 
Spencer — silent  upon  the  answer  of  Spencer 
that  he  could  not  write  ;  and  for  which  he  sub- 
stituted on  the  court-martial  the  answer  that  he 
"  declined  to  write  " — a  substitution  which  gave 
rise  to  a  conversation  between  the  judge  advo- 
cate and  Mackenzie,  which  the  judge  advocate 
reported  to  the  court  in  writing ;  and  which  all 
felt  to  be  a  false  substitution  both  upon  the  tes- 
timony, and  the  facts  of  the  case.  A  man  in 
iron  handcuffs  cannot  write  !  but  it  was  neces- 
sary to  show  him  "  declining  "  in  order  to  give 
him  a  recording  secretary  !  And  it  is  silent 
upon  the  great  fact  that  he  sat  on  the  arm-chest 
with  Spencer,  and  whispering  so  low  that  not  a 
human  being  could  hear  what  passed :  and,  con 
sequently,  that  Mackenzie  chose  that  he  himself 
should  be  the  recording  secretary  on  that  occa- 
sion, and  that  no  one  could  know  whether  the 
record  was  true  or  false.  The  declaration  in 
the  report  that  Spencer  read  what  was  written 
down,  and  agreed  to  it,  will  be  attended  to  here- 
after. The  point  at  present  is  the  secrecy,  and 
the  fact  that  the  man  the  most  interested  in  the 
world  in  getting  confessions  from  Spencer,  was 
the  recorder  of  these  confessions,  without  a 
witness  !  without  even  Wales,  Gansevoort,  Gar- 
ty ;  or  any  one  of  his  familiars.  For  the  rest, 
it  becomes  a  fair  question,  which  every  person 
can  solve  for  themselves,  whether  it  is  possible 
for  two  persons  to  talk  so  low  to  one  another  for, 
from  a  quarter  to  half  an  hour,  in  such  profound 
stillness,  and  amidst  so  much  excited  expecta- 
tion, and  no  one  in  arm's  length  able  to  hear 
one  word.  If  this  is  deemed  impossible,  it  may 
be  a  reasonable  belief  that  nothing  material  was 
said  between  them — that  Mackenzie  wrote  with- 
out dictation  from  Spencer;  and  wrote  what 
the  necessity  of  his  condition  required— confes- 
sions to  supply  the  place  of  tutal  want  of  proof 
—admissions  of  guilt— acknowledgments  that 
he  deserved  to  die— begging  forgiveness.  And 
so  large  a  part  of  what  he  reported  was  proved 
to  be  false,  that  this  reasonable  belief  of  a  fab- 
ricated dialogue  becomes  almost  a  certainty. 
The  commander,  now  become  sole  witness  of 


544 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Spencer's  last  words — words  spoken  if  at  all — 
after  his  time  on  earth  was  out — after  the  an- 
nouncement in  his  presence  that  the  ten  minutes 
were  out — and  hearing  the  commander's  re- 
sponse to  the  notification,  "  Very  well :  "  this 
commander  thus  proceeds  with  his  report :  "  I 
asked  him  if  he  had  no  message  to  send  to  his 
friends  ?  He  answered  none  that  they  would 
wish  to  receive.  When  urged  still  further  to 
send  some  words  of  consolation  in  so  great  an 
affliction,  he  said,  '  Tell  them  I  die  wishing  them 
every  blessing  and  happiness.  I  deserve  death 
for  this  and  many  other  crimes — there  are  few 
crimes  I  have  not  committed.  I  feel  sincerely 
penitent,  and  my  only  fear  of  death  is  that  my 
repentance  may  come  too  late.' " — This  is  what 
the  commander  reports  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  and  which  no  human  witness  could  gain- 
say, because  no  human  being  was  allowed  to 
witness  what  was  said  at  the  time  ;  but  there  is 
another  kind  of  testimony,  independent  of  human 
eyes  and  ears,  and  furnished  by  the  evil-doer 
himself,  often  in  the  very  effort  to  conceal  his 
guilt,  and  more  convincing  than  the  oath  of  any 
witness,  and  which  fate,  or  accident,  often  brings 
to  light  for  the  relief  of  the  innocent  and  the 
confusion  of  the  guilty.  And  so  it  was  in  this 
case  with  Commander  Alexander  Slidell  Mac- 
kenzie. That  original  record  made  out  upon  in- 
audible whispers  on  the  camp-stool !  It  still 
existed — and  was  produced  in  court — and  here 
is  the  part  which  corresponds  (should  corres- 
pond) with  this  quoted  part  of  the  report,  and 
constituting  the  first  part  of  the  confession : 
"  When  asked  if  he  had  any  message  to  send : 
none  that  they  would  wish  to  receive.  After- 
wards, that  you  die  wishing  them  every  bless- 
ing and  happiness ;  deserved  death  for  this  and 
other  sins  ;  that  you  felt  sincerely  penitent,  and 
only  fear  of  death  was  that  your  repentance 
might  be  too  late" — Compared  together,  and  it 
is  seen  that  the  words  "  other  sins,"  in  the  third 
sentence,  is  changed  into  "  many  other  crimes," 
— words  of  revoltingly  different  import — going 
beyond  what  the  occasion  required — and  evi- 
dently substituted  as  an  introduction  to  the 
further  gratuitous  confession :  "  There  are  few 
crimes  which  I  have  not  committed."  Great 
consolation  in  this  for  those  parents  for  whom 
the  record  was  made,  and  who  never  saw  it  ex- 
cept as  promulgated  through  the  public  press. 
In  any  court  of  justice  the  entire  report  would  be 


discredited  upon  this  view  of  flagrant  and  wicked 
falsifications.  For  the  rest,  there  is  proof  that 
the  first  sentence  is  a  fabrication.  It  is  to  be 
recollected  that  this  inquiry  as  to  Spencer's 
wishes  to  communicate  with  his  parents  was 
made  publicly,  and  before  the  pen,  ink  and  pa- 
per was  sent  for,  and  that  the  answer  was  the 
inducement  to  send  for  those  writing  materials. 
That  public  answer  was  heard  by  those  around, 
and  was  thus  proved  before  the  court-martial — 
McKinley  the  witness:  "  The  commander 
asked  him  if  he  wished  to  write  ?  Mr.  Spen- 
cer said  he  did.  The  commander  ordered  Dunn 
to  fetch  paper  and  campstool  out  of  the  cabin. 
Spencer  took  the  pen  in  his  hand — he  said,  :  I 
cannot  write.'  The  commander  spoke  to  him 
in  a  low  tone :  I  do  not  know  what  he  then 
said.  I  saw  the  commander  writing."  This 
testimony  contradicts  the  made-up  report,  in 
showing  that  Spencer  was  asked  to  write  him- 
self, instead  of  sending  a  message :  that  the  de- 
claration, "nothing  that  they  would  wish  to 
hear"  is  a  fabricated  addition  to  what  he  did 
say — and  that  he  was  prevented  from  writing, 
not  from  disinclination  and  declining,  as  the 
commander  attempted  to  make  out,  but  because 
upon  trial — after  taking  the  pen  in  his  hand — 
he  could  not  with  his  handcuffs  on.  Certainly 
this  was  understood  beforehand.  Men  do  not 
write  in  iron  handcuffs.  They  were  left  on  to 
permit  the  commander  to  become  his  secretary, 
and  to  send  a  message  for  him  :  which  message 
he  never  sent !  the  promise  to  do  so  being  a 
mere  contrivance  to  get  a  chance  of  writing  for 
the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  the  public. 

The  official  report  continues :  "  I  asked  him  if 
there  was  any  one  he  had  injured,  to  whom  he 
could  yet  make  reparation — any  one  suffering  ob- 
loquy for  crimes  which  he  had  committed.  He 
made  no  answer ;  but  soon  after  continued  :  '  I 
have  wronged  many  persons,  but  chiefly  my  pa- 
rents.' He  said  '  this  will  kill  my  poor  mother.' 
I  was  not  before  aware  that  he  had  a  mother." 
The  corresponding  sentences  in  the  original,  run 
thus  :  "  Many  that  he  had  wronged,  but  did  not 
know  how  reparation  could  be  made  to  them. 
Your  parents  most  wronged  ....  himself 
by  saying  he  had  entertained  same  idea  in  John 
Adams  and  Potomac,  but  had  not  ripened  into 

.  .  .  .  Do  you  not  think  that  such  a 
mania  should  ....  certainly.  Objected 
to  manner  of  death."    The  dots  in  place  of 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


545 


words  indicate  the  places  where  the  writing  was 
illegible.  The  remarkable  variations  between 
the  report  and  the  original  in  these  sentences 
is,  that  the  original  leaves  out  all  those  crimes 
which  he  had  committed,  and  which  were  bring- 
ing obloquy  upon  others,  and  to  which  he  made 
no  answer,  but  shows  that  he  did  make  answer 
as  to  having  wronged  persons,  and  that  answer 
was,  that  he  did  not  know  how  reparation  could 
be  made.  There  is  no  mention  of  mother  in 
this  part  of  the  original — it  comes  in  long  after. 
Then  the  John  Adams  and  the  Potomac,  which 
are  here  mentioned  in  the  twelfth  line  of  the 
original,  only  appear  in  the  fifty-sixth  in  the  re- 
port— and  the  long  gap  filled  up  with  things 
not  in  the  original — and  the  word  "  idea,"  as 
attributed  to  Spencer,  substituted  by  "  mania." 
The  report  continues  (and  here  it  is  told  once 
for  all,  that  the  quotations  both  from  the  report 
and  the  original,  of  which  it  should  be  a  copy, 
follow  each  in  its  place  in  consecutive  order, 
leaving  no  gap  between  each  quoted  part  and 
what  preceded  it)  :  (l  when  recovered  from  the 
pain  of  this  announcement  {the  effect  upon  his 
mother),  I  asked  him  if  it  would  not  have  been 
still  more  dreadful  had  he  succeeded  in  his  at- 
tempt, murdered  the  officers  and  the  greater 
part  of  the  crew  of  the  vessel,  and  run  that 
career  of  crime  which,  with  so  much  satisfaction 
he  had  marked  out  for  himself:  he  replied  after 
a  pause ;  '  I  do  not  know  what  would  have  be- 
come of  me  if  I  had  succeeded.'  I  told  him 
Cromwell  would  soon  have  made  way  with  him, 
and  McKinley  would  probably  have  cleared 
the  whole  of  them  from  his  path."  The  cor- 
responding part  of  the  original  runs  thus: 
"  Objected  to  manner  of  death :  requested  to  be 
shot.  Could  not  make  any  distinction  between 
him  and  those  he  had  seduced.  Justifiable  de- 
sire at  first  to  ...  .  The  last  words  he 
had  to  say,  and  hoped  they  would  be  believed, 
that  Cromwell  was  innocent  ....  Crom- 
well. Admitted  it  was  just  that  no  distinction 
should  be  made." — This  is  the  consecutive  part 
in  the  original,  beginning  in  utter  variance  with 
what  should  be  its  counterpart — hardly  touch- 
ing the  same  points — leaving  out  all  the  cruel 
reproaches  which  the  official  report  heaps  upon 
Spencer — ending  with  the  introduction  of  Crom- 
well, but  without  the  innocence  which  the 
original  contains,  with  the  substitution  of 
Cromwell's  destruction  of  him,  and  with  the 

Vol.  II.— 35 


addition  of  McKinley 's  destruction  of  them  all, 
and  ultimate  attainment  of  the  chief  place  in 
that  long  career  of  piracy  which  was  to  be  ran 
— and  ran  in  that  state  of  the  world  in  which  no 
pirate  could  live  at  all.  What  was  actually  said 
about  Cromwell's  innocence  by  Spencer  and  by 
McKinley  as  coming  from  Cromwell  "  to  stir 
up  the  devil  between  them,"  as  the  historian 
Cooper  remarked,  was  said  before  this  writing 
commenced !  said  wThen  Mackenzie  returned  from 
announcing  the  ten  minutes  lease  of  life  to  him 
and  Small  !  which  Mackenzie  himself  had  re- 
ported in  a  previous  part  of  his  report,  before 
the  writing  materials  were  sent  for :  and  now, 
strange  enough,  introduced  again  in  an  after 
place,  but  with  such  alterations  and  additions 
as  barely  to  leave  their  identity  discoverable. 

The  official  report  proceeds  :  "'  I  fear,  said  he, 
this  may  injure  my  father.'  I  told  him  it 
was  too  late  to  think  of  that — that  had  he 
succeeded  in  his  wrishes  it  would  have  injured 
his  father  much  more — that  had  it  been  possible 
to  have  taken  him  home  as  I  intended  to  do,  it 
was  not  in  nature  that  his  father  should  not 
have  interfered  to  save  him — that  for  those  who 
have  friends  or  money  in  America  there  was 
no  punishment  for  the  worst  of  crimes — that 
though  this  had  nothing  to  do  with  my  determi- 
nation, which  had  been  forced  upon  me  in  spite 
of  every  effort  I  had  made  to  avert  it,  I,  on  this 
account  the  less  regretted  the  dilemma  in  which 
I  was  placed :  it  would  injure  his  father  a  great 
deal  more  if  he  got  home  alive,  should  he  be 
condemned  and  yet  escape.  The  best  and  only 
service  which  he  could  do  his  father  was  to 
die." — Now  from  the  original,  beginning  at  the 
end  of  the  last  quotation :  "  Asked  that  his  face 
might  be  covered.  Granted.  When  he  found 
that  his  repentance  might  not  be  in  season,  I 
referred  him  to  the  story  of  the  penitent  thief. 
Tried  to  find  it.  Could  not.  Read  the  Bible,  the 
prayer-book.  Did  not  know  what  would  have 
become  of  him  if  he  had  succeeded.  Makes  no 
objection  to  death,  but  objects  to  time.  Reasons 
—God  would  understand  of  him  offences    .    . 

.  many  crimes.  Dies,  praying  God  to  bless 
and  preserve  ....  I  am  afraid  this  will 
injure  my  father."— The  quotation  from  the  re- 
port opens  with  apprehended  fear  of  injury  to 
his  father :  it  concludes  with  commending  him 
to  die,  as  the  only  service  he  could  render  that 
parent :  and  the  whole  is  taken  up  with  that 


546 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


topic,  and  crowned  with  the  assertion  that,  for 
those  who  have  friends  or  money  in  America  there 
is  no  punishment  for  the  worst  of  crimes — a 
sweeping  reproach  upon  the  American  judiciary ; 
and,  however  unfounded  in  his  broad  denuncia- 
tion, may  he  not  himself  have  counted  on  the 
benefit  of  the  laxity  of  justice  which  he  de- 
nounced? and — more — did  he  not  receive  it? 
The  rest  of  the  paragraph  is  only  remarkable 
for  the  declaration  of  the  intention  to  have 
brought  his  prisoners  home,  and  of  the  change, 
of  which  intention  they  had  no  notice  until 
placed  in  the  presence  of  the  completed  prepa- 
rations for  death,  and  told  they  had  but  ten 
minutes,  by  the  watch,  to  live. — Turning  to  the 
original  of  this  paragraph,  and  it  will  be  seen 
that  it  opens  with  preparations  for  death — goes 
on  in  the  same  spirit — barely  mentions  his 
father — and  ends  with  his  death — "  dies  pray- 
ing God  to  bless  and  preserve "  .  .  .  . 
This  is  evidently  the  termination  of  the  whole 
scene.  It  carries  him  through  the  last  prepara- 
tions, and  ends  his  life — sees  him  die  praying  to 
God.  Now  does  the  report  give  any  of  these 
circumstances?  None.  Does  the  report  stop 
there  ?  It  does  not.  Does  it  go  on  ?  Yes :  two 
hundred  and  thirty  lines  further.  And  the 
original  record  go  on  further  ?  Yes :  sixty  lines 
further — which  was  just  double  the  distance  it 
had  come.  Here  was  a  puzzle.  The  man  to  be 
talking  double  as  much  after  his  death  as  before 
it.  This  solecism  required  a  solution — and  re- 
ceived it  before  the  court-martial:  and  the 
solution  was  that  this  double  quantity  was 
written  after  hanging — how  long,  not  stated — 
but  after  it.  Before  the  court  Mackenzie  de- 
livered in  a  written  and  sworn  statement,  that 
his  record  embracing  what  was  taken  down  from 
the  lips  of  Spencer  finished  at  the  sentence — 
"  /  am  afraid  this  will  injure  my  father : " 
and  that  the  remainder  was  written  shortly 
afterwards.  Now  the  part  written  before  the 
death  was  thirty-three  lines  :  the  part  written 
shortly  after  it,  is  above  fifty.  This  solecism 
explained,  another  difficulty  immediately  arises. 
The  commander  reported  that,  "  he  (Spencer) 
read  over  what  he  (Mackenzie)  had  written 
down"  and  agreed  to  it  all,  with  one  exception 
— which  was  corrected.  New  he  could  not  have 
read  the  fifty  odd  lines  which  were  written 
after  his  death.  (All  the  lines  here  mentioned 
are  the  short  ones  in  the  double  column  pages 


of  the  published,  "Official  Proceedings  of  the 
Naval  Court  Martial.)  "  These  fifty  odd  lines 
could  not  have  been  read  by  Spencer.  That  is 
certain.  The  previous  thirty-three  it  is  morally 
certain  he  never  read.  They  are  in  some  places 
illegible — in  others  unintelligible ;  and  are 
printed  in  the  official  report  with  blanks  because 
there  were  parts  which  could  not  be  read.  No 
witness  says  they  were  read  by  Spencer. 

The  additional  fifty  odd  lines,  expanded  by 
additions  and  variations  into  about  two  hundred 
in  the  official  report,  requires  but  a  brief  notice, 
parts  of  it  being  amplifications  and  aggravations 
of  what  had  been  previously  noted,  and  addi- 
tional insults  to  Spencer ;  with  an  accumulation 
of  acknowledgments  of  guilt,  of  willingness  to 
die,  of  obligations  to  the  commander,  and  en- 
treaties for  his  forgiveness.  One  part  of  the 
reported  scene  was  even  more  than  usually  in- 
human. Spencer  said  to  him :  "  But  are  you 
not  going  too  far  ?  are  you  not  too  fast  ?  does 
the  law  entirely  justify  you  ? "  To  this  the 
commander  represents  himself  as  replying : 
"  That  he  (Spencer)  had  not  consulted  him  in 
his  arrangements — that  his  opinion  could  not  be 
an  unprejudiced  one — that  I  had  consulted  all 
his  brother  officers,  his  messmates  included,  ex- 
cept the  boys  ;  and  I  placed  before  him  their 
opinion.  He  stated  that  it  was  just — that  he 
deserved  death."  For  the  honor  of  human  na- 
ture it  is  to  be  hoped  that  Mackenzie  reports 
himself  falsely  here — which  is  probable,  both  on 
its  face,  and  because  it  is  not  in  the  original 
record.  The  commander  says  that  he  begged 
for  one  hour  to  prepare  himself  for  death,  say- 
ing the  time  is  so  short,  asking  if  there  was  time 
for  repentance,  and  if  he  could  be  changed  so 
soon  (from  sin  to  grace).  To  the  request  for 
the  hour,  the  commander  says  no  answer  was 
given :  to  the  other  parts  he  reminded  him  of 
the  thief  on  the  cross,  who  was  pardoned  by 
our  Saviour,  and  that  for  the  rest,  God  would 
understand  the  difficulties  of  his  situation  and 
be  merciful.  The  commander  also  represents 
himself  as  recapitulating  to  Spencer  the  arts  he 
had  used  to  seduce  the  crew.  The  commander 
says  upwards  of  an  hour  elapsed  before  the 
hanging :  he  might  have  said  two  hours :  for 
the  doom  of  the  prisoners  was  announced  at 
about  eleven,  and  they  were  hung  at  one.  But 
no  part  of  this  delay  was  for  their  benefit,  as  he 
would  make  believe,  but  for  his  own,  to  get  con- 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


547 


fessions  under  the  agonies  of  terror.  No  part 
of  it — not  even  the  whole  ten  minutes — was 
allowed  to  Spencer  to  make  his  peace  with  God  ; 
but  continually  interrupted,  questioned,  out- 
raged, inflamed  against  his  companions  in  death, 
he  had  his  devotions  broken  in  upon,  and  him- 
self deprived  of  one  peaceful  moment  to  com- 
mune with  God. 

The  report  of  the  confessions  is  false  upon  its 
face :  it  is  also  invalidated  by  other  matter 
within  itself,  showing  that  Mackenzie  had  two 
opposite  ways  of  speaking  of  the  same  person, 
and  of  the  same  incident,  before  and  after  the 
design  upon  Spencer's  life.  I  speak  of  the  at- 
tempt, and  of  the  reasons  given  for  it,  to  get  the 
young  man  transferred  to  another  vessel  before 
sailing  from  New  York.  According  to  the  ac- 
count given  first  of  these  reasons,  and  at  the 
time,  the  desire  to  get  him  out  of  the  Somers 
was  entirely  occasioned  by  the  crowded  state 
of  the  midshipmen's  room — seven,  where  only 
five  could  be  accommodated.     Thus  : 

"  When  we  were  on  the  eve  of  sailing,  two 
midshipmen  who  had  been  with  me  before,  and 
in  whom  I  had  confidence,  joined  the  vessel. 
This  carried  to  seven,  the  number  to  occupy  a 
space  capable  of  accommodating  only  five.  I  had 
heard  that  Mr.  Spencer  had  expressed  a  wil- 
lingness to  be  transferred  from  the  Somers  to 
the  Grampus.  I  directed  Lieut.  Gansevoort  to 
say  to  him  that  if  he  would  apply  to  Commodore 
Perry  to  detach  him  (there  was  no  time  to  com- 
municate with  the  Navy  Department),  I  would 
second  the  application.  He  made  the  applica- 
tion ;  I  seconded  it,  earnestly'  urging  that  it 
should  be  granted  on  the  score  of  the  comfort 
of  the  young  officers.  The  commodore  declined 
detaching  Mr.  Spencer,  but  offered  to  detach 
midshipman  Henry  Rodgers,  who  had  been  last 
ordered.  I  could  not  consent  to  part  with  Mid- 
shipman Rodgers,  whom  I  knew  to  be  a  seaman, 
an  officer,  a  gentleman ;  a  young  man  of  high 
attainments  within  his  profession  and  beyond 
it.  The  Somers  sailed  with  seven  in  her  steer- 
age. They  could  not  all  sit  together  round  the 
table.  The  two  oldest  and  most  useful  had  no 
lockers  to  put  their  clothes  in,  and  have  slept 
during  the  cruise  on  the  steerage  deck,  the  camp- 
stools,  the  booms,  in  the  tops,  or  in  the  quarter 
boats." 

Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  this  statement. 
It  was  to  relieve  the  steerage  room  where  the 
young  midshipmen  congregated,  that  the  trans- 
fer of  Spencer  was  requested;  and  this  was 
after  Captain  Mackenzie  had  been  informed  that 
the  young  man  had  been  dismissed  from  the 


Brazilian  squadron,  for  drunkenness.  ''And 
this  fact,"  he  said,  "  made  me  very  desirous  of 
his  removal  from  the  vessel,  chiefly  on  account 
of  the  young  men  who  were  to  mess  and  be 
associated  with  him,  the  rather  that  two  of 
them  were  connected  with  me  by  blood  and 
two  by  marriage  ;  and  all  four  intrusted  to  my 
especial  care."  After  the  deaths  he  wrote  of 
the  same  incident  in  these  words : 

"  The  circumstance  of  Mr.  Spencer's  being  the 
son  of  a  high  officer  of  the  government,  by  en- 
hancing his  baseness  in  my  estimation,  made  me 
more  desirous  to  be  rid  of  him.  On  this  point 
I  beg  that  I  may  not  be  misunderstood.  I  revere 
authority.  I  recognize,  in  the  exercise  of  its 
higher  functions  in  this  free  country,  the  evi- 
dences of  genius,  intelligence,  and  virtue  ;  but  I 
have  no  respect  for  the  base  son  of  an  honored 
father  ;  on  the  contrary,  I  consider  that  he  who, 
by  misconduct  sullies  the  lustre  of  an  honorable 
name,  is  more  culpable  than  the  unfriended  in- 
dividual whose  disgrace  falls  only  on  himself. 
I  wish,  however,  to  have  nothing  to  do  with 
baseness  in  any  shape ;  the  navy  is  not  the 
place  for  it.  On  these  accounts  I  readily  sought 
the  first  opportunity  of  getting  rid  of  Mr. 
Spencer." 

Here  the  word  base,  as  applicable  to  the  young 
Spencer,  occurs  three  times  in  a  brief  paragraph, 
and  this  baseness  is  given  as  the  reason  for 
wishing  to  get  the  young  man,  not  out  of  the 
ship,  but  out  of  the  navy  !  And  this  sentiment 
was  so  strong,  that  reverence  for  Spencer's 
father  could  not  control  it.  He  could  have  no- 
thing to  do  with  baseness.  The  navy  is  not  the 
place  for  it.  Now  all  this  was  written  after  the 
young  man  was  dead,  and  when  it  was  necessary 
to  make  out  a  case  of  justification  for  putting 
him,  not  out  of  the  ship,  nor  even  out  of  the  navy, 
but  out  of  the  world.  This  was  an  altered  state 
Of  the  case,  and  the  captain's  report  accommo- 
dated itself  to  this  alteration.  The  reasons  now 
given  go  to  the  baseness  of  the  young  man : 
those  which  existed  at  the  time,  went  to  the 
comfort  of  the  four  midshipmen,  connected  by 
blood  and  alliance  with  the  captain,  and  com- 
mitted to  his  special  care  :— as  if  all  in  the  ship 
were  not  committed  to  his  special  care,  and  that 
by  the  laws  of  the  land— and  without  preference 
to  relations.  The  captain  even  goes  into  an  ac- 
count of  his  own  high  moral  feelings  at  the  time, 
and  disregard  of  persons  high  in  power,  in  show- 
ing that  he  then  acted  upon  a  sense  of  Spencers 
baseness,  maugre  the  reverence  he  had  for  his 


548 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


father  and  his  cabinet  position.  Every  body 
sees  that  these  are  contradictions — that  all  this 
talk  about  baseness  is  after-talk — that  all  these 
fine  sentiments  are  of  subsequent  conception : 
in  fact,  that  the  first  reasons  were  those  of  the 
time,  before  he  expected  to  put  the  young  man 
to  death,  and  the  next  after  he  had  done  it ! 
and  when  the  deed  exacted  a  justification,  and 
that  at  any  cost  of  invention  and  fabrication. 
The  two  accounts  are  sufficient  to  establish  one 
of  those  errors  of  fact  which  the  law  considers 
as  discrediting  a  witness  in  all  that  he  says. 
But  it  is  not  all  the  proof  of  erroneous  state- 
ment which  the  double  relation  of  this  incident 
affords :  there  is  another,  equally  flagrant.  The 
captain,  in  his  after  account,  repulses  associa- 
tion with  baseness,  that  is  with  Spencer,  in  any 
shape  :  his  elaborate  report  superabounds  with 
expressions  of  the  regard  with  which  he  had 
treated  him  during  the  voyage,  and  even  ex- 
acts acknowledgment  of  his  kindness  while 
endeavoring  to  torture  out  of  him  confessions 
of  guilt. 

The  case  of  Spencer  was  now  over :  the  cases 
of  Small  and  Cromwell  were  briefly  despatched. 
The  commander  contrived  to  make  the  three 
victims  meet  in  a  narrow  way  going  to  the  sac- 
rifice, all  manacled  and  hobbling  along,  helped 
along,  for  they  could  not  walk,  by  persons 
appointed  to  that  duty.  Gansevoort  helped 
Spencer— a  place  to  which  he  had  entitled  him- 
self by  the  zeal  with  which  he  had  pursued  him. 
The  object  of  the  meeting  was  seen  in  the  use 
that  was  made  of  it.  It  was  to  have  a  scene 
of  crimination  and  recrimination  between  the 
prisoners,  in  which  mutual  accusations  were  to 
help  out  the  miserable  testimony  and  the  im- 
puted confessions.  They  are  all  made  to  stop 
together.  Spencer  is  made  to  ask  the  pardon 
of  Small  for  having  seduced  him :  Small  is  made 
to  answer,  and  with  a  look  of  horror — "  No,  by 
God  !  "  an  answer  very  little  in  keeping  with 
the  lowly  and  Christian  character  of  Small, 
and  rebutted  by  ample  negative  testimony :  for 
this  took  place  after  the  secret  whispering  was 
over,  and  in  the  presence  of  many.  Even  Gan- 
sevoort, in  giving  a  minute  account  of  this  in- 
terview, reports  nothing  like  it,  nor  any  thing 
on  which  it  could  be  founded.  Small  really 
seems  to  have  been  a  gentle  and  mild  man,  im- 
bued with  kind  and  pious  feelings,  and  no  part 
of  his  conduct  corresponds  with  the  brutal  an- 


swer to  Spencer  attributed  to  him.  When  asked 
if  he  had  any  message  to  send,  he  answered : 
"  I  have  nobody  to  care  for  me  but  a  poor  old 
mother,  and  I  had  rather  she  did  not  know  how 
I  died."  In  his  Bible  was  found  a  letter  from 
his  mother,  filled  with  affectionate  expressions. 
In  that  letter  the  mother  had  rejoiced  that  her 
son  was  contented  and  happy,  as  he  had  in- 
formed her;  upon  which  the  commander  ma- 
liciously remarked,  in  his  report,  "  that  was  be- 
fore his  acquaintance  with  Spencer."  There 
was  nothing  against  him,  but  in  the  story  of  the 
informer,  Wales.  He  instantly  admitted  his 
"  foolish  conversations  "  with  Spencer  when  ar- 
rested, but  said  it  was  no  mutiny.  When 
standing  under  the  ship  gallows  (yard-arm) 
he  began  a  speech  to  his  shipmates,  declar- 
ing his  innocence,  saying  "  I  am  no  pirate :  I 
never  murdered  any  body ! "  At  these  words 
Mackenzie  sung  out  to  Gansevoort,  "Is  that 
right?"  meaning,  ought  he  to  be  allowed  to 
speak  so  ?  He  was  soon  stopped,  and  Ganse- 
voort swears  he  said  "  he  deserved  his  punish- 
ment." Cromwell  protested  his  innocence  to 
the  last,  and  with  evident  truth.  When  ar- 
rested, he  declared  he  knew  nothing  about  the 
mutiny,  and  the  commander  told  him  he  was  to 
be  carried  home  with  Spencer  to  be  tried ;  to 
which  he  answered,  "I  assure  you  I  know 
nothing  about  it."  His  name  was  not  on  the 
razor-case  paper.  Spencer  had  declared  his 
ignorance  of  all  his  talk,  when  the  commander 
commenced  his  efforts,  under  the  ten  minutes' 
reprieve,  to  get  confessions,  and  when  Spencer 
said  to  him,  as  he  turned  off  to  go  to  Small  and 
Cromwell  with  the  ten  minutes'  news — the  first 
they  heard  of  it :  "  As  these  are  the  last  words  I 
have  to  say,  I  trust  they  will  be  believed :  Crom- 
well is  innocent."  When  told  his  doom,  he 
(Cromwell)  exclaimed,  "  God  of  the  Universe 
look  down  upon  me  ;  I  am  innocent !  Tell  my 
wife — tell  Lieutenant  Morris  I  die  innocent !  " 
The  last  time  that  Mackenzie  had  spoken  to 
him  before  was  to  tell  him  he  would  be  carried 
to  the  United  States  for  trial.  The  meeting  of 
the  three  victims  was  crowned  by  reporting 
them,  not  only  as  confessing,  and  admitting  the 
justice  of  their  deaths,  but  even  praising  it,  as 
to  the  honor  of  the  flag,  and — penitently  beg- 
ging pardon  and  forgiveness  from  the  com- 
mander and  his  lieutenant ! — and  they  merci- 
fully granting   the    pardon   and   forgiveness  ! 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


549 


The  original  record  says  there  were  no  "  hang- 
men "  on  board  the  ship :  but  that  made  no 
balk.  The  death  signal,  and  command,  were 
given  by  the  commander  and  his  lieutenant — 
the  former  firing  the  signal  gun  himself— the 
other  singing  out  "  whip ! "  at  which  word  the 
three  wretched  men  went  up  with  a  violent  jerk 
to  the  yard-arm.  There  is  something  unintel- 
ligible about  Cromwell  in  the  last  words  of  this 
original  "  record."  It  says :  "  S.  Small  stept  up. 
Cromwell  overboard,  rose  dipping  to  yard-arm." 
Upon  which  the  editor  remarks:  "The  above 
paper  of  Commander  Mackenzie  is  so  illegible, 
as  not  to  be  correctly  written  "  (copied).  Yet 
it  was  this  paper  that  Spencer  is  officially  re- 
ported to  have  read  while  waiting  to  be  jerked 
up,  and  to  have  agreed  to  its  correctness — and 
near  two-thirds  of  which  were  not  written  until 
after  his  death ! 

The  men  were  dead,  and  died  innocent,  as 
history  will  tell  and  show.  Why  such  conduct 
towards  them — not  only  the  killing,  but  the 
cruel  aggravations  ?  The  historian  Cooper,  in 
solving  this  question,  says  that  such  was  the 
obliquity  of  intellect  shown  by  Mackenzie  in  the 
whole  affair,  that  no  analysis  of  his  motives  can 
be  made  on  any  consistent  principle  of  human 
action.  This  writer  looks  upon  personal  re- 
sentment as  having  been  the  cause  of  the  deaths ; 
and  terror,  and  a  desire  to  create  terror,  the 
cause  of  the  aggravations.  Both  Spencer  and 
Cromwell  had  indulged  in  language  which  must 
have  been  peculiarly  offensive  to  a  man  of  the 
commander's  temperament,  and  opinion  of  him- 
self—an author,  an  orator,  a  fine  officer.  They 
habitually  spoke  of  him  before  the  crew,  as 
"  the  old  humbug — the  old  fool ; "  graceless 
epithets,  plentifully  garnished  with  the  prefix 
of  "  damned ; "  and  which  were  so  reported  to 
the  captain  (after  the  discovery  of  the  mutiny- 
never  before)  as  to  appear  to  him  to  be  "  blas- 
phemous vituperation."  This  is  the  only  tan- 
gible cause  for  hanging  Spencer  and  Cromwell, 
and  as  for  poor  Small,  it  would  seem  that  his 
knowledge  of  navigation,  and  the  necessity  of 
having  three  mutineers,  decided  his  fate :  for  his 
name  is  on  neither  of  the  three  lists  (though  on 
the  distribution  list),  and  he  frankly  told  the 
commander  of  Spencer's  foolish  conversations — 
always  adding,  it  was  no  mutiny.  These  are 
the  only  tangible,  or  visible  causes  for  putting 
the  men  to  death.     The  reason  for  doing  it  at 


the  time  it  was  done,  was  for  fear  of  losing  the 
excuse  to  do  it.  The  vessel  was  within  a  day 
and  a  half  of  St.  Thomas,  where  she  was  or- 
dered to  go — within  less  time  of  many  other 
islands  to  which  she  might  go — in  a  place  to  meet 
vessels  at  any  time,  one  of  which  she  saw  nearly 
in  her  course,  and  would  not  go  to  it.  The  ex- 
cuse for  not  going  to  these  near  islands,  or  join- 
ing the  vessel  seen,  was  that  it  was  disgraceful 
to  a  man-of-war  to  seek  protection  from  foreign- 
ers! as  if  it  was  more  honorable  to  murder  than 
to  take  such  protection.  But  the  excuse  was 
proved  to  be  false  ;  for  it  was  admitted  the  ves- 
sel seen  was  too  far  off  to  know  her  national 
character :  therefore,  she  was  not  avoided  as  a 
foreigner,  but  for  fear  she  might  be  American. 
The  same  of  the  islands  :  American  vessels  were 
sure  to  be  at  them,  and  therefore  these  islands 
were  not  gone  to.  It  was  therefore  indispensable 
to  do  the  work  before  they  got  to  St.  Thomas, 
and  all  the  machinery  of  new  arrests,  and  rescue 
was  to  justify  that  consummation.  And  as  for 
not  being  able  to  carry  the  ship  to  St.  Thomas, 
with  an  obedient  crew  of  100  men,  it  was  a  story 
not  to  be  told  in  a  service  where  Lieutenant 
John  Rodgers  and  Midshipman  Porter,  with  11 
men,  conducted  a  French  frigate  with  173  French 
prisoners,  three  days  and  nights,  into  safe  port. 
The  three  men  having  hung  until  they  ceased 
to  give  signs  of  life,  and  still  hanging  up,  the 
crew  were  piped  down  to  dinner,  and  to  hear  a 
speech  from  the  commander,  and  to  celebrate 
divine  service — of  which  several  performances 
the  commander  gives  this  account  in  his  official 
report : 

"  The  crew  were  now  piped  down  from  wit- 
nessing punishment,  and  all  hands  called  to 
cheer  ship.  I  gave  the  order,  '  stand  by  to  give 
three  hearty  cheers  for  the  flag  of  our  country ! ' 
Never  were  three  heartier  cheers  given.  In  that 
electric  moment  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  patriot- 
ism of  even  the  worst  of  the  conspirators  for  an 
instant  broke  forth.  I  felt  that  I  was  once  more 
completely  commander  of  the  vessel  which  had 
been  entrusted  to  me;  equal  to  do  with  her 
whatever  the  honor  of  my  country  might  re- 
quire. The  crew  were  now  piped  down  and 
piped  to  dinner.  I  noticed  with  pain  that  many 
of  the  boys,  as  they  looked  to  the  yard-arm,  in- 
dulged in  laughter  and  derision." 

He  also  gives  an  impressive  account  of  the 
religious  service  which  was  performed,  the  punc- 
tuality and  devotion  with  which  it  was  attend- 
ed, and  the  appropriate  prayer — that  of  thanks 


550 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


to  God  for  deliverance  from  a  great  danger — 
with  which  it  was  concluded. 

"The  service  was  then  read,  the  responses 
audibly  and  devoutly  made  by  the  officers  and 
crew,  and  the  bodies  consigned  to  the  deep. 
This  service  was  closed  with  that  prayer  so  ap- 
propriate to  our  situation,  appointed  to  be  read 
in  our  ships  of  war,  '  Preserve  us  from  the  dan- 
gers of  the  sea,  and  from  the  violence  of  ene- 
mies ;  that  we  may  be  a  safeguard  to  the  United 
States  of  America,  and  a  security  for  such  as 
pass  on  the  seas  upon  their  lawful  occasions; 
that  the  inhabitants  of  our  land  may  in  peace 
and  quietude  serve  thee  our  God ;  and  that  we 
may  return  in  safety  to  enjoy  the  blessings  of 
our  land,  with  the  fruits  of  our  labor,  with  a 
thankful  remembrance  of  thy  mercies,  to  praise 
and  glorify  thy  holy  name  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord.' " 

This  religious  celebration  concluded,  and  the 
prayer  read,  the  commander  indulges  in  a  re- 
mark upon  their  escape  from  a  danger  plotted 
before  the  ship  left  the  United  States,  as  unfeel- 
ing, inhuman  and  impious  at  the  time,  as  it  was 
afterwards  proved  to  be  false  and  wicked.  After 
the  arrest  of  Spencer,  the  delators  discovered 
that  he  had  meditated  these  crimes  before  he 
left  the  United  States,  and  had  let  his  intention 
become  known  at  a  house  in  the  Bowery  at  New 
York.  In  reference  to  that  early  inception  of 
the  plot,  now  just  found  out  by  the  commander, 
he  thus  remarks : 

"  In  reading  this  (prayer)  and  in  recollecting 
the  uses  to  which  the  Somers  had  been  destined, 
as  I  now  find,  before  she  quitted  the  waters  of 
the  United  States,  I  could  not  but  humbly  hope 
that  divine  sanction  would  not  be  wanting  to  the 
deed  of  that  day." 

Here  it  is  assumed  for  certain  that  piratical 
uses  were  intended  for  the  vessel  by  Spencer 
before  he  left  New  York;  and  upon  that  as- 
sumption the  favor  of  Heaven  was  humbly 
hoped  for  in  looking  down  upon  the  deed  of  that 
day.  Now  what  should  be  the  look  of  Heaven 
if  all  this  early  plotting  should  be  a  false  im- 
putation— a  mere  invention — as  it  was  proved 
to  be.  Before  the  court-martial  it  was  proved 
that  the  sailor  boarding-house  remark  about 
this  danger  to  the  Somers,  was  made  by  an- 
other person,  and  before  Spencer  joined  the  ves- 
sel— and  from  which  vessel  the  commander 
knew  he  had  endeavored  to  get  transferred  to 
the  Grampus,  after  he  had  come  into  her — the 
commander    himself   being    the  organ  of  his 


wishes.  Foiled  before  the  court  in  attaching 
this  boarding-house  remark  to  Spencer,  the  de- 
lators before  the  court  undertook  to  fasten  it  upon 
Cromwell:  there  again  the  same  fate  befell 
them :  the  remark  was  proved  to  have  been 
made  by  a  man  of  the  name  of  Phelps,  and  be- 
fore Cromwell  had  joined  the  vessel :  and  so 
ended  this  last  false  and  foul  insinuation  in  his 
report. 

The  commander  then  made  a  speech,  whereof 
he  incorporates  a  synopsis  in  his  report ;  and  of 
which,  with  its  capital  effects  upon  the  crew,  he 
gives  this  account : 

"The  crew  were  now  ordered  aft,  and  I 
addressed  them  from  the  trunk,  on  which  I 
was  standing.  I  called  their  attention  first  to 
the  fate  of  the  unfortunate  young  man,  whose 
ill-regulated  ambition,  directed  to  the  most  in- 
famous ends,  had  been  the  exciting  cause  of  the 
tragedy  they  had  just  witnessed.  I  spoke  of 
his  honored  parents,  of  his  distinguished  father, 
whose  talents  and  character  had  raised  him  to 
one  of  the  highest  stations  in  the  land,  to  be  one 
of  the  six  appointed  counsellors  of  the  repre- 
sentative of  our  national  sovereignty.  I  spoke 
of  the  distinguished  social  position  to  which 
this  young  man  had  been  born;  of  the  ad- 
vantages of  every  sort  that  attended  the  outset 
of  his  career,  and  of  the  professional  honors  to 
which  a  long,  steady,  and  faithful  perseverance 
in  the  course  of  duty  might  ultimately  have 
raised  him.  After  a  few  months'  service  at  sea, 
most  wretchedly  employed,  so  far  as  the  acquisi- 
tion of  professional  knowledge  was  concerned, 
he  had  aspired  to  supplant  me  in  a  command 
which  I  had  only  reached  after  nearly  30  years 
of  faithful  servitude  ;  and  for  what  object  I  had 
already  explained  to  them.  I  told  them  that 
their  future  fortunes  were  in  their  own  control : 
they  had  advantages  of  every  sort  and  in  an 
eminent  degree  for  the  attainment  of  professional 
knowledge.  The  situations  of  warrant  officers 
and  of  masters  in  the  navy  were  open  to  them. 
They  might  rise  to  commands  in  the  merchant  . 
service,  to  respectability,  to  competence,  and  to 
fortune ;  but  they  must  advance  regularly,  and 
step  by  step ;  every  step  to  be  sure,  must  be 
guided  by  truth,  honor,  and  fidelity.  I  called 
their  attention  to  Cromwell's  case.  He  must 
have  received  an  excellent  education,  his  hand- 
writing was  even  elegant.  But  he  had  also 
fallen  through  brutish  sensuality  and  the  greedy 
thirst  for  gold." 

But  there  was  another  speech  on  the  Sunday 
following,  of  which  the  commander  furnishes 
no  report,  but  of  which  some  parts  were  re- 
membered by  hearers — as  thus  by  McKee: 
— (the  judge  advocate  having  put  the  question 
to  him  whether  he  had  heard  the  commander's 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


551 


addresess  to  the  crew  after  the  execution).  An- 
swer :  "  I  heard  him  on  the  Sunday  after  the 
execution:  he  read  Mr.  Spencer's  letters:  he 
said  he  was  satisfied  the  young  man  had  been 
lying  to  him  for  half  an  hour  before  his  death." 
Another  witness  swore  to  the  same  words,  with 
the  addition,  "  that  he  died  with  a  lie  in  his 
mouth."  Another  witness  (Green)  gives  a  fur- 
ther view  into  this  letter-reading,  and  affords  a 
glimpse  of  the  object  of  such  a  piece  of  brutality. 
In  answer  to  the  same  question,  if  he  heard  the 
commander's  speech  the  Sunday  after  the  exe- 
cution ?  He  answered,  "  Yes,  sir.  I  heard  him 
read  over  Mr.  Spencer's  letter,  and  pass  a  good 
many  remarks  on  it.  He  said  that  Cromwell 
had  been  very  cruel  to  the  boys :  that  he  had 
called  him  aft,  and  spoke  to  him  about  it  seve- 
ral times.  To  the  question,  Did  he  say  any 
thing  of  Mr.  Spencer  ?  he  answered — "  Yes,  sir. 
He  said  he  left  his  friends,  lost  all  his  clothes, 
and  shipped  in  a  whaling  vessel."  To  the  ques- 
tion whether  any  thing  was  said  about  Mr. 
Spencer's  truth  or  falsehood?  he  answered: 
"  I  heard  the  commander  say,  this  young  man 
died  with  a  lie  in  his  mouth  ;  but  do  not  know 
whether  he  meant  Mr.  Spencer,  or  some  one  else." 
It  is  certain  the  commander  was  making  a  base 
use  of  these  letters,  as  he  makes  no  mention  of 
them  any  where,  and  they  seem  to  have  been 
used  solely  to  excite  the  crew  against  Cromwell 
and  Spencer. 

In  finding  the  mother's  letter  in  Small's 
bible,  the  captain  finds  occasion  to  make  two 
innuendos  against  the  dead  Spencer,  then  still 
hanging  up.     He  says  : 

"  She  expressed  the  joy  with  which  she  had 
learned  from  him  that  he  was  so  happy  on  board 
the  Somers  (at  that  time  Mr.  Spencer  had  not 
joined  her)  ;  that  no  grog  was  served  on  board 
of  her.  Within  the  folds  of  this  sacred  volume 
he  had  preserved  a  copy  of  verses  taken  from 
the  Sailor's  Magazine,  enforcing  the  value  of  the 
bible  to  seamen.  I  read  these  verses  to  the 
crew.  Small  had  evidently  valued  his  bible,  but 
could  not  resist  temptation." 

This  happiness  of  Small  is  discriminated  from 
his  acquaintance  with  Spencer:  it  was  before 
the  time  that  Spencer  joined  the  ship  !  as  if  his 
misery  began  from  that  time !  when  it  only 
commenced  from  the  time  he  was  seized  and 
ironed  for  mutiny.  Then  the  temptation  which 
he  could  not  resist,  innuendo,  tempted  by  Spen- 
cer— of  which  there  was  not  even  a  tangible  hear- 
say, and  no  temptation  necessary.     Poor  Small 


was  an  habitual  drunkard,  and  drank  all  that  he 
could  get— his  only  fault,  as  it  seems.  But  this 
bible  of  Small's  gave  occasion  to  another  speech, 
and  moral  and  religious  harangue,  of  which  the 
captain  gave  a  report,  too  long  to  be  noticed 
here  except  for  its  characteristics,  and  which  go 
to  elucidate  the  temper  and  state  of  mind  in 
which  things  were  done : 

"  I  urged  upon  the  youthful  sailors  to  cherish 
their  bibles  with  a  more  entire  love  than  Small 
had  done;  to  value  their  prayer  books  also; 
they  would  find  in  them  a  prayer  for  every  ne- 
cessity, however  great;  a  medicine  for  every 
ailment  of  the  mind.  I  endeavored  to  call  to 
their  recollection  the  terror  with  which  the 
three  malefactors  had  found  themselves  sudden- 
ly called  to  enter  the  presence  of  an  offended 
God.  No  one  who  had  witnessed  that  scene 
could  for  a  moment  believe  even  in  the  existence 
of  such  a  feeling  as  honest  Atheism :  a  disbelief 
in  the  existence  of  a  God.  They  should  also 
remember  that  scene.  They  should  also  remem- 
ber that  Mr.  Spencer,  in  his  last  moments,  had 
said  that  'he  had  wronged  many  people,  but 
chiefly  his  parents.'  From  these  two  circum- 
stances they  might  draw  two  useful  lessons :  a 
lesson  of  filial  piety,  and  of  piety  toward  God. 
With  these  two  principles  for  their  guides  they 
could  never  go  astray." 

This  speech  was  concluded  with  giving  cheers 
to  God,  not  by  actual  shouting,  but  by  singing 
the  hundredth  psalm,  and  cheering  again — all 
for  deliverance  from  the  hands  of  the  pirates. 
Thus: 

"  In  conclusion,  I  told  them  that  they  had 
shown  that  they  could  give  cheers  for  their 
country ;  they  should  now  give  cheers  to  their 
God,  for  they  would  do  this  when  they  sung 
praises  to  his  name.  The  colors  were  now 
hoisted,  and  above  the  American  ensign,  the  only 
banner  to  which  it  may  give  place,  the  banner 
of  the  cross.  The  hundredth  psalm  was  now 
sung  by  all  the  officers  and  crew.  After  which, 
the  usual  service  followed  ;  when  it  was  over,  I 
could  not  avoid  contrasting  the  spectacle  pre- 
sented on  that  day  by  the  Somers,  with  what 
it  would  have  been  in  pirates'  hands." 

During  all  this  time  the  four  other  men  in 
irons  sat  manacled  behind  the  captain,  and  he 
exults  in  telling  the  fine  effects  of  his  speaking 
on  these  "deeply  guilty,"  as  well  as  upon  all 
the  rest  of  the  ship's  crew. 

"  But  on  this  subject  I  forbear  to  enlarge.  I 
would  not  have  described  the  scene  at  all,  so 
different  from  the  ordinary  topics  of  an  official 
communication,  but  for  the  unwonted  circum- 
stances in  which  we  were  placed,  and  the  marked 


552 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


effect  which  it  produced  on  the  ship's  company, 
even  on  those  deeply  guilty  members  of  it  who 
sat  manacled  behind  me,  and  that  it  was  con- 
sidered to  have  done  much  towards  restoring 
the  allegiance  of  the  crew." 

Of  these  deeply  guilty,  swelled  to  twelve  be- 
fore the  ship  got  home,  three  appeared  before 
the  court-martial,  and  gave  in  their  experience 
of  that  day's  work.  McKee,  the  first  one,  testi- 
fies that  he  had  so  little  suspicion  of  what  was 
going  on,  that,  when  he  saw  the  commander 
come  upon  deck  in  full  uniform,  he  supposed 
that  some  ship  was  seen,  and  that  it  was  the  in- 
tention to  visit  or  speak  her.  To  the  question, 
what  passed  between  yourself  and  the  com- 
mander, after  the  execution?  he  answered: 
"  He  said  he  could  find  nothing  against  any  of 
the  four  that  were  then  in  irons — if  he  had 
found  any  proof  our  fate  would  have  been  the 
same ;  and  if  he  could  find  any  excuse  for  not 
taking  them  home  in  irons,  he  would  do  so.  I 
understood  him  to  mean  he  would  release  them 
from  their  irons."  Green,  another  of  them,  in 
answer  to  the  question  whether  the  commander 
spoke  to  him  after  hanging,  answered — "Yes, 
sir.  He  said  he  could  not  find  any  thing  against 
us ;  if  he  could,  our  fate  would  have  been  the 
same  as  the  other  three.  He  asked  me  if  I  was 
satisfied  with  it  ?  "  McKinley  was  the  third, 
and  to  the  same  question,  whether  the  com- 
mander spoke  to  him  on  the  day  of  the  execu- 
tions ?  he  answered — "  He  did  while  the  men 
were  hanging  at  the  yard  arm,  but  not  before. 
He  came  to  me,  and  said,  '  McKinley.  did  you 
hear  what  I  said  to  those  other  young  men  1 ' 
I  told  him,  '  No,  sir.'  '  Well,'  said  he,  '  it  is  the 
general  opinion  of  the  officers  that  you  are  a 
pretty  good  boy,  but  I  shall  have  to  take  you 
home  in  irons,  to  see  what  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  can  do  for  you.'  He  said:  'In  risking 
your  life  for  other  persons  (or  something  to 
that  effect)  is  all  that  saves  you.'  He  left  me 
then,  and  I  spoke  to  Mr.  Gansevoort — I  asked 
him  if  he  thought  the  commander  thought  I  was 
guilty  of  any  thing  of  the  kind.  He  said :  '  No, 
I  assure  you  if  he  did,  he  would  have  strung 
you  up.'  "  Wilson,  the  fourth  of  the  arrested, 
was  not  examined  before  the  court;  but  the 
evidence  of  three  of  them,  with  McKenzie's  re- 
fusal to  proceed  against  them  in  New  York,  and 
the  attempt  to  tamper  with  one  of  them,  is 
proof  enough  that  he  had  no  accusation  against 
these  four  men :  that  they  were  arrested  to  ful- 


fil the  condition  on  which  the  first  three  were 
to  be  hanged,  and  to  be  brought  home  in  irons 
with  eight  others,  to  keep  up  the  idea  of  mutiny. 
The  report  having  finished  the  history  of 
the  mutiny — its  detection,  suppression,  execu 
tion  of  the  ringleaders,  and  seizure  of  the  rest 
(twelve  in  all)  to  be  brought  home  in  bags  and 
irons — goes  on,  like  a  military  report  after  a 
great  victory,  to  point  out  for  the  notice  and 
favor  of  the  government,  the  different  officers 
and  men  who  had  distinguished  themselves  in 
the  affair,  and  to  demand  suitable  rewards  for 
each  one  according  to  his  station  and  merits. 
This  concluding  part  opened  thus  : 

"  In  closing  this  report,  a  pleasing,  yet  solemn 
duty  devolves  upon  me,  which  I  feel  unable  ade- 
quately to  fulfil — to  do  justice  to  the  noble  con- 
duct of  every  one  of  the  officers  of  the  Somers, 
from  the  first  lieutenant  to  the  commander's 
clerk,  who  has  also,  since  her  equipment,  per- 
formed the  duty  of  midshipman.  Throughout 
the  whole  duration  of  the  difficulties  in  which 
we  have  been  involved,  their  conduct  has  been 
courageous,  determined,  calm,  self-possessed — 
animated  and  upheld  always  by  a  lofty  and 
chivalrous  patriotism,  perpetually  armed  by 
day  and  by  night,  waking  and  sleeping,  with 
pistols  often  cocked  for  hours  together." 

The  commander,  after  this  general  encomium, 
brings  forward  the  distinguished,  one  by  one, 
beginning  of  course  with  his  first  lieutenant : 

"  I  cannot  forbear  to  speak  particularly  of 
Lieutenant  Gansevoort.  Next  to  me  in  rank  on 
board  the  Somers,  he  was  my  equal  in  every  re- 
spect to  protect  and  defend  her.  The  perfect 
harmony  of  our  opinions,  and  of  our  views  of 
what  should  be  done,  on  each  new  development 
of  the  dangers  which  menaced  the  integrity  of 
command,  gave  us  a  unity  of  action  that  added 
materially  to  our  strength.  Never  since  the 
existence  of  our  navy  has  a  commanding  officer 
been  more  ably  and  zealously  seconded  by  his 
lieutenant." 

Leaving  out  every  thing  minor,  and  depend- 
ent upon  the  oaths  of  others,  there  are  some 
things  sworn  to  by  Gansevoort  himself  which 
derogate  from  his  chivalrous  patriotism.  First, 
going  round  to  the  officers  who  were  to  sit  in 
council  upon  the  three  prisoners,  and  taking 
their  agreement  to  execute  the  three  on  hand  if 
more  arrests  were  made.'  Secondly,  encourag- 
ing and  making  those  arrests  on  which  the  lives 
of  the  three  depended.  Thirdly,  going  out  of 
the  council  to  obtain  from  Spencer  further 
proofs  of  his  guilt — Spencer  not  knowing  for 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


553 


what  purpose  he  was  thus  interrogated. 
Fourthly,  his  calmness  and  self-possession  were 
shown  in  the  fire  of  his  pistol  while  assisting 
to  arrest  Cromwell,  and  in  that  consternation 
inspired  in  him  at  the  running  towards  where 
he  was  of  a  cluster  of  the  apprentice  bo}rs, 
scampering  on  to  avoid  the  boatswain's  colt — a 
slender  cord  to  whip  them  over  the  clothes, 
like  a  switch.  Midshipman  Rodgers  had  gone 
aft,  or  forward,  as  the  case  may  be,  to  drive  a 
parcel  of  these  boys  to  their  duty,  taking  the 
boatswain  along  to  apply  his  colt  to  all  the 
hindmost.  Of  course  the  boys  scampered  brisk- 
ly to  escape  the  colt.  The  lieutenant  heard 
them  coming — thought  they  were  the  mutineers 
— sung  out,  God  !  they  are  coming — levelled  his 
revolver,  and  was  only  prevented  from  giving 
them  the  contents  of  the  six  barrels,  had  they 
not  sung  out  "  It  is  me — it  is  me ; "  for  that  is 
what  the  witnesses  stated.  But  the  richness 
of  the  scene  can  only  be  fully  seen  from  the 
lieutenant's  own  account  of  it,  which  he  gave 
before  the  court  with  evident  self-satisfaction : 
"  The  commander  and  myself  were  standing  on 
the  larboard  side  of  the  quarter  deck,  at  the 
after  end  of  the  trunk:  we  were  in  conversa- 
tion :  it  was  dark  at  the  time.  I  heard  an  un- 
usual noise — a  rushing  aft  toward  the  quarter 
deck :  I  said  to  the  commander,  '  G  od !  I  be- 
lieve they  are  coming.'  I  had  one  of  Colt's 
pistols,  which  I  immediately  drew  and  cocked  : 
the  commander  said  his  pistols  were  below.  I 
jumped  on  the  trunk,  and  ran  forward  to  meet 
them.  As  I  was  going  along  I  sung  out  to 
them  not  to  come  aft.  I  told  them  I  would 
blow  the  first  man's  brains  out  who  would  put 
his  foot  on  the  quarter  deck.  I  held  my  pistol 
pointed  at  the  tallest  man  that  I  saw  in  the 
starboard  gangway,  and  I  think  Mr.  Rodgers 
sung  out  to  me,  that  he  was  sending  the  men 
aft  to  the  mast  rope.  I  then  told  them  they 
must  have  no  such  unusual  movements  on  board 
the  vessel :  what  they  did,  they  must  do  in  their 
usual  manner  :  they  knew  the  state  of  the  ves- 
sel, and  might  get  their  brains  blown  out  before 
they  were  aware  of  it.  Some  other  short  re- 
marks, I  do  not  recollect  at  this  time  what  they 
were,  and  ordered  them  to  come  aft  and  man 
the  mast  rope:  to  move  quietly."  To  finish 
this  view  of  Mr.  Gansevoort's  self-possession, 
and  the  value  of  his  "  beliefs,"  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  know  that,  besides  letting  off  his  pistol 
when  Cromwell  was  arrested,  he  swore  before 


the  court  that,  "I  had  an  idea  that  he  (Crom- 
well) meant  to  take  me  overboard  with  him," 
when  they  shook  hands  under  the  gallows  yard 
arm,  and  under  that  idea,  "  turned  my  arm  to 
get  clear  of  his  grasp." 

The  two  non-combatants,  purser  Heiskill  and 
assistant  surgeon  Leecock,  come  in  for  high  ap- 
plause, although  for  the  low  business  of  watch- 
ing the  crew  and  guarding  the  prisoners.  The 
report  thus  brings  them  forward  : 

"  Where  all,  without  exception,  have  behaved 
admirably,  it  might  seem  invidious  to  particu- 
larize :  yet  I  cannot  refrain  calling  your  atten- 
tion to  the  noble  conduct  of  purser  II.  W.  Heis- 
kill, and  passed  assistant  surgeon  Leecock,  for 
the  services  which  they  so  freely  yielded  be- 
yond the  sphere  of  their  immediate  duties." 

The  only  specification  of  this  noble  conduct, 
and  of  these  services  beyond  their  proper 
sphere,  which  is  given  in  the  report,  is  con- 
tained in  this  sentence : 

"  Both  he  and  Mr.  Heiskill  cheerfully  obeyed 
my  orders  to  go  perpetually  armed,  to  keep 
a  regular  watch,  to  guard  the  prisoners :  the 
worst  wreather  could  not  drive  them  from  their 
posts,  or  draw  from  their  lips  a  murmur." 

To  these  specifications  of  noble  conduct,  and 
extra  service,  might  have  been  added  those  of 
eaves-dropping  and  delation — capacity  to  find 
the  same  symptoms  of  guilt  in  opposite  words 
and  acts — sitting  in  council  to  judge  three 
men  whom  they  had  agreed  with  Ganscvoort 
two  days  before  to  hang  if  necessary  to  make 
more  arrests,  and  which  arrests,  four  in  num- 
ber, were  made  with  their  concurrence  and  full 
approbation.  Finally,  he  might  have  told  that 
this  Heiskill  was  a  link  in  the  chain  of  the  reve- 
lation of  the  mutinous  and  piratical  plot.  He 
was  the  purser  of  whom  Wales  was  the  stew- 
ard, and  to  whom  Wales  revealed  the  plot — ho 
then  revealing  to  Gansevoort — and  Gansevoort 
to  Mackenzie.  It  was,  then,  through  his  subor- 
dinate (and  who  was  then  stealing  his  liquor) 
and  himself  that  the  plot  was  detected. 

A  general  presentation  of  government  thanks 
to  all  the  officers,  is  next  requested  by  the  lieu- 
tenant : 

"  I  respectfully  request  that  the  thanks  of  the 
Navy  Department  may  be  presented  to  all  the 
officers  of  the  Somers,  for  their  exertions  in  the 
critical  situation  in  which  she  has  been  placed. 
It  is  true  they  have  but  performed  their  duty, 
but  they  have  performed  it  with  fidelity  and 
zeal." 


554 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


The  purser's  steward,  Wales,  is  then  special- 
ly and  encomiastically  presented,  and  a  specific 
high  reward  solicited  for  him  : 

"  I  respectfully  submit,  that  Mr.  J.  W.  Wales, 
by  his  coolness,  his  presence  of  mind,  and  his 
fidelity,  has  rendered  to  the  American  navy  a 
memorable  service.  I  had  a  trifling  difficulty 
with  him,  not  discreditable  to  his  character,  on 
the  previous  cruise  to  Porto  Rico — on  that  ac- 
count he  was  sought  out,  and  tampered  with. 
But  he  was  honest,  patriotic,  humane ;  he  re- 
sisted temptation,  was  faithful  to  his  flag,  and 
was  instrumental  in  saving  it  from  dishonor. 
A  pursership  in  the  navy,  or  a  handsome  pecu- 
niary reward,  would  after  all  be  an  inconsider- 
able recompense,  compared  with  the  magnitude 
of  his  services." 

Of  this  individual  the  commander  had  pre- 
viously reported  a  contrivance  to  make  a  mis- 
take in  doubling  the  allowed  quantity  of  brandy 
carried  out  on  the  cruise,  saying :  "  By  accident, 
as  it  was  thought  at  the  time,  but  subsequent 
developments  would  rather  go  to  prove  by  de- 
sign, he  (Wales)  had  contrived  to  make  a  mis- 
take, and  the  supply  of  brandy  was  ordered 
from  two  different  groceries  ;  thus  doubling  the 
quantity  intended  to  be  taken."  Of  this  dou- 
ble supply  of  brandy  thus  contrived  to  be  taken 
out,  the  commander  reports  Wales  for  continual 
"stealing"  of  it — always  adding  that  he  was 
seduced  into  these  "thefts"  by  Spencer.  Be- 
ing a  temperance  man,  the  commander  eschews 
the  use  of  this  brandy  on  board,  except  furtive- 
ly for  the  corruption  of  the  crew  by  Spencer 
through  the  seduction  of  the  steward :  thus : 
"  None  of  the  brandy  was  used  in  the  mess,  and 
all  of  it  is  still  on  board  except  what  was  stolen 
by  the  steward  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Spencer, 
and  drank  by  him,  and  those  he  endeavored  to 
corrupt."  By  his  own  story  this  Wales  comes 
under  the  terms  of  Lord  Hale's  idea  of  a  "  des- 
perate villain  " — a  fellow  who  joins  in  a  crime, 
gets  the  confidence  of  accomplices,  then  informs 
upon  them,  gets  them  hanged,  and  receives  a 
reward.  This  was  the  conduct  of  Wales  upon 
his  own  showing :  and  of  such  informers  the 
pious  and  mild  Lord  Hale  judicially  declared 
his  abhorrence — held  their  swearing  unworthy 
of  credit  unless  corroborated — said  that  they 
had  done  more  mischief  in  getting  innocent  peo- 
ple punished  than  they  had  ever  done  good  in 
bringing  criminals  to  justice.  Upon  this  view 
of  his  conduct,  then,  this  Wales  comes  under 
the  legal  idea  of  a  desperate  villain.    Legal  pre- 


sumptions would  leave  him  in  this  category ; 
but  the  steward  and  the  commander  have  not 
left  it  there.  They  have  lifted  a  corner  of  the 
curtain  which  conceals  an  unmentionable  trans- 
action, to  which  these  two  persons  were  parties 
— which  was  heard  of,  but  not  understood  by 
the  crew — which  was  hugger-muggered  into  a 
settlement  between  them  about  the  time  of 
Spencer's  arrest,  though  originating  the  pre- 
ceding cruise — which  neither  would  explain — 
which  no  one  could  name — and  of  which  Heis- 
kill,  the  intermediate  between  his  steward  and 
the  commander,  could  know  nothing  except 
that  it  was  of  a  "delicate  nature,"  and  that  it 
had  been  settled  between  them.  The  first  hint 
of  this  mysterious  transaction  was  in  the  com- 
mander's report — in  his  proud  commendation 
of  this  steward  for  a  pursership  in  the  United 
States  Navy — and  evidently  to  rehabilitate  his 
witness,  and  to  get  a  new  lick  at  Spencer.  The 
hint  runs  thus  :  "  I  had  a  trifling  difficulty,  not 
discreditable  to  his  character,  on  the  previous 
cruise  to  Porto  Rico."  On  the  trial  the  purser 
Heiskill  was  interrogated  as  to  the  nature  of 
this  difficulty  between  his  subordinate  and  his 
superior.  To  the  question — "  Did  he  know  any 
thing,  and  what,  about  a  misunderstanding  be- 
tween the  steward  and  the  commander  at  Por- 
to Rico  ?  "  he  answered,  "  he  knew  there  was  a 
misunderstanding,  which  Wales  told  him  was 
explained  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  commander." 
To  the  further  question,  "  Was  it  of  a  delicate 
nature  ?  "  the  answer  was,  "  yes,  sir."  To  the 
further  question,  as  to  the  time  when  this  mis- 
understanding was  settled  ?  the  purser  an- 
swered :  "  I  do  not  know — some  time  since,  I 
believe."  Asked  if  it  was  before  the  arrest? 
he  answers  :  "  I  think  Mr.  Wales  spoke  of  this 
matter  before  the  arrest."  Pressed  to  tell,  if  it 
was  shortly  before  the  arrest,  the  purser  would 
neither  give  a  long  nor  a  short  time,  but  ignored 
the  inquiry  with  the  declaration,  "  I  won't  pre- 
tend to  fix  upon  a  time."  Wales  himself  inter- 
rogated before  the  court,  as  to  the  fact  of  this 
misunderstanding,  and  also  as  to  what  it  was  ? 
admitted  the  fact,  but  refused  its  disclosure. 
His  answer,  as  it  stands  in  the  official  report  of 
the  trial  is :  "I  had  a  difficulty,  but  decline  to 
explain  it."  And  the  obliging  court  submitted 
to  the  contempt  of  this  answer. 

Left  without  information  in  a  case  so  myste- 
rious, and  denied  explanation  from  those  who 
could  give  it,  history  can  only  deal  with  the 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


555 


facts  as  known,  and  with  the  inferences  fairly 
resulting  from  them ;  and,  therefore,  can  only- 
say,  that  there  was  an  old  affair  between  the 
commander  and  the  purser's  steward,  originat- 
ing in  a  previous  voyage,  and  settled  in  this 
one,  and  settled  before  the  arrest  of  midship- 
man Spencer  ;  and  secondly,  that  the  affair  was 
of  so  delicate  a  nature  as  to  avoid  explanation 
from  either  party.  Now  the  word  "  delicate  " 
in  this  connection,  implies  something  which  can- 
not be  discussed  without  danger — something 
which  will  not  bear  handling,  or  exposure — and 
in  which  silence  and  reserve  are  the  only  es- 
capes from  a  detection  worse  than  any  suspi- 
cion. And  thus  stands  before  history  the  in- 
former upon  the  young  Spencer — the  thief  of 
brandies,  the  desperate  villain  according  to 
Lord  Hale's  classification,  and  the  culprit  of 
unmentionable  crime,  according  to  his  own  im- 
plied admission.  Yet  this  man  is  recommended 
for  a  pursership  in  the  United  States  navy,  or  a 
handsome  pecuniary  reward;  while  any  court 
in  Christendom  would  have  committed  him  for 
perjury,  on  his  own  showing,  in  his  swearing 
before  the  court-martial. 

Sergeant  Michael  H.  Garty  is  then  brought 
forward ;  thus : 

"  Of  the  conduct  of  Sergeant  Michael  H.  Gar- 
ty (of  the  marines)  I  will  only  say  it  was  wor- 
thy of  the  noble  corps  to  which  he  has  the 
honor  to  belong.  Confined  to  his  hammock 
by  a  malady  which  threatened  to  be  dangerous, 
at  the  moment  when  the  conspiracy  was  dis- 
covered, he  rose  upon  his  feet  a  well  man. 
Throughout  the  whole  period,  from  the  day  of 
Mr.  Spencer's  arrest  to  the  day  after  our  arrival, 
and  until  the  removal  of  the  mutineers,  his  con- 
duct was  calm,  steady,  and  soldierlike.  But 
when  his  duty  was  done,  and  health  was  no 
longer  indispensable  to  its  performance,  his 
malady  returned  upon  him.  and  he  is  still  in  his 
hammock.  In  view  of  this  fine  conduct,  I  re- 
spectfully recommend  that  Sergeant  Garty  be 
promoted  to  a  second  lieutenancy  in  the  ma- 
rine corps.  Should  I  pass  without  dishonor 
through  the  ordeal  which  probably  awaits  me, 
and  attain  in  due  time  to  the  command  of  a 
vessel  entitled  to  a  marine  officer,  I  ask  no  bet- 
ter fortune  than  to  have  the  services  of  Ser- 
geant Garty  in  that  capacity." 

Now  here  is  something  like  a  miracle.  A 
bedridden  man  to  rise  up  a  well  man  the  mo- 
ment his  country  needed  his  services,  and  to 
remain  a  well  man  to  the  last  moment  those 
services  required,  and  then  to  fall  down  a  bed- 
ridden man  again.     Such  a  miracle  implies  a 


divine  interposition  which  could  only  be  bot- 
tomed on  a  full  knowledge  of  the  intended 
crime,  and  a  special  care  to  prevent  it.  It  is 
quite  improbable  in  itself  and  its  verity  entire- 
ly marred  by  answers  of  this  sergeant  to  cer- 
tain questions  before  the  court-martial.  Thus : 
"  When  were  you  on  the  sick  list  in  the  last 
cruise  ?  "  Answer :  "  I  was  twice  on  the  list : 
the  last  time  about  two  days."  Now  these  two 
days  must  be  that  hammock  confinement  from 
the  return  of  the  malady  which  immediately 
ensued  on  the  removal  of  the  mutineers  (the 
twelve  from  the  Somers  to  the  North  Carolina 
guardship  at  New  York),  and  which  seemed  as 
chronic  and  permanent  as  it  was  before  the 
arrest.  Questioned  further,  whether  he  "re- 
mained in  his  hammock  the  evening  of  Spen- 
cer's arrest  ?  "  the  answer  is,  "  Yes,  sir :  I  was 
in  and  out  of  it  all  that  night."  So  that  the 
rising  up  a  well  man  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  so  instantaneous  as  the  commander's  re- 
port would  imply.  The  sergeant  gives  no  ac- 
count of  this  malady  which  confined  him  to  his 
hammock  in  the  marvellous  way  the  commander 
reports.  He  never  mentioned  it  until  it  was 
dragged  out  of  him  on  cross-examination.  He 
was  on  the  sick  list.  That  does  not  imply  bed- 
ridden. Men  are  put  on  the  sick  list  for  a 
slight  indisposition  :  in  fact,  to  save  them  from 
sickness.  Truth  is,  this  Garty  seems  to  have 
been  one  of  the  class  of  which  every  service 
contains  some  specimens — scamps  who  have  a 
pain,  and  get  on  the  sick  list  when  duty  runs 
hard ;  and  who  have  no  pain,  and  get  on  the 
well  list,  as  soon  as  there  is  something  pleasant 
to  do.  In  this  case  the  sergeant  seems  to  have 
had  a  pleasant  occupation  from  the  alacrity 
with  which  he  fulfilled  it,  and  from  the  happy 
relief  which  it  procured  him  from  his  malady 
as  long  as  it  lasted.  That  occupation  was  su- 
perintendent of  the  bagging  business.  It  was 
he  who  attended  to  the  wearing  and  fitting  of 
the  bags— seeing  that  they  were  punctually  put 
on  when  a  prisoner  was  made,  tightly  tied  over 
the  head  of  nights,  and  snugly  drawn  round  the 
neck  during  the  day.  To  this  was  added  eaves- 
dropping and  delating,  and  swearing  before  all 
the  courts,  and  in  this  style  before  the  council 
of  officers :  "  Thinks  there  are  some  persons  at 
large  that  would  voluntarily  assist  the  prisoners 
if  they  had  an  opportunity."-"  Thinks  if  the 
prisoners  were  at  large  the  brig  would  certainly 
be  in  great  danger."-"  Thinks  there  are  per- 


556 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


sons  adrift  yet,  who.  if  opportunity  offered, 
would  rescue  the  prisoners." — "  Thinks  the 
vessel  would  be  safer  if  Cromwell,  Spencer,  and 
Small  were  put  to  death." — K  Thinks  Cromwell 
a  desperate  fellow." — "  Thinks  their  object 
(that  of  Cromwell  and  Spencer),  in  taking 
slavers,  would  be  to  convert  them  to  their  own 
use,  and  not  to  suppress  the  slave  trade." 
All  this  was  swearing  like  a  sensible  witness, 
who  knew  what  was  wanted,  and  would  furnish 
it.  It  covered  all  the  desired  points.  More 
arrests  were  wanted  at  that  time  to  justify  the 
hanging  of  the  prisoners  on  hand :  he  thinks 
more  arrests  ought  to  be  made.  The  fear  of  a 
rescue  was  wanted :  he  thinks  there  will  be  a 
rescue  attempted.  The  execution  of  the  pris- 
oners is  wanted  :  he  thinks  the  vessel  would  be 
safer  if  they  were  all  three  put  to  death.  And 
it  was  for  these  noble  services — bagging  pris- 
oners, eavesdropping,  delating,  swearing  to  what 
was  wanted — that  this  sergeant  had  his  marvel- 
lous rise-up  from  a  hammock,  and  was  now 
recommended  for  an  officer  of  marines.  His- 
tory repulses  the  marvel  which  the  commander 
reports.  A  kind  Providence  may  interpose  for 
the  safety  of  men  and  ships,  but  not  through 
an  agent  who  is  to  bag  and  suffocate  innocent 
men — to  eaves-drop  and  delate — to  swear  in 
all  places,  and  just  what  was  wanted — all  by 
thoughts,  and  without  any  thing  to  bottom  a 
thought  upon.  Certainly  this  Sergeant  Garty, 
from  his  stomach  for  swearing,  must  have  some- 
thing in  common,  besides  nativity,  with  Mr. 
Jommy  O'Brien ;  and,  from  his  alacrity  and 
diligence  in  taking  care  of  prisoners,  would 
seem  to  have  come  from  the  school  of  the  fa- 
mous Major  Sirr,  of  Irish  rebellion  memory. 

Mr.  0.  H.  Perry,  the  commander's  clerk  and 
nephew,  the  same  whose  blunder  in  giving  the 
order  about  the  mast,  occasioned  it  to  break ; 
and,  in  breaking,  to  become  a  sign  of  the  plot- 
ting, mutiny,  and  piracy;  and  the  same  that 
held  the  watch  to  mark  the  ten  minutes  that 
Spencer  was  to  live :  this  young  gentleman  was 
not  forgotten,  but  came  in  liberally  for  praise 
and  spoil — the  spoil  of  the  young  man  whose 
messmate  he  had  been,  against  whom  he  had 
testified,  and  whose  minutes  he  had  counted, 
and  proclaimed  when  out : 

"  If  I  shall  be  deemed  by  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment to  have  had  any  merit  in  preserving  the 
Somers  from  those  treasonable  toils  by  which 
she  had  been  surrounded  since  and  before  her 


departure  from  the  United  States,  I  respectfully 
request  that  it  may  accrue  without  reservation 
for  my  nephew  0.  H.  Perry,  now  clerk  on  board 
the  Somers,  and  that  his  name  may  be  placed 
on  the  register  in  the  name  left  vacant  by  the 
treason  of  Mr.  Spencer.  I  think,  under  the  pe- 
culiar circumstances  of  the  case,  an  act  of  Con- 
gress, if  necessary,  might  be  obtained  to  au- 
thorize the  appointment." 

All  these  recommendations  for  reward  and 
promotion,  bespeak  an  obliquity  of  mental 
vision,  equivalent  to  an  aberration  of  the  mind  ; 
and  this  last  one,  obliquitous  as  any,  superadds 
an  extinction  of  the  moral  sense  in  demanding 
the  spoil  of  the  slain  for  the  reward  of  a  nephew 
who  had  promoted  the  death  of  which  he  was 
claiming  the  benefit.  The  request  was  revolt- 
ing !  and,  what  is  equally  revolting,  it  was 
granted.  But  worse  still.  An  act  of  Congress 
at  that  time  forbid  the  appointment  of  more 
midshipmen,  of  which  there  were  then  too 
many,  unless  to  fill  vacancies :  hence  the  re- 
quest of  the  commander,  that  his  nephew's 
name  may  take  the  place  in  the  Navy  Register 
of  the  name  left  vacant  by  the  "  treason "  of 
Mr.  Spencer ! 

The  commander,  through  all  his  witnesses, 
had  multiplied  proofs  on  the  attempts  of  Spen- 
cer to  corrupt  the  crew  by  largesses  lavished 
upon  them — such  as  tobacco,  segars,  nuts,  six- 
pences thrown  among  the  boys,  and  two  bank- 
notes given  to  Cromwell  on  the  coast  of  Africa 
to  send  home  to  his  wife  before  the  bank  failed. 
Now  what  were  the  temptations  on  the  other 
side  ?  What  the  inducements  to  the  witnesses 
and  actors  in  this  foul  business  to  swear  up  to 
the  mark  which  Mackenzie's  acquittal  and  their 
promotion  required  fi  The  remarks  of  Mr.  Fen- 
imore  Cooper,  the  historian,  here  present  them- 
selves as  those  of  an  experienced  man  speaking 
with  knowledge  of  the  subject,  and  acquaintance 
with  human  nature : 

"  While  on  this  point  we  will  show  the  ex- 
tent of  the  temptations  that  were  thus  incon- 
siderately placed  before  the  minds  of  these  men 
— what  preferment  they  had  reason  to  hope 
would  be*  accorded  to  them  should  Mackenzie's 
conduct  be  approved,  viz. :  Garty,  from  the 
ranks,  to  be  an  officer,  with  twenty-five  dollars 
per  month,  and  fifty  cents  per  diem  rations : 
and  the  prospect  of  promotion.  Wales,  from 
purser's  steward,  at  eighteen  dollars  a  month, 
to  quarter-deck  rank,  and  fifteen  hundred  dol- 
lars per  annum.  Browning,  Collins,  and  Stew- 
art, petty  officers,  at  nineteen  dollars  a  month, 
to  be  boatswains,  with  seven  hundred  dollars 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


557 


per  annum.  King,  Anderson,  and  Rogers,  pet- 
ty officers,  at  nineteen  dollars  a  month,  to  be 
gunners,  at  seven  hundred  dollars  per  annum. 
Dickinson,  petty  officer,  at  nineteen  dollars  a 
month,  to  be  carpenter,  with  seven  hundred 
dollars  per  annum." 

Such  was  the  list  of  temptations  placed  before 
the  witnesses  by  Commander  Mackenzie,  and 
which  it  is  not  in  human  nature  to  suppose 
were  without  their  influence  on  most  of  the 
persons  to  whom  they  were  addressed. 

The  commander  could  not  close  his  list  of 
recommendations  for  reward  without  saying 
something  of  himself.  He  asked  for  nothing 
specifically,  but  expected  approbation,  and 
looked  forward  to  regular  promotion,  while 
gratified  at  the  promotions  which  his  subordi- 
nates should  receive,  and  which  would  redound 
to  his  own  honor.  He  did  not  ask  for  a  court 
of  inquiry,  or  a  court-martial,  but  seemed  to  ap- 
prehend, and  to  deprecate  them.  The  Secreta- 
ry of  the  Navy  immediately  ordered  a  court  of 
inquiry — a  court  of  three  officers  to  report  upon 
the  facts  of  the  case,  and  to  give  their  opinion. 
There  was  no  propriety  in  this  proceeding. 
The  facts  were  admitted,  and  the  law  fixed  their 
character.  Three  prisoners  had  been  hanged 
without  trial,  and  the  law  holds  that  to  be 
murder  until  reduced  by  a  judicial  trial  to  a 
lower  degree  of  offence — to  manslaughter,  ex- 
cusable, or  justifiable  homicide.  The  finding 
of  the  court  was  strongly  in  favor  of  the  com- 
mander; and  unless  this  finding  and  opinion 
were  disapproved  by  the  President,  no  further 
military  proceeding  should  be  had — no  court- 
martial  ordered — the  object  of  the  inquiry  be- 
ing to  ascertain  whether  there  was  necessity 
for  one.  The  necessity  being  negatived,  and 
that  opinion  approved  by  the  President,  there 
was  no  military  rule  of  action  which  could  go 
on  to  a  court-martial :  to  the  general  astonish- 
ment such  a  court  was  immediately  ordered — 
and  assembled  with  such  precipitation  that  the 
judge  advocate  was  in  no  condition  to  go  on 
with  the  trial ;  and,  up  to  the  third  day  of  its 
sitting,  was  without  the  means  of  proceeding 
with  the  prosecution;  and  for  his  justification 
in  not  being  able  to  go  on,  and  in  asking  some 
delay,  the  judge  advocate,  Win.  H.  Norris,  Esq., 
of  Baltimore,  submitted  to  the  court  this  state- 
ment in  writing : 

"  The  judge  advocate  states  to  the  court  that 
he  has  not  been  furnished  by  the  department, 


as  yet,  with  any  list  of  witnesses  on  the  part 
of  the  government :  that  he  has  had  no  oppor- 
tunity of  conversing  with  any  of  the  witnesses, 
of  whose  names  he  is  even  entirely  ignorant, 
except  by  rumor  in  respect  to  a  few  of  them ; 
and  that,  therefore,  he  would  need  time  to  pre- 
pare the  case  by  conversation  with  the  officers 
and  crew  of  the  brig  Somers,  before  he  can  com- 
mence the  case  on  the  part  of  the  government. 
The  judge  advocate  has  issued  two  subpoenas, 
duces  tecum,  for  the  record  in  the  case  of  the 
court  of  inquiry  into  the  alleged  mutiny,  which 
have  not  yet  been  returned,  and  by  which  re- 
cord he  could  have  been  notified  of  the  wit- 
nesses and  facts  to  constitute  the  case  of  the 
government." 

The  judge  advocate  then  begged  a  delay, 
which  was  granted,  until  eleven  o'clock  the 
next  day.  Here  then  was  a  precipitation,  un- 
heard of  in  judicial  proceedings,  and  wholly  in- 
compatible with  the  idea  of  any  real  prosecu- 
tion. The  cause  of  this  precipitancy  becomes  a 
matter  of  public  inquiry,  as  the  public  interest 
requires  the  administration  of  justice  to  be  fair 
and  impartial.  The  cause  of  it  then  was  this : 
The  widow  of  Cromwell,  to  whom  he  had  sent 
his  last  dying  message,  that  he  was  innocent, 
undertook  to  have  Mackenzie  prosecuted  before 
the  civil  tribunals  for  the  murder  of  her  hus- 
band. She  made  three  attempts,  all  in  vain. 
One  judge,  to  whom  an  application  for  a  war- 
rant was  made,  declined  to  grant  it,  on  the 
ground  that  he  was  too  much  occupied  with 
other  matters  to  attend  to  that  case — giving  a 
written  answer  to  that  effect.  A  commissioner 
of  the  United  States,  appointed  to  issue  war- 
rants in  all  criminal  cases,  refused  one  in  this 
case,  because,  as  he  alleged,  he  had  no  authori- 
ty to  act  in  a  military  case.  The  attempt  was 
then  made  in  the  United  States  district  court, 
New  York,  to  get  the  Grand  Jury  to  find  an 
indictment :  the  court  instructed  the  jury  that 
it  was  not  competent  for  a  civil  tribunal  to  in- 
terfere with  matters  which  were  depending  be- 
fore a  naval  tribunal :  in  consequence  of  which 
instruction  the  bill  was  ignored.  Upon  this 
instruction  of  the  court  the  historian,  Cooper, 
well  remarks  :  "  That  after  examining  the  sub- 
ject at  some  length,  we  are  of  opinion  that  the 
case  belonged  exclusively  to  the  civil  tribunals." 
Here,  then,  is  the  reason  why  Mackenzie  was 
run  so  precipitately  before  the  court-martial. 
It  was  to  shelter  him  by  an  acquittal  there : 
and  so  apprehensive  was  he  of  being  got  hold 
of  by  some  civil  tribunal,  before  the  court-mar- 


558 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


tial  could  be  organized,  that  he  passed  the  in- 
tervening days  between  the  two  courts  "  in  a 
bailiwick  where  the  ordinary  criminal  process 
could  not  reach  him." — (Cooper's  Review  of 
the  Trial.)  When  the  trial  actually  came  on, 
the  judge  advocate  was  about  as  bad  off  as  he 
was  the  first  day.  He  had  a  list  of  witnesses. 
They  were  Mackenzie's  officers — and  refused  to 
converse  with  him  on  the  nature  of  their  testi- 
mony. He  stated  their  refusal  to  the  court — 
declared  himself  without  knowledge  to  conduct 
the  case — and  likened  himself  to  a  new  comer 
in  a  house,  having  a  bunch  of  keys  given  to 
him,  without  information  of  the  lock  to  which 
each  belonged — so  that  he  must  try  every  lock 
with  every  key  before  he  could  find  out  the 
right  one. 

The  hurried  assemblage  of  the  court  being 
shown,  its  composition  becomes  a  fair  subject 
of  inquiry.  The  record  shows  that  three  offi- 
cers were  excused  from  serving  on  their  own 
application  after  being  detailed  as  members  of 
the  court ;  and  the  information  of  the  day  made 
known  that  another  was  excused  before  he  was 
officially  detailed.  The  same  history  of  the  day 
informs  that  these  four  avoided  the  service  be- 
cause they  had  opinions  against  the  accused. 
That  was  all  right  in  them.  Mackenzie  was 
entitled  to  an  impartial  trial,  although  he  al- 
lowed his  victims  no  trial  at  all.  But  how  was 
it  on  the  other  side  ?  any  one  excused  there  for 
opinions  in  favor  of  the  accused  ?  None  !  and 
history  said  there  were  members  on  the  court 
strongly  in  favor  of  him — as  the  proceedings  on 
the  trial  too  visibly  prove.  Engaged  in  the 
case  without  a  knowledge  of  it,  the  judge  advo- 
cate confined  himself  to  the  testimony  of  one 
witness,  merely  proving  the  hanging  without 
trial ;  and  then  left  the  field  to  the  accused.  It 
was  occupied  in  great  force — a  great  number  of 
witnesses,  all  the  reports  of  Mackenzie  himself, 
all  the  statements  before  the  council  of  officers 
— all  sorts  of  illegal,  irrelevant,  impertinent  or 
frivolous  testimony — every  thing  that  could  be 
found  against  the  dead  since  their  death,  in  ad- 
dition to  all  before — assumption  or  assertion  of 
any  fact  or  inference  wanted — questions  put  not 
only  leading  to  the  answer  wanted,  but  affirming 
the  fact  wanted — all  the  persons  served  as  wit- 
nesses who  had  been  agents  or  instruments  in 
the  murders — Mackenzie  himself  submitting  his 
own  statements  before  the  court :  such  was  the 
trial !  and  the  issue  was  conformable  to  such  a 


farrago  of  illegalities,  absurdities,  frivolities,  im- 
pertinences and  wickednesses.  He  was  acquit- 
ted ;  but  in  the  lowest  form  of  acquittal  known 
to  court-martial  proceedings.  "Not  proven," 
was  the  equivocal  mode  of  saying  "  not  guilty : " 
three  members  of  the  court  were  in  favor  of 
conviction  for  murder.  The  finding  was  barely 
permitted  to  stand  by  the  President.  To  ap- 
prove, or  disprove  court-martial  proceedings  is 
the  regular  course  :  the  President  did  neither. 
The  official  promulgation  of  the  proceedings 
wound  up  with  this  unusual  and  equivocal  sanc- 
tion :  "  As  these  charges  involved  the  life  of  the 
accused,  and  as  the  finding  is  in  Ins  favor,  he  is 
entitled  to  the  benefit  of  it,  as  in  the  analogous 
case  of  a  verdict  of  not  guilty  before  a  civil 
court,  and  there  is  no  power  which  can  consti- 
tutionally deprive  him  of  that  benefit.  The 
finding,  therefore,  is  simply  confirmed,  and  car- 
ried into  effect  without  any  expression  of  appro- 
bation or  disapprobation  on  the  part  of  the 
President :  no  such  expression  being  necessary." 
No  acquittal  could  be  of  lower  order,  or  less 
honorable.  The  trial  continued  two  months ; 
and  that  long  time  was  chiefly  monopolized  hy 
the  defence,  which  became  in  fact  a  trial  of  the 
dead — who,  having  no  trial  while  alive,  had  an 
ample  one  of  sixty  days  after  their  deaths.  Of 
course  they  were  convicted — the  dead  and  the 
absent  being  always  in  the  wrong.  At  the 
commencement  of  the  trial,  two  eminent  coun- 
sel of  New  York — Messrs.  Benjamin  F.  Butler 
and  Charles  O'Connor,  Esqs., — applied  to  the 
court  at  the  instance  of  the  father  of  the  young 
Spencer  to  be  allowed  to  sit  by,  and  put  ques- 
tions approved  by  the  court ;  and  offer  sugges- 
tions and  comments  on  the  testimony  when  it 
was  concluded.  This  request  was  entered  on 
the  minutes,  and  refused.  So  that  at  the  long 
post  mortem  trial  which  was  given  to  the  boy 
after  his  death,  the  father  was  not  allowed  to 
ask  one  question  in  favor  of  his  son. 

And  here  two  remarks  require  to  be  made — 
— first,  as  to  that  faithful  promise  of  the  Com- 
mander Mackenzie  to  send  to  his  parents  the 
dying  message  of  the  young  Spencer:  not  a 
word  was  ever  sent !  all  was  sent  to  the  Navy 
Department  and  the  newspapers !  and  the 
"  faithful  promise,"  and  the  moving  appeal  to 
the  "  feelings  of  nature,"  turn  out  to  have  been 
a  mere  device  to  get  a  chance  to  make  a  report 
to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  of  confessions  to 
justify  the  previous  condemnation  and  the  pre- 


ANNO  1843.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


559 


determined  hanging.  Secondly  :  That  the  Sec- 
retary despatched  a  man-of-war  immediately  on 
the  return  of  Mackenzie  to  the  Isle  of  Pines, 
to  capture  the  confederate  pirates  (according  to 
"Wales's  testimony),  who  were  waiting  there  for 
the  young  Spencer  and  the  Somers.  A  bootless 
errand.  The  island  was  found,  and  the  pines  ; 
but  no  pirates !  nor  news  of  any  for  near  twenty 
years !  Thus  failed  the  indispensable  point  in 
the  whole  piratical  plot :  but  without  balking  in 
the  least  degree  the  raging  current  of  universal 
belief. 

The  trial  of  Mackenzie  being  over,  and  he 
acquitted,  the  trial  of  the  rest  of  the  implicated 
crew — the  twelve  mutineers  in  irons — would 
naturally  come  on ;  and  the  court  remained  in 
sessiou  for  that  purpose.  The  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  had  written  to  the  judge  advocate  to  pro- 
ceed against  such  of  them  as  he  thought  proper : 
the  judge  advocate  referred  that  question  to  Mac- 
kenzie, giving  him  the  option  to  choose  any  one 
he  pleased  to  carry  on  the  prosecutions.  He 
chose  Theodore  Sedgwick,  Esq.,  who  had  been 
his  own  counsel  on  his  trial.  Mackenzie  was 
acquitted  on  the  28th  of  March :  the  court  re- 
mained in  session  until  the  1st  of  April:  the 
judge  advocate  heard  nothing  from  Mackenzie 
with  respect  to  the  prosecutions.  On  that  day 
Mackenzie  not  being  present,  he  was  sent  for. 
He  was  not  to  be  found !  and  the  provost  mar- 
shal ascertained  that  he  had  gone  to  his  resi- 
dence in  the  country,  thirty  miles  off.  This 
was  an  abandonment  of  the  prosecutions,  and  in 
a  very  unmilitary  way — by  running  away  from 
them,  and  saying  nothing  to  any  body.  The 
court  was  then  dissolved — the  prisoners  re- 
leased— and  the  innocence  of  the  twelve  stood 
confessed  by  the  recreancy  of  their  fugitive  pro- 
secutor. It  was  a  confession  of  the  innocence  of 
Spencer,  Small,  and  Cromwell ;  for  he  was  tried 
for  the  three  murders  together.  The  trial  of 
Mackenzie  had  been  their  acquittal  in  the  eyes 
of  persons  accustomed  to  analyze  evidence,  and 
to  detect  perjuries  in  made-up  stories.  But  the 
masses  could  form  no  such  analysis.  With 
them  the  confessions  were  conclusive,  though 
invalidated  by  contradictions,  and  obtained,  if 
obtained  at  all,  under  a  refinement  of  terror  and 
oppression  which  has  no  parallel  on  the  deck  of 
a  pirate.  When  has  such  a  machinery  of  terror 
been  contrived  to  shock  and  torture  a  helpless 
victim  ?  Sudden  annunciation  of  death  in  the 
midst  of  preparations  to  take  life  :  ten  minutes 


allowed  to  live,  and  these  ten  minutes  taken  up 
with  interruptions.  An  imp  of  darkness  in  the 
shape  of  a  naval  officer  in  full  uniform,  squat 
down  at  his  side,  writing  and  whispering  ;  and 
evidently  making  out  a  tale  which  was  to  mur- 
der the  character  in  order  to  justify  the  murder 
of  the  body.  Commander  Mackenzie  had  once 
lived  a  year  in  Spain,  and  wrote  a  book  upon  its 
manners  and  customs,  as  a  "  Young  American." 
He  must  have  read  of  the  manner  in  which  con- 
fessions were  obtained  in  the  dungeons  of  the 
Inquisition.  If  he  had,  he  showed  himself  an 
apt  scholar ;  if  not,  he  showed  a  genius  for  the 
business  from  which  the  familiars  of  the  Holy 
Office  might  have  taken  instruction. 

Spencer's  real  design  was  clearly  deducible 
even  from  the  tenors  of  the  vile  swearing  against 
him.  He  meant  to  quit  the  navy  when  he  re- 
turned to  New  York,  obtain  a  vessel  in  some 
way,  and  go  to  the  northwest  coast  of  America 
— to  lead  some  wild  life  there ;  but  not  pirati- 
cal, as  there  is  neither  prey  nor  shelter  for 
pirates  in  that  quarter.  This  he  was  often  say- 
ing to  the  crew,  and  to  this  his  list  of  names  re- 
ferred— mixed  up  with  foolish  and  even  vicious 
talk  about  piracy.  His  first  and  his  last  answer 
was  the  same — that  it  was  all  a  joke.  The  an- 
swer of  Small  was  the  same  when  he  was  ar- 
rested ;  and  it  was  well  brought  out  by  the 
judge  advocate  in  incessant  questions  during 
the  two  months'  trial,  that  there  was  not  a  sin- 
gle soul  of  the  crew,  except  Wales,  that  ever 
heard  Spencer  mention  one  word  about  mutiny ! 
and  not  one,  inclusive  of  Wales,  that  ever  heard 
one  man  of  the  vessel  speak  of  a  rescue  of  the 
prisoners.  Remaining  long  in  command  of  the 
vessel  as  Mackenzie  did,  and  with  all  his  power 
to  punish  or  reward,  and  allowed  as  he  was  to 
bring  forward  all  that  he  was  able  to  find  since 
the  deaths  of  the  men,  yet  he  could  not  find  one 
man  to  swear  to  these  essential  points ;  so  that 
in  a  crew  steeped  in  mutiny,  there  was  not  a 
soul  that  had  heard  of  it !  in  a  crew  determined 
upon  a  rescue  of  prisoners,  there  was  not  one 
that  ever  heard  the  word  pronounced.  The 
state  of  the  brig,  after  the  arrests,  was  that  of 
crazy  cowardice  and  insane  suspicion  on  the 
part  of  the  officers— of  alarm  and  consterna- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  crew.  Armed  with 
revolvers,  cutlasses  and  swords,  the  officers 
prowled  through  the  vessel,  ready  to  shoot  any 
one  that  gave  them  a  fright— the  weapon  gene- 
rally cocked  for  instant  work.     Besides  the  offi- 


5.60 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


cers,  low  wretches,  as  "Wales  and  Garty,  were 
armed  in  the  same  way,  with  the  same  sum- 
mary power  over  the  lives  and  deaths  of  the 
crew.  The  vessel  was  turned  into  a  laboratory 
of  spies,  informers,  eavesdroppers  and  delators. 
Every  word,  look,  sign,  movement,  on  the  part 
of  the  crew,  was  equally  a  proof  of  guilt.  If  the 
men  were  quick  about  their  duty,  it  was  to 
cover  up  their  guilt :  if  slow,  it  was  to  defy  the 
officers.  If  they  talked  loud,  it  was  insolence : 
if  low,  it  was  plotting.  If  collected  in  knots,  it 
was  to  be  ready  to  make  a  rush  at  the  vessel : 
if  keeping  single  and  silent,  it  was  because, 
knowing  their  guilt,  they  feigned  aversion  to 
escape  suspicion.  Belief  was  all  that  was 
wanted  from  any  delator.  Belief,  without  a 
circumstance  to  found  it  upon,  and  even  con- 
trary to  circumstances,  was  accepted  as  full 
legal  evidence.  Arrests  were  multiplied,  to  ex- 
cite terror,  and  to  justify  murder.  The  awe- 
stricken  crew,  consisting  four-fifths  of  apprentice 
boys,  was  paralyzed  into  dead  silence  and  ab- 
ject submission.  Every  arrest  was  made  with- 
out a  murmur.  The  prisoners  were  ironed  and 
bagged  as  mere  animals.  No  one  could  show 
pity,  much  less  friendship.  No  one  could  extend 
a  comfort,  much  less  give  assistance.  Armed 
sentries  stood  over  them,  day  and  night,  to 
shoot  both  parties  for  the  slightest  sign  of  in- 
telligence— and  always  to  shoot  the  prisoner 
first.  What  Paris  was  in  the  last  days  of  the 
Reign  of  Terror,  the  United  States  brig  Somers 
was  during  the  terrible  week  from  the  arrest  to 
the  hanging  of  Spencer. 

Analogous  to  the  case  of  Commander  Mac- 
kenzie was  that  of  Lieutenant  Colonel  Wall,  of 
the  British  service,  Governor  of  Goree  on  the 
coast  of  Africa — the  circumstances  quite  paral- 
lel, and  where  they  differ,  the  difference  in  favor 
of  Wall — but  the  conclusion  widely  different. 
Governor  Wall  fancied  there  was  a  mutiny  in 
the  garrison,  the  one  half  (of  150)  engaged  in 
it,  and  one  Armstrong  and  two  others,  leaders  in 
it.  He  ordered  the  "long  roll"  to  be  beat — 
which  brings  the  men,  without  arms,  into  line 
on  the  parade.  He  conversed/a  few  minutes 
with  the  officers,  out  of  hearing  of  the  men, 
then  ordered  the  line  to  form  circle,  a  cannon  to 
be  placed  in  the  middle  of  it,  the  three  men  tied 
upon  it,  and  receive  800  blows  each  with  an 
inch  thick  rope.  It  was  not  his  intent  to  kill 
them,  and  the  surgeon  of  the  garrison,  as  in  all 
cases  of  severe  punishment,  was  ordered  to  at- 


tend, and  observe  it :  which  he  did,  saying  no- 
thing :  the  three  men  died  within  a  week.  This 
was  in  the  year  1782.  Wall  came  home — was 
arrested  (by  the  civil  authority),  broke  custody 
and  fled — was  gone  twenty  years,  and  seized 
again  by  the  civil  authority  on  his  return  to 
England.  The  trial  took  place  at  the  Old 
Bailey,  and  the  prisoner  easily  proved  up  a 
complete  case  of  mutiny,  seventy  or  eighty  men, 
assembled  in  open  day  before  the  governor's  quar- 
ters, defying  authority,  clamoring  for  supposed 
rights,  and  cursing  and  damning.  The  full  case 
was  sworn  up,  and  by  many  witnesses;  but  the 
attorney-general,  Sir  Edward  Law  (afterwards 
Lord  Ellenborough),  and  the  solicitor-general, 
Mr.  Percival  (afterwards  First  Lord  of  the 
Treasury  and  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer), 
easily  took  the  made-up  stories  to  pieces,  and 
left  the  governor  nakedly  exposed,  a  false  ac- 
cuser of  the  dead,  after  having  been  the  foul 
murderer  of  the  innocent.  It  was  to  no 
purpose  that  he  plead,  that  the  punishment 
was  not  intended  to  kill :  it  was  answered  that 
it  was  sufficient  that  it  was  likely  to  kill,  and 
did  kill.  To  no  purpose  that  he  proved  by  the 
surgeon  that  he  stood  by,  as  the  regulations 
required,  to  judge  the  punishment,  and  said 
nothing:  the  eminent  counsel  proved  upon 
him,  out  of  his  own  mouth,  that  he  was  a  young 
booby,  too  silly  to  know  the  difference  between 
a  cat-o'-nine-tails,  which  cut  the  skin,  and  an 
inch  rope,  which  bruised  to  the  vitals.  The 
Lord  Chief  Baron  McDonald,  charged  the  jury 
that  if  there  was  no  mutiny,  it  was  murder ; 
and  if  there  was  mutiny,  and  no  trial,  it  was 
murder.  On  this  latter  point,  he  said  to  the 
jury:  "  If  you  are  of  opinion  that  there  was 
a  mutiny,  you  are  then  to  consider  the  degree 
of  it,  and  whether  there  was  as  much  attention 
paid  to  the  interest  of  the  person  accused  as 
the  circumstances  of  the  case  would  admit,  by 
properly  advising-  him,  and  giving  him  an 
opportunity  of  justifying  himself  if  he  couldP 
The  governor  was  only  tried  in  one  case,  found 
guilty,  hanged  within  eight  days,  and  his  body, 
like  that  of  any  other  murderer,  delivered  up  to 
the  surgeons  for  dissection — the  King  on  appli- 
cation, first  for  pardon,  then  for  longer  respite, 
and  last  for  remission  of  the  anatomization,  re- 
fusing any  favor,  upon  the  ground  that  it  was 
worse  than  any  common  murder — being  done 
by  a  man  in  authority,  far  from  the  eye  of  the 
government,  on  helpless  people  subject  to  his 


ANNO  1843.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


561 


power,  and  whom  he  was  bound  to  protect,  and 
to  defend  from  oppression.  It  is  a  case — a  com- 
mon one  in  England  since  the  judges  became  in- 
dependent of  the  crown — which  does  honor  to 
British  administration  of  justice:  and,  if  any- 
one wishes  to  view  the  extremes  of  judicial  ex- 
hibitions —  legality,  regularity,  impartiality, 
knowledge,  of  the  law,  promptitude  on  one  hand, 
and  the  reverse  of  it  all  on  the  other — let  them 
look  at  the  proceedings  of  the  one-day  trial  of 
Governor  Wall  before  a  British  civil  court,  and 
the  two  months'  trial  of  Commander  Mackenzie 
before  an  American  naval  court-martial.  But  the 
comparison  would  not  be  entirely  fair.  Courts- 
martial,  both  of  army  and  navy,  since  the  trial  of 
Admiral  Byng  in  England  to  Commodore  Porter, 
Commander  Mackenzie,  and  Lieutenant-colonel 
Fremont  in  the  United  States,  have  been  ma- 
chines in  the  hands  of  the  government  (where 
it  took  an  interest  in  the  event),  to  acquit,  or 
convict :  and  has  rarely  disappointed  the  inten- 
tion. Cooper  proposes,  in  view  of  the  unfitness 
of  the  military  courts  for  judicial  investigation, 
that  they  be  stripped  of  all  jurisdiction  in  such 
cases :  and  his  opinion  strongly  addresses  itself 
to  the  legislative  authority. 

Commander  Mackenzie  had  been  acquitted  by 
the  authorities :  he  had  been  complimented  by 
a  body  of  eminent  merchants  :  he  had  been  ap- 
plauded by  the  press :  he  had  been  encomiasti- 
cally  reviewed  in  a  high  literary  periodical.  The 
loud  public  voice  was  for  him :  but  there  was  a 
small  inward  monitor,  whose  still  and  sinister 
whisperings  went  cutting  through  the  soul.  The 
acquitted  and  applauded  man  withdrew  to  a 
lonely  retreat,  oppressed  with  gloom  and  melan- 
cholly,  visible  only  to  a  few,  and  was  only  roused 
from  his  depression  to  give  signs  of  a  diseased 
mind.  It  was  five  years  after  the  event,  and 
during  the  war  with  Mexico.  The  administra- 
tion had  conceived  the  idea  of  procuring  peace 
through  the  instrumentality  of  Santa  Anna — 
then  an  exile  at  Havana ;  and  who  was  to  be 
returned  to  his  country  upon  some  arrangement 
of  the  American  government.  This  writer  going 
to  see  the  President  (Mr.  Polk)  some  day  about 
this  time,  mentioned  to  him  a  visit  from  Com- 
mander Slidell  Mackenzie  to  this  exiled  chief. 
The  President  was  startled,  and  asked  how  this 
came  to  be  known  to  me.  I  told  him  I  read  it 
in  the  Spanish  newspapers.  He  said  it  was  all 
a  profound  secret,  confined  to  his  cabinet.     The 

Vol.  II.--36 


case  was  this  :  a  secret  mission  to  Santa  Anna 
was  resolved  upon  :  and  the  facile  Mr.  Buchan- 
an, Secretary  of  State,  dominated  by  the  re- 
presentative Slidell  (brother  to  the  commander), 
accepted  this  brother  for  the  place.  Now  the 
views  of  the  two  parties  were  diametrically  op- 
posite. One  wanted  secrecy — the  other  noto- 
riety. Restoration  of  Santa  Anna  to  his  coun- 
try, upon  an  agreement,  and  without  being  seen 
in  the  transaction,  was  the  object  of  the  govern- 
ment ;  and  that  required  secrecy :  removal  from 
under  a  cloud,  restoration  to  public  view,  re- 
habilitation by  some  mark  of  public  distinction, 
was  the  object  of  the  Slidells  ;  and  that  required 
notoriety  :  and  the  game  being  in  their  hands, 
they  played  it  accordingly.  Arriving  at  Ha- 
vana, the  secret  minister  put  on  the  full  uni- 
form of  an  American  naval  officer,  entered  an 
open  volante,  and  driving  through  the  principal 
streets  at  high,  noon,  proceeded  to  the  suburban 
residence  of  the  exiled  dictator.  Admitted  to 
a  private  interview  (for  he  spoke  Spanish, 
learnt  in  Spain),  the  plumed  and  decorated  officer 
made  known  his  secret  business.  Santa  Anna 
was  amazed,  but  not  disconcerted.  He  saw  the 
folly  and  the  danger  of  the  proceeding,  eschewed 
blunt  overture,  and  got  rid  of  his  queer  visitor  in 
the  shortest  time,  and  the  civilest  phrases  which 
Spanish  decorum  would  admit.  The  repelled 
minister  gone,  Santa  Anna  called  back  his  secre- 
tary, exclaiming  as  he  entered — "  Porque  el 
Presidente  me  ha  enviado  este  tonto  ? " 
(Why  has  the  President  sent  me  this  fool?) 
It  was  not  until  afterwards,  and  through  the 
instrumentality  of  a  sounder  head,  that  the  mode 
of  the  dictator's  return  was  arranged  :  and  the 
folly  which  Mackenzie  exhibited  on  this  occasion 
was  of  a  piece  with  his  crazy  and  preposterous 
conceptions  on  board  the  Somers. 

Fourteen  years  have  elapsed  since  this  tragedy 
of  the  Somers.  The  chief  in  that  black  and 
bloody  drama  (unless  Wales  is  to  be  considered 
the  master-spirit,  and  the  commander  and  lieu- 
tenant only  his  instruments)  has  gone  to  his 
long  account.  Some  others,  concerned  with 
him,  have  passed  away.  The  vessel  itself,  bear- 
ing a  name  illustrious  in  the  navy  annals,  has 
gone  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea— foundering  un- 
seen— and  going  down  with  all  on  board ;  the 
circling  waves  closing  over  the  heads  of  the 
doomed  mass,  and  hiding  all  from  the  light  of 
Heaven  before  they  were  dead.    And  the  mind 


562 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  seamen,  prone  to  belief  in  portents,  prodigies, 
signs  and  judgments,  refer  the  hapless  fate  of 
the  vessel  to  the  innocent  blood  which  had  been 
shed  upon  her. 

History  feels  it  to  be  a  debt  of  duty  to  examine 
this  transaction  to  the  bottom,  and  to  judge  it 
closely — not  with  a  view  to  affect  individuals, 
but  to  relieve  national  character  from  a  foul  im- 
putation. It  was  the  crime  of  individuals:  it 
was  made  national.  The  protection  of  the  gov- 
ernment, the  lenity  of  the  court,  the  evasions 
of  the  judiciary,  and  the  general  approving  voice, 
made  a  nation's  offence  out  of  the  conduct  of 
some  individuals,  and  brought  reproach  upon 
the  American  name.  All  Christendom  recoiled 
with  horror  from  the  atrocious  deed :  all  friends 
to  America  beheld  with  grief  and  amazement 
the  national  assumption  of  such  a  crime.  Co- 
temporary  with  the  event,  and  its  close  ob- 
server, the  writer  of  this  View  finds  confirmed 
now,  upon  the  fullest  examination,  the  severe 
judgment  which  he  formed  upon  it  at  the  time. 

The  naval  historian,  Fenimore  Cooper  (who 
himself  had  been  a  naval  officer),  wrote  a  clear 
exposure  of  all  the  delusion,  falsehood,  and 
wickedness  of  this  imputed  mutiny,  and  of  the 
mockery  of  the  court-martial  trial  of  Macken- 
zie :  but  unavailing  in  the  then  condition  of  the 
public  mind,  and  impotent  against  the  vast  ma- 
chinery of  the  public  press  which  was  brought 
to  bear  on  the  dead.  From  that  publication, 
and  the  official  record  of  the  trial,  this  view  of 
the  transaction  is  made  up. 


CHAPTER   CXXIY. 

RETIREMENT  OF   MR.    WEBSTER  FROM   MR.   TY- 
LERS CABINET. 

Mr.  Tyler's  cabinet,  as  adopted  from  President 
Harrison,  in  April  1841,  had  broken  up,  as  be- 
fore related,  in  September  of  the  same  year — 
Mr.  Webster  having  been  prevailed  upon  to  re- 
main, although  he  had  agreed  to  go  out  with 
the  rest,  and  his  friends  thought  he  should  have 
done  so.  His  remaining  was  an  object  of  the 
greatest  importance  with  Mr.  Tyler,  abandoned 
by  all  the  rest,  and  for  such  reasons  as  they 
published.  He  had  remained  with  Mr.  Tyler 
until  tho  spring  of  the  year  1843,  when  the 


progress  of  the  Texas  annexation  scheme,  car- 
ried on  privately,  not  to  say  clandestinely,  had 
reached  a  point  to  take  an  official  form,  and  to 
become  the  subject  of  government  negotiation, 
though  still  secret.  Mr.  Webster,  Secretary  of 
State,  was  an  obstacle  to  that  negotiation.  He 
could  not  even  be  trusted  with  the  secret,  much 
less  with  the  conduct  of  the  negotiations.  How 
to  get  rid  of  him  was  a  question  of  some  deli- 
cacy. Abrupt  dismission  would  have  revolted 
his  friends.  Voluntary  resignation  was  not  to 
be  expected,  for  he  liked  the  place  of  Secretary 
of  State,  and  had  remained  in  it  against  the 
wishes  of  his  friends.  Still  he  must  be  got  rid 
of.  A  middle  course  was  fallen  upon — the 
same  which  had  been  practised  with  others  in 
1841 — that  of  compelling  a  resignation.  Mr. 
Tyler  became  reserved  and  indifferent  to  him. 
Mr.  Gilmer  and  Mr.  Upshur,  with  whom  he 
had  but  few  affinities,  took  but  little  pains  to 
conceal  their  distaste  to  him.  It  was  evident 
to  him  when  the  cabinet  met,  that  he  was  one 
too  many  ;  and  reserve  and  distrust  was  visible 
both  in  the  President  and  the  Virginia  part  of 
his  cabinet.  Mr.  Webster  felt  it,  and  named  it 
to  some  friends.  They  said,  resign !  He  did 
so ;  and  the  resignation  was  accepted  with  an 
alacrity  which  showed  that  it  was  waited  for. 
Mr.  Upshur  took  his  place,  and  quickly  the 
Texas  negotiation  became  official,  though  still 
private ;  and  in  this  appointment,  and  imme- 
diate opening  of  the  Texas  negotiation,  stood 
confessed,  the  true  reason  for  getting  rid  of  Mr. 
Webster. 


CHAPTER   CXXV. 

DEATH  OF  WILLIAM  H.  CRAWFORD. 

He  was  among  the  few  men  of  fame  that  I  have 
seen,  that  aggrandized  on  the  approach — that 
having  the  reputation  of  a  great  man,  became 
greater,  as  he  was  more  closely  examined. 
There  was  every  thing  about  him  to  impress 
the  beholder  favorably  and  grandly — in  stature, 
"  a  head  and  shoulders  "  above  the  common  race 
of  men,  justly  proportioned,  open  countenance, 
manly  features,  ready  and  impressive  conversa- 
tion, frank  and  cordial  manners.  1  saw  him  for 
the  first  time  in  1820,  when  he  was  a  member 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


563 


of  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet — when  the  array  of 
eminent  men  was  thick — when  historic  names 
of  the  expiring  generation  were  still  on  the  pub- 
lic theatre,  and  many  of  the  new  generation  (to 
become  historic)  were  entering  upon  it :  and  he 
seemed  to  compare  favorably  with  the  foremost. 
And  that  was  the  judgment  of  others.  For  a 
long  time  he  was  deferred  to  generally,  by  pub- 
lic opinion,  as  the  first  of  the  new  men  who 
were  to  become  President.  Mr.  Monroe,  the 
last  of  the  revolutionary  stock,  was  passing  off: 
Mr.  Crawford  was  his  assumed  successor.  Had 
the  election  come  on  one  term  sooner,  he  would 
have  been  the  selected  man  :  but  his  very  emi- 
nence became  fatal  to  him.  He  was  formidable 
to  all  the  candidates,  and  all  combined  against 
him.  He  was  pulled  down  in  1824  ;  but  at  an 
age,  with  an  energy,  a  will,  a  talent  and  force 
of  character,  which  would  have  brought  him  up 
within  a  few  years,  if  a  foe  more  potent  than 
political  combinations  had  not  fallen  upon  him : 
he  was  struck  with  paralysis  before  the  canvass 
was  over,  but  still  received  an  honorable  vote, 
and  among  such  competitors  as  Jackson,  Adams, 
and  Clay.  But  his  career  was  closed  as  a  na- 
tional man,  and  State  appointments  only  at- 
tended him  during  the  remaining  years  of  his 
life. 

Mr.  Crawford  served  in  the  Senate  during 
Mr.  Madison's  administration,  and  was  the  con- 
spicuous mark  in  that  body,  then  pre-eminent 
for  its  able  men.  He  had  a  copious,  ready  and 
powerful  elocution — spoke  forcibly  and  to  the 
point — was  the  Ajax  of  the  administration,  and 
as  such,  had  constantly  on  his  hands  the  splen- 
did array  of  federal  gentlemen  who  then  held 
divided  empire  in  the  Senate  chamber.  Sena- 
torial debate  was  of  high  order  then — a  rival- 
ship  of  courtesy,  as  well  as  of  talent :  and  the 
feeling  of  respect  for  him  was  not  less  in  the 
embattled  phalanx  of  opposition,  than  in  the 
admiring  ranks  of  his  own  party.  He  was  in- 
valuable in  the  Senate,  but  the  state  of  Europe — 
then  convulsed  with  the  approaching  downfall 
of  the  Great  Emperor — our  own  war  with  Great 
Britain,  and  the  uncertainty  of  the  new  combi- 
nations which  might  be  formed — all  required  a 
man  of  head  and  nerve — of  mind  and  will,  to 
represent  the  United  States  at  the  French  Court  : 
and  Mr.  Crawford  was  selected  for  the  arduous 
post.  He  told  Mr.  Madison  that  the  Senate 
would  be  lost  if  he  left  it  (and  it  was)  ;  but  a 
proper  representative  in  France  in  that  critical 


juncture  of  Europe,  was  an  overpowering  con- 
sideration—and he  went.  Great  events  took 
place  while  he  was  there.  The  Great  Emperor 
fell :  the  Bourbons  came  up,  and  fell.  The 
Emperor  reappeared,  and  fell  again.  But  the 
interests  of  the  United  States  were  kept  unen- 
tangled  in  European  politics  ;  and  the  American 
minister  was  the  only  one  that  could  remain  at 
his  post  in  all  these  sudden  changes.  At  the 
marvellous  return  from  Elba,  he  was  the  sole 
foreign  representative  remaining  in  Paris.  Per- 
sonating the  neutrality  of  his  country  with  de- 
corum and  firmness,  he  succeeded  in  command- 
ing the  respect  of  all,  giving  offence  to  none. 
From  this  high  critical  post  he  was  called  by 
Mr.  Monroe,  at  his  first  election,  to  be  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury ;  and,  by  public  expectation, 
was  marked  for  the  presidency.  There  was  a 
desire  to  take  him  up  at  the  close  of  Mr.  Mon- 
roe's first  term  ;  but  a  generous  and  honorable 
feeling  would  not  allow  him  to  become  the  com- 
petitor of  his  friend ;  and  before  the  second 
term  was  out,  the  combinations  had  become 
too  strong  for  him.  He  was  the  last  candidate 
nominated  by  a  Congress  caucus,  then  fallen 
into  great  disrepute,  but  immeasurably  prefer- 
able, as  an  organ  of  public  opinion,  to  the  con- 
ventions of  the  present  day.  He  was  the  daunt- 
less foe  of  nullification ;  and,  while  he  lived, 
that  heresy  could  not  root  in  the  patriotic  soil 
of  Geor^'a. 


CHAPTER    CXXVI. 

FIRST  SESSION  OF  THE  TWENTY-EIGHTH  CON- 
GRESS :  LIST  OF  MEMBERS  :  ORGANIZATION  OF 
THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

Senate. 

Maine.— John  Fairfield,  George  Evans. 

New  Hampshire.— Levi  Woodbury,  Charles 
G.  Atherton., 

Vermont.— Samuel  Phelps,  William  C.  Up- 
ham. 

Massachusetts.  — Rufus  Choate,  Isaac  C. 
Bates. 

Rhode  Island. — William  Sprague,  James  F. 
Simmons. 

Connecticut.— J.  W.  Huntington,  John  M. 
Niles. 

New  York.— N.  P.  Tallmadge,  Silas  Wright. 

New  Jersey.— W.  L.  Dayton,  Jacob  W. 
Miller. 


564 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Pennsylvania. — D.  W.  Sturgeon,  James  Bu- 
chanan. 

Delaware. — R.  H.  Bayard,  Thomas  Clayton. 

Maryland. — William  D.  Merrick,  Reverdy 
Johnson. 

Virginia. — Wm.  C.  Rives,  Wm.  S.  Archer. 

North  Carolina. — Willie  P.  Mangum,  Wm. 
H.  Haywood,  jr. 

South  Carolina. — Daniel  E.  Huger,  George 
McDuffie. 

Georgia. — John  M.  Berrien,  Walter  T.  Col- 
quitt. 

Alabama. — William  R.  King,  Arthur  P. 
Bagby. 

Mississippi. — John  Henderson,  Robert  J. 
Walker. 

Louisiana. — Alexander  Barrow,  Alexander 
Porter. 

Tennessee. — E.  H.  Foster,  Spencer  Jar- 
nagan. 

Kentucky. — John  T.  Morehead,  John  J. 
Crittenden. 

Ohio. — Benjamin  Tappan,  William  Allen. 

Indiana. — Albert  S.  White,  Ed.  A.  Hanne- 
gan. 

Illinois. — James  Semple,  Sidney  Breese. 

Missouri. — T.  H.  Benton,  D.  R.  Atchison. 

Arkansas. — Wm.  S.  Fulton,  A.  H.  Sevier. 

Michigan. — A.  S.  Porter,  W.  Woodbridge. 

House  of  Representatives. 

Maine. — Joshua  Herrick,  Robert  P.  Dunlap, 
Luther  Severance,  Hannibal  Hamlin. 

Massachusetts. — Robert  C.  Winthrop,  Dan- 
iel P.  King,  William  Parmenter,  Charles  Hud- 
son, (Vacancy),  John  Quincy  Adams,  Henry 
Williams,  Joseph  Grinnel. 

New  Hampshire. — Edmund  Burke,  John  R. 
Reding,  John  P.  Hale,  Moses  Norris,  jr. 

Rhode  Island. — Henry  Y.  Cranston,  Elisha 
R.  Potter. 

Connecticut. — Thomas  H.  Seymour,  John 
Stewart,  George  S.  Catlin,  Samuel  Simons. 

Vermont. — Solomon  Foot,  Jacob  Collamer, 
George  P.  Marsh,  Paul  Dillingham,  jr. 

New  York. — Selah  B.  Strong,  Henry  C.  Mur- 
phy, J.  Philips  Phoenix,  William  B.  Maclay, 
Moses  G.  Leonard,  Hamilton  Fish,  Jos.  H.  An- 
derson, R.  D.  Davis,  Jas.  G.  Clinton,  Jeremiah 
Russell,  Zadoc  Pratt,  David  L.  Seymour,  Daniel 
D.  Barnard,  Wm.  G.  Hunter,  Lemuel  Stetson, 
Chesselden  Ellis,  Charles  S.  Benton,  Preston 
King,  Orville  Hungerford,  Samuel  Beardsley, 
J.  E.  Cary,  S.  M.  Purdy,  Orville  Robinson, 
Horace  Wheaton,  George  Rathbun,  Amasa  Dana, 
By  ram  Green,  Thos.  J.  Patterson,  Charles  H. 
Carroll,  Wm,  S.  Hubbell,  Asher  Tyler,  Wm.  A. 
Moseley,  Albert  Smith,  Washington  Hunt. 

New  Jersey. — Lucius  Q.  C.  Elmer,  George 
Sykes,  Isaac  G.  Farlee,  Littleton  Kirkpatrick, 
Wm.  Wright. 

Pennsylvania. — Edward  J.  Morris,  Joseph 
R.  Ingersoll,  John  T.  Smith,  Charles  J.  Inger- 
soll,  Jacob  S.  Yost,  Michael  H.  Jenks,  Abrah. 


R.  Mcllvaine,  Henry  Nes,  James  Black,  James 
Irvin,  Andrew  Stewart,  Henry  D.  Foster,  Jere- 
miah Brown,  John  Ritter,  Rich.  Brodhead,  jr., 
Benj.  A.  Bidlack,  Almond  H.  Read,  Henry  Frick, 
Alexander  Ramsey,  John  Dickey,  William  Wil- 
kins,  Samuel  Hays,  Charles  M.  Read,  Joseph 
Buffington. 

Delaware. — George  B.  Rodney. 

Maryland. — J.  M.  S.  Causin,  F.  Brengle,  J. 
Withered,  J.  P.  Kennedy,  Dr.  Preston,  Thomas 
A.  Spence. 

Virginia.  —  Archibald  Atkinson,  Geo.  C. 
Dromgoole,  Walter  Coles,  Edmund  Hubard, 
Thomas  W.  Gilmer,  John  W.  Jones,  Henry  A. 
Wise,  Willoughby  Newton,  Samuel  Chilton, 
William  F.  Lucas,  William  Taylor,  A.  A.  Chap- 
man, Geo.  W.  Hopkins,  Geo.  W.  Summers, 
Lewis  Steenrod. 

North  Carolina. — Thomas  J.  Clingman,  D. 
M.  Barringer,  David  S.  Reid,  Edmund  Deberry, 
R.  M.  Saunders,  James  J.  McKay,  J.  R.  Daniel, 
A.  H.  Arlington,  Kenneth  Rayner. 

South  Carolina. — James  A.  Black,  Richard 
F.  Simpson,  Joseph  A.  Woodward,  John  Camp- 
bell, Artemas  Burt,  Isaac  E.  Holmes,  R.  Barn- 
well Rhett. 

Georgia. — E.  J.  Black,  H.  A.  Haralson,  J. 
H.  Lumpkin,  Howell  Cobb,  Wm.  H.  Stiles, 
Alexander  H.  Stevens,  A.  H.  Chappell. 

Kentucky. — Linn  Boyd,  Willis  Green,  Henry 
Grider,  George  A.  Caldwell,  James  Stone,  John 
White,  William  P.  Thompson,  Garrett  Davis, 
Richard  French,  J.  W.  Tibbatts. 

Tennessee. — Andrew  Johnson,  William  T. 
Senter,  Julius  W.  Blackwell,  Alvan  Cullom, 
George  W.  Jones,  Aaron  V.  Brown,  David  W. 
Dickinson,  James  H.  Pej^ton,  Cave  Johnson, 
John  B.  Ashe,  Milton  Brown. 

Ohio. — Alexander  Duncan,  John  B.  Weller, 
Robt.  C.  Schenck,  Joseph  Vance,  Emery  D.  Pot- 
ter, Joseph  J.  McDowell,  John  I.  Vanmeter, 
Elias  Florence,  Heman  A.  Moore,  Jacob  Brink- 
erhoff,  Samuel  F.  Vinton,  Perley  B.  Johnson, 
Alexander  Harper,  Joseph  Morris,  James 
Mathews,  Wm.  C.  McCauslin,  Ezra  Dean,  Daniel 
R.  Tilden,  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  H.  R.  Brinker- 
hoff. 

Louisiana. — John  Slidell,  Alcee  Labranche, 
John  B.  Dawson,  P.  E.  Bossier. 

Indiana. — Robt.  Dale  Owen,  Thomas  J.  Hen- 
ley, Thomas  Smith,  Caleb  B.  Smith,  Wm.  J. 
Brown,  John  W.  Davis,  Joseph  A.  Wright,  John 
Pettit,  Samuel  C.  Sample,  Andrew  Kennedy. 

Illinois. — Robert  Smith,  John  A.  McCler- 
nand,  Orlando  B.  Ficklin,  John  Wentworth, 
Stephen  A.  Douglass,  Joseph  P.  Hoge,  J.  J. 
Hardin. 

Alabama. — James  Dellet,  James  E.  Belser, 
Dixon  H.  Lewis,  William  W.  Payne,  George  S. 
Houston,  Reuben  Chapman,  Felix  McConnell. 

Mississippi. — Wm.  H.  Hammett,  Robert  W. 
Roberts,  Jacob  Thompson,  Tilghman  M.  Tucker. 

Missouri. — James  M.  Hughes,  James  H. 
Relfe,  Gustavus  B.  Bower,  James  B.  Bowliu, 
John  Jameson. 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


565 


Arkansas. — Edward  Cross. 
Michigan. — Robert  McClelland,  Lucius  Lyon, 
James  B.  Hunt. 


Territorial  Delegates. 

Florida. — David  Levy. 
Wisconsin. — Henry  Dodge. 
Iowa. — Augustus  C.  Dodge. 

The  election  of  Speaker  was  the  first  busi- 
ness on  the  assembling  of  the  Congress,  and  its 
result  was  the  authentic  exposition  of  the 
state  of  parties.  Mr.  John  W.  Jones,  of  Vir- 
ginia, the  democratic  candidate,  received  128 
votes  on  the  first  ballot,  and  was  elected — 
the  whig  candidate  (Mr.  John  White,  late 
Speaker)  receiving  59.  An  adverse  majority 
of  more  than  two  to  one  was  the  result  to  the 
whig  part3r  at  the  first  election  after  the  extra 
session  of  1841 — at  the  first  election  after  that 
"  log-cabin,  hard-cider  and  coon-skin  "  campaign 
in  which  the  whigs  had  carried  the  presidential 
election  by  234  electoral  votes  against  60 :  so 
truly  had  the  democratic  senators  foreseen  the 
destruction  of  the  party  in  the  contests  of  the 
extra  session  of  1841.  The  Tyler  party  was 
"nowhere" — Mr.  Wise  alone  being  classified 
as  such — the  rest,  so  few  in  number  as  to  have 
been  called  the  "corporal's  guard,"  had  been 
left  out  of  Congress  by  their  constituents,  or 
had  received  office  from  Mr.  Tyler,  and  gone  off. 
Mr.  Caleb  McNulty,  of  Ohio,  also  democratic, 
was  elected  clerk  of  the  House,  and  by  a  vote 
of  two  to  one,  thus  ousting  an  experienced  and 
capable  whig  officer,  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Mat- 
thew St.  Clair  Clarke — a  change  which  turned 
out  to  be  unfortunate  for  the  friends  of  the 
House,  and  mortifying  to  those  who  did  it — the 
new  clerk  becoming  a  subject  of  indictment  for 
embezzlement  before  his  service  was  over. 


CHAPTER    CXXVII. 

ME.  TYLER'S  SECOND  ANNUAL  MESSAGE. 

The  prominent  topics  of  the  message  were  the 
state  of  our  affairs  with  Great  Britain  and  Mex- 
ico— with  the  former  in  relation  to  Oregon,  the 
latter  in  relation  to  Texas.  In  the  same  breath 
in  which  the  President  announced  the  happy  re- 
sults of  the  Ashburton  treaty,  he  was  forced  to 


go  on  and  show  the  improvidence  of  that  treaty 
on  our  part,  in  not  exacting  a  settlement  of  the 
questions  which  concerned  the  interests  of  the 
United  States,  while  settling  those  which  lay 
near  to  the  interests  of  Great  Britain.  The 
Oregon  territorial  boundary  was  one  of  these 
omitted  American  subjects ;  but  though  passed 
over  by  the  government  in  the  negotiations,  it 
was  forced  upon  its  attention  by  the  people.  A 
stream  of  emigration  was  pouring  into  that 
territory,  and  their  presence  on  the  banks  of 
the  Columbia  caused  the  attention  of  both  gov- 
ernments to  be  drawn  to  the  question  of  titles 
and  boundaries ;  and  Mr.  Tyler  introduced  it  ac- 
cordingly to  Congress. 

"  A  question  of  much  importance  still  remains 
to  be  adjusted  between  them.  The  territorial 
limits  of  the  two  countries  in  relation  to  what 
is  commonly  known  as  the  Oregon  Territory, 
still  remains  in  dispute.  The  United  States 
would  be  at  all  times  indisposed  to  aggrandize 
themselves  at  the  expense  of  any  other  nation ; 
but  while  they  would  be  restrained  by  princi- 
ples of  honor,  which  should  govern  the  conduct 
of  nations  as  well  as  that  of  individuals,  from 
setting  up  a  demand  for  territory  which  does 
not  belong  to  them,  they  would  as  unwillingly 
consent  to  a  surrender  of  their  rights.  After  the 
most  rigid,  and,  as  far  as  practicable,  unbiassed 
examination  of  the  subject,  the  United  States  have 
always  contended  that  their  rights  appertain  to 
the  entire  region  of  country  lying  on  the  Pacific, 
and  embraced  within  42°  and  54°  40'  of  north 
latitude.  This  claim  being  controverted  by 
Great  Britain,  those  who  have  preceded  the 
present  Executive — actuated,  no  doubt,  by  an 
earnest  desire  to  adjust  the  matter  upon  terms 
mutually  satisfactory  to  both  countries — have 
caused  to  be  submitted  to  the  British  Govern- 
ment propositions  for  settlement  and  final  ad- 
justment, which,  however,  have  not  proved 
heretofore  acceptable  to  it.  Our  Minister  at 
London  has,  under  instructions,  again  brought 
the  subject  to  the  consideration  of  that  Govern- 
ment ;  and  while  nothing  will  be  done  to  com- 
promit  the  rights  or  honor  of  the  United  States, 
every  proper  expedient  will  be  resorted  to,  in 
order  to  bring  the  negotiation  now  in  the  pro- 
gress of  resumption  to  a  speedy  and  happy  ter- 
mination." 

This  passage,  while  letting  it  be  seen  that  we 
were  already  engaged  in  a  serious  controversy 
with  Great  Britain— engaged  in  it  almost  before 
the  ink  was  dry  which  had  celebrated  the  peace 
mission  which  was  to  settle  all  questions— also 
committed  a  serious  mistake  in  point  of  fact,  and 
which  being  taken  up  as  a  party  watchword,  be- 
came a  difficult  and  delicate  point  of  manage- 
ment at  home :  it  was  the  line  of  54  degrees  40 


566 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


minutes  north  for  our  northern  boundary  on 
the  Pacific.  The  message  says  that  the  United 
States  have  always  contended  for  that  line. 
That  is  an  error.  From  the  beginning  of  the 
dispute,  the  United  States  government  had  pro- 
posed the  parallel  of  49  degrees,  as  being  the 
continuation  of  the  dividing  line  on  this  side  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  governed  by  the 
same  law — the  decision  of  the  commissaries  ap- 
pointed by  the  British  and  French  under  the 
tenth  article  of  the  treaty  of  Utrecht  to  estab- 
lish boundaries  between  them  on  the  continent 
of  North  America.  President  Jefferson  offered 
that  line  in  1807 — which  was  immediately  after 
the  return  of  Messrs.  Lewis  and  Clark  from 
their  meritorious  expedition,  and  as  soon  as  it 
was  seen  that  a  question  of  boundary  was  to 
arise  in  that  quarter  with  Great  Britain.  Presi- 
dent Monroe  made  the  same  offer  in  1818,  and 
also  in  1824.  Mr.  Adams  renewed  it  in  1826  : 
so  that,  so  far  from  having  always  claimed  to 
54-40,  the  United  States  had  always  offered  the 
parallel  of  49.  As  to  54-40,  no  American 
statesman  had  ever  thought  of  originating  a 
title  there.  It  was  a  Russian  point  of  demarca- 
tion on  the  coast  and  islands — not  a  continental 
line  at  all — first  assigned  to  the  Russian  Fur 
Company  by  the  Emperor  Paul,  and  afterwards 
yielded  to  Russia  by  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain,  separately,  in  separating  their 
respective  claims  on  the  north-west  of  America. 
She  was  allowed  to  come  south  to  that  point  on 
the  coast  and  islands,  not  penetrating  the  in- 
terior of  the  continent — leaving  the  rest  for 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  to  settle  as 
they  could.  It  was  proposed  at  the  time  that 
the  three  powers  should  settle  together — in  a 
tripartite  treaty  :  but  the  Emperor  Alexander, 
like  a  wise  man,  contented  himself  with  settling 
his  own  boundary,  without  mixing  himself  in 
the  dispute  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain.  This  he  did  about  the  year 
1820  :  and  it  was  long  afterwards,  and  by  those 
who  knew  but  little  of  this  establishment  of 
a  southern  limit  for  the  Russian  Fur  Com- 
pany, that  this  point  established  in  their  charter, 
and  afterwards  agreed  to  by  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain,  was  taken  up  as  the  northern 
boundary  for  the  United  States.  It  was  a  great 
error  in  Mr.  Tyler  to  put  this  Russian  limit  in 
his  message  for  our  line ;  and,  being  taken  up 
by  party  spirit,  and  put  into  one  of  those  mush- 
room    political    creeds,     called     "  platforms " 


(wherewith  this  latter  generation  has  been  so 
plentifully  cursed),  it  came  near  involving  the 
United  States  in  war. 

The  prospective  war  with  Mexico  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Texas  was  thus  shadowed  forth : 

"  I  communicate  herewith  certain  despatches 
received  from  our  Minister  at  Mexico,  and  also 
a  correspondence  which  has  recently  occurred 
between  the  envoy  from  that  republic  and  the 
Secretary  of  State.  It  must  be  regarded  as  not 
a  little  extraordinary  that  the  government  of 
Mexico,  in  anticipation  of  a  public  discussion, 
which  it  has  been  pleased  to  infer,  from  news- 
paper publications,  as  likely  to  take  place  in 
Congress,  relating  to  the  annexation  of  Texas 
to  the  United  States,  should  have  so  far  antici- 
pated the  result  of  such  discussion  as  to  have 
announced  its  determination  to  visit  any  such 
anticipated  decision  by  a  formal  declaration  of 
war  against  the  United  States.  If  designed 
to  prevent  Congress  from  introducing  that 
question  as  a  fit  subject  for  its  calm  delibera- 
tion and  final  judgment,  the  Executive  has  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  it  will  entirely  fail  of  its 
object.  The  representatives  of  a  brave  and 
patriotic  people  will  suffer  no  apprehension  of 
future  consequences  to  embarrass  them  in  the 
course  of  their  proposed  deliberations.  Nor 
will  the  Executive  Department  of  the  govern- 
ment fail,  for  any  such  cause,  to  discharge  its 
whole  duty  to  the  country." 

At  the  time  of  communicating  this  informa- 
tion to  Congress,  the  President  was  far  advanced 
in  a  treaty  with  Texas  for  her  annexation  to 
the  United  States — an  event  which  would  be 
war  itself  with  Mexico,  without  any  declaration 
on  her  part,  or  our  part — she  being  then  at  war 
with  Texas  as  a  revolted  province,  and  en- 
deavoring to  reclaim  her  to  her  former  subjec- 
tion. Still  prepossessed  with  his  idea  of  a  na- 
tional currency  of  paper  money,  in  preference 
to  gold  and  silver,  the  President  recurs  to  his 
previous  recommendation  for  an  Exchequer 
bank — regrets  its  rejection  by  Congress, — 
vaunts  its  utility — and  thinks  that  it  would 
still  aid,  in  a  modified  form,  in  restoring  the 
currency  to  a  sound  and  healthy  state. 

"  In  view  of  the  disordered  condition  of  the 
currency  at  the  time,  and  the  high  rates  of  ex- 
change between  different  parts  of  the  country, 
I  felt  it  to  be  incumbent  on  me  to  present  to 
the  consideration  of  your  predecessors  a  propo- 
sition conflicting  in  no  degree  with  the  consti- 
tution or  the  rights  of  the  States,  and  having 
the  sanction — not  in  detail,  but  in  principle — of 
some  of  the  eminent  men  who  had  preceded  me 
in  the  executive  office.  That  proposition  con- 
templated the  issuing  of  treasury  notes  of  de- 
nominations not  less  than  five,  nor  more  than 


ANNO  1843.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


567 


one  hundred  dollars,  to  be  employed  in  payment 
of  the  obligations  of  the  government  in  lieu  of 
gold  and  silver,  at  the  option  of  the  public 
creditor,  and  to  an  amount  not  exceeding 
$15,000,000.  It  was  proposed  to  make  them 
receivable  every  where,  and  to  establish  at 
various  points  depositories  of  gold  and  silver, 
to  be  held  in  trust  for  the  redemption  of  such 
notes,  so  as  to  insure  their  convertibility  into 
specie.  No  doubt  was  entertained  that  such 
notes  would  have  maintained  a  par  value  with 
gold  and  silver — thus  furnishing  a  paper  cur- 
rency of  equal  value  over  the  Union,  thereby 
meeting  the  just  expectations  of  the  people, 
and  fulfilling  the  duties  of  a  parental  govern- 
ment. Whether  the  depositories  should  be 
permitted  to  sell  or  purchase  bills  under  very 
limited  restrictions,  together  with  all  its  other 
details,  was  submitted  to  the  wisdom  of  Con- 
gress, and  was  regarded  as  of  secondary  impor- 
tance. I  thought  then,  and  think  now,  that 
such  an  arrangement  would  have  been  attended 
with  the  happiest  results.  The  whole  matter 
of  the  currency  would  have  been  placed  where, 
by  the  constitution,  it  Was  designed  to  be  placed 
— under  the  immediate  supervision  and  control 
of  Congress.  The  action  of  the  government 
would  have  been  independent  of  all  corporations ; 
and  the  same  eye  which  rests  unceasingly  on 
the  specie  currency,  and  guards  it  against  adul- 
teration, would  also  have  rested  on  the  paper 
currency,  to  control  and  regulate  its  issues, 
and  protect  it  against  depreciation.  Under 
all  the  responsibilities  attached  to  the  station 
which  I  occupy,  and  in  redemption  of  a  pledge 
given  to  the  last  Congress,  at  the  close  of  its 
first  session,  I  submitted  the  suggestion  to  its 
consideration  at  two  consecutive  sessions.  The 
recommendation,  however,  met  with  no  favor 
at  its  hands.  While  I  am  free  to  admit  that 
the  necessities  of  the  times  have  since  become 
greatly  ameliorated,  and  that  there  is  good 
reason  to  hope  that  the  country  is  safely  and 
rapidly  emerging  from  the  difficulties  and  em- 
barrassments which  every  where  surrounded  it 
in  1841,  yet  I  cannot  but  think  that  its  restora- 
tion to  a  sound  and  healthy  condition  would  be 
greatly  expedited  by  a  resort  to  the  expedient 
in  a  modified  form." 

Such  were  still  the  sighings  and  longings  of 
Mr.  Tyler  for  a  national  currency  of  paper 
money.  They  were  his  valedictory  to  that  de- 
lusive cheat.  Before  he  had  an  opportunity  to 
present  another  annual  message,  the  Indepen- 
dent Treasury  System,  and  the  revived  gold 
currency  had  done  their  office — had  given  ease 
and  safety  to  the  government  finances,  had  re- 
stored prosperity  and  confidence  to  the  commu- 
nity, and  placed  the  country  in  a  condition  to 
dispense  with  all  small  money  paper  currency — 
all  under  twenty  dollars — if  it  only  had  the 
wisdom  to  do  so. 


CHAPTER    CXXVIII. 

EXPLOSION  OF  THE  GREAT  GUN  ON  BOARD  THE 
PRINCETON  MAN-OF-WAR:  THE  KILLED  AND 
WOUNDED. 

On  the  morning  of  the  28th  of  February,  a 
company  of  some  hundred  guests,  invited  by 
Commodore  Stockton,  including  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  his  cabinet,  members  of 
both  Houses  of  Congress,  citizens  and  strangers, 
with  a  great  number  of  ladies,  headed  by  Mrs. 
Madison,  ex-presidentess,  repaired  on  board  the 
steamer  man-of-war  Princeton,  then  lying  in  the 
river  below  the  city,  to  witness  the  working  of 
her  machinery  (a  screw  propeller),  and  to  ob- 
serve the  fire  of  her  two  great  guns — throwing 
balls  of  225  pounds  each.  The  vessel  was  the 
pride  and  pet  of  the  commodore,  and  having 
undergone  all  the  trials  necessary  to  prove  her 
machinery  and  her  guns,  was  brought  round  to 
Washington  for  exhibition  to  the  public  authori- 
ties. The  day  was  pleasant — the  company  nu- 
merous and  gay.  On  the  way  down  to  the 
vessel  a  person  whispered  in  my  ear  that  Nicho- 
las Biddle  was  dead.  It  was  my  first  informa- 
tion of  that  event,  and  heard  not  without  re- 
flections on  the  instability  and  shadowy  fleet- 
ingness of  the  pursuits  and  contests  of  this  life. 
Mr.  Biddle  had  been  a  Power  in  the  State,  and 
for  years  had  baffled  or  balanced  the  power  of 
the  government.  He  had  now  vanished,  and 
the  news  of  his  death  came  in  a  whisper,  not 
announced  in  a  tumult  of  voices ;  and  those  who 
had  contended  with  him  might  see  their  own 
sudden  and  silent  evanescence  in  his.  It  was  a 
lesson  upon  human  instability,  and  felt  as  such ; 
but  without  a  thought  or  presentiment  that, 
before  the  sun  should  go  down,  many  of  that  high 
and  gay  company  should  vanish  from  earth — 
and  the  one  so  seriously  impressed  barely  fail 
to  be  of  the  number. 

The  vessel  had  proceeded  down  the  river  be- 
low the  grave  of  Washington— below  Mount 
Vernon— and  was  on  her  return,  the  machinery 
working  beautifully,  the  guns  firing  well,  and 
the  exhibition  of  the  day  happily  over.  It  was 
four-o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  a  sumptuous 
collation  had  refreshed  and  enlivened  the  guests. 
They  were  still  at  the  table,  when  word  was 


568 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


brought  down  that  one  of  the  guns  was  to  be 
fired  again  ;  and  immediately  the  company  rose 
to  go  on  deck  and  observe  the  fire — the  long 
and  vacant  stretch  in  the  river  giving  full  room 
for  the  utmost  range  of  the  ball.  The  President 
and  his  cabinet  went  foremost,  this  writer  among 
them,  conversing  with  Mr.  Gilmer,  Secretary  of 
the  Navy.  The  President  was  called  back: 
the  others  went  on,  and  took  their  places  on 
the  left  of  the  gun — pointing  down  the  river. 
The  commodore  was  with  this  group,  which 
made  a  cluster  near  the  gun,  with  a  crowd 
behind,  and  many  all  around.  I  had  con- 
tinued my  place  by  the  side  of  Mr.  Gilmer,  and 
of  course  was  in  the  front  of  the  mass  which 
crowded  up  to  the  gun.  The  lieutenant  of  the 
vessel,  Mr.  Hunt,  came  and  whispered  in  my 
ear  that  I  would  see  the  range  of  the  ball 
better  from  the  breech ;  and  proposed  to  change 
my  place.  It  was  a  tribute  to  my  business 
habits,  being  indebted  for  this  attention  to  the 
interest  which  I  had  taken  all  day  in  the  work- 
ing of  the  ship,  and  the  firing  of  her  great  guns. 
The  lieutenant  placed  me  on  a  carronade  car- 
riage, some  six  feet  in  the  rear  of  the  gun,  and 
in  the  line  of  her  range.  Senator  Phelps  had 
stopped  on  my  left,  with  a  young  lady  of  Mary- 
land (Miss  Sommerville)  on  his  arm.  I  asked 
them  to  get  on  the  carriage  to  my  right  (not 
choosing  to  lose  my  point  of  observation : 
which  they  did — the  young  lady  between  us, 
and  supported  by  us  both,  with  the  usual  civil 
phrases,  that  we  would  take  care  of  her.  The 
lieutenant  caused  the  gun  to  be  worked,  to 
show  the  ease  and  precision  with  which  her 
direction  could  be  changed,  and  then  pointed 
down  the  river  to  make  the  fire — himself  and 
the  gunners  standing  near  the  breech  on  the 
right.  I  opened  my  mouth  wide  to  receive  the 
concussion  on  the  inside  as  well  as  on  the  out- 
side of  the  head  and  ears,  so  as  to  lessen  the 
force  of  the  external  shock.  I  saw  the  hammer 
prilled  back — heard  a  tap — saw  a  flash — felt  a 
blast  in  the  face,  and  knew  that  my  hat  was 
gone :  and  that  was  the  last  that  I  knew  of  the 
world,  or  of  myself,  for  a  time,  of  which  I  can 
give  no  account.  The  first  that  I  knew  of  my- 
self, or  of  any  thing  afterwards,  was  rising  up 
at  the  breech  of  the  gun,  seeing  the  gun  itself 
split  open — two  seamen,  the  blood  oozing  from 
their  ears  and  nostrils,  rising  and  reefing  near 
me — Commodore  Stockton,  hat  gone,  and  face 


blackened,  standing  bolt  upright,  staring  fixedly 
upon  the  shattered  gun.  I  had  heard  no  noise 
— no  more  than  the  dead.  I  only  knew  that  the 
gun  had  bursted  from  seeing  its  fragments.  I 
felt  no  injury,  and  put  my  arm  under  the  head 
of  a  seaman,  endeavoring  to  rise,  and  falling  back. 
By  that  time  friends  had  ran  up,  and  led  me  to 
the  bow — telling  me  afterwards  that  there  was 
a  supernatural  whiteness  in  the  face  and  hands 
— all  the  blood  in  fact  having  been  driven  from 
the  surface.  I  saw  none  of  the  killed:  they 
had  been  removed  before  consciousness  returned. 
All  that  were  on  the  left  had  been  killed,  the 
gun  bursting  on  that  side,  and  throwing  a  large 
fragment,  some  tons  weight,  on  the  cluster  from 
which  I  had  been  removed,  crushing  the  front 
rank  with  its  force  and  weight.  Mr.  Upshur, 
Secretary  of  State  ;  Mr.  Gilmer,  Secretary  of 
the  Navy ;  Commodore  Kennon,  of  the  navy ; 
Mr.  Virgil  Maxey,  late  United  States  charge  at 
the  Hague  ;  Mr.  Gardiner  of  New  York,  father- 
in-law  that  would  have  been  to  Mr.  Tyler — 
were  the  dead.  Eleven  seamen  were  injured — 
two  mortally.  Commodore  Stockton  was 
scorched  by  the  burning  powder,  and  stunned 
by  the  concussion ;  but  not  further  injured.  I 
had  the  tympanum  of  the  left  ear  bursted 
through,  the  warm  air  from  the  lungs  issuing 
from  it  at  every  breathing.  Senator  Phelps  and 
the  young  lady  on  my  right,  had  fallen  inwards 
towards  the  gun,  but  got  up  without  injury. 
We  all  three  had  fallen  inwards,  as  into  a 
vacuum.  The  President's  servant  who  was  next 
me  on  the  left  was  killed.  Twenty  feet  of  the 
vessels  bulwark  immediately  behind  me  was 
blown  away.  Several  of  the  killed  had  members 
of  their  family  on  board — to  be  deluded  for  a  little 
while,  by  the  care  of  friends,  with  the  belief  that 
those  so  dear  to  them  were  only  hurt.  Several 
were  prevented  from  being  in  the  crushed  cluster 
by  the  merest  accidents — Mr.  Tyler  being  called 
back — Mr.  Seaton  not  finding  his  hat  in  time — 
myself  taken  out  of  it  the  moment  before  the 
catastrophe.  Fortunately  there  were  physicians 
on  board  to  do  what  was  right  for  the  injured, 
and  to  prevent  blood-letting,  so  ready  to  be  called 
for  by  the  uninformed,  and  so  fatal  when  the 
powers  of  life  were  all  on  the  retreat.  Gloomily 
and  sad  the  gay  company  of  the  morning  re- 
turned to  the  city,  and  the  calamitous  intelli- 
gence flew  over  the  land.  For  myself,  I  had 
gone  through  the  experience  of  a  sudden  death, 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


560 


as  if  from  lightning,  which  extinguishes  know- 
ledge and  sensation,  and  takes  one  out  of  the 
world  without  thought  or  feeling.  I  think  I 
know  what  it  is  to  die  without  knowing  it — and 
that  such  a  death  is  nothing  to  him  that  revives. 
The  rapid  and  lucid  working  of  the  mind  to  the 
instant  of  extinction,  is  the  marvel  that  still 
astonishes  me.  I  heard  the  tap— saw  the  flash 
— felt  the  blast — and  knew  nothing  of  the  ex- 
plosion. I  was  cut  off  in  that  inappreciable 
point  of  time  which  intervened  between  the 
flash  and  the  fire — between  the  burning  of  the 
powder  in  the  touch-hole,  and  the  burning  of  it 
in  the  barrel  of  the  gun.  No  mind  can  seize 
that  point  of  time — no  thought  can  measure  it ; 
yet  to  me  it  was  distinctly  marked,  divided  life 
from  death — the  life  that  sees,  and  feels,  and 
knows— from  death  (for  such  it  was  for  the 
time),  which  annihilates  self  and  the  world. 
And  now  is  credible  to  me,  or  rather  compre- 
hensible, what  persons  have  told  me  of  the  rapid 
and  clear  working  of  the  mind  in  sudden  and 
dreadful  catastrophes — as  in  steamboat  explo- 
sions, and  being  blown  into  the  air,  and  have 
the  events  of  their  lives  pass  in  review  before 
them,  and  even  speculate  upon  the  chances  of 
falling  on  the  deck,  and  being  crushed,  or  falling 
on  the  water  and  swimming :  and  persons  re- 
covered from  drowning,  and  running  their  whole 
lives  over  in  the  interval  between  losing  hope 
and  losing:  consciousness. 


CHAPTER    CXXIX. 

RECONSTRUCTION  OF  MR.  TYLER'S  CABINET. 

This  was  the  second  event  of  the  kind  during 
the  administration  of  Mr.  Tyler — the  first  in- 
duced by  the  resignation  of  Messrs.  Ewing, 
Crittenden,  Bell,  and  Badger,  in  1841;  the 
second,  by  the  deaths  of  Messrs.  Upshur  and 
Gilmer  by  the  explosion  of  the  Princeton  gun. 
Mr.  Calhoun  was  appointed  Secretary  of  State  ; 
John  C.  Spencer  of  New  York,  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury ;  William  Wilkins  of  Pennsylvania, 
Secretary  at  War  j  John  Y.  Mason,  of  Virginia, 
Secretary  of  the  Navy ;  Charles  A.  Wickliffe, 
of  Kentucky,  Postmaster  General ;  John  Nel- 
son,  of    Maryland,   Attorney   General.      The 


resignation  of  Mr.  Spencer  in  a  short  time 
made  a  vacancy  in  the  Treasury,  which  was 
filled  by  the  appointment  of  George  M.  Bibb,  of 
Kentucky. 


CHAPTER    CXXX. 

DEATH    OF    SENATOR    PORTER,    OF    LOUISIANA: 
EULOGIUM  OF  MR.  BENTON. 

Mr.  Benton.  I  rise  to  second  the  motion 
which  has  been  made  to  render  the  last  honors 
of  this  chamber  to  our  deceased  brother  sena- 
tor, whose  death  has  been  so  feelingly  an- 
nounced ;  and  in  doing  so,  I  comply  with  an 
obligation  of  friendship,  as  well  as  conform  to 
the  usage  of  the  Senate.  I  am  the  oldest  per- 
sonal friend  which  the  illustrious  deceased  could 
have  upon  this  floor,  and  amongst  the  oldest 
which  he  could  have  in  the  United  States.  It 
is  now,  sir,  more  than  the  period  of  a  genera- 
tion— more  than  the  third  of  a  century — since 
the  then  emigrant  Irish  boy,  Alexander  Por- 
ter, and  myself,  met  on  the  banks  of  the  Cum- 
berland River,  at  Nashville,  in  the  State  of  Ten- 
nessee ;  when  commenced  a  friendship  which 
death  only  dissolved  on  his  part.  We  belonged 
to  a  circle  of  young  lawyers  and  students  at 
law,  who  had  the  world  before  them,  and 
nothing  but  their  exertions  to  depend  upon. 
First  a  clerk  in  his  uncle's  store,  then  a  student 
at  law,  and  always  a  lover  of  books,  the  young 
Porter  was  one  of  that  circle,  and  it  was  the 
custom  of  all  that  belonged  to  it  to  spend  their 
leisure  hours  in  the  delightful  occupation  of 
reading.  History,  poetry,  elocution,  biography, 
the  ennobling  speeches  of  the  living  and  the 
dead,  were  our  social  recreation ;  and  the 
youngest  member  of  the  circle  was  one  of  our 
favorite  readers.  He  read  well,  because  he 
comprehended  clearly,  felt  strongly,  remarked 
beautifully  upon  striking  passages,  and  gave  a 
new  charm  to  the  whole  with  his  rich,  mel- 
lifluous Irish  accent.  It  was  then  that  I  be- 
came acquainted  with  Ireland  and  her  children, 
read  the  ample  story  of  her  wrongs,  learnt  the 
long  list  of  her  martyred  patriots'  names,  sym- 
pathized in  their  fate,  and  imbibed  the  feelings 
for  a  noble  and  oppressed  people  which  the  ex- 
tinction of  my  own  life  can  alone  extinguish. 


570 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Time  and  events  dispersed  that  circle.  The 
young  Porter,  his  law  license  signed,  went  to 
the  Lower  Mississippi ;  I  to  the  Upper.  And, 
years  afterwards,  we  met  on  this  floor,  senators 
from  different  parts  of  that  vast  Louisiana 
which  was  not  even  a  part  of  the  American 
Union  at  the  time  that  he  and  I  were  born. 
We  met  here  in  the  session  of  1833-'34 — high 
party  times,  and  on  opposite  sides  of  the  great 
party  line  ;  but  we  met  as  we  had  parted  years 
before.  We  met  as  friends ;  and,  though  often 
our  part  to  reply  to  each  other  in  the  ardent 
debate,  yet  never  did  we  do  it  with  other  feel- 
ings than  those  with  which  we  were  wont  to 
discuss  our  subjects  of  recreation  on  the  banks 
of  the  Cumberland. 

I  mention  these  circumstances,  Mr.  President, 
because,  while  they  are  honorable  to  the  de- 
ceased, they  are  also  justificatory  to  myself  for 
appearing  as  the  second  to  the  motion  which 
has  been  made.  A  personal  friendship  of  al- 
most forty  years  gives  me  a  right  to  appear  as 
a  friend  to  the  deceased  on  this  occasion,  and  to 
perform  the  office  which  the  rules  and  the  usage 
of  the  Senate  permit,  and  which  so  many  other 
senators  would  so  cordially  and  so  faithfully 
perform. 

In  performing  this  office,  I  have,  literally,  but 
little  less  to  do  but  to  second  the  motion  of  the 
senator  from  Louisiana  (Mr.  Barrow).  The 
mover  has  done  ample  justice  to  his  great  sub- 
ject. He  also  had  the  advantage  of  long  ac- 
quaintance and  intimate  personal  friendship 
with  the  deceased.  He  also  knew  him  on  the 
banks  of  the  Cumberland,  though  too  young  to 
belong  to  the  circle  of  young  lawyers  and  law 
students,  of  which  the  junior  member — the 
young  Alexander  Porter — was  the  chief  orna- 
ment and  delight.  But  he  knew  him — long 
and  intimately — and  has  given  evidence  of  that 
knowledge  in  the  just,  the  feeling,  the  cordial, 
and  impressive  eulogium  which  he  has  just  de- 
livered on  the  life  and  character  of  his  deceased 
friend  and  colleague.  He  has  presented  to  you 
the  matured  man,  as  developed  in  his  ripe  and 
meridian  age:  he  has  presented  to  you  the 
finished  scholar — the  eminent  lawyer — the  pro- 
found judge — the  distinguished  senator — the 
firm  patriot — the  constant  friend — the  honor- 
able man — the  brilliant  converser — the  social, 
cheerful,  witty  companion.  He  has  presented 
to  you  the  ripe  fruit,  of  which  I  saw  the  early 


blossom,  and  of  which  I  felt  the  assurance 
more  than  thirty  years  ago,  that  it  would  ripen 
into  the  golden  fruit  which  we  have  all  beheld. 

Mr.  President,  this  is  no  vain  or  empty  cere- 
monial in  which  the  Senate  is  now  engaged. 
Honors  to  the  illustrious  dead  go  beyond  the 
discharge  of  a  debt  of  justice  to  them,  and  the 
rendition  of  consolation  to  their  friends  :  they 
become  lessons  and  examples  for  the  living. 
The  story  of  their  humble  beginning  and  noble 
conclusion,  is  an  example  to  be  followed,  and  an 
excitement  to  be  felt.  And  where  shall  we  find 
an  example  more  worthy  of  imitation,  or  more 
full  of  encouragement,  than  in  the  life  and  char- 
acter" oj"  Alexander  Porter? — a  lad  of  tender 
age — an  orphan  with  a  widowed  mother  and 
younger  children — the  father  martyred  in  the 
cause  of  freedom — an  exile  before  he  was  ten 
years  old — an  ocean  to  be  crossed,  and  a  strange 
land  to  be  seen,  and  a  wilderness  of  a  thousand 
miles  to  be  penetrated  before  he  could  find  a 
resting-place  for  the  sole  of  his  foot :  then  edu- 
cation to  be  acquired,  support  to  be  earned,  and 
even  citizenship  to  be  gained,  before  he  could 
make  his  own  talents  available  to  his  support : 
conquering  all  these  difficulties  by  his  own  ex- 
ertions, and  the  aid  of  an  affectionate  uncle — (I 
will  name  him,  for  the  benefactor  of  youth  de- 
serves to  be  named,  and  named  with  honor  in 
the  highest  places) — with  no  other  aid  but  that 
of  an  uncle's  kindness,  Mr.  Alexander  Porter, 
sen.,  merchant  of  Nashville,  also  an  emigrant 
from  Ireland,  and  full  of  the  generous  qualities 
which  belong  to  the  children  of  that  soil :  this 
lad,  an  exile  and  an  orphan  from  the  Old  World, 
thus  starting  in  the  New  World,  with  every 
thing  to  gain  before  it  could  be  enjoyed,  soon 
attained  every  earthly  object,  either  brilliant  or 
substantial,  for  which  we  live  and  struggle  in 
this  life — honors,  fortune,  friends ;  the  highest 
professional  and  political  distinction ;  long  a 
supreme  judge  in  his  adopted  State ;  twice  a 
senator  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States — 
wearing  all  his  honors  fresh  and  glowing  to  the 
last  moment  of  his  life — and  the  announcement 
of  his  death  followed  by  the  adjournment  of 
the  two  Houses  of  the  American  Congress  1 
What  a  noble  and  crowning  conclusion  to  a  be- 
ginning so  humble,  and  so  apparently  hopeless  ! 
Honors  to  such  a  life — the  honors  which  we 
now  pay  to  the  memory  of  Senator  Porter — are 
not  mere  offerings  to  the  dead,  or  mere  consola- 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


571 


tions  to  the  feelings  of  surviving  friends  and  re- 
lations ;  they  go  further,  and  become  incentives 
and  inducements  to  the  ingenuous  youth  of  the 
present  and  succeeding  generations,  encouraging 
their  hopes,  and  firing  their  spirits  with  a  gen- 
erous emulation. 

Nor  do  the  benefits  of  these  honors  stop  with 
individuals,  nor  even  with  masses,  or  genera- 
tions of  men.  They  are  not  confined  to  per- 
sons, but  rise  to  institutions — to  the  noble  re- 
publican institutions  under  which  such  things 
can  be  !  Republican  government  itself — that 
government  which  holds  man  together  in  the 
proud  state  of  equality  and  liberty — this  gov- 
ernment is  benefited  by  the  exhibition  of  the 
examples  such  as  we  now  celebrate,  and  by  the 
rendition  of  the  honors  such  as  we  now  pay. 
Our  deceased  brother  senator  has  honored  and 
benefited  our  free  republican  institutions  by 
the  manner  in  which  he  has  advanced  himself 
under  them ;  and  we  make  manifest  that  bene- 
fit by  the  honors  which  we  pay  him.  He  has 
given  a  practical  illustration  of  the  working  of 
our  free,  and  equal,  and  elective  form  of  govern- 
ment ;  and  our  honors  proclaim  the  nature  of 
that  working.  What  is  done  in  this  chamber 
is  not  done  in  a  corner,  but  on  a  lofty  eminence, 
seen  of  all  people.  Europe,  as  well  as  Ameri- 
ca, will  see  how  our  form  of  government  has 
worked  in  the  person  of  an  orphan  exiled  boy, 
seeking  refuge  in  the  land  which  gives  to  virtue 
and  talent  all  that  they  will  ever  ask — the  free 
use  of  their  own  exertions  for  their  own  ad- 
vancement. 

Our  deceased  brother  was  not  an  American 
citizen  by  accident  of  birth ;  he  became  so  by 
the  choice  of  his  own  will,  and  by  the  operation 
of  our  laws.  The  events  of  his  life,  and  the 
business  of  this  day,  shows  this  title  to  citizen- 
ship to  be  as  valid  in  our  America  as  it  was  in 
the  great  republic  of  antiquity.  I  borrow  the 
thought,  not  the  language  of  Cicero,  in  his 
pleading  for  the  poet  Archias,  when  I  place  the 
citizen  who  becomes  so  by  law  and  choice  on  an 
equal  footing  with  the  citizen  who  becomes  so 
by  chance.  And,  in  the  instance  before  us,  we 
may  say  that  our  adopted  citizen  has  repaid  us 
for  the  liberality  of  our  laws ;  that  he  has  add- 
ed to  the  stock  of  our  national  character  by  the 
contributions  which  he  has  brought  to  it  in  the 
purity  of  his  private  life,  the  eminence  of  his 


public  services,  the  ardor  of  his  patriotism,  and 
the  elegant  productions  of  his  mind. 

And  here  let  me  say— and  I  say  it  with  pride 
and  satisfaction— our  deceased  brother  senator 
loved  and  admired  his  adopted  country,  with  a 
love  and  admiration  increasing  with  his  age, 
and  with  his  better  knowledge  of  the  countries 
of  the  Old  World.  A  few  years  ago,  and  after 
he  had  obtained  great  honor  and  fortune  in  this 
country,  he  returned  on  a  visit  to  his  native 
land,  and  to  the  continent  of  Europe.  It  was 
an  occasion  of  honest  exultation  for  the  orphan 
emigrant  boy  to  return  to  the  land  of  his  fa- 
thers, rich  in  the  goods  of  this  life,  and  clothed 
with  the  honors  of  the  American  Senate.  But 
the  visit  was  a  melancholy  one  to  him.  His 
soul  sickened  at  the  state  of  his  fellow  man  in 
the  Old  World  (I  had  it  from  his  own  lips),  and 
he  returned  from  that  visit  with  stronger  feel- 
ings than  ever  in  favor  of  his  adopted  country. 
New  honor  awaited  him  here — that  of  a  second 
election  to  the  American  Senate.  But  of  this 
he  was  not  permitted  to  taste ;  and  the  pro- 
ceedings of  this  day  announce  his  second  brief 
elevation  to  this  body,  and  his  departure  from 
it  through  the  gloomy  portals  of  death,  and  the 
radiant  temple  of  enduring  fame. 


CHAPTER    CXXXI. 

NAVAL  ACADEMY,  AND  NAVAL  POLICY  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES. 

By  scraps  of  laws,  regulations,  and  departmental 
instructions,  a  Naval  Academy  has  grown  up, 
and  a  naval  policy  become  established  for  the 
United  States,  without  the  legislative  wisdom 
of  the  country  having  passed  upon  that  policy, 
and  contrary  to  its  previous  policy,  and  against 
its  interest  and  welfare.  A  Naval  Academy, 
with  250  pupils,  and  annually  coming  off  in 
scores,  makes  perpetual  demand  for  ships  and 
commissions  ;  and  these  must  be  furnished, 
whether  required  by  the  public  service  or  not  j 
and  thus  the  idea  of  a  limited  navy,  or  of  a  na- 
val peace  establishment,  is  extinguished ;  and  a 
perpetual  war  establishment  in  time  of  peace  is 
growing  up  upon  our  hands.     Prone  to  imitate 


572 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


every  thing  that  was  English,  there  was  a  party 
among  us  from  the  beginning  which  wished  to 
make  the  Union,  like  Great  Britain,  a  great  na- 
val power,  without  considering  that  England 
was  an  island,  with  foreign  possessions  ;  which 
made  a  navy  a  necessity  of  her  position  and 
her  policy,  while  we  were  a  continent,  without 
foreign  possessions,  to  whom  a  navy  would  be  an 
expensive  and  idle  encumbrance  ;  without  con- 
sidering that  England  is  often  by  her  policy  re- 
quired to  be  aggressive,  the  United  States  never ; 
without  considering  that  England  is  a  part  of  the 
European  system,  and  subject  to  wars  (to  her 
always  maritime)  in  which  she  has  no  interest, 
while  the  United  States,  in  the  isolation  of  their 
geographical  position,  and  the  independence  of 
their  policy,  can  have  no  wars  but  her  own ; 
and  those  defensive.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
was  a  large  party,  and  dominant  after  the  presi- 
dential election  of  1800,  which  saw  great  evil  in 
emulating  Great  Britain  as  a  naval  power,  and 
made  head  against  that  emulation  in  all  the 
modes  of  acting  on  the  public  mind :  speeches 
and  votes  in  Congress,  essays,  legislative  decla- 
rations. The  most  authoritative,  and  best  con- 
sidered declaration  of  the  principles  of  this 
party,  was  made  some  fifty  years  ago,  in  the 
General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  in  the  era  of  her 
greatest  men ;  and  when  the  minds  of  these 
men,  themselves  fathers  of  the  State,  was  most 
profoundly  turned  to  the  nature,  policy,  and 
working  of  our  government.  All  have  heard  of 
the  Virginia  resolutions  of  1798-'99,  to  restrain 
the  unconstitutional  and  unwise  action  of  the 
federal  government :  there  were  certain  other  co- 
temporaneous  resolutions  from  the  same  source 
in  relation  to  a  navy,  of  which  but  little  has 
been  known ;  and  which,  for  forty  years,  and 
now,  are  of  more  practical  importance  than  the 
former.  In  the  session  of  her  legislature,  1799- 
1800,  in  their  "  Instructions  to  Senators,"  that 
General  Assembly  said : 

"  "With  respect  to  the  navy,  it  may  be  proper 
to  remind  you,  that  whatever  may  be  the  pro- 
posed object  of  its  establishment,  or  whatever 
may  be  the  prospect  of  temporary  advantages 
resulting  therefrom,  it  is  demonstrated  by  the 
experience  of  all  nations,  which  have  ventured 
far  into  naval  policy,  that  such  prospect  is  ulti- 
mately delusive ;  and  that  a  navy  has  ever,  in 
practice,  been  known  more  as  an  instrument  of 
power,  a  source  of  expense,  and  an  occasion  of 
collisions  and  of  wars  with  other  nations,  than 


as  an  instrument  of  defence,  of  economy,  or  of 
protection  to  commerce.  Nor  is  there  any  na- 
tion, in  the  judgment  of  this  General  Assembly, 
to  whose  circumstances  these  remarks  are  more 
applicable  than  to  the  United  States." 

Such  was  the  voice  of  the  great  men  of  Vir- 
ginia, some  fifty  years  ago — the  voice  of  reason 
and  judgment  then ;  and  more  just,  judicious, 
and  applicable,  now,  than  then.  Since  that 
time  the  electro-magnetic  telegraph,  and  the 
steam-car,  have  been  invented — realizing  for  de- 
fensive war,  the  idea  of  the  whole  art  of  war,  as 
conceived  and  expressed  by  the  greatest  of 
generals — diffusion  for  subsistence  :  concen- 
tration for  action.  That  was  the  language  of 
the  Great  Emperor :  and  none  but  himself  could 
have  so  conceived  and  expressed  that  idea. 
And  now  the  ordinary  commander  can  practise 
that  whole  art  of  war,  and  without  ever  hav- 
ing read  a  book  upon  war.  He  would  know 
what  to  have  done,  and  the  country  would  do 
it.  Play  the  telegraph  at  the  approach  of  an 
invader,  and  summon  the  volunteer  citizens  to 
meet  him  at  the  water's  edge.  They  would  be 
found  at  home,  diffused  for  subsistence :  they 
would  concentrate  for  action,  and  at  the  rate  of 
500  miles  a  day,  or  more  if  need  be.  In  two 
days  they  would  come  from  the  Mississippi  to 
the  Atlantic.  It  would  be  the  mere  business 
of  the  accumulation  of  masses  upon  a  given 
point,  augmenting  continually,  and  attacking 
incessantly.  Grand  tactics,  and  the  "  nineteen 
manoeuvres,"  would  be  unheard  of :  plain  and 
direct  killing  would  be  the  only  work.  No 
amount  of  invading  force  could  sustain  itself  a 
fortnight  on  any  part  of  our  coast.  If  hundreds 
of  thousands  were  not  enough  to  cut  them  up, 
millions  would  come — arms,  munitions,  provi- 
sions, arriving  at  the  same  time.  With  this  de- 
fence— cheap,  ready,  omnipotent — who,  outside 
of  an  insane  hospital,  would  think  of  building 
and  keeping  up  eternal  fleets  to  meet  the  invader 
and  fight  him  at  sea  ?  The  idea  would  be  sense- 
less, if  practicable ;  but  it  would  be  impracti- 
cable. There  will  never  be  another  naval  action 
fought  for  the  command  of  the  seas.  There  has 
been  none  such  fought  since  the  French  and 
British  fleets  met  off  Ouessant,  in  1793.  That 
is  the  last  instance  of  a  naval  action  fought  upon 
consent :  all  the  rest  have  been  mere  catching, 
and  whipping :  and  there  will  never  be  another. 
Fleets  must  approach  equality  before  they  can 


ANNO  1844.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


573 


fight;  and  with  her  five  hundred  men-of-war 
on  hand,  Great  Britain  is  too  far  ahead  to  be 
overtaken  by  any  nation,  even  if  any  one  was 
senseless  enough  to  incur  her  debt  and  taxes  for 
the  purpose.  Look  at  Russia !  building  ships 
from  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great ;  and  the  first 
day  they  were  wanted,  all  useless  and  a  burden ! 
only  to  be  saved  by  the  strongest  fortifications 
in  the  world,  filled  with  the  strongest  armies  of 
the  world !  and  all  burnt,  or  sunk,  that  could 
not  be  so  protected.  Great  Britain  is  compelled 
by  the  necessities  of  her  position,  to  keep  up 
great  fleets  :  the  only  way  to  make  head  against 
them  is  to  avoid  swelling  their  numbers  with 
the  fleets  of  other  nations — avoid  the  Trafalgars, 
Aboukirs,  Copenhagens,  St.  Vincents— and  prey 
upon  her  with  cruisers  and  privateers.  It  is 
the  profound  observation  of  Alison,  the  English 
historian  of  the  wars  of  the  French  revolution 
that  the  American  cruisers  did  the  British  more 
mischief  in  their  two  years'  war  of  1812,  than 
all  the  fleets  of  France  did  during  their  twenty 
years'  war.  What  a  blessing  to  our  country, 
if  American  statesmen  could  only  learn  that  one 
little  sentence  in  Alison. 

The  war  of  1812  taught  American  statesmen 
a  great  lesson  ;  but  they  read  it  backwards,  and 
understood  it  the  reverse  of  its  teaching.  It 
taught  the  efficacy  of  cruising — the  inefficacy 
of  fleets.  American  cruisers,  and  privateers, 
did  immense  mischief  to  British  commerce  and 
shipping :  British  fleets  did  no  mischief  to 
America.  Their  cruisers  did  some  mischief— 
their  fleets  none.  And  that  is  the  way  to  read 
the  lesson  taught  by  the  naval  operations  of  the 
war  of  1812.  Cruisers,  to  be  built  when  they 
are  needed  for  use :  not  fleets  to  rot  down  in 
peace,  while  waiting  for  war.  Yet,  for  forty 
years  we  have  been  building  great  ships — 
frigates  equal  to  ships  of  the  line  :  liners, 
nearly  double  the  old  size — 120  guns  instead 
of  seventy-fours.  Eleven  of  these  great  liners 
have  been  built,  merely  to  rot !  at  enormous 
cost  in  the  building,  and  great  continual  cost  to 
delay  the  rotting ;  which,  nevertheless,  goes  on 
with  the  regularity  and  certainty  of  time.  A 
judicious  administrative  economy  would  have 
them  all  broken  up  (to  say  nothing  of  others), 
and  the  serviceable  parts  all  preserved,  to  be 
built  into  smaller  vessels  when  there  shall  be 
need  for  them.  It  is  forty  years  since  this  sys- 
tem of  building  vessels  for  which  there  was 


no  use,  took  its  commencement,  and  the  cry 
for  more  is  greater  now  than  it  was  in  the  be- 
ginning j  and  must  continue.    A  history  of  each 
ship  built  in  that  time— what  the  building  cost? 
what  the  repairs?  what  the  alterations?  what 
the  equipment  ?  what  the  crew  ?  and  how  many 
shot  she  fired  at  an  enemy  ?  would  be  a  history 
which  ought  to  be  instructive;  for  it  would 
show  an  incredible  amount  of  money  as  effec- 
tually wasted  as  if  it  had  been  thrown  into  the 
sea.     Great  as  this  building  and  rotting  has 
been  for  forty  years  past,  it  must  continue  to 
become  greater.    The  Naval  Academy  is  a  fruit- 
ful mother,  bearing  250  embryo  officers  in  her 
womb  at  a  time,  and  all  the  time  ;  and  most  of 
them  powerfully  connected  :   and  they  must 
have  ships  and  commissions,  when  they  leave 
the  mother's  breast.     They  are  the  children  of 
the  country,  and  must  be  provided  for — they 
and  their  children  after  them.     This  academy 
commits  the  government  to  a  great  navy,  as  the 
Military  Academy  commits  it  to  a  great  army. 
It  is  no  longer  the  wants  of  the  country,  but  of 
the  eleves  of  the  institution  which  must  be 
provided  for ;  and  routine  officers  are  to  take 
all  the  places.     Officers  are  now  to  be  made  in 
schools,  whether  they  have  any  vocation  for  the 
profession  or  not ;  and  slender  is  the  chance  of 
the  government  to  get  one  that  would  ever  have 
gained  a  commission  by  his  own  exertions.   This 
writer  was  not  a  senator  for  thirty  years,  and 
the  channel  of  incessant  applications  for  cadet 
and  midshipman  places,  without  knowing  the 
motives  on  which  such  applications  were  made ; 
and  these  motives  may  be  found  in  three  classes. 
First,  and  most  honorable  would  be  the  case  of 
a  father,  who  would  say — "  I  have  a  son,  a  bright 
boy,  that  I  have  been  educating  for  a  profession, 
but  his  soul  is  on  fire  for  the  army,  or  navy, 
and  I  have  yielded  to  his  wishes,  though  against 
my  own,  and  believe  if  he  gets  the  place,  that 
he  will  not  dishonor  his  country's  flag."    One  of 
the  next  class  would  say — "  I  have  a  son,  and  he 
is  not  a  bright  boy  (meaning  that  he  is  a  booby), 
and  cannot  take  a  profession,  but  he  would  do 
very  well  in  the  army  or  navy."    Of  the  third 
class,  an  unhappy  father  would  say—"  I  have  a 
son,  a  smart  boy,  but  wild  (meaning  he  was 
vicious),  and  I  want  to  get  him  in  the  army  or 
navy,  where  he  could  be  disciplined."    These, 
and  the  hereditary  class  (those  whose  fathers 
and  grandfathers  have  been  in  the  service)  are 


574 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  descriptions  of  applicants  for  these  appoint- 
ments ;  so  that,  it  may  be  seen,  the  chances  are 
three  or  four  to  one  against  getting  a  suitable 
subject  for  an  officer;  and  of  those  who  are 
suitable,  many  resign  soon  after  they  have  got 
educated  at  public  expense,  and  go  into  civil 
life.  Routine  officers  are,  therefore,  what  may 
be  expected  from  these  schools — officers  whom 
nature  has  not  licensed,  and  who  keep  out  of  the 
service  those  whom  she  has.  The  finest  naval 
officers  that  the  world  ever  saw,  were  bred  in 
the  merchant  service;  and  of  that  England, 
Holland,  France,  Genoa,  and  Venice,  are  proofs ; 
and  none  more  so  than  our  own  country.  The 
world  never  saw  a  larger  proportion  of  able 
commanders  than  our  little  navy  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  of  the  Algerine  and  Tripolitan  wars, 
and  the  war  of  1812,  produced.  They  all  came 
(but  few  exceptions)  from  the  merchant  ser- 
vice ;  and  showed  an  ability  and  zeal  which  no 
school-house  officers  will  ever  equal. 

Great  Britain  keeps  up  squadrons  in  time  of 
peace,  and  which  is  a  necessity  of  her  insular 
position,  and  of  her  remote  possessions:  we 
must  have  squadrons  also,  though  no  use  for 
them  abroad,  and  infinitely  better  to  remain  in 
our  own  ports,  and  spend  the  millions  at  home 
which  are  now  spent  abroad.  There  is  not  a  sea 
in  which  our  commerce  is  subject  to  any  danger 
of  a  kind  which  a  man-of-war  would  prevent,  or 
punish,  in  which  a  cruiser  would  not  be  suffi- 
cient. All  our  squadrons  are  anomalies,  and 
the  squadron  system  should  be  broken  up. 
The  Home  should  never  have  existed,  and  owes 
its  origin  to  the  least  commendable  period  of 
our  existence;  the  same  of  the  African,  con- 
ceived at  the  same  time,  put  upon  us  by  treaty, 
under  the  insidious  clause  that  we  could  get  rid 
of  it  in  five  years,  and  which  has  already  con- 
tinued near  three  times  five ;  and  which  timidity 
and  conservatism  will  combine  to  perpetuate — 
that  timidity  which  is  the  child  of  temporization, 
and  sees  danger  in  every  change.  As  for  the 
Mediterranean,  the  Brazil,  the  Pacific,  the  East 
India  squadron,  they  are  mere  British  imitations 
without  a  reason  for  the  copy,  and  a  pretext  for 
saying  the  ships  are  at  sea.  The  fact  is,  they 
are  in  comfortable  stations,  doing  nothing,  and 
had  far  better  be  at  home,  and  in  ordinary. 
One  hundred  and  forty  court-martials,  many 
dismissions  without  courts,  and  two  hundred 
eliminations  at  a  single  dash,  proclaim  the  fact 


that  our  navy  is  idle !  and  that  this  idleness 
gives  rise  to  dissipation,  to  dissensions,  to  insub- 
ordination, to  quarrels,  to  accusations,  to  court- 
martials.  The  body  of  naval  officers  are  as 
good  as  any  other  citizens,  but  idleness  is  a  de- 
stroyer which  no  body  of  men  can  stand.  "VVe 
have  no  use  for  a  navy,  and  never  shall  have ; 
yet  we  continue  building  ships  and  breeding 
officers — the  ships  to  rot — the  officers  to  be- 
come "  the  cankers  of  a  calm  world  and  a  long 
peace." 

The  Virginia  resolves  of  1799-1800  on  the 
subject  of  a  navy,  contain  the  right  doctrine  for 
the  United  States,  even  if  the  state  of  the  world 
had  remained  what  it  was — even  if  the  telegraph 
and  the  steam-car  had  not  introduced  a  new  era 
in  the  art  of  defensive  war.  It  is  the  most  ex- 
pensive and  inefficient  of  all  modes  of  warfare. 
Its  cost  is  enormous :  its  results  nothing.  A 
naval  victory  decides  nothing  but  which  shall 
have  the  other's  ships. 

In  the  twenty  years  of  the  wars  of  the 
French  revolution,  Great  Britain  whipped  all  the 
inimical  fleets  she  could  catch.  She  got  all 
their  ships ;  and  nothing  but  their  ships.  Not 
one  of  her  naval  victories  had  the  least  effect 
upon  the  fate  of  the  wars :  land  battles  alone 
decided  the  fate  of  countries,  and  commanded 
the  issues  of  peace  or  war.  Concluding  no  war, 
they  are  one  of  the  fruitful  sources  of  beginning 
wars.  Only  employed  (by  those  who  possess 
them)  at  long  intervals,  they  must  be  kept  tip 
the  whole  time.  Enormously  expensive,  the 
expense  is  eternal.  Armies  can  be  disbanded — 
navies  must  be  kept  up.  Long  lists  of  officers 
must  be  receiving  pay  when  doing  nothing. 
Pensions  are  inseparable  from  the  system.  Go- 
ing to  sea  in  time  of  peace  is  nothing  but  visit- 
ing foreign  countries  at  the  expense  of  the  gov- 
ernment. The  annual  expense  of  our  navy 
now  (all  the  heads  of  expense  incident  to  the 
establishment  included)  is  some  fifteen  millions 
of  dollars :  the  number  of  men  employed,  is 
some  10,000 — being  at  a  cost  of  $1,500  a  man, 
and  they  nothing  to  do.  The  whole  number  of 
guns  afloat  is  some  2,000 — which  is  at  the  rate 
of  some  $9,000  a  gun ;  and  they  nothing  in  the 
world  to  shoot  at.  The  expense  of  a  navy  is ' 
enormous.  The  protection  of  commerce  is  a 
phrase  incessantly  repeated,  and  of  no  applica- 
tion. Commerce  wants  no  protection  from  men- 
of-war  except  against  piratical  nations ;   and 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


575 


they  are  fewer  now  than  they  were  fifty  years 
ago ;  and  some  cruisers  were  then  sufficient. 
The  Mediterranean,  which  was  then  the  great 
seat  of  piracy,  is  now  as  free  from  it  as  the 
Chesapeake  Bay  is.  We  have  no  naval  policy — 
no  S}rstem  adapted  by  the  legislative  wisdom — 
no  peace  establishment — no  understood  princi- 
ciple  of  action  in  relation  to  a  navy.  All  goes 
by  fits  and  starts.  A  rumor  of  war  is  started : 
more  ships  are  demanded  :  a  combined  interest 
supports  the  demand — officers,  contractors,  poli- 
ticians. The  war  does  not  come,  but  the  ships 
are  built,  and  rot :  and  so  on  in  a  circle  without 
end. 


CHAPTER    CXXXII. 

THE  HOME  SQUADRON :   ITS  INUTILITY  AND 
EXPENSE. 

Early  in  the  session  of  '43-'44,  Mr.  Hale,  of 
New  Hampshire,  brought  into  the  House  a  reso- 
lution of  inquiry  into  the  origin,  use,  and  ex- 
pense of  the  home  squadron :  to  which  Mr. 
Hamlin,  of  Maine,  proposed  the  further  inquiry 
to  know  what  service  that  squadron  had  per- 
formed since  it  had  been  created.  In  support 
of  his  proposition,  Mr.  Hale  said : 

"  He  believed  they  were  indebted  to  this  ad- 
ministration for  the  home  squadron.  The  whole 
sixteen  vessels  which  composed  that  squadron 
were  said  to  be  necessary  to  protect  the  coasting 
trade ;  and  though  the  portion  of  the  country 
from  which  he  came  was  deeply  concerned  in 
the  coasting  trade,  yet  he  himself  was  convinced 
that  many  of  those  vessels  might  be  dispensed 
with.  If  this  information  were  laid  before  the 
House,  they  would  have  something  tangible  on 
which  to  lay  their  hands,  in  the  way  of  retrench- 
ment and  reform.  He  wanted  this  information 
for  the  purpose  of  pointing  out  to  the  House 
where  an  enormous  expense  might  be  cut  down, 
without  endangering  any  of  the  interests  of  the 
country.  Gentlemen  had  talked  about  being 
prepared  with  a  sufficient  navy  to  meet  and  con- 
tend with  the  naval  power  of  Great  Britain ; 
but  had  they  any  idea  of  the  outlay  which  was 
required  to  support  such  a  navy  ?  The  expense 
of  the  navy  of  Great  Britain  amounted  to  be- 
tween eighty  and  a  hundred  millions  of  dollars 
annually.  We  were  not  in  want  of  such  a 
great  naval  establishment  to  make  ourselves 
respected  at  home  or  abroad.  General  Jackson 
alone  had  produced  an  impression  upon  one  of 


the  oldest  nations  of  Europe,  which  it  would  1* 
impossible  for  this  administration  to  do  with 
the  assistance  of  all  the  navies  in  the  world." 

Mr.  Jared  Ingersoll  was  in  favor  of  retrench- 
ment and  economy,  but  thought  the  process 
ought  to  begin  in  the  civil  and  diplomatic  de- 
partment— in  the  Congress  itself,  and  in  the  ex- 
penses it  allowed  for  multiplied  missions  abroad 
and  incessant  changes  in  the  incumbents.  With 
respect  to  abuses  in  the  naval  expenditures,  he 
said : — 

"  He  had  no  knowledge  of  his  own  on  this 
subject ;  but  he  had  learned  from  a  distinguished 
officer  of  the  navy,  that  in  the  navy-yards,  in  the 
equipment  of  ships,  by  the  waste  and  extrava- 
gance caused  by  allowing  officers  to  rebuild 
ships  when  they  pleased,  and  the  loss  on  the 
provisions  of  ships  just  returned  from  sea,  which 
have  been  taken  or  thrown  away,  the  greatest 
abuses  have  been  practised,  which  have  assisted 
in  swelling  up  the  naval  expenditures  to  their 
present  enormous  amount." 

Mr.  Adams  differed  from  Mr.  Ingersoll  in  the 
scheme  of  beginning  retrenchment  on  the  civil 
list,  and  presented  the  army  and  the  navy  as 
the  two  great  objects  of  wasteful  expenditure, 
and  the  points  at  which  reform  ought  to  begin, 
and  especially  with  retrenching  this  home  squad- 
ron, for  which  he  had  voted  in  1841,  but  now 
condemned.     He  said : 

"  The  gentleman  gave  the  House,  undoubtedly, 
a  great  deal  of  instruction  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  it  should  carry  out  retrenchment  and  re- 
form, and  finally  elect  a  President ;  but  his  re- 
marks did  not  happen  to  apply  to  the  motion 
of  the  gentleman  from  New  Hampshire ;  for  he 
led  them  away  from  that  motion,  and  told  them, 
in  substance,  that  it  was  not  the  nine  million  of 
dollars  asked  for  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
— and  he  did  not  know  how  much  asked  for  the 
army — that  was  to  be  retrenched.  Oh,  no! 
The  army  and  the  navy  were  not  the  great  ex- 
penses of  this  nation ;  it  was  not  by  curtailing 
the  military  and  naval  expenditures  that  econo- 
my was  to  be  obtained ;  but  by  beginning  with 
the  two  Houses  of  Congress.  And  what  was 
the  comparison,  to  come  to  dollars  and  cents,  be- 
tween the  expenses  of  that  House  and  the  Navy 
Department  ?  Why,  the  gentleman,  with  all  his 
exaggerating  eloquence,  had  made  the  executive, 
legislative,  and  judicial  powers  of  the  country, 
to  cost  at  least  two  millions  of  dollars  ;  while 
the  estimates  for  the  navy  were  nine  millions,  to 
enable  our  ships  to  go  abroad  and  display  the 
stripes  and  stars.  And  for  what  purpose  was  it 
necessary  to  have  this  home  squadron  ?  Was 
the  great  maritime  power  of  the  earth  in  such  a 
position  towards  us  as  to  authorize  us  to  expect 


576 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


a  hostile  British  squadron  on  our  coasts  ?  No ; 
he  believed  not.  Then  what  was  this  nine  mil- 
lions of  dollars  wanted  for  ?  There  was  a  state- 
ment, two  years  ago,  in  the  report  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Navy,  in  which  they  were  told  that 
our  present  navy,  in  comparison  with  that  of 
Great  Britain,  was  only  as  one  to  eight — that 
is,  that  the  British  navy  was  eight  times  as 
large  as  ours.  Now,  in  that  year  eight  millions 
of  dollars  was  asked  for  for  the  navy  ;  the  re- 
port of  the  present  year  asks  for  nine  millions. 
This  report  contained  the  principle  that  we  must 
go  on  to  increase  our  navy  until  it  is  at  least 
one-half  as  large  as  that  of  Great  Britain ;  and 
what,  then,  was  the  proportion  of  additional  ex- 
pense we  must  incur  to  arrive  at  that  result  ? 
Why,  four  times  eight  are  thirty-two ;  so  that 
it  will  take  an  annual  expenditure  of  thirty-two 
millions  to  give  us  a  navy  half  as  large  as  that 
of  Great  Britain.  If,  however,  gentlemen  were 
to  go  on  in  this  way,  $32,000,000— nay, 
$50,000,000  would  not  be  enough  to  pay  the 
expense  of  their  navy.  He  expressed  his  ap- 
proval of  the  resolution  of  the  gentleman  from 
New  Hampshire,  and  his  gratification  that  it  had 
come  from  such  a  quarter — a  quarter  which  was 
so  deeply  interested  in  having  a  due  protection 
for  their  mercantile  navy  and  their  coasting 
trade,  by  the  establishment  of  a  home  squadron. 
At  the  time  the  home  squadron  was  first  pro- 
posed, he  was,  himself,  in  favor  of  it,  and  it  was 
adopted  with  but  very  little  opposition ;  and 
the  reason  was,  because  the  House  did  not  un- 
derstand it  at  that  time.  It  looked  to  a  war  with 
Great  Britain.  It  looked  more  particularly  to 
a  war  with  Great  Britain  (the  honorable  gen- 
tleman was  understood  to  say),  provided  she 
took  the  island  of  Cuba.  He  saw  no  necessity 
for  a  large  navy,  unless  it  was  to  insult  other 
nations,  by  taking  possession  of  their  territory 
in  time  of  peace.  What  was  the  good,  he  asked, 
of  a  navy  which  cost  the  country  $9,000,000  a 
year,  compared  with  what  was  done  there  in  the 
legislative  department  of  the  nation  ?  He  ex- 
pressed his  ardent  hope  that  the  gentleman  from 
Tennessee  [Mr.  Cave  Johnson],  and  the  gen- 
tleman from  North  Carolina  [Mr.  McKay] — 
now  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means — would  persevere  in  the  same  spirit 
that  marked  their  conduct  during  the  last  Con- 
gress, and  still  advocate  reductions  in  the  army 
and  the  navy." 

Mr.  Hale  replied  to  the  several  gentlemen 
who,  without  offering  a  word  in  favor  of  the 
utility  of  this  domestic  squadron,  were  endeavor- 
ing to  keep  it  up ;  and  who,  without  denying 
the  great  abuse  and  extravagance  in  the  naval 
disbursements,  were  endeavoring  to  prevent 
their  correction  by  starting  smaller  game — and 
that  smaller  game  not  to  be  pursued,  and  bagged, 
but  merely  started  to  prevent  the  pursuit  of  the 


great  monster  which  was  ravaging  the  fields. 
Thus  :— 

"  He  believed  that  the  greatest  abuses  ex- 
isted in  every  department  of  the  government, 
and  that  the  extravagances  of  all  required  cor- 
rection. Look  at  the  army  of  8,000  men  only, 
kept  up  at  an  expense  to  the  nation  of  $1,000 
for  each  man,  Was  not  this  a  crying  abuse  that 
ought  to  be  corrected  ?  Why,  if  the  proposition 
had  succeeded  to  increase  the  army  to  20,000 
men,  the  expenditure  at  this  rate  would  have 
been  twenty  millions  annually.  If  any  gentleman 
knew  of  the  existence  of  abuses,  let  him  bring 
them  to  the  notice  of  the  House,  and  he  would 
vote  not  only  for  the  proper  inquiry  into  them, 
but  to  apply  the  remedy.  In  regard  to  this 
home  squadron,  he  begged  leave  to  disclaim  any 
of  the  suspicions  entertained  by  the  gentleman 
from  Massachusetts.  In  offering  his  resolution 
he  had  no  reference  to  Cuba,  or  any  thing  else 
suggested  by  the  gentleman.  He  wanted  the 
House  and  the  country  to  look  at  it  as  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  presented  it  to  their 
view.  As  to  the  pretence  that  it  was  intended 
for  the  protection  of  the  coasting  trade,  it  was 
a  most  idle  one.  He  wished  the  gentlemen 
from  Maine  (the  State  most  largely  interested 
in  that  trade)  to  say  whether  they  needed  any 
such  protection.  He  would  answer  for  them, 
and  say  that  they  did  not.  He  himself  lived 
among  those  who  were  extensively  engaged  in 
the  coasting  trade,  and  part  ofShis  property  was 
invested  in  it.  He  could,  therefore,  speak  with 
some  knowledge  on  the  subject ;  and  he  hesitated 
not  to  say,  that  the  idea  of  keeping  up  this 
squadron  for  its  protection  was  a  most  prepos- 
terous and  idle  one.  Sir,  said  he,  the  navy  has 
been  the  pet  child  of  the  nation,  and,  like  all  other 
pet  children,  has  run  away  with  the  whole  patri- 
monial estate.  If  it  were  found  that  the  best 
interest  of  the  country  required  the  maintenance 
of  the  home  squadron,  then  he  would  go  for  it ; 
but  if  it  were  found  to  be  utterly  useless,  as  he 
believed,  then  he  was  decidedly  against  it.  But 
he  would  give  this  further  notice  ;  that  he  did 
not  mean  to  stop  here ;  that  when  the  appro- 
priations should  come  up,  he  intended  to  pro- 
pose to  limit  those  appropriations  to  a  sum 
sufficient  only  to  support  the  squadron  stationed 
in  the  Mediterranean.  It  was  entirely  useless 
for  this  country  to  endeavor  to  contend  with 
monarchies  in  keeping  up  the  pageantry  of  a 
naval  establishment." 

The  proposed  inquiry  produced  no  result, 
only  ending  in  demonstrating  what  was  well 
known  to  the  older  members,  namely,  the 
difficulty,  and  almost  impossibility  of  introducing 
any  reform,  or  economy  into  the  administration 
of  any  department  of  the  government  unless  the 
Executive  takes  the  lead.  And  of  this  truth  a 
striking  instance  occurred  at  this  session,  and 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


577 


upon  this  subject.  The  executive  government, 
that  is  to  say,  the  President  and  his  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  had  made  a  lawless  expenditure  of 
about  $700,000  during  the  recess  of  Congress ; 
and  Congress  under  a  moral  duress,  was  com- 
pelled to  adopt  that  expenditure  as  its  own,  and 
make  it  good.  When  the  clause  in  the  naval 
appropriation  bill  for  covering  this  item,  was 
under  consideration,  Mr.  Ezra  Dean,  of  Ohio, 
stood  up  and  said  : 

"  It  was  nothing  less  than  a  bill  making  ap- 
propriations to  the  amount  of  $750,000  which 
had  been  expended  by  the  department  in  virtue 
of  its  own  will  and  pleasure,  and  without  the 
sanction  of  any  law  whatever;  and  the  House  was 
called  on  to  approve  this  proceeding.  He  had 
supposed  that  any  department  which  took  upon 
itself  the  power  of  expending  the  public  money, 
without  authority  of  law,  would  have  been  sub- 
jected to  the  severest  rebuke  of  Congress.  He 
had  supposed  that  this  would  have  been  a  re- 
form Congress,  and  that  all  the  abuses  of  this 
administration  would  be  ferreted  out  and  cor- 
rected ;  but  in  this  he  had  been  grievously  dis- 
appointed. He  had  endeavored  to  get  the  con- 
sent of  the  House  to  take  up  the  navy  retrench- 
ment bill,  which  would  correct  all  these  abuses, 
but  he  had  been  mistaken;  and  so  far  from 
being  able  to  get  the  bill  before  the  House,  he 
had  been  unable  even  to  get  the  yeas  and 
nays  on  the  question  of  taking  it  up.  There 
was  great  reason  for  this.  This  Navy  Depart- 
ment had  been  for  the  last  two  years  the  great 
vortex  which  had  swallowed  up  two-thirds  of 
the  revenues  of  the  government.  In  1840,  a 
law  was  passed  that  no  money  should  be  ex- 
pended for  the  building  of  ships  without  the 
express  sanction  of  Congress  ;  and  yet,  in  de- 
fiance of  this  law,  the  Navy  Department  had 
gone  on  to  build  an  iron  steamship  at  Pitts- 
burg, and  six  sloops-of-war ;  and  he  was  told 
that  part  of  the  appropriations  in  this  bill  were 
to  complete  these  vessels.  Mr.  D.  then  spoke 
of  the  utter  uselessness  of  these  steamships  on 
the  western  waters,  and  referred  to  the  number 
of  ships  that  were  now  rotting  for  want  of  use, 
both  on  the  stocks  and  laid  up  in  ordinary; 
and  particularly  referred  to  the  magnificent  ship 
Delaware,  which  had  just  returned  from  a  cruise, 
and  was  dismantled,  and  laid  up  to  rot  at  Nor- 
folk, while  the  department  was  clamorous  for 
building  more  ships.  There  were  not  only 
more  ships  now  built  and  building  than  could 
be  used,  but  there  were  three  times  as  many 
officers  as  could  be  employed.  There  were  9G 
commanders,  with  salaries  of  $3,500  a-year, 
while  there  was  only  employment  for  38  of 
them ;  and  there  were  68  captains,  while  there 
was  only  employment  for  but  18.  He  then  re- 
ferred to  the  number  of  officers  waiting  orders, 
and  on  leave  of  absence,  and  said  that    the 

Vol  II.— 37 


country  would  be  astonished  to  learn,  that  for 

±7tCrS'  thG  Tlltr'VVaS  now  paying 
!JM8d,7Ul)  a  year;  and  that,  by  referring  to  the 
recorHs  of  the  Navy  Department,  it  would  be 
found  that  for  the  last  twenty  years,  more  than 
half  of  the  officers  of  the  navy  were  drawing 
their  pay  and  emoluments  while  at  home, on  leave 
of  absence,  or  waiting  orders.  Mr.  D.  spoke  ol 
many  other  abuses  in  the  navy,  which  he  said 
required  correction,  and  expressed  his  great  re- 
gret that  he  had  not  been  able  to  get  the  House 
to  act  on  his  navy  retrenchment  bill." 

Mr.  McKay,  of  North  Carolina,  who  was  the 
chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means, 
whose  duty  it  became  to  present  this  item  in 
the  appropriation  bill,  fully  admitted  its  illegality 
and  wastefulness ;  but  plead  the  necessity  of 
providing  for   its  payment,  as  the  money  had 
been  earned  by  work  and  labor  done  on  the 
faith  of  the  government,  and  to  withhold  pay- 
ment would  be  a  wrong  to  laborers,  and  no  pun- 
ishment to  the  officers  who  had  occasioned  the 
illegal  expenditure.     A  high  officer  had  done 
this  wrong.     He  was  ready  to  join  in  a  vote  of 
censure  upon  him :  but  to  repudiate  the  debt, 
and    leave    laboring    people    without  pay  for 
their  work  and  materials  was  what  he  could  not 
do.     And  thus  ended  the  session  with  sanction- 
ing an  abuse  of  $700,000  in  one  item  in  the 
navy,  which  session  had  opened  with  a  manly 
attempt  to  correct  some  of  its  extravagances. 
And  thus  have  ended  all  similar  attempts  since. 
A  powerful  combined  interest  pushes  forward 
an  augmented  navy,  without  regard  to  any  ob- 
ject but  their  own  interest  in  it.    First,  the 
politicians  who  raise  a  clamor  of  war  at  the  re- 
turn of  each  presidential  canvass,  and  a  cry  for 
ships  to  carry  it  on.     Next,  the  naval  officers, 
who  are  always  in  favor  of  more  ships  to  give 
more  commands.    And,  thirdly,  the  contractors 
who  are  to  build  these  ships,  and  get  rich  upon 
their  contracts.     These  three  parties  combine 
to  build  ships,  and  Congress  becomes  a  helpless 
instrument  in  their    hands.     The  friends  of 
economy,  and  of  a  wise  national  policy,  which 
prefers  cruisers  and  privateers  to  ships  of  the 
line,  may  deliver  their  complaints  in  vain.  Ship 
building,  and  ship  rotting,  goes  on  unchecked, 
and  even  with  accelerated  speed;   and  must 
continue  to  so  go  on  until  the  enormity  of  the 
abuse  produces  a  revulsion  which,  in  curing  the 
abuse  may  nearly  kill  the  navy  itself. 


578 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER   CXXXIII. 

PEOFESSOR   MOESE:     HIS    ELECTEO-MAGNETIO 
TELEGEAPH. 

Communication  of  intelligence  by  concerted 
signals  is  as  old  as  the  human  race,  and  by  all, 
except  the  white  race,  remains  where  it  was  six 
thousand  years  ago.  The  smokes  raised  on  suc- 
cessive hills  to  give  warning  of  the  approach  of 
strangers,  or  enemies,  were  found  to  be  the 
same  by  Fremont  in  his  western  explorations 
which  were  described  by  Herodotus  as  used  for 
the  same  purpose  by  the  barbarian  nations  of 
his  time :  the  white  race  alone  has  made  ad- 
vances upon  that  rude  and  imperfect  mode  of 
communication,  and  brought  the  art  to  a  mar- 
vellous perfection,  but  only  after  the  interven- 
tion of  thousands  of  years.  It  was  not  until 
the  siege  of  Vienna  by  the  Turks,  that  the  very 
limited  intelligence  between  the  besieged  in  a 
city  and  their  friends  outside,  was  established 
by  the  telegraph :  and  it  was  not  until  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  French  revolution  that  that  mode 
of  intelligence  was  applied  to  the  centre  and  to 
the  circumference  of  a  country :  and  at  that 
point  it  was  stationary  for  fifty  years.  It  was 
reserved  for  our  own  day,  and  our  own  country 
to  make  the  improvement  which  annihilates 
distance,  which  disregards  weather  and  dark- 
ness, and  which  rivals  the  tongue  and  the  pen 
in  the  precision  and  infinitude  of  its  messages. 
Dr.  Franklin  first  broached  the  idea  of  using 
electricity  for  communicating  intelligence : 
Professor  Morse  gave  practical  application  to 
his  idea.  This  gentleman  was  a  portrait  painter 
by  profession,  and  had  been  to  Europe  to  per- 
fect himself  in  his  art.  Returning  in  the  au- 
tumn of  1832,  and  while  making  the  voyage,  the 
recent  discoveries  and  experiments  in  electro- 
magnetism,  and  the  affinity  of  electricity  to 
magnetism,  or  rather  their  probable  identity, 
became  a  subject  of  casual  conversation  between 
himself  and  a  few  of  the  passengers.  It  had 
recently  been  discovered  that  an  electric  spark 
could  be  obtained  from  a  magnet,  and  this  dis- 
covery had  introduced  a  new  branch  of  science, 
to  wit:  magneto-electricity.  Dr.  Franklin's 
experiments  on  the  velocity  of  electricity,  ex- 


ceeding that  of  light,  and  exceeding  180,000 
miles  in  a  moment,  the  feasibility  of  making 
electricity  the  means  of  telegraphic  intercourse, 
that  is  to  say  of  writing  at  a  distance,  struck 
him  with  great  force,  and  became  the  absorbing 
subject  of  his  meditations.  The  idea  of  tele- 
graphing by  electricity  was  new  to  him.  For- 
tunately he  did  not  know  that  some  eminent 
philosophers  had  before  conceived  the  same  idea, 
but  without  inventing  a  plan  by  which  the 
thought  could  be  realized.  Knowing  nothing 
of  their  ideas,  he  was  not  embarrassed  or  im- 
peded by  the  false  lights  of  their  mistakes.  As 
the  idea  was  original  with  him,  so  was  his  plan. 
All  previous  modes  of  telegraphing  had  been 
by  evanescent  signs  :  the  distinctive  feature  of 
Morse's  plan  was  the  self-recording  property  of 
the  apparatus,  with  its  ordinarily  inseparable 
characteristic  of  audible  clicks,  answering  the 
purposes  of  speech;  for,  in  impressing  the 
characters,  the  sounds  emitted  by  the  machi- 
nery gave  notice  of  each  that  was  struck,  as 
well  understood  by  the  practised  ear  as  the  re- 
corded language  was  by  the  eye.  In  this  he 
became  the  inventor  of  a  new  art — the  art  of 
telegraphic  recording,  or  imprinting  characters 
telegraphically. 

Mr.  Morse  then  had  his  invention  complete 
in  his  head,  and  his  labor  then  begun  to  con- 
struct the  machinery  and  types  to  reduce  it  to 
practice,  in  which  having  succeeded  to  the  entire 
satisfaction  of  a  limited  number  of  observers  in 
the  years  1836  and  '37,  he  laid  it  before  Con- 
gress in  the  year  1838,  made  an  exhibit  of  its 
working  before  a  committee,  and  received  a  fa- 
vorable report.  Much  time  was  then  lost  in 
vain  efforts  to  procure  patents  in  England  and 
France,  and  returning  to  Congress  in  1842.  an 
appropriation  of  $30,000  was  asked  for  to  en- 
able the  inventor  to  test  his  discovery  on  a  line 
of  forty  miles,  between  Washington  and  Balti- 
more. The  appropriation  was  granted  —  the 
preparations  completed  by  the  spring  of  1844, 
and  messages  exchanged  instantaneously  be- 
tween the  two  points.  The  line  was  soon  ex- 
tended to  New  York,  and  since  so  multiplied, 
that  the  Morse  electro-magnetic  telegraph  now 
works  over  80,000  miles  in  America  and  50,000 
in  Europe.  It  is  one  of  the  marvellous  results 
of  science,  putting  people  who  are  thousands  of 
miles  apart  in  instant  communication  with  the 
accuracy   of  a  face  to  face  conversation.     Its 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


579 


wonderful  advantages  are  felt  in  social,  political, 
commercial  and  military  communications,  and, 
in  conjunction  with  the  steam  car,  is  destined  to 
work  a  total  revolution  in  the  art  of  defensive 
warfare.  It  puts  an  end  to  defensive  war  on 
the  ocean,  to  the  necessity  of  fortifications,  ex- 
cept to  delay  for  a  few  days  the  bombardment 
of  a  city.  The  approach  of  invaders  upon  any 
point,  telegraphed  through  the  country,  brings 
down  in  the  flying  cars  myriads  of  citizen  sol- 
diers, arms  in  hand  and  provisions  in  abundance, 
to  overwhelm  with  numbers  any  possible  invad- 
ing force.  It  will  dispense  with  fleets  and  stand- 
ing armies,  and  all  the  vast,  cumbrous,  and  ex- 
pensive machinery  of  a  modern  army.  Far  from 
dreading  an  invasion,  the  telegraph  and  the  car 
may  defy  and  dare  it — may  invite  any  number 
of  foreign  troops  to  land — and  assure  the  whole 
of  them  of  death  or  captivity,  from  myriads  of 
volunteers  launched  upon  them  hourly  from  the 
first  moment  of  landing  until  the  last  invader  is 
a  corpse  or  a  prisoner. 


CHAPTER    CXXXIY. 

FREMONT'S  SECOND  EXPEDITION. 

"  The  government  deserves  credit  for  the  zeal 
with  which  it  has  pursued  geographical  dis- 
covery." Such  is  the  remark  which  a  leading 
paper  made  upon  the  discoveries  of  Fremont,  on 
his  return  from  his  second  expedition  to  the 
Great  West ;  and  such  is  the  remark  which  all 
writers  will  make  upon  all  his  discoveries  who 
write  history  from  public  documents  and  out- 
side views.  "With  all  such  writers  the  expedi- 
tions of  Fremont  will  be  credited  to  the  zeal  of 
the  government  for  the  promotion  of  science ; 
as  if  the  government  under  which  he  acted  had 
conceived  and  planned  these  expeditions,  as  Mr. 
Jefferson  did  that  of  Lewis  and  Clark,  and  then 
selected  this  young  officer  to  carry  into  effect 
the  instructions  delivered  to  him.  How  far  such 
history  would  be  true  in  relation  to  the  first  ex- 
pedition, which  terminated  in  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, has  been  seen  in  the  account  which  has 
been  given  of  the  origin  of  that  undertaking, 
and  which  leaves  the  government  innocent  of  its 
conception ;  and,  therefore,  not  entitled  to  the 


credit  of  its  authorship,  but  only  to  the  merit  of 
permitting  it.  In  the  second,  and  greater  ex- 
pedition, from  which  great  political  as  well  as 
scientific  results  have  flowed,  their  merit  is 
still  less ;  for,  while  equally  innocent  of  its  con- 
ception, they  were  not  equally  passive  to  its 
performance— countermanding  the  expedition 
after  it  had  begun ;  and  lavishing  censure  upon 
the  adventurous  young  explorer  for  his  manner 
of  undertaking  it.  The  fact  was,  that  his  first 
expedition  barely  finished,  Mr.  Fremont  sought 
and  obtained  orders  for  a  second  one,  and  was 
on  the  frontier  of  Missouri  with  his  command 
when  orders  arrived  at  St.  Louis  to  stop  him, 
on  the  ground  that  he  had  made  a  military 
equipment  which  the  peaceful  nature  of  his  geo- 
graphical pursuit  did  not  require  !  as  if  Indians 
did  not  kill  and  rob  scientific  men  as  well  as 
others  if  not  in  a  condition  to  defend  themselves. 
The  particular  point  of  complaint  was  that  he 
had  taken  a  small  mountain  howitzer,  in  addi- 
tion to  his  rifles :  and  which,  he  was  informed, 
was  charged  to  him,  although  it  had  been  fur- 
nished upon  a  regular  requisition  on  the  com- 
mandant of  the  Arsenal  at  St.  Louis,  approved 
by  the  commander  of  the  military  department 
(Colonel,  afterwards  General  Kearney).  Mr. 
Fremont  had  left  St.  Louis,  and  was  at  the 
frontier,  Mrs.  Fremont  being  requested  to  ex- 
amine the  letters  that  came  after  him,  and  for- 
ward those  which  he  ought  to  receive.  She 
read  the  countermanding  orders,  and  detained 
them !  and  Fremont  knew  nothing  of  their  ex- 
istence until  after  he  had  returned  from  one  of 
the  most  marvellous  and  eventful  expeditions  of 
modern  times — one  to  which  the  United  States 
are  indebted  (among  other  things)  for  the  pre- 
sent ownership  of  California,  instead  of  seeing  it 
a  British  possession.  The  writer  of  this  View, 
who  was  then  in  St.  Louis,  approved  of  the 
course  which  his  daughter  had  taken  (for  she 
had  stopped  the  orders  before  he  knew  of  it) ; 
and  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  department  con- 
demning the  recall,  repulsing  the  reprimand 
which  had  been  lavished  upon  Fremont,  and  de- 
manding a  court-martial  for  him  when  he  should 
return.  The  Secretary  at  War  was  then  Mr. 
James  Madison  Porter,  of  Pennsylvania ;  the 
chief  of  the  Topographical  corps  the  same  as 
now  (Colonel  Aberts),  himself  an  office  man, 
surrounded  by  West  Point  officers,  to  whose 
pursuit  of  easy  service  Fremont's  adventurous 


580 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


expeditions  was  a  reproach ;  and  in  conformity 
to  whose  opinions  the  secretary  seemed  to  have 
acted.  On  Fremont's  return,  upwards  of  a  year 
afterwards,  Mr.  William  Wilkins,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, was  Secretary  at  "War,  and  received  the 
young  explorer  with  all  honor  and  friendship, 
and  obtained  for  him  the  brevet  of  captain  from 
President  Tyler.  And  such  is  the  inside  view 
of  this  piece  of  history — very  different  from 
what  documentary  evidence  would  make  it. 

To  complete  his  survey  across  the  continent, 
on  the  line  of  travel  between  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri and  the  tide-water  region  of  the  Columbia, 
was  Fremont's  object  in  this  expedition ;  and 
it  was  all  that  he  had  obtained  orders  for  doing ; 
but  only  a  small  part,  and  to  his  mind,  an  insig- 
nificant part,  of  what  he  proposed  doing.  Peo- 
ple had  been  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  be- 
fore, and  his  ambition  was  not  limited  to  making 
tracks  where  others  had  made  them  before  him. 
There  was  a  vast  region  beyond  the  Rocky 
Mountains — the  whole  western  slope  of  our 
continent — of  which  but  little  was  known ;  and 
of  that  little,  nothing  with  the  accuracy  of 
science.  All  that  vast  region,  more  than  seven 
hundred  miles  square — equal  to  a  great  king- 
dom in  Europe — was  an  unknown  land — a 
sealed  book,  which  he  longed  to  open,  andt  to 
read.  Leaving  the  frontier  of  Missouri  in  May, 
1843,  and  often  diverging  from  his  route  for  the 
sake  of  expanding  his  field  of  observation,  he 
had  arrived  in  the  tide- water  region  of  Colum- 
bia in  the  month  of  November ;  and  had  then 
completed  the  whole  service  which  his  orders 
embraced.  He  might  then  have  returned  upon 
his  tracks,  or  been  brought  home  by  sea,  or 
hunted  the  most  pleasant  path  for  getting  back ; 
and  if  he  had  been  a  routine  officer,  satisfied  with 
fulfilling  an  order,  he  would  have  done  so.  Not 
so  the  young  explorer  who  held  his  diploma 
from  Nature,  and  not  from  the  United  States' 
Military  Academy.  He  was  at  Fort  Vancouver, 
guest  of  the  hospitable  Dr.  McLaughlin,  Governor 
of  the  British  Hudson  Bay  Fur  Company;  and 
obtained  from  him  all  possible  information  upon 
his  intended  line  of  return — faithfully  given,  but 
which  proved  to  be  disastrously  erroneous  in  its 
leading  and  governing  feature.  A  southeast 
route  to  cross  the  great  unknown  region  diago- 
nally through  its  heart  (making  a  line  from  the 
Lower  Columbia  to  the  Upper  Colorado  of  the 
Gulf  of  Calfornia),  was  his  line  of  return: 


twenty-five  men  (the  same  who  had  come  with 
him  from  the  United  States^  and  a  hundred 
horses,  were  his  equipment ;  and  the  commence- 
ment of  winter  the  time  of  starting — all  with- 
out a  guide,  relying  upon  their  guns  for  sup- 
port ;  and,  in  the  last  resort,  upon  their  horses 
— such  as  should  give  out !  for  one  that  could 
carry  a  man,  or  a  pack,  could  not  be  spared  for 
food. 

All  the  maps  up  to  that  time  had  shown  this 
region  traversed  from  east  to  west — from  the 
base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Bay  of  San 
Francisco — by  a  great  river  called  the  Buena 
Ventura :  which  may  be  translated,  the  Good 
Chance.  Governor  McLaughlin  believed  in  the 
existence  of  this  river,  and  made  out  a  conjec- 
tural manuscript  map  to  show  its  place  and 
course.  Fremont  believed  in  it,  and  his  plan 
was  to  reach  it  before  the  dead  of  winter,  and 
then  hybernate  upon  it.  As  a  great  river,  he 
knew  that  it  must  have  some  rich  bottoms ; 
covered  with  wood  and  grass,  where  the  wild 
animals  would  collect  and  shelter,  when  the 
snows  and  freezing  winds  drove  them  from  the 
plains :  and  with  these  animals  to  live  on,  and 
grass  for  the  horses,  and  wood  for  fires,  he  ex- 
pected to  avoid  suffering,  if  not  to  enjoy  com- 
fort, during  his  solitary  sojourn  in  that  remote 
and  profound  wilderness.  He  proceeded — soon 
encountered  deep  snows  which  impeded  pro- 
gress upon  the  high  lands — descended  into  a 
low  country  to  the  left  (afterwards  known  to 
be  the  Great  Basin,  from  which  no  water  issues 
to  any  sea) — skirted  an  enormous  chain  of 
mountain  on  the  right,  luminous  with  glittering 
white  snow — saw  strange  Indians,  who  mostly 
fled — found  a  desert — no  Buena  Ventura :  and 
death  from  cold  and  famine  staring  him  in  the 
face.  The  failure  to  find  the  river,  or  tidings  of 
it,  and  the  possibility  of  its  existence  seeming 
to  be  forbid  by  the  structure  of  the  country, 
and  hybernation  in  the  inhospitable  desert  being 
impossible,  and  the  question  being  that  of  life 
and  death,  some  new  plan  of  conduct  became  in- 
dispensable. His  celestial  observations  told  him 
that  he  was  in  the  latitude  of  the  Bay  of  San 
Francisco,  and  only  seventy  miles  from  it.  But 
what  miles!  up  and  down  that  snowy  moun- 
tain which  the  Indians  told  him  no  men  could 
cross  in  the  winter — which  would  have  snow 
upon  it  as  deep  as  the  trees,  and  places  where 
people  would  slip  off,  and  fall  half  a  mile  at  a 


ANNO  1844.     JOHNT  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


581 


time;  —  a  fate  which  actually  befell  a  mule, 
packed  with  the  precious  burden  of  botanical 
specimens,  collected  along  a  travel  of  two  thou- 
sand miles.  No  reward  could  induce  an  Indian 
to  become  a  guide  in  the  perilous  adventure  of 
crossing  this  mountain.  All  recoiled  and  fled 
from  the  adventure.  It  was  attempted  without 
a  guide — in  the  dead  of  winter — accomplished 
in  forty  days — the  men  and  surviving  horses — 
a  woful  procession,  crawling  along  one  by  one : 
skeleton  men  leading  skeleton  horses — and  ar- 
riving at  Suter's  Settlement  in  the  beautiful  val- 
ley of  the  Sacramento;  and  where  a  genial 
warmth,  and  budding  flowers,  and  trees  in  foli- 
age, and  grassy  ground,  and  flowing  streams, 
and  comfortable  food,  made  a  fairy  contrast 
with  the  famine  and  freezing  they  had  en- 
countered, and  the  lofty  Sierra  Nevada  which 
they  had  climbed.  Here  he  rested  and  recruited ; 
and  from  this  point,  and  by  way  of  Monterey, 
the  first  tidings  were  heard  of  the  party  since 
leaving  Fort  Vancouver. 

Another  long  progress  to  the  south,  skirting 
the  western  base  of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  made 
him  acquainted  with  the  noble  valley  of  the  San 
Joaquin,  counterpart  to  that  of  the  Sacramento ; 
when  crossing  through  a  gap,  and  turning  to 
the  left,  he  skirted  the  Great  Basin ;  and,  by 
many  deviations  from  the  right  line  home,  levied 
incessant  contributions  to  science  from  expanded 
lands,  not  described  before.  In  this  eventful 
exploration  all  the  great  features  of  the  western 
slope  of  our  continent  were  brought  to  light — 
the  Great  Salt  Lake,  the  Utah  Lake,  the  Little 
Salt  Lake;  at  all  which  places,  then  desert, 
the  Mormons  now  are ;  the  Sierra  Nevada,  then 
solitary  in  the  snow,  now  crowded  with  Ameri- 
cans, digging  gold  from  its  flanks ;  the  beauti- 
ful valleys  of  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin, 
then  alive  with  wild  horses,  elk,  deer,  and  wild 
fowls,  now  smiling  with  American  cultivation  ; 
the  Great  Basin  itself,  and  its  contents ;  the 
Three  Parks ;  the  approximation  of  the  great 
rivers  which,  rising  together  in  the  central  region 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  go  off  east  and  west, 
towards  the  rising  and  the  setting  sun : — all 
these,  and  other  strange  features  of  a  new  region, 
more  Asiatic  than  American,  were  brought  to 
light,  and  revealed  to  public  "view  in  the  results 
of  this  exploration.  Eleven  months  he  was 
never  out  of  sight  of  snow;  and  sometimes, 
freezing  with  cold,  would  look  down  upon  a 


sunny  valley,  warm  with  genial  heat;— some- 
times panting  with  the  summer's  heat,  would 
look  up  at  the  eternal  snows  which  crowned 
the  neighboring  mountain.  But  it  was  not  then 
that  California  was  secured  to  the  Union — to 
the  greatest  power  of  the  New  World— to  which 
it  of  right  belonged :  but  it  was  the  first  step 
towards  the  acquisition,  and  the  one  that  led  to 
it.  That  second  expedition  led  to  a  third,  just 
in  time  to  snatch  tho  golden  California  from  the 
hands  of  the  British,  ready  to  clutch  it.  But 
of  this  hereafter.  Fremont's  second  expedition 
was  now  over.  He  had  left  the  United  States 
a  fugitive  from  his  government,  and  returned 
with  a  name  that  went  over  Europe  and  America, 
and  with  discoveries  bearing  fruit  which  the 
civilized  world  is  now  enjoying. 


CHAPTER    CXXXV. 

TEXAS  ANNEXATION:  SECRET  ORIGIN;  BOLD 
INTRIGUE  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY. 

In  the  winter  of  1842-'3,  nearly  two  years  before 
the  presidential  election,  there  appeared  in  a 
Baltimore  newspaper  an  elaborately  composed 
letter  on  the  annexation  of  Texas,  written  by 
Mr.  Gilmer,  a  member  of  Congress  from  Vir- 
ginia, urging  the  immediate  annexation,  as  ne- 
cessary to  forestall  the  designs  of  Great  Britain 
upon  that  young  country.  These  designs,  it  was 
alleged,  aimed  at  a  political  and  military  dom- 
ination on  our  south-western  border,  with  a 
view  to  abolition  and  hostile  movements  against 
us  ;  and  the  practical  part  of  the  letter  was  an 
earnest  appeal  to  the  American  people  to  annex 
the  Texas  republic  immediately,  as  the  only 
means  of  preventing  such  great  calamities.  This 
letter  was  a  clap  of  thunder  in  a  clear  sky. 
There  was  nothing  in  the  political  horizon  to 
announce  or  portend  it  Great  Britain  had 
given  no  symptom  of  any  disposition  to  war 
upon  us,  or  to  excite  insurrection  among  our 
slaves.  Texas  and  Mexico  were  at  war,  and  to 
annex  the  country  was  to  adopt  the  war:  far 
from  hastening  annexation,  an  event  desirable  in 
itself  when  it  could  be  honestly  done,  a  prema- 
ture and  ill-judged  attempt,  upon  groundless 
pretexts,  could  only  clog  and  delay  it.  There 
was  nothing  in  the  position  of  Mr.  Gilmer  to 


582 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


make  him  a  prime  mover  in  the  annexation 
scheme  ;  and  there  was  much  in  his  connections 
with  Mr.  Calhoun  to  make  him  the  reflector  of 
that  gentleman's  opinions.  The  letter  itself  was 
a  counterpart  of  the  movement  made  by  Mr. 
Calhoun  in  the  Senate,  in  1836,  to  bring  the 
Texas  question  into  the  presidential  election  of 
that  year ;  its  arguments  were  the  amplification 
of  the  seminal  ideas  then  presented  by  that  gen- 
tleman :  and  it  was  his  known  habit  to  operate 
through  others.  Mr.  Gilmer  was  a  close  politi- 
cal friend,  and  known  as  a  promulgator  of  his 
doctrines — having  been  the  first  to  advocate 
nullification  in  Virginia. 

Putting  all  these  circumstances  together,  I  be- 
lieved, the  moment  I  saw  it,  that  I  discerned  the 
finger  of  Mr.  Calhoun  in  that  letter,  and  that  an 
enterprise  of  some  kind  was  on  foot  for  the  next 
presidential  election — though  still  so  far  off.  I 
therefore  put  an  eye  on  the  movement,  and  by 
observing  the  progress  of  the  letter,  the  papers 
in  which  it  was  republished,  their  comments, 
the  encomiums  which  it  received,  and  the  public 
meetings  in  which  it  was  commended,  I  became 
satisfied  that  there  was  no  mistake  in  referring  its 
origin  to  that  gentleman ;  and  became  convinced 
that  this  movement  was  the  resumption  of  the 
premature  and  abortive  attempt  of  1836.  In 
the  course  of  the  summer  of  1843,  it  had  been 
taken  up  generally  in  the  circle  of  Mr.  Cal- 
houn's friends,  and  with  the  zeal  and  pertinacity 
which  betrayed  the  spirit  of  a  presidential  can- 
vass. Coincident  with  these  symptoms,  and  in- 
dicative of  a  determined  movement  on  the  Texas 
question,  was  a  pregnant  circumstance  in  the  ex- 
ecutive branch  of  the  government.  Mr.  Web- 
ster, who  had  been  prevailed  upon  to  remain  in 
Mr.  Tyler's  cabinet  when  all  his  colleagues  of 
1841  left  their  places,  now  resigned  his  place, 
also — induced,  as  it  was  well  known,  by  the 
altered  deportment  of  the  President  towards 
him ;  and  was  succeeded  first  by  Mr.  Legare,  of 
South  Carolina,  and,  on  his  early  death,  by  Mr. 
Upshur,  of  Virginia. 

Mr.  Webster  was  inflexibly  opposed  to  the 
Texas  annexation,  and  also  to  the  presidential 
elevation  of  Mr.  Calhoun ;  the  two  gentlemen, 
his  successors,  were  both  favorable  to  annexa- 
tion, and  one  (Mr.  Upshur)  extremely  so  to  Mr. 
Calhoun ;  so  that,  here  were  two  steps  taken  in 
the  suspected  direction — an  obstacle  removed 
and  a  facility  substituted.    This  change  in  the 


head  of  the  State  Department,  upon  whatever 
motive  produced,  was  indispensable  to  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Texas  movement,  and  could  only 
have  been  made  for  some  great  cause  never  yet 
explained,  seeing  the  service  which  Mr.  Web- 
ster did  Mr.  Tyler  in  remaining  with  him  when 
the  other  ministers  withdrew.  Another  sign 
appeared  in  the  conduct  of  the  President  him- 
self. He  was  undergoing  another  change.  Long 
a  democrat,  and  successful  in  getting  office  at 
that,  he  had  become  a  whig,  and  with  still 
greater  success.  Democracy  had  carried  him  to 
the  Senate;  whiggism  elevated  him  to  the 
vice-presidency ;  and,  with  the  help  of  an  acci- 
dent, to  the  presidency.  He  was  now  settling 
back,  as  shown  in  a  previous  chapter,  towards 
his  original  party,  but  that  wing  of  it  which  had 
gone  off  with  Mr.  Calhoun  in  the  nullification 
war — a  natural  line  of  retrogression  on  his  part, 
as  he  had  travelled  it  in  his  transit  from  the  dem- 
ocratic to  the  whig  camp.  The  papers  in  his  in- 
terest became  rampant  for  Texas;  and  in  the 
course  of  the  autumn,  the  rumor  became  current 
and  steady  that  negotiations  were  in  progress 
for  the  annexation,  and  that  success  was  certain. 
Arriving  at  Washington  at  the  commencement 
of  the  session  of  1843-'44,  and  descending  the 
steps  of  the  Capitol  in  a  throng  of  members  on 
the  evening  of  the  first  day's  sitting,  I  was  ac- 
costed by  Mr.  Aaron  V.  Brown,  a  representative 
from  Tennessee,  with  expressions  of  great  grati- 
fication at  meeting  with  me  so  soon  ;  and  who 
immediately  showed  the  cause  of  his  gratifica- 
tion to  be  the  opportunity  it  afforded  him  to 
speak  to  me  on  the  subject  of  the  Texas  annex- 
ation. He  spoke  of  it  as  an  impending  and  pro- 
bable event — complimented  me  on  my  early  op- 
position to  the  relinquishment  of  that  country, 
and  my  subsequent  efforts  to  get  it  back,  and 
did  me  the  honor  to  say  that,  as  such  original 
enemy  to  its  loss  and  early  advocate  of  its  re- 
covery, I  was  a  proper  person  to  take  a  promi- 
nent part  in  now  getting  it  back.  All  this  was 
very  civil  and  quite  reasonable,  and,  at  another 
time  and  under  other  circumstances,  would  have 
been  entirely  agreeable  to  me ;  but,  preoccupied 
as  my  mind  was  with  the  idea  of  an  intrigue  for 
the  presidency,  and  a  land  and  scrip  speculation 
which  I  saw  mixing  itself  up  with  it,  and  feel- 
ing as  if  I  was  to  be  made  an  instrument  in 
these  schemes,  I  took  fire  at  his  words,  and  an- 
swered abruptly  and  hotly:  That  it  was.  on 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


583 


the  part  of  some,  an  intrigue  for  the  presi- 
dency and  a  plot  to  dissolve  the  Union — on  the 
part  of -others,  a  Texas  scrip  and  land  specu- 
lation ;  and  that  I  was  against  it. 

This  answer  went  into  the  newspapers,  and 
was  much  noticed  at  the  time,  and  immediately 
set  up  a  high  wall  between  me  and  the  annexa- 
tion party.  I  had  no  thought  at  the  time  that 
Mr.  Brown  had  been  moved  by  anybody  to 
sound  me,  and  presently  regretted  the  warmth 
with  which  I  had  replied  to  him — especially  as 
no  part  of  what  I  said  was  intended  to  apply  to 
him.  The  occurrence  gave  rise  to  some  sharp 
words  at  one  another  afterwards,  which,  so  far 
as  they  were  sharp  on  my  part,  I  have  since  con- 
demned, and  do  not  now  repeat. 

Some  three  months  afterwards  there  appeared 
in  the  Richmond  Enquirer  a  letter  from  Gene- 
ral Jackson  to  Mr.  Brown,  in  answer  to  one 
from  Mr.  Brown  to  the  general,  covering  a  copy 
of  Mr.  Gilmer's  Texas  letter,  and  asking  the 
favor  of  his  (the  general's)  opinion  upon  it: 
which  he  promptly  and  decidedly  gave,  and 
fully  in  favor  of  its  object.  Here  was  a  revela- 
tion and  a  coincidence  which  struck  me,  and  put 
my  mind  to  thinking,  and  opened  up  a  new  vein 
of  exploration,  into  which  I  went  to  work,  and 
worked  on  until  I  obtained  the  secret  history  of 
the  famous  "  Jackson  Texas  letter"  (as  it  came 
to  be  called),  and  which  played  so  large  a  part 
in  the  Texas  annexation  question,  and  in  the 
presidential  election  of  1844 ;  and  which  drew 
so  much  applause  upon  the  general  from  many 
who  had  so  lately  and  so  bitterly  condemned 
him.  This  history  I  now  propose  to  give,  con- 
fining the  narrative  to  the  intrigue  for  the  pres- 
idential nomination,  leaving  the  history  of  the 
attempted  annexation  (treaty  of  1844)  for  a 
separate  chapter,  or  rather  chapters ;  for  it  was 
an  enterprise  of  many  aspects,  according  to  the 
taste  of  different  actors — presidential,  disunion, 
speculation. 

The  outline  of  this  history — that  of  the  let- 
ter— is  brief  and  authentic ;  and,  although  well 
covered  up  at  the  time,  was  known  to  too  many 
to  remain  covered  up  long.  It  was  partly  made 
known  to  me  at  the  time,  and  fully  since.  It 
runs  thus : 

Mr.  Calhoun,  in  1841-'2,  had  resumed  his 
design  (intermitted  in  1840)  to  stand  for  the 
presidency,  and  determined  to  make  the  annex- 
ation of  Texas  —immediate  annexation — the  con- 
trolling issue  in  the  election.     The  death  of 


President  Harrison  in  1841,  and  the  retreat  of 
his  whig  ministers,  and  the  accession  of  his 
friends  to  power  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Tyler 
(then  settling  back  to  his  old  love),  and  in  the 
persons  of  some  of  his  cabinet,  opened  up  to  his 
view  the  prospect  of  a  successful  enterprise  in 
that  direction ;  and  he  fully  embraced  it,  and 
without  discouragement  from  the  similar  bud- 
ding hopes  of  Mr.  Tyler  himself,  which  it  was 
known  would  be  without  fruit,  except  what  Mr. 
Calhoun  would  gather— the  ascendant  of  his 
genius  assuring  him  the  mastery  when  he  should 
choose  to  assume  it.  His  real  competitors  (fore- 
seen to  be  Mr.  Van  Buren  and  Mr.  Clay)  were 
sure  to  be  against  it — immediate  annexation — 
and  they  would  have  a  heavy  current  to  en- 
counter, all  the  South  and  West  being  for  the 
annexation,  and  a  strong  interest,  also,  in  other 
parts  of  the  Union.  There  was  a  basis  to  build 
upon  in  the  honest  feelings  of  the  people,  and 
inflammatory  arguments  to  excite  them ;  and  if 
the  opinion  of  General  Jackson  could  be  ob- 
tained in  its  favor,  the  election  of  the  annexation 
candidate  was  deemed  certain. 

With  this  view  the  Gilmer  letter  was  com- 
posed and  published,  and  sent  to  him — and  was 
admirably  conceived  for  his  purpose.  It  took 
the  veteran  patriot  on  the  side  of  his  strong 
feelings — love  of  country  and  the  Union — dis- 
trust of  Great  Britain — and  a  southern  suscep- 
tibility to  the  dangers  of  a  servile  insurrection. 
It  carried  him  back  to  the  theatre  of  his  glory 
— the  Lower  Mississippi — and  awakened  his  ap- 
prehensions for  the  safety  of  that  most  vulnera- 
ble point  of  our  frontier.  Justly  and  truly,  but 
with  a  refinement  of  artifice  in  this  case,  it  pre- 
sented annexation  as  a  strengthening  plaster  to 
the  Union,  while  really  intended  to  sectionalize 
it,  and  to  effect  disunion  if  the  annexation 
failed.  This  idea  of  strengthening  the  Union 
had,  and  in  itself  deserved  to  have,  an  invincible 
charm  for  the  veteran  patriot.  Besides,  the  re- 
covery of  Texas  was  in  the  line  of  his  policy, 
pursued  by  him  as  a  favorite  object  during  his 
administration ;  and  this  desire  to  get  back  that 
country,*  patriotic  in  itself,  was  entirely  com- 
patible with  his  acquiescence  in  its  relinquish- 
ment as  a  temporary  sacrifice  in  1819 ;  an  ac- 
quiescence induced  by  the  "  domestic  "  reason 
communicated  to  him  by  Mr.  Monroe. 

The  great  point  in  sending  the  Gilmer  letter 
to  him,  with  its  portents  of  danger  from  British 
designs,  was  to  obtain  from  him  the  expression 


584 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  an  opinion  in  favor  of  "  immediate "  annexa- 
tion. No  other  opinion  would  do  any  good.  A 
future  annexation,  no  matter  how  soon  after 
1844,  would  carry  the  question  beyond  the 
presidential  election,  and  would  fall  in  with  the 
known  opinions  of  Mr.  Yan  Buren  and  Mr.  Clay, 
and  most  other  American  statesmen,  the  com- 
mon sentiment  being  for  annexation,  when  it 
could  be  honestly  accomplished.  Such  annexa- 
tion would  make  no  issue  at  all.  It  would 
throw  Texas  out  of  the  canvass.  Immediate 
was,  therefore,  the  game ;  and  to  bring  General 
Jackson  to  that  point  was  the  object.  To  do 
that,  the  danger  of  British  occupation  was  pre- 
sented as  being  so  imminent  as  to  admit  of  no 
delay,  and  so  disastrous  in  its  consequences  as 
to  preclude  all  consideration  of  present  objec- 
tions. It  was  a  bold  conception,  and  of  critical 
execution.  Jackson  was  one  of  the  last  men  in 
the  world  to  be  tampered  with — one  of  the  last 
to  be  used  against  a  friend  or  for  a  foe — the  very 
last  to  be  willing  to  see  Mr.  Calhoun  President 
— and  the  very  first  in  favor  of  Mr.  Van  Buren. 
To  turn  him  against  his  nature  and  his  feelings 
in  all  these  particulars  was  a  perilous  enterprise : 
but  it  was  attempted — and  accomplished. 

It  has  already  been  shown  that  the  letter  of 
Mr.  Gilmer  was  skilfully  composed  for  its  pur- 
pose :  all  the  accessories  of  its  publication  and 
transmission  to  General  Jackson  were  equally 
skilfully  contrived.  It  was  addressed  to  a  friend 
in  Maryland,  which  was  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion from  the  locus  of  its  origin.  It  was  drawn 
out  upon  the  call  of  a  friend :  that  is  the  tech- 
nical way  of  getting  a  private  letter  before  the 
public.  It  was  published  in  Baltimore — a  city 
where  its  writer  did  not  live.  The  name  of  the 
friend  in  Maryland  who  drew  it  out,  was  con- 
cealed; and  that  was  necessary  to  the  success 
of  the  scheme,  as  the  name  of  this  suspected 
friend  (Mr.  Duff  Green)  would  have  fastened 
its  origin  on  Mr.  Calhoun.  And  thus  the 
accessories  of  the  publication  were  complete, 
and  left  the  mind  without  suspicion  that  the 
letter  had  germinated  in  a  warm  southern  lati- 
tude. It  was  then  ready  to  start  on  its  mission 
to  General  Jackson ;  but  how  to  get  it  there, 
without  exciting  suspicion,  was  the  question. 
Certainly  Mr.  Gilmer  would  have  been  the 
natural  agent  for  the  transmission  of  his  own 
letter ;  but  he  stood  too  close  to  Mr.  Calhoun — 
was  too  much  his  friend  and  intimate — to  make 
that  a  safe  adventure.     A  medium  was  wanted, 


which  would  be  a  conductor  of  the  letter  and  a 
non-conductor  of  suspicion ;  and  it  was  found  in 
the  person  of  Mr.  Aaron  V.  Brown.  But  he 
was  the  friend  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  it  was 
necessary  to  approach  him  through  a  medium 
also,  and  one  was  found  in  one  of  Mr.  Gilmer's 
colleagues — believed  to  be  Mr.  Hopkins,  of  the 
House,  who  came  from  near  the  Tennessee  line  ; 
and  through  him  the  letter  reached  Mr.  Brown. 

And  thus,  conceived  by  one,  written  by  an- 
other, published  by  a  third,  and  transmitted 
through  two  successive  mediums,  the  missive 
went  upon  its  destination,  and  arrived  safely  in 
the  hands  of  General  Jackson.  It  had  a  com- 
plete success.  He  answered  it  promptly,  warm- 
ly, decidedly,  affirmatively.  So  fully  did  it  put 
him  up  to  the  point  of  "  immediate  "  annexation, 
that  his  impatience  outstripped  expectation.  He 
counselled  haste — considered  the  present  the 
accepted  time — and  urged  the  seizure  of  the 
"  golden  opportunity  "  which,  if  lost  now,  might 
never  return.  The  answer  was  dated  at  the 
Hermitage,  March  12th,  1843,  and  was  received 
at  Washington  as  soon  as  the  mail  could  fetch 
it.  Of  course  it  came  to  Mr.  Brown,  to  whom 
it  belonged,  and  to  whom  it  was  addressed ; 
but  I  did  not  hear  of  it  in  his  hands.  My  first 
information  of  it  was  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Gil- 
mer, in  the  hall  of  the  House,  immediately 
after  its  arrival — he,  crossing  the  hall  with  the 
letter  in  his  hand,  greatly  elated,  and  showing 
it  to  a  confidential  friend,  with  many  expres- 
sions of  now  confident  triumph  over  Mr.  Van 
Buren.  The  friend  was  permitted  to  read  the 
letter,  but  with  the  understanding  that  nothing 
was  to  be  said  about  it  at  that  time. 
I  Mr.  Gilmer  then  explained  to  his  friend 
'the  purpose  for  which  this  letter  had  been  writ- 
ten and  sent  to  General  Jackson,  and  the  use 
that  was  intended  to  be  made  of  his  answer 
(if  favorable  to  the  design  of  the  authors), 
which  use  was  this :  It  was  to  be  produced  in 
the  nominating-  convention,  to  overthrow  Mr. 
Van  Buren,  and  give  Mr.  Calhoun  the  nomi- 
nation, both  of  whom  were  to  be  interrogated 
beforehand ;  and  as  it  was  well  known  what 
the  answers  would  be — Calhoun  for  and  Van 
Buren  against  immediate  annexation — and 
Jackson's  answer  coinciding  with  Calhoun's, 
would  turn  the  scale  in  his  favor,  "  and  blow 
.Van  Buren  sky  high?' 

This  was  the  plan,  and  this  the  state  of  the 
game,  at  the  end  of  February,  1843  ;  but  a  great 


ANNO  18-14.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


585 


deal  remained  to  be  done  to  perfect  the  scheme. 
The  sentiment  of  the  democratic  party  was 
nearly  unanimous  for  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  time 
was  wanted  to  undermine  that  sentiment.  Pub- 
lic opinion  was  not  yet  ripe  for  immediate  an- 
nexation, and  time  was  wanted  to  cultivate  that 
opinion.  There  was  no  evidence  of  any  British 
domination  or  abolition  plot  in  Texas,  and  time 
was  wanted  to  import  one  from  London.  All 
these  operations  required  time — more  of  it  than 
intervened  before  the  customary  period  for  the 
meeting  of  the  convention.  That  period  had 
been  the  month  of  December  preceding  the  year 
of  the  election,  and  Baltimore  the  place  for  these 
assemblages  since  Congress  presidential  cau- 
cuses had  been  broken  down — that  near  position 
to  Washington  being  chosen  for  the  convenient 
attendance  of  that  part  of  the  members  of  Con- 
gress who  charged  themselves  with  these  elec- 
tions. If  December  remained  the  period  for  the 
meeting,  there  would  be  no  time  for  the  large 
operations  which  required  to  be  performed; 
for,  to  get  the  delegates  there  in  time,  they 
must  be  elected  beforehand,  during  the  summer 
— so  that  the  working  season  of  the  intriguers 
would  be  reduced  to  a  few  months,  when  up- 
wards of  a  year  was  required.  To  gain  that 
time  was  the  first  object,  and  a  squad  of  mem- 
bers, some  in  the  interest  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  some 
professing  friendship  to  Mr.  Van  Buren,  but  se- 
cretly hostile  to  him,  sat  privately  in  the  Capi- 
tol, almost  nightly,  corresponding  with  all  parts 
of  the  country,  to  get  the  convention  postponed. 
All  sorts  of  patriotic  motives  were  assigned  for 
this  desired  postponement,  as  that  it  would  be 
more  convenient  for  the  delegates  to  attend — 
nearer  to  the  time  of  election — more  time  for 
public  opinion  to  mature ;  and  most  favorable 
to  deliberate  decision.  But  another  device  was 
fallen  upon  to  obtain  delay,  the  secret  of  which 
was  not  put  into  the  letters,  nor  confided  to  the 
body  of  the  nightly  committee.  It  had  so  hap- 
pened that  the  opposite  party — the  whigs — since 
the  rout  of  the  Congress  presidential  caucuses, 
had  also  taken  the  same  time  and  place  for  their 
conventions  —  December,  and  Baltimore — and 
doubtless  for  the  same  reason,  that  of  the  more 
convenient  attending  of  the  President-making 
members  of  Congress ;  and  this  led  to  an  in- 
trigue with  the  whigs,  the  knowledge  of  which 
was  confined  to  a  very  few.  It  was  believed 
that  the  democratic  convention  could  be  the 


more  readily  put  off  if  the  wliigs  would  do  the 
like — and  do  it  first. 

There  was  a  committee  within  the  committee 
— a  little  nest  of  head  managers — who  under- 
took this  collusive  arrangement  with  the  whigs. 
They  proposed  it  to  them,  professing  to  act  in 
the  interest  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  though  in  fact 
against  him,  as  well  as  against  Mr.  Van  Buren. 
The  whigs  readily  agreed  to  this  proposal,  be- 
cause, being  themselves  then  unanimous  for  Mr. 
Clay,  it  made  no  difference  at  what  time  he 
should  be  nominated  ;  and  believing  they  could 
more. easily  defeat  Mr.  Calhoun  than  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  they  preferred  him  for  an  antagonist 
They  therefore  agreed  to  the  delay,  and  both 
conventions  were  put  off  (and  the  whigs  first, 
to  enable  the  democrats  to  plead  it)  from  De- 
cember, 1843,  to  May,  1844.  Time  for  opera- 
ting having  now  been  gained,  the  night  squad  in 
the  Capitol  redoubled  their  activity  to  work 
upon  the  people.  Letter  writers  and  newspa- 
pers were  secured.  Good,  easy  members,  were 
plied  with  specious  reasons — slippery  ones  were 
directly  approached.  Visitors  from  the  States 
were  beset  and  indoctrinated.  Men  were  picked 
out  to  operate  on  the  selfish,  and  the  calculating ; 
and  myriads  of  letters  were  sent  to  the  States, 
to  editors,  and  politicians.  All  these  agents 
worked  to  a  pattern,  the  primary  object  being 
to  undo  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  and  to  manufacture  one,  ostensibly  in 
favor  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  but  in  reality  without 
being  for  him — they  being  for  any  one  of  four 
(Mr.  Cass.  Mr.  Buchanan,  Colonel  Johnson,  Mr. 
Tyler),  in  preference  to  either  of  them.  They 
were  for  neither,  and  the  only  difference  was 
that  Mr.  Calhoun  believed  they  were  for  him  : 
Mr.  Van  Buren  knew  they  were  against  him. 
They  professed  friendship  for  him  ;  and  that 
was  necessary  to  enable  them  to  undermine 
him.  The  stress  of  the  argument  against  hira 
was  that  he  could  not  be  elected,  and  the  efTort 
was  to  make  good  that  assertion.  Now,  or 
never,  was  the  word  with  respect  to  Texas. 
Some  of  the  squad  sympathized  with  the  specu- 
lators in  Texas  land  and  scrip;  and  to  these 
Mr.  Calhoun  was  no  more  palatable  than  Mr. 
Van  Buren.  They  were  both  above  plunder. 
Some  wanted  office,  and  knew  that  neither  of 
these  gentlemen  would  give  it  to  them.  They 
had  a  difficult  as  well  as  tortuous  part  to  play. 
Professing  democracy,  they  colluded  with  wliigs. 


586 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Professing  friendship  to  Mr.  Van  Buren,  they 
co-operated  with  Mr.  Calhoun's  friends  to  de- 
feat him.  Co-operating  with  Mr.  Calhoun's 
friends,  they  were  against  his  election.  They 
were  for  any  body  in  preference  to  either,  and 
especially  for  men  of  easy  temperaments,  whose 
principles  were  not  entrenched  behind  strong 
wills.  To  undo  public  sentiment  in  favor  of 
Mr.  Van  Buren  was  their  labor;  to  get  un- 
pledged and  uninstructed  delegates  into  conven- 
tion, and  to  get  those  released  who  had  been 
appointed  under  instructions,  was  the  consum- 
mation of  their  policy.  A  convention  untram- 
melled by  instructions,  independent  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  open  to  the  machinations  of  a  few  poli- 
ticians, was  what  was  wanted.  The  efforts  to 
accomplish  these  purposes  were  prodigious,  and 
constituted  the  absorbing  night  and  day  work 
of  the  members  engaged  in  it.  After  all,  they 
had  but  indifferent  success — more  with  poli- 
ticians and  editors  than  with  the  people.  Mr. 
Van  Buren  was  almost  universally  preferred. 
Delegates  were  generally  instructed  to  support 
his  nomination.  Even'  in  the  Southern  States, 
in  direct  question  between  himself  and  Mr.  Cal- 
houn, he  was  preferred — as  in  Alabama  and 
Mississippi.  No  delegates  were  released  from 
their  instructions  by  any  competent  authority, 
and  only  a  few  in  any,  by  clusters  of  local  poli- 
ticians, convenient  to  the  machinations  of  the 
committee  in  the  Capitol — as  at  Shockoe  Hill, 
Richmond,  Virginia,  where  Mr.  Ritchie,  editor 
of  the  Enquirer  (whose  proclivity  to  be  de- 
ceived in  a  crisis  was  generally  equivalent  in  its 
effects  to  positive  treachery),  led  the  way — him- 
self impelled  by  others. 

The  labors  of  the  committee,  though  intended 
to  be  secret,  and  confined  to  a  small  circle,  and 
chiefly  carried  on  in  the  night,  were  subject  to 
be  discovered  ;  and  were  so  ;  and  the  discovery 
led  to  some  public  denunciations.  The  two 
senators  from  Ohio,  Messrs.  William  Allen,  and 
Tappan,  and  ten  of  the  representatives  from  that 
State,  published  a  card  in  the  Globe  newspaper, 
denouncing  it  as  a  conspiracy  to  defeat  the  will 
of  the  people.  The  whole  delegation  from  South 
Carolina  (Messrs.  McDuffie  and  Huger,  senators, 
and  the  seven  representatives),  fearing  that  they 
might  be  suspected  on  account  of  their  friend- 
ship for  Mr.  Calhoun,  published  a  card  denying 
all  connection  with  the  committee  ;  an  unneces- 
sary precaution,  as  their  characters  were  above 


that  suspicion.  Many  other  members  published 
cards,  denying  their  participation  in  these*  meet- 
ings ;  and  some,  admitting  the  participation,  de- 
nied the  intrigue,  and  truly,  as  it  concerned 
themselves ;  for  all  the  disreputable  part  was 
kept  secret  from  them — especially  the  collusion 
with  the  whigs,  and  all  the  mysteries  of  the 
Gilmer  letter.  Many  of  them  were  sincere 
friends  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  but  deceived  and 
cheated  themselves,  while  made  the  instrument 
of  deceiving  and  cheating  others.  It  was  prob- 
ably one  of  the  most  elaborate  pieces  of  political 
cheatery  that  has  ever  been  performed  in  a  free 
country,  and  well  worthy  to  be  studied  by  all 
who  would  wish  to  extend  their  knowledge  of 
the  manner  in  which  presidential  elections  may 
be  managed,  and  who  would  wish  to  see  the 
purity  of  elections  preserved  and  vindicated. 

About  this  time  came  an  occurrence  well  cal- 
culated to  make  a  pause,  if  any  thing  could 
make  a  pause,  in  the  working  of  political  ambi- 
tion. The  explosion  of  the  great  gun  on  board 
the  Princeton  steamer  took  place,  killing,  among 
others,  two  of  Mr.  Tyler's  cabinet  (Mr.  Upshur 
and  Mr.  Gilmer),  both  deeply  engaged  in  the 
Texas  project — barely  failing  to  kill  Mr.  Tyler, 
who  was  called  back  in  the  critical  moment,  and 
who  had  embraced  the  Texas  scheme  with  more 
than  vicarious  zeal ;  and  also  barely  failing  to 
kill  the  writer  of  this  View,  who  was  standing 
at  the  breech  Of  the  gun,  closely  observing  its 
working,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Texas  game,  and 
who  fell  among  the  killed  and  stunned,  fortu- 
nately to  rise  again.  Commodore  Kennon,  Mr. 
Virgil  Maxcy,  Mr.  Gardiner,  of  New  York,  father- 
in-law  (that  was  to  be)  of  the  President,  were 
also  killed  ;  a  dozen  seamen  were  wounded,  and 
Commodore  Stockton  burnt  and  scorched  as  he 
stood  at  the  side  of  the  gun.  Such  an  occur- 
rence was  well  calculated  to  impress  upon  the 
survivors  the  truth  of  the  divine  admonition : 
"What  shadows  we  are — what  shadows  we 
pursue."  But  it  had  no  effect  upon  the  pursuit 
of  the  presidential  shadow.  Instantly  Mr.  Cal- 
houn was  invited  to  take  Mr.  Upshur's  place  in 
the  Department  of  State,  and  took  it  with  an 
alacrity,  and  with  a  patronizing  declaration,  which 
showed  his  zeal  for  the  Texas  movement,  and  as 
good  as  avowed  its  paternity.  He  declared  he 
took  the  place  for  the  Texas  negotiation  alone, 
and  would  quit  it  as  soon  as  that  negotiation 
should  be  finished.   In  brief,  the  negotiation,  in- 


ANNO  1844     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


587 


stead  of  pausing  in  the  presence  of  so  awful  a 
catastrophe,  seemed  to  derive  new  life  from  it, 
and  to  go  forward  with  accelerated  impetuosity. 
Mr.  Calhoun  put  his  eager  activity  into  it: 
politicians  became  more  vehement — newspapers 
more  clamorous:  the  interested  classes  (land 
and  scrip  speculators)  swarmed  at  Washington  ; 
and  Mr.  Tyler  embraced  the  scheme  with  a  fer- 
vor which  induced  the  suspicion  that  he  had 
adopted  the  game  for  his  own,  and  intended  to 
stand  a  cast  of  the  presidential  die  upon  it. 

The  machinations  of  the  committee,  though 
greatly  successful  with  individuals,  and  with 
the  politicians  with  whom  they  could  commu- 
nicate, did  not  reach  the  masses,  who  remained 
firm  to  Mr.  Yan  Buren ;  and  it  became  neces- 
sary to  fall  upon  some  new  means  of  acting 
upon  them.  This  led  to  a  different  use  of  the 
Jackson  Texas  letter  from  what  had  been  in- 
tended. It  was  intended  to  have  been  kept  in 
the  background,  a  secret  in  the  hands  of  its  pos- 
sessors, until  the  meeting  of  the  convention — 
then  suddenly  produced  to  turn  the  scale  be- 
tween Mr.  Calhoun  and  Mr.  Van  Buren;  and 
this  design  had  been  adhered  to  for  about  the 
space  of  a  year,  and  the  letter  kept  close :  it 
was  then  recurred  to  as  a  means  of  rousing  the 
masses. 

Jackson's  name  was  potential  with  the  peo- 
ple, and  it  was  deemed  indispensable  to  bring  it 
to  bear  upon  them.  The  publication  of  the  let- 
ter was  resolved  upon,  and  the  Globe  newspa- 
per selected  for  the  purpose,  and  Mr.  Aaron  V. 
Brown  to  have  it  done.  All  this  was  judicious 
and  regular.  The  Globe  had  been  the  organ  of 
General  Jackson,  and  was  therefore  the  most  pro- 
per paper  to  bring  his  sentiments  before  the  pub- 
lic. It  was  the  advocate  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  elec- 
tion, and  therefore  would  prevent  the  suspicion 
of  sinistrous  design  upon  him.  Mr.  Brown  was 
the  legal  owner  of  the  letter,  and  a  professing 
friend  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and,  therefore,  the 
proper  person  to  carry  it  for  publication. 

He  did  so ;  but  the  editor,  Mr.  Blair,  seeing 
no  good  that  it  could  do  Mr.  Van  Buren,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  harm,  and  being  sincerely  his 
friend,  declined  to  publish  it ;  and,  after  exam- 
ination, delivered  it  back  to  Mr.  Brown.  Short- 
ly thereafter,  to  wit,  on  the  22d  of  March,  1844, 
it  appeared  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer^  post- 
dated, that  is  to  say,  the  date  of  1843  changed 
into  1844 — whether  by  design  or  accident  is  not 
known;   but  the  post-date  gave  the  letter  a 


fresher  appearance,  and  a  more  vigorous  appli- 
cation to  the  Texas  question.  The  fact  that 
this  letter  had  got  back  to  Mr.  Brown,  after 
having  been  given  up  to  Mr.  Gilmer,  proved 
that  the  letter  travelled  in  a  circle  while  kept 
secret,  and  went  from  hand  to  hand  among  the 
initiated,  as  needed  for  use. 

The  time  had  now  come  for  the  interrogation 
of  the  candidates,  and  it  was  done  with  all  the 
tact  which  the  delicate  function  required.  The 
choice  of  the  interrogator  was  the  first  point. 
He  must  be  a  friend,  ostensible  if  not  real,  to 
the  party  interrogated.  If  real,  he  must  him- 
self be  deceived,  and  made  to  believe  that  he 
was  performing  a  kindly  service  ;  if  not,  he 
must  still  have  the  appearance.  And  for  Mr. 
Van  Buren's  benefit  a  suitable  performer  was 
found  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Harnett,  a  represen- 
tative in  Congress  from  Mississippi,  whose  let- 
ter was  a  model  for  the  occasion,  and,  in  fact, 
has  been  pretty  well  followed  since.  It  abound- 
ed in  professions  of  friendship  to  Mr.  Van  Bu- 
ren— approached  him  for  his  own  good — sought 
his  opinion  from  the  best  of  motives  ;  and  urged 
a  categorical  reply,  for  or  against,  immediate 
annexation.  The  sagacious  Mr.  Van  Buren 
was  no  dupe  of  this  contrivance,  but  took  coun- 
sel from  what  was  due  to  himself;  and  an- 
swered with  candor,  decorum  and  dignity.  He 
was  against  immediate  annexation,  because  it 
was  war  with  Mexico,  but  for  it  when  it  could 
be  done  peaceably  and  honorably :  and  he  was 
able  to  present  a  very  fair  record,  having  been 
in  favor  of  getting  back  the  country  (in  a  way 
to  avoid  difficulties  with  Mexico)  when  Secre- 
tary of  State,  under  President  Jackson.  His 
letter  was  sent  to  a  small  circle  of  friends  at 
Washington  before  it  was  delivered  to  its  ad- 
dress ;  but  to  be  delivered  immediately ;  which 
was  done,  and  soon  went  into  the  papers. 

Mr.  Calhoun  had  superseded  the  necessity  of 
interrogation  in  his  letter  of  acceptance  of  the 
State  Department :  he  was  a  hot  annexationist, 
although  there  was  an  ugly  record  to  be  exhi- 
bited against  him.  In  his  almost  thirty  years 
of  public  life  he  had  never  touched  Texas,  ex- 
cept for  his  own  purposes.  In  1819,  as  one  of 
Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet,  he  had  concurred  in  giv- 
ing it  away,  in  order  to  conciliate  the  antisla- 
very  interest  in  the  Northeast  by  curtailing  slave 
territory  in  the  Southwest.  In  183C  he  moved 
her  immature  annexation,  in  order  to  bring  the 
question  into  the  presidential  election  of  that 


588 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


year,  to  the  prejudice  of  Mr.  Van  Buren ;  and 
urged  instant  action,  because  delay  was  dan- 
gerous. Having  joined  Mr.  Van  Buren  after 
his  election,  and  expecting  to  become  his  suc- 
cessor, he  dropped  the  annexation  for  which  he 
had  been  so  impatient,  and  let  the  election  of 
1840  pass  by  without  bringing  it  into  the  can- 
vass ;  and  now  revived  it  for  the  overthrow  of 
Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  for  the  excitement  of  a  sec- 
tional controversy,  by  placing  the  annexation 
on  strong  sectional  grounds.  And  now,  at  the 
approach  of  the  election  in  1844,  after  years  of 
silence,  he  becomes  the  head  advocate  of  an- 
nexation ;  and  with  all  this  forbidding  record 
against  him,  by  help  of  General  Jackson's  let- 
ter, and  the  general  sentiment  in  favor  of  an- 
nexation, and  the  fictitious  alarm  of  British 
abolition  and  hostile  designs,  he  was  able  to  ap- 
pear as  a  champion  of  Texas  annexation,  baf- 
fling the  old  and  consistent  friends  of  the  mea- 
sure with  the  new  form  which  had  been  given 
to  the  question.  Mr.  Clay  was  of  this  class. 
Of  all  the  public  men  he  was  able  to  present  the 
best  and  fairest  Texas  record.  He  was  opposed 
to  the  loss  of  the  province  in  1819,  and  offered 
resolutions  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
supported  by  an  ardent  speech,  in  which  he 
condemned  the  treaty  which  gave  it  away.  As 
Secretary  of  State,  under  Mr.  Adams,  he  had 
advised  the  recovery  of  the  province,  and  opened 
negotiations  to  that  effect,  and  wrote  the  in- 
structions under  which  Mr.  Poinsett,  the  United 
States  minister,  made  the  attempt.  As  a  west- 
ern man,  he  was  the  natural  champion  of  a  great 
western  interest — pre-eminently  western,  while 
also  national.  He  was  interrogated  according 
to  the  programme,  and  answered  with  firmness 
that,  although  an  ancient  and  steadfast  friend  to 
the  recovery  of  the  country,  he  was  opposed  to 
immediate  annexation,  as  adopting  the  war  with 
Mexico,  and  making  that  war  by  treaty,  when 
the  war-making  power  belonged  to  Congress. 
There  were  several  other  democratic  candidates, 
the  whole  of  whom  were  interrogated,  and  an- 
swered promptly  in  favor  of  immediate  annexa- 
tion— some  of  them  improving  their  letters,  as 
advised,  before  publication.  Mr.  Tyler,  also, 
now  appeared  above  the  horizon  as  a  presiden- 
tial candidate,  and  needed  no  interrogatories  to 
bring  out  his  declaration  for  immediate  annexa- 
tion, although  he  had  voted  against  Mr.  Clay's 
resolution  condemning  the  sacrifice  of  the  prov- 
ince.    In  a  word,  the  Texas  hobby  was  multi- 


tudinously  mounted,  and  violently  ridden,  and 
most  violently  by  those  who  had  been  most  in- 
different to  it  before.  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Cal- 
houn were  the  only  candidates  that  answered 
like  statesmen,  and  they  were  both  distanced. 

The  time  was  approaching  for  the  convention 
to  meet,  and,  consequently,  for  the  conclusion 
of  the  treaty  of  annexation,  which  was  to  be  a 
touchstone  in  it.  It  was  signed  the  12th  of 
April,  and  was  to  have  been  sent  to  the  Senate 
immediately,  but  was  delayed  by  a  circumstance 
which  created  alarm — made  a  balk — and  re- 
quired a  new  turn  to  be  taken.  Mr.  Van  Bu- 
ren had  not  yet  answered  the  interrogatories 
put  to  him  through  Mr.  Harnett,  or  rather  his 
answer  had  not  yet  been  published.  Uneasi- 
ness began  to  be  felt,  lest,  like  so  many  others, 
he  should  fall  into  the  current,  and  answer  in  a 
way  that  would  enable  him  to  swim  with  it. 
To  relieve  this  uncertainty,  Mr.  Blair  was  ap- 
plied to  by  Mr.  Robert  J.  Walker  to  write  to 
him,  and  get  his  answer.  This  was  a  very 
proper  channel  to  apply  through.  Mr.  Blair, 
as  the  fast  friend  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  had  the 
privilege  to  solicit  him.  Mr.  Calhoun,  as  the 
political  adversary  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  could  not 
ask  Mr.  Blair  to  do  it.  Mr.  Walker  stood  in  a 
relation  to  be  ready  for  the  work  all  round ;  as 
a  professing  friend  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  though 
co-operating  with  Mr.  Calhoun  and  all  the  rest 
against  him,  he  could  speak  with  Mr.  Blair  on 
a  point  which  seemed  to  be  for  Mr.  Van  Bu- 
ren's  benefit.  As  co-operating  with  Mr.  Cal- 
houn, he  could  help  him  against  an  adversary, 
though  intending  to  give  him  the  go-by  in  the 
end.  As  being  in  all  the  Texas  mysteries,  he 
was  a  natural  person  to  ferret  out  information 
on  every  side.  He  it  was,  then,  to  whose  part  it 
fell  to  hasten  the  desired  answer  from  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  and  through  the  instrumentality  of  Mr. 
Blair.  Mr.  Blair  wrote  as  solicited,  not  seeing 
any  trap  in  it ;  but  had  received  no  answer  up 
to  the  time  that  the  treaty  was  to  go  to  the 
Senate.  Ardent  for  Texas,  and  believing  in  the 
danger  of  delay,  he  wrote  and  published  in  the 
Globe  a  glowing  article  in  favor  of  immediate  an- 
nexation. That  article  was  a  poser  and  a  dumb- 
founder  to  the  confederates.  It  threw  the  treaty 
all  aback.  Considering  Mr.  Blair's  friendship 
for  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  their  confidential  rela- 
tions, it  was  concluded  that  this  article  could 
not  have  been  published  without  his  consent — 
that  it  spoke  his  sentiments — and  was  in  fact  his 


ANNO  184S.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


589 


answer  to  the  letter  which  had  been  sent  to  him. 
Here  was  an  ugly  balk.  It  seemed  as  if  the 
long  intrigue  had  miscarried— as  if  the  plot  was 
going  to  work  out  the  contrary  way,  and  elevate 
the  man  it  was  intended  to  put  down.  In  this 
unexpected  conjuncture  a  new  turn  became  in- 
dispensable— and  was  promptly  taken. 

Mention  has  been  made  in  the  forepart  of  this 
chapter,  of  the  necessity  which  was  felt  to  ob- 
tain something  from  London  to  bolster  up  the 
accusation  of  that  formidable  abolition  plot 
which  Great  Britain  was  hatching  in  Texas, 
and  on  the  alleged  existence  of  which  the  whole 
argument  for  immediate  annexation  reposed. 
The  desired  testimony  had  been  got,  and  oracu- 
larly given  to  the  public,  as  being  derived  from 
a  "private  letter  from  a  citizen  of  Maryland, 
then  in  London."  The  name  of  this  Maryland 
citizen  was  not  given,  but  his  respectability  and 
reliability  were  fully  vouched ;  and  the  testi- 
mony passed  for  true.  It  was  to  the  point  in 
charging  upon  the  British  government,  with 
names  and  circumstances,  all  that  had  been  al- 
leged ;  and  adding  that  her  abolition  machina- 
tions were  then  in  full  progress.  This  went 
back  to  London,  immediately  transmitted  there 
by  the  British  minister  at  Washington,  Sir 
Richard  Pakenham ;  and  being  known  to  be 
false,  and  felt  to  be  scandalous,  drew  from  the 
British  Secretary  of  State  (Lord  Aberdeen)  an 
indignant,  prompt,  and  peremptory  contradic- 
tion. This  contradiction  was  given  in  a  de- 
spatch, dated  December  26th,  1843.  It  was 
communicated  by  Sir  Richard  Pakenham  to 
Mr.  Upshur,  the  United  States  Secretary  of 
State,  on  the  26th  day  of  February,  1844— a 
few  days  before  the  lamentable  death  of  that 
gentleman  by  the  bursting  of  the  Princeton 
gun.  This  despatch,  having  no  object  but  to 
contradict  an  unfounded  imputation,  required 
no  answer — and  received  none.  It  lay  in  'the 
Department  of  State  unacknowledged  until  af- 
ter the  treaty  had  been  signed,  and  until  the 
day  of  the  appearance  of  that  redoubtable  arti- 
cle in  the  Globe,  which  had  been  supposed  to 
be  Mr.  Yan  Buren's  answer  to  the  problem  of 
immediate  annexation.  Then  it  was  taken  up, 
and,  on  the  18th  day  of  April,  was  elaborately 
answered  by  Mr.  Calhoun  in  a  despatch  to  the 
British  minister — not  to  argue  the  point  of  the 
truth  of  the  Maryland  citizen's  private  letter — 
but  to  argue  quite  off  upon  a  new  text.  It  so 
happened  that  Lord  Aberdeen — after  the  fullest 


contradiction  of  the  imputed  design,  and  the 
strongest  assurances  of  non-interference  with 
any  slavery  policy  either  of  the  United  States 
or  of  Texas— did  not  stop  there ;  but,  like  many 
able  men  who  are  not  fully  aware  of  the  virtue 
of  stopping  when  they  are  done,  went  on  to  add 
something  more,  of  no  necessary  connection  or 
practical  application  to  the  subject— a  mere 
general  abstract  declaration  on  the  subject  of 
slavery ;  on  which  Mr.  Calhoun  took  position, 
and  erected  a  superstructure  of  alarm  which 
did  more  to  embarrass  the  opponents  of  the  trea- 
ty and  to  inflame  the  country,  than  all  other 
matters  put  together.  This  cause  for  this  new 
alarm  was  found  in  the  superfluous  declaration, 
l;  That  Great  Britain  desires,  and  is  con- 
stantly exerting  herself  to  procure  the  general 
abolition  of  slavery  throughout  the  world." 
This  general  declaration,  although  preceded  and 
followed  by  reiterated  assurances  of  non-inter- 
ference with  slavery  in  the  United  States,  and 
no  desire  for  any  dominant  influence  in  Texas, 
were  seized  upon  as  an  open  avowal  of  a  design 
to  abolish  slavery  every  where.  These  assur- 
ances were  all  disregarded.  Our  secretary  es- 
tablished himself  upon  the  naked  declaration, 
stripped  of  all  qualifications  and  denials.  He 
saw  in  them  the  means  of  making  to  a  northern 
man  (Mr.  Yan  Buren)  just  as  perilous  the  sup- 
port as  the  opposition  of  immediate  annexation. 
So,  making  the  declaration  of  Lord  Aberdeen 
the  text  of  a  most  elaborate  reply,  he  took  up 
the  opposite  ground  (support  and  propagation 
of  slavery),  arguing  it  generally  in  relation  to 
the  world,  and  specially  in  relation  to  the 
United  States  and  Texas ;  and  placing  the  an- 
nexation so  fully  upon  that  ground,  that  all  its 
supporters  must  be  committed  to  it.  Here  was 
a  new  turn,  induced  by  Mr.  Blair's  article  in 
the  Globe,  and  by  which  the  support  of  the 
treaty  would  be  as  obnoxious  in  the  North  as 
opposition  to  it  would  be  in  the  South. 

It  must  have  been  a  strange  despatch  for  a 
British  minister  to  receive — an  argument  in  fa- 
vor of  slavery  propagandism — supported  by 
comparative  statements  taken  from  the  United 
States  census,  between  the  numbers  of  deal; 
dumb,  blind,  idiotic,  insane,  criminal,  and  pau- 
pers among  the  free  and  the  slave  negroes- 
showing  a  large  disproportion  against  the  free 
negroes ;  and  thence  deducing  a  conclusion  in 
favor  of  slavery.  It  was  a  strange  diplomatic 
despatch,  and  incomprehensible  except  with  a 


590 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


knowledge  of  the  circumstances  in  which  it  was 
written.  It  must  have  been  complete  mystifi- 
cation to  Lord  Aberdeen  ;  but  it  was  not  writ- 
ten for  him,  though  addressed  to  him,  and  was 
sent  to  those  for  whom  it  was  intended  long  be- 
fore he  saw  it.  The  use  that  was  made  of  it 
showed  for  whom  it  was  written.  Two  days 
after  its  date,  and  before  it  had  commenced  its 
maritime  voyage  to  London,  it  was  in  the  Amer- 
ican Senate — sent  in  with  the  treaty,  with  the 
negotiation  of  which  it  had  no  connection,  be- 
ing written  a  week  after  its  signature,  and  after 
the  time  that  the  treaty  would  have  been  sent 
in  had  it  not  been  for  the  appearance  of  the  ar- 
ticle (supposed  to  speak  Mr.  Van  Buren's  sen- 
timents) in  the  Globe.  It  was  no  embarrass- 
ment to  Mr.  Van  Buren,  whose  letter  in  answer 
to  the  interrogatories  had  been  written,  and  was 
soon  after  published.  It  was  an  embarrassment 
j  to  others.  It  made  the  annexation  a  sectional 
and  a  slavery  question,  and  insured  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  treaty.  It  disgusted  northern  sena- 
tors; and  that  was  one  of  the  objects  with 
which  it  had  been  written.  For  the  whole  an- 
nexation business  had  been  conducted  with  a 
double  aspect — one  looking  to  the  presidency, 
the  other  to  disunion ;  and  the  latter  the  alter- 
native, to  the  furtherance  of  which  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  treaty  by  northern  votes  was  an 
auxiliary  step. 

And  while  the  whole  negotiation  bore  that 
for  one  of  its  aspects  from  the  beginning,  this 
ex  post  facto  despatch,  written  after  the  treaty 
was  signed,  and  given  to  the  American  public 
before  it  got  to  the  British  Secretary  of  State, 
became  the  distinct  revelation  of  what  had  been 
before  dimly  shadowed  forth.  All  hope  of  the 
j  presidency  from  the  Texas  intrigue  had  now 
|  failed — the  alternative  aspect  had  become  the 
absolute  one ;  and  a  separate  republic,  consist- 
ing of  Texas  and  some  Southern  States,  had  be- 
come the  object.  Neither  the  exposure  of  this 
object  nor  the  history  of  the  attempted  annexa- 
tion belong  to  this  chapter.  A  separate  chap- 
ter is  required  for  each.  And  this  incident  of 
the  Maryland  citizen's  private  letter  from  Lon- 
don, Lord  Aberdeen's  contradiction,  and  the 
strange  despatch  of  Mr.  Calhoun  to  him,  are 
only  mentioned  here  as  links  in  the  chain  of  the 
presidential  intrigue;  and  will  be  dismissed 
with  the  remark  that  the  Maryland  citizen  was 
afterwards  found  out,  and  was  discovered  to  be 
a   citizen   better   known  as  an  inhabitant  of 


Washington  than  of  Maryland ;  and  that  the 
private  letter  was  intended  to  be  for  public  use, 
and  paid  for  out  of  the  contingent  fund  of  the 
State  Department ;  and  the  writer,  a  person 
whose  name  was  the  synonym  of  subserviency 
to  Mr.  Calhoun ;  namely,  Mr.  Duff  Green.  All 
this  was  afterwards  brought  out  under  a  call 
from  the  United  States  Senate,  moved  by  the 
writer  of  this  View,  who  had  been  put  upon 
the  track  by  some  really  private  information : 
and  when  the  Presidential  Message  was  read  in 
the  Senate,  disclosing  all  these  facts,  he  used 
an  expression  taken  from  a  Spanish  proverb 
which  had  some  currency  at  the  time :  "  At 
last  the  devil  is  pulled  from  under  the 
blanket." 

The  time  was  approaching  for  the  meeting 
of  the  democratic  presidential  convention,  post- 
poned by  collusion  with  the  whigs  (the  mana- 
gers in  each  party),  from  the  month  of  Decem- 
ber to  the  month  of  May — the  27th  day  of  it. 
.It  was  now  May,  and  every  sign  was  not  only 
auspicious  to  Mr.  Van  Buren,  but  ominous  to 
his  opponents.  The  delegates  almost  univer- 
sally remained  under  instructions  to  support 
;him.  General  Jackson,  seeing  how  his  letter 
to  Mr.  Brown  had  been  used,  though  ignorant 
of  the  artifice  by  which  it  had  been  got  from 
him,  and  justly  indignant  at  finding  himself 
used  for  a  foe  and  against  a  friend,  and  especial- 
ly when  he  deemed  that  foe  dangerous  to  the 
Union — wrote  a  second  Texas  letter,  addressed 
to  the  public,  in  which,  while  still  adhering  to 
his  immediate  annexation  opinions,  also  adhered 
to  Mr.  Van  Buren  as  his  candidate  for  the 
presidency  ;  and  this  second  letter  was  a  wet 
blanket  upon  the  fires  of  the  first  one.  The 
friends  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  seeing  that  he  would 
have  no  chance  in  the  Baltimore  convention, 
had  started  a  project  to  hold  a  third  one  in 
New  York  ;  a  project  which  expired  as  soon  as 
it  got  to  the  air  ;  and  in  connection  with  which 
Mr.  Cass  deemed  it  necessary  to  make  an  au- 
thoritative contradiction  of  a  statement  made 
by  Mr.  Duff  Green,  who  undertook  to  convince 
him,  in  spite  of  his  denials,  that  he  had  agreed 
to  it.  In  proportion  as  Mr.  Calhoun  was  dis- 
appearing from  this  presidential  canvass,  Mr. 
Tyler  was  appearing  in  it ;  and  eventually  be- 
came fully  developed  as  a  candidate,  intrusively 
on  the  democratic  side  ;  but  his  friends,  seeing 
no  chance  for  him  in  the  democratic  national 
convention,  he  got  up  an  individual  or  collateral 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT 


591 


one  for  himself— to  meet  at  the  same  time  and 
place ;  but  of  this  hereafter.  This  chapter  be- 
longs to  the  intrigue  against  Mr.  Van  Buren. 


CHAPTER    CXXXVI. 

DEMOCRATIC  CONVENTION  FOR  THE  NOMINA- 
TION OF  PRESIDENTIAL  CANDIDATES. 

The  Convention  met — a  motley  assemblage, 
called  democratic — many  self-appointed,  or  ap- 
pointed upon  management  or  solicitation- 
many  alternative  substitutes — many  members 
of  Congress,  in  violation  of  the  principle  which 
condemned  the  Congress  presidential  caucuses 
in  1824 — some  nullifiers ;  and  an  immense  out- 
side concourse.  Texas  land  and  scrip  specu- 
lators were  largely  in  it,  and  more  largely  on 
the  outside.  A  considerable  number  were  in 
favor  of  no  particular  candidate,  but  in  pursuit 
of  office  for  themselves — inflexible  against  any 
one  from  whom  they  thought  they  would  not 
get  it,  and  ready  to  go  for  any  one  from  whom 
they  thought  they  could.  Almost  all  were  un- 
der instructions  for  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  could 
not  have  been  appointed  where  such  instruc- 
tions were  given,  except  in  the  belief  that  they 
would  be  obeyed.  The  business  of  undoing  in- 
structions had  been  attended  with  but  poor  suc- 
cess— in  no  instance  having  been  done  by  the 
instructing  body,  or  its  equivalent.  Two  hun- 
dred and  sixty-six  delegates  were  present — 
South  Carolina  absent ;  and  it  was  immediately 
seen  that  after  all  the  packing  and  intriguing, 
the  majority  was  still  for  Mr.  Van  Buren.  It 
was  seen  that  he  would  be  nominated  on  the 
first  ballot,  if  the  majority  was  to  govern.  To 
prevent  that,  a  movement  was  necessary,  and 
was  made.  In  the  morning  of  the  first  day,  be- 
fore the  verification  of  the  authority  of  the  dele- 
gates—  before  organization  —  before  prayers — 
and  with  only  a  temporary  chairman — a  motion 
was  made  to  adopt  the  two-thirds  rule,  that  is 
to  say,  the  rule  which  required  a  concurrence 
of  two-thirds  to  effect  a  nomination.  That  rule 
had  been  used  in  the  two  previous  nominating 
conventions — not  to  thwart  a  majority,  but  to 
strengthen  it ;  the  argument  being  that  the  re- 
sult would  be  the  same,  the  convention  being 


nearly  unanimous;  that  the  two-thirds  would 
be  cumulative,  and  give  more  weight  to  the  nom- 
ination. The  precedent  was  claimed,  though 
the  reason  had  failed ;  and  the  effect  might  now 
be  to  defeat  the  majority  instead  of  adding  to 
its  voice. 

Men  of  reflection  and  foresight  objected  to 
this  rule  when  previously  used,  as  being  in  vio- 
lation of  a  fundamental  principle— opening  the 
door  for  the  minority  to  rule— encouraging  in- 
trigue and  combination— and  leading  to  corrupt 
practices  whenever  there  should  be  a  design  to 
defeat  the  popular  will.  These  objections  were 
urged  in  1832  and  in  183C,  and  answered  by 
the  reply  that  the  rule  was  only  adopted  by 
each  convention  for  itself,  and  made  no  odds  in 
the  result:  and  now  they  were  answered  with 
"  precedents."  A  strenuous  contest  took  place 
over  the  adoption  of  this  rule — all  seeing  that 
the  fate  of  the  nomination  depended  upon  it. 
Mr.  Romulus  M.  Saunders  of  North  Carolina, 
was  its  mover.  Messrs.  Robert  J.  Walker,  and 
Hopkins  of  Virginia,  its  most  active  supporters : 
and  precedent  the  stress  of  their  argument. 
Messrs.  Morton  of  Massachusetts,  Clifford  of 
Maine,  Dickinson  and  Butler  of  New  York, 
Medary  of  Ohio,  and  Alexander  Kayscr  of  Mis- 
souri, were  its  principal  opponents :  their  argu- 
ments wrere  those  of  principle,  and  the  inappli- 
cability of  precedents  founded  on  cases  where 
the  two-thirds  vote  did  not  defeat,  but  strength- 
ened the  majority.  Mr.  Morton  of  Massachu- 
setts, spoke  the  democratic  sentiment  when  he 
said: 

"  He  was  in  the  habit  of  advancing  his  opin- 
ions in  strong  and  plain  language,  and  he  hoped 
that  no  exception  would  be  taken  to  any  thing 
that  he  might  say.  He  thought  the  majority 
principle  was  the  true  one  of  the  democratic 
party.  The  views  which  had  been  advanced  on 
the  other  side  of  the  question  were  mainly  based 
upon  precedent.  He  did  not  think  that  they 
properly  applied  here.  We  were  in  danger  of 
relying  too  much  upon  precedent — let  us  go 
upon  principle.  He  had  endeavored,  when  at 
school,  to  understand  the  true  principles  of  re- 
publicanism. He  well  recollected  the  nomina- 
tions of  Jefferson  and  others,  and  the  majority 
principle  had  always  ruled.  In  fact  it  was  re- 
cognized in  all  the  different  ramifications  of  so- 
ciety. The  State,  county  and  township  conven- 
tions were  all  governed  by  this  rule." 

Mr.  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  of  New  York,  en- 
forced the  majority  principle  as  the  one  which 
lay  at  the  foundation  of  our  government — which 


592 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


prevailed  at  the  adoption  of  every  clause  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence — every  clause  in 
the  constitution — all  the  legislation,  and  all  the 
elections,  both  State  and  federal ;  and  he  totally 
denied  the  applicability  of  the  precedents  cited. 
He  then  went  on  to  expose  the  tricks  of  a  cau- 
cus within  a  caucus — a  sub  and  secret  caucus — 
plotting  and  combining  to  betray  their  instruc- 
tions through  the  instrumentality  and  under  the 
cover  of  the  two-thirds  rule.     Thus : 

"  He  made  allusion  to  certain  caucusing  and 
contriving,  by  which  it  was  hoped  to  avert  the 
well-ascertained  disposition  of  the  majority  of 
the  democracy.  He  had  been  appointed  a  dele- 
gate to  the  convention,  and  accepted  his  cre- 
dentials, as  did  his  colleagues,  with  instructions 
to  support  and  do  all  in  their  power  to  secure 
the  nomination  of  a  certain  person  (V.  B.).  By 
consenting  to  the  adoption  of  the  two-thirds 
rule,  he,  with  them,  would  prove  unfaithful  to 
their  trust  and  their  honor.  He  knew  well 
that  in  voting  by  simple  majority,  the  friend  he 
was  pledged  to  support  would  receive  ten  to 
fifteen  majority,  and,  consequently,  the  nomina- 
tion. If  two-thirds  should  be  required  to  make 
a  choice,  that  friend  must  inevitably  be  defeated, 
and  that  defeat  caused  by  the  action  of  States 
which  could  not  be  claimed  as  democratic." 

This  last  remark  of  Mr.  Butler  should  sink 
deep  into  the  mind  of  every  friend  to  the  elec- 
tive system.  These  conventions  admitted  dele- 
gations from  anti-democratic  States — States 
which  could  not  give  a  democratic  vote  in  the 
election,  and  yet  could  control  the  nomination. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  unfair  features  in  the 
convention  system. 

The  rule  was  adopted,  and  by  the  help  of 
delegates  instructed  to  vote  for  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
and  who  took  that  method  of  betraying  their 
trust  while  affecting  to  fulfil  it.  The  body  then 
organized  and  the  balloting  commenced,  all  the 
States  present  except  South  Carolina,  who 
stood  off,  although  she  had  come  into  it  at  the 
preceding  convention,  and  cast  her  vote  for  Mr. 
Van  Buren.  Two  hundred  and  sixty-six  elec- 
toral votes  were  represented,  of  which  134 
would  be  the  majority,  and  177  the  two-thirds. 
Mr.  Van  Buren  received  151  on  the  first  ballot, 
gradually  decreasing  at  each  successive  vote 
until  the  seventh,  when  it  stood  at  99 ;  probably 
about  the  true  number  that  remained  faithful  to 
their  constituents  and  their  pledges.  Of  those 
who  fell  off  it  was  seen  that  they  chiefly  con- 


sisted of  those  professing  friends  who  had  sup- 
ported the  two-thirds  rule,  and  who  now  got  an 
excuse  for  their  intended  desertion  and  pre- 
meditated violation  of  instructions,  in  being 
able  to  allege  the  impossibility  of  electing  the 
man  to  whom  they  were  pledged. 

At  this  stage  of  the  voting,  a  member  from 
Ohio  (Mr.  Miller)  moved  a  resolve,  that  Mr. 
Van  Buren.  having  received  a  majority  of  the 
votes  on  the  Jirst  ballot,  was  duly  nominated, 
and  shoidd  be  so  declared.  This  motion  was 
an  unexpected  step,  and  put  delegates  under  the 
necessity  of  voting  direct  on  the  majority 
principle,  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all 
popular  elections,  and  at  the  foundation  of  the 
presidential  election  itself,  as  prescribed  by  the 
constitution.  That  instrument  only  requires  a 
majority  of  the  electoral  votes  to  make  an  elec- 
tion of  President ;  this  intriguing  rule  requires 
him  to  get  two-thirds  before  he  is  competent  to 
receive  that  majority.  The  motion  raised  a 
storm.  It  gave  rise  to  a  violent,  disorderly, 
furious  and  tumultuary  discussion — a  faint  idea 
of  which  may  be  formed  from  some  brief  ex- 
tracts from  the  speeches : 

Mr.  Brewster,  of  Pennsylvania. — "  They  (the 
delegation  from  this  State)  had  then  been 
solemnly  instructed  to  vote  for  Martin  Van 
Buren  first,  and  to  remain  firm  to  that  vote  as 
long  as  there  was  any  hope  of  his  success.  He 
had  been  asked  by  gentlemen  of  the  convention 
why  the  delegation  of  Pennsylvania  were  so 
divided  in  their  vote.  He  would  answer  that  it 
was  because  some  gentlemen  of  the  delegation 
did  not  think  proper  to  abide  by  the  solemn 
instructions  given  them,  but  rather  chose  to 
violate  those  instructions.  Pennsylvania  had 
come  there  to  vote  for  Martin  Van  Buren,  and 
she  would  not  desert  him  until  New  York  had 
abandoned  him.  The  delegation  had  entered  into 
a  solemn  pledge  to  do  so ;  and  he  warned  gentle- 
men that  if  they  persisted  in  violating  that 
pledge,  they  would  be  held  to  a  strict  account 
by  their  constituency,  before  whom,  on  their 
return  home,  they  would  have  to  hang  their 
heads  with  shame.  Sorry  would  he  be  to  see 
them  return,  after  having  violated  their  pledge." 

Mr.  Hickman,  of  Pennsylvania. — u  He  charged 
that  the  delegation  from  the  '  Keystone  State  ' 
had  violated  the  solemn  pledge  taken  be- 
fore they  were  entitled  to  seats  on  the  floor. 
He  asserted  on  the  floor  of  this  convention,  and 
would  assert  it  every  where,  that  the  delegation 
from  Pennsylvania  came  to  the  convention 
instructed  to  vote  for,  and  to  use  every  means 
to  obtain  the  nomination  of  Martin  Van  Buren 
for  President,  and  Kichard    M.  Johnson  for 


ANNO  1844.     JOHX  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


593 


Vice  President ;  and  }ret  a  portion  of  the  dele- 
gation, among  whom  was  his  colleague  who  had 
just  preceded  him,  had  voted  against  the  very 
proposition  upon  which  the  fate  of  Martin  Van 
Buren  hung.  He  continued  his  remarks  in  favor 
of  the  inviolability  of  instructions  and  in  rebuke 
of  those  of  the  Pennsylvania  delegation,  who 
had  voted  for  the  two-thirds  rule,  knowing,  as 
they  did,  that  it  would  defeat  Mr.  Van  Buren's 
nomination." 

Mr.  Bredon,  of  Pennsylvania.  — "  He  had 
voted  against  the  two-thirds  rule.  He  had  been 
instructed,  he  said,  and  he  believed  had  fulfilled 
those  instructions,  although  he  differed  from 
some  of  his  colleagues.  His  opinion  was,  that 
they  were  bound  by  instructions  only  so  long  as 
they  were  likely  to  be  available,  and  then  every 
member  was  at  liberty  to  consult  his  own 
judgment.  He  had  stood  by  Mr.  Van  Buren,; 
and  would  continue  to  do  so  until  the  New  York' 
and  Ohio  delegates  flew  the  track." 

Mr.  Frazer,  of  Pennsylvania,  "replied  to  the 
remarks  of  his  colleagues,  and  amidst  much 
and  constantly  increasing  confusion,  explained 
his  motives  for  having  deserted  Mr.  Van  Buren. 
On  the  last  ballot  he  had  voted  for  James  K. 
Polk,  and  would  do  so  on  the  next,  despite  the 
threat  that  had  been  thrown  out,  that  those 
who  had  not  voted  for  Mr.  Van  Buren  would 
be  ashamed  to  show  their  faces  before  their 
constituents.  He  threw  back  the  imputation 
with  indignation.  He  denied  that  he  had  vio- 
lated his  pledge  ;  that  he  had  voted  for  Mr.  Van 
Buren  on  three  ballots,  but  finding  that  Mr. 
Van  Buren  was  not  the  choice  of  the  conven- 
tion, he  had  voted  for  Mr.  Buchanan.  Finding 
that  Mr.  Buchanan  could  not  succeed,  he  had 
cast  his  vote  for  James  K.  Polk,  the  bosom 
friend  of  General  Jackson,  and  a  pure,  whole- 
hogged  democrat,  the  known  enemy  of  banks, 
distribution,  &c.  He  had  carried  out  his  in- 
structions as  he  understood  them,  and  others 
would  do  the  same." 

Mr.  Young,  of  New  York,  "  said  it  had 
been  intimated,  that  New  York  desired  perti- 
naciously to  force  a  candidate  upon  the  conven- 
tion. This  he  denied.  Mr.  Van  Buren  had 
been  recommended  by  sixteen  States  to  this 
convention  for  their  suffrages  before  New  York 
had  spoken  on  the  subject,  and  when  she  did 
speak  it  was  with  a  unanimous  voice,  and,  if  an 
expression  of  opinion  on  the  part  of  these 
people  could  now  be  had,  it  would  be  found 
that  they  had  not  changed.  (As  Mr.  Y  pro- 
ceeded the  noise  and  confusion  increased.)  It 
was  true,  he  said,  that  a  firebrand  had  been 
thrown  into  their  camp  by  the  '  Mongrel  admin- 
istration at  Washington,'  and  this  was  the 
motive  seized  upon  as  a  pretext  for  a  change  on 
the  part  of  some  gentlemen.  That  firebrand 
was  the  abominable  Texas  question,  but  that 
question,  like  a  fever,  would  wear  itself  out  or 
kill  the  patient.  It  was  one  that  should  have 
no  effect ;  and  some  of  those  who  were  now 

Vol.  II.— 38 


laboring  to  get  up  an  excitement  on  a  subject 
foreign  to  the  political  contest  before  them, 
would  be  surprised,  six  months  hence,  that  they 
had  permitted  their  equanimity  to  be  disturbed 
by  it.  Nero  had  fiddled  while  Rome  was  burn- 
ing, and  he  believed  that  this  question  had  been 
put  in  agitation  for  the  especial  purpose  of  ad- 
vancing the  aspiring  ambition  of  a  man,  who, 
he  doubted  not,  like  Nero,  '  was  probably  fid- 
dling while  Rome  was  falling.'  " 

The  crimination  and  recrimination  in  the 
Pennsylvania  delegation,  arose  from  division 
among  the  delegates :  in  some  other  delegations 
the  disregard  of  instructions  was  unanimous,  and 
there  was  no  one  to  censure  another,  as  in  Mis- 
sissippi. The  Pennsylvania  delegation,  may  be 
said  to  have  decided  the  nomination.  They  were 
instructed  to  vote  for  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  did  so. 
but  they  divided  on  the  two-thirds  rule,  and  gave 
a  majority  of  their  votes  for  it,  that  is  to  say,  13 
votes ;  but  as  13  was  not  a  majority  of  26,  one 
delegate  was  got  to  stand  aside :  and  then  the 
vote  stood  13  to  12.  The  Virginia  delegation, 
headed  by  the  most  respectable  William  II. 
Roane  (with  a  few  exceptions),  remained  faith- 
ful— disregarding  the  attempt  to  release  them  at 
Shockoe  Hill,  and  voting  steadily  for  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  as  well  on  all  the  ballotings  as  on  the 
two-thirds  question — which  was  the  real  one. 
Some  members  of  the  Capitol  nocturnal  commit- 
tee were  in  the  convention,  and  among  its  most 
active  managers — and  the  most  zealous  against 
Mr.  Van  Buren.  In  that  profusion  of  letters 
with  which  they  covered  the  country  to  under- 
mine him,  they  placed  the  objection  on  the 
ground  of  the  impossibility  of  electing  him: 
now  it  was  seen  that  the  impossibility  was  on 
the  other  side— that  it  was  impossible  to  defeat 
him,  except  by  betraying  trusts,  violating  in- 
structions, combining  the  odds  and  ends  of  all 
factions;  and  then  getting  a  rule  adopted  by 
which  a  minority  was  to  govern. 

The  motion  of  Mr.  Miller  was  not  voted  upon. 
It  was  summarily  disposed  of.  without  the  re- 
sponsibility of  a  direct  vote.  The  enemies  of  Mr.j 
Van  Buren  having  secured  the  presiding  officer 
at  the  start,  all  motions  were  decided  against 
them ;  and  after  a  long  session  of  storm  and 
rage,  intermitted  during  the  night  for  sleep  and 
intrigue,  and  resumed  in  the  morning,  an  eighth 
ballot  was  taken:  and  without  hope  for  Mr. 
Van  Buren.  As  his  vote  went  down,  that  for 
Messrs.  Cass,  Buchanan,  and  R.  M.  Johnson 


594 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


rose ;  but  without  ever  carrying  either  of  them 
to  a  majority,  much  less  two-thirds.  SeeiDg  the 
combination  against  him,  the  friends  of  Mr. 
Van  Buren  withdrew  his  name,  and  the  party 
was  then  without  a  candidate  known  to  the 
people.  Having  killed  off  the  one  chosen  by 
the  people,  the  convention  remained  masters  of 
the  field,  and  ready  to  supply  one  of  its  own. 
The  intrigue,  commenced  in  1842,  in  the  Gilmer 
letter,  had  succeeded  one-half.  It  had  put  down 
one  man,  but  another  was  to  be  put  up ;  and 
there  were  enough  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  friends 
to  defeat  that  part  of  the  scheme.  They  de- 
termined to  render  their  country  that  service, 
and  therefore  withdrew  Mr.  Van  Buren,  that 
they  might  go  in  a  body  for  a  new  man.  Among 
the  candidates  for  the  vice-presidency  was  Mr. 
James  K.  Polk,  of  Tennessee.  His  interest  as 
a  vice-presidential  candidate  lay  with  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  and  they  had  been  much  associated  in 
the  minds  of  each  other's  friends.  It  was  an 
easy  step  for  them  to  support  for  the  first  office, 
on  the  loss  of  their  first  choice,  the  citizen 
whom  they  intended  for  the  second.  "Without 
public  announcements,  he  was  slightly  developed 
as  a  presidential  candidate  on  the  eighth  ballot ; 
on  the  ninth  he  was  unanimously  nominated, 
all  the  president-makers  who  had  been  voting 
for  others — for  Cass,  Buchanan,  Johnson — tak- 
ing the  current  the  instant  they  saw  which  way 
it  was  going,  in  order  that  they  might  claim  the 
merit  of  conducting  it.  "  You  bring  but  seven 
captives  to  my  tent,  but  thousands  of  you  took 
them,"  was  the  sarcastic  remark  of  a  king  of 
antiquity  at  seeing  the  multitude  that  came  to 
claim  honors  and  rewards  for  taking  a  few 
f  prisoners.  Mr.  Polk  might  have  made  the  same 
exclamation  in  relation  to  the  multitude  that 
assumed  to  have  nominated  him.  Their  name 
was  legion :  for,  besides  the  unanimous  conven- 
tion, there  was  a  host  of  outside  operators,  each 
I  of  whom  claimed  the  merit  of  having  governed 
the  vote  of  some  delegate.  Never  was  such  a 
•  multitude  seen  claiming  the  merit,  and  demand- 
f  ing  the  reward,  for  having  done  what  had  been 
done  before  they  heard  of  it. 

The  nomination  was  a  surprise  and  a  marvel 
to  the  country.  No  voice  in  favor  of  it  had  been 
heard ;  no  visible  sign  in  the  political  horizon 
had  announced  it.  Two  small  symptoms — small 
in  themselves  and  equivocal  in  their  import,  and 


which  would  never  have  been  remembered  ex- 
cept for  the  event — doubtfully  foreshadowed  it. 
One  was  a  paragraph  in  a  Nashville  newspaper, 
hypothetically  suggesting  that  Mr.  Polk  should 
be  taken  up  if  Mr.  Van  Buren  should  be  aban- 
doned ;  the  other,  the  ominous  circumstance 
that  the  Tennessee  State  nominating  convention 
made  a  recommendation  (Mr.  Polk)  for  the 
second  office,  and  none  for  the  first ;  and  Tennes- 
see being  considered  a  Van  Buren  State,  this 
omission  was  significant,  seeming  to  leave  open 
the  door  for  his  ejection,  and  for  the  admission 
of  some  other  person.  And  so  the  delegates 
from  that  State  seemed  to  understand  it,  voting 
steadily  against  him,  until  he  was  withdrawn. 
»  The  ostensible  objection  to  the  last  against 
Mr.  Van  Buren,  was  his  opposition  to  immediate 
^annexation.  The  shallowness  of  that  objection 
was  immediately  shown  in  the  unanimous  nomi- 
nation of  his  bosom  friend,  Mr.  Silas  Wright, 
identified  with  him  in  all  that  related  to  the 
<Texas  negotiation,  for  Vice-President.  He  was 
^nominated  upon  the  proposition  of  Mr.  Robert 
J.  Walker — a  main-spring  in  all  the  movements 
against  Mr.  Van  Buren,  whose  most  indefati- 
gable opponents  sympathized  with  the  Texas 
(scrip  and  land  speculators.  Mr.  Wright  in- 
stantly declined  the  nomination ;  and  Mr.  George 
M.  Dallas,  of  Pennsylvania,  was  taken  in  his 
place. 

The  Calhoun  New  York  convention  expired 
in  the  conception.  It  never  met.  The  Tyler 
Baltimore  convention  was  carried  the  length  of 
an  actual  meeting,  and  went  through  the  forms 
of  a  nomination,  without  the  distraction  of  a  ri- 
val candidate.  It  met  the  same  day  and  place 
with  the  democratic  convention,  as  if  to  officiate 
with  it,  and  to  be  ready  to  offer  a  pis  alter,  but 
to  no  purpose.  It  made  its  own  nomination — 
received  an  elaborate  letter  of  thanks  and  ac- 
ceptance from  Mr.  Tyler,  who  took  it  quite  se- 
riously ;  and  two  months  afterwards  joined  the 
democracy  for  Polk  and  Dallas,  against  Clay 
and  Frelinghuysen — his  old  whig  friends.  He 
had  co-operated  in  all  the  schemes  against  Mr. 
Van  Buren,  in  the  hope  of  being  taken  up  in 
his  place  ;  and  there  was  an  interest,  calling  it- 
self democratic,  which  was  willing  to  oblige  him. 
But  all  the  sound  heart  of  the  democracy  re- 
coiled from  the  idea  of  touching  a  man  who,  after 
having  been  raised  high  by  the  democracy,  had 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


595 


gone  over  to  the  whigs,  to  be  raised  still  higher, 
and  now  came  back  to  the  democracy  to  obtain 
the  highest  office  they  could  give. 
And  here  ends  the  history  of  this  long  in-j 
1  trigue — one  of  the  most  elaborate,  complex  ancr 
daring,  ever  practised  in  an  intelligent  country  ;| 
and  with  too  much  success  in  putting  down 
some,  and  just  disappointment  in  putting  upl 
others  :  for  no  one  of  those  who  engaged  in  this, 
intrigue  ever  reached  the  office  for  which  theyi 
strived.  My  opinion  of  it  was  expressed,  warm- 
ly but  sincerely,  from  the  first  moment  it  was 
broached  to  me  on  the  steps  of  the  Capitol,  when 
accosted  by  Mr.  Brown,  down  to  the  rejection 
of  the  treaty  in  the  Senate,  and  the  defeat  of 
Mr.  Van  Buren  in  the  convention.  Of  this  lat- 
ter event,  the  author  of  this  View  thus  wrote  in 
a  public  letter  to  Missouri : 

"  Neither  Mr.  Polk  nor  Mr.  Dallas  has  any 
thing  to  do  with  the  intrigue  which  has  nulli- 
fied the  choice  of  the  people,  and  the  rights  of  j 
the  people,  and  the  principles  of  our  government^ 
in  the  person  of  Mr.  Van  Buren  ;  and  neither  oft 
them  should  be  injured  or  prejudiced  by  it.\ 
Those  who  hatched  that  intrigue,  have  become 
its  victims.  They  who  dug  a  pit  for  the  inno- 
cent have  fallen  into  it ;  and  there  let  them  lie, 
for  the  present,  while  all  hands  attend  to  the 
election,  and  give  us  our  full  majority  of  ten 
thousand  in  Missouri.  For  the  rest,  the  time 
will  come ;  and  people  now,  as  twenty  years 
ago  (when  their  choice  was  nullified  in  the  per- 
son of  General  Jackson),  will  teach  the  Congress 
intriguers  to  attend  to  law-making  and  let 
President-making  and  un-making  alone  in  fu- 
ture. The  Texas  treaty,  which  consummated 
this  intrigue,  was  nothing  but  the  final  act  in  a 
long  conspiracy,  in  which  the  sacrifice  of  Mr. 
Van  Buren  had  been  previously  agreed  upon ; 
and  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Wright  for  Vice- 
President  proves  it ;  for  his  opinions  and  those 
of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  on  the  Texas  question,  were 
identical,  and  if  fatal  to  one  should  have  been 
fatal  to  the  other.  Besides,  Mr.  Van  Buren  was 
right,  and  whenever  Texas  is  admitted,  it  will 
have  to  be  done  in  the  way  pointed  out  by  him. 
Having  mentioned  Mr.  Wright,  I  will  say  that 
recent  events  have  made  him  known  to  the 
public,  as  he  has  long  been  to  his  friends,  the 
Cato  of  America,  and  a  star  of  the  first  mag- 
nitude in  our  political  firmament." 

And  now,  why  tell  these  things  which  may 
be  quoted  to  the  prejudice  of  democratic  institu- 
tions? I  answer:  To  prevent  that  prejudice! 
and  to  prevent  the  repetition  of  such  practices. 
Democracy  is  not  to  be  prejudiced  by  it,  for  it 
was  the  work  of  politicians ;  and  as  far  as  de- 


pended upon  the  people,  they  rebuked  it.  The 
intrigue  did  not  succeed  in  elevating  any  of  its 
authors  to  the  presidency  ;  and  the  annexation 
treaty,  the  fruit  of  so  much  machination,  was 
rejected  by  the  Senate;  and  the  annexation 
afterwards  effected  by  the  legislative  concur- 
rence of  the  two  powers.  From  the  first  incep- 
tion, with  the  Gilmer  letter,  down  to  the  Balti- 
more conclusion  in  the  convention,  the  intrigue 
was  carried  on;  and  was  only  successful  in  the 
convention  by  the  help  of  the  rule  which  made 
the  minority  its  master.  That  convention  is  an 
era  in  our  political  history,  to  be  looked  back 
upon  as  the  starting  point  in  a  course  of  usurpa- 
tion which  has  taken  the  choice  of  President 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  people,  and  vested  it  in 
the  hands  of  a  self-constituted  and  irresponsible 
assemblage.  The  wrong  to  Mr.  Van  Buren  was 
personal  and  temporary,  and  died  with  the  occa- 
sion, and  constitutes  no  part  of  the  object  in 
writing  this  chapter :  the  wrong  to  the  people, 
and  the  injury  to  republican  institutions,  and  to 
our  frame  of  government,  was  deep  and  abiding, 
and  calls  for  the  grave  and  correctional  judg- 
ment of  history.  It  was  the  first  instance  in 
which  a  body  of  men,  unknown  to  the  laws  and 
the  constitution,  and  many  of  them  (as  being 
members  of  Congress,  or  holding  offices  of  honor 
or  profit)  constitutionally  disqualified  to  serve 
even  as  electors,  assumed  to  treat  the  American 
presidency  as  their  private  property,  to  be  dis- 
posed at  their  own  will  and  pleasure ;  and,  it 
may  be  added,  for  their  own  profit :  for  many 
of  them  demanded,  and  received  reward.  It 
was  the  first  instance  of  such  a  disposal  of  the 
presidency — for  these  nominations  are  the  elec- 
tion, so  far  as  the  party  is  concerned ;  but  not 
the  last.  It  has  become  the  rule  since,  and  has 
been  improved  upon.  These  assemblages  now 
perpetuate  themselves,  through  a  committee  of 
their  own,  ramified  into  each  State,  sitting  per- 
manently from  four  years  to  four  years;  and 
working  incessantly  to  govern  the  election  that 
is  to  come,  after  having  governed  the  one  that  is 
past.  The  man  they  choose  must  always  be  a 
character  of  no  force,  that  they  may  rule  him : 
and  they  rule  always  for  their  own  advantage— 
"  constituting  a  power  behind  the  throne  greater 
than  the  throne."  The  reader  of  English  his- 
tory is  familiar  with  the  term,  "cabal,"  and  its 
origin— taking  its  spelling  from  the  initial  let- 
ters of  the  names  of  the  five  combined  intrigu- 


596 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


ing  ministers  of  Charles  II. — and  taking  its 
meaning  from  the  conduct  and  characters  of 
these  five  ministers.  What  that  meaning  was, 
one  of  the  five  wrote  to  another  for  his  better 
instruction,  not  suspecting  that  the  indefati- 
gable curiosity  of  a  subsequent  generation  would 
ever  ferret  out  the  little  missive.  Thus :  "  The 
principal  spring  of  our  actions  was  to  have 
the  government  in  our  own  hands;  that  our 
principal  views  were  the  conservation  of  this 
powei — great  employments  to  ourselves — and 
great  opportunities  of  rewarding  those  who 
have  helped  to  raise  us,  and  of  harming  those 
who  stood  in  opposition  to  us."    Such  was  the 

*  government  which  the  "  cabal "  gave  England ; 
I  and  such  is  the  one  which  the  convention  sys- 
[  tern  gives  us :  and  until  this  system  is  abolished, 
i  and  the  people  resume  their  rights,  the  elective 

I  principle  of  our  government  is  suppressed :  and 
the  people  have  no  more  control  over  the  selec- 
tion of  the  man  who  is  to  be  their  President, 
(  than  the  subjects  of  kings  have  over  the  birth 

•  of  the  child  who  is  to  be  their  ruler. 


v       CHAPTER    CXXXVII. 

PRESIDENTIAL:  DEMOCRATIC  NATIONAL  CON- 
VENTION: MR.  CALHOUN'S  REFUSAL  TO  SUB- 
MIT HIS  NAME  TO  IT:  HIS  REASONS. 

Before  the  meeting  of  this  convention  Mr. 
Calhoun,  in  a  public  address  to  his  political 
friends,  made  known  his  determination  not  to 
suffer  his  name  to  go  before  that  assemblage  as 
a  candidate  for  the  presidency,  and  stated  his 
reasons  for  that  determination.  Many  of  those 
reasons  were  of  a  nature  to  rise  above  personal 
considerations — to  look  deep  into  the  nature 
and  working  of  our  government — and  to  show 
objections  to  the  convention  system  (as  prac- 
tised), which  have  grown  stronger  with  time. 
His  first  objection  was  as  to  the  mode  of  choos- 
ing delegates,  and  the  manner  of  their  giving  in 
their  votes — he  contending  for  district  elec- 
tions, and  the  delegates  to  vote  individually,  and 
condemning  all  other  modes  of  electing  and  vot- 


"  I  hold,  then,  that  the  convention  should  be 
so  constituted,  as  to  utter  fully  and  clearly  the 


voice  of  the  people,  and  not  that  of  political 
managers,  or  office  holders  and  office  seekers; 
and  for  that  purpose,  I  hold  it  indispensable, 
that  the  delegates  should  be  appointed  directly 
by  the  people,  or  to  use  the  language  of  General 
Jackson,  should  be  'fresh  from  the  people.'  I 
also  hold,  that  the  only  possible  mode  to  effect 
this,  is  for  the  people  to  choose  the  delegates  by 
districts,  and  that  they  should  vote  per  capita. 
Every  other  mode  of  appointing  would  be  con- 
trolled by  political  machinery,  and  place  the 
appointments  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  who 
work  it." 

This  was  written  ten  years  ago :  there  have 
been  three  of  these  conventions  since  that  time 
by  each  political  party :  and  each  have  verified 
the  character  here  given  of  them.  Veteran 
office  holders,  and  undaunted  office  seekers,  col- 
lusively  or  furtively  appointed,  have  had  the 
control  of  these  nominations — the  office  holders 
all  being  forbid  by  the  constitution  to  be  even 
electors,  and  the  office  seekers  forbid  by  shame 
and  honor  (if  amenable  to  such  sensations),  to 
take  part  in  nominating  a  President  from  whom 
they  would  demand  pay  for  their  vote.  Mr. 
Calhoun  continues : 

"I  object,  then,  to  the  proposed  convention, 
because  it  will  not  be  constituted  in  conformity 
with  the  fundamental  articles  of  the  republi- 
can creed.  The  delegates  to  it  will  be  ap- 
pointed from  some  of  the  States,  not  by  the 
people  in  districts,  but,  as  has  been  stated,  by 
State  conventions  en  masse,  composed  of  dele- 
gates appointed  in  all  cases,  as  far  as  I  am  in- 
formed, by  county  or  district  conventions,  and 
in  some  cases,  if  not  misinformed,  these  again 
composed  of  delegates  appointed  by  still  smaller 
divisions,  or  a  few  interested  individuals.  In- 
stead then  of  being  directly,  or  fresh  from  the 
people,  the  delegates  to  the  Baltimore  conven- 
tion will  be  the  delegates  of  delegates ;  and  of 
course  removed,  in  all  cases,  at  least  three,  if  not 
four  degrees  from  the  people.  At  each  succes- 
sive remove,  the  voice  of  the  people  will  become 
less  full  and  distinct,  until,  at  last,  it  will  be  so 
faint  and  imperfect,  as  not  to  be  audible.  To 
drop  metaphor,  I  hold  it  impossible  to  form  a 
scheme  more  perfectly  calculated  to  annihilate 
the  control  of  the  people  over  the  presidential 
election,  and  vest  it  in  those  who  make  politics 
a  trade,  and  who  live  or  expect  to  live  on  the 
government." 

Mr.  Calhoun  proceeds  to  take  a  view  of  the 
working  of  the  constitution  in  a  fair  election  by 
the  people  and  by  the  States,  and  considered  the 
plan  adopted  as  a  compromise  between  the  large 
and  the  small  States.  In  the  popular  election 
through  electors,  the  large  States  had  the  ad- 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


597 


vantage,  as  presenting  masses  of  population 
which  would  govern  the  choice :  in  the  election 
by  States  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  the 
small  States  had  the  advantage,  as  the  whole 
voted  equally.  This,  then,  was  considered  a 
compromise.  The  large  States  making  the  elec- 
tion when  they  were  united :  when  not  united, 
making  the  nomination  of  three  (five  as  the  con- 
stitution first  stood),  out  of  which  the  States 
chose  one.  This  was  a  compromise;  and  all 
compromises  should  be  kept  when  founded  in 
the  structure  of  the  government,  and  made  by 
its  founders.  Total  defeat  of  the  will  of  the 
people,  and  total  frustration  of  the  intent  of  the 
constitution,  both  in  the  electoral  nomination 
and  the  House  choice  of  a  President,  was  seen 
in  the  exercise  of  this  power  over  presidential 
nominations  by  Congress  caucuses,  before  their 
corruption  required  a  resort  to  conventions,  in- 
tended to  be  the  absolute  reflex  of  the  popular 
will.     Of  this  Mr.  Calhoun  says : 

"  The  danger  was  early  foreseen,  and  to  avoid 
it,  some  of  the  wisest  and  most  experienced 
statesmen  of  former  days  so  strongly  objected 
to  congressional  caucuses  to  nominate  candi- 
dates for  the  presidency,  that  they  never  could 
be  induced  to  attend  them ;  among  these  it  will 
be  sufficient  to  name  Mr.  Macon  and  Mr. 
Lowndes.  Others,  believing  that  this  provision 
of  the  constitution  was  too  refined  for  practice, 
were  solicitous  to  amend  it,  but  without  impair- 
ing the  influence  of  the  smaller  States  in  the 
election.  Among  these,  I  rank  myself.  With 
that  object,  resolutions  were  introduced,  in  1828, 
in  the  Senate  by  Colonel  Benton,  and  in  the 
House  by  Mr.  McDuffie,  providing  for  districting 
the  State,  and  for  referring  the  election  back  to 
the  people,  in  case  there  should  be  no  choice,  to 
elect  one  from  the  two  highest  candidates.  The 
principle  which  governed  in  the  amendment  pro- 
posed, was  to  give  a  fair  compensation  to  the 
smaller  States  for  the  surrender  of  their  advan- 
tage in  the  eventual  choice,  by  the  House,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  make  the  mode  of  electing 
the  President  more  strictly  in  conformity  with 
the  principles  of  our  popular  institutions,  and 
to  be  less  liable  to  corruption,  than  the  existing. 
They  (the  resolutions  of  McDuffie  and  Benton) 
received  the  general  support  of  the  party,  but 
were  objected  to  by  a  few,  as  not  being  a  full 
equivalent  to  the  smaller  States." 

The  Congress  presidential  caucuses  were  put 
down  by  the  will  of  the  people,  and  in  both 
parties  at  the  same  time.  They  were  put  down 
for  not  conforming  to  the  will  of  the  people,  for 
incompatibility  between  the  legislative  and  the 


elective  functions,  for  being  in  office  at  the  same 
time,  for  following  their  own  will,  instead  of  re- 
presenting that  of  their  constituents.  Mr.  Cal- 
houn concurred  in  putting  them  down,  but  pre- 
ferred them  a  hundred  times  over  to  the  in- 
triguing, juggling,  corrupt  and  packed  machinery 
into  which  the  conventions  had  so  rapidly  de- 
generated. 

"  And  here  let  me  add,  that  as  objectionable 
as  I  think  a  congressional  caucus  for  nominating 
a  President,  it  is,  in  my  opinion,  far  less  ho  than 
a  convention  constituted  as  is  proposed.  The 
former  had  indeed  many  things  to  recommend 
it.  Its  members  consisting  of  senators  and  re- 
presentatives, were  the  immediate  organs  of  the 
State  legislatures,  or  the  people  ;  were  responsi- 
ble to  them,  respectively,  and  were  for  the  most 
part,  of  higher  character,  standing,  and  talents. 
They  voted  per  capita,  and  what  is  very  im- 
portant, they  represented  fairly  the  relative 
strength  of  the  party  in  their  respective  States. 
In  all  these  important  particulars,  it  was  all  that 
could  be  desired  for  a  nominating  body,  and 
formed  a  striking  contrast  to  the  proposed  con- 
vention ;  and  yet,  it  could  not  be  borne  by  the 
people  in  the  then  purer  days  of  the  republic. 
I,  acting  with  General  Jackson  and  most  of  the 
leaders  of  the  party  at  that  time,  contributed  to 
put  it  down,  because  we  believed  it  to  be  liable 
to  be  acted  on  and  influenced  by  the  patronage 
of  the  government — an  objection  far  more  ap- 
plicable to  a  convention  constituted  as  the  one 
proposed,  than  to  a  congressional  caucus.  Far 
however  was  it  from  my  intention,  in  aiding  t«  i 
put  that  down,  to  substitute  in  its  place  what  I 
regard  as  a  hundred  times  more  objectionable 
in  every  point  of  view.  Indeed,  if  there  must 
be  an  intermediate  body  between  the  people  and 
the  election,  unknown  to  the  constitution,  it 
may  be  well  questioned  whether  a  better  than 
the  old  plan  of  a  congressional  caucus  can  be 
devised." 

Mr.  Calhoun  considered  the  convention  sys- 
tem, degenerated  to  the  point  it  was  in  1844,  to 
have  been  a  hundred  times  more  objectionable 
than  the  Congress  caucuses  which  had  been  re- 
pudiated by  the  people :  measured  by  the  same 
scale,  and  they  are  a  thousand  times  worse  at 
present— having  succeeded  to  every  objection 
that  was  made  against  the  Congress  caucuses, 
and  superadded  a  multitude  of  others  going 
directly  to  scandalous  corruption,  open  intrigue, 
direct  bargain  and  sale,  and  flagrant  disregard 
of  the  popular  will.  One  respect  in  which  they 
had  degenerated  from  the  Congress  caucus  was 
in  admitting  a  State  to  give  its  full  vote  in  nomi- 
nating a  President,  which  could  either  give  no 


598 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


vote  at  all,  or  a  divided  one,  to  the  nominated 
candidate.  In  the  Congress  caucus  that  anomaly 
could  not  happen.  The  members  of  the  party 
only  voted :  and  if  there  were  no  members  of  a 
party  from  a  State,  there  was  no  vote  from  that 
State  in  the  caucus :  if  a  divided  representation, 
then  a  vote  according  to  the  division.  This  was 
fair,  and  prevented  a  nomination  being  made  by 
those  who  could  do  nothing  in  the  election. 
This  objection  to  the  convention  system,  and  a 
grievous  one  it  is  as  practised,  he  sets  forth  in 
a  clear  and  forcible  point  of  view.     He  says  : 

"  I  have  laid  down  the  principle,  on  which  I 
rest  the  objection  in  question,  with  the  limita- 
tion, that  the  relative  weight  of  the  States  should 
be  maintained,  making  due  allowance  for  their 
relative  party  strength.  The  propriety  of  the 
limitation  is  so  apparent,  that  but  a  few  words, 
in  illustration,  will  be  required.  The  conven- 
tion is  a  party  convention,  and  professedly  in- 
tended to  take  the  sense  of  the  party,  which 
cannot  be  done  fairly,  if  States  having  but  little 
party  strength,  are  put  on  equality  with  those 
which  have  much.  If  that  were  done,  the  result 
might  be,  that  a  small  portion  of  the  party  from 
States  the  least  sound,  politically,  and  which 
could  give  but  little  support  in  Congress,  might 
select  the  candidate,  and  make  the  President, 
against  a  great  majority  of  the  soundest,  and  on 
which  the  President  and  his  administration 
would  have  to  rely  for  support.  All  this  is 
clearly  too  unfair  and  improper  to  be  denied. 
There  may  be  a  great  difficulty  in  applying  a 
remedy  in  a  convention,  but  I  do  not  feel  my- 
self called  upon  to  say  how  it  can  be  done,  or 
by  what  standard  the  relative  party  strength  of 
the  respective  States  should  be  determined; 
perhaps  the  best  would  be  their  relative  strength 
in  Congress  at  the  time.  In  laying  down  the 
principle,  I  added  the  limitation  for  the  sake  of 
accuracy,  and  to  show  how  imperfectly  the  party 
must  be  represented,  when  it  is  overlooked.  I 
see  no  provision  in  the  proposed  convention  to 
meet  it." 

The  objection  is  clearly  and  irresistibly 
shown :  the  remedy  is  not  so  clear.  The  Con- 
gress representation  for  the  time  being  is  sug- 
gested for  the  rule  of  the  convention  :  it  is  not 
always  the  true  rule.  A  safer  one  is,  the  gen- 
eral character  of  the  State — its  general  party 
yote — and  its  probable  present  party  strength. 
Even  that  rule  may  not  attain  exact  precision  ; 
but,  between  a  rule  which  may  admit  of  a  slight 
error,  and  no  rule  at  all  to  keep  out  notorious 
unfounded  votes — votes  representing  no  con- 
stituency, unable  to  choose  an  elector,  having  no 
existence  when  the  election  comes  on,  yet  poten- 


tial at  the  nomination,  and  perhaps  governing 
it:  between  these  two  extremes  there  is  no 
room  for  hesitation,  or  choice :  the  adoption  of 
some  rule  which  would  exclude  notoriously  im- 
potent votes,  becomes  essential  to  the  rights  and 
safety  of  the  party,  and  is  peremptorily  de- 
manded by  the  principle  of  popular  representa- 
tion. The  danger  of  centralizing  the  nomina- 
tion— (which,  so  far  as  the  party  is  concerned,  is 
the  election) — in  the  hands  of  a  few"  States,  by 
the  present  convention  mode  of  nomination,  is 
next  shown  by  Mr.  Calhoun. 

"  But,  in  order  to  realize  how  the  convention 
will  operate,  it  will  be  necessary  to  view  the 
combined  effects  of  the  objections  which  I  have 
made.  Thus  viewed,  it  will  be  found,  that  a 
convention  so  constituted,  tends  irresistibly  to 
centralization — centralization  of  the  control  over 
the  presidential  election  in  the  hands  of  a  few 
of  the  central,  large  States,  at  first,  and  finally, 
in  political  managers,  office-holders,  and  office- 
seekers  ;  or  to  express  it  differently,  in  that  por- 
tion of  the  community,  who  live,  or  expect  to 
live  on  the  government,  in  contradistinction  to 
the  great  mass,  who  expect  to  live  on  their  own 
means  or  their  honest  industry ;  and  who  main- 
tain the  government ;  and  politically  speaking, 
emphatically  the  people.  That  such  would  be 
the  case,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact,  that  it 
would  afford  the  means  to  some  six  or  seven 
States  lying  contiguous  and  not  far  from  the 
centre  of  the  Union,  to  control  the  nomination, 
and  through  that  the  election,  by  concentrating 
their  united  votes  in  the  convention.  Give 
them  the  power  of  doing  so,  and  it  would  not 
long  lie  dormant.  What  may  be  done  by  com- 
bination, where  the  temptation  is  so  great,  will 
be  sure  ere  long  to  be  done.  To  combine  and 
conquer,  is  not  less  true  as  a  maxim,  where 
power  is  concerned,  than  '  divide  and  conquer.' 
Nothing  is  better  established,  than  that  the  de- 
sire for  power  can  bring  together  and  unite  the 
most  discordant  materials." 

After  showing  the  danger  of  centralizing  the 
nomination  in  the  hands  of  a  few  great  conti- 
guous States,  Mr.  Calhoun  goes  on  to  show  the 
danger  of  a  still  more  fatal  and  corrupt  central- 
ization— that  of  throwing  the  nomination  into 
the  meshes  of  a  train-band  of  office-holders  and 
office-seekers  —  professional  President-makers, 
who  live  by  the  trade,  having  no  object  but  then- 
own  reward,  preferring  a  weak  to  a  strong  man 
because  they  can  manage  him  easiest :  and  ac- 
complishing their  purposes  by  corrupt  combina- 
tions, fraudulent  contrivances,  and  direct  bribery. 
Of  these  train-bands,  Mr.  Calhoun  says  : 


ANNO  1844.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


599 


"  But  the  tendency  to  centralization  will  not 
stop  there.  The  appointment  of  delegates  en 
masse  by  State  convention,  would  tend  at  the 
same  time,  and  even  with  great  force,  to  neutral- 
ize the  control  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  who 
make  politics  a  trade.  The  farther  the  conven- 
tion is  removed  from  the  people,  the  more 
certainly  the  control  over  it  will  be  placed  in 
the  hands  of  the  interested  few,  and  when  re- 
moved three  or  four  degrees,  as  has  been  shown 
it  will  be,  where  the  appointment  is  by  State 
conventions,  the  power  of  the  people  will  cease, 
and  the  seekers  of  Executive  favor  will  become 
supreme.  At  that  stage,  an  active,  trained  and 
combined  corps  will  be  formed  in  the  party, 
whose  whole  time  and  attention  will  be  directed 
to  politics.  Into  their  hands  the  appointments 
of  delegates  in  all  the  stages  will  fall,  and  they 
will  take  special  care  that  none  but  themselves 
or  their  humble  and  obedient  dependents  shall 
be  appointed.  The  central  and  State  conven- 
tions will  be  filled  by  the  most  experienced  and 
cunning,  and  after  nominating  the  President, 
they  will  take  good  care  to  divide  the  patronage 
and  offices,  both  of  the  general  and  State  gov- 
ernments, among  themselves  and  their  depend- 
ents. But  why  say  will  ?  Is  it  not  ah  eady  the 
case  ?  Have  there  not  been  many  instances  of 
State  conventions  being  filled  by  office  holders 
and  office  seekers,  who,  after  making  the  nomi- 
nation, have  divided  the  offices  in  the  State 
among  themselves  and  their  partisans,  and 
joined  in  recommending  to  the  candidate  whom 
they  have  just  nominated  to  appoint  them  to 
the  offices  to  which  they  have  been  respectively 
allotted  ?  If  such  be  the  case  in  the  infancy  of 
the  system,  it  must  end,  if  such  conventions 
should  become  the  established  usage,  in  the 
President  nominating  his  successor.  When  it 
comes  to  that,  it  will  not  be  long  before  the 
sword  will  take  the  place  of  the  constitution." 

And  it  has  come  to  that.  Mr.  Tyler  set  the 
example  in  1844 — immediately  after  this  ad- 
dress of  Mr.  Calhoun  was  written — and  had  a 
presidential  convention  of  his  own,  composed 
of  office  holders  and  office  seekers.  Since  then 
the  example  has  been  pretty  well  followed ;  and 
now  any  President  that  pleases  may  nominate 
his  successor  by  having  the  convention  filled  with 
the  mercenaries  in  office,  or  trying  to  get  in. 
The  evil  has  now  reached  a  pass  that  must  be 
corrected,  or  the  elective  franchise  abandoned. 
Conventions  must  be  reformed — that  is  to  say, 
purged  of  office  holders  and  office  seekers — 
purged  of  impotent  votes — purged  of  all  dele- 
gates forbid  by  the  constitution  to  be  electors — 
purged  of  intrigue,  corruption  and  jugglery — 
and  brought  to  reflect  the  will  of  the  people  ; 
or,  they  must  suffer  the  fate  of  the  Congress 


caucuses,  and  be  put  down.  Far  better— a  thou- 
sand times  better— to  let  the  constitution  work 
its  course ;  as  many  candidates  offer  for  Presi- 
dent as  please ;  and  if  no  one  gets  a  majority 
of  the  whole,  then  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives to  choose  one  from  the  three  highest  on 
the  list.  In  that  event,  the  people  would  be 
the  nominating  body :  they  would  present  the 
three,  out  of  which  their  representatives  would 
be  obliged  to  take  one.  This  would  be  a  nomi- 
nation by  the  People,  and  an  election  by  the 
States. 

One  other  objection  to  these  degenerate  con- 
ventions Mr.  Calhoun  did  not  mention,  but  it 
became  since  he  made  his  address  a  prominent 
one,  and  an  abuse  in  itself,  which  insures  suc- 
cess to  the  train-band  mercenaries  whose  profli- 
gate practices  he  so  well  describes.  This  is  the 
two-thirds  rule,  as  it  is  called ;  the  rule  that 
requires  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  the  convention 
to  make  a  nomination.  This  puts  it  in  the 
power  of  the  minority  to  govern  the  majority, 
and  enables  a  few  veteran  intriguers  to  manage 
as  they  please.  And  when  it  is  remembered 
that  many  are  allowed — even  the  delegates  of 
whole  States — to  vote  in  the  convention,  which 
can  give  no  vote  to  the  party  at  the  election,  it 
might  actually  happen  that  the  whole  nomina- 
tion might  be  contrived  and  made  by  straw- 
delegates,  whose  constituency  could  not  give  a 
single  electoral  vote. 


CHAPTER    CXXXVIII. 

ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS:  SECRET  NEGOTIATION: 
PRESIDENTIAL  INTRIGUE  :  SCHEMES  OP  SPECU- 
LATION AND  DISUNION. 

The  President's  annual  message  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  session  1843-'44,  contained  an 
elaborated  paragraph  on  the  subject  of  Texas 
and  Mexico,  which,  to  those  not  in  the  secret, 
was  a  complete  mystification :  to  others,  and 
especially  to  those  who  had  been  observant  of 
signs,  it  foreshadowed  a  design  to  interfere  in 
the  war  between  those  parties,  and  to  take 
Texas  under  the  protection  of  the  Union,  and  to 
make  her  cause  our  own.  A  scheme  of  annexa- 
tion was  visible  in  the  studied  picture  presented 


600 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  homogeniality  between  that  country  and  the 
United  States,  geographically  and  otherwise; 
and  which  homogeniality  was  now  sufficient  to 
risk  a  war  with  Great  Britain  and  Mexico  (for 
the  message  squinted  at  war  with  both),  to  get 
Texas  back,  although  it  had  not  been  sufficient 
when  the  country  was  ceded  to  Spain  to  prevent 
Mr.  Tyler  from  sanctioning  the  cession — as  he 
did  as  a  member  of  the  House  in  1820  in  voting 
against  Mr.  Clay's  resolution,  disapproving  and 
condemning  that  cession.  This  enigmatical 
paragraph  was,  in  fact,  intended  to  break  the 
way  for  the  production  of  a  treaty  of  annexa- 
tion, covertly  conceived  and  carried  on  with  all 
the  features  of  an  intrigue,  and  in  flagrant  viola- 
tion of  the  principles  and  usages  of  the  govern- 
ment. Acquisitions  of  territory  had  previously 
been  made  by  legislation,  and  by  treaty,  as  in 
the  case  of  Louisiana  in  1803,  and  of  Florida 
in  1819  ;  but  these  treaties  were  founded  upon 
legislative  acts — upon  the  consent  of  Congress 
previously  obtained — and  in  which  the  treaty- 
making  power  was  but  the  instrument  of  the 
legislative  will.  This  previous  consent  and 
authorization  of  Congress  had  not  been  obtained 
— on  the  contrary,  had  been  eschewed  and  ig- 
nored by  the  secrecy  with  which  the  negotia- 
tion had  been  conducted ;  and  was  intended  to 
be  kept  secret  until  the  treaty  was  concluded, 
and  then  to  force  its  adoption  for  the  purpose 
of  increasing  the  area  of  slave  territory,  or  to 
make  its  rejection  a  cause  for  the  secession  of 
the  Southern  States ;  and  in  either  event,  and 
in  all  cases,  to  make  the  question  of  annexa- 
tion a  controlling  one  in  the  nomination  of  presi- 
dential candidates,  and  also  in  the  election 
itself. 

The  complication  of  this  vast  scheme,  lead- 
ing to  a  consummation  so  direful  as  foreign  war 
and  domestic  disunion,  and  having  its  root  in 
personal  ambition,  and  in  scrip  and  land  specu- 
lation, and  spoliation  claims — the  way  it  was 
carried  on,  and  the  way  it  was  defeated — alto- 
gether present  one  of  the  most  instructive  lessons 
which  the  working  of  our  government  exhibits ; 
and  the  more  so  as  the  two  prominent  actors  in 
the  scheme  had  reversed  their  positions  since 
Texas  had  been  retroceded  to  Spain.  Mr.  Cal- 
houn was  then  in  favor  of  curtailing  the  area  of 
slave  territory,  and  as  a  member  of  Mr.  Mon- 
roe's cabinet,  counselled  the  establishment  of 
the  Missouri  compromise  line,  which  abolished 


slavery  in  all  the  upper  half  of  the  great  pro- 
vince of  Louisiana ;  and,  as  a  member  of  the 
same  cabinet,  counselled  the  retrocession  of 
Texas  to  Spain,  which  extinguished  all  the 
slave  territory  south  of  the  compromise  line. 
Mr.  Calhoun  was  then  against  slavery  extension, 
and  so  much  in  favor  of  extinguishing  slave 
territory  as  to  be  a  favorite  in  the  free  States, 
and  beat  Mr.  Adams  himself  in  those  States  in 
the  presidential  election  of  1824 — receiving 
more  of  their  votes  for  Vice-President  than  Mr. 
Adams  did  for  President.  After  the  failure  in 
1833  to  unite  the  slave  States  against  the  free 
ones  on  the  Tariff  agitation,  he  took  up  the 
slavery  agitation — pursuing  it  during  his  life, 
and  leaving  it  at  his  death  as  a  legacy  to  the  dis- 
ciples in  his  political  school.  Mr.  Tyler  was  a 
follower  in  these  amputations  and  extinction  of 
slave  territory  in  1819-'20 :  he  was  now  a  fol- 
lower in  the  slavery  agitation  to  get  back  the 
province  which  was  then  given  away,  or  to  make 
it  the  means  of  a  presidential  election,  or  of 
Southern  dismemberment.  This  scheme  had  been 
going  on  for  two  years  before  it  appeared  above 
the  political  horizon ;  and  the  right  understand- 
ing of  the  Texas  annexation  movement  in  1844, 
requires  the  hidden  scheme  to  be  uncovered 
from  its  source,  and  laid  open  through  its  long 
and  crooked  course :  which  will  be  the  subject 
of  the  next  chapter,  as  shown  at  the  time  in  a 
speech  from  Senator  Benton. 


CHAPTER    CXXXIX. 

TEXAS  ANNEXATION  TREATY:  FIRST  SPEECH  OF 
MR.  BENTON  AGAINST  IT:  EXTRACTS. 

Mr.  Benton.  The  President,  upon  our  call, 
sends  us  a  map  and  a  memoir  from  the  Topo- 
graphical bureau  to  show  the  Senate  the  bound- 
aries of  the  country  he  proposes  to  annex.  This 
memoir  is  explicit  in  presenting  the  Rio  Grande 
del  Norte  in  its  whole  extent  as  a  boundary  of 
the  republic  of  Texas,  and  that  in  conformity 
to  the  law  of  the  Texian  Congress  establishing 
its  boundaries.  The  boundaries  on  the  map 
conform  to  those  in  the  memoir :  each  takes  for 
the  western  limit  the  Rio  Grande  from  head  to 
mouth ;  and  a  law  of  the  Texian  Congress  is 
copied  into  the  margin  of  the  map,  to  show  the 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


G01 


legal,  and  the  actual,  boundaries  at  the  same 
time.  From  all  this  it  results  that  the  treaty 
before  us,  besides  the  incorporation  of  Texas 
proper,  also  incorporates  into  our  Union  the  left 
bank  of  the  Rio  Grande,  in  its  whole  extent 
from  its  head  spring  in  the  Sierra  Verde 
(Green  Mountain),  near  the  South  Pass  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  to  its  mouth  in  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  four  degrees  south  of  New  Orleans,  in 
latitude  26°.  It  is  a  "  grand  and  solitary  river," 
almost  without  affluents  or  tributaries.  Its 
source  is  in  the  region  of  eternal  snow;  its 
outlet  in  the  clime  of  eternal  flowers.  Its 
direct  course  is  1,200  miles ;  its  actual  run 
about  2,000.  This  immense  river,  second  on 
our  continent  to  the  Mississippi  only,  and  but 
little  inferior  to  it  in  length,  is  proposed  to  be 
added  in  the  whole  extent  of  its  left  bank  to 
the  American  Union  !  and  that  by  virtue  of  a 
treaty  for  the  re-annexation  of  Texas  !  Now, 
the  real  Texas  which  we  acquired  by  the  treaty 
of  1803,  and  flung  away  by  the  treaty  of  1819. 
never  approached  the  Rio  Grande  except  near 
its  mouth!  while  the  whole  upper  part  was 
settled  by  the  Spaniards,  and  great  part  of  it 
in  the  year  1694— just  one  hundred  years  before 
La  Salle  first  saw  Texas  ! — all  this  upper  part 
was  then  formed  into  provinces,  on  both  sides 
of  the  river,  and  has  remained  under  Spanish, 
or  Mexican  authority  ever  since.  These  former 
provinces  of  the  Mexican  viceroyalty,  now  de- 
partments of  the  Mexican  republic,  lying  on 
both  sides  of  the  Rio  Grande  from  its  head  to 
its  mouth,  we  now  propose  to  incorporate,  so 
far  as  they  lie  on  the  left  bank  of  the  river,  into 
our  Union,  by  virtue  of  a  treaty  of  re-annexation 
with  Texas.  Let  us  pause  and  look  at  our  new 
and  important  proposed  acquisitions  in  this 
quarter.  First :  there  is  the  department,  for- 
merly the  province  of  New  Mexico,  lying  on  both 
sides  of  the  river  from  its  head  spring  to  near 
the  Paso  del  Norte — that  is  to  say,  half  down 
the  river.  This  department  is  studded  with 
towns  and  villages — is  populated — well  culti- 
vated— and  covered  with  flocks  and  herds.  On 
its  left  bank  (for  I  only  speak  of  the  part  which 
we  propose  to  re-annex)  is,  first,  the  frontier 
village  Taos,  3,000  souls,  and  where  the  custom- 
house is  kept  at  which  the  Missouri  caravans 
enter  their  goods.  Then  comes  Santa  Fe,  the 
capital,  4,000  souls— then  Albuquerque,  6,000 
souls — then  some  scores  of  other  towns  and 


villages— all  more  or  less  populated,  and  sur- 
rounded by  flocks  and  fields.  Then  come  the 
departments  of  Chihuahua,  Coahuila,  and  Ta- 
maulipas,  without  settlements  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  river,  but  occupying  the  right  bank,  and 
commanding  the  left.  All  this— being  parts  of 
four  Mexican  departments— now  under  Mexi- 
can governors  and  governments— is  permanent- 
ly reannexed  to  this  Union,  if  this  treaty  is 
ratified;  and  is  actually  reannexed  from  the 
moment  of  the  signature  of  the  treaty,  accord- 
ing to  the  President's  last  message,  to  remain 
so  until  the  acquisition  is  rejected  by  rejecting 
the  treaty !  The  one-half  of  the  department  of 
New  Mexico,  with  its  capital,  becomes  a  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States  :  an  angle  of  Chihua- 
hua, at  the  Passo  del  Norte,  famous  for  its  wine, 
also  becomes  ours :  a  part  of  the  department 
of  Coahuila,  not  populated  on  the  left  bank, 
which  we  take,  but  commanded  from  the  right 
bank  by  Mexican  authorities:  the  same  of 
Tamaulipas,  the  ancient  Nuevo  San  Tander 
(New  St.  Andrew),  and  which  covers  both 
sides  of  the  river  from  its  mouth  for  some  hun- 
dred miles  up,  and  all  the  left  bank  of  which 
is  in  the  power  and  possession  of  Mexico. 
These,  in  addition  to  the  old  Texas ;  these 
parts  of  four  States — these  towns  and  villages 
— these  people  and  territory — these  flocks  and 
herds — this  slice  of  the  republic  of  Mexico, 
two  thousand  miles  long,  and  some  hundred 
broad — all  this  our  President  has  cut  olf  from 
its  mother  empire,  and  presents  to  us,  and  de- 
clares it  is  ours  till  the  Senate  rejects  it !  lie 
calls  it  Texas !  and  the  cutting  off  he  calls  re- 
annexation  !  Humboldt  calls  it  New  Mexico, 
Chihuahua,  Coahuila,  and  Nuevo  San  Tander 
(now  Tamaulipas)  ;  and  the  civilized  w6rld  may 
qualify  this  re-annexation  by  the  application 
of  some  odious  and  terrible  epithet.  Demos- 
thenes advised  the  people  of  Athens  not  to 
take,  but  to  re-take  a  certain  city  ;  and  in  that 
re  laid  the  virtue  which  saved  the  act  from  the 
character  of  spoliation  and  robbery.  Will  it 
be  equally  potent  with  us?  and  will  the  re, 
prefixed  to  the  annexation,  legitimate  the  seiz- 
ure of  two  thousand  miles  of  a  neighbor's  do- 
minion, with  whom  we  have  treaties  of  peace, 
and  friendship,  and  commerce  ?  Will  it  legiti- 
mate this  seizure,  made  by  virtue  of  a  treaty 
with  Texas,  when  no  Texian  force— witness  the 
disastrous  expeditions  to  Micr  and  to  Santa  Fe 


602 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


— have  been  seen  near  it  without  being  killed 
or  taken,  to  the  last  man  ? 

The  treaty,  in  all  that  relates  to  the  boundary 
of  the  Rio  Grande,  is  an  act  of  unparalleled  out- 
rage on  Mexico.  It  is  the  seizure  of  two  thou- 
sand miles  of  her  territory  without  a  word  of 
explanation  with  her,  and  by  virtue  of  a  treaty 
with  Texas,  to  which  she  is  no  party.  Our 
Secretary  of  State  (Mr.  Calhoun)  in  his  letter 
to  the  United  States  charge  in  Mexico,  and 
seven  days  after  the  treaty  was  signed,  and 
after  the  Mexican  minister  had  withdrawn 
from  our  seat  of  government,  shows  full  well 
that  he  was  conscious  of  the  enormity  of  this 
outrage  ;  knew  it  was  war ;  and  proffered  vol- 
unteer apologies  to  avert  the  consequences 
which  he  knew  he  had  provoked. 

The  President,  in  his  special  message  of 
Wednesday  last,  informs  us  that  we  have  ac- 
quired a  title  to  the  ceded  territories  by  his  sig- 
nature to  the  treaty,  wanting  only  the  action 
of  the  Senate  to  perfect  it;  and  that,  in  the 
mean  time,  he  will  protect  it  from  invasion,  and 
for  that  purpose  has  detached  all  the  disposable 
portions  of  the  army  and  navy  to  the  scene  of 
action.  This  is  a  caper  about  equal  to  the  mad 
freaks  with  which  the  unfortunate  emperor 
Paul,  of  Russia,  was  accustomed  to  astonish 
Europe  about  forty  years  ago.  By  this  decla- 
ration the  thirty  thousand  Mexicans  in  the  left 
half  of  the  valley  of  the  Rio  del  Norte  are  our 
citizens,  and  standing,  in  the  language  of  the 
President's  message,  in  a  hostile  attitude  to- 
wards us,  and  subject  to  be  repelled  as  invaders. 
Taos,  the  seat  of  the  custom-house,  where  our 
caravans  enter  their  goods,  is  ours :  Santa  Fe, 
the  capital  of  New  Mexico,  is  ours :  Governor 
Armijo  is  our  governor,  and  subject  to  be  tried 
for  treason  if  he  does  not  submit  to  us  :  twenty 
Mexican  towns  and  villages  are  ours  ;  and  their 
peaceful  inhabitants,  cultivating  their  fields  and 
tending  their  flocks,  are  suddenly  converted,  by 
a  stroke  of  the  President's  pen,  into  American 
citizens,  or  American  rebels.  This  is  too  bad : 
and,  instead  of  making  themselves  party  to  its 
enormities,  as  the  President  invites  them  to  do, 
I  think  rather  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Senate 
to  wash  its  hands  of  all  this  part  of  the  trans- 
action by  a  special  disapprobation.  The  Senate 
is  the  constitutional  adviser  of  the  President, 
and  has  the  right,  if  not  the  duty,  to  give  him 
advice  when  the  occasion  requires  it.     I  there- 


fore propose,  as  an  additional  resolution,  appli- 
able  to  the  Rio  del  Norte  boundary  only — the 
one  which  I  will  read  and  send  to  the  Secreta- 
ry's table — stamping  as  a  spoliation  this  seizure 
of  Mexican  territory — and  on  which,  at  the 
proper  time,  I  shall  ask  the  vote  of  the  Senate. 

I  now  proceed  a  step  further,  and  rise  a  step 
higher,  Mr.  President,  in  unveiling  the  designs 
and  developing  the  conduct  of  our  administra- 
tion in  this  hot  and  secret  pursuit  after  Texas. 
It  is  my  business  now  to  show  that  war  with 
Mexico  is  a  design  and  an  object  with  it  from 
the  beginning,  and  that  the  treaty-making 
power  was  to  be  used  for  that  purpose.  I 
know  the  responsibility  of  a  senator — I  mean 
his  responsibility  to  the  moral  sense  of  his 
country  and  the  world — in  attributing  so  grave 
a  culpability  to  this  administration.  I  know 
the  whole  extent  of  this  responsibility,  and 
shall  therefore  be  careful  to  proceed  upon  safe 
and  solid  ground.  I  shall  say  nothing  but  upon 
proof — upon  the  proof  furnished  by  the  Presi- 
dent himself — and  ask  for  my  opinions  no  cre- 
dence beyond  the  strict  letter  of  these  proofs. 
For  this  purpose  I  have  recourse  to  the  mes- 
sages and  correspondence  which  the  President 
has  sent  us,  and  begin  with  the  message  of  the 
22d  of  April — the  one  which  communicated  the 
treaty  to  the  Senate.  That  message,  after  a 
strange  and  ominous  declaration  that  no  sinis- 
ter means  have  been  used — no  intrigue  set  on 
foot — to  procure  the  consent  of  Texas  to  the 
annexation,  goes  on  to  show  exactly  the  con- 
trary, and  to  betray  the  President's  design  to 
protect  Texas  by  receiving  her  into  our  Union 
and  adopting  her  war  with  Mexico. 

I  proceed  to  another  piece  of  evidence  to  the 
same  effect — namely,  the  letter  of  the  present 
Secretary  of  State  to  Mr.  Benjamin  Green,  our 
charge  at  Mexico,  under  date  of  the  19th  of 
April  past.  The  letter  has  been  already  refer- 
red to,  and  will  be  only  read  now  in  the  sen- 
tence which  declares  that  the  treaty  has  been 
made  in  the  full  view  of  war !  for  that  alone 
can  be  the  meaning  of  this  sentence  : 

•  "  It  has  taken  the  step  (to  wit,  the  step  of 
making  the  treaty)  in  full  view  of  all  possible 
consequences,  but  not  without  a  desire  and  a 
hope  that  a  full  and  fair  disclosure  of  the  causes 
which  induced  it  to  do  so,  would  prevent  the 
disturbance  of  the  harmony  subsisting  between 
the  two  countries,  which  the  United  States  is 
anxious  to  preserve." 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


G03 


This  is  part  of  the  despatch  which  communi- 
cates to  Mexico  the  fact  of  the  conclusion  of  the 
treaty  of  annexation — that  treaty,  the  conclu- 
sion of  which  the  formal  and  reiterated  declara- 
tions of  the  Mexican  government  informed  our 
administration,  during  its  negotiation,  would 
be  war.  I  will  quote  one  of  these  declarations, 
the  last  one  made  by  General  Almonte,  the 
Mexican  minister,  and  in  reply  to  the  letter  of 
our  Secretary  who  considered  the  previous  de- 
clarations as  threats.  General  Almonte  dis- 
claims the  idea  of  a  threat — repeats  his  assev- 
eration that  it  is  a  notice  only,  and  that  in  a 
case  in  which  it  was  the  right  and  the  duty  of 
Mexico  to  give  the  notice  which  would  apprise 
us  of  the  consequences  of  carrying  the  treaty 
of  annexation  to  a  conclusion. 

After  receiving  this  notification  from  the 
Mexican  minister,  the  letter  of  our  present  Sec- 
retary, of  the  19th  instant,  just  quoted,  direct- 
ing our  charge  to  inform  the  Mexican  govern- 
ment of  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  of  annexa- 
tion, must  be  considered  as  an  official  notifica- 
tion to  Mexico  that  the  war  has  begun  !  and  so 
indeed  it  has  !  and  as  much  to 'our  astonishment 
as  to  that  of  the  Mexicans  !  Who  among  us 
can  ever  forget  the  sensations  produced  in  this 
chamber,  on  Wednesday  last,  when  the  march- 
ing and  the  sailing  orders  were  read !  and  still 
more,  when  the  message*  was  read  which  had 
set  the  army  and  navy  in  motion  ! 

These  orders  and  the  message,  after  having 
been  read  in  this  chamber,  were  sent  to  the 
printer,  and  have  not  yet  returned :  I  can  only 
refer  to  them  as  I  heard  them  read,  and  from  a 
brief  extract  which  I  took  of  the  message ;  and 
must  refer  to  others  to  do  them  justice.  From 
all  that  I  could  hear,  the  war  is  begun ;  and 
begun  by  orders  issued  by  the  President  before 
the  treaty  was  communicated  to  the  Senate! 
We  are  informed  of  a  squadron,  and  an  army 
of  u  observation?  sent  to  the  Mexican  ports, 
and  Mexican  frontier,  with  orders  to  watch,  re- 
monstrate, and  report ;  and  to  communicate  with 
President  Houston  !  Now,  what  is  an  army  of 
observation,  but  an  army  in  the  field  for  war  ? 
It  is  an  army  whose  name  is  known,  and  whose 
character  is  defined,  and  which  is  incident  to 
war  alone.  It  is  to  watch  the  enemy  !  and  can 
never  be  made  to  watch  a  friend  !  Friends 
cannot  be  watched  by  armed  men,  either  indi- 
vidually or  nationally,  without  open  enmity. 


Let  an  armed  man  take  a  position  before  your 
door,  show  himself  to  your  family,  watch  your 
movements,  and  remonstrate  with  you,  and  re- 
port upon  you,  if  he  judged  your  movements 
equivocal :  let  him  do  this,  and  what  is  it  but 
an  act  of  hostility  and  of  outrage  whicli  every 
feeling  of  the  heart,  and  every  law  of  God  and 
man,  require  you  to  resent  and  repulse  ?  This 
would  be  the  case  with  the  mere  individual ; 
still  more  with  nations,  and  when  squadrons 
and  armies  are  the  watchers  and  remonstrants. 
Let  Great  Britain  send  an  army  and  navy  to  lie 
in  wait  upon  our  frontiers,  and  before  our  cities, 
and  then  see  what  a  cry  of  war  would  be  raised 
in  our  country.  The  same  of  Mexico.  She 
must  feel  herself  outraged  and  attacked ;  she 
must  feel  our  treaties  broken ;  all  our  citizens 
within  her  dominions  alien  enemies ;  their  com- 
merce to  be  instantly  ruined,  and  themselves 
expelled  from  the  country.  This  must  be  our 
condition,  unless  the  Senate  (or  Congress)  saves 
the  country.  We  are  at  war  with  Mexico  now ; 
and  the  message  which  covers  the  marching  and 
sailing  orders  is  still  more  extraordinary  than 
they.  The  message  assumes  the  republic  of 
Texas  to  be  part  of  the  American  Union  by  the 
mere  signature  of  the  treaty,  and  to  remain  so 
until  the  treaty  is  rejected,  if  rejected  at  all ; 
and,  in  the  mean  time,  the  President  is  to  use 
the  army  and  the  navy  to  protect  the  acquired 
country  from  invasion,  like  any  part  of  the  ex- 
isting Union,  and  to  treat  as  hostile  all  adverse 
possessors  or  intruders.  According  to  this,  be- 
sides what  may  happen  at  Vera  Cruz,  Tampico, 
Matamoros,  and  other  ports,  and  besides  what 
may  happen  on  the  frontiers  of  Texas  proper, 
the  Mexican  population  in  New  Mexico,  and 
Governor  Armijo,  or  in  his  absence  the  gover- 
nor ad  interim,  Don  Mariano  Chaves,  may  find 
themselves  pursued  as  rebels  and  traitors  to 
the  United  States. 

The  war  with  Mexico,  and  its  unconstitution- 
ality, is  fully  shown :  its  injustice  remains  to 
be  exhibited,  and  that  is  an  easy  task.  What 
is  done  in  violation  of  treaties,  in  violation  of 
neutrality,  in  violation  of  an  armistice,  must  be 
unjust.  All  this  occurs  in  this  case,  and  a  great 
deal  more.  Mexico  is  our  neighbor.  We  are 
at  peace  with  her.  Social,  commercial,  and  dip- 
lomatic relations  subsist  between  us,  and  the 
interest  of  the  two  nations  requires  these  rela- 
tions to  continue.    We  want  a  country  which 


604 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


was  once  ours,  but  which,  by  treaty,  we  have 
acknowledged  to  be  hers.  That  country  has 
revolted.  Thus  far  it  has  made  good,  its  revolt, 
and  not  a  doubt  rests  upon  my  mind  that  she 
will  make  it  good  for  ever.  But  the  contest  is 
not  over.  An  armistice,  duly  proclaimed,  and 
not  revoked,  strictly  observed  by  each  in  not 
firing  a  gun,  though  inoperative  thus  far  in  the 
appointment  of  commissioners  to  treat  for 
peace :  this  armistice,  only  determinable  upon 
notice,  suspends  the  war.  Two  thousand  miles 
of  Texian  frontier  is  held  in  the  hands  of  Mexi- 
co, and  all  attempts  to  conquer  that  frontier 
have  signally  failed :  witness  the  disastrous  ex- 
peditions to  Mier  and  to  Santa  Fe.  We  ac- 
knowledge the  right — the  moral  and  political 
right — of  Mexico  to  resubjugate  this  province,  if 
she  can.  We  declare  our  neutrality :  we  pro- 
fess friendship :  we  proclaim  our  respect  for 
Mexico.  In  the  midst  of  all  this,  we  make  a 
treaty  with  Texas  for  transferring  herself  to 
the  United  States,  and  that  without  saying  a 
word  to  Mexico,  while  receiving  notice  frorti 
her  that  such  transfer  would  be  war.  Mexico 
is  treated  as  a  nullity  ;  and  the  province  she  is 
endeavoring  to  reconquer  is  suddenly,  by  the 
magic  of  a  treaty  signature,  changed  into  United 
States  domain.  We  want  the  country ;  but  in- 
stead of  applying  to  Mexico,  and  obtaining  her 
consent  to  the  purchase,  or  waiting  a  few 
months  for  the  events  which  would  supersede 
the  necessity  of  Mexican  consent — instead  of 
this  plain  and  direct  course,  a  secret  negotia- 
tion was  entered  into  with  Texas,  in  total  con- 
tempt of  the  acknowledged  rights  of  Mexico, 
and  without  saying  a  word  to  her  until  all  was 
over.  Then  a  messenger  is  despatched  in  fu- 
rious haste  to  this  same  Mexico,  the  bearer  of 
volunteer  apologies,  of  deprecatory  excuses,  and 
of  an  offer  of  ten  millions  of  dollars  for  Mexi- 
can acquiescence  in  what  Texas  has  done.  For- 
ty days  are  allowed  for  the  return  of  the  mes- 
senger ;  and  the  question  is,  will  he  bring  back 
the  consent  ?  That  question  is  answered  in 
the  Mexican  official  notice  of  war,  if  the  treaty 
of  annexation  was  made  !  and  it  is  answered  in 
the  fact  of  not  applying  to  her  for  her  consent 
before  the  treaty  was  made.  The  wrong  to 
Mexico  is  confessed  in  the  fact  of  sending  this 
messenger,  and  in  the  terms  of  the  letter  of 
which  he  was  the  bearer.  That  letter  of  Mr. 
Secretary  Calhoun,  of  the  19th  of  April,  to  Mr. 


Benjamin  Green,  the  United  States  charge  in 
Mexico,  is  the  most  unfortunate  in  the  annals 
of  human  diplomacy  !  By  the  fairest  implica- 
tions, it  admits  insult  and  injury  to  Mexico, 
and  violation  of  her  territorial  boundaries  !  it 
admits  that  we  should  have  had  her  previous 
consent — should  have  had  her  concurrence — 
that  we  have  injured  her  as  little  as  possible — 
and  that  we  did  all  this  in  full  view  of  all  pos- 
sible consequences  !  that  is  to  say,  in  full  view 
of  war  !  in  plain  English,  that  we  have  wronged 
her,  and  will  fight  her  for  it.  As  an  excuse  for 
all  this,  the  imaginary  designs  of  a  third  power, 
which  designs  are  four  times  solemnly  disa- 
vowed, are  brought  forward  as  a  justification 
of  our  conduct ;  and  an  incomprehensible  ter- 
ror of  immediate  destruction  is  alleged  as  the 
cause  of  not  applying  to  her  for  her  "  previous 
consent "  during  the  eight  months  that  the  ne- 
gotiation continued,  and  during  the  whole  of 
which  time  we  had  a  minister  in  Mexico,  and 
Mexico  had  a  minister  in  Washington.  This 
letter  is  surely  the  most  unfortunate  in  the  his- 
tory of  human  diplomacy.  It  admits  the  wrong, 
and  tenders  war. '  It  is  a  confession  throughout, 
by  the  fairest  implication,  of  injustice  to  Mexi- 
co. It  is  a  confession  that  her  "  concurrence  " 
and  "  her  previous  consent "  were  necessary. 

It  is  now  my  purpose,  Mr.  President,  to  show 
that  all  this  movement,  which  is  involving  such 
great  and  serious  consequences,  and  drawing 
upon  us  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world,  is  bot- 
tomed upon  a  weak  and  groundless  pretext,  dis- 
creditable to  our  government,  and  insulting  and 
injurious  to  Great  Britain.  We  want  Texas — 
that  is  to  say,  the  Texas  of  La  Salle ;  and  we 
want  it  for  great  national  reasons,  obvious  as 
day,  and  permanent  as  nature.  We  want  it 
because  it  is  geographically  appurtenant  to  our 
division  of  North  America,  essential  to  our  po- 
litical, commercial,  and  social  system,  and  be- 
cause it  would  be  detrimental  and  injurious  to 
us  to  have  it  fall  into  the  hands  or  to  sink  un- 
der the  domination  of  any  foreign  power.  For 
these  reasons,  I  was  against  sacrificing  the 
country  when  it  was  thrown  away — and 
thrown  away  by  those  who  are  now  so  sud- 
denly possessed  of  a  fury  to  get  it  back.  For 
these  reasons,  I  am  for  getting  it  back  when- 
ever it  can  be  done  with  peace  and  honor,  or 
even  at  the  price  of  just  war  against  any  intru- 
sive European  power  :  but  I  am  against  all  dis- 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


605 


guise  and  artifice — against  all  pretexts— and  es- 
pecially against  weak  and  groundless  pretexts, 
discreditable  to  ourselves,  offensive  to  others, 
too  thin  and  shallow  not  to  be  seen  through  by 
every  beholder,  and  merely  invented  to  cover 
unworthy  purposes.  I  am  against  the  inven- 
tions which  have  been  brought  forward  to  jus- 
tify the  secret  concoction  of  this  treaty,  and  its 
sudden  explosion  upon  us,  like  a  ripened  plot, 
and  a  charged  bomb,  forty  days  before  the  con- 
ventional nomination  of  a  presidential  candi- 
date. In  looking  into  this  pretext,  I  shall  be 
governed  by  the  evidence  alone  which  I  find 
upon  the  face  of  the  papers,  regretting  that  the 
resolution  which  I  have  laid  upon  the  table  for 
the  examination  of  persons  at  the  bar  of  the 
Senate,  has  not  yet  been  adopted.  That  reso- 
lution is  in  these  words : 

"Resolved,  That  the  author  of  the  ' private 
letter''  from  London,  in  the  summer  of  1843 
(believed  to  be  Mr.  Duff  Green),  addressed  to 
the  American  Secretary  of  State  (Mr.  Upshur), 
and  giving  him  the  first  intelligence  of  the  (im- 
puted) British  anti-slavery  designs  upon  Texas, 
and  the  contents  of  which  '  private  letter '  were 
made  the  basis  of  the  Secretary's  leading  de- 
spatch of  the  8th  of  August  following,  to  our 
charge  in  Texas,  for  procuring  the  annexation 
of  Texas  to  the  United  States,  be  summoned  to 
appear  at  the  bar  of  the  Senate,  to  answer  on 
oath  to  all  questions  in  relation  to  the  contents 
of  said  '■private  letter  J  and  of  any  others  in  re- 
lation to  the  same  subject :  and  also  to  answer 
all  questions,  so  far  as  he  shall  be  able,  in  rela- 
tion to  the  origin  and  objects  of  the  treaty  for 
the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  of  all  the  designs, 
influences,  and  interests  which  led  to  the  for- 
mation thereof. 

"  Resolved,  also,  That  the  Senate  will  exam- 
ine at  its  bar,  or  through  a  committee,  such 
other  persons  as  shall  be  deemed  proper  in  re- 
lation to  their  knowledge  of  any,  or  all,  of  the 
foregoing  points  of  inquiry." 

I  hope,  Mr.  President,  this  resolution  will  be 
adopted.  It  is  due  to  the  gravity  of  the  occa- 
sion that  we  should  have  facts  and  good  evi- 
dence before  us.  We  are  engaged  in  a  transac- 
tion which  concerns  the  peace  and  the  honor  of 
the  country ;  and  extracts  from  private  letters, 
and  letters  themselves,  with  or  without  name, 
and,  it  may  be,  from  mistaken  or  interested 
persons,  are  not  the  evidence  on  which  we 
should  proceed.  Dr.  Franklin  was  examined 
at  the  bar  of  the  British  House  of  Commons 
before  the  American  war,  and  I  see  no  reason 
why  those  who  wish  to  inform  the  Senate,  and 


others  from  whom  the  Senate  could  obtain  in- 
formation, should  not  be  examined  at  our  bar, 
or  at  that  of  the  House,  before  the  Senate  or 
Congress  engages  in  the  Mexican  war.  Tt 
would  be  a  curious  incident  in  the  Texas  drama 
if  it  should  turn  out  to  be  a  fact  that  the  whole 
annexation  scheme  was  organized  before  the 
reason  for  it  was  discovered  in  London  !  and 
if,  from  the  beginning,  the  abolition  plot  was  to 
be  burst  upon  us,  under  a  sudden  and  overwhelm- 
ing sense  of  national  destruction,  exactly  forty 
days  before  the  national  convention  at  Baltimore ! 
I  know  nothing  about  these  secrets  ;  but,  being 
called  upon  to  act,  and  to  give  a  vote  which  may 
be  big  with  momentous  consequences,  I  have  a 
right  to  know  the  truth  ;  and  shall  continue  to 
ask  for  it,  until  fully  obtained,  or  finally  denied. 
I  know  not  what  the  proof  will  be,  if  the  exam- 
ination is  had.  I  pretend  to  no  private  know- 
ledge ;  but  I  have  my  impressions  ;  and  if  they 
are  erroneous,  let  them  be  effaced — if  correct, 
let  them  be  confirmed. 

In  the  absence  of  the  evidence  which  this  re- 
sponsible and  satisfactory  examination  might 
furnish,  I  limit  myself  to  the  information  which 
appears  upon  the  face  of  the  papers — imperfect, 
defective,  disjointed,  and  fixed  up  for  the  occasion, 
as  those  papers  evidently  are.  And  here  I  must 
remark  upon  the  absence  of  all  the  customary 
information  which  sheds  light  upon  the  origin, 
progress,  and  conclusion  of  treaties.  No  min- 
utes of  conferences — no  protocols — no  proposi- 
tions, or  counter-propositions — no  inside  view 
of  the  nascent  and  progressive  negotiation.  To 
supply  all  this  omission,  the  Senate  is  driven  to 
the  tedious  process  of  calling  on  the  President, 
day  by  day,  for  some  new  piece  of  information ; 
and  the  endless  necessity  for  these  calls — the 
manner  in  which  they  are  answered — and  the 
often  delay  in  getting  any  answer  at  all — be- 
come new  reasons  for  the  adoption  of  my  re- 
solution, and  for  the  examination  of  persons  at 
the  bar  of  the  Senate. 

The  first  piece  of  testimony  I  shall  use  in 
making  good  the  position  I  have  assumed,  is  the 
letter  of  Mr.  Upshur,  our  Secretary  of  State,  to 
Mr.  Murphy,  our  charge  in  Texas  dated  the  8th 
day  of  August,  in  the  year  1843.  It  is  the  first 
one,  so  far  as  we  are  permitted  to  sec,  that  be- 
gins the  business  of  the  Texas  annexation ;  and 
has  all  the  appearance  of  beginning  it  in  the 
middle,  so  far  as  the  United  States  are  con- 
cerned, and  upon  grounds  previously  well  con- 


606 


THTRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


sidered:  for  this  letter  of  the  8th  of  August, 
1843,  contains  every  reason  on  which  the  whole 
annexation  movement  has  been  defended,  or 
justified.  And,  here,  I  must  repeat  what  I 
have  already  said :  in  quoting  these  letters  of  the 
secretaries,  I  use  the  name  of  the  writer  to  dis- 
criminate the  writer,  hut  not  to  impute  it  to 
him.  The  President  is  the  author :  the  secre- 
tary only  his  head  clerk,  writing  by  his  com- 
mand, and  having  no  authority  to  write  any 
thing  but  as  he  commands.  This  important 
letter,  the  basis  of  all  Texian  "  immediate  "  an- 
nexation, opens  thus : 

"  Sir  :  A  private  letter  from  a  citizen  of 
Maryland,  then  in  London,  contains  the  follow- 
ing passage : 

"  c  I  learn  from  a  source  entitledto  the  fullest 
confidence,  that  there  is  now  here  a  Mr.  An- 
drews, deputed  by  the  abolitionists  of  Texas  to 
negotiate  with  the  British  government.  That 
he  has  seen  Lord  Aberdeen,  and  submitted  his 
project  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas, 
which  is,  that  there  shall  be  organized  a  com- 
pany in  England,  who  shall  advance  a  sum 
sufficient  to  pay  for  the  slaves  now  in  Texas, 
and  receive  in  payment  Texas  lands ;  that  the 
sum  thus  advanced  shall  be  paid  over  as  an  in- 
demnity for  the  abolition  of  slavery  ;  and  I  am 
authorized  by  the  Texian  minister  to  say  to  you, 
that  Lord  Aberdeen  has  agreed  that  the  British 
government  will  guarantee  the  payment  of  the 
interest  on  this  loan,  upon  condition  that  the 
Texian  government  will  abolish  slavery.' 

"  The  writer  professes  to  feel  entire  confidence 
in  the  accuracy  of  this  information.  He  is  a 
man  of  great  intelligence,  and  well  versed  in 
public  affairs.  Hence  I  have  every  reason  to 
confide  in  the  correctness  of  his  conclusions." 

The  name  of  the  writer  is  not  given,  but  he  is 
believed  to  be  Mr.  Duff  Green — a  name  which 
suggests  a  vicarious  relation  to  our  Secretary  of 
State — which  is  a  synonym  for  intrigue — and  a 
voucher  for  finding  in  London  whatever  he  was 
sent  to  bring  back — who  is  the  putative  recipient 
of  the  Gilmer  letter  to  a  friend  in  Maryland, 
destined  for  General  Jackson — and  whose  com- 
plicity with  this  Texas  plot  is  a  fixed  fact. 
Truly  this  "  inhabitant  of  Maryland,"  who  lived 
in  Washington,  and  whose  existence  was  as 
ubiquitous  as  his  role  was  vicarious,  was  a  very 
indispensable  agent  in  all  this  Texas  plot. 

The  letter  then  goes  on,  through  a  dozen 
elaborate  paragraphs,  to  give  every  reason  for 
the  annexation  of  Texas,  founded  on  the  appre- 
hension of  British  views  there,  and  the  conse- 
quent danger  to  the  slave  property  of  the  South, 


and  other  injuries  to  the  United  States,  which 
have  been  so  incontinently  reproduced,  and  so 
tenaciously  adhered  to  ever  since. 

Thus  commenced  the  plan  for  the  immediate 
annexation  of  Texas  to  the  United  States,  as  the 
only  means  of  saving  that  country  from  British 
domination,  and  from  the  anti-slavery  schemes 
attributed  to  her  by  Mr.  Duff  Green.  Un- 
fortunately, it  was  not  deemed  necessary  to  in- 
quire into  the  truth  of  this  gentleman's  informa- 
tion ;  and  it  was  not  until  four  months  after- 
wards, and  until  after  the  most  extraordinary 
efforts  to  secure  annexation  had  been  made  by 
our  government,  that  it  was  discovered  that  the 
information  given  by  Mr.  Green  was  entirely 
mistaken  and  unfounded  !  The  British  minister 
(the  Earl  of  Aberdeen)  and  the  Texian  charge 
in  London  (Mr.  Ashbel  Smith),  both  of  whom 
were  referred  to  by  Mr.  Green,  being  informed 
in  the  month  of  November  of  the  use  which  had 
been  made  of  their  names,  availed  themselves 
of  the  first  opportunity  to  contradict  the  whole 
story  to  our  minister,  Mr.  Everett.  This  min- 
ister immediately  communicated  these  important 
contradictions  to  his  own  government,  and  we 
find  them  in  the  official  correspondence  trans- 
mitted to  us  by  Mr.  Everett,  under  dates  of  the 
3d  and  16th  of  November,  1843.  I  quote  first 
from  that  of  the  3d  of  November : 

(Here  was  read  Mr.  Everett's  account  of  his 
first  conversation  with  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen  on 
tfyis  subject.) 

I  quote  copiously,  and  with  pleasure,  Mr. 
President,  from  this  report  of  Lord  Aberdeen's 
conversation  with  Mr.  Everett ;  it  is  frank  and 
friendly,  equally  honorable  to  the  minister  as  a 
man  and  a  statesman,  and  worthy  of  the  noble 
spirit  of  the  great  William  Pitt.  Nothing  could 
dissipate  more  completely,  and  extinguish  more 
utterly,  the  insidious  designs  imputed  to  Great 
Britain ;  nothing  could  be  more  satisfactory  and 
complete  ;  nothing  more  was  wanting  to  acquit 
the  British  government  of  all  the  alarming  de- 
signs imputed  to  her.  It  was  enough ;  but  the 
Earl  of  Aberdeen,  in  the  fulness  of  his  desire  to 
leave  the  American  government  no  ground  for 
suspicion  or  complaint  on  this  head,  voluntarily 
returned  to  the  topic  a  few  days  afterwards ; 
and,  on  the  6  th  of  November,  again  disclaims  in 
the  strongest  terms  the  offensive  designs  im- 
puted to  his  government.  Mr.  Everett  thus  re- 
lates, in  his  letter  of  the  16th  of  November,  the 
substance  of  these  renewed  declarations : 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


607 


(Here  the  letter  giving  an  account  of  the  sec- 
ond interview  was  read.) 

Thus,  twice,  in  three  days,  the  British  minister 
fully,  formally,  and  in  the  broadest  manner  con- 
tradicted the  whole  story  upon  the  faith  of 
which  our  President  had  commenced  (so  far  as 
the  papers  show  the  commencement  of  it)  his 
immediate  annexation  project,  as  the  only  means 
of  counteracting  the  dangerous  designs  of  Great 
Britain  !  But  this  was  not  all.  There  was  an- 
other witness  in  London  who  had  been  referred 
to  by  Mr.  Duff  Green ;  and  it  remained  for  this 
witness  to  confirm  or  contradi  t  his  story. 
This  was  the  Texian  charge  (Mr.  Ashbel 
Smith)  :  and  the  same  letter  from  Mr.  Everett, 
of  the  16th  of  November,  brought  his  contra- 
diction in  unequivocal  terms.  Mr.  Everett  thus 
recites  it : 

(The  passage  was  read.) 
Such  was  the  statement  of  Mr.  Ashbel  Smith ! 
and  the  story  of  Mr.  Duff  Green,  which  had 
been  made  the  basis  of  the  whole  scheme  for 
immediate  annexation,  being  now  contradicted 
by  two  witnesses — the  two  which  he  himself 
had  named — it  might  have  been  expected  that 
some  halt  or  pause  would  have  taken  place,  to 
give  an  opportunity  for  consideration  and  reflec- 
tion, and  for  consulting  the  American  people, 
and  endeavoring  to  procure  the  consent  of 
Mexico.  This  might  have  been  expected :  but 
not  so  the  fact.  On  the  contrary,  the  immedi- 
ate annexation  was  pressed  more  warmly  than 
ever,  and  the  administration  papers  became 
more  clamorous  and  incessant  in  their  accusa- 
tions of  Great  Britain.  Seeing  this,  and  being 
anxious  (to  use  his  own  words)  to  put  a  stop  to 
these  misrepresentations,  and  to  correct  the  er- 
rors of  the  American  government,  the  Earl  of 
Aberdeen,  in  a  formal  despatch  to  Mr.  Paken- 
ham,  the  new  British  minister  at  Washington, 
took  the  trouble  of  a  third  contradiction,  and  a 
most  formal  and  impressive  one,  to  all  the  evil 
designs  in  relation  to  Texas,  and,  through  Texas, 
upon  the  United  States,  which  were  thus  per- 
severingly  attributed  to  his  government.  This 
paper,  destined  to  become  a  great  landmark  in 
this  controversy,  from  the  frankness  and  ful- 
ness of  its  disavowals,  and  from  the  manner  in 
which  detached  phrases,  picked  out  of  it,  have 
been  used  by  our  Secretary  of  State  [Mr.  Cal- 
houn] since  the  treaty  was  signed,  to  justify  its 
signature,  deserves  to  be  read  in  full,  and  to  be 
made  a  corner-stone  in  the  debate  on  this  sub- 


ject. I  therefore,  quote  it  in  full,  and  shall 
read  it  at  length  in  the  body  of  my  speech. 
This  is  it : 

(The  whole  letter  read.) 

This  was  intended  to  stop  the  misrepresenta- 
tions which  were  circulated,  and  to  correct  the 
errors  of  the  government  in  relation  to  Great 
Britain  and  Texas.  It  was  a  reiteration,  and 
that  for  the  third  time,  and  voluntarily,  of  de- 
nial of  all  the  alarming  designs  attributed  to 
Great  Britain,  and  by  means  of  which  a  Texas 
agitation  was  getting  up  in  the  United  States. 
Besides  the  full  declaration  made  to  our  federal 
government,  as  head  of  the  Union,  a  special  as- 
surance was  given  to  the  slaveholding  States,  to 
quiet  their  apprehensions,  the  truth  and  suffi- 
ciency of  which  must  be  admitted  by  every  per- 
son who  cannot  furnish  proof  to  the  contrary. 
I  read  this  special  assurance  a  second  time,  that 
its  importance  may  be  more  distinctly  and 
deeply  felt  by  every  senator : 

"  And  the  governments  of  the  slaveholding 
States  may  be  assured,  that,  although  we  shall 
not  desist  from  those  open  and  honest  efforts 
which  we  have  constantly  made  for  procuring 
the  abolition  of  slavery  throughout  the  world, 
we  shall  neitlier  openly  nor  secretly  resort  to 
any  measures  which  can  tend  to  disturb  their 
internal  tranquillity,  or  thereby  to  affect  the 
prosperity  of  the  American  Union." 

It  was  on  the  26th  day  of  February  that  this 
noble  despatch  was  communicated  to  the  (then) 
American  Secretary  of  State.  That  gentleman 
lost  his  life  by  an  awful  catastrophe  on  the  28th, 
and  it  seems  to  be  understood,  and  admitted  all 
around,  that  the  treaty  of  annexation  was 
agreed  upon,  and  virtually  concluded  before  his 
death.  Nothing,  then,  in  Lord  Aberdeen's  de- 
claration, could  have  had  any  effect  upon  its 
formation  or  conclusion.  Yet,  six  days  after  the 
actual  signature  of  the  treaty  by  the  present 
Secretary  of  State— namely,  on  the  18th  day 
of  April— this  identical  despatch  of  Lord  Aber- 
deen is  seized  upon,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Paken- 
ham,  to  justify  the  formation  of  the  treaty,  and 
to  prove  the  necessity  for  the  immediate  annex- 
ation of  Texas  to  the  United  States,  as  a  measure 
of  self-defence,  and  as  the  only  means  of  saving 
our  Union !  Listen  to  the  two  or  three  first 
paragraphs  of  that  letter:  it  is  the  long  one 
filled  with  those  negro  statistics  of  which  Mr. 
Pakenham  declines  the  controversy.  The  sec- 
retary says : 


608 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


(Here  the  paragraphs  were  read,  and  the 
Senate  heard  with  as  much  amazement  as  Mr. 
Pakenham  could  have  done,  that  comparative 
statement  of  the  lame,  blind,  halt,  idiotic,  pau- 
per and  jail  tenants  of  the  free  and  the  slave 
blacks,  which  the  letter  to  the  British  minister 
contained,  with  a  view  to  prove  that  slavery- 
was  then*  best  condition.) 

It  is  evident,  Mr.  President,  that  the  treaty- 
was  commenced,  carried  on,  formed,  and  agreed 
upon,  so  far  as  the  documents  show  its  origin,  in 
virtue  of  the  information  given  in  the  private 
letter  of  Mr.  Duff  Green,  contradicted  as  that 
was  by  the  Texian  and  British  ministers,  to 
whom  it  referred.  It  is  evident  from  all  the 
papers  that  this  was  the  case.  The  attempt  to 
find  in  Lord  Aberdeen's  letter  a  subsequent  pre- 
text for  what  had  previously  been  done,  is  evi- 
dently an  afterthought,  put  to  paper,  for  the 
first  time,  just  six  days  after  the  treaty  had 
been  signed !  The  treaty  was  signed  on  the 
12th  of  April :  the  afterthought  was  committed 
to  paper,  in  the  form  of  a  letter  to  Mr.  Paken- 
ham, on  the  18th!  and  on  the  19th  the  treaty 
was  sent  to  the  Senate !  having  been  delayed 
seven  days  to  admit  of  drawing  up,  and  sending 
in  along  with  it,  this  ex  post  facto  discovery  of 
reasons  to  justify  it.  The  letter  of  Mr.  Calhoun 
was  sent  in  with  the  treaty :  the  reply  of  Mr. 
Pakenham  to  it,  though  brief  and  prompt,  being 
written  on  the  same  day  (the  19th  of  April), 
was  not  received  by  the  Senate  until  ten  days 
thereafter — to  wit :  on  the  29th  of  April ;  and 
when  received,  it  turns  out  to  be  a  fourth  dis- 
avowal, in  the  most  clear  and  unequivocal  terms, 
of  this  new  discovery  of  the  old  designs  imputed 
to  Great  Britain,  and  which  had  been  three 
times  disavowed  before.  Here  is  the  letter  of 
Mr.  Pakenham,  giving  this  fourth  contradiction 
to  the  old  story,  and  appealing  to  the  judgment  of 
the  civilized  world  for  its  opinion  on  the  whole 
transaction.  I  read  an  extract  from  this  letter ; 
the  last  one,  it  is  presumed,  that  Mr.  Paken- 
ham can  write  till  he  hears  from  his  government, 
to  which  he  had  immediately  transmitted  Mr. 
Calhoun's  ex  post  facto  letter  of  the  18th. 

(It  was  read.) 

Now  what  will  the  civilized  world,  to  whose 
good  opinion  we  must  all  look:  what  will 
Christendom,  now  so  averse  to  war,  and  pre- 
texted war :  what  will  the  laws  of  reason  and 
honor,  so  just  in  their  application  to  the  conduct 
of  nations  and  individuals :  what  will  this  civil- 


ized world,  this  Christian  world,  these  just  laws 
— what  will  they  all  say  that  our  government 
ought  to  have  done,  under  this  accumulation  of 
peremptory  denials  of  all  the  causes  which  we 
had  undertaken  to  find  in  the  conduct  of  Great 
Britain  for  our  "immediate"  annexation  of 
Texas,  and  war  with  Mexico?  Surely  these 
tribunals  will  say :  First,  That  the  disavowals 
should  have  been  received  as  sufficient ','  or 
Secondly,  They  should  be  disproved,  if  not  ad- 
mitted to  be  true  ;  or  Thirdly \  That  reasonable 
time  should  be  allowed  for  looking  further  into 
their  truth. 

One  of  these  things  should  have  been  done : 
our  President  does  neither.  He  concludes  the 
treaty — retains  it  a  week — sends  it  to  the  Senate 
— and  his  Secretary  of  State  obtains  a  promise 
from  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations  [Mr.  Archer]  to  delay  all  action  upon 
it — not  to  take  it  up  for  forty  days — the  exact 
time  that  would  cover  the  sitting  of  the  Balti- 
more democratic  convention  for  the  nomination 
of  presidential  candidates  !  This  promise  was 
obtained  under  the  assurance  that  a  special  mes- 
senger had  been  despatched  to  Mexico  for  her 
consent  to  the  treaty  ;  and  the  forty  days  was 
the  time  claimed  for  the  execution  of  his  errand, 
and  at  the  end  of  which  he  was  expected  to  re- 
turn with  the  required  consent.  Bad  luck 
again !  This  despatch  of  the  messenger,  and 
delay  for  his  return,  and  the  reasons  he  was 
understood  to  be  able  to  have  offered  for  the 
consent  of  Mexico,  were  felt  by  all  as  an  admis- 
sion that  the  consent  of  Mexico  must  be  ob- 
tained, cost  what  millions  it  might.  This  ad- 
mission was  fatal !  and  it  became  necessary  to 
take  another  tack,  and  do  it  away !  This  was 
attempted  in  a  subsequent  message  of  the  Presi- 
dent, admitting,  to  be  sure,  that  the  messenger 
was  sent,  and  sent  to  operate  upon  Mexico  in 
relation  to  the  treaty ;  but  taking  a  fine  distinc- 
tion between  obtaining  her  consent  to  it,  and 
preventing  her  from  being  angry  at  it !  This 
message  will  receive  justice  at  the  hands  of 
others ;  I  only  heard  it  as  read,  and  cannot  quote 
it  in  its  own  words.  But  the  substance  of  it 
was,  that  the  messenger  was  sent  to  prevent 
Mexico  from  going  to  war  with  us  on  account 
of  the  treaty !  as  if  there  was  any  difference 
between  getting  her  to  consent  to  the  treaty, 
and  getting  her  not  to  dissent !  But,  here  again, 
more  bad  luck.  Besides  the  declarations  of  the 
chairman  of  Foreign  Relations,  showing  what 


ANNO  1844.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


609 


this  messenger  was  sent  for,  there  is  a  copy  of 
the  letter  furnished  to  us  of  which  he  was  the 
bearer,  and  which  shows  that  the  "concurrence  " 
of  Mexico  was  wanted,  and  that  apologies  are 
offered  for  not  obtaining  her  "previous  con- 
sent.^ But,  of  this  hereafter.  I  go  on  with 
the  current  of  events.  The  treaty  was  sent  in, 
and  forty  days'  silence  upon  it  was  demanded  of 
the  Senate.  Now  why  send  it  in,  if  the  Senate 
was  not  to  touch  it  for  forty  days  ?  Why  not 
retain  it  in  the  Department  of  State  until  the 
lapse  of  these  forty  days,  when  the  answer  from 
Mexico  would  have  been  received,  and  a  fifth 
disavowal  arrived  from  Great  Britain !  if,  indeed, 
it  is  possible  for  her  to  reiterate  a  disavowal 
already  four  times  made,  and  not  received? 
Why  not  retain  the  treaty  during  these  forty 
days  of  required  silence  upon  it  in  the  Senate, 
and  when  that  precious  time  might  have  been 
turned  to  such  valuable  account  in  interchanging 
friendly  explanations  with  Great  Britain  and 
Mexico  ?  Why  not  keep  the  treaty  in  the  Sec- 
retary of  State's  office,  as  well  as  in  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Senate's  office,  during  these  forty 
days  ?  Precisely  because  the  Baltimore  conven- 
tion was  to  sit  in  thirty-eight  days  from  that 
time !  and  forty  days  would  give  time  for  the 
"  Texas  bomb  "  to  burst  and  scatter  its  frag- 
ments all  over  the  Union,  blowing  up  candidates 
for  the  presidency,  blowing  up  the  tongue-tied 
Senate  itself  for  not  ratifying  the  treaty,  and 
furnishing  a  new  Texas  candidate,  anointed  with 
gunpowder,  for  the  presidential  chair.  This  was 
the  reason,  and  as  obvious  as  if  written  at  the 
head  of  every  public  document.  In  the  mean 
time,  all  these  movements  give  fresh  reason  for 
an  examination  of  persons  at  the  bar  of  the 
Senate.  The  determination  of  the  President  to 
conclude  the  treaty,  before  the  Earl  of  Aber- 
deen's despatch  was  known  to  him — that  is  to 
say,  before  the  26th  of  February,  1844 :  the 
true  nature  of  the  messenger's  errand  to  Mexi- 
co, and  many  other  points,  now  involved  in  ob- 
scurity, may  be  cleared  up  in  these  examina- 
tions, to  the  benefit  and  well  being  of  the  Union. 
Perhaps  it  may  chance  to  turn  out  in  proof,  that 
the  secretary,  who  found  his  reasons  for  making 
the  treaty  and  hastening  the  immediate  annexa- 
tion, had  determined  upon  all  that  long  before 
he  heard  of  Lord  Aberdeen's  letter. 

But  to  go  on.    Instead  of  admitting,  disprov- 
ing, or  taking  time  to  consider  the  reiterated 

Vol.  II.— 39 


disavowals  of  the  British  government,  the  mes- 
senger to  Mexico  is  charged  with  our  manifesto 
of  war  against  that  government,  on  account  of 
the  imputed  designs  of  Great  Britain,  and  in 
which  they  are  all  assumed  to  be  true !  and  not 
only  true,  but  fraught  with  such  sudden,  irre- 
sistible, and  irretrievable  ruin  to  the  United 
States,  that  there  was  no  time  for  an  instAnt  of 
delay,  nor  any  way  to  save  the  Union  from  de- 
struction but  by  the  "  immediate  "  annexation 
of  Texas.  Here  is  the  letter.  It  is  too  im- 
portant to  be  abridged ;  and  though  referred  to 
several  times,  will  now  be  read  in  full.    Hear  it : 

(The  letter  read.) 

This  letter  was  addressed  to  Mr.  Benjamin 
Green,  the  son  of  Mr.  Duff  Green  ;  so  that  the 
beginning  and  the  ending  of  this  "  immediate " 
annexation  scheme,  so  far  as  the  invention  of  the 
pretext,  and  the  inculpation  of  Great  Britain  is 
concerned,  is  in  the  hands  of  father  and  son — a 
couple,  of  whom  it  may  be  said,  in  the  language 
of  Gil  Bias,  "These  two  make  a  pair."  The 
letter  itself  is  one  of  the  most  unfortunate  that 
the  annals  of  diplomacy  ever  exhibited.  It  ad- 
mits the  wrong  to  Mexico,  and  offers  to  fight 
her  for  that  wrong ;  and  not  for  any  thing  that 
she  has  done  to  the  United  States,  but  because 
of  some  supposed  operation  of  Great  Britain 
upon  Texas.  Was  there  ever  such  a  comedy  of 
errors,  or,  it  may  be,  tragedy  of  crimes  !  Let 
us  analyze  this  important  letter ;  let  us  examine 
it,  paragraph  by  paragraph. 

The  first  paragraph  enjoins  the  strongest  as- 
surances to  be  given  to  Mexico  of  our  indispo- 
sition to  wound  the  dignity  or  honor  of  Mexico 
in  making  this  treaty,  and  of  our  regret  if  she 
should  consider  it  otherwise.  This  admits  that 
we  have  done  something  to  outrage  Mexico,  and 
that  we  owe  her  a  volunteer  apology,  to  soften 
her  anticipated  resentment. 

The  same  paragraph  states  that  we  have  been 
driven  to  this  step  in  self-defence,  and  to  coun- 
teract the  "policy  adopted,"  and  the  "efforts 
made  "  by  Great  Britain  to  abolish  slavery  in 
Texas.  This  is  an  admission  that  we  have  don© 
what  may  be  offensive  and  injurious  to  Meaicor 
not  on  account  of  any  thing  she  has  dono  to  us, 
but  for  what  we  fear  Great  Britain  may  do  to 
Texas.  And  as  for  this  plea  of  self-defence,  it 
is  an  invasion  of  the  homicidal  criminal's  pre- 
rogative, to  plead  it.  All  the  murders  com- 
mitted in  our  country,  are  done  in  self-defence— 


610 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


a  few  through  insanity.  The  choice  of  the  de- 
fence lies  between  them,  and  it  is  often  a  nice 
guess  for  counsel  to  say  which  to  take.  And  so 
it  might  have  been  in  this  case ;  and  insanity 
would  have  been  an  advantage  in  the  plea,  being 
more  honorable,  and  not  more  false. 

The  same  paragraph  admits  that  the  United 
States  has  made  this  treaty  in  full  view  of  war 
with  Mexico  ;  for  the  words  "  all  possible  con- 
sequences^ taken  in  connection  with  the  re- 
maining words  of  the  sentence,  and  with  General 
Almonte's  notice  filed  by  order  of  his  govern- 
ment at  the  commencement  of  this  negotiation, 
can  mean  nothing  else  but  war !  and  that  to  be 
made  by  the  treaty-making  power. 

The  second  paragraph  directs  the  despatch  of 
Lord  Aberdeen  to  be  read  to  the  Mexican  Secre- 
tary of  State,  to  show  him  our  cause  of  com- 
plaint against  Great  Britain.  This  despatch  is 
to  be  read — not  delivered,  not  even  a  copy  of  it 
— to  the  Mexican  minister.  He  may  take  notes 
of  it  during  the  reading,  but  not  receive  a  copy, 
because  it  is  a  document  to  be  sent  to  the  Sen- 
ate i  Surely  the  Senate  would  have  pardoned 
a  departure  from  etiquette  in  a  case  where  war 
was  impending,  and  where  the  object  was  to 
convince  the  nation  we  were  going  to  fight !  that 
we  had  a  right  to  fight  her  for  fear  of  something 
which  a  third  power  might  do  to  a  fourth.  To 
crown  this  scene,  the  reading  is  to  be  of  a  docu- 
ment in  the  English  language,  to  a  minister 
whose  language  is  Spanish ;  and  who  may  not 
know  what  is  read,  except  through  an  inter- 
preter. 

The  third  paragraph  of  this  pregnant  letter 
admits  that  questions  are  to  grow  out  of  this 
treaty,  for  the  settlement  of  which  a  minister 
will  be  sent  by  us  to  Mexico.  This  is  a  most 
grave  admission.  It  is  a  confession  that  we 
commit  such  wrong  upon  Mexico  by  this  treaty, 
that  it  will  take  another  treaty  to  redress  it ; 
and  that,  as  the  wrong  doer,  we  will  volun- 
teer an  embassy  to  atone  for  our  misconduct. 
Boundary  is  named  as  one  of  these  things  to  be 
settled,  and  with  reason ;  for  we  violate  2,000 
miles  of  Mexican  boundary  which  is  to  become 
ours  by  the  ratification  of  this  treaty,  and  to 
remain  ours  till  restored  to  its  proper  owner  by 
another  treaty.  Ie  this  right  ?  Is  it  sound  in 
morals  ?  Is  it  safe  in  policy  1  Would  we  take 
2,000  miles  of  the  *Canadas  in  the  same  way  ? 
I  presume  not.  And  why  not  ?  why  not  treat 
Great  Britain  and  JMexico  alike  ?    why  not 


march  up  to  "  Fifty-Four  Forty  "  as  courage- 
ously as  we  march  upon  the  Rio  Grande  ?  Be- 
cause Great  Britain  is  powerful,  and  Mexico 
weak — a  reason  which  may  fail  in  policy  as 
much  as  in  morals.  Yes,  sir !  Boundary  will 
have  to  be  adjusted,  and  that  of  the  Rio  Grande; 
and  until  adjusted,  we  shall  be  aggressors,  by 
our  own  admission,  on  the  undisputed  Mexican 
territory  on  the  Rio  Grande. 

The  last  paragraph  is  the  most  significant  of 
the  whole.  It  is  a  confession,  by  the  clearest 
inferences,  that  our  whole  conduct  to  Mexico 
has  been  tortuous  and  wrongful,  and  that  she 
has  "  rights,"  to  the  settlement  of  which  Mexico 
must  be  a  party.  The  great  admissions  are,  the 
want  of  the  concurrence  of  Mexico ;  the  want 
of  her  previous  consent  to  this  treaty ;  its  ob- 
jectionableness  to  her;  the  violation  of  her 
boundary  ;  the  "  rights  "  of  each,  and  of  course 
the  right  of  Mexico  to  settle  questions  of  secu- 
rity and  interest  which  are  unsettled  by  the 
present  treaty.  The  result  of  the  whole  is,  that 
the  war,  in  full  view  of  which  the  treaty  was 
made,  was  an  unjust  war  upon  Mexico. 

Thus  admitting  our  wrong  in  injuring  Mexico, 
in  not  obtaining  her  concurrence  ;  in  not  secur- 
ing her  previous  consent ;  in  violating  her  bound- 
ary ;  in  proceeding  without  her  in  a  case  where 
her  rights,  security,  and  interests  are  concerned ; 
admitting  all  this,  what  is  the  reason  given  to 
Mexico  for  treating  her  with  the  contempt  of  a 
total  neglect  in  all  this  affair  ?  And  here  strange 
scenes  rise  up  before  us.  This  negotiation  be- 
gan, upon  the  record,  in  August  last.  We  had 
a  minister  in  Mexico  with  whom  we  could  com- 
municate every  twenty  days.  Mexico  had  a 
minister  here,  with  whom  we  could  communi- 
cate every  hour  in  the  day.  Then  why  not  con- 
sult Mexico  before  the  treaty  ?  Why  not  speak 
to  her  during  these  eight  months,  when  in  such 
hot  haste  to  consult  her  afterwards,  and  so 
anxious  to  stop  our  action  on  the  treaty  till  she 
was  heard  from,  and  so  ready  to  volunteer  mil- 
lions to  propitiate  her  wrath,  or  to  conciliate 
her  consent  ?  Why  this  haste  after  the  treaty, 
when  there  was  so  much  time  before  ?  It  was 
because  the  plan  required  the  "6ora&"  to  be 
kept  back  till  forty  days  before  the  Baltimore 
convention,  and  then  a  storm  to  be  excited. 

The  reason  given  for  this  great  haste  after  so 
long  delay,  is  that  the  safety  of  the  United 
States  was  at  stake:  that  the  British  would 
.abolish  slavery  in  Texas,  and  then  in  the  United 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


611 


States,  and  so  destroy  the  Union.  Giving  to 
this  imputed  design,  for  the  sake  of  the  argu- 
ment, all  the  credit  due  to  an  uncontradicted 
scheme,  and  still  it  is  a  preposterous  excuse  for 
not  obtaining  the  previous  consent  of  Mexico. 
It  turns  upon  the  idea  that  this  abolition  of 
slavery  in  Texas  is  to  be  sudden,  irresistible,  ir- 
retrievable !  and  that  not  a  minute  was  to  be 
lost  in  averting  the  impending  ruin  !  But  this 
is  not  the  case.  Admitting  what  is  charged — 
that  Great  Britain  has  adopted  a  policy,  and 
made  efforts  to  abolish  slavery  in  Texas,  with  a 
view  to  its  abolition  in  the  United  States — yet 
this  is  not  to  be  done  by  force,  or  magic.  The 
Duke  of  Wellington  is  not  to  land  at  the  head 
of  some  100,000  men  to  set  the  slaves  free.  No 
gunpowder  plot,  like  that  intended  by  Guy 
Fawkes,  is  to  blow  the  slaves  out  of  the  coun- 
try. No  magic  wand  is  to  be  waved  over  the 
land,  and  to  convert  it  into  the  home  of  the  free. 
No  slips  of  magic  carpet  in  the  Arabian  Nights 
is  to  be  slipped  under  the  feet  of  the  negroes  to 
send  them  all  whizzing,  by  a  wish,  ten  thousand 
miles  through  the  air.  None  of  these  sudden, 
irresistible,  irretrievable  modes  of  operating  is 
to  be  followed  by  Great  Britain.  She  wishes  to 
see  slavery  abolished  in  Texas,  as  elsewhere ; 
but  this  wish,  like  all  other  human  wishes,  is 
wholly  inoperative  without  works  to  back  it : 
and  these  Great  Britain  denies.  She  denies  that 
she  will  operate  by  works,  only  by  words  where 
acceptable.  But  admit  it.  Admit  that  she  has 
now  done  what  she  never  did  before — denied 
her  design  !  admit  all  this,  and  you  still  have 
to  confess  that  she  is  a  human  power,  and  has 
to  work  by  human  means,  and  in  this  case  to 
operate  upon  the  minds  of  people  and  of  na- 
tions— upon  Mexico,  Texas,  the  United  States, 
and  slaves  within  the  boundaries  of  these  two 
latter  countries.  She  has  to  work  by  moral 
means  ;  that  is  to  say,  by  operating  on  the  mind 
and  will.  All  this  is  a  work  of  time — a  work 
of  years — the  work  of  a  generation  !  Slavery  is 
in  the  constitution  of  Texas,  and  in  the  hearts, 
customs,  and  interests  of  the  people ;  and  can- 
not be  got  out  in  many  years,  if  at  all.  And 
are  we  to  be  told  that  there  was  no  time  to 
consult  Mexico  ?  or,  in  the  vague  language  of 
the  letter,  that  circumstances  did  not  permit 
the  consultation,  and  that  without  disclosing 
what  these  circumstances  were?  It  was  last 
August  that  the  negotiation  began.     Was  there 


fear  that  Mexico  would  liberate  Texian  slaves, 
if  she  found  out  the  treaty  before  it  was  made  ? 
Alas  !  sir,  she  refused  to  have  any  thing  to  do 
with  the  scheme!  Great  Britain  proposed  to 
her  to  make  emancipation  of  slaves  the  condi- 
tion of  acknowledging  Texian  independence. 
She  utterly  refused  it ;  and  of  this  our  govern- 
ment was  officially  informed  by  the  Earl  of 
Aberdeen.  No.  sir,  no  !  There  is  no  reason  in 
the  excuse.  I  profess  to  be  a  man  that  can 
understand  reason,  and  could  comprehend  the 
force  of  the  circumstances  which  would  show 
that  the  danger  of  delay  was  so  imminent  that 
nothing  but  immediate  annexation  could  save 
the  United  States  from  destruction.  But  none 
such  are  named,  or  can  be  named  ;  and  the  true 
reason  is,  that  the  Baltimore  convention  was  to 
sit  on  the  27th  of  May. 

Great  Britain  avows  all  she  intends,  and  that 
is — a  wish — to  see — slavery  abolished  in  Texas ; 
and  she  declares  all  the  means  which  she  means 
to  use,  and  that  is,  advice  where  it  is  accept- 
able. 

It  will  be  a  strange  spectacle,  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  to  behold  the  United  States  at 
war  with  Mexico,  because  Great  Britain  wishes 
— to  see — the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas. 

So  far  from  being  a  just  cause  of  war,  I  hold 
that  the  expression  of  such  a  wish  is  not  even 
censurable  by  us,  since  our  naval  alliance  with 
Great  Britain  for  the  suppression  of  the  slave 
trade — since  our  diplomatic  alliance  with  her  to 
close  the  markets  of  the  world  against  the  slave 
trade — and  since  the  large  effusion  of  mawkish 
sentimentality  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  in 
which  our  advocates  of  the  aforesaid  diplomatic 
and  naval  alliance  indulged  themselves  at  the 
time  of  its  negotiation  and  conclusion.  Since 
that  time,  I  think  we  have  lost  the  right  (if  we 
ever  possessed  it)  of  fighting  Mexico,  because 
Great  Britain  says  she  wishes — to  see — slavery 
abolished  in  Texas,  as  elsewhere  throughout  the 
world. 

The  civilized  world  judges  the  causes  of  war, 
and  discriminates  between  motives  and  pre- 
texts :  the  former  are  respected  when  true  and 
valid—the  latter  are  always  despised  and  ex- 
posed. Every  Christian  nation  owes  it  to  itself; 
as  well  as  to  the  family  of  Christian  nations,  to 
examine  well  its  grounds  of  war,  before  it  begins 
one,  and  to  hold  itself  in  a  condition  to  justify 
its  act  in  the  eyes  of  God  and  man.    Not  satis- 


612 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


fied  of  either  the  truth  or  validity  of  the  cause 
for  our  war  with  Mexico,  in  the  alleged  inter- 
ference of  Great  Britain  in  Texian  affairs,  I  feel 
myself  bound  to  oppose  it,  and  not  the  less  be- 
cause it  is  deemed  a  small  war.  Our  constitu- 
tion knows  no  difference  between  wars.  The 
declaration  of  all  wars  is  given  to  Congress — 
not  to  the  President  and  Senate — much  less  to 
the  President  alone.  Besides,  a  war  is  an  un- 
governable monster,  and  there  is  no  knowing 
into  what  proportions  even  a  small  one  may  ex- 
pand !  especially  when  the  interference  of  one 
large  power  may  lead  to  the  interference  of  an- 
other. 

Great  Britain  disavows  (and  that  four  times 
over)  all  the  designs  upon  Texas  attributed  to 
her.  She  disavows  every  thing.  I  believe  I  am 
as  jealous  of  the  encroaching  and  domineering 
spirit  of  that  power,  as  any  reasonable  man 
ought  to  be ;  but  these  disavowals  are  enough 
for  me.  That  government  is  too  proud  to  lie  ! 
too  wise  to  criminate  its  future  conduct  by  ad- 
mitting the  culpability  which  the  disavowal  im- 
plies. Its  fault  is  on  the  other  side  of  the  ac- 
count— in  its  arrogance  in  avowing,  and  even 
overstating,  its  pretensions.  Copenhagen  is  her 
style !  I  repeat  it,  then,  the  disavowal  of  all 
design  to  interfere  with  Texian  Independence, 
or  with  the  existence  of  slavery  in  Texas,  is 
enough  for  me.  I  shall  believe  in  it  until  I  see 
it  disproved  by  evidence,  or  otherwise  falsified. 
Would  to  God  that  our  administration  could 
get  the  same  disavowal  in  all  the  questions  of 
real  difference  between  the  two  countries  !  that 
we  could  get  it  in  the  case  of  the  Oregon — the 
claim  of  search — the  claim  of  visitation — the 
claim  of  impressment — the  practice  of  liberating 
our  fugitive  and  criminal  slaves — the  repetition 
of  the  Schlosser  invasion  of  our  territory  and 
murder  of  our  citizens — the  outrage  of  the 
Comet,  Encomium,  Enterprise,  and  Hermosa 
cases ! 

And  here,  without  regard  to  the  truth  or 
falsehood  of  this  imputed  design  of  British  in- 
tentions to  abolish  slavery  in  Texas,  a  very 
awkward  circumstance  crosses  our  path  in  re- 
lation to  its  validity,  if  true :  for,  it  so  happens 
that  we  did  that  very  thing  ourselves !  By  the 
Louisiana  treaty  of  1803,  Texas,  and  all  the 
country,  between  the  Red  River  and  Arkansas, 
became  ours,  and  was  subject  to  slavery:  by 
the  treaty  of  1819,  made,  as  Mr.  Adams  assures 


us,  by  the  majority  of  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet, 
who  were  Southern  men,  this  Texas,  and  a  hun- 
dred thousand  square  miles  of  other  territory 
between  the  Red  River  and  Arkansas,  were  dis- 
membered from  our  Union,  and  added  to  Mexi- 
co, a  non-slaveholding  empire.  By  that  treaty 
of  1819,  slavery  was  actually  abolished  in  all 
that  region  in  which  we  now  only  fear,  con- 
trary to  the  evidence,  that  there  is  a  design  to 
abolish  it !  and  the  confines  of  a  non-slavehold- 
ing empire  were  then  actually  brought  to  the 
boundaries  of  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and  Mis- 
souri !  the  exact  places  which  we  now  so  great- 
ly fear  to  expose  to  the  contact  of  a  non-slave- 
holding  dominion.  All  this  I  exposed  at  the 
time  the  treaty  of  1819  was  made,  and  pointed 
out  as  one  of  the  follies,  or  crimes,  of  that  unac- 
countable treaty;  and  now  recur  to  it  in  my 
place  here  to  absolve  Mr.  Adams,  the  negotiator 
of  the  treaty  of  1819,  from  the  blame  which  I 
then  cast  upon  him.  His  responsible  statement 
on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Representatives  has 
absolved  him  from  that  blame,  and  transferred 
it  to  the  shoulders  of  the  majority  of  Mr.  Mon- 
roe's cabinet.  On  seeing  the  report  of  his 
speech  in  the  papers,  I  deemed  it  right  to  com- 
municate with  Mr.  Adams,  through  a  senator 
from  his  State,  now  in  my  eye,  and  who  hears 
what  I  say  (looking  at  Mr.  Bates,  of  Massachu- 
setts), and  through  him  received  the  confirma- 
tion of  the  reported  speech,  that  he  (Mr.  Adams) 
was  the  last  of  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet  to  yield 
our  true  boundaries  in  that  quarter.  [Here  Mr. 
Bates  nodded  assent.]  Southern  men  deprived 
us  of  Texas,  and  made  it  non-slaveholding  in 
1819.  Our  present  Secretary  of  State  was  a 
member  of  that  cabinet,  and  counselled  that 
treaty :  our  present  President  was  a  member  of 
the  House,  and  sanctioned  it  in  voting  against 
Mr.  Clay's  condemnatory  resolution.  They  did 
a  great  mischief  then :  they  should  be  cautious 
not  to  err  again  in  the  manner  of  getting  it 
back. 

I  have  shown  you,  Mr.  President,  that  the 
ratification  of  this  treaty  would  be  war  with 
Mexico — that  it  would  be  unjust  war,  unconsti- 
tutionally made — and  made  upon  a  weak  and 
groundless  pretext.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to 
show  for  what  6bject  this  war  is  made — why 
these  marching  and  sailing  orders  have  been 
given — and  why  our  troops  and  ships,  as  squad- 
rons and  corps  of  observation,  are  now  in  the 


ANNO  1844.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


613 


Gulf  of  Mexico,  watching  Mexican  cities  ;  or  on 
the  Red  River,  watching  Mexican  soldiers.  I 
have  not  told  the  reasons  for  this  war,  and  war- 
like movements,  nor  is  it  necessary  to  do  so. 
The  purpose  of  the  whole  is  plain  and  obvious. 
It  is  in  every  body's  mouth.  It  is  in  the  air, 
and  we  can  see  and  feel  it.  Mr.  Tyler  wants  to 
be  President ;  and,  different  from  the  perfumed 
fop  of  Shakspeare,  to  whom  the  smell  of  gun- 
powder was  so  offensive,  he  not  only  wants  to 
smell  that  compound,  but  also  to  smell  of  it. 
He  wants  an  odor  of  the  "  villanous  compound  " 
upon  him.  He  has  beome  infected  with  the 
modern  notion  that  gunpowder  popularity  is 
the  passport  to  the  presidency ;  and  he  wants 
that  passport.  He  wants  to  play  Jackson ;  but 
let  him  have  a  care.  From  the  sublime  to  the 
ridiculous  there  is  but  a  step;  and,  in  heroic 
imitations,  there  is  no  middle  ground.  The 
hero  missed,  the  harlequin  appears  ;  and  hisses 
salute  the  ears  which  were  itching  for  applause. 
Jackson  was  no  candidate  for  the  presidency 
when  he  acted  the  real,  not  the  mock  hero. 
He  staked  himself  for  his  country — did  nothing 
but  what  was  just — and  eschewed  intrigue. 
His  elevation  to  the  presidency  was  the  act  of 
his  fellow-citizens — not  the  machination  of  him- 
self. 


CHAPTER    CXL. 

TEXAS  OE  DISUNION :  SOUTHERN  CONVENTION : 
MR.  BENTON'S  SPEECH :  EXTRACTS. 

The  senator  from  South  Carolina  (Mr.  Mc- 
Duffie)  assumes  it  for  certain,  that  the  great 
meeting  projected  for  Nashville  is  to  take  place : 
and  wishes  to  know  who  are  to  be  my  bedfel- 
lows in  that  great  gathering :  and  I  on  my  part, 
would  wish  to  know  who  are  to  be  his  !  Misery, 
says  the  proverb,  makes  strange  bedfellows :  and 
political  combinations  sometimes  make  them 
equally  strange.  The  fertile  imagination  of 
Burke  has  presented  us  with  a  view  of  one  of 
these  strange  sights ;  and  the  South  Carolina 
procession  at  Nashville  (if  nothing  occurs  to 
balk  it)  may  present  another.  Burke  has  ex- 
hibited to  us  the  picture  of  a  cluster  of  old  po- 
litical antagonists  (it  was  after  the  formation 
of  Lord  North's  broad  bottomed  administra- 


tion, and  after  the  country's  good  and  love  of 
office  had  smothered  old  animosities)— all  sleep- 
ing together  in  one  truckle-bed :  to  use  his  own 
language,  all  pigging  together  (that  is,  lying 
like  pigs,  heads  and  tails,  and  as  many  together) 
in  the  same  truckle-bed :  and  a  queer  picture  he 
made  of  it !  But  if  things  go  on  as  projected 
here,  never  did  misery,  or  political  combination, 
or  the  imagination  of  Burke,  present  such  a 
medley  of  bedfellows  as  will  be  seen  at  Nash- 
ville. All  South  Carolina  is  to  be  there:  of 
course  General  Jackson  will  be  there,  and  will 
be  good  and  hospitable  to  all.  But  let  the 
travellers  take  care  who  goes  to  bed  to  him. 
If  he  should  happen  to  find  old  tariff  disunion, 
disguised  as  Texas  disunion,  lying  by  his  side  ! 
then  woe  to  the  hapless  wight  that  has  sought 
such  a  lodging.  Preservation  of  the  Federal 
Union  is  as  strong  in  the  old  Roman's  heart 
now  as  ever:  and  while,  as  a  Christian,  he  for- 
gives all  that  is  past  (if  it  were  past !),  yet,  no 
old  tricks  under  new  names.  Texas  disunion 
will  be  to  him  the  same  as  tariff  disunion :  and 
if  he  detects  a  Texas  disunionist  nestling  into 
his  bed,  I  say  again,  woe  to  the  luckless  wight ! 
Sheets  and  blankets  will  be  no  salvation.  The 
tiger  will  not  be  toothless — the  senator  under- 
stands the  allusion — nor  clawless  either.  Teeth 
and  claws  he  will  have,  and  sharp  use  he  will 
make  of  them !  Not  only  skin  and  fur,  but 
blood  and  bowels  may  fly,  and  double-quick 
time  scampering  may  clear  that  bed !  I  shall 
not  be  there :  even  if  the  scheme  goes  on  (which  I 
doubt  after  this  day's  occurrences)  ;  if  it  should 
go  on,  and  any  thing  should  induce  me  to  go  so 
far  out  of  my  line,  it  would  be  to  have  a  view 
of  the  senator  from  South  Carolina,  and  the 
friends  for  whom  he  speaks,  and  their  new  bed- 
fellows, or  fellows  in  bed,  as  the  case  may  be, 
all  pigging  together  in  one  truckle-bed  at  Nash- 
ville. 

But  I  advise  the  contrivers  to  give  up  this 
scheme.  Polk  and  Texas  are  strong,  and  can 
carry  a  great  deal,  but  not  every  thing.  The 
oriental  story  informs  us  that  it  was  the  last 
ounce  which  broke  the  camel's  back  ?  What  if 
a  mountain  had  been  put  first  on  the  poor 
animal's  back  ?  Nullification  is  a  mountain  ! 
Disunion  is  a  mountain !  and  what  could  Polk 
and  Texas  do  with  two  mountains  on  their 
backs  ?  And  here,  Mr.  President,  I  must  speak 
out.    The  time  has  come  for  those  to  speak  out 


614 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


who  neither  fear  nor  count  consequences  when 
their  country  is  in  danger.  Nullification  and 
disunion  are  revived,  and  revived  under  circum- 
stances which  menace  more  danger  than  ever, 
since  coupled  with  a  popular  question  which 
gives  to  the  plotters  the  honest  sympathies  of 
the  patriotic  millions.  I  have  often  intimated 
it  before,  but  now  proclaim  it.  Disunion  is  at 
the  bottom  of  this  long-concealed  Texas  machi- 
nation. Intrigue  and  speculation  co-operate; 
but  disunion  is  at  the  bottom,  and  I  denounce 
it  to  the  American  people.  Under  the  pretext 
of  getting  Texas  into  the  Union,  the  scheme  is  to 
get  the  South  out  of  it.  A  separate  confederacy, 
stretching  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Californias 
(and  hence  the  secret  of  the  Rio  Grande  del 
Norte  frontier),  is  the  cherished  vision  of  disap- 
pointed ambition;  and  for  this  consummation 
every  circumstance  has  been  carefully  and  art- 
fully contrived.  A  secret  and  intriguing  nego- 
tiation, concealed  from  Congress  and  the  people : 
an  abolition  quarrel  picked  with  Great  Britain 
to  father  an  abolition  quarrel  at  home  :  a  slavery 
correspondence  to  outrage  the  North :  war  with 
Mexico  :  the  clandestine  concentration  of  troops 
and  ships  in  the  southwest :  the  secret  compact 
with  the  President  of  Texas,  and  the  subjection 
of  American  forces  to  his  command :  the  flagrant 
seizure  of  the  purse  and  the  sword :  the  contra- 
dictory and  preposterous  reasons  on  which  the 
detected  military  and  naval  movement  was  de- 
fended— all  these  announce  the  prepared  catas- 
trophe ;  and  the  inside  view  of  the  treaty  betrays 
its  design.  The  whole  annexed  country  is  to 
be  admitted  as  one  territory,  with  a  treaty- 
promise  to  be  admitted  as  States,  when  we  all 
know  that  Congress  alone  can  admit  new  States, 
and  that  the  treaty-promise,  without  a  law  of 
Congress  to  back  it,  is  void.  The  whole  to  be 
slave  States  (and  with  the  boundary  to  the  Rio 
Grande  there  may  be  a  great  many) ;  and  the  cor- 
respondence, which  is  the  key  to  the  treaty,  and 
shows  the  design  of  its  framers,  wholly  directed 
to  the  extension  of  slavery  and  the  exaspera- 
tion of  the  North.  What  else  could  be  done  to 
get  up  Missouri  controversies  and  make  sure  of 
the  non-admission  of  these  States  1  Then  the 
plot  is  consummated :  and  Texas  without  the 
Union,  sooner  than  the  Union  without  Texas 
(already  the  premonitory  chorus  of  so  many 
resolves),  receives  its  practical  application  in  the 
secession  of  the  South,  and  its  adhesion  to  the 


rejected  Texas.  Even  without  waiting  for  the 
non-admission  of  the  States,  so  carefully  pro- 
vided for  in  the  treaty  and  correspondence,  se- 
cession and  confederation  with  the  foreign 
Texas  is  already  the  scheme  of  the  subaltern 
disunionists.  The  subalterns,  charged  too  high 
by  their  chiefs,  are  ready  for  this  ;  but  the  more 
cunning  chiefs,  want  Texas  in  as  a  territory — in 
by  treaty — the  supreme  law  of  the  land — with 
a  void  promise  for  admission  as  States.  Then 
non-admission  can  be  called  a  breach  of  the 
treat}\  Texas  can  be  assumed  to  be  a  part  of 
the  Union ;  and  secession  and  conjunction  with 
her  becomes  the  rightful  remedy.  This  is  the 
design,  and  I  denounce  it ;  and  blind  is  he  who, 
occupying  a  position  at  this  capitol,  does  not 
behold  it ! 

I  mention  secession  as  the  more  cunning 
method  of  dissolving  the  Union.  It  is  disunion, 
and  the  more  dangerous  because  less  palpable. 
Nullification  begat  it.  and  if  allowed  there  is  an 
end  to  the  Union.  For  a  few  States  to  secede, 
without  other  alliances,  would  only  put  the 
rest  to  the  trouble  of  bringing  them  back  ;  but 
with  Texas  and  California  to  retire  upon,  the 
Union  would  have  to  go.  Many  persons  would 
secede  on  the  non-admission  of  Texian  States 
who  abhor  disunion  now.  To  avoid  all  these 
dangers,  and  to  make  sure  of  Texas,  pass  my 
bill !  which  gives  the  promise  of  Congress  for 
the  admission  of  the  new  States — neutralizes 
the  slave  question — avoids  Missouri  contro- 
versies— pacifies  Mexico — and  harmonizes  the 
Union. 

The  senator  from  South  Carolina  complains 
that  I  have  been  arrogant  and  overbearing  in 
this  debate,  and  dictatorial  to  those  who  were 
opposed  to  me.  So  far  as  this  reproach  is 
founded,  I  have  to  regret  it,  and  to  ask  pardon 
of  the  Senate  and  of  its  members.  I  may  be  in 
some  fault.  I  have,  indeed,  been  laboring  under 
deep  feeling ;  and  while  much  was  kept  down, 
something  may  have  escaped.  I  marked  the 
commencement  of  this  Texas  movement  long 
before  it  was  visible  to  the  public  eye ;  and  al- 
ways felt  it  to  be  dangerous,  because  it  gave  to 
the  plotters  the  honest  sympathies  of  the  mil- 
lions. I  saw  men  who  never  cared  a  straw 
about  Texas— one  of  whom  gave  it  away — an- 
other of  whom  voted  against  saving  it — and  all 
of  whom  were  silent  and  indifferent  while  the 
true  friends  of  the  sacrificed  country  were  labor 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


615 


ing  to  get  it  back :  I  saw  these  men  lay  their 
plot  in  the  winter  of  1842-'43,  and  told  every 
person  with  whom  I  talked  every  step  they 
were  to  take  in  it.  All  that  has  taken  place,  I 
foretold :  all  that  is  intended,  I  foresee.  The 
intrigue  for  the  presidency  was  the  first  act  in 
the  drama :  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  the 
second.  And  I,  who  hate  intrigue,  and  love  the 
Union,  can  only  speak  of  intriguers  and  dis- 
unionists  with  warmth  and  indignation.  The 
oldest  advocate  for  the  recovery  of  Texas,  I 
must  be  allowed  to  speak  in  just  terms  of  the 
criminal  politicians  who  prostituted  the  ques- 
tion of  its  recovery  to  their  own  base  purposes, 
and  delayed  its  success  by  degrading  and  dis- 
gracing it.  A  western  man,  and  coming  from  a 
State  more  than  any  other  interested  in  the  re- 
covery of  this  country  so  unaccountably  thrown 
away  by  the  treaty  of  1819,  I  must  be  allowed 
to  feel  indignant  at  seeing  Atlantic  politicians 
seizing  upon  it,  and  making  it  a  sectional  ques- 
tion, for  the  purposes  of  ambition  and  disunion. 
I  have  spoken  warmly  of  these  plotters  and  in- 
triguers ;  but  I  have  not  permitted  their  con- 
duct to  alter  my  own,  or  to  relax  my  zeal  for 
the  recovery  of  the  sacrificed  country.  I  have 
helped  to  reject  the  disunion  treaty ;  and  that 
obstacle  being  removed,  I  have  brought  in  the 
bill  which  will  insure  the  recovery  of  Texas 
(with  peace,  and  honor,  and  with  the  Union)  as 
soon  as  the  exasperation  has  subsided  which  the 
outrageous  conduct  of  this  administration  has 
excited  in  every  Mexican  breast.  No  earthly 
power  but  Mexico  has  a  right  to  say  a  word. 
Civil  treatment  and  consultation  beforehand 
would  have  conciliated  her ;  but  the  seizure  of 
two  thousand  miles  of  her  undisputed  territory, 
an  insulting  correspondence,  breach  of  the  ar- 
mistice, secret  negotiations  with  Texas,  and 
sending  troops  and  ships  to  waylay  and  attack 
her,  have  excited  feelings  of  resentment  which 
must  be  allayed  before  any  thing  can  be  done. 

The  senator  from  South  Carolina  compares 
the  rejected  treaty  to  the  slain  Caesar,  and  gives 
it  a  ghost,  which  is  to  meet  me  at  some  future 
day,  as  the  spectre  met  Brutus  at  Philippi.  I 
accept  the  comparison,  and  thank  the  senator  for 
it.  It  is  both  classic  and  just ;  for  as  Caesar 
was  slain  for  the  good  of  his  country,  so  has 
been  this  treaty ;  and  as  the  spectre  appeared 
at  Philippi  on  the  side  of  the  ambitious  Antony 
and  the  hypocrite  Octavius,  and  against  the 


patriot  Brutus,  so  would  the  ghost  of  this  poor 
treaty,  when  it  comes  to  meet  me,  appear  on  the 
side  of  the  President  and  his  secretary,  and 
against  the  man  who  was  struggling  to  save  his 
country  from  their  lawless  designs.  But  here 
the  comparison  must  stop;  for  I  can  promise 
the  ghost  and  his  backers  that  if  the  fight  goes 
against  me  at  this  new  Philippi,  with  which  I 
am  threatened,  and  the  enemies  of  the  American 
Union  triumph  over  me  as  the  enemies  of  Roman 
liberty  triumphed  over  Brutus  and  Cassius,  I 
shall  not  fall  upon  my  sword,  as  Brutus  did, 
though  Cassius  be  killed,  and  run  it  through  my 
own  body ;  but  I  shall  save  it,  and  save  myself 
for  another  day,  and  for  another  use — for  the 
day  when  the  battle  of  the  disunion  of  these 
States  is  to  be  fought — not  with  words,  but  with 
iron — and  for  the  hearts  of  the  traitors  who  ap- 
pear in  arms  against  their  country. 

The  comparison  is  just.  Caesar  was  right- 
fully killed  for  conspiring  against  his  country  ; 
but  it  was  not  he  that  destroyed  the  liberties  of 
Rome.  That  work  was  done  by  the  profligate 
politicians,  without  him,  and  before  his  time ; 
and  his  death  did  not  restore  the  republic. 
There  were  no  more  elections.  Rotten  politi- 
cians had  destroyed  them ;  and  the  nephew  of 
Caesar,  as  heir  to  his  uncle,  succeeded  to  the 
empire  on  the  principle  of  hereditary  succession. 

And  here,  Mr.  President,  History  appears  in 
her  grand  and  instructive  character,  as  Philoso- 
phy teaching  by  example :  and  let  us  not  be 
senseless  to  her  warning  voice.  Superficial 
readers  believe  it  was  the  military  men  who  de- 
stroyed the  Roman  republic.  No  such  tiring ! 
It  was  the  politicians  who  did  it !  factious,  cor- 
rupt, intriguing,  politicians!  destroying  public 
virtue  in  their  mad  pursuit  after  office !  destroy- 
ing their  rivals  by  crime !  deceiving  and  de- 
bauching the  people  for  votes !  and  bringing 
elections  into  contempt  by  the  frauds  and  vio- 
lence with  which  they  were  conducted.  From 
the  time  of  the  Gracchi  there  were  no  elections 
that  could  bear  the  name.  Confederate  and 
rotten  politicians  bought  and  sold  the  consulship. 
Intrigue,  and  the  dagger,  disposed  of  rivals. 
Fraud,  violence,  bribes,  terror,  and  the  plunder 
of  the  public  treasury,  commanded  votes.  The 
people  had  no  choice :  and  long  before  the  time 
of  Caesar  nothing  remained  of  republican  gov- 
ernment, but  the  name,  and  the  abuse.  Read 
Plutarch.    In  the  life  of  Caesar,  and  not  three 


616 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


pages  before  the  crossing  of  the  Rubicon,  he 
paints  the  ruined  state  of  the  elections — shows 
that  all  elective  government  was  gone — that  the 
hereditary  form  had  become  a  necessary  relief 
from  the  contests  of  the  corrupt — and  that  in 
choosing  between  Pompey  and  Caesar,  many 
preferred  Pompey,  not  because  they  thought 
him  republican,  but  because  they  thought  he 
would  make  the  milder  king.  Even  arms  were 
but  a  small  part  of  Caesar's  reliance  when  he 
crossed  the  Rubicon.  Gold,  still  more  than  the 
sword,  was  his  dependence:  and  he  sent  for- 
ward the  accumulated  treasures  of  plundered 
Gaul,  to  be  poured  into  the  laps  of  rotten  poli- 
ticians. There  was  no  longer  a  popular  govern- 
ment; and  in  taking  all  power  to  himself,  he 
only  took  advantage  of  the  state  of  things  which 
profligate  politicians  had  produced.  In  this  he 
was  culpable,  and  paid  the  forfeit  with  his  life ; 
but  in  contemplating  his  fate,  let  us  never  forget 
that  the  politicians  had  undermined  and  de- 
stroyed the  republic,  before  he  came  to  seize  and 
to  master  it. 

It  was  the  same  in  our  day.  We  have  seen 
the  conqueror  of  Egypt  and  Italy  overturn  the 
Directory,  usurp  all  power,  and  receive  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  people.  And  why  ?  Because  the 
government  was  rotten,  and  elections  had  be- 
come a  farce.  The  elections  of  forty-eight  de- 
partments, at  one  time,  in  the  year  1798,  were 
annulled,  to  give  the  Directory  a  majority  in  the 
legislative  councils.  All  sorts  of  fraud  and  vio- 
lence were  committed  at  the  elections.  The 
people  had  no  confidence  in  them,  and  submitted 
to  Bonaparte. 

All  elective  governments  have  failed  in  this 
manner ;  and,  in  process  of  time,  must  fail  here, 
unless  elections  can  be  taken  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  politicians,  and  restored  to  the  full  control 
of  the  people.  The  plan  which  I  have  submit- 
ted this  day,  for  dispensing  with  intermediate 
bodies,  and  holding  a  second  election  for  Presi- 
dent when  the  first  fails,  is  designed  to  accom- 
plish this  great  purpose;  and  will  do  much 
good  if  adopted.  Never  have  politicians,  in  so 
young  a  country,  shown  such  a  thirst  for  office 
— such  disregard  of  the  popular  will,  such  read- 
iness to  deceive  and  betray  the  people.  The 
Texas  treaty  (for  I  must  confine  myself  to  the 
case  before  us)  is  an  intrigue  for  the  presidency, 
and  a  contrivance  to  get  the  Southern  States  out 
of  the  Union,  instead  of  getting  Texian  States 


into  it ;  and  is  among  the  most  unscrupulous 
intrigues  which  any  country  every  beheld.  But 
we  know  how  to  discriminate.  We  know  how 
to  separate  the  wrong  from  the  right.  Texas, 
which  the  intriguers  prostrated  to  their  ambi- 
tious purposes  (caring  nothing  about  it,  as  their 
past  lives  show),  will  be  rescued  from  their  de- 
signs, and  restored  to  this  Union  as  naturally, 
and  as  easily,  as  the  ripened  pear  falls  to  the 
earth.  Those  who  prepared  the  result  at  the 
Baltimore  convention,  in  which  the  will  of  the 
people  was  overthrown,  will  be  consigned  to 
oblivion ;  while  the  nominees  of  the  convention 
will  be  accepted  and  sustained :  and  as  for  the 
plotters  of  disunion  and  secession,  they  will  be 
found  out  and  will  receive  their  reward ;  and  I, 
for  one,  shall  be  ready  to  meet  them  at  Philippi, 
sword  in  hand,  whenever  they  bring  their  par- 
ricidal scheme  to  the  test  of  arms. 


CHAPTER   CXLI. 

TEXAS  OR  DISUNION:  VIOLENT  DEMONSTRA- 
TIONS IN  THE  SOUTH:  SOUTHERN  CONVENTION 
PROPOSED. 

The  secret  intrigue  for  the  annexation  of  Texas 
was  framed  with  a  double  aspect — one  looking 
to  the  presidential  election,  the  other  to  the 
separation  of  the  Southern  States  ;  and  as  soon 
as  the  rejection  of  the  treaty  was  foreseen,  and 
the  nominating  convention  had  acted  (Mr.  Cal- 
houn and  Mr.  Tyler  standing  no  chance),  the 
disunion  aspect  manifested  itself  over  many  of 
the  Southern  States — beginning  of  course  with 
South  Carolina.  Before  the  end  of  May  a  great 
meeting  took  place  (with  the  muster  of  a 
regiment)  at  Ashley,  in  the  Barnwell  district  of 
that  State,  to  combine  the  slave  States  in  a  con- 
vention to  unite  the  Southern  States  to  Texas, 
if  Texas  should  not  be  received  into  the  Union ; 
and  to  invite  the  President  to  convene  Congress 
to  arrange  the  terms  of  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union  if  the  rejection  of  the  annexation  should 
be  persevered  in.  At  this  meeting  all  the 
speeches  and  resolves  turned  upon  the  original 
idea  in  the  Gilmer  letter — that  of  British  al- 
liance with  Texas — the  abolition  of  slavery  in 
Texas  in  consequence  of  that  alliance,  and  a 
San  Domingo    insurrection  of  slaves  in  the 


ANNO  1844.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


617 


Southern  States^  and  the  conjunction  of  the 
South  and  Texas  in  a  new  republic  was  presented 
as  the  only  means  of  averting  these  dire  calami- 
ties. With  this  view,  and  as  giving  the  initia- 
tive to  the  movement,  these  resolutions  were 
adopted : 

"  First :  To  call  upon  our  delegations  in  Con- 
gress, if  in  session,  or  our  senators,  if  they  be 
at  the  seat  of  government,  to  wait  on  the  Texian 
Minister,  and  remonstrate  with  him  against  any 
negotiation  with  other  powers,  until  the  South- 
ern States  shall  have  had  a  reasonable  time  to 
decide  upon  their  course. 

"  Second :  That  object  secured,  a  convention 
of  the  people  of  each  State  should  be  promptly 
called,  to  deliberate  and  decide,  upon  the  action 
to  be  taken  by  the  slave  States  on  the  question 
of  annexation ;  and  to  appoint  delegates  to  a 
convention  of  the  slave  States,  with  instruc- 
tions to  carry  into  effect  the  behests  of  the 
people. 

"  Third :  That  a  convention  of  the  slave 
States  by  delegations  from  each,  appointed  as 
aforesaid,  should  be  called,  to  meet  at  some 
central  position,  to  take  into  consideration  the 
question  of  annexing  Texas  to  the  Union,  if  the 
Union  will  accept  it ;  or,  if  the  Union  will  not 
accept  it,  then  of  annexing  Texas  to  the  South- 
ern States ! 

"  Fourth  :  That  the  President  of  the  United 
States  be  requested  by  the  general  convention 
of  the  slave  States,  to  call  Congress  together 
immediately ;  when,  the  final  issue  shall  be 
made  up,  and  the  alternative  distinctly  presented 
to  the  free  States,  either  to  admit  Texas  into 
the,  Union,  or  to  proceed  peaceably  and  calmly 
to  arrange  the  terms  of  a  dissolution  of  the 
Union ! " 

About  the  same  time  another  large  meeting 
was  held  at  Beaufort,  in  the  same  State,  in 
which  it  was 

"  Resolved,  That  if  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States — under  the  drill  of  party  leaders — should 
reject  the  treaty  of  annexation,  we  appeal  to  the 
citizens  of  Texas,  and  urge  them  not  to  yield 
to  a  just  resentment,  and  turn  their  eyes  to 
other  alliances,  but  to  believe  that  they  have 
the  warm  advocacy  of  a  large  portion  of  the 
American  public,  who  are  resolved,  that  sooner 
or  later,  the  pledge  in  the  treaty  of  1803  shall 
be  redeemed,  and  Texas  be  incorporated  into 
our  Union.  But  if — on  the  other  hand — we  are 
not  permitted  to  bring  Texas  into  our  Union 
peacefully  and  legitimately,  as  now  we  may, 
then  we  solemnly  announce  to  the  world — that 
we  will  dissolve  this  Union,  sooner  than  aban- 
don Texas. 

"  Resolved.  That  the  chair,  at  his  leisure,  ap- 
point a  committee  of  vigilance  and  correspond- 


ence, to  consist  of  twenty-one,  to  aid  in  carry- 
ing forward  the  cause  of  Texas  annexation." 

In  the  Williamsburg  District  in  the  same 
State  another  large  meeting  resolved  : 

"  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  meeting,  the 
honor  and  integrity  of  our  Union  require 
the  immediate  annexation  of  Texas  ;  and  we 
hold  it  to  be  better  and  more  to  the  interest 
of  the  Southern  and  Southwestern  portions  of 
this  confederacy  '  to  be  out  of  the  Union  with 
Texas  than  in  it  without  her.' 

';  That  we  cordially  approve  of  the  recom- 
mendation of  a  Southern  convention  composed 
of  delegates  from  the  Southern  and  South- 
western portions  of  this  confederacy,  to  delibe- 
rate together,  and  adopt  such  measures  as  may 
best  promote  the  great  object  of  annexation ; 
provided  such  annexation  is  not  previously 
brought  about  by  joint  resolution  of  Congress, 
either  at  its  present  or  an  extra  session." 

Responsive  resolutions  were  adopted  in  sev- 
eral States,  and  the  4th  day  of  July  furnished 
an  occasion  for  the  display  of  sentiments  in  the 
form  of  toasts,  which  showed  both  the  depth  of 
the  feeling  on  this  subject,  and  its  diffusion,  more 
or  less,  through  all  the  Southern  States.  "  Tex- 
as, or  Disunion,"  was  a  common  toast,  and  a 
Southern  convention  generally  called  for.  Rich- 
mond, Virginia,  was  one  of  the  places  indicated 
for  its  meeting,  by  a  meeting  in  the  State  of  Ala- 
bama. Mr.  Ritchie,  the  editor  of  the  Enquirer, 
repulsed  the  idea,  on  the  part  of  the  Democracy, 
of  holding  the  meeting  there,  saying,  "  There 
is  not  a  democrat  in  Virginia  who  will  en- 
courage any  plot  to  dissolve  the  Union."  The 
Richmond  Whig,  on  the  part  of  the  whigs, 
equally  repulsed  it.  Nashville,  in  the  State  of 
Tennessee,  was  proposed  in  the  resolves  of  many 
of  the  public  meetings,  and  the  assembling  of 
the  convention  at  that  place — the  home  of 
General  Jackson — was  still  more  formally  and 
energetically  repulsed.  A  meeting  of  the  citi- 
zens of  the  town  was  called,  which  protested 
against "  the  desecration  of  the  soil  of  Tennessee 
by  having  any  convention  held  there  to  hatch 
treason  against  the  Union"  and  convoked  a 
general  meeting  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  out 
a  full  expression  of  public  opinion  on  the  subject 
The  meeting  took  place  accordingly,  and  was 
most  numerously  and  respectably  attended, 
and  adopted  resolutions  worthy  of  the  State, 
worthy  of  the  home  of  General  Jackson, 
honorable  to  every  individual  engaged  in  itj 


618 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


and  so  ample  as  to  stand  for  an  authentic 
history  of  that  attempt  to  dissolve  the  Union. 
The  following  were  the  resolves,  presented  by 
Dr.  John  Shelby : 

"  Whereas,  at  several  public  meetings  recently 
held  in  the  South,  resolutions  have  been  adopted 
urging  with  more  or  less  directness  the  assem- 
bling of  a  convention  of  States  friendly  to  the 
immediate  annexation  of  Texas,  at  Nashville, 
some  time  in  August  next ;  and  whereas  it  is 
apparent  from  the  resolutions  themselves  and 
the  speeches  of  some  of  its  prime  movers  in 
those  meetings,  and  the  comments  of  public 
journals  friendly  to  them,  that  the  convention 
they  propose  to  hold  in  this  city  was  contem- 
plated as  a  means  towards  an  end — that  end 
being  to  present  deliberately  and  formally  the 
issue,  '  annexation  of  Texas  or  dissolution  of 
this  Union.' 

';  And  whereas,  further,  it  is  manifested  by  all 
the  indications  given  from  the  most  reliable 
sources  of  intelligence,  that  there  is  a  party  of 
men  in  another  quarter  of  this  nation  who — in 
declaring  that  '  the  only  true  issue  before  the 
South  should  be  Texas  or  disunion,'  and  in  pro- 
posing the  line  of  operation  indicated  by  the 
South  Carolinian,  their  organ  published  at  Co- 
lumbia, South  Carolina,  in  the  following  words, 

"  That  the  President  of  the  United  States  be 
requested  by  the  general  convention  of  the  slave 
States  to  call  Congress  together  immediately, 
when  the  final  issue  shall  be  made  up,  and  the 
alternative  distinctly  presented  to  the  free 
States,  either  to  admit  Texas  into  the  Union, 
or  to  proceed  peaceably  and  calmly  to  arrange 
the  terms  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union ' — are 
influenced  by  sentiments  and  opinions  directly 
at  issue  with  the  solemn  obligation  of  the  citi- 
zens of  every  State  to  our  national  Union — 
sentiments  and  opinions  which,  if  not  repressed 
and  condemned,  may  lead  to  the  destruction  of 
our  tranquillity  and  happiness,  and  to  the  reign 
of  anarchy  and  confusion.  Therefore,  we,  the 
citizens  of  Davidson  County,  in  the  State  of 
Tennessee,  feel  ourselves  called  upon  by  these 
demonstrations  to  express,  in  a  clear,  decided, 
and  unequivocal  manner,  our  deliberate  senti- 
ments in  regard  to  them.  And  upon  the  mo- 
mentous question  here  involved,  we  are  happy 
to  believe  there  is  no  material  division  of  senti- 
ment among  the  people  of  this  State. 

"  The  citizens  here  assembled  are  Tennes- 
seans ;  they  are  Americans.  They  glory  in 
being  citizens  of  this  great  confederate  republic ; 
and,  whether  friendly  or  opposed  to  the  imme- 
diate annexation  of  Texas,  they  join  with  de- 
cision, firmness,  and  zeal  in  avowing  their  at- 
tachment to  our  glorious,  and,  we  trust,  im- 
pregnable Union,  and  in  condemning  every  at- 
tempt to  bring  its  preservation  into  issue,  or  its 
value  into  calculation. 

"Under  these  impressions,  and  with  these 
feelings,  regarding  with  deep  and  solemn  inter- 


est the  circumstances  under  which  this  new 
issue  may  be  ere  long  sprung  upon  us,  and 
actuated  by  a  sense  of  the  high  responsibility 
to  his  country  imposed  on  every  American 
citizen,  in  the  language  of  the  immortal  Wash- 
ington, '  to  frown  upon  the  first  dawnings  of 
every  attempt  to  alienate  any  portion  of  our 
country  from  the  rest,  or  to  enfeeble  the  sacred 
ties  which  now  link  together  the  various  parts,' 
we  hereby  adopt  and  make  known,  as  express- 
ing our  deliberate  sentiments,  the  following 
resolutions : 

"  Resolved,  That  while  we  never  have  inter- 
fered, and  never  will  interfere  with  the  arrange- 
ments of  any  of  the  parties  divided  on  the 
general  political  questions  of  the  day,  and  while 
we  absolutely  repel  the  charge  of  designing  any 
such  interference  as  totally  unfounded  and  un- 
justifiable, yet  when  we  see  men  of  any  party 
and  any  quarter  of  this  nation  announcing  as 
their  motto,  '  Texas  or  Disunion,'  and  singling 
out  the  city  of  Nashville  as  a  place  of  general 
gathering,  in  order  to  give  formality  and  so- 
lemnity to  the  presentation  of  that  issue,  we 
feel  it  to  be  not  only  our  sacred  right,  but  our 
solemn  duty  to  protest,  as  we  now  do  protest, 
against  the  desecration  of  the  soil  of  Tennessee, 
by  any  act  of  men  holding  within  its  borders  a 
convention  for  any  such  object. 

"  Resolved,  That  when  our  fellow-citizens  of 
any  State  come  hither  as  Americans,  loyal  to 
our  glorious  Union,  they  will  be  received  and 
welcomed  by  us  with  all  the  kindness  and  hos- 
pitality which  should  characterize  the  inter- 
course of  a  band  of  brothers,  whatever  may  be 
our  differences  on  political  subjects  ;  but  when 
they  avow  their  willingness  to  break  up  the  Union 
rather  than  fail  to  accomplish  a  favorite  object, 
we  feel  bound  to  tell  them  this  is  no  fit  place  to 
concert  their  plans. 

"  Resolved,  That  we  entertain  for  the  people 
of  South  Carolina,  and  the  other  quarters  in 
which  this  cry  of  '  Texas  or  Disunion '  has 
been  raised,  feelings  of  fraternal  regard  and 
affection ;  that  we  sincerely  lament  the  exhibi- 
tion by  any  portion  of  them  of  disloyalty  to 
the  Union,  or  a  disposition  to  urge  its  dissolu- 
tion with  a  view  to  annexation  with  Texas,  if 
not  otherwise  obtained ;  and  that  we  hope  a 
returning  sense  of  what  is  due  to  themselves, 
to  the  other  States  of  the  Union,  to  the  Ameri- 
can people,  and  to  the  cause  of  American  liberty, 
will  prevent  them  from  persevering  in  urging 
the  issue  they  have  proposed." 

The  energy  with  which  this  proposed  conven- 
tion was  repulsed  from  Nashville  and  Richmond, 
and  the  general  revolt  against  it  in  most  of  the 
States,  brought  the  movement  to  a  stand,  para- 
lyzed its  leaders,  and  suppressed  the  disunion 
scheme  for  the  time  being — only  to  lie  in  wait 
for  future  occasions.  But  it  was  not  before  the 
people  only  that  this  scheme  for  a  Southern 


ANNO  1844.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


619 


convention  with  a  view  to  the  secession  of  the 
slave  States,  was  matter  of  discussion :  it  was 
the  subject  of  debate  in  the  Senate.  Mr.  Mc- 
Duffie  mentioned  it,  and  in  a  way  to  draw  a 
reply  from  Mr.  Benton — an  extract  from  which 
has  been  given  in  a  previous  chapter,  and  which, 
besides  some  information  on  its  immediate  sub- 
ject, and  besides  foreseeing  the  failure  of  that 
attempt  to  get  up  a  disunion  convention,  also 
told  that  the  design  of  the  secessionists  was  to 
extend  the  new  Southern  republic  to  the  Cali- 
fornias  :  and  this  was  told  two  years  before  the 
declaration  of  the  war  by  which  California  was 
acquired. 


CHAPTER   CXLII. 

REJECTION  OF  THE  ANNEXATION  TREATY:  PRO- 
POSAL OF  MR.  BENTON'S  PLAN. 

The  treaty  was  supported  by  all  the  power  of 
the  administration  ;  but  in  vain.  It  was  doomed 
to  defeat,  ignominious  and  entire,  and  was  re- 
jected by  a  vote  of  two  to  one  against  it,  when 
it  would  have  required  a  vote  of  two  to  one  to 
have  ratified  it.     The  yeas  were  : 

Messrs.  Atchison,  Bagby,  Breese,  Buchanan, 
Colquitt,  Fulton,  Haywood,  Henderson,  Huger, 
Lewis,  McDuffie,  Semple,  Sevier,  Sturgeon,  Wal- 
ker, Woodbury. — 16. 

The  nays  were : 

Messrs.  Allen,  Archer,  Atherton,  Barrow, 
Bates,  Bayard,  Benton,  Berrien,  Choate,  Clay- 
ton, Crittenden,  Dayton,  Evans,  Fairfield,  Fos- 
ter, Francis,  Huntington,  Jarnagin,  Johnson, 
Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead,  Niles, 
Pearce,  Phelps,  Porter,  Rives,  Simmons,  Tall- 
madge,  Tappan,  Upham,  White,  Woodbridge, 
Wright.— 35. 

This  vote  was  infinitely  honorable  to  the 
Senate,  and  a  severe  rebuke  upon  those  who 
had  the  hardihood  to  plot  the  annexation  of 
Texas  as  an  intrigue  for  the  presidency,  and  to 
be  consummated  at  the  expense  of  war  with 
Mexico,  insults  to  Great  Britain,  breach  of  our 
own  constitution,  and  the  disgrace  and  shame 
of  committing  an  outrage  upon  a  feeble  neigh- 
boring power.  But  the  annexation  was  desira- 
ble in  itself,  and  had  been  the  unceasing  effort 
of  statesmen  from  the  time  the  province  had 


been  retroceded  to  Spain.  The  treaty  was  a 
wrong  and  criminal  way  of  doing  a  right  thing. 
That  obstacle  removed,  and  the  public  mind 
roused  and  attracted  to  the  subject,  disinter- 
ested men  who  had  no  object  but  the  public 
good,  took  charge  of  the  subject,  and  initiated 
measures  to  effect  the  annexation  in  an  honor- 
able and  constitutional  manner.  With  this  view 
Mr.  Benton  brought  into  the  Senate  a  bill  au- 
thorizing and  advising  the  President  to  open 
negotiations  with  Mexico  and  Texas  for  the  ad- 
justment of  boundaries  between  them,  and  the 
annexation  of  the  latter  to  the  United  States. 
In  support  of  his  bill,  he  said : 

"  The  return  of  Texas  to  our  Union,  and  all 
the  dismembered  territory  of  1819  along  with 
it,  is  as  certain  as  that  the  Red  River  and  the 
Arkansas  rise  within  our  natural  limits,  and 
flow  into  the  Mississippi.  I  wish  to  get  it  back, 
and  to  get  it  with  peace  and  honor — at  all  events 
without  unjust  war,  unconstitutionally  made,  on 
weak  and  groundless  pretexts.  I  wish  it  to 
come  back  without  sacrificing  our  trade  even 
with  Mexico,  so  valuable  to  us  on  account  of  the 
large  returns  of  specie  which  it  gave  us,  espe- 
cially before  the  commencement  of  the  Texian 
revolution,  the  events  of  which  have  alienated 
Mexican  feeling  from  us,  and  reduced  our  specie 
imports  from  eleven  millions  of  dollars  per  an- 
num to  one  million  and  a  half.  I  wish  it  to 
come  back  in  a  way  to  give  as  little  dissatisfac- 
tion to  any  part  of  the  Union  as  possible  ;  and 
I  believe  it  is  very  practicable  to  get  it  back 
without  a  shock  to  any  part.  The  difficulty 
now  is  in  the  aspect  which  has  been  put  upon 
it  as  a  sectional,  political,  and  slave  question  ; 
as  a  movement  of  the  South  against  the  North, 
and  of  the  slaveholding  States  for  political  su- 
premacy. This  is  as  unfounded  in  the  true  na- 
ture of  the  question,  as  it  is  unwise  and  unfor- 
tunate in  the  design  which  prompted  it.  The 
question  is  more  Western  than  Southern,  and 
as  much  free  as  slave.  The  territory  to  be  re- 
covered extends  to  the  latitude  of  38°  in  its 
north-east  corner,  and  to  latitude  42°  in  its 
north-west  corner.  One-half  of  it  will  lie  in  the 
region  not  adapted  to  slave  labor ;  and,  of  course, 
when  regained,  will  be  formed  into  non-slave- 
holding  States.  So  far  as  slavery  is  concerned, 
then,  the  question  is  neutralized  :  it  is  as  much 
free  as  slave  ;  and  it  is  greatly  to  be  regretted— 
regretted  by  all  the  friends  of  the  Unwn—thKt 
a  different  aspect  has  been  given  to  it.  I  am 
southern  by  my  birth— southern  in  my  affec- 
tions, interests,  and  connections— and  shall  abide 
the  fate  of  the  South  in  every  thing  in  which 
she  has  right  upon  her  side.  I  am  a  slaveholder, 
and  shall  take  the  fate  of  other  slaveholders  in 
every  aggression  upon  that  species  of  property, 
and  in  every  attempt  to  excite  a  San  Domingo 


620 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


insurrection  among  us.  I  have  my  eyes  wide 
open  to  that  danger,  and  fixed  on  the  labora- 
tories of  insurrection,  both  in  Europe  and 
America ;  but  I  must  see  a  real  case  of  danger 
before  I  take  the  alarm.  I  am  against  the  cry 
of  wolf,  when  there  is  no  wolf.  I  will  resist  the 
intrusive  efforts  of  those  whom  it  does  not  con- 
cern, to  abolish  slavery  among  us ;  but  I  shall 
not  engage  in  schemes  for  its  extension  into 
regions  where  it  was  never  known — into  the 
valley  of  the  Rio  del  Norte,  for  example,  and 
along  a  river  of  two  thousand  miles  in  extent, 
where  a  slave's  face  was  never  seen." 

The  whole  body  of  the  people,  South  and 
West,  a  majority  of  those  in  the  Middle  States, 
and  respectable  portions  of  the  Northern  States, 
were  in  favor  of  getting  back  Texas  ;  and  upon 
this  large  mass  the  intriguers  operated,  having 
their  feelings  in  their  favor,  and  exciting  them 
by  fears  of  abolition  designs  from  Great  Britain, 
and  the  fear  of  losing  Texas  for  ever,  if  not  then 
obtained.  Mr.  Benton  deemed  it  just  to  discrim- 
inate this  honest  mass  from  the  intriguers  who 
worked  only  in  their  own  interest,  and  at  any 
cost  of  war  and  dishonor,  and  even  disunion  to 
our  own  country.     Thus : 

"  A  large  movement  is  now  going  on  for  the 
annexation  of  Texas ;  and  I,  who  have  viewed 
this  movement  from  the  beginning,  believe  that 
I  have  analyzed  it  with  a  just  and  discriminating 
eye.  The  great  mass  of  it  is  disinterested,  pa- 
triotic, reasonable,  and  moderate,  and  wishes  to 
get  back  our  lost  territory,  as  soon  as  it  can  be 
done  with  peace  and  honor.  This  large  mass  is 
passive,  and  had  just  as  lief  have  Texas  next 
year  as  this  year.  A  small  part  of  this  move- 
ment is  interested,  and  is  the  active  part,  and  is 
unreasonable,  and  violent,  and  must  have  Texas 
during  the  present  presidential  election,  or  never. 
For  the  former  part — the  great  mass — I  feel 
great  respect,  and  wish  to  give  them  reasons  for 
my  conduct :  to  the  latter  part,  it  would  be  lost 
labor  in  me  to  offer  reasons.  Political  and  in- 
terested parties  have  no  ears ;  they  listen  only 
to  themselves,  and  run  their  course  upon  their 
own  calculations.  All  that  I  shall  say  is,  that 
the  present  movement,  prostituted  as  it  evi- 
dently is,  to  selfish  and  sectional  purposes,  is 
injurious  to  the  cause  of  annexation,  and  must 
end  in  delaying  its  consummation.  But  it  will 
be  delay  only.  Annexation  is  the  natural  and 
inevitable  order  of  events,  and  will  come  !  and 
when  it  comes,  be  it  sooner  or  later,  it  will  be 
for  the  national  reasons  stated  in  Mr.  Van 
Buren's  instructions  of  1829,  and  in  the  rational 
manner  indicated  in  his  letter  of  1844.  It  will 
come,  because  the  country  to  be  received  is  geo- 
graphically appurtenant  to  our  country,  and  po- 
litically, commercially,  and  socially  connected 


with  our  people,  and  with  our  institutions: 
and  it  will  come,  not  in  the  shape  of  a  secret 
treaty  between  two  Presidents,  but  as  a  legis- 
lative as  well  as  an  executive  measure — as  the 
act  of  two  nations  (the  United  States  and  Texas) 
and  with  the  consent  of  Mexico,  if  she  is  wise, 
or  without  her  consent,  upon  the  lapse  of  her 
rights." 

The  wantonness  of  getting  up  a  quarrel  with 
Great  Britain  on  this  subject,  was  thus  ex- 


"Our  administration,  and  especially  the  ne- 
gotiator of  this  treaty,  has  been  endeavoring  to 
pick  a  quarrel  with  England,  and  upon  the  slave 
question.  Senators  have  observed  this,  and 
have  remarked  upon  the  improvidence  of  seek- 
ing a  quarrel  with  a  great  power  on  a  weak 
point,  and  in  which  we  should  be  in  the  wrong, 
and  have  the  sympathies  of  the  world  against 
us,  and  see  divided  opinions  at  home ;  and  doing 
this  when  we  have  several  great  questions  of 
real  difficulty  with  that  power,  in  any  war 
growing  out  of  which  we  should  have  right  on 
our  side,  good  wishes  from  other  nations,  and 
unity  among  ourselves.  Senators  have  re- 
marked this,  and  set  it  down  to  the  account  of 
a  great  improvidence.  I  look  upon  it,  for  my 
part,  as  a  designed  conclusion,  and  as  calculated 
to  promote  an  ulterior  scheme.  The  disunion 
of  these  States  is  still  desired  by  many,  and  the 
slave  question  is  viewed  as  the  instrument  to 
effect  it ;  and  in  that  point  of  view,  the  multi- 
plication of  quarrels  about  slavery,  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  becomes  a  natural  part  of  the  dis- 
union policy.  Hence  the  attempt  to  pick  a 
quarrel  with  Great  Britain  for  imputed  anti- 
slavery  designs  in  Texas,  and  among  ourselves, 
and  all  the  miserable  correspondence  to  which 
that  imputation  has  given  birth ;  and  that  by 
persons  who,  two  years  ago,  were  emulating 
Great  Britain  in  denunciation  of  the  slave  trade, 
and  forming  a  naval  and  diplomatic  alliance 
with  her  for  closing  the  markets  of  the  world 
against  the  introduction  of  slaves.  Since  then 
the  disunion  scheme  is  revived ;  and  this  ac- 
counts for  the  change  of  policy,  and  for  the 
search  after  a  quarrel  upon  a  weak  point,  which 
many  thought  so  improvident." 

The  closing  sentences  of  this  paragraph  refer 
to  the  article  in  the  Ashburton  treaty  which 
stipulated  for  a  joint  British  and  American 
squadron  to  guard  the  coast  of  Africa  from 
slave-trading  vessels :  a  stipulation  which  Mr. 
Calhoun  and  his  friends  supported,  and  which 
showed  him  at  that  time  to  be  against  the 
propagation  of  slavery,  either  in  the  United 
States  or  elsewhere.  He  had  then  rejoined  the 
democratic  party,  and  expected  to  be  taken  up 


ANNO  1844.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


621 


as  the  successor  to  Mr.  Van  Buren ;  and,  in 
that  prospect  of  becoming  President  of  the 
whole  Union,  had  suspended  his  design  for  a 
separation,  and  for  a  new  republic  South,  and 
was  conciliating  instead  of  irritating  the  free 
States ;  and  in  which  scheme  of  conciliation  he 
went  so  far  as  to  give  up  all  claim  for  reclama- 
tion for  slaves  liberated  by  the  British  authori- 
ties in  their  passage  from  one  port  of  the  United 
States  to  another,  and  even  relinquished  all  op- 
position to  the  practice.  The  danger  of  an  alli- 
ance oifensive  and  defensive  between  Great 
Britain  and  Texas  was  still  insisted  upon  by 
the  President,  and  an  attempt  made  upon  the 
public  sensibilities  to  alarm  the  country  into 
immediate  annexation  as  the  means  of  avoiding 
that  danger.  The  folly  of  such  an  apprehension 
was  shown  by  the  interest  which  Great  Britain 
had  in  the  commerce  and  friendship  of  Mexico, 
compared  to  which  that  of  Texas  was  nothing : 

"  The  President  expresses  his  continued  be- 
lief in  a  declaration  previously  made  to  the  Sen- 
ate, that  an  alliance,  offensive  and  defensive,  is 
to  be  formed  between  Texas  and  Great  Britain, 
if  the  treaty  is  rejected.  Well,  the  treaty  is 
rejected  !  and  the  formidable  alliance  is  not 
heard  of,  and  never  will  be.  It  happens  to  take 
two  to  make  a  bargain  ;  and  the  President  would 
seem  to  have  left  out  both  parties  when  he  ex- 
pressed his  belief,  amounting  almost  to  certainty, 
'  that  instructions  have  already  been  given  by 
the  Texian  government  to  propose  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  Great  Britain  forthwith,  on  the  fail- 
ure (of  the  treaty)  to  enter  into  a  treaty  of 
commerce,  and  an  alliance  offensive  and  de- 
fensive. Alliance  offensive  and  defensive,  be- 
tween Great  Britain  and  Texas!  a  true  ex- 
emplification of  that  famous  alliance  between 
the  giant  and  the  dwarf,  of  which  we  all  read  at 
the  age  of  seven  years.  But  let  us  see.  First, 
Texas  is  to  apply  for  this  honor :  and  I,  who 
know  the  people  of  Texas,  and  know  them  to 
be  American  and  republican,  instead  of  British 
and  monarchical,  know  full  well  that  they  will 
apply  for  no  such  dependent  alliance ;  and,  if 
they  did,  would  show  themselves  but  little 
friendly  to  our  country  or  its  institutions. 
Next,  Great  Britain  is  to  enter  into  this  alli- 
ance ;  and  how  stands  the  account  of  profit  and 
loss  with  her  in  such  a  contract  for  common 
cause  against  the  friends  and  foes  of  each  other  ? 
An  alliance  offensive  and  defensive,  is  a  bargain 
to  fight  each  other's  enemies — each  in  propor- 
tion to  its  strength.  In  such  a  contract  with 
Texas,  Great  Britain  might  receive  a  contingent 
of  one  Texian  soldier  for  her  Afghanistan  and 
Asiatic  wars :  on  the  other  hand  she  would  lose 
the  friendship  of  Mexico,  and  the  twenty  mil- 
lions of  silver  dollars  which  the  government  or 


the  merchants  of  Great  Britain  now  annually 
draw  from  Mexico.  Such  would  be  the  effect 
of  the  alliance  offensive  and  defensive  which  our 
President  so  fully  believes  in— amounting,  as 
he  says  his  belief  does,  to  an  almost  entire  cer- 
tainty. Incredible  and  absurd  !  The  Mexican 
annual  supply  of  silver  dollars  is  worth  more  to 
Great  Britain  than  all  the  Texases  in  the  world. 
Besides  the  mercantile  supply,  the  government 
itself  is  deeply  interested  in  this  trade  of  silver 
dollars.  Instead  of  drawing  gold  from  London 
to  pay  her  vast  establishments  by  sea  and  land 
throughout  the  New  World,  and  in  some  parts 
of  the  Old— instead  of  thus  depleting  herself  of 
her  bullion  at  home,  she  finds  the  silver  for 
these  payments  in  the  Mexican  mines.  A  com- 
missary of  purchases  at  $G,000  per  annum,  and 
a  deputy  at  $4,000,  are  incessantly  employed  in 
these  purchases  and  shipments  of  silver ;  and  if 
interrupted,  the  Bank  of  England  would  pay  the 
forfeit.  Does  any  one  suppose  that  Great 
Britain,  for  the  sake  of  the  Texian  alliance,  and 
the  profit  upon  her  small  trade,  would  make  an 
enemy  of  Mexico  ?  would  give  up  twenty  mil- 
lions annually  of  silver,  deprive  herself  of  her 
fountain  of  supply,  and  subject  her  bank  to  the 
drains  which  the  foreign  service  of  her  armies 
and  navies  would  require  ?  The  supposition  is 
incredible  :  and  I  say  no  more  to  this  scare- 
crow alliance,  in  which  the  President  so  fully 
believes." 

The  magnitude  and  importance  of  our  young 
and  growing  trade  with  Mexico — the  certainty 
that  her  carrying  trade  would  fall  into  our 
hands,  as  her  want  of  ports  and  ship  timber 
would  for  ever  prevent  her  from  having  any 
marine — were  presented  as  a  reason  why  we 
should  cultivate  peace  with  her. 

"  The  legal  state  between  the  United  States 
and  Mexico  is  that  of  war ;  and  the  legal  conse- 
quence is  the  abrogation  of  all  treaties  between 
the  two  powers,  and  the  cessation  of  all  com- 
mercial intercourse.  This  is  a  trifle  in  the  eyes 
of  the  President ;  not  sufficient  to  impede  for 
an  instant  his  intrigue  for  the  presidency,  and 
the  ulterior  scheme  for  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union.  But  how  is  it  in  the  eyes  of  the  coun- 
try ?  Is  it  a  trifle  in  the  eyes  of  those  whoso 
ey^s  are  large  enough  to  behold  the  extent  of 
the  Mexican  commerce,  and  whose  hearts  are 
patriotic  enough  to  lament  its  loss  ?  Look  at 
that  commerce  !  The  richest  stream  which  the 
world  beholds:  for,  of  exports,  silver  is  its 
staple  article ;  of  imports,  it  takes  something  of 
every  thing,  changed,  to  be  sure,  into  the  form 
of  fine  goods  and  groceries :  of  navigation,  it  re- 
quires a  constant  foreign  supply ;  for  Mexico 
neither  has,  nor  can  have,  a  marine,  either  com- 
mercial or  military.  The  want  of  ports  and 
timber  deny  her  a  marine  now  and  for  ever. 
This  country,  exporting  what  we  want— (hard 


622 


THIETY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


money) — taking  something  of  all  our  exports — 
using  our  own  ships  to  fetch  and  carry — lying 
at  our  door — with  many  inland  streams  of  trade 
besides  the  great  maritime  stream  of  commerce 
— pouring  the  perennial  product  of  her  innumer- 
able mines  into  our  paper-money  country,  and 
helping  us  to  be  able  to  bear  its  depredations : 
this  country,  whose  trade  was  so  important  to 
us  under  every  aspect,  is  treated  as  a  nullity  by 
the  American  President,  or  rather,  is  treated 
with  systematic  outrage ;  and  even  the  treaty 
which  secures  us  her  trade  is  disparagingly  ac- 
knowledged with  the  contemptuous  prefix  of 
mere ! — a  mere  commercial  treaty.  So  styles 
it  the  appeal  message.  Now  let  us  look  to  this 
commerce  with  our  nearest  neighbor,  depre- 
ciated and  repudiated  by  our  President :  let  us 
see  its  origin,  progress,  and  present  state.  Be- 
fore the  independence  of  Mexico,  that  empire  of 
mines  had  no  foreign  trade :  the  mother  country 
monopolized  the  whole.  It  was  the  Spanish 
Hesperides,  guarded  with  more  than  the  fabu- 
lous dragon's  care.  Mexican  Independence  was 
declared  at  Iguala,  in  the  year  1821.  In  that  year 
its  trade  with  the  United  States  began,  humbly 
to  be  sure,  but  with  a  rapid  and  an  immense  de- 
velopment. In  1821,  our  exports  to  Mexico 
were  about  $100,000;  our  imports  about  the 
double  of  that  small  sum.  In  the  year  1835,  the 
year  before  the  Texian  revolution,  our  exports 
to  the  same  country  (and  that  independent  of 
Honduras,  Campeachy,  and  the  Mosquito  shore) 
amounted  to  $1.500,639 ;  and  that  of  direct 
trade,  without  counting  exportations  from  other 
countries.  Our  imports  were,  for  the  same  year, 
in  merchandise,  $5,614,819  ;  of  which  the  whole, 
except  about  $200,000  worth,  was  carried  in 
American  vessels.  Our  specie  imports,  for  the 
same  year,  were  $8,343,181.  This  was  the  state 
of  our  Mexican  trade  (and  that  without  count- 
ing the  inland  branches  of  it),  the  year  of  the 
commencement  of  the  Texian  revolution — an 
event  which  I  then  viewed,  as  my  speeches 
prove,  under  many  aspects  !  And,  with  every 
sympathy  alive  in  favor  of  the  Texians,  and 
with  the  full  view  of  their  return  to  our  Union 
after  a  successful  revolt,  I  still  wished  to  con- 
ciliate this  natural  event  with  the  great  object 
of  preserving  our  peaceful  relations,  and  with 
them  our  commercial,  political,  social,  and  moral 
position  in  regard  to  Mexico,  the  second  power 
of  the  New  World  after  ourselves,  and  the  firat 
of  the  Spanish  branch  of  the  great  American 
family." 

Political  and  social  considerations,  and  a  re- 
gard for  the  character  of  republican  govern- 
ment, were  also  urged  as  solid  reasons  for  ef- 
fecting the  annexation  of  Texas  without  an  out- 
break or  collision  with  Mexico : 

"  Mr.  President,  I  have  presented  you  consid- 
erations, founded  in  the  relations  of  commerce 


and  good  neighborhood,  for  preserving  not 
merely  peace,  but  good-will  with  Mexico.  We 
are  the  first — she  the  second  power  of  the  New 
World.  We  stand  at  the  head  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon — she  at  the  head  of  the  South-European 
race — but  we  all  come  from  the  same  branch  of 
the  human  family — the  white  branch — which, 
taking  its  rise  in  the  Caucasian  Mountains,  and 
circling  Europe  by  the  north  and  by  the  south, 
sent  their  vanguards  to  people  the  two  Ameri- 
cas— to  redeem  them  from  the  savage  and  the 
heathen,  and  to  bring  them  within  the  pale  of 
the  European  systems.  The  independence  of 
these  vanguards  from  their  metropolitan  ances- 
tors, was  in  the  natural  order  of  human  events ; 
and  the  precedence  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  branch 
in  this  assertion  of  a  natural  right,  was  the 
privilege  and  prerogative  of  their  descent  and 
education.  The  descendants  of  the  English  be- 
came independent  first ;  those  of  the  Spaniards 
followed  ;  and,  from  the  first  dawn  of  their  na- 
tional existences,  were  greeted  with  applause, 
and  saluted  with  the  affection  of  brothers. 
They,  on  their  part,  showed  a  deference  and  an 
affection  for  us  fraternal  and  affecting.  Though 
speaking  a  different  language,  professing  a  dif- 
ferent religion,  bred  in  a  different  system  of 
laws  and  of  government,  and  guarded  from  all 
communication  with  us  for  centuries,  yet  they 
instantly  took  us  for  their  model,  framed  their 
constitutions  upon  ours,  and  spread  the  great 
elements  of  old  English  liberty — elections,  legis- 
latures, juries,  habeas  corpus,  face-to-face  trials, 
no  arrests  but  on  special  warrants  ! — spread  all 
these  essentials  of  liberty  from  the  ancient  cap- 
ital of  Montezuma  to  the  end  of  the  South 
American  continent.  This  was  honorable  tc 
us,  and  we  felt  it ;  it  was  beneficial  to  them, 
and  we  wished  to  cement  the  friendship  they 
had  proffered,  and  to  perpetuate  among  them 
the  institutions  they  had  adopted.  Concilia- 
tion, arising  from  justice  and  fairness,  was  our 
only  instrument  of  persuasion ;  and  it  was  used 
by  all,  and  with  perfect  effect.  Every  admin- 
istration— all  the  people — followed  the  same 
course ;  and,  until  this  day — until  the  present 
administration — there  has  not  been  one  to  in- 
sult or  to  injure  a  new  State  of  the  South. 
Now  it  is  done.  Systematic  insult  has  been 
practised ;  spoliation  of  two  thousand  miles  of 
incontestable  territory,  over  and  above  Texas, 
has  been  attempted ;  outrage  to  the  perpetra- 
tion of  clandestine  war,  and  lying  in  wait  to 
attack  the  innocent  by  land  and  water,  has 
been  committed  :  and  on  whom  ?  The  second 
power  of  the  New  World  after  ourselves — the 
head  of  the  Spanish  branch — and  the  people  in 
whose  treatment  at  our  hands  the  rest  may 
read  their  own.  Descended  from  the  proud  and 
brave  Castilian — as  proud  and  as  brave  now  as 
in  the  time  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  when  Spain 
gave  law  to  nations,  and  threatened  Europe 
with  universal  domination — these  young  na- 
tions are  not  to  be  outraged   with  impunity. 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


G23 


Broken  and  dispersed,  the  Spanish  family  has 
lost  much  of  its  power,  but  nothing  of  its  pride, 
its  courage,  its  chivalry,  and  its  sensitiveness 
to  insult. 

"  The  head  of  the  powers  of  the  New  World 
— deferred  to  as  a  model  by  all — the  position 
of  the  United  States  was  grand,*and  its  vocation 
noble.  It  was  called  to  the  high  task  of  unit- 
ing the  American  nations  in  the  bonds  of  broth- 
erhood, and  in  the  social  and  political  systems 
which  cherish  and  sustain  liberty.  They  are 
all  republics,  and  she  the  elder  sister ;  and  it 
was  her  business  to  preserve  harmony,  friend- 
ship, and  concord  in  a  family  of  republics,  occu- 
pying the  whole  extent  of  the  New  World. 
Every  interest  connected  with  the  welfare  of 
the  human  race  required  this  duty  at  our  hands. 
Liberty,  religion,  commerce,  science,  the  liberal 
and  the  useful  arts,  all  required  it ;  and,  until 
now,  we  had  acted  up  to  the  grandeur  of  our 
position,  and  the  nobleness  of  our  vocation.  A 
sad  descent  is  now  made ;  but  the  decision  of 
the  Senate  arrests  the  plunge,  and  gives  time  to 
the  nation  to  recover  its  place,  and  its  charac- 
ter, and  again  to  appear  as  the  elder  sister,  the 
friendly  head,  and  the  model  power  of  the  cor- 
don of  republics  which  stretch  from  the  north  to 
the  south,  throughout  the  two  Americas.  The 
day  will  come  when  the  rejection  of  this  treaty 
will  stand,  uncontestedly,  amongst  the  wisest 
and  most  patriotic  acts  of  the  American 
Senate. 

"  The  bill  which  I  have  offered,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, is  the  true  way  to  obtain  Texas.  It  con- 
ciliates every  interest  at  home  and  abroad,  and 
makes  sure  of  the  accomplishment  of  its  object. 
Offence  to  Mexico,  and  consequent  loss  of  her 
trade  and  friendship,  is  provided  against.  If 
deaf  to  reason,  the  annexation  would  eventual- 
ly come  without  her  consent,  but  not  without 
having  conciliated  her  feelings  by  showing  her 
a  proper  respect.  The  treaty  only  provided  dif- 
ficulties— difficulties  at  home  and  abroad — war 
and  loss  of  trade  with  Mexico — slavery  con- 
troversies, and  dissolution  of  the  Union  at  home. 
When  the  time  came  for  admitting  new  States 
under  the  treaty,  had  it  been  ratified,  then  came 
the  tug  of  war.  The  correspondence  presented 
it  wholly  as  a  slave  question.  As  such  it  would 
be  canvassed  at  the  elections ;  and  here  numer- 
ical strength  was  against  us.  If  the  new  States 
were  not  admitted  with  slaves,  they  would  not 
come  in  at  all.  Then  Southern  States  might 
say  they  would  stand  out  with  them :  and  then 
came  the  crisis  !  So  obviously  did  the  treaty 
mode  of  acquisition,  ami  the  correspondence, 
lead  to  this  result,  that  it  may  be  assumed  to 
have  been  their  object ;  and  thus  a  near  period 
arranged  for  the  dissolution  of  our  Union.  Hap- 
pily, these  dire  consequences  are  averted,  for 
the  present ;  and  the  bill  I  have  brought  in  pro- 
vides the  way  of  obviating  them  for  ever,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  making  sure  of  the  annexa- 
tion." 


This  bill,  by  referring  the  question  of  annex- 
ation to  the  legislative  and  executive  authori 
tios  combined,  gave  the  right  turn  to  the  public 
mind,  and  led  to  the  measure  which  was  adopt- 
ed by  Congress  at  the  ensuing  session,  and 
marred  by  Mr.  Tyler's  assuming  to  execute  it 
in  the  expiring  moments  of  his  administration, 
when,  forestalling  his  successor,  he  rejected  the 
clause  for  peaceful  negotiations,  and  rushed  for- 
ward the  part  of  the  act  which,  taken  alone,  in- 
volved war  with  Mexico. 

During  the  whole  continuance  of  these  de- 
bates in  the  Senate,  the  lobbies  of  the  chamber 
were  crowded  with  speculators  in  Texas  scrip 
and  lands,  and  with  holders  of  Mexican  claims, 
all  working  for  the  ratification  of  the  treaty, 
which  would  bring  with  it  an  increase  of  value 
to  their  property,  and  war  with  Mexico,  to  be 
followed  by  a  treaty  providing  for  their  de- 
mands. They  also  infested  the  Department  of 
State,  the  presidential  mansion,  all  the  public 
places,  and  kept  the  newspapers  in  their  interest 
filled  with  abuse  and  false  accusations  against 
the  senators  who  stood  between  themselves 
and  their  prey.  They  were  countenanced  by 
the  politicians  whose  objects  were  purely  politi- 
cal in  getting  Texas,  as  well  as  by  those  who 
were  in  sympathy  or  complicity  with  their 
schemes.  Persons  employed  by  the  govern- 
ment were  known  to  be  in  the  ranks  of  these 
speculators  ;  and,  to  uncover  them  to  the  pub- 
lic, Mr.  Benton  submitted  this  resolution : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Affairs  be  instructed  to  inquire  whether  any 
provisions  are  necessary  in  providing  for  the 
annexation  of  Texas,  to  protect  the  United 
States  from  speculating  operations  in  Texas 
lands  or  scrip,  and  whether  any  persons  em- 
ployed by  the  government  are  connected  with 
such  speculations." 

The  resolve  was  not  adopted,  as  it  was  well 
foreseen  would  be  the  case,  there  being  always, 
in  every  public  body,  a  large  infusion  of  gentle 
tempered  men,  averse  to  any  strong  measure, 
and  who  usually  cast  the  balance  between  con- 
tending parties.  The  motion,  however,  had  the 
effect  of  fixing  public  attention  the  more  ear- 
nestly upon  these  operators ;  and  its  fate  did 
not  prevent  the  mover  from  offering  other  re- 
solves of  a  kindred  character.  It  had  been  well 
known  that  Mr.  Calhoun's  letter  of  slave  sta- 
tistics to  Mr.  Pakenham,  as  a  cause  for  making 


624 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  treaty  of  annexation,  had  been  written  after 
the  treaty  had  been  concluded  and  signed  by 
the  negotiators ;  and  this  fact  was  clearly  de- 
ducible  from  the  whole  proceeding,  as  well  as 
otherwise  known  to  some.  There  was  enough 
to  satisfy  close  observers ;  but  the  mass  want 
the  proof,  or  an  offer  to  prove ;  and  for  their 
benefit,  Mr.  Benton  moved : 

"  Also,  that  said  committee  be  instructed  to 
inquire  whether  the  Texas  treaty  was  com- 
menced or  agreed  upon  before  the  receipt  of 
Lord  Aberdeen's  despatch  of  December  26, 1843, 
to  Mr.  Pakenham,  communicated  to  our  govern- 
ment in  February,  1844." 

This  motion  shared  the  fate  of  the  former ; 
but  did  not  prevent  a  similar  movement  on 
another  point.  It  will  be  remembered  that  this 
sudden  commencement  in  the  summer  of  1843, 
was  motived  exclusively  upon  the  communica- 
tion of  a  British  abolition  plot  in  Texas,  con- 
tained in  a  private  letter  from  a  citizen  of  Mary- 
land in  London,  an  "  extract "  from  which  had 
been  sent  to  the  Senate  to  justify  the  '''■self- 
defence  "  measures  in  the  immediate  annexation 
of  Texas.  The  writer  of  that  letter  had  been 
ascertained,  and  it  lent  no  credit  to  the  infor- 
mation conveyed.  It  had  also  been  ascertained 
that  he  had  been  paid,  and  largely,  out  of  the 
public  Treasury,  for  that  voyage  to  London — 
which  authorized  the  belief  that  he  had  been 
sent  for  what  had  been  found.  An  extract  of 
the  letter  only  had  been  sent  to  the  Senate  :  a 
view  of  the  whole  was  desired  by  the  Senate  in 
such  an  important  case — and  was  asked  for — 
but  not  obtained.  Mr.  Upshur  was  dead,  and 
the  President,  in  his  answer,  had  supposed  it 
had  been  taken  away  among  his  private  papers 
— a  very  violent  supposition  after  the  letter  had 
been  made  the  foundation  for  a  most  important 
public  proceeding.  Even  if  so  carried,  it  should 
have  been  pursued,  and  reclaimed,  and  made 
an  archive  in  the  Department :  and  this,  not 
having  been  done  by  the  President,  was  pro- 
posed to  be  done  by  the  Senate  ;  and  this  mo- 
tion submitted : 

"  Also,  that  it  be  instructed  to  obtain,  if  pos- 
sible, the  private  letter''  from  London,  quoted 
in  Mr.  Upshur's  first  despatch  on  the  Texas  ne- 
gotiation, and  supposed  by  the  President  to 
have  been  carried  away  among  his  private  pa- 
pers ;  and  to  ascertain  the  name  of  the  writer 
of  said  letter." 


To  facilitate  all  these  inquiries  an  additional 
resolve  proposed  to  clothe  the  committee  with 
authority  to  send  for  persons  and  papers— to 
take  testimony  under  oath — and  to  extend  their 
inquiries  into  all  subjects  which  should  connect 
themselves  with  selfish,  or  criminal  motives  for 
the  acquisition  of  Texas.  And  all  these  inqui- 
ries, though  repulsed  in  the  Senate,  had  their 
effect  upon  the  public  mind,  already  well  im- 
bued with  suspicions  and  beliefs  of  sinister  pro- 
ceedings, marked  with  an  exaggerated  demon- 
stration of  zeal  for  the  public  good. 


CHAPTER    CXLIII. 

OREGON  TERRITORY:  CONVENTIONS  OF  1818  AND 
1828 :  JOINT  OCCUPATION :  ATTEMPTED  NOTICE 
TO  TERMINATE  IT. 

These  conventions  provided  for  the  joint  occu- 
pation of  the  countries  respectively  claimed  by 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  on  the 
north-west  coast  of  America — that  of  1818  lim- 
iting the  joint  occupancy  to  ten  years — that  of 
1828  extending  it  indefinitely  until  either  of  the 
two  powers  should  give  notice  to  the  other  of  a 
desire  to  terminate  it.  Such  agreements  are 
often  made  when  it  is  found  difficult  to  agree 
upon  the  duration  of  any  particular  privilege, 
or  duty.  They  are  seductive  to  the  negotiators 
because  they  postpone  an  inconvenient  ques- 
tion :  they  are  consolatory  to  each  party,  be- 
cause each  says  to  itself  it  can  get  rid  of  the 
obligation  when  it  pleases — a  consolation  al- 
ways delusive  to  one  of  the  parties :  for  the 
one  that  has  the  advantage  always  resists  the 
notice,  and  long  baffles  it,  and  often  through 
menaces  to  consider  it  as  an  unfriendly  proceed- 
ing. On  the  other  hand,  the  party  to  whom  it  is 
disadvantageous  often  sees  danger  in  change  j 
and  if  the  notice  is  to  be  given  in  a  legislative 
body,  there  will  always  be  a  large  per  centum  of 
easy  temperaments  who  are  desirous  of  avoiding 
questions,  putting  off  difficulties,  and  suffering 
the  evils  they  have  in  preference  of  flying  to 
those  they  know  not :  and  in  this  way  these 
temporary  agreements,  to  be  terminated  on  the 
notice  of  either  party,  generally  continue  longer 
than  either  party  dreamed  of  when  they  were 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


625 


made.  So  it  was  with  this  Oregon  joint  occu- 
pancy. The  first  was  for  ten  years  :  not  being 
able  to  agree  upon  ten  years  more,  the  usual  de- 
lusive resource  was  fallen  upon :  and,  under  the 
second  joint  occupation  had  already  continued  in 
operation  fourteen  years.  Western  members  of 
Congress  now  took  up  the  subject,  and  moved 
the  Senate  to  advise  the  government  to  give  the 
notice.  Mr.  Semple,  senator  from  Illinois,  pro- 
posed the  motion :  it  was  debated  many  days — 
resisted  by  many  speakers :  and  finally  defeat- 
ed. It  was  first  resisted  as  discourteous  to 
Great  Britain — then  as  offensive  to  her — then 
as  cause  of  war  on  her  side — finally,  as  actual 
war  on  our  side — and  even  as  a  conspiracy  to 
make  war.  This  latter  accusation  was  so  seri- 
ously urged  as  to  call  out  a  serious  answer  from 
one  of  the  senators  friendly  to  the  notice,  not 
so  much  in  exculpation  of  himself,  as  that  of  a 
friend  at  whom  the  imputation  was  levelled. 
In  this  sense,  Mr.  Breese,  of  Illinois,  stood  up, 
and  said : 

"His  friend  on  the  left  (Mr.  Benton)  was 
accused  of  being  at  the  head  of  a  conspiracy, 
having  no  other  object  than  the  involving  us  in 
a  war  with  Great  Britain  ;  and  it  was  said  with 
equal  truth  that  his  lever  for  moving  the  dif- 
ferent elements  was  the  northern  boundary 
question.  What  foundation  was  there  for  so 
grave  an  accusation  1  None  other  than  that  he 
had  fearlessly,  from  the  beginning,  resisted 
every  encroachment,  come  from  what  quarter 
it  might.  He  had  stemmed  the  tide  of  British 
influence,  if  any  such  there  was — he  had  ren- 
dered great  and  imperishable  services  to  the 
West,  and  the  West  was  grateful  to  him — he 
had  watched  her  interests  from  the  cradle  ;  and 
now,  when  arrived  at  maturity,  and  able  to  take 
care  of  herself,  he  boldly  stood  forth  her  advo- 
cate. If  devotion  to  his  country,  then,  made 
him  a  conspirator,  he  was  indeed  guilty." 

Upon  all  this  talk  of  war  the  commercial  in- 
terest became  seriously  alarmed,  and  looked 
upon  the  delivery  of  the  notice  as  the  signal  for 
a  disastrous  depression  in  our  foreign  trade.  In 
a  word,  the  general  uneasiness  became  so  great 
that  there  was  no  chance  for  doing  what  we  had 
a  right  to  do,  what  the  safety  of  our  territory 
required  us  to  do,  and  without  the  right  to  do 
which  the  convention  of  1828  could  not  have 
been  concluded.  The  motion  for  the  notice  was 
defeated  by  a  vote  of  28  against  18.     The  yeas 


"  Yeas — Messrs.  Allenr  Atchison,  Atherton, 
Vol.  II.— 40 


Bagby,  Benton,  Breese,  Buchanan,  Colquitt, 
Fairfield,  Fulton,  Hannegan,  King,  Semple,  Se- 
vier Sturgeon,  Walker,  Woodbury,  and  Wright 

"  Nays— Messrs.  Archer,  Barrow,  Bates,  Bay- 
ard, Berrien,  Choate,  Clayton,  Crittenden,  Day- 
ton, Evans,  Foster,  Hay  wood,  Huger,  Hunting- 
ton, Jarnagin,  Johnson,  McDuffie,  Mangum, 
Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead,  Phelps,  Rives.  Sim- 
mons, Tallmadge,  Upharn,  White,  and  Wood- 
bridge— 28." 


CHAPTER    CXLIV. 

PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION. 

Mr.  James  Knox  Polk,  and  Mr.  George  Mif- 
flin Dallas,  had  been  nominated,  as  shown,  for 
President  and  Vice-President  by  the  democratic 
convention  :  Mr.  Calhoun  had  declined  to  suffer 
his  name  to  go  before  that  election  for  reasons 
which  he  published,  and  an  attempt  to  get  up  a 
separate  convention  for  him,  entirely  failed : 
Mr.  Tyler,  who  had  a  separate  convention,  and 
received  its  unanimous  nomination,  and  thank- 
fully accepted  it,  soon  withdrew,  and  without 
having  had  a  vice-presidential  candidate  on  his 
ticket.  On  the  whig  side,  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr. 
Theodore  Frelinghuysen  were  the  candidates, 
and  the  canvass  was  conducted  without  those 
appeals  to  "hard  cider,  log-cabins,  and  coon- 
skins  "  which  had  been  so  freely  used  by  the 
whig  party  during  the  last  canvass,  and  which 
were  so  little  complimentary  to  the  popular  in- 
telligence. The  democratic  candidates  were 
elected — and  by  a  large  electoral  vote — 170  to 
105.  The  States  which  voted  the  democratic 
ticket,  were  :  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  New 
York,  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  South  Carolina, 
Georgia,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Indiana,  Illi- 
nois, Alabama,  Missouri,  Arkansas,  Michigan. 
Those  which  voted  the  opposite  ticket,  were : 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  Ver- 
mont, New  Jersey,  Delaware,  Maryland,  North 
Carolina,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Ohio.  The  pop- 
ular vote  was,  for  the  democratic  candidate, 
1,530,196:  for  the  opposite  ticket,  1,297,912. 
This  was  a  large  increase  upon  the  popular  vote 
of  1840— large  as  that  vote  was,  and  Mr.  Clay, 
though  defeated,  receiving  22,000  votes  more 
than  General  Harrison  did— affording  good  evi- 


626 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


dence  that  he  would  have  been  elected  if  he  had 
been  the  candidate  at  that  time.  The  issue  in 
the  election  was  mainly  the  party  one  of  whig 
and  democrat,  modified  by  the  tariff  and  Texas 
questions — Mr.  Clay  being  considered  the  best 
representative  of  the  former  interest,  Mr.  Polk 
of  the  latter. 

The  difference  in  the  electoral  vote  was  large 
— 65  :  in  the  popular  vote,  not  so  considerable : 
and  in  some  of  the  States  (and  in  enough  of 
them  to  have  reversed  the  issue),  the  difference 
in  favor  of  Mr.  Polk  quite  small,  and  dependent 
upon  causes  independent  of  himself  and  his 
cause.  Of  these  it  is  sufficient  to  mention  New 
York.  There  the  popular  vote  was  about  five 
hundred  thousand :  the  difference  in  favor  of 
Mr.  Polk,  about  five  thousand :  and  that  dif- 
ference was  solely  owing  to  the  association  of 
Mr.  Silas  "Wright,  with  the  canvass.  Refusing 
the  nomination  for  the  vice-presidency,  and  see- 
ing a  person  nominated  for  the  presidency  by  a 
long  intrigue  at  the  expense  of  his  friend,  Mr. 
Van  Buren,  he  suffered  himself  to  be  persuaded 
to  quit  the  Senate,  which  he  liked,  to  become 
the  democratic  candidate  for  governor  of  New 
York — a  place  to  which  he  was  absolutely 
averse.  The  two  canvasses  went  on  together, 
and  were  in  fact  one  ;  and  the  name  and  popu- 
larity of  Mr.  "Wright  brought  to  the  presiden- 
tial ticket  more  than  enough  votes  to  make  the 
majority  that  gave  the  electoral  vote  of  the 
State  to  Mr.  Polk,  but  without  being  able  to 
bring  it  up  to  his  own  vote  for  governor; 
which  was  still  five  thousand  more.  It  was  a 
great  sacrifice  of  feeling  and  of  wishes  on  his 
part  to  quit  the  Senate  to  stand  this  election — 
a  sacrifice  purely  for  the  good  of  the  cause,  and 
which  became  a  sacrifice,  in  a  more  material 
sense  for  himself  and  his  friends.  The  electoral 
vote  of  New  York  was  36,  which,  going  all  to- 
gether, and  being  taken  from  one  side  and  added 
to  the  other,  would  have  made  a  difference  of  72 
— being  seven  more  than  enough  to  have  elected 
Mr.  Clay.  Mr.  Polk  was  also  aided  by  the  with- 
drawal of  Mr.  Tyler,  and  by  receiving  the  South 
Carolina  vote  ;  both  of  which  contingencies  de- 
pended upon  causes  independent  of  his  cause, 
and  of  his  own  merits  :  but  of  this  in  another 
place.  I  write  to  show  how  things  were  done, 
more  than  what  was  done ;  and  to  save,  if  pos- 
sible, the  working  of  the  government  in  the 
hands  of  the  people,  whose  interests  and  safety 


depend  upon  its  purity,  not  upon  its  corrup- 
tions. 


CHAPTER    GXLJ. 

AMENDMENT  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION :  ELECTION 
OF  PRESIDENT  AND  VICE-PKESIDENT :  ME. 
BENTON'S  PLAN. 

Mr.  Benton  asked  the  leave  for  which  he  had 
given  notice  on  Wednesday,  to  bring  in  a  joint 
resolution  for  the  amendment  of  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  in  relation  to  the  elec- 
tion of  President  and  Vice-President,  and  pre- 
faced his  motion  with  an  exposition  of  the  prin- 
ciple and  details  of  the  amendment  which  he 
proposed  to  offer.  This  exposition,  referring  to 
a  speech  which  he  had  made  in  the  year  1824, 
and  reproducing  it  for  the  present  occasion,  can 
only  be  analyzed  in  this  brief  notice. 

Mr.  B.  said  he  found  himself  in  a  position  to 
commence  most  of  his  speeches  with  "  twenty 
years  ago  !  " — a  commencement  rather  equivo- 
cal, and  liable  to  different  interpretations  in  the 
minds  of  different  persons  ;  for,  while  he  might 
suppose  himself  to  be  displaying  sagacity  and 
foresight,  in  finding  a  medicine  for  the  cure  of 
the  present  disorders  of  the  state  in  the  reme- 
dies of  prevention  which  he  had  proposed  long 
since,  yet  others  might  understand  him  in  a 
different  character,  and  consider  him  as  belong- 
ing to  the  category  of  those  who,  in  that  long 
time,  had  learned  nothing,  and  had  forgot 
nothing.  So  it  might  be  now ;  for  he  was  en- 
deavoring to  revive  a  proposition  which  he  had 
made  exactly  twenty  years  before,  and  for  the 
revival  of  which  he  deemed  the  present  time 
eminently  propitious.  The  body  politic  was 
now  sick ;  and  the  patient,  in  his  agony,  might 
take  the  medicine  as  a  cure,  which  he  refused, 
when  well,  to  take  as  a  prevention. 

Mr.  B.  then  proceeded  to  state  the  object  and 
principle  of  his  amendment,  which  was,  to  dis- 
pense with  all  intermediate  bodies  in  the  elec- 
tion of  President  and  Vice-President,  and  to 
keep  the  election  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the 
people  ;  and  to  do  this  by  giving  them  a  direct 
vote  for  the  man  of  their  choice,  and  holding  a 
second  election  between  the  two  highest,  in  the 
event  of  a  failure  in  the  first  election  to  give  a 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


627 


majority  to  any  one.  This  was  to  do  away 
with  the  machinery  of  all  intermediate  bodies 
to  guide,  control,  or  defeat  the  popular  choice  ; 
whether  a  Congress  caucus,  or  a  national  con- 
vention, to  dictate  the  selection  of  candidates  ; 
or  a  body  of  electors  to  receive  and  deliver  their 
votes ;  or  a  House  of  Representatives  to  sanc- 
tion or  frustrate  their  choice. 

Mr.  B.  spoke  warmly  and  decidedly  in  favor 
of  the  principle  of  his  proposition,  assuming  it 
as  a  fundamental  truth  to  which  there  was  no 
exception,  that  liberty  would  be  ruined  by  pro- 
viding any  kind  of  substitute  for  popular 
election  !  asserting  that  all  elections  would  de- 
generate into  fraud  and  violence,  if  any  inter- 
mediate body  was  established  between  the 
voters  and  the  object  of  their  choice,  and  placed 
in  a  condition  to  be  able  to  control,  betray,  or 
defeat  that  choice.  This  fundamental  truth  he 
supported  upon  arguments,  drawn  from  the 
philosophy  of  government,  and  the  nature  of 
man,  and  illustrated  by  examples  taken  from 
the  history  of  all  elective  governments  which 
had  ever  existed.  He  showed  that  it  was  the 
law  of  the  few  to  disregard  the  will  of  the 
many,  when  they  got  power  into  their  hands ; 
and  that  liberty  had  been  destroyed  wherever 
intermediate  bodies  obtained  the  direction  of 
the  popular  will.  He  quoted  a  vast  number  of 
governments,  both  ancient  and  modern,  as  illus- 
trations of  this  truth  ;  and  referred  to  the  period 
of  direct  voting  in  Greece  and  in  Rome,  as  the 
grand  and  glorious  periods  of  popular  govern- 
ment, when  the  unfettered  will  of  the  people 
annually  brought  forward  the  men  of  their  own 
choice  to  administer  their  own  affairs,  and  when 
those  people  went  on  advancing  from  year  to 
year,  and  produced  every  thing  great  in  arts  and 
in  arms^— in  public  and  in  private  life — which 
then  exalted  them  to  the  skies,  and  still  makes 
them  fixed  stars  in  the  firmament  of  nations. 
He  believed  in  the  capacity  of  the  people  for 
self-government,  but  they  must  have  fair  play — 
fair  play  at  the  elections,  on  which  all  depend- 
ed; and  for  that  purpose  should  be  free  from 
the  control  of  any  intermediate,  irresponsible 
body  of  men. 

At  present  (he  said),  the  will  of  the  people 
was  liable  to  be  frustrated  in  the  election  of 
their  chief  officers  (and  that  at  no  less  than 
three  different  stages  of  the  canvass),  by  the 
intervention  of  small  bodies  of  men  between 


themselves  and  the  object  of  their  choice.    First, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  process,  in  the  nomina- 
tion or  selection   of  candidates.     A   Congress 
caucus  formerly,  and  a  national  convention  now, 
govern  and  control  that  nomination ;  and  never 
fail,  when  they  choose,  to  find  pretexts  for  sub- 
stituting their  own  will  for  that  of  the  people. 
Then  a  body  of  electors,  to  receive  and  hold  the 
electoral  votes,  and  who,  it  cannot  be  doubted, 
will  soon  be  expert  enough  to  find  reasons  for  a 
similar  substitution.     Then  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives may  come  in  at  the  conclusion,  to 
do   as  they  have  done  heretofore,  and  set  the 
will  of  the  people  at  absolute   defiance.     The 
remedy  for  all  this  is  the  direct  vote,  and  a 
second  election  between  the  two  highest,  if  the 
first  one  failed.     This  would  operate  fairly  and 
rightfully.     No  matter  how   many  candidates 
then  appeared  in  the  field.     If  any  one  obtained 
a  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  votes,  the 
popular  principle  was  satisfied  ;    the   majority 
had  prevailed,  and  acquiescence  was  the  part  of 
the  minority.     If  no  one  obtained  the  majority, 
then  the  first  election  answered  the  purpose  of 
a  nomination — a  real  nomination  by  the  people ; 
and  a  second  election  between  the  two  highest 
would  give  effect  to  the  real  will  of  the  people. 

Mr.  B.  then  exposed  the  details  of  his  pro- 
posed amendment,  as  contained  in  the  joint  reso- 
lution which  he  intended  to  offer.  The  plan  of 
election  contained  in  that  resolution,  was  the 
work  of  eminent  men — of  Mr.  Macon,  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  Mr.  Hugh  L.  White,  Mr.  Findlay,  of 
Pennsylvania,  Mr.  Dickerson,  of  New  Jersey, 
Mr.  Holmes,  Mr.  Hayne,  and  Mr.  R.  M.  John- 
son, and  was  received  with  great  favor  by  the 
Senate  and  the  country  at  the  time  it  was  re- 
ported. Subsequent  experience  should  make  it 
still  more  acceptable,  and  entitle  its  details  to  a 
careful  and  indulgent  consideration  from  the 
people,  whose  rights  and  welfare  it  is  intended 
to  preserve  and  promote. 

The  detail  of  the  plan  is  to  divide  the  States 
into  districts  ;  the  people  to  vote  direct  in  each 
district  for  the  candidate  they  prefer;  the  can- 
didate having  the  highest  vote  for  President  to 
receive  the  vote  of  the  district  for  such  office, 
and  to  count  one.  If  any  candidate  receives  the 
majority  of  the  whole  number  of  districts,  such 
person  to  be  elected ;  if  no  one  receives  such 
majority,  the  election  to  be  held  over  again  be- 
tween the  two  highest.    To  afford  time  for  these 


628 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


double  elections,  when  they  become  necessary, 
the  first  one  is  proposed  to  be  held  in  the  month 
of  August — at  a  time  to  which  many  of  the 
State  elections  now  conform,  and  to  which  all 
may  be  made  to  conform— and  to  be  held  on  the 
same  days  throughout  the  Union.  To  receive 
the  returns  of  such  elections,  the  Congress  is 
required  to  be  in  session,  on  the  years  of  such 
elections,  in  the  month  of  October ;  and  if  a 
second  election  becomes  necessary,  it  will  be 
held  in  December.  Two  days  are  proposed  for 
the  first  election,  because  most  of  the  State 
elections  continue  two  days :  one  day  alone  is 
allowed  for  the  second  election,  it  being  a  brief 
issue  between  two  candidates.  To  provide  for 
the  possibility  of  remote  and  most  improbable 
contingencies,  that  of  an  equality  of  votes  be- 
tween the  two  candidates — a  thing  which  cannot 
occur  where  the  whole  number  of  votes  is  odd, 
and  is  utterly  improbable  when  they  are  even — 
and  to  keep  the  election  from  the  House  of 
Representatives,  while  preserving  the  principle 
which  should  prevail  in  elections  by  the  House 
of  Representatives,  it  is  provided  that  the  can- 
didate, in  the  case  of  such  equality,  having  the 
majority  of  votes  in  the  majority  of  the  States, 
shall  be  the  person  elected  President.  To  pro- 
vide against  the  possibility  of  another  almost 
impossible  contingency  (that  of  more  than  two 
candidates  having  the  highest,  and,  of  course, 
the  same  number  of  votes  in  the  first  election, 
by  an  equality  of  votes  between  several),  the 
proposed  amendment  is  so  worded  as  to  let  all 
— that  is,  all  having  the  two  highest  number 
of  votes — go  before  the  people  at  the  second 
election. 

Such  are  the  details  for  the  election  of  Presi- 
dent :  they  are  the  same  for  that  of  Vice-Presi- 
dent, with  the  single  exception  that,  when  the 
first  election  should  have  been  effective  for  the 
election  of  President,  and  not  so  for  Vice-Presi- 
dent, then,  to  save  the  trouble  of  a  second  elec- 
tion for  the  secondary  office  only,  the  present 
provision  of  the  constitution  should  prevail,  and 
the  Senate  choose  between  the  two  highest. 

Having  made  this  exposition  of  the  principle 
and  of  the  details  of  the  plan  he  proposed,  Mr. 
B.  went  on  to  speak  at  large  in  favor  of  its  effi- 
cacy and  practicability  in  preserving  the  rights 
of  the  people,  maintaining  the  purity  of  elections, 
preventing  intrigue,  fraud,  and  treachery,  either 


in  guiding  or  defeating  the  choice  of  the  people ; 
and  securing  to  our  free  institutions  a  chance 
for  a  prolonged  and  virtuous  existence.- 

Mr.  B.  said  he  had  never  attended  a  nomina- 
ting caucus  or  convention,  and  never  intended 
to  attend  one.  He  had  seen  the  last  Congress 
caucus  in  1824,  and  never  wished  to  see  another, 
or  hear  of  another ;  he  had  seen  the  national 
convention  of  1844,  and  never  wished  to  see  "an- 
other. He  should  support  the  nominations  of 
the  last  convention ;  but  hoped  to  see  such  con- 
ventions rendered  unnecessary,  before  the  re- 
currence of  another  presidential  election.* 

Mr.  B.  after  an  extended  argument,  concluded 
with  an  appeal  to  the  Senate  to  favor  his  pro- 
position, and  send  it  to  the  country.  His  only 
object  at  present  was  to  lay  it  before  the  coun- 
try :  the  session  was  too  far  advanced  to  expect 
action  upon  it.  There  were  two  modes  to 
amend  the  constitution — one  by  Congress  pro- 
posing, and  two-thirds  of  the  State  legislatures 
adopting,  the  amendment ;  the  other  by  a  na- 
tional convention  called  by  Congress  for  the 
purpose.  Mr.  B.  began  with  the  first  mode :  he 
might  end  with  the  second. 

Disclaiming  every  thing  temporary  or  invidious 
in  this  attempt  to  amend  the  constitution  in  an 
important  point — referring  to  his  labors  twenty 
years  ago  for  the  elucidation  of  his  motives — 
despising  all  pursuit  after  office,  high  or  low — 
detesting  all  circumvention,  intrigue,  and  man- 
agement— anxious  to  restore  our  elections  to 
their  pristine  purity  and  dignity — and  believing 
the  whole  body  of  the  people  to  be  the  only 
safe  and  pure  authority  for  the  selection  as  well 
as  election  of  the  first  officers  of  the  republic, 
— he  confidently  submitted  his  proposition  to 
the  Senate  and  the  people,  and  asked  for  it  the 
indulgent  consideration  which  was  dtie  to  the 
gravity  and  the  magnitude  of  the  subject. 

Mr.  B.  then  offered  his  amendment,  which 
was  unanimously  received,  and  ordered  to  be 
printed. 

The  following  is  the  copy  of  this  important 
proposition : 

"Resolved  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives of  the  United  States  of  America 
in  Congress  assembled,  two-thirds  of  both 
Houses  concurring,  That  the  following  amend- 
ment to  the  constitution  of  the  United  States 
be  proposed  to  the  legislatures  of  the  several 
States,  which,  when  ratified  by  the  legislatures 


ANNO  1844.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


of  three-fourths  of  the  States,  shall  be  valid  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  as  part  of  the  consti- 
tution : 

"That,  hereafter,  the  President  and  Vice- 
President  of  the  United  States  shall  be  chosen 
by  the  people  of  the  respective  States,  in  the 
manner  following :  Each  State  shall  be  divided, 
by  the  legislature  thereof,  into  districts,  equal  in 
number  to  the  whole  number  of  senators  and 
representatives  to  which  such  State  may  be  en- 
titled in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States ;  the 
said  districts  to  be  composed  of  contiguous  ter- 
ritory, and  to  contain,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  an 
equal  number  of  persons,  entitled  to  be  repre- 
sented under  the  constitution,  and  to  be  laid  off, 
for  the  first  time,  immediately  after  the  ratifica- 
tion of  this  amendment,  and  afterwards,  at  the 
session  of  the  legislature  next  ensuing  the  ap- 
portionment of  representatives  by  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States  ;  that,  on  the  first  Thurs- 
day in  August,  in  the  year  1848,  and  on  the 
same  day  every  fourth  year  thereafter,  the  citi- 
zens of  each  State  who  possess  the  qualifications 
requisite  for  electors  of  the  most  numerous 
branch  of  the  State  legislatures,  shall  meet 
within  their  respective  districts,  and  vote  for  a 
President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States,  one  of  whom  at  least  shall  not  be  an  in- 
habitant of  the  same  State  with  themselves ; 
and  the  person  receiving  the  greatest  number  of 
votes  for  President,  and  the  one  receiving  the 
greatest  number  of  votes  for  Vice-President  in 
each  district,  shall  be  holden  to  have  received 
one  vote ;  which  fact  shall  be  immediately  cer- 
tified by  the  governor  of  the  State,  to  each  of 
the  senators  in  Congress  from  such  State,  and 
to  the  President  of  the  Senate  and  the  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  Congress 
of  the  United  States  shall  be  in  session  on  the 
second  Monday  in  October,  in  the  year  1848, 
and  on  the  same  day  on  every  fourth  year  there- 
after ;  and  the  President  of  the  Senate,  in  the 
presence  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, shall  open  all  the  certificates,  and  the 
votes  shall  then  be  counted.  The  person  hav- 
ing the  greatest  number  of  votes  for  President, 
shall  be  President,  if  such  number  be  equal  to 
a  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  votes  given ; 
but  if  no  person  have  such  majority,  then  a 
second  election  shall  be  held  on  the  first  Thurs- 
day in  the  month  of  December  then  next  ensu- 
ing, between  the  persons  having  the  two  highest 
numbers  for  the  office  of  President;  which 
second  election  shall  be  conducted,  the  result 
certified,  and  the  votes  counted,  in  the  same 
manner  as  in  the  first ;  and  the  person  having 
the  greatest  number  of  votes  for  President,  shall 
be  President.  But,  if  two  or  more  persons 
jrhall  have  received  the  greatest,  and  an  equal 
number  of  votes,  at  the  second  election,  then 
the  person  who  shall  have  received  the  greatest 
number  of  votes  in  the  greatest  number  of 
States,  shall  be  President.  The  person  having 
the  greatest  number  of  votes  for  Vice-President, 


629 


at  the  first  election,  shall  be  Vice-President,  if 
such  number  be  equal  to  a  majority  of  the 
whole  number  of  votes  given  :  and,  if  no  person 
have  such  majority,  then  a  second  election  shall. 
take  place  between  the  persons  having  the  two 
highest  numbers  on  the  same  day  that  the 
second  election  is  held  for  President ;  and  the 
person  having  the  highest  number  of  votes  for 
Vice-President,  shall  be  Vice-President.  But 
if  there  should  happen  to  be  an  equality  of 
votes  between  the  persons  so  voted  for  at  the 
second  election,  then  the  person  having  the 
greatest  number  of  votes  in  the  greatest  num- 
ber of  States,  shall  be  Vice-President.  But' 
when  a  second  election  shall  be  necessary  in  the 
case  of  Vice-President,  and  not  necessary  in  the 
case  of  President,  then  the  Senate  shall  choose 
a  Vice-President  from  the  persons  having  the 
two  highest  numbers  in  the  first  election,  as  is 
now  prescribed  in  the  constitution." 


CHAPTER    CXLVI. 

THE  PRESIDENT  AND  THE -SENATE:  WANT  OF 
CONCORD:  NUMEROUS  REJECTIONS  OF  NOM- 
INATIONS. 

Mr.  Tyler  was  without  a  party.  The  party  I 
which  elected  him  repudiated  him :  the  demo- 
cratic party  refused  to  receive  him.  His  only 
resource  was  to  form  a  Tyler  party,  at  which 
he  made  but  little  progress.  The  few  who 
joined  him  from  the  other  parties  were,  most 
of  them,  importunate  for  office;  and  whether 
successful  or  not  in  getting  through  the  Senate 
(for  all  seemed  to  get  nominations),  they  lost 
the  moral  force  which  could  aid  him.  The  in- 
cessant rejection  of  these  nominations,  and  the 
pertinacity  with  which  they  were  renewed,  pre- 
sents a  scene  of  presidential  and  senatorial  op- 
pugnation  which  had  no  parallel  up  to  that 
time,  and  of  which  there  has  been  no  example 
since.  Nominations  and  rejections  flew  back- 
wards and  forwards  as  in  a  game  of  shuttlecock 
— the  same  nomination,  in  several  instances, 
being  three  times  rejected  in  the  same  day  (as 
it  appears  on  the  journal),  but  within  the  same 
hour,  as  recollected  by  actors  in  the  scene. 
Thus :  on  the  3d  day  of  March,  1843,  Mr.  Caleb 
Cushing  having  been  nominated  to  the  Senate 
for  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  was  rejected  by  a 
vote  of  27  nays  to  19  yeasTJThe  nays  were: 
Messrs.  Allen,  Archer,  Bagby,  Barrow,  Bayard, 


J 


JLA 


630 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Benton,  Berrien,  Thomas  Clayton,  Conrad, 
Crafts,  Crittenden,  Graham,  Henderson,  Hunt- 
ingdon, Kerr,  Linn,  Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller, 
Morehead,  Phelps,  Porter,  Simmons^Smith  of 
Indiana,  Sprague,  Tappan,  White.  [This  vote 
was  taken  after  dark  in  the  night  of  the  last  day 
of  the  session.  The  President,  who  according 
to  the  custom  on  such  occasions,  attended  in  an 
ante-chamber  appropriated  to  the  Vice-President, 
immediately  sent  back  Mr.  Cushing's  name,  re- 
nominated for  the  same  office.  He  was  immedi- 
ately rejected  again  by  the  same  27  nays,  and 
with  a  diminution  of  nine  who  had  voted  for 
him.  Incontinently  the  private  secretary  of 
Mr.  Tyler  returned  with  another  re-nomination 
of  the  same  citizen  for  the  same  office ;  which 
was  immediately  rejected  by  a  vote  of  29  to  2. 
The  two  senators  who  voted  for  him  on  this 
last  trial  were,  Messrs.  Robert  J.  Walker  and 
Cuthbert.  The  19  who  voted  for  the  nomina- 
tion on  the  first  trial  were :  Messrs.  Bates,  Bu- 
chanan, Calhoun,  Choate,  Cuthbert,  Evans,  Ful- 
ton, King,  McDuffie,  McRoberts,  Sevier,  Stur- 
geon, Tallmadge,  Walker,  Wilcox,  Williams, 
Woodbury,  Wright.  The  message  containing 
this  second  re-nomination  was  written  in  such 
haste  and  flurry  that  half  the  name  of  the  nom- 
inee was  left  out.  "  I  nominate  Cushing  as 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  place  of  Walter 
Forward,  resigned,"  was  the  whole  message; 
but  the  Senate  acted  upon  it  as  it  was,  without 
sending  the  message  back  for  rectification,  as 
the  rule  always  has  been  in  the  case  of  clerical 
mistakes.  These  re-nominations  by  Mr.  Tyler 
were  the  more  notable  because,  as  chairman  of 
the  committee  which  had  the  duty  of  reporting 
upon  the  nomination  of  the  United  States  Bank 
directors  in  the  time  of  the  "  war,"  as  it  was 
called  of  the  government  upon  the  bank,  he  had 
made  the  report  against  President  Jackson  on 
the  re-nomination  of  the  four  government  direc- 
tors (Messrs.  Gilpin,  Sullivan,  Wager  and  Mc- 
Eldery),  who  had  been  rejected  for  reporting  to 
the  President,  at  his  request,  the  illegal  and 
corrupt  proceedings  of  the  bank  (such  as  were 
more  fully  established  by  a  committee  of  the 
stockholders)  ;  and  also  voted  against  the  whole 
four  re-nominations. 

p'  The  same  night  Mr.  Henry  A.  Wise  under- 
went three  rejections  on  a  nomination,  and  two 
re-nominations  as  minister  plenipotentiary  and 
envoy  extraordinary  to  France.^]  The  first  rejec- 


tion was  by  a  vote  of  24  to  12 — the  second,  20 
to  8— the  third,  29  to  2.  The  two  yeas  in  this 
case  were  the  same  as  on  the  third  rejection  of 
Mr.  Cushing.  The  yeas  and  nays  in  the  first 
vote  were,  yeas:  Messrs.  Archer,  Buchanan, 
Calhoun,  Choate,  Cuthbert,  Evans,  Fulton, 
King,  McDuffie,  Sturgeon,  Tallmadge,  Walker. 
The  nays:  Messrs.  Bagby,  Barrow,  Benton, 
Berrien,  Clayton  (Thomas),  Conrad,  Crafts. 
Crittenden,  Dayton,  Graham,  Henderson,  Hunt- 
ingdon, John  Leeds  Kerr,  Mangum,  Merrick, 
Miller,  Phelps,  Porter,  Simmons,  Smith  of  Indi- 
ana, Sprague,  Tappan,  White,  Woodbridge.  Mr. 
Wise  had  been  nominated  in  the  place  of  Lewis 
Cass,  Esq.,  resigned. 

At  the  ensuing  session  a  rapid  succession  of  ( 
rejections  of  nominations  took  place.  Mr. 
George  H.  Proffit,  of  Indiana,  late  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  was  nominated  minister 
plenipotentiary  and  envoy  extraordinary  to  the 
Emperor  of  Brazil.  He  had  been  commissioned 
in  the  vacation,  and  had  sailed  upon  his  destina- 
tion, drawing  the  usual  outfit  and  quarter's 
salary,  leaving  the  principal  part  behind,  bet 
upon  the  presidential  election.  He  was  not  re- 
ceived by  the  Emperor  of  Brazil,  and  was  re- 
jected by  the  Senate.  Only  eight  members 
voted  for  his  confirmation] — Messrs.  Breese, 
Colquitt,  Fulton,  Hannegan,  King,  Semple,  Se- 
vier, Walker.  He  had  been  nominated  in  the 
place  of  William  Hunter,  Esq.,  ex-senator  from 
Rhode  Island,  recalled — a  gentleman  of  educa- 
tion, reading,  talent,  and  finished  manners  ;  and 
eminently  fit  for  his  place.  It  was  difficult  to 
see  in  Mr.  Proffit,  intended  to  supersede  him, 
any  cause  for  his  appointment  except  his  ad- 
hesion to  Mr.  Tyler. 

\Mr.  David  Henshaw,  of  Massachusetts,  had 
been  commissioned  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in 
the  recess,  in  place  of  Mr.  Upshur,  appointed 
Secretary  of  State.  He  was  rejected — only 
eight  senators  voting  for  his  nomination:  they 
were :  Messrs.  Colquitt,  Fulton,  Haywood, 
King,  Semple,  Sevier,  Walker,  Woodbury.  The 
same  fate  attended  Mr.  James  M.  Porter,  of 
Pennsylvania,  appointed  in  the  recess  Secretary 
at  War,  in  the  place  of  Mr.  John  C.  Spencer, 
resigned.  No  more  than  three  senators  voted 
for  his  confirmation — Messrs.  Haywood,  Porter 
of  Michigan,  and  Tallmadge.  Mr.  John  C. 
Spencer  himself,  nominated  an  associate  justice 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in 


ANNO  1844.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


631 


the  place  of  Smith  Thompson,  Esq.,  deceased, 
was  also  rejected— 2G  to  21  votes7\  The  nega- 
tives were:  Messrs.  Allen,  Ardler,  Atchison, 
Barrow,  Bates,  Bayard,  Benton,  Berrien,  Choate, 
Clayton,  Crittenden,  Dayton,  Evans,  Foster, 
Haywood,  Henderson,  Huntingdon,  Jarnagin, 
Mangum,  Merrick,  Miller,  Morehead,  Pearce, 
Simmons,  Tappan,  Woodbridge.— Mr.  Isaac  Hill, 
of  New  Hampshire,  was  another  subject  of  sena- 
torial rejection.  He  was  nominated  for  the 
place  of  the  chief  of  the  bureau  of  provisions 
and  clothing  of  the  Naro  Department,  to  fill  a 
vacancy  occasioned  by  the  death  of  Charles  W. 
Goldsborough,  Esq.,  and  rejected  by  a  vote  of 
25  to  11.  The  negatives  were  :  Messrs.  Allen, 
Archer,  Atchison,  Bagby,  Barrow,  Bates,  Bay- 
ard, Benton,  Berrien,  Breese,  Clayton  (Thomas), 
Crittenden,  Dayton,  Evans,  Foster,  Huntingdon, 
Jarnagin,  Mangum,  Merrick,  Morehead,  Pearce, 
Sturgeon,  Tappan,  Walker,  White.— Mr.  Cush- 
ing  was  nominated  at  the  same  session  for  min- 
ister plenipotentiary  and  envoy  extraordinary 
to  China,  the  proceedings  on  which  have  not 
been  made  public. 


CHAPTER    CXLVII. 

ME.  TYLER'S  LAST  MESSAGE  TO  CONGEESS. 

Texas  was  the  prominent  topic  of  this  message, 
and  presented  in  a  way  to  have  the  effect,  what- 
ever may  have  been  the  intent,  of  inflaming  and 
exasperating,  instead  of  soothing  and  conciliat- 
ing Mexico.  Mr.  Calhoun  was  now  the  Secre- 
tary of  State,  and  was  now  officially  what  he 
had  been  all  along  actually,  the  master  spirit  in 
all  that  related  to  Texas  annexation.  Of  the 
interests  concerned  in  the  late  attempted  nego- 
tiation, one  large  interest,  both  active  and  pow- 
erful, was  for  war  with  Mexico — not  for  the 
sake  of  the  war,  but  of  the  treaty  of  peace  which 
would  follow  it,  and  by  which  their  Texas  scrip 
and  Texas  land,  now  worth  but  little,  would 
become  of  great  value.  Neither  Mr.  Tyler  nor 
Mr.  Calhoun  were  among  these  speculators,  but 
their  most  active  supporters  were ;  and  these 
supporters  gave  the  spirit  in  which  the  Texas 
movement  was  conducted ;  and  in  this  spirit 
the  message,  in  all  that  related  to  the  point,  was 
conceived.     The  imperious  notification  given  at 


the  last  session  to  cease  the  war,  was  repeated, 
with  equal  arrogance,  and  with  an  intimation 
that  the  United  States  would  come  to  the  aid 
of  Texas,  if  it  went  on.    Thus  : 

"In  my  last  annual  message,  I  felt  it  to  1* 
my  duty  to  make  known  to  Congress,  in  terms 
both  plain  and  emphatic,  my  opinion  in  regard 
to  the  war  which  has  so  long  existed  between 
Mexico  and  Texas  ;  and  which,  since  the  battle 
of  San  Jacinto,  has  consisted  altogether  of  pre- 
datory incursions,  attended  by  circumstances 
revolting  to  humanity.  I  repeat  now,  what  I 
then  said,  that,  after  eight  years  of  feeble  and 
ineffectual  efforts  to  recover  Texas,  it  was  time 
that  the  war  should  have  ceased." 

This  was  not  the  language  for  one  nation  to 
hold  towards  another,  nor  would  such  have  been 
held  towards  Mexico,  except  from  her  inability 
to  help  herself,  and  our  desire  to  get  a  chance 
to  make  a  treaty  of  acquisitions  with  her.     The 
message  goes  on  to  say,  "Mexico  has  no  right 
to  jeopard  the  peace  of  the  world,  by  urging 
any  longer  a  useless  and  fruitless  contest." 
Very  imperious  language  that,  but  entirely  un- 
founded in  the  facts.     Hostilities  had  ceased  be- 
tween Mexico  and  Texas  upon  an  armistice  un- 
der the  guarantee  of  the  great  powers,  and  peace 
with  Mexico  was  immediate  and  certain  when 
Mr.  Tyler's  government  effected  the  breach  and 
termination  of  the  armistice  by  the  Texas  nego- 
tiations,  and  by  lending   detachments   of  the 
army  and  navy  to  President  Houston,  to  assist 
in  the  protection  of  Texas.     This  interposition, 
and  by  the   lawless  and  clandestine   loan  of 
troops  and  ships,  to  procure  a  rupture  of  the 
armistice,  and  prevent  the  peace  which  Mexico 
and  Texas  were  on  the  point  of  making,  was  one 
of  the  most  revolting  circumstances  in  all  this 
Texas  intrigue.     Thus  presenting  a  defiant  as- 
pect to  Mexico,  the  President  recommended  tho 
admission  of  Texas  into  the  Union  upon  an  act 
of  Congress,  to  be  passed  for  that  purpose,  and 
under  the  clause  in  the  constitution  which  au- 
thorizes Congress  to  admit  new  States.     Tims, 
a  great  constitutional  point  was  gained  by  those 
who  had  opposed  and  defeated  the  annexation 
treaty.    By  that  mode  of  annexation  the  treaty- 
making  power— the  President  and  Senate — 
made  the  acquisition :  by  the  mode  now  recom- 
mended the  legislative  authority  was  to  do  it 

The  remainder  of  the  message  presents  noth- 
ing to  be  noted,  except  the  congratulations  of 
the  President  upon  the  restoration  of  the  federal 


632 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


currency  to  what  he  called  a  sound  state,  but 
which  was,  in  fact,  a  solid  state — for  it  had  be- 
come gold  and  silver ;  and  his  equal  felicita- 
tions upon  the  equalization  of  the  exchanges 
(which  had  never  been  unequal  between  those 
who  had  money  to  exchange),  saying  that  ex- 
change was  now  only  the  difference  of  the  ex- 
pense of  transporting  gold.  That  had  been  the 
case  always  with  those  who  had  gold ;  and  what 
had  been  called  inequalities  of  exchange  before, 
was  nothing  but  the  different  degrees  of  the 
depreciation  of  different  bank  notes.  But  what 
the  President  did  not  note,  but  which  all  others 
observed,  was  the  obvious  fact,  that  this  resto- 
ration and  equalization  were  attained  without 
any  of  the  remedies  which  he  had  been  prescrib- 
ing for  four  years  !  without  any  of  those  Fiscal 
Institutes— Fiscal  Corporations — Fiscal  Agents 
— or  Fiscal  Exchequers,  which  he  had  been  pre- 
scribing for  four  years.  It  was  the  effect  of  the 
gold  bill,  and  of  the  Independent  Treasury,  and 
the  cessation  of  all  attempts  to  make  a  national 
currency  of  paper  money. 


CHAPTER    CXLVIII. 

LEGISLATIVE  ADMISSION    OF    TEXAS    INTO   THE 
UNION  AS  A  STATE. 

A  joint  resolution  was  early  brought  into  the 
House  of  Representatives  for  the  admission  of 
Texas  as  a  State  of  the  Union.  It  was  in  these 
words: 

;( That  Congress  doth  consent  that  the  terri- 
tory properly  included  within,  and  rightfully 
belonging  to  the  republic  of  Texas,  may  be 
erected  into  a  new  State,  to  be  called  the  State 
of  Texas,  with  a  republican  form  of  government, 
to  be  adopted  by  the  people  of  said  republic, 
by  deputies  in  convention  assembled,  with  the 
consent  of  the  existing  government,  in  order  that 
the  same  may  be  admitted  as  one  of  the  States 
of  this  Union.  And,  that  the  foregoing  consent 
of  Congress  is  given  upon  the  following  condi- 
tions, and  with  the  following  guarantees : 

"  First.  Said  State  to  be  formed,  subject  to 
the  adjustment  by  this  government  of  all  ques- 
tions of  boundary  that  may  arise  with  other 
governments;  and  the  constitution  thereof, 
with  the  proper  evidence  of  its  adoption  by  the 
people  of  said  republic  of  Texas,  shall  be  trans- 
mitted to  the  President  of  the  United  States, 


to  be  laid  before  Congress  for  its  final  action, 
on  or  before  the  1st  day  of  January,  1846. 

"  Second.  Said  State,  when  admitted  into  the 
Union,  after  ceding  to  the  United  States  all 
public  edifices,  fortifications,  barracks,  ports  and 
harbors,  navy  and  navy-yards,  docks,  magazines, 
arms,  armaments,  and  all  other  property  and 
means  pertaining  to  the  public  defence  belong- 
ing to  said  republic  of  Texas,  shall  retain  all 
the  public  funds,  debts,  taxes,  and  dues  of  every 
kind  which  may  belong  to,  or  be  due  and  owing 
said  republic;  and  shall  also  retain  all  the 
vacant  and  unappropriated  lands  lying  within 
its  limits,  to  be  applied  to  the  payment  of  the 
debts  and  liabilities  o%said  republic  of  Texas; 
and  the  residue  of  said  lands,  after  discharging 
said  debts  and  liabilities,  to  be  disposed  of  as 
said  State  may  direct ;  but  in  no  event  are  said 
debts  and  liabilities  to  become  a  charge  upon 
the  government  of  the  United  States. 

"  Third.  New  States,  of  convenient  size,  not 
exceeding  four  in  number,  in  addition  to  said 
State  of  Texas,  and  having  sufficient  popula- 
tion, may  hereafter  by  the  consent  of  said  State, 
be  formed  out  of  the  territory  thereof,  which 
shall  be  entitled  to  admission  under  the  pro- 
visions of  the  federal  constitution.  And  such 
States  as  may  be  formed  out  of  that  portion  of 
said  territory  lying  south  of  thirty-six  degrees 
thirty  minutes  north  latitude,  commonly  known 
as  the  Missouri  compromise  line,  shall  be  ad- 
mitted into  the  Union,  with  or  without  slavery, 
as  the  people  of  each  State  asking  admission 
may  desire ;  and  in  such  State  or  States  as  shall 
be  formed  out  of  said  territory  north  of  said 
Missouri  compromise  line,  slavery  or  involun- 
tary servitude  (except  for  crime)  shall  be  pro- 
hibited." 

To  understand  the  third,  and  last  clause 
of  this  resolve,  it  must  be  recollected  that  the 
boundaries  of  Texas,  by  the  treaty  of  1819, 
which  retroceded  that  province  to  Spain,  were 
extended  north  across  the  Red  River,  and  en- 
tirely to  the  Arkansas  River ;  and  following 
that  river  up  to  the  37th,  the  38  th,  and  eventu- 
ally to  the  42d  degree  of  north  latitude ;  so  that 
all  this  part  of  the  territory  lying  north  of  36 
degrees  30  minutes,  came  within  the  terms  of 
the  Missouri  compromise  line  prohibiting  slavery 
north  of  that  line.  Here  then  was  an  anomaly 
— slave  territory,  and  free  territory  within  the 
same  State ;  and  it  became  the  duty  of  Congress 
to  provide  for  each  accordingly :  and  it  was  done. 
The  territory  lying  south  of  that  compromise 
line  might  become  free  or  slave  States  as  the 
inhabitants  should  decide:  the  States  to  be 
formed  out  of  the  territory  north  of  it  were  to 
be  bound  by  the  compromise :  and  lest  any 
question  should  arise  on  that  point  in  conse- 


ANNO  1845.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


633 


quencc  of  Texas  having  been  under  a  foreign 
dominion  since  the  line  was  established,  it  was 
expressly  re-enacted  by  this  clause  of  the  reso- 
lution, and  in  the  precise  words  of  the  Missouri 
compromise  act.  Thus  framed,  and  made  clear 
in  its  provisions  in  respect  to  slavery,  the  reso- 
lutions, after  ample  discussion,  were  passed 
through  the  House  by  a  good  majority — 120  to 
97.     The  affirmatives  were : 

"Archibald  II.  Arrington,  John  B.  Ashe, 
Archibald  Atkinson,  Thomas  II.  Bayly,  James 

E.  Belser,  Benjamin  A.  Bidlack,  Edward  J. 
Black,  James  Black,  James  A.  Black,  Julius 
W.  Blackwell,  Gustavus  M.  Bower,  James  B. 
Bowlin,  Linn  Boyd,  Richard  Brodhead,  Aaron 
V.  Brown,  Milton  Brown,  William  J.  Brown, 
Edmund  Burke,  Armistead  Burt,  George  Alfred 
Caldwell,  John  Campbell,  Shepherd  Carey,  Reu- 
ben Chapman,  Augustus  A.  Chapman,  Absalom 
H.  Chappell,  Duncan  L.  Clinch,  James  G.  Clinton. 
Howell  Cobb,  Walter  Coles,  Edward  Cross,  Alvan 
Cullom,  John  R.  J.  Daniel,  John  W.  Davis,  John 
B.  Dawson,  Ezra  Dean,  James  Dellet,  Stephen  A. 
Douglass,  George  C.  Dromgool,  Alexander  Dun- 
can, Chesselden  Ellis.  Isaac  G.  Farlee,  Orlando 
B.  Ficklin,  Henry  D.  Foster,  Richard  French, 
George  Fuller,  William  II.  Hammett,  Hugh  A. 
Haralson,  Samuel  Hays,  Thomas  J.  Henley, 
Isaac  E.  Holmes,  Joseph  P.  Hoge,  George  W. 
Hopkins,  George  S.  Houston,  Edmund  W.  Hu- 
bard,  William  S.  Hubbell,  James  M.  Hughes, 
Charles  J.  Ingersoll,  John  Jameson,  Cave  John- 
son, Andrew  Johnson,  George  W.  Jones.  An- 
drew Kennedy,  Littleton  Kirkpatrick,  Alcee  La- 
branche,  Moses  G.  Leonard,  William  Lucas, 
John  II.  Lumpkin,  Lucius  Lyon,  William  C. 
McCauslen,  William  B.  Maclay,  John  A.  Mc- 
Clernand,  Felix  G.  McConnel,  Joseph  J.  Mc- 
Dowell, James  J.  McKay,  James  Mathews, 
Joseph  Morris,  Isaac  E.  Morse,  Henry  C.  Mur- 
phy, Willoughby  Newton,  Moses  Norris,  jr., 
Robert  Dale  Owen,  William  Parmenter,  Wil- 
liam W.  Payne,  John  Pettit,  Joseph  H.  Peyton, 
Emery  D.  Potter,  Zadock  Pratt,  David  S.  Reid, 
James  H.  Relfe,  R.  Barnwell  Rhett,  John  Hit- 
ter, Robert  W.  Roberts,  Jeremiah  Russell, 
Romulus  M.  Saunders,  William  T.  Senter, 
Thomas  II.  Seymour,  Samuel  Simons,  Richard 

F.  Simpson,  John  Slidell,  John  T.  Smith, 
Thomas  Smith,  Robert  Smith,  Lewis  Steenrod, 
Alexander  II.  Stephens,  John  Stewart,  William 
H.  Styles,  James  W.  Stone,  Alfred  P.  Stone, 
Selah  B.  Strong,  George  Sykes.  William  Taylor, 
Jacob  Thomson,  John  W.  Tibbatts,  Tilghman 
M.  Tucker,  John  B.  Weller,  John  Wentworth, 
Joseph  A.  Woodward,  Joseph  A.  Wright,  Wil- 
liam L.  Yancey,  Jacob  S.  Yost." 

Members  from  the  slave  and  free  States  voted 
for  these  resolutions,  and  thereby  asserted  the 
right  of  Congress  to  legislate  upon  slavery  in 


territories,  and  to  prohibit  or  prevent  it  as  they 
pleased,  and  also  exercised  the  right  each  way 
—forbidding  it  one  side  of  a  line,  and  leaving  it 
optional  with  the  State  on  the  other— and  not 
only  acknowledging  the  validity  of  the  Missouri 
compromise  line,  but  enforcing  it  by  a  new 
enactment;  and  without  this  enactment  every 
one  saw  that  the  slavery  institution  would  come 
to  the  Arkansas  River  in  latitude  37,  and  38, 
and  even  42.  The  vote  was,  therefore,  an  abo- 
lition of  the  institution  legally  existing  between 
these  two  lines,  and  done  in  the  formal  and 
sacred  manner  of  a  compact  with  a  foreign 
State,  as  a  condition  of  its  admission  into  the 
Union.  One  hundred  and  twenty  members  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  voted  in  favor  of 
these  resolutions,  and  thereby  both  asserted, 
and  exercised  the  power  of  Congress  to  legislate 
upon  slavery  in  territories,  and  to  abolish  it 
therein  when  it  pleased :  of  the  97  voting  against 
the  resolution,  not  one  did  so  from  any  objection 
to  that  power.  The  resolutions  came  down  from 
the  Department  of  State,  and  corresponded  with 
the  recommendation  in  the  President's  message. 
Sent  to  the  Senate  for  its  concurrence,  this 
joint  resolution  found  a  leading  friend  in  the 
person  of  Mr.  Buchanan,  who  was  delighted 
with  every  part  of  it,  and  especially  the  re- 
enactment  of  the  Missouri  compromise  line  in 
the  part  where  it  might  otherwise  have  been 
invalidated  by  the  Texian  laws  and  constitu- 
tion, and  which  thus  extinguished  for  ever  the 
slavery  question  in  the  United  States.  In  this 
sense  he  said : 

"  He  was  pleased  with  it,  again,  because  it 
settled  the  question  of  slavery.  These  resolu- 
tions went  to  re-establish  the  Missouri  com- 
promise, by  fixing  a  line  within  which  slavery 
was  to  be  in  future  confined.  That  controversy 
had  nearly  shaken  this  Union  to  its  centre  in 
an  earlier  and  better  period  of  our  history  ;  hut 
this  compromise,  should  it  be  now  re-established, 
would  prevent  the  recurrence  of  similar  dangers 
hereafter.  Should  this  question  be  now  left 
open  for  one  or  two  years,  the  country  could 
be  involved  in  nothing  but  one  penwtual  strug- 
gle. We  should  witness  a  feverish  excitement 
in  the  public  mind  ;  parties  would  divide  on  the 
dangerous  and  exciting  question  of  abolition ; 
and  the  irritation  might  reach  such  an  extreme 
as  to  endanger  the  existence  of  the  Union  itself. 
But  close  it  now,  and  it  would  be  closed  for 
ever. 

"  Mr.  B.  said  he  anticipated  no  time  when  the 
country  would  ever  desire  to  stretch  its  limits 


634 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


beyond  the  Rio  del  Norte ;  and,  such  being  the 
case,  ought  any  friend  of  the  Union  to  desire  to 
see  this  question  left  open  any  longer  ?  Was 
it  desirable  again  to  have  the  Missouri  question 
brought  home  to  the  people  to  goad  them  to 
fury?  That  question  between  the  two  great 
interests  in  our  country  had  been  well  discussed 
and  well  decided ;  and  from  that  moment  Mr. 
B.  had  set  down  his  foot  on  the  solid  ground 
then  established,  and  there  he  would  let  the 
question  stand  for  ever.  Who  could  complain 
of  the  terms  of  that  compromise  ? 

"It  was  then  settled  that  north  of  36°  30' 
slavery  should  be  for  ever  prohibited.  The  same 
lino  was  fixed  upon  in  the  resolutions  recently 
received  from  the  House  of  Representatives,  now 
before  us.  The  bill  from  the  House  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  territorial  government  in  Ore- 
gon excluded  slavery  altogether  from  that  vast 
country.  How  vain  were  the  fears  entertained 
in  some  quarters  of  the  country  that  the  slave- 
holding  States  would  ever  be  able  to  control  the 
Union !  While,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fears 
entertained  in  the  south  and  south-west  as  to 
the  ultimate  success  of  the  abolitionists,  were 
not  less  unfounded  and  vain.  South  of  the 
compromise  line  of  3G°  30'  the  States  within  the 
limits  of  Texas  applying  to  come  into  the  Union 
were  left  to  decide  for  themselves  whether  they 
would  permit  slavery  within  their  limits  or  not. 
And  under  this  free  permission,  he  believed, 
with  Mr.  Clay  (in  his  letter  on  the  subject  of 
annexation),  that  if  Texas  should  be  divided 
into  five  States,  two  only  of  them  would  be 
slaveholding,  and  three  free  States.  The  de- 
scendants of  torrid  Africa  delighted  in  the 
meridian  rays  of  a  burning  sun ;  they  basked 
and  rejoiced  in  a  degree  of  heat  which  enervated 
and  would  destroy  the  white  man.  The  low- 
lands of  Texas,  therefore,  where  they  raised 
cotton,  tobacco,  and  rice,  and  indigo,  was  the 
natural  region  for  the  slave.  But  north  of  San 
Antonio,  where  the  soil  and  climate  were  adapted 
to  the  culture  of  wheat,  rye,  corn,  and  cattle,  the 
climate  was  exactly  adapted  to  the  white  man 
of  the  North ;  there  he  could  labor  for  himself 
without  risk  or  injury.  It  was,  therefore,  to  be 
expected  that  three  out  of  the  five  new  Texian 
States  would  be  free  States — certainly  they 
would  be  so,  if  they  but  willed  it.  Mr.  B. 
was  willing  to  leave  that  question  to  themselves, 
as  they  applied  for  admission  into  the  Union. 
He  had  no  apprehensions  of  the  result.  With 
that  feature  in  the  bill,  as  it  came  from  the 
House,  he  was  perfectly  content ;  and/whatever 
bill  might  ultimately  pass,  he  trusted  this  would 
be  made  a  condition  in  it." 

It  was  in  the  last  days  of  his  senatorial  ser- 
vice that  Mr.  Buchanan  crowned  his  long  devo- 
tion to  the  Missouri  compromise  by  celebrating 
its  re-enactment  where  it  had  been  abrogated, 
taking  a  stand  upon  it  as  the  solid  ground  on 


which  the  Union  rested,  and  invoking  a  perpe- 
tuity of  duration  for  it. 

This  resolution,  thus  adopted  by  the  House, 
would  make  the  admission  a  legislative  act.  but 
in  the  opinion  of  many  members  of  the  Senate 
that  was  only  a  step  in  the  right  direction :  an- 
other in  their  opinion  required  to  be  taken :  and 
that  was  to  combine  the  treaty-making  power 
with  it — the  Congress  taking  the  initiative  in 
the  question,  and  the  President  and  Senate 
finishing  it  by  treaty,  as  done  in  the  case  of 
Louisiana  and  Florida.  With  this  view  Mr. 
Benton  had  brought  in  a  bill  for  commissioners 
to  treat  for  annexation,  and  so  worded  as  to 
authorize  negotiations  with  Mexico  at  the  same 
time,  and  get  her  acquiescence  to  the  alienation 
in  the  settlement  of  boundaries  with  her.  His 
bill  was  in  these  terms : 

"  That  a  State,  to  be  formed  out  of  the  pre- 
sent republic  of  Texas,  with  suitable  extent  and 
boundaries,  and  with  two  representatives  in 
Congress  until  the  next  apportionment  of  repre- 
sentation, shall  be  admitted  into  the  Union  by 
virtue  of  this  act,  on  an  equal  footing  with  the 
existing  States,  as  soon  as  the  terms  and  condi- 
tions of  such  admission,  and  the  cession  of  the 
remaining  Texian  territory  to  the  United  States 
shall  be  agreed  upon  by  the  government  of 
Texas  and  the  United  States. 

"Sec.  2.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That 
the  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  be, 
and  the  same  is  hereby  appropriated,  to  defray 
the  expenses  of  missions  and  negotiations  to 
agree  upon  the  terms  of  said  admission  and  ces- 
sion, either  by  treaty,  to  be  submitted  to  the 
Senate,  or  by  articles  to  be  submitted  to  the 
two  Houses  of  Congress,  as  the  President  may 
direct." 

In  support  of  this  bill,  Mr.  Benton  said : 

"It  was  a  copy,  substantially,  of  the  bill 
which  he  had  previously  offered,  with  the 
omission  of  all  the  terms  and  conditions  which 
that  bill  contained.  He  had  been  induced  to 
omit  all  these  conditions  because  of  the  diffi- 
culty of  agreeing  upon  them,  and  because  it  was 
now  clear  that  whatever  bill  was  passed  upon 
the  subject  of  Texas,  the  execution  of  it  must  de- 
volve upon  the  new  President,  who  had  been  just 
elected  by  the  people  with  a  view  to  this  object. 
He  had  confidence  in  Mr.  Polk,  and  was  willing 
to  trust  the  question  of  terms  and  conditions  to 
his  untrammelled  discretion,  certain  that  he 
would  do  the  best  that  he  could  for  the  success 
of  the  object,  the  harmony  of  the  Union,  and 
the  peace  and  honor  of  the  country. 

"  The  occasion  is  an  extraordinary  one,  and 
requires  an  extraordinary  mission.  The  volun- 
tary union  of  two  independent  nations  is  a  rare 


ANNO  1845.    JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


G35 


occurrence,  and  is  worthy  to  be  attended  by 
every  circumstance  which  lends  it  dignity,  pro- 
motes its  success,  and  makes  it  satisfactory. 
When  England  and  Scotland  were  united,  at  the 
commencement  of  the  last  century,  no  less  than 
thirty-one  commissioners  were  employed  to 
agree  upon  the  terms;  and  the  terms  they 
agreed  upon  received  the  sanction  of  the  Parlia- 
ments of  the  two  kingdoms,  and  completed  a 
union  which  had  been  in  vain  attempted  for  one 
hundred  years.  Extraordinary  missions,  na- 
tionally constituted,  have  several  times  been  re- 
sorted to  in  our  own  country,  and  always  with 
public  approbation,  whether  successful  or  not. 
The  first  Mr.  Adams  sent  Marshall,  Gerry,  and 
Pinckney  to  the  French  directory  in  1798  :  Mr. 
Jefferson  sent  Ellsworth,  Davie,  and  Murray  to 
the  French  consular  government  of  1800:  Mr. 
Madison  sent  Adams,  Bayard,  Gallatin,  Clay, 
and  Russell  to  Ghent  in  1814.  All  these  mis- 
sions, and  others  which  might  be  named,  were 
nationally  constituted — composed  of  eminent 
citizens  taken  from  each  political  party,  and  from 
different  sections  of  the  Union ;  and,  of  course, 
all  favorable  to  the  object  for  which  they  were 
employed.  An  occasion  has  occurred  which,  in 
my  opinion,  requires  a  mission  similarly  consti- 
tuted— as  numerous  as  the  missions  to  Paris  or 
to  Ghent — and  composed  of  citizens  from  both 
political  parties,  and  from  the  non-slaveholding 
as  well  as  the  slaveholding  States.  Such  a  com- 
mission could  hardly  fail  to  be  successful,  not 
merely  in  agreeing  upon  the  terms  of  the  union, 
but  in  agreeing  upon  terms  which  would  be  sat- 
isfactory to  the  people  and  the  governments  of 
the  two  countries.  And  here,  to  avoid  misap- 
prehension and  the  appearance  of  disrespect 
where  the  contrary  is  felt,  I  would  say  that  the 
gentleman  now  in  Texas  as  the  charge  of  the 
United  States,  is,  in  my  opinion,  eminently  fit 
and  proper  to  be  one  of  the  envoys  extraordinary 
and  ministers  plenipotentiary  which  my  bill 
contemplates. 

"  In  withdrawing  from  my  bill  the  terms  and 
conditions  which  had  been  proposed  as  a  basis 
of  negotiation,  I  do  not  withdraw  them  from 
the  consideration  of  those  who  may  direct  the 
negotiation.  I  expect  them  to  be  considered, 
and,  as  far  as  judged  proper,  to  be  acted  on. 
The  compromise  principle  between  slave  and 
non-slaveholding  territory  is  sanctioned  by  the 
vote  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  by 
the  general  voice  of  the  country.  In  withdraw- 
ing it  from  the  bill,  I  do  not  withdraw  it  from 
the  consideration  of  the  President:  I  only  leave 
him  free  and  untrammelled  to  do  the  best  he 
can  for  the  harmony  of  the  Union  on  a  delicate 
and  embarrassing  point. 

"  The  assent  of  Mexico  to  the  annexation  is 
judged  to  be  unnecessary,  but  no  one  judges  her 
assent  to  a  new  boundary  line  to  be  unneces- 
sary :  no  one  judges  it  unnecessary  to  preserve 
her  commerce  and  good  will ;  and,  therefore, 
every  consideration  of  self-interest  and  national 


policy  requires  a  fair  efTort  to  be  made  to  settle 
this  boundary  and  to  preserve  this  trade  and 
friendship ;  and  I  shall  consider  all  this  as  re- 
maining just  as  fully  in  the  mind  of  the  Presi- 
dent as  if  submitted  to  him  in  a  bill. 

"  The  bill  which  I  now  offer  is  the  same  which 
I  have  presented  heretofore,  divested  of  its  ren- 
ditions, and  committing  the  subject  to  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  President  to  accomplish  the  object 
in  the  best  way  that  he  can,  and  either  negotiate 
a  treaty  to  be  submitted  to  the  Senate,  or  to 
agree  upon  articles  of  union  to  be  submitted  to 
the  two  Houses  of  Congress.     I  deem  this  the 
best  way  of  proceeding  under  every  aspect.     It 
is  the  safest  way  ;  for  it  will  settle  all  questions 
beforehand,  and  leave  no  nest-eggs  to  hatch  fu- 
ture disputes.     It  is  the  most  speedy  way  ;  for 
commissioners  conferring  face  to  face  will  come 
to  conclusions  much  sooner  than  two  delibera- 
tive bodies  sitting  in  two  different  countries,  at 
near  two  thousand  miles  apart,  and  interchanging 
categorical  propositions  in  the  shape  of  law.     It 
is  the  most  satisfactory  way  ;  for  whatever  such 
a  commission  should  agree  upon,  would  stand 
the  best  chance  to  be  satisfactory  to  all  parts  <<f 
the  Union.     It  is  the  most  respectful  way  to 
Texas,  and  the  mode  for  which  she  has  shown 
a  decided  preference.     She  has  twice  sent  en- 
voys extraordinary  and  ministers   plenipoten- 
tiary here  to  treat  with  us ;   and   the  actual 
President,  Mr.  Jones,  has  authentically  declared 
his  willingness  to  engage  in  further  negotiations. 
Ministers  sent  to  confer  and  agree — to  consult 
and   to   harmonize — is   much   more   respectful 
than  the  transmission,  by  mail  or  messenger,  of 
an  inflexible  proposition,  in  the  shape  of  law,  to 
be  accepted  or  rejected  in  the  precise  words  in 
wdiich  we  send  it.     In  every  point  of  view,  the 
mode  wdrich  I  propose  seems  to  me  to  be  the 
best;  and  as  its  execution  will  devolve  upon  a 
President  just  elected  by  the  people  with  a  view 
to  this  subject,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  trusting 
it  to  him,  armed  with  full  power,  and  untram- 
melled with  terms  and  conditions." 

It  was  soon  ascertained  in  the  Senate,  that 
the  joint  resolution  from  the  House  could  not 
pass — that  unless  combined  with  negotiation,  it 
would  be  rejected.  Mr.  Walker,  of  Mississippi, 
then  proposed  to  join  the  two  together— the  bill 
of  Mr.  Benton  and  the  resolution  from  the 
House— with  a  clause  referring  it  to  the  discre- 
tion of  the  President  to  act  under  them  as  he 
deemed  best.  It  being  then  the  end  of  the  ses- 
sion, and  the  new  President  arrived  so  as  to  be 
ready  to  act  immediately;  and  it  being  fully 
believed  that  the  execution  of  the  bill  was  to 
be  left  to  him,  the  conjunction  was  favored  by 
the  author  of  the  bill,  and  his  friends ;  and  the 
proposal  of  Mr.  Walker  was  agreed  to.    The 


636 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


bill  was  added  as  an  amendment,  and  then  the 
whole  was  passed — although  by  a  close  vote — 
27  to  25.  The  yeas  were  :  Messrs.  Allen,  Ash- 
ley, Atchison,  Atherton,  Bagby,  Benton,  Breese, 
Buchanan,  Colquitt,  Dickinson,  Dix,  Fairfield, 
Hannegan,  Haywood,  Henderson,  Huger,  John- 
son, Lewis,  McDuffie,  Merrick,  Niles,  Semple, 
Sevier,  Sturgeon,  Tappan,  "Walker,  Woodbury, 
— 27.  The  nays  were:  Messrs.  Archer,  Bar- 
row, Bates,  Bayard,  Berrien,  Choate,  Clayton, 
Crittenden,  Dayton,  Evans,  Foster,  Francis, 
Huntington,  Jarnagin,  Mangum,  Miller,  More- 
head,  Pearce,  Phelps,  Porter,  Rives,  Simmons, 
Upham,  White,  Woodbridge — 25.  The  resolve 
of  the  House  was  thus  passed  in  the  Senate,  and 
the  validity  of  the  Missouri  compromise  was 
asserted,  and  its  re-enactment  effected  in  the 
Senate,  as  well  as  in  the  House.  But  the  amend- 
ment required  the  bill  to  go  back  to  the  House 
for  its  concurrence  in  that  particular,  which  was 
found  to  increase  the  favor  of  the  measure — an 
addition  of  thirty-six  being  added  to  the  affir- 
mative vote.  Carried  to  Mr.  Tyler  for  his  ap- 
proval, or  disapproval,  it  was  immediately  ap- 
proved by  him,  with  the  hearty  concurrence  of 
his  Secretary  of  State  (Mr.  Calhoun),  who  even 
claimed  the  passage  of  the  measure  as  a  triumph 
of  his  own.  And  so  the  executive  government, 
in  the  persons  of  the  President  and  his  cabinet, 
added  their  sanction  to  the  validity  of  the  Mis- 
souri compromise  line,  and  the  full  power  of 
Congress  which  it  exercised,  to  permit  or  abolish 
slavery  in  territories.  This  was  the  month  of 
March,  1845 — so  that  a  quarter  of  a  century  after 
the  establishment  of  that  compromise  line,  the 
dogmas  of  "  squatter  sovereignty  " — "  no  power 
in  Congress  to  legislate  upon  slavery  in  the  ter- 
ritories " — and  "  the  extension  of  slavery  to  the 
territories  by  the  self-expansion  of  the  consti- 
tution," had  not  been  invented.  The  discovery 
of  these  dogmas  was  reserved  for  a  later  period, 
and  a  more  heated  state  of  the  public  mind. 

The  bill  providing  for  the  admission  of  Texas 
had  undergone  all  its  formalities,  and  became  a 
law  on  Saturday,  the  first  day  of  March ;  the 
second  was  Sunday,  and  a  dies  nun.  Congress 
met  on  Monday  for  the  last  day  of  its  existence  ; 
and  great  was  the  astonishment  of  members  to 
hear  that  the  actual  President  had  assumed  the 
execution  of  the  act  providing  for  the  admission 
of  Texas — had  adopted  the  legislative  clause — 
and  sent  it  off  by  a  special  messenger  for  the 


adoption  of  Texas.  It  was  then  seen  that 
some  senators  had  been  cheated  out  of  their 
votes,  and  that  the  passage  of  the  act  through 
the  Senate  had  been  procured  by  a  fraud.  At 
least  five  of  the  senators  who  voted  affirma- 
tively would  have  voted  against  the  resolu- 
tions of  the  House,  if  Mr.  Benton's  bill  had  not 
been  added,  and  if  it  had  not  been  believed  that 
the  execution  of  the  act  would  be  left  to  the 
new  President,  and  that  he  would  adopt  Mr. 
Benton's.  The  possibility  of  a  contrary  course 
had  been  considered,  and,  as  it  was  believed, 
fully  guarded  against.  Several  senators  and 
some  citizens  conversed  with  Mr.  Polk,  then  in 
the  city,  and  received  his  assurance  that  he 
would  act  on  Mr.  Benton's  proposition,  and  in 
carrying  it  into  effect  would  nominate  for  the 
negotiation  a  national  commission,  composed  of 
safe  and  able  men  of  both  parties,  such  as  Mr. 
Benton  had  suggested.  Among  those  who  thus 
conversed  with  Mr.  Polk  were  two  (senator 
Tappan,  of  Ohio,  and  Francis  P.  Blair,  Esq.,  of 
Washington  City),  who  published  the  result  of 
their  conversations,  and  the  importance  of  which 
requires  to  be  stated  in  their  own  words  :  which 
is  here  done.  Mr.  Tappan,  writing  to  the  edi- 
tors of  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  says  : 

"When  the  joint  resolution  declaring  the 
terms  on  which  Congress  will  admit  Texas  into 
the  Union  as  a  State,  was  before  the  Senate,  it 
was  soon  found  that  a  number  of  the  democratic 
members  who  were  favorable  to  the  admission 
of  Texas,  would  vote  against  that  resolution. 
I  was  one  of  them.  In  this  stage  of  the  matter 
it  was  proposed,  that  instead  of  rejecting  the 
House  resolution,  we  should  amend  it  by  adding, 
as  an  alternative  proposition,  the  substance  of 
Mr.  Benton's  bill  to  obtain  Texas  by  negotiation. 
Mr.  Polk  was  in  the  city;  it  was  understood 
that  he  was  very  anxious  that  Congress  should 
act  on  the  subject  before  he  came  into  office ; 
it  was  also  understood  that  the  proposition  to 
amend  the  House  resolution  originated  with  Mr. 
Polk.  It  had  been  suggested,  that,  if  we  did  so 
amend  the  resolution,  Mr.  Calhoun  would  send 
off  the  House  resolution  to  Texas,  and  so  en- 
deavor to  forestall  the  action  of  Mr.  Polk  ;  but 
Mr.  McDuffie,  his  friend,  having  met  this  sug- 
gestion by  the  declaration  that  he  would  not 
have  the  '  audacity '  to  do  such  a  thing,  it  was 
no  more  thought  of.  One  difficulty  remained, 
and  that  was  the  danger  of  puttiDg  it  into  the 
power  of  Mr.  Polk  to  submit  the  House  resolu- 
tion to  Texas.  We  understood,  indeed,  that  he 
intended  to  submit  the  Senate  proposition  to 
that  government ;  but,  without  being  satisfied 
that  he  would  do  this,  I  would  not  vote  for  the 


ANNO  1845.     JOHN  TYLER,  PRESIDENT. 


637 


resolution,  and  it  was  well  ascertained  that, 
without  my  vote,  it  could  not  pass.  Mr.  Hay- 
wood, who  had  voted  with  me,  and  was  opposed 
to  the  House  resolution,  undertook  to  converse 
with  Mr.  Polk  on  the  subject,  and  did  so.  He 
afterwards  told  me  that  he  was  authorized  by 
Mr.  Polk  to  say  to  myself  and  other  senators, 
that,  if  we  could  pass  the  resolution  with  the 
amendment  proposed  to  be  made,  he  would  not 
use  the  House  resolution,  but  would  submit  the 
Senate  amendment  as  the  sole  proposition  to 
Texas.  Upon  this  assurance  I  voted  for  the 
amendment  moved  by  Mr.  Walker,  containing 
the  substance  of  Mr.  Benton's  bill,  and  voted 
for  the  resolution  as  it  now  stands  on  the  statute 
book." 

Mr.  Francis  P.  Blair,  in  a  letter  addressed  to 
Mr.  Tappan,  and  conversing  with  Mr.  Polk  at 
a  different  time,  gives  his  statement  to  the  same 
effect : 

"  When  the  resolution  passed  by  the  House 
of  Representatives  for  the  annexation  of  Texas 
reached  the  Senate,  it  was  ascertained  that  it 
would  fail  in  that  body.  Benton,  Bagby,  Dix, 
Haywood,  and  as  I  understood,  you  also,  were 
opposed  to  this  naked  proposition  of  annexa- 
tion, which  necessarily  brought  with  it  the  war 
in  which  Texas  was  engaged  with  Mexico.  All 
had  determined  to  adhere  to  the  bill  submitted 
by  Col.  Benton,  for  the  appointment  of  a  com- 
mission to  arrange  the  terms  of  annexation  with 
Texas,  and  to  make  the  attempt  to  render  its 
accession  to  our  Union  as  palatable  as  possible 
to  Mexico  before  its  consummation.  It  was 
hoped  that  this  point  might  be  effected  by  giving 
(as  has  been  done  in  the  late  treaty  of  peace)  a 
pecuniary  consideration,  fully  equivalent  in  value 
for  the  territory  desired  by  the  United  States, 
and  to  which  Texas  could  justly  assert  any  title. 
The  Senate  had  been  polled,  and  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  any  two  of  the  democratic  senators 
who  were  opposed  to  Brown's  resolution,  which 
had  passed  the  House,  could  defeat  it — the 
whole  whig  party  preferring  annexation  by  ne- 
gotiation, upon  Col.  Benton's  plan,  to  that  of 
Brown.  While  the  question  was  thus  pending, 
I  met  Mr.  Brown  (late  Governor  of  Tennessee, 
then  a  member  of  the  House),  who  suggested 
that  the  resolution  of  the  House,  and  the  bill  of 
Col.  Benton,  preferred  by  the  Senate,  might  be 
blended,  making  the  latter  an  alternative,  and 
leaving  the  President  elect  (who  alone  would 
have  time  to  consummate  the  measure),  to  act 
under  one  or  the  other  at  his  discretion.  I  told 
Mr.  Brown  that  I  did  not  believe  that  the 
democratic  senators  opposed  to  the  resolution 
of  the  House,  and  who  had  its  fate  in  their 
hands,  would  consent  to  this  arrangement, 
unless  they  were  satisfied  in  advance  by  Mr. 
Polk  that  the  commission  and  negotiation  con- 
templated in  Col.  Benton's  plan  would  be  tried, 
before  that  of  direct  legislative  annexation  was 


resorted  to.  He  desired  me  to  see  Colonel  Ben- 
ton and  the  friends  of  his  proposition,  submit 
the  suggestions  he  had  made,  and  then  confer 
with  Mr.  Polk  to  know  whether  he  would  meet 
their  views.  I  complied  ;  and  after  several  in- 
terviews witli  Messrs.  Haywood,  Dix,  Benton, 
and  others  (Mr.  Allen,  of  Ohio,  using  his  in- 
fluence in  the  same  direction),  finding  that  the 
two  plans  could  be  coupled  and  carried,  if  it 
were  understood  that  the  pacific  project  was 
first  to  be  tried,  I  consulted  the  President  elect 
on  the  subject.  In  the  conference  I  had  with 
him,  he  gave  me  full  assurance  that  he  would 
appoint  a  commission,  as  contemplated  in  the 
hill  prepared  by  Col.  Benton,  if  passed  in  con- 
junction with  the  House  resolution  as  an  alter- 
native. In  the  course  of  my  conversation  with 
Mr.  Polk,  I  told  him  that  the  friends  of  this 
plan  were  solicitous  that  the  commission  should 
be  filled  by  distinguished  men  of  both  parties, 
and  that  Colonel  Benton  had  mentioned  to  me 
the  names  of  Crittenden  and  Wright,  as  of  the 
class  from  which  it  should  be  formed.  Mr.  Polk 
responded,  by  declaring-  with  an  emphasis. 
'  that  the  first  men  of  the  count ry  should  fill 
the  commission?  I  communicated  the  result 
of  this  interview  to  Messrs.  Benton,  Dix,  Hay- 
wood, &c.  The  two  last  met,  on  appointment, 
to  adapt  the  phraseology  of  Benton's  bill,  to 
suit  as  an  alternative  for  the  resolution  of  the 
House,  and  it  was  passed,  after  a  very  general 
understanding  of  the  course  which  the  measure 
was  to  take.  Both  Messrs.  Dix  and  Haywood 
told  me  they  had  interviews  with  Mr.  Polk  on 
the  subject  of  the  communication  I  had  reported 
to  them  from  him,  and  they  were  confirmed  by 
his  immediate  assurance  in  pursuing  the  course 
which  they  had  resolved  on  in  consequence  of 
my  representation  of  his  purpose  in  regard  to 
the  point  on  which  their  action  depended.  After 
the  law  was  passed,  and  Mr.  Polk  inaugurated, 
he  applied  to  Gen.  Dix  (as  I  am  informed  by 
the  latter),  to  urge  the  Senate  to  act  upon  one 
of  the  suspended  cabinet  appointments,  saying 
that  he  wished  his  administration  organized 
immediately,  as  he  intended  the  instant  recall 
of  the  messenger  understood  to  have  been  des- 
patched by  Mr.  Tyler,  and  to  revoke  his  orders 
given  in  the  last  moments  of  his  power,  to 
thwart  the  design  of  Congress  in  affording  him 
(Mr.  Polk)  the  means  of  instituting  a  negotia- 
tion, with  a  view  of  bringing  Texas  peaceably 
into  the  Union." 


All  this  was  perfectly  satisfactory  with  re- 
spect to  the  President  elect ;  but  there  might 
be  some  danger  from  the  actual  President,  or 
rather,  from  Mr.  Calhoun,  his  Secretary  of  State, 
and  who  had  over  Mr.  Tyler  that  ascendant 
which  it  is  the  prerogative  of  genius  to  exercise 
over  inferior  minds.  This  danger  was  suggested 
in  debate  in  open  Senate.  It  was  repulsed  as  an 


638 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


impossible  infamy.  Such  a  cheat  upon  senators, 
and  such  an  encroachment  upon  the  rights  of  the 
new  President,  were  accounted  among  the  im- 
possibilities:  and  Mr.  McDuffie,  a  close  and 
generous  friend  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  speaking  for 
the  administration,  and  replying  to  the  sugges- 
tion that  they  might  seize  upon  the  act,  and 
execute  it  without  regard  to  the  Senate's  amend- 
ment, not  only  denied  it  for  them,  but  repulsed 
it  in  terms  which  implied  criminality  if  they 
did.  He  said  they  would  not  have  the  "  auda- 
city "  to  do  it.  Mr.  McDuffie  was  an  honorable 
man,  standing  close  to  Mr.  Calhoun;  and  al- 
though he  did  not  assume  to  speak  by  authority, 
yet  his  indignant  repulse  of  the  suggestion  was 
entirely  satisfactory,  and  left  the  misgiving 
senators  released  from  apprehension  on  account 
of  Mr.  Tyler's  possible  conduct.  Mr.  Robert 
J.  "Walker  also,  who  had  moved  the  conjunction 
of  the  two  measures,  and  who  was  confidential 
both  with  the  coming  in  and  going  out  Presi- 
dent, assisted  in  allaying  apprehension  in  the 
reason  he  gave  for  opposing  an  amendment 
offered  by  Mr.  Ephraim  H.  Foster,  of  Tennessee, 
which,  looking  to  the  President's  adoption  of 
the  negotiating  clause,  required  that  he  should 
make  a  certain  "stipulation"  in  relation  to 
slavery,  and  another  in  relation  to  the  public 
debt.  Mr.  Walker  objected  to  this  proposition, 
saying  it  was  already  in  the  bill, "  and  if  the 
President  proceeded  properly  in  the  negotia- 
tion he  would  act  upon  it."  This  seemed  to 
be  authoritative  that  negotiation  was  to  be  the 
mode,  and  consequently  that  Mr.  Benton's  plan 
was  to  be  adopted.  Thus  quieted  in  their  ap- 
prehensions, five  senators  voted  for  the  act  of 
admission,  who  would  not  otherwise  have  done 
so ;  and  any  two  of  whom  voting  against  it  would 
have  defeated  it.  Mr.  Polk  did  not  despatch 
a  messenger  to  recall  Mr.  Tyler's  envoy ;  and 
that  omission  was  the  only  point  of  complaint 
against  him.  Mr.  McDuffie  stood  exempt  from 
all  blame,  known  to  be  an  honorable  man  speak- 
ing from  a  generous  impulsion. 

Thus  was  Texas  incorporated  into  the  Union 


— by  a  deception,  and  by  deluding  five  senators 
out  of  their  votes.  It  was  not  a  barren  fraud, 
but  one  prolific  of  evil,  and  pregnant  with 
bloody  fruit.  It  established,  so  far  as  the 
United  States  was  concerned,  the  state  of  war 
with  Mexico:  it  only  wanted  the  acceptance 
of  Texas  to  make  war  the  complete  legal  con- 
dition of  the  two  countries :  and  that  tempta- 
tion to  Texas  was  too  great  to  be  resisted. 
She  desired  annexation  any  way  :  and  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  having  broken  up 
the  armistice,  and  thwarted  the  peace  prospects, 
and  brought  upon  her  the  danger  of  a  new  in 
vasion,  she  leaped  at  the  chance  of  throwing  the 
burden  of  the  war  on  the  United  States.  The 
legislative  proposition  sent  by  Mr.  Tyler  was 
accepted  :  Texas  became  incorporated  with  the 
United  States :  by  that  incorporation  the  state 
of  war — the  status  belli — was  established  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  Mexico :  and  it 
only  became  a  question  of  time  and  chance, 
when  hostilities  were  to  begin.  Mr.  Calhoun, 
though  the  master  spirit  over  Mr.  Tyler,  and 
the  active  power  in  sending  off  the  proposition 
to  Texas,  was  not  in  favor  of  war,  and  still  be- 
lieved, as  he  did  when  he  made  the  treaty,  that 
the  weakness  of  Mexico,  and  a  douceur  of  ten 
millions  in  money,  would  make  her  submit : 
but  there  was  another  interest  all  along  work- 
ing with  him,  and  now  to  supersede  him  in 
influence,  which  was  for  war,  not  as  an  object, 
but  as  a  means — as  a  means  of  getting  a  treaty 
providing  for  claims  and  indemnities,  and  terri- 
torial acquisitions.  This  interest,  long  his  ad- 
junct, now  became  independent  of  him,  and 
pushed  for  the  war ;  but  it  was  his  conduct 
that  enabled  this  party  to  act ;  and  this  point 
became  one  of  earnest  debate  between  himself 
and  Mr.  Benton  the  year  afterwards ;  in  which 
he  was  charged  as  being  the  real  author  of  the 
war;  and  in  which  Mr.  Benton's  speech  being 
entirely  historical,  becomes  a  condensed  view  of 
the  whole  Texas  annexation  question ;  and  as 
such,  is  presented  in  the  next  chapter. 


ANNO  1845.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


639 


ADMINISTRATION  OF  JAMES  K.  POLK. 


CHAPTER    CXLIX. 

THE  WAR  WITH  MEXICO:  ITS  CAUSE:  CHARGED 
ON  THE  CONDUCT  OF  MR.  CALHOUN:  MR. 
BENTON'S  SPEECH. 

Mr.  Benton:  The  senator  from  South  Caro- 
lina (Mr.  Calhoun)  has  boldly  made  the  issue 
as  to  the  authorship  of  this  war,  and  as  boldly 
thrown  the  blame  of  it  upon  the  present  admin- 
istration. On  the  contrary,  I  believe  himself 
to  be  the  author  of  it,  and  will  give  a  part  of  my 
reasons  for  believing  so.  In  saying  this,  I  do 
not  consider  the  march  to  the  Rio  Grande  to 
have  been  the  cause  of  the  war,  any  more  than 
I  consider  the  British  march  upon  Concord  and 
Lexington  to  have  been  the  cause  of  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution,  or  the  crossing  of  the  Rubicon 
by  Caesar  to  have  been  the  cause  of  the  civil 
war  in  Rome.  In  all  these  cases,  I  consider  the 
causes  of  war  as  pre-existing,  and  the  marches 
as  only  the  effect  of  these  causes.  I  consider 
the  march  upon  the  Rio  Grande  as  being  un- 
fortunate, and  certainly  should  have  advised 
against  it  if  I  had  been  consulted,  and  that 
without  the  least  fear  of  diminishing  my  influ- 
ence in  the  settlement  of  the  Oregon  question 
— a  fear  which  the  senator  from  South  Carolina 
says  prevented  him  from  interposing  to  prevent 
the  war  which  he  foresaw.  My  opinion  of  Mr. 
Polk — and  experience  in  that  very  Oregon  case 
has  confirmed  it — did  not  authorize  me  to  con- 
jecture that  any  one  would  lose  influence  with 
him  by  giving  him  honest  opinions  j  so  I  would 
have  advised  against  the  march  to  the  Rio 


Grande  if  I  had  been  consulted.  Nor  do  I  see 
how  any  opinion  adverse  to  the  President's  was 
to  have  the  effect  of  lessening  his  influence  in 
the  settlement  of  the  Oregon  question.  That 
question  was  settled  by  us,  not  by  the  Presi- 
dent. Half  the  democratic  senators  went  con- 
trary to  the  President's  opinion,  and  none  of 
them  lost  influence  with  him  on  that  account ; 
and  so  I  can  see  no  possible  connection  between 
the  facts  of  the  case  and  the  senator's  reason 
for  not  interfering  to  save  his  country  from  the 
war  which,  he  says,  he  saw.  His  reason  to  me 
is  unintelligible,  incomprehensible,  unconnccta- 
ble  with  the  facts  of  the  case.  But  the  march 
on  the  Rio  Grande  was  not  the  cause  of  the 
war ;  but  the  causes  of  this  event,  like  the 
causes  of  our  own  revolutionary  war,  were  in 
progress  long  before  hostilities  broke  out.  The 
causes  of  this  Mexican  war  were  long  anterior 
to  this  march ;  and,  in  fact,  every  circumstance 
of  war  then  existed,  except  the  actual  collision 
of  arms.  Diplomatic  intercourse  had  ceased  ; 
commerce  was  destroyed;  fleets  and  armies 
confronted  each  other ;  treaties  were  declared 
to  be  broken ;  the  contingency  had  occurred  in 
which  Mexico  had  denounced  the  existence  of 
war ;  the  incorporation  of  Texas,  with  a  Mexi- 
can war  on  her  hands,  had  produced,  in  legal 
contemplation,  the  status  belli  between  the  two 
countries :  and  all  this  had  occurred  before  the 
march  upon  the  Rio  Grande,  and  before  the 
commencement  of  this  administration,  and  had 
produced  a  state  of  things  which  it  was  impos- 
sible to  continue,  and  which  could  only  receive 
their  solution  from  arms  or  negotiation.      The 


640 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


march  to  the  Rio  Grande  brought  on  the  col- 
lision of  arms  j  but,  so  far  from  being  the  cause 
of  the  war,  it  was  itself  the  effect  of  these 
causes.  The  senator  from  South  Carolina  is 
the  author  of  those  causes,  and  therefore  the 
author  of  the  war ;  and  this  I  propose  to  show, 
at  present,  by  evidence  drawn  from  himself — 
from  his  public  official  acts — leaving  all  the  evi- 
dence derived  from  other  sources,  from  private 
and  unofficial  acts,  for  future  production,  if 
deemed  necessary. 

The  senator  from  South  Carolina,  in  his  effort 
to  throw  the  blame  of  the  war  upon  the  Presi- 
dent, goes  no  further  back  in  his  search  for 
causes  than  to  this  march  upon  the  Rio  Grande : 
upon  the  same  principle,  if  he  wrote  a  history 
of  the  American  Revolution,  he  would  begin  at 
the  march  upon  Lexington  and  Concord,  leaving 
out  of  view  the  ten  years'  work  of  Lord  North's 
administration  which  caused  that  march  to  be 
made.  No,  the  march  upon  the  Rio  Grande 
was  not  the  cause  of  the  war :  had  it  not  been 
for  pre-existing  causes,  the  arrival  of  the  Ameri- 
can army  on  the  Mexican  frontier  would  have 
been  saluted  with  military  courtesy,  according 
to  the  usage  of  all  civilized  nations,  and  with 
none  so  much  as  with  the  Spaniards.  Compli- 
mentary visits,  dinners,  and  fandangos,  balls — 
not  cannon  balls — would  have  been  the  saluta- 
tion. The  causes  of  the  war  are  long  anterior ; 
and  I  begin  with  the  beginning,  and  show  the 
senator  from  South  Carolina  an  actor  from  the 
first.  In  doing  this,  I  am  acting  in  defence  of 
the  country,  for  the  President  represents  the 
country.  The  senator  from  South  Carolina 
charges  the  war  upon  the  President :  the  whole 
opposition  follow  him:  the  bill  under  discus- 
sion is  forgotten  :  crimination  of  the  President 
is  now  the  object :  and  in  that  crimination,  the 
country  is  injured  by  being  made  to  appear  the 
aggressor  in  the  war.  This  is  my  justification 
for  defending  the  President,  and  showing  the 
truth  that  the  senator,  in  his  manner  of  acquir- 
ing Texas,  is  the  true  cause  of  the  war. 

The  cession  of  Texas  to  Spain  in  1819  is  the 
beginning  point  in  the  chain  of  causes  which 
have  led  to  this  war;  for  unless  the  country 
had  been  ceded  away,  there  could  have  been  no 
quarrel  with  any  power  in  getting  it  back.  For 
a  long  time  the  negotiator  of  that  treaty  of  ces- 
sion (Mr.  J.  Q.  Adams)  bore  all  the  blame  of 
the  loss  of  Texas ;  and  his  motives  for  giving  it 


away  were  set  down  to  hostility  to  the  South 
and  West,  and  a  desire  to  clip  the  wings  of  the 
slaveholding  States.  At  last  the  truth  of  his- 
tory has  vindicated  itself,  and  has  shown  who 
was  the  true  author  of  that  mischief  to  the 
South  and  West.  Mr.  Adams  has  made  a  pub- 
lic declaration,  which  no  one  controverts,  that 
that  cession  was  made  in  conformity  to  the  de- 
cision of  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet,  a  majority  of 
which  was  slaveholding,  and  among  them  the 
present  senator  from  South  Carolina,  and  now 
the  only  survivor  of  that  majority.  He  does 
not  contradict  the  statement  of  Mr.  Adams :  he, 
therefore,  stands  admitted  the  co-author  of  that 
mischief  to  the  South  and  West  which  the  ces- 
sion of  Texas  involved,  and  to  escape  from  which 
it  became  necessary,  in  the  opinion  of  the  sena- 
tor from  South  Carolina,  to  get  back  Texas  at 
the  expense  of  war  with  Mexico.  This  conduct 
of  the  senator  in  giving  away  Texas  when  we 
had  her,  and  then  making  war  to  get  her  back, 
is  an  enigma  which  he  has  never  yet  con- 
descended to  explain,  and  which,  until  explained, 
leaves  him  in  a  state  of  self-contradiction,  which, 
whether  it  impairs  his  own  confidence  in  him- 
self or  not,  must  have  the  effect  of  destroying 
the  confidence  of  others  in  him,  and  wholly  dis- 
qualifies him  for  the  office  of  champion  of  the 
slaveholding  States.  It  was  the  heaviest  blow 
they  had  ever  received,  and  put  an  end,  in  con- 
junction with  the  Missouri  compromise,  and 
the  permanent  location  of  the  Indians  west  of 
the  Mississippi,  to  their  future  growth  or  ex- 
tension as  slave  States  beyond  the  Mississippi. 
The  compromise,  which  was  then  in  full  pro- 
gress, and  established  at  the  next  session  of 
Congress,  cut  off  the  slave  States  from  all  terri- 
tory north  and  west  of  Missouri,  and  south  of 
thirty-six  and  a  half  degrees  of  north  latitude  : 
the  treaty  of  1819  ceded  nearly  all  south  of  that 
degree,  comprehending  not  only  all  Texas,  but 
a  large  part  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  on 
the  Red  River  and  the  Arkansas,  to  a  foreign 
power,  and  brought  a  non-slaveholding  empire 
to  the  confines  of  Louisiana  and  Arkansas :  the 
permanent  appropriation  of  the  rest  of  the  terri- 
tory for  the  abode  of  civilized  Indians  swept  the 
little  slaveholding  territory  west  of  Arkansas 
and  lying  between  the  compromise  line  and  the 
cession  line ;  and  left  the  slave  States  without 
one  inch  of  ground  for  their  future  growth. 
Nothing  was  left.    Even  the  then  territory  of 


ANNO  1845.     JAMES  K.  TOLK,  PRESIDENT. 


641 


Arkansas  was  encroached  upon.  A  breadth  of 
forty  miles  wide,  and  three  hundred  long  was 
cut  off  from  her,  and  given  to  the  Cherokees ; 
and  there  was  not  as  much  slave  territory  left 
west  of  the  Mississippi  as  a  dove  could  have 
rested  the  sole  of  her  foot  upon.  It  was  not 
merely  a  curtailment,  but  a  total  extinction  of 
slaveholding  territory ;  and  done  at  a  time  when 
the  Missouri  controversy  was  raging,  and  every 
effort  made  by  Northern  abolitionists  to  stop 
the  growth  of  slave  States.* 

I  come  now  to  the  direct  proofs  of  the  sena- 
tor's authorship  of  the  war;  and  begin  with 
the  year  183G,  and  with  the  month  of  May  of 
that  year,  and  with  the  27th  day  of  that  month, 
and  with  the  first  rumors  of  the  victory  of  San 
Jacinto.  The  Congress  of  the  United  States  was 
then  in  session :  the  senator  from  South  Carolina 
was  then  a  member  of  this  body ;  and,  without 
even  waiting  for  the  official  confirmation  of  that 
great  event,  he  proposed  at  once  the  immediate 
recognition  of  the  independence  of  Texas,  and 
her  immediate  admission  into  this  Union.  He 
put  the  two  propositions  together — recognition 
and  admission :  and  allowed  us  no  further  time 
for  the  double  vote  than  the  few  days  which 
were  to  intervene  before  the  official  intelligence 
of  the  victory  should  arrive.  Here  are  some 
extracts  from  his  speech  on  that  occasion,  and 
which  verify  what  I  say,  and  show  that  he  was 
then  ready  to  plunge  the  country  into  the  Texian 
war  with  Mexico,  without  the  slightest  regard 
to  its  treaties,  its  commerce,  its  duties,  or  its 
character. 

(The  extracts.) 

Here,  then,  is  the  proof  of  the  fact  that,  ten 
years  ago,  and  without  a  word  of  explanation 
with  Mexico,  or  any  request  from  Texas — with- 
out the  least  notice  to  the  American  people,  or 
time  for  deliberation  among  ourselves,  or  any 
regard  to  existing  commerce — he  was  for  plung- 
ing us  into  instant  war  with  Mexico.  I  say,  in- 
stant war ;  for  Mexico  and  Texas  were  then  in 
open  war ;  and  to  incorporate  Texas,  was  to  in- 

*  At  the  presidential  election  of  1824,  the  Northern  States 
voted  pretty  much  In  a  body  for  Mr.  Calhonn,  as  Vice-Presi- 
dent, giving  him  near  the  same  vote  which  they  gave  Mr. 
Adams  for  President.    Thus : 


For  Mr. 

New  Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, 
Khode  Island,    . 
Vermont, 
New  York, 

Adams.  For  Mr.  Calhoun. 
8      ...         7 

15      .    -    .        .        15 
4      .        .        .          8 
7      ...          7 

26      .                        29 

Vol  II.— 41 

corporate  the  war  at  the  same  time.  All  this 
the  senator  was  then  for.  immediately  after  his 
own  gratuitous  cession  of  Texas,  and  long  be- 
fore the  invention  of  the  London  abolition  plot 
came  so  opportunely  to  his  aid.  Promptness 
and  unanimity  were  then  his  watchwords.  Im- 
mediate action— action  before  Congress  adjourn- 
ed—was  his  demand.  No  delay.  Delays  were 
dangerous.  We  must  vote,  and  vote' unani- 
mously, and  promptly.  I  well  remember  the 
senator's  look  and  attitude  on  that  occasion — 
the  fixedness  of  his  look,  and  the  magisteriality 
of  his  attitude.  It  was  such  as  he  often  favors 
us  with,  especially  when  he  is  in  a  ''crisis,"  and 
brings  forward  something  which  ought  to  be 
instantly  and  unanimously  rejected — as  when 
he  brought  in  his  string  of  abstractions  on 
Thursday  last.  So  it  was  in  183G— prompt  and 
unanimous  action,  and  a  look  to  put  down  oppo- 
sition. But  the  Senate  was  not  looked  down  in 
183G.  They  promptly  and  unanimously  refused 
the  senator's  motion  !  and  the  crisis  and  the  dan- 
ger— good-natured  souls  ! — immediately  post- 
poned themselves  until  wanted  for  another  occa- 
sion. 

The  peace  of  the  country  was  then  saved ; 
but  it  was  a  respite  only ;  and  the  speech  of  the 
senator  from  South  Carolina,  brief  as  it  was,  be- 
comes momentous  as  foreshadowing  every  thing 
that  has  subsequently  taken  place  in  relation  to 
the  admission  of  Texas.  In  this  brief  speech 
we  have  the  shadows  of  all  future  movements, 
coming  in  procession — in  advance  of  the  events. 
In  the  significant  intimation,  qualified  with  the 

if "  the  Texians  prudently  managed  their 

affairs,  they  {the  Senate)  might  soon  be  called 
upon  to  decide  the  question  of  admission."  In 
that  pregnant  and  qualified  intimation,  there 
was  a  visible  doubt  that  the  Texians  might  not 
be  prudent  enough  to  manage  their  own  affairs, 
and  might  require  help ;  and  also  a  visible  feel- 
ing of  that  paternal  guardianship  which  after- 
ward assumed  the  management  of  their  affairs 
for  them.  In  tho  admonitions  to  unanimity, 
there  was  that  denunciation  of  any  difference 
of  opinion  which  afterwards  displayed  itself  in 
the  ferocious  hunting  down  of  all  who  opposed 
the  Texas  treaty.  In  the  reference  to  southern 
slavery,  and  annoyance  to  slave  property  from 
Texas,  we  have  the  germ  of  the  "  self-defence  " 
letter,  and  the  first  glimpse  of  tho  abolition  plot 
of  John  Andrews,  Ashbel  Smith,  Lord  Aber- 


642 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


deen — I  beg  pardon  of  Lord  Aberdeen  for  nam- 
ing him  in  such  a  connection — and  the  World's 
Convention,  with  which  Mexico,  Texas,  and  the 
United  States  were  mystified  and  bamboozled 
in  April,  1844.  And,  in  the  interests  of  the 
manufacturing  and  navigating  States  of  the 
north  and  east,  as  connected  with  Texas  admis- 
sion, we  have  the  text  of  all  the  communica- 
tions to  the  agent,  Murphy,  and  of  all  the  let- 
ters and  speeches  to  which  the  Texas  question, 
seven  years  afterwards,  gave  rise.  We  have  all 
these  subsequent  events  here  shadowed  forth. 
And  now,  the  wonder  is,  why  all  these  things 
were  not  foreseen  a  little  while  before,  when 
Texas  was  being  ceded  to  a  non-slaveholding 
empire  ?  and  why,  after  being  so  imminent  and 
deadly  in  May,  1836,  all  these  dangers  suddenly 
went  to  sleep,  and  never  waked  up  again  until 
1844  ?  These  are  wonders ;  but  let  us  not  an- 
ticipate questions,  and  let  us  proceed  with  the 
narrative. 

The  Congress  of  1836  would  not  admit  Texas. 
The  senator  from  South  Carolina  became  pa- 
tient :  the  Texas  question  went  to  sleep ;  and 
for  seven  good  years  it  made  no  disturbance. 
It  then  woke  up,  and  with  a  suddenness  and 
violence  proportioned  to  its  long  repose.  Mr. 
Tyler  was  then  President :  the  senator  from 
South  Carolina  was  potent  under  his  adminis- 
tration, and  soon  became  his  Secretary  of  State. 
All  the  springs  of  intrigue  and  diplomacy  were 
immediately  set  in  motion  to  resuscitate  the 
Texas  question,  and  to  re-invest  it  with  all  the 
dangers  and  alarms  which  it  had  worn  in  1836. 
Passing  over  all  the  dangers  of  annoyance  from 
Texas  as  possibly  non-slaveholding,  foreseen 
by  the  senator  in  1836,  and  not  foreseen  by  him 
in  1819,  with  all  the  need  for  guardianship  then 
foreshadowed,  and  all  the  arguments  then  sug- 
gested :  all  these  immediately  developed  them- 
selves, and  intriguing  agents  traversed  earth 
and  sea,  from  Washington  to  Texas,  and  from 
London  to  Mexico : — passing  over  all  this,  as 
belonging  to  a  class  of  evidence,  not  now  to  be 
used,  I  come  at  once  to  the  letter  of  the  17th 
of  January,  from  the  Texian  minister  to  Mr. 
Upshur,  the  American  Secretary  of  State  ;  and 
the  answer  to  that  letter  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  of 
April  11th  of  the  same  year.  They  are  both 
vital  in  this  case ;  and  the  first  is  in  these  words : 

(The  letter.) 

This  letter  reveals  the  true  state  of  the  Texian 


question  in  January,  1844,  and  the  conduct  of 
all  parties  in  relation  to  it.  It  presents  Texas 
and  Mexico,  weary  of  the  war,  reposing  under 
an  armistice,  and  treating  for  peace;  Great 
Britain  and  France  acting  the  noble  part  of  me- 
diators, and  endeavoring  to  make  peace :  our 
own  government  secretly  intriguing  for  annex- 
ation, acting  the  wicked  part  of  mischief-makers, 
and  trying  to  renew  the  war ;  and  the  issue  of 
its  machinations  to  be  unsuccessful  unless  the 
United  States  should  be  involved  in  the  re- 
newed hostilities.  That  was  the  question ;  and 
the  letter  openly  puts  it  to  the  American  Sec- 
retary of  State.  The  answer  to  that  question, 
in  my  opinion,  should  have  been,  that  the  Pres- 
ident of  the  United  States  did  not  know  of  the 
armistice  and  the  peace  negotiations  at  the  time 
that  he  proposed  to  Texas  to  do  an  act  which 
would  be  a  perfidious  violation  of  those  sacred 
engagements,  and  bring  upon  herself  the  scourge 
of  renewed  invasion  and  the  stigma  of  perfidy 
— that  he  would  not  have  made  such  a  proposal 
for  the  whole  round  world,  if  he  had  known  of 
the  armistice  and  the  peace  negotiations — that 
he  wished  success  to  the  peace-makers,  both  for 
the  sake  of  Mexico  and  Texas,  and  because 
Texas  could  then  come  into  the  Union  without 
the  least  interruption  to  our  friendly,  commer- 
cial, and  social  relations  with  our  sister  republic 
of  Mexico ;  and  that,  as  to  secretly  lending  the 
army  and  navy  of  the  United  States  to  Texas 
to  fight  Mexico  while  we  were  at  peace  with 
her,  it  would  be  a  crime  against  God,  and  man, 
and  our  own  constitution,  for  which  heads 
might  be  brought  to  the  block,  if  presidents 
and  their  secretaries,  like  constitutional  kings 
and  ministers,  should  be  held  capitally  respon- 
sible for  capital  crimes.  This,  in  my  opinion, 
should  have  been  the  answer. 

Mr.  Nelson  refused  to  lend  the  army  and 
navy,  because  to  do  so  was  to  violate  our  own 
constitution.  This  is  very  constitutional  and 
proper  language:  and  if  it  had  not  been  re- 
versed, there  would  have  been  no  war  with 
Mexico.  But  it  was  reversed.  Soon  after  it 
was  written,  the  present  senator  from  South 
Carolina  took  the  chair  of  the  Department  of 
State.  Mr.  Pinckney  Henderson,  whom  Mr. 
Murphy  mentions  as  coming  on  with  full  pow- 
ers, on  the  faith  of  the  pledge  he  had  given,  ar- 
rived also,  and  found  that  pledge  entirely  can- 
celled by  Mr.  Tyler's  answer  through  Mr.  Nel- 


ANNO  1845.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


643 


son  ;  and  he  utterly  refused  to  treat.  The  new 
secretary  was  in  a  strait ;  for  time  was  short, 
and  Texas  must  be  had ;  and  Messrs.  Hender- 
son and  Van  Zandt  would  not  even  begin  to 
treat  without  a  renewal  of  the  pledge  given  by 
Mr.  Murphy.  That  had  been  cancelled  in  writ- 
ing, and  the  cancellation  had  gone  to  Texas,  and 
had  been  made  on  high  constitutional  ground. 
The  new  secretary  was  profuse  of  verbal  assur- 
ances, and  even  permitted  the  ministers  to  take 
down  his  words  in  writing,  and  read  them  over 
to  him,  as  was  shown  by  the  senator  from 
Texas  (General  Houston)  when  he  spoke  on 
this  subject  on  Thursday  last.  But  verbal  as- 
surances, or  memoranda  of  conversations,  would 
not  do.  The  instructions  under  which  the  min- 
isters acted  required  the  pledge  to  be  in  writing, 
and  properly  signed.  The  then  President,  pre- 
sent senator  from  Texas,  who  had  been  a  law- 
yer in  Tennessee  before  he  went  to  Texas, 
seemed  to  look  upon  it  as  a  case  under  the 
statute  of  frauds  and  perjuries — a  sixth  case 
added  to  the  five  enumerated  in  that  statute — 
in  which  the  promise  is  not  valid,  unless  re- 
duced to  writing,  and  signed  by  the  person  to 
be  charged  therewith,  or  by  some  other  person 
duly  authorized  by  him  to  sign  for  him.  The 
firmness  of  the  Texian  ministers,  under  the  in- 
structions of  President  Houston,  prevailed ; 
and  at  last,  and  after  long  delay,  the  secretary 
wrote,  and  signed  the  pledge  which  Murphy 
had  given,  and  in  all  the  amplitude  of  his  origi- 
nal promise. 

The  promise  was  clear  and  explicit  to  lend 
the  army  and  navy  to  the  President  of  Texas, 
to  fight  the  Mexicans  while  they  were  at  peace 
with  us.  That  was  the  point — at  peace  with 
us.  Mr.  Calhoun's  assumpsit  was  clear  and 
explicit  to  that  point ;  for  the  cases  in  which 
they  were  to  fight  were  to  be  before  the  ratifi- 
cation of  the  treaty  by  the  Senate,  and  conse- 
quently before  Texas  should  be  in  our  Union, 
and  could  be  constitutionally  defended  as  a 
part  of  it.  And,  that  no  circumstance  of  con- 
tradiction or  folly  should  be  wanting  to  crown 
this  plot  of  crime  and  imbecility,  it  so  happened 
that  on  the  same  day  that  our  new  secretary 
here  was  giving  his  written  assumpsit  to  lend 
the  army  and  navy  to  fight  Mexico  while  we 
were  at  peace  with  her,  the  agent  Murphy  was 
communicating  to  the  Texian  government,  in 


Texas,  the  refusal  of  Mr.  Tyler,  through  Mr. 
Nelson,  to  do  so,  because  of  its  unconstitution- 
ality. 

In  conformity  with  the  secretary's  letter  of 
April  11th,  detachments  of  the  army  and  navy 
were  immediately  sent  to  the  frontiers  of  Texas, 
and  to  the  coast  of  Mexico.  The  senator  from 
South  Carolina,  in  his  colloquy  with  the  sena- 
tor from  Texas  (General  Houston),  on  Thurs- 
day last,  seemed  anxious  to  have  it  understood 
that  these  land  and  naval  forces  were  not  to  re- 
pel invasions,  but  only  to  report  them  to  our 
government,  for  its  report  to  Congress.  The 
paper  read  by  the  senator  from  Texas,  consist- 
ing of  our  secretary's  words,  taken  down  in  his 
presence,  and  read  over  to  him  for  his  correc- 
tion by  the  Texian  ministers,  establishes  the 
contrary ;  and  shows  that  the  repulse  of  the  in- 
vasion was  in  the  mean  time  to  be  made.  And 
in  fact,  any  other  course  would  have  been  a 
fraud  upon  the  promise.  For,  if  the  invasion 
had  to  be  made  known  at  Washington,  and  the 
sense  of  Congress  taken  on  the  question  of  re- 
pelling it,  certainly,  in  the  mean  time,  the  mis- 
chief would  have  been  done — the  invasion  would 
have  been  made  ;  and,  therefore,  to  be  consist- 
ent with  himself,  the  President  in  the  mean 
time  was  bound  to  repel  the  invasion,  without 
waiting  to  hear  what  Congress  would  say  about 
it.  And  this  is  what  he  himself  tells  us  in  his 
two  messages  to  the  Senate,  of  the  15th  and 
31st  of  May,  doubtless  written  by  his  Secreta- 
ry of  State,  and  both  avowing  and  justifying  his 
intention  to  fight  Mexico,  in  case  of  invasion, 
while  the  treaty  of  annexation  was  depending, 
without  awaiting  the  action  of  Congress. 

(The  message.) 

Here  are  the  avowals  of  the  fact,  and  the  rea- 
sons for  it — that  honor  required  us  to  fight  for 
Texas,  if  we  intrigued  her  into  a  war.  I  admit 
that  would  be  a  good  reason  between  indi- 
viduals, and  in  a  case  where  a  big  bully  should 
involve  a  little  fellow  in  the  fight  again  after  he 
had  got  himself  parted  ;  but  not  so  between  na- 
tions, and  under  our  constitution.  The  en- 
gagement to  fight  Mexico  for  Texas,  while  we 
were  at  peace  with  Mexico,  was  to  make  war 
with  Mexico !— a  piece  of  business  which  be- 
longed to  the  Congress,  and  which  should  have 
been  referred  to  them  !  and  which,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  concealed  from  them,  though  in  ses- 


644 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


sion,  and  present !  and  the  fact  only  found  out 
after  the  troops  had  marched,  and  then  by  dint 
of  calls  from  the  Senate. 

The  proof  is  complete  that  the  loan  of  the 
land  and  naval  forces  was  to  fight  Mexico  while 
we  were  at  peace  with  her  !  and  this  becomes  a 
great  turning  point  in  the  history  of  this  war. 
Without  this  pledge  given  by  our  Secretary  of 
State — without  his  reversal  of  Mr.  Tyler's  first 
decision — there  could  have  been  no  war  ! 
Texas  and  Mexico  would  have  made  peace,  and 
then  annexation  would  have  followed  of  itself. 
The  victor  of  San  Jacinto,  who  had  gone  forth 
and  recovered  by  the  sword,  and  erected  into  a 
new  republic  the  beautiful  domain  given  away 
by  our  secretary  in  1819,  was  at  the  head  of 
the  Texas  government,  and  was  successfully  and 
honorably  conducting  his  country  to  peace  and 
acknowledged  independence.  If  let  alone,  he 
would  have  accomplished  his  object ;  for  he  had 
already  surmounted  the  great  difficulty  of  the 
first  step — the  armistice  and  the  commence- 
ment of  peace  negotiations ;  and  under  the 
powerful  mediation  of  Great  Britain  and 
France,  the  establishment  of  peace  was  certain. 
A  heavenly  benediction  rests  upon  the  labors 
of  the  peacemaker ;  and  what  is  blessed  of  God 
must  succeed.  At  all  events,  it  does  not  lie  in 
the  mouth  of  any  man — and  least  of  all,  in  the 
mouth  of  the  mischief-maker — to  say  that  the 
peaceful  mediation  would  not  have  succeeded. 
It  was  the  part  of  all  men  to  have  aided,  and 
wished,  and  hoped  for  success  ;  and  had  it  not 
been  for  our  secretary's  letter  of  April  11th, 
authentic  facts  warrant  the  assertion  that  Texas 
and  Mexico  would  have  made  peace  in  the 
spring  of  1844.  Then  Texas  would  have  come 
into  this  Union  as  naturally,  and  as  easily,  and 
with  as  little  offence  to  any  body,  as  Eve  went 
into  Adam's  bosom  in  the  garden  of  Eden. 
There  would  have  been  no  more  need  for  in- 
triguing politicians  to  get  her  in,  by  plots  and 
tricks,  than  there  was  for  some  old  hag  of  a 
match-making  beldame,  with  her  arts  and  al- 
lurements, her  philters  and  her  potions,  to  get 
Eve  into  Adam's  bosom.  And  thus,  the  break- 
ing up  of  the  peace  negotiations  becomes  the 
great  turning  point  of  the  problem  of  the  Mexi- 
can war. 

The  pledge  of  the  11th  of  April  being  signed, 
the  treaty  was  signed,  and  being  communicated 
to  the  Senate,  it  was  rejected :  and  the  great 


reason  for  the  rejection  was  that  the  ratification 
of  the  treaty  would  have  been  war  with  Mexi- 
co !  an  act  which  the  President  and  Senate  to- 
gether, no  more  than  President  Tyler  and  his 
Secretary  of  State  together,  had  the  power  to 
make. 

The  treaty  of  annexation  was  signed,  and  in 
signing  it  the  secretary  knew  that  he  had  made 
war  with  Mexico.  No  less  than  three  formal 
notices  were  on  file  in  the  Department  of  State, 
in  which  the  Mexican  government  solemnly  de- 
clared that  it  would  consider  annexation  as 
equivalent  to  a  declaration  of  war ;  and  it  was 
in  allusion  to  these  notices  that  the  Secretary 
of  State,  in  his  notification  to  Mexico  of  the 
signature  of  the  treaty,  said  it  had  been  signed 

IN  FULL  VIEW  OF  ALL  POSSIBLE  CONSEQUENCES  ! 

meaning  war  as  the  consequence  !  At  the  same 
time,  he  suited  the  action  to  the  word  j  he  sent 
off  detachments  of  the  army  and  navy,  and 
placed  them  under  the  command  of  President 
Houston,  and  made  him  the  judge  of  the  emer- 
gencies and  exigencies  in  which  they  were  to 
fight.  This  authority  to  the  President  of  Texas 
was  continued  in  full  force  until  after  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  treaty,  and  then  only  modified  by 
placing  the  American  diplomatic  agent  in  Texas 
between  President  Houston  and  the  naval  and 
military  commanders,  and  making  him  the  me- 
dium of  communication  between  a  foreign  Pres- 
ident and  our  forces  ;  but  the  forces  themselves 
were  not  withdrawn.  They  remained  on  the 
Texian  and  Mexican  frontier,  waiting  for  the 
exigencies  and  emergencies  in  which  they  were 
to  fight.  During  all  that  time  a  foreign  Presi- 
dent was  commander-in-chief  of  a  large  detach- 
ment of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United 
States.  "Without  a  law  of  Congress — without 
a  nomination  from  the  President  and  confir- 
mation by  the  Senate — without  citizenship — 
without  the  knowledge  of  the  American  people 
— he  was  president-general  of  our  land  and  sea 
forces,  made  so  by  the  senator  from  South  Caro- 
lina, with  authority  to  fight  them  against  Mex- 
ico with  whom  we  were  at  peace — an  office  and 
authority  rather  above  that  of  lieutenant-gen- 
eral ! — and  we  are  indebted  to  the  forbearance 
and  prudence  of  President  Houston  for  not  in- 
curring the  war  in  1844,  which  fell  upon  us  in 
1846.  This  is  a  point — this  secret  and  lawless 
appointment  of  this  president-general  to  make 
war  upon  Mexico,  while  we  were  at  peace  with 


ANNO  1845.     JAMES  K.  TOLK,  PRESIDENT. 


645 


her — on  which  I  should  like  to  hear  a  constitu- 
tional argument  from  the  senator  from  South 
Carolina,  showing  it  to  be  constitutional  and 
proper,  and  that  of  the  proposed  lieutenant- 
general  unconstitutional  and  improper;  and 
upon  which  he  has  erected  himself  into  the 
foreman  of  the  grand-jury  of  the  whole  Ameri- 
can people,  and  pronounced  a  unanimous  CEfir^ 
diet  for  them  before  he  had  time  to  hear  from 
the  ten-thousandth  part  of  them. 

The  treaty  was  rejected  by  the  Senate ;  but 
so  apprehensive  was  the  senator  of  immediate 
war,  that,  besides  keeping  the  detachments  of 
the  army  and  navy  at  their  posts,  a  messenger 
was  despatched  witht  a  deprecatory  letter  to 
Mexico,  and  the  offer  of  a  large  sum  of  money 
(ten  millions  of  dollars)  to  purchase  peace  from 
her,  by  inducing  her  to  tre.it  for  a  boundary 
which  would  leave  Texas  within  our  limits. 
This  was  report :  and  I  would  not  mention  it, 
if  the  senator  was  not  present  to  contradict  it, 
if  not  correct.  Keport  at  the  time  said  from 
five  to  ten  millions  of  dollars :  from  one  of  Mr. 
Shannon's  letters,  we  may  set  it  down  at  ten 
millions.  Be  it  either  sum,  it  will  show  that 
the  senator  was  then  secretly  willing  to  pay  an 
immense  sum  to  pacify  Mexico,  although  he  now 
declares  that  he  does  not  know  how  he  will 
vote  in  relation  to  the  three  millions  responsi- 
bly asked  by  Mr.  Polk. 

The  secretary  knew  that  he  had  made  war 
with  Mexico — that  in  accepting  the  gage  three 
times  laid  down,  he  had  joined  an  issue  which 
that  compound  of  Celtic  and  Roman  blood, 
called  Spanish,  would  redeem.  I  knew  it,  and 
said  it  on  this  floor,  in  secret  session — for  I  did 
not  then  choose  to  say  it  in  public — that  if 
there  was  but  one  man  of  that  blood  in  all 
Mexico,  and  he  no  bigger  than  General  Tom 
Thumb,  he  would  fight.  Senators  will  recollect 
it.     [Mr.  Mangum  nodded  assent.] 

I  now  come  to  the  last  act  in  this  tragedy  of 
errors — the  alternative  resolutions  adopted  by 
Congress  in  the  last  days  of  the  session  of  1844 
-'45,  and  in  the  last  moments  of  Mr.  Tyler's 
administration.  A  resolve,  single  and  absolute, 
for  the  admission  of  Texas  as  a  State  of  this 
Union,  had  been  made  by  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives ;  it  came  to  this  body ;  and  an  alter- 
native resolution  was  added,  subject  to  the 
choice  of  the  President,  authorizing  negotia- 
tions for  the  admission,  and  appropriating  one 


thousandCdollars 


hundred  thousand^ dollars  to  defray  the  ex- 
penses of  these,  negotiations.  A  senator  from 
North  Caigina,  not  now  a  member  of  this 
body,  but  wno„I  have  the  pleasure  to  see  nit- 
ting  n6ar  me  (Mr.  Haywood),  knows  all  about 
thla^#- alternative  resolution;  and  his  count  ry 
-owes  him  good  thanks  for  his  labors  about  it. 
•It  was  considered  by  every  body,  that  the 
choice  between  these  resolutions  belonged  to 
the  new  President,  who  had  been  elected  with 
a  special  view  to  the  admission  of  Texas,  and 
who  was  already  in  the  city,  awaiting  the  morn- 
ing of  the  4th  of  March  to  enter  upon  the  exe- 
cution of  his  duties ;  and  upon  whose  adminis- 
tration all  the  evils  of  a  mistake  in  the  choice 
of  these  resolutions  were  to  fall.  We  all  ex- 
pected the  question  to  be  left  open  to  the  new 
President ;  and  so  strong  was  that  expectation, 
and  so  strong  the  feeling  against  the  decency  or 
propriety  of  interference  on  the  part  of  the  ex- 
piring administration,  to  snatch  this  choice  out 
of  the  hands  of  Mr.  Polk,  that,  on  a  mere  sug- 
gestion of  the  possibility  of  such  a  proceeding, 
in  a  debate  on  this  floor,  a  senator  standing  in 
the  relation  personally,  and  politically,  and  lo- 
cally to  feel  for  the  honor  of  the  then  Secretary 
of  State,  declared  they  would  not  have  the  au- 
dacity to  do  it.  Audacity  was  his  word :  and 
that  was  the  declaration  of  a  gentleman  of  honor 
and  patriotism,  no  longer  a  member  of  this 
body,  but  who  has  the  respect  and  best  wishes 
of  all  who  ever  knew  him.  I  speak  of  Mr. 
McDuffie,  and  quote  his  words  as  heard  at  the 
time,  and  as  since  printed  and  published  by 
others.  Mr.  McDuffie  was  mistaken!  They 
did  have  the  audacity!  They  did  do  it,  or 
rather,  he  did  it  (looking  at  Mr.  Calhoun) ;  for 
it  is  incontestable  that  Mr.  Tyler  was  nothing, 
in  any  thing  that  related  to  the  Texas  question, 
from  the  time  of  the  arrival  of  his  last  Secreta- 
ry of  State.  His  last  act,  in  relation  to  Texas, 
was  the  answer  which  Mr.  Nelson  gave  for  him 
through  the  agent,  Murphy,  denying  his  right 
to  lend  our  forces  to  the  President  of  Texas  to 
fight  the  Mexicans  while  we  were  at  peace  with 
them :  the  reversal  of  that  answer  by  his  new 
secretary  was  the  extinction  of  his  power  over 
the  Texas  question.  He,  the  then  Secretary  of 
State,  the  present  senator  from  South  Carolina, 
to  whom  I  address  myself,  did  it  On  Sunday, 
the  second  day  of  March— that  day  which  pre- 
ceded the  last  day  of  his  authority— and  on  that 


646 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


day,  sacred  to  peace — the  council  sat  that  acted 
on  the  resolutions — and  in  the  darkness  of  a 
night  howling  with  the  storm,  and  battling  with 
the  elements,  as  if  Heaven  warred  upon  the 
audacious  act  (for  well  do  I  remember  it),  the 
fatal  messenger  was  sent  off  which  carried  the 
selected  resolution  to  Texas.  The  exit  of  the 
secretary  from  office,  and  the  start  of  the  mes-* 
senger  from  Washington,  were  coetaneous — 
twin  acts — which  come  together,  and  will  be 
_remembered  together.  The  act  was  then  done  : 
Texas  was  admitted :  all  the  consequences  of 
admission  were  incurred — and  especially  that 
consequence  which  Mr.  de  Bocanegra  had  de- 
nounced, and  which  our  secretary  had  accepted 
— war.  The  state  of  war  was  established — 
the  status  belli  was  created — and  that  by  the 
operation  of  our  own  constitution,  as  well  as 
by  the  final  declaration  of  Mexico :  for  Texas 
then  being  admitted  into  the  Union,  the  war 
with  her  extended  to  the  whole  Union ;  and 
the  duty  of  protecting  her,  devolved  upon  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  The  selection 
of  the  absolute  resolution  exhausted  our  action : 
the  alternative  resolution  for  negotiation  was 
defunct :  the  only  mode  of  admission  was  the 
absolute  one,  and  it  made  war.  The  war  was 
made  to  Mr.  Polk's  hands :  his  administration 
came  into  existence  with  the  war  upon  its 
hands,  and  under  the  constitutional  duty  to 
protect  Texas  at  the  expense  of  war  with  Mex- 
ico :  and  to  that  point,  all  events  rapidly  tended. 
The  Mexican  minister,  General  Almonte,  who 
had  returned  to  Washington  city  after  the  re- 
jection of  the  treaty  of  annexation,  demanded 
his  passports,  and  left  the  United  States.  The 
land  forces  which  had  been  advanced  to  the  Sa- 
bine, were  further  advanced  to  Corpus  Christi ; 
the  Mexican  troops  moved  towards  the  Rio 
Grande  :  the  fleet  which  remained  at  Vera 
Cruz,  continued  there :  commerce  died  out : 
the  citizens  of  each  country  left  the  other,  as 
far  as  they  could:  angry  denunciations  filled 
the  press  of  each  country :  and  when  a  minister 
was  sent  from  the  United  States,  his  reception 
was  refused.  The  state  of  war  existed  legally : 
all  the  circumstances  of  war,  except  the  single 
circumstance  of  bloodshed,  existed  at  the  acces- 
sion of  Mr.  Polk  ;  and  the  two  countries,  Mexi- 
co and  the  United  States,  stood  in  a  relation  to 
each  other  impossible  to  be  continued.  The 
march  upon  the  Rio  Grande  brought  on  the 


conflict — made  the  collision  of  arms — but  not 
the  war.  The  war  was  prepared,  organized, 
established  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  before  he 
left  the  department.  It  was  his  legacy  to  the 
democracy,  and  to  the  Polk  administration — his 
last  gift  to  them,  in  the  moment  of  taking  a 
long  farewell.  And  now  he  sets  up  for  a  man 
of  peace,  and  throws  all  the  blame  of  war  upon 
Mr,  Polk,  to  whom  he  bequeathed  it. 

Cicero  says  that  Antony,  flying  from  Rome 
to  the  camp  of  Caesar  in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  was 
the  cause  of  the  civil  war  which  followed — as 
much  so  as  Helen  was  of  the  Trojan  war.  Ut 
Helena  Trojanis.  sic  iste  huic  reipublica  cau- 
sa belli — causa  pestis  atque  exitii  fuit.  He 
says  that  that  flight  put  an  end  to  all  chance 
of  accommodation  ;  closed  the  door  to  all  con- 
ciliation ;  broke  up  the  plans  of  all  peaceable 
men ;  and  by  inducing  Caesar  to  break  up  his 
camp  in  Gaul,  and  march  across  the  Rubicon, 
lit  up  the  flames  of  civil  war  in  Italy.  In  like 
manner,  I  say  that  the  flight  of  the  winged  mes- 
senger from  this  capital  on  the  Sunday  night 
before  the  3d  of  March,  despatched  by  the  then 
Secretary  of  State,  in  the  expiring  moment  of 
his  power,  and  bearing  his  fatal  choice  to  the 
capital  of  Texas,  was  the  direct  cause  of  the 
war  with  Mexico  in  which  we  are  now  engaged. 
Like  the  flight  of  Antony,  it  broke  up  the  plans 
of  all  peaceable  men,  slammed  the  door  upon 
negotiations,  put  an  end  to  all  chance  for  accom- 
modation, broke  up  the  camp  on  the  Sabine, 
sent  the  troops  towards  Mexico,  and  lit  up  the 
war.  Like  Antony  and  Helen,  he  made  the 
war ;  unlike  Antony,  he  does  not  stand  to  it  ; 
but,  copying  rather  the  conduct  of  the  para- 
mour of  Helen,  he  flies  from  the  conflict  he  has 
provoked  !  and,,  worse  than  Paris,  he  endeavors 
to  draw  along  with  him,  in  his  own  unhappy 
flight,  the  whole  American  host.  Paris  fled 
alone  at  the  sight  of  Menelaus :  the  senator 
from  South  Carolina  urges  us  all  to  fly  at  the 
sight  of  Santa  Anna.  And,  it  may  be,  that 
worse  than  Paris  again,  he  may  refuse  to  re- 
turn to  the  field.  Paris  went  back  under  the 
keen  reproach  of  Hector,  and  tried  to  fight : 

"  For  thee  the  soldier  bleeds,  the  matron  mourns, 
And  wasteful  war  in  all  its  fury  burns." 

Stung  with  this  just  and  keen  rebuke — this 
vivid  picture  of  the  ruin  he  had  made — Paris 
returned  to  the  field,  and  tried  to  fight :  and 


ANNO  1845.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


647 


now,  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  senator 
from  South  Carolina  can  do  the  same,  on  the 
view  of  the  ruin  which  he  has  made :  and,  if 
not,  whether  he  cannot,  at  least,  cease  to  ob- 
struct the  arms  of  others — cease  to  labor  to  in- 
volve the  whole  army  in  his  own  unmanly  re- 
treat. 

Upon  the  evidence  now  given,  drawn  from 
his  public  official  acts  alone,  he  stands  the  un- 
disputed author  and  architect  of  that  calamity. 
History  will  so  write  him  down.  Inexorable 
History,  with  her  pen  of  iron  and  tablets  of 
brass,  will  so  write  him  down :  and  two  thou- 
sand years  hence,  and  three  thousand  years 
hence,  the  boy  at  his  lesson  shall  learn  it  in 
the  book,  that  as  Helen  was  the  cause  of  the 
Trojan,  and  Antony  the  cause  of  the  Roman 
civil  war,  and  Lord  North  made  the  war  of  the 
Revolution,  just  so  certainly  is  John  C.  Cal- 
houn the  author  of  the  present  war  between  the 
United  States  and  Mexico. 

He  now  sets  up  for  the  character  of  pacifica- 
tor— with  what  justice,  let  the  further  fact  pro- 
claim which  I  now  expose.  Three  hundred 
newspapers,  in  the  summer  of  1844,  in  the  pay 
of  the  administration  and  Department  of  State, 
spoke  the  sentiments  of  the  Department  of 
State,  and  pursued  as  traitors  to  the  United 
States  all  who  were  for  the  peaceable  annexa- 
tion of  Texas  by  settling  the  boundary  line  of 
Texas  with  Mexico  simultaneously  with  the  an- 
nexation. Here  is  the  instruction  under  which 
the  three  hundred  acted : 

"  As  the  conductor  of  the  official  journal  here, 
he  has  requested  me  to  answer  it  (your  letter), 
which  request  I  comply  with  readily.  With 
regard  to  the  course  of  your  paper,  you  can 
take  the  tone  of  the  administration  from  the 
*  *  *  *  .  I  think,  however,  and  would 
recommend  that  you  would  confine  yourself  to 
attacks  upon  Benton,  showing  that  he  has  allied 
himself  with  the  whigs  on  the  Texas  question. 
Quote  Jackson's  letter  on  Texas,  where  he  de- 
nounces all  those  as  traitors  to  the  country  who 
oppose  the  treaty.  Apply  it  to  Benton.  Pro- 
claim that  Benton,  by  attacking  Mr.  Tyler  and 
his  friends,  and  driving  them  from  the  party,  is 
aiding  the  election  of  Mr.  Clay ;  and  charge  him 
with  doing  this  to  defeat  Mr.  Polk,  and  insure 
himself  the  succession  in  1848  ;  and  claim  that 
full  justice  be  done  to  the  acts  and  motives  of 
John  Tyler  by  the  leaders.  Harp  upon  these 
strings.  Do  not  propose  the  union  ;  '  it  is  the 
business  of  the  democrats  to  do  this,  and  ar- 
range it  to  our  perfect  satisfaction.'     /  quote 


here  from  our  leading  friend  at  the  South. 
Such  is  the  course  which  1  recommend,  and 
which  you  can  pursue  or  not,  according  to  your 
real  attachment  to  the  administration.  Look 
out  for  my  leader  of  to-morrow  as  an  indicator, 
and  regard  this  letter  as  of  the  most  strict  and 
inviolate  confidence  of  character." 

I  make  no  comment  on  this  letter,  nor  read 
the  other  parts  of  it :  a  time  will  come  for  that. 
It  is  an  original,  and  will  keep,  and  will  prove 
itself.  I  merely  read  a  paragraph  now,  to  show 
with  what  justice  the  person  who  was  in  the 
Department  of  State  when  these  three  hundred 
newspapers  in  its  pay  were  thus  attacking  the 
men  of  peace,  now  sets  up  for  the  character  of 
pacificator ! 

Mr.  Calhoun.  Does  he  intend  to  say  that  I 
ever  wrote  such  a  letter  ? 

Mr.  Benton.     I  read  it.     I  say  nothing. 

Mr.  Calhoun.  I  never  wrote  such  a  letter 
as  that ! 

Mr.  Benton.     I  have  not  said  so. 

Mr.  Calhoun.  I  take  this  occasion  to  say 
that  I  never  exercised  the  slightest  influence 
over  that  paper.  I  never  had  the  slightest  con- 
nection with  it.  I  never  was  a  subscriber  to  it, 
and  I  very  rarely  read  it. 

Mr.  Benton.  It  was  the  work  of  one  of  the 
organs  of  the  administration,  not  John  Jones, 
not  the  Madisonian  ;  and  the  instruction  was 
followed  by  three  hundred  newspapers  in  the 
pay  of  the  Department  of  State. 

I  have  now  finished  what  I  proposed  to  say, 
at  this  time,  in  relation  to  the  authorship  of  this 
war.  I  confine  myself  to  the  official  words  and 
acts  of  the  senator,  and  rely  upon  them  to  show 
that  he,  and  not  Mr.  Polk,  is  the  author  of  thi3 
calamity.  But,  while  thus  presenting  him  as 
the  author  of  the  war,  I  do  not  believe  that  war 
was  his  object,  but  only  an  incident  to  his  object ; 
and  that  all  his  conduct  in  relation  to  the  admis- 
sion of  Texas  refers  itself  to  the  periods  of  our 
presidential  elections,  and  to  some  connection 
with  those  elections,  and  explains  his  activity 
and  inactivity  on  those  occasions.  Thus,  in 
May,  1836,  when  he  was  in  such  hot  and  violent 
haste  for  immediate  admission,  the  election  of 
that  year  was  impending,  and  Mr.  Van  Buren 
the  democratic  candidate ;  and  if  the  Texas 
question  could  then  have  been  brought  up,  he 
might  have  been  shoved  aside  just  as  easily  as 
he  was  afterwards,  in  1844.    This  may  explain 


648 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


his  activity  in  1836.  In  1840,  the  senator  from 
South  Carolina  was  a  sort  of  a  supporter  of  Mr. 
Van  Buren,  and  might  have  thought  that  one 
good  turn  deserves  another ;  and  so  nothing 
was  said  about  Texas  at  that  election — danger- 
ous as  was  the  least  delay  four  years  before ; 
and  this  may  explain  the  inactivity  of  1840. 
The  election  of  1844  was  coming  on,  and  the 
senator  from  South  Carolina  was  on  the  turf 
himself;  and  then  the  Texas  question,  with  all 
its  dangers  and  alarms,  which  had  so  accommo- 
datingly postponed  themselves  for  seven  good 
3'ears,  suddenly  woke  up  ;  and  with  an  activity 
and  vigor  proportioned  to  its  long  repose.  In- 
stant admission,  at  all  hazards,  and  at  the  ex- 
pense of  renewing  hostilities  between  Mexico 
and  Texas,  and  involving  the  United  States  in 
them,  became  indispensable — necessary  to  our 
own  salvation — a  clear  case  of  self-defence  ;  and 
then  commenced  all  those  machinations  which 
ended  in  the  overthrow  of  Mr.  Van  Buren  and 
Mr.  Clay  for  the  presidency,  and  in  producing 
the  present  war  with  Mexico ;  but  without 
making  the  senator  President.  And  this  may 
explain  his  activity  in  1844.  Now,  another 
presidential  election  is  approaching  ;  and  if  there 
is  any  truth  in  the  rule  which  interprets  certain 
gentlemen's  declarations  by  their  contraries,  he 
will  be  a  candidate  again  :  and  this  may  explain 
the  reasons  of  the  production  of  that  string  of 
resolutions  which  the  senator  laid  upon  the  table 
last  week  ;  and  upon  which  he  has  required  us 
to  vote  instantly,  as  he  did  in  the  sudden  Texas 
movement  of  1836,  and  with  the  same  magiste- 
rial look  and  attitude.  The  Texas  slave  ques- 
tion has  gone  by — the  Florida  slave  question 
has  gone  by — there  is  no  chance  for  it  now  in 
any  of  its  old  haunts :  hence  the  necessity  for 
a  new  theatre  of  agitation,  even  if  we  have  to  go 
as  far  as  California  for  it,  and  before  we  have 
got  California.  And  thus,  all  the  senator's  con- 
duct in  relation  to  Texas,  though  involving  his 
country  in  war,  may  have  had  no  other  object 
than  to  govern  a  presidential  election. 

Our  northern  friends  have  exceeded  my  hopes 
and  expectations  in  getting  themselves  and  the 
Union  safe  through  the  Texas  and  Florida  slave 
questions,  and  are  entitled  to  a  little  repose. 
So  far  from  that,  they  are  now  to  be  plunged 
into  a  California  slave  question,  long  before  it 
could  arise  of  itself,  if  ever.  The  string  of  reso- 
lutions laid  on  the  table  by  the  senator  from 


South  Carolina  is  to  raise  a  new  slave  question 
on  the  borders  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  which,  upon 
his  own  principles,  cannot  soon  occur,  if  ever. 
He  will  not  take  the  country  by  conquest  only 
by  treaty — and  that  treaty  to  be  got  by  sitting 
out  the  Mexicans  on  a  line  of  occupation.  At 
the  same  time,  he  shows  that  he  knows  that 
Spanish  blood  is  good  at  that  game,  and  shows 
that  they  sat  it  out,  and  fought  it  out,  for  800 
years,  against  the  Moors  occupying  half  their 
country.  By-the-by,  it  was  only  700  ;  but  that 
is  enough ;  one  hundred  years  is  no  object  in 
such  a  matter.  The  Spaniards  held  out  700 
years  against  the  Moors,  holding  half  their 
country,  and  300  against  the  Visigoths,  occupy- 
ing the  half  of  the  other  half;  and,  what  is 
more  material,  whipped  them  both  out  at  the 
end  of  the  time.  This  is  a  poor  chance  for  Cali- 
fornia on  the  senator's  principles.  His  five 
regiments  would  be  whipped  out  in  a  fraction 
of  the  time ;  but  no  matter ;  men  contend  more 
violently  for  nothing  than  for  something,  and  if 
he  can  get  up  a  California  slave  question  now, 
it  will  answer  all  the  purposes  of  a  reality,  even 
if  the  question  should  never  arise  in  point  of 
fact. 

The  Senator  from  South  Carolina  has  been 
wrong  in  all  this  business,  from  beginning  to 
ending — wrong  in  1819,  in  giving  away  Texas — 
wrong  in  1836,  in  his  sudden  and  hot  haste  to 
get  her  back — wrong  in  all  his  machinations  for 
bringing  on  the  Texas  question  of  1844 — wrong 
in  breaking  up  the  armistice  and  peace  negotia- 
tions between  Mexico  and  Texas — wrong  in 
secretly  sending  the  army  and  navy  to  fight 
Mexico  while  we  were  at  peace  with  her — wrong 
in  secretly  appointing  the  President  of  Texas 
president-general  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the 
United  States,  with  leave  to  fight  them  against 
a  power  with  whom  we  were  at  peace — wrong 
in  writing  to  Mexico  that  he  took  Texas  in  view 
of  all  possible  consequences,  meaning  war — 
wrong  in  secretly  offering  Mexico,  at  the  same 
time,  ten  millions  of  dollars  to  hush  up  the  war 
which  he  had  created — wrong  now  in  refusing 
Mr.  Polk  three  millions  to  aid  in  getting  out  of 
the  war  which  he  made — wrong  in  throwing 
the  blame  of  this  war  of  his  own  making  upon 
the  shoulders  of  Mr.  Polk — wrong  in  his  retreat 
and  occupation  line  of  policy — wrong  in  expel- 
ling old  Father  Ritchie  from  the  Senate,  who 
worked  so  hard  for  him  during  the  Texas  an- 


ANNO  1845.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


640 


nexation — and  more  wrong  now  than  ever,  in 
that  string  of  resolutions  which  he  has  laid 
upon  the  table,  and  in  which,  as  Sylla  saw  in 
the  young  Caesar  many  Mariuses,  so  do  I  see  in 
them  many  nullifications. 

In  a  picture  of  so  many  and  such  dreadful 
errors,  it  is  hard  to  specify  the  worst,  or  to  dwell 
upon  any  one  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rest ;  but 
there  is  one  feature  in  this  picture  of  enormi- 
ties which  seems  entitled  to  that  distinction : 
I  allude  to  the  pledge  upon  which  the  armistice 
and  the  peace  negotiations  between  Mexico  and 
Texas  were  broken  up  in  1844,  and  those  two 
countries  put  back  into  a  state  of  war,  and  our- 
selves involved  in  the  contest.  The  story  is 
briefly  told,  and  admits  of  no  dispute.  The  let- 
ter of  17th  of  January  is  the  accusing  record, 
from  which  there  is  no  escape.  Its  awful  words 
cannot  be  read  now  without  freezing  up  the 
blood :  '•'  It  is  known  to  you  that  an  armistice 
exists  between  Mexico  and  Texas,  and  that  ne- 
gotiations for  peace  are  now  going  on  under  the 
mediation  of  two  powerful  sovereigns,  mutually 
friendly.  If  we  yield  to  your  solicitation  to  be 
annexed  to  the  United  States,  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, we  shall  draw  upon  ourselves  a 
fresh  invasion  from  Mexico,  incur  the  imputa- 
tion of  bad  faith,  and  lose  the  friendship  and 
respect  of  the  two  great  mediating  powers. 
Now,  will  you,  in  the  event  of  our  acceding  to 
your  request,  step  between  us  and  Mexico  and 
take  the  war  off  our  hands  ?  "  This  was  the 
letter,  and  the  terrible  question  with  which  it 
concluded.  Mr.  Upshur,  to  whom  it  was  ad- 
dressed, gave  it  no  answer.  In  the  forty  days 
that  his  life  was  spared,  he  gave  it  no  answer. 
Mr.  Nelson,  his  temporary  successor,  gave  it  an 
answer  ;  and,  speaking  for  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  positively  refused  to  take  annexa- 
tion on  the  awful  terms  proposed.  This  answer 
was  sent  to  Texas,  and  put  an  end  to  all  negotia- 
tion for  annexation.  The  senator  from  South 
Carolina  came  into  the  Department  of  State,  pro- 
cured the  reversal  of  the  President's  decision, 
and  gave  the  pledge  to  the  whole  extent  that 
Texas  asked  it.  Without,  in  the  least  denying 
the  knowledge  of  the  armistice,  and  the  negotia- 
tions for  peace,  and  all  the  terrible  consequences 
which  were  to  result  from  their  breach,  he  ac- 
cepts the  whole,  and  gives  the  fatal  pledge  which 
his  predecessors  had  refused :  and  follows  it  up 
by  sending  our  troops  and  ships  to  fight  a  people 


with  whom  we  were  at  peace — the  whole  veiled 
by  the  mantle  of  secrecy,  and  pretexted  by  mo- 
tives as  unfounded  as  they  were  absurd.  Now, 
what  says  morality  and  Christianity  to  this  con- 
duct? Certainly,  if  two  individuals  were  en- 
gaged in  strife,  and  two  others  should  part  them, 
and  put  them  under  an  agreement  to  submit  to 
an  amicable  settlement:  and  while  the  settle- 
ment was  going  on,  another  man,  lying  behind 
a  hedge,  should  secretly  instigate  one  of  the  par- 
ties to  break  off  the  agreement  and  renew  the 
strife,  and  promise  to  take  the  fight  off  his  hands 
if  he  did  :  what  would  morality  and  Christianity 
say  to  this  ?  Surely  the  malediction  of  all  pood 
men  would  fall  upon  the  man  who  had  interfered 
to  renew  the  strife.  And  if  this  would  be  the 
voice  of  all  good  men  in  the  case  of  mere  indi- 
viduals, what  would  it  be  when  the  strife  was 
between  nations,  and  when  the  renewal  of  it  was 
to  involve  a  third  nation  in  the  contest,  and  such 
a  war  as  we  now  have  with  our  sister  republic 
of  Mexico  ?  This  is  the  feature  which  stands 
out  in  the  awful  picture :  this  is  the  question 
which  now  presents  itself  to  the  moral  sense  of 
the  civilized  world,  in  judging  the  conduct  of 
the  senator  from  South  Carolina  in  writing  that 
letter  of  the  11th  of  April,  1844,  aggravated  by 
now  throwing  upon  another  the  blame  of  a  war 
for  which  he  then  contracted. 


CHAPTER   CL, 

ME.  POLK'S  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS,  AND  CABINET. 

This  was  the  longest  address  of  the  kind  which 
had  yet  been  delivered,  and  although  condemned 
by  its  nature  to  declarations  of  general  princi- 
ples, there  were  some  topics  on  which  it  dwelt 
with  more  particularity.  The  blessings  of  the 
Union,  and  the  necessity  of  its  preservation 
were  largely  enforced,  and  not  without  point, 
considering  recent  manifestations.  Our  title  to 
the  Oregon  Territory  was  asserted  as  clear  and 
indisputable,  and  the  determination  avowed  to 
protect  our  settlers  there.  The  sentiments  were 
good,  but  the  necessity  or  propriety  of  avowing 
them  so  positively,  was  quite  questionable,  see- 
ing that  this  title  was  then  a  subject  of  negotia- 
tion with  Great  Britain,  upon  the  harmony  of 


650 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


which  a  declaration  so  positive  might  have  an 
ill  effect :  and  in  fact  did.  The  return  voice 
from  London  was  equally  positive  on  the  other 
side ;  and  the  inevitability  of  war  became  the 
immediate  cry.  The  passage  by  Congress  of  the 
Texas  annexation  resolution  was  dwelt  upon 
with  great  exultation,  and  the  measure  con- 
sidered as  consummated  from  the  real  disposi- 
tion of  Texas  for  the  measure,  and  her  great 
desire  to  get  a  partner  in  the  war  with  Mexico, 
which  would  take  its  expenses  and  burdens  off 
her  hands. 

The  cabinet  ministers  were  nominated  and 
confirmed  the  same  day — the  Senate,  as  always, 
being  convened  on  the  4th  day  of  March  for  that 
purpose  :  James  Buchanan,  of  Pennsylvania, 
Secretary  of  State  ;  Robert  J.  Walker,  of  Mis- 
sissippi, Secretary  of  the  Treasury ;  William  L. 
Marcy,  of  New  York,  Secretary  at  War ;  George 
Bancroft,  of  Massachusetts,  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  ;  Cave  Johnson,  of  Tennessee,  Postmaster- 
general  ;  John  Y.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  Attorney- 
general.  The  last  was  the  only  one  retained 
of  the  late  cabinet.  Mr.  Calhoun  expected  to 
be,  and  desired  it,  to  prosecute,  as  he  said,  the 
Oregon  negotiations,  which  he  had  commenced ; 
and  also  to  continue  a  certain  diplomatic  cor- 
respondence with  France,  on  the  subject  of  sla- 
very, which  he  opened  through  Wm.  R.  King — 
greatly  to  the  puzzle  of  the  King,  Louis  Phil- 
lippe,  and  his  ministers.  In  place  of  the  State 
Department  he  was  offered  the  mission  to  Lon- 
don, which  he  refused ;  and  the  same  being 
offered  to  his  friend,  Mr.  Francis  W.  Pickens,  it 
was  refused  by  him  also  :  and  the  word  became 
current,  and  was  justified  by  the  event,  that 
neither  Mr.  Calhoun,  nor  any  of  his  friends, 
would  take  office  under  this  administration.  In 
other  respects,  there  was  some  balk  and  change 
after  the  cabinet  had  been  agreed  upon — which 
was  done  in  Tennessee.  General  William  0. 
Butler,  the  particular  friend  of  General  Jackson, 
had  been  brought  on  to  receive  the  place  of 
Secretary  at  War.  He  came  in  company  with 
the  President  elect,  at  his  special  request,  from 
Louisville,  Kentucky,  and  was  not  spared  to 
stop  at  his  own  house  to  get  his  wardrobe, 
though  in  sight  of  it :  he  was  thrown  out  by  the 
effect  of  a  circuitous  arrangement  of  which  Mr. 
Polk  was  the  dupe,  and  himself  the  victim.  In 
the  original  cast  of  the  cabinet,  Mr.  Silas  Wright, 
the  Governor  elect  of  New  York,  and  to  whom 


Mr.  Polk  was  indebted  for  his  election,  was  to 
be  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  It  was  offered  to 
him.  He  refused  it,  as  he  did  all  office  :  it  was 
then  intended  for  Mr.  Azariah  Flagg,  the  able 
and  incorruptible  comptroller  of  New  York,  the 
friend  of  Wright  and  Van  Buren.  He  was  su- 
perseded by  the  same  intrigue  which  displaced 
General  Butler.  Mr.  Bobert  J.  Walker  had 
been  intended  for  Attorney-general :  he  brought 
an  influence  to  bear  upon  Mr.  Polk,  which  car- 
ried him  into  the  Treasury.  That  displaced  Mr. 
Flagg.  But  New  York  was  not  a  State  to  be 
left  out  of  the  cabinet,  and  no  place  could  be 
made  for  her  except  in  the  War  Department ; 
and  Mr.  Van  Buren  and  Governor  Wright  were 
notified  accordingly,  with  the  intimation  that 
the  place  belonged  to  one  of  their  friends ;  and 
to  name  him.  They  did  so  upon  the  instant, 
and  named  Mr.  Benjamin  F.  Butler ;  and,  be- 
ginning to  be  a  little  suspicious,  and  to  guard 
against  all  danger  of  losing,  or  delaying  the 
name  on  the  road,  a  special  messenger  was  de- 
spatched to  Washington,  to  travel  day  and  night, 
and  go  straight  to  the  President,  and  deposit 
the  name  in  his  hands.  The  messenger  did  so — 
and  was  informed  that  he  was  fifteen  minutes 
too  late  !  that  the  place  had  been  assigned  to 
Mr.  Wm.  L.  Marcy.  And  that  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  material  damage  (not  in  Kossuth's 
sense  of  the  word),  which  Mr.  Polk's  adminis- 
tration did  to  Mr.  Van  Buren,  Governor  Wright, 
and  their  friends. 


CHAPTER   CLI. 

ME.  BLAIR  AND  THE  GLOBE  SUPERSEDED  AS  THE 
ADMINISTRATION  ORGAN  :  MR.  THOMAS  RITCHIE 
AND  THE  DAILY  UNION  SUBSTITUTED. 

It  was  in  the  month  of  August,  1844,  that  a 
leading  citizen  of  South  Carolina,  and  a  close 
friend  of  Mr.  Calhoun — one  who  had  been  at  the 
Baltimore  presidential  convention,  but  not  in  it 
— arrived  at  Mr.  Polk's  residence  in  Tennessee, 
had  interviews  with  him,  and  made  known  the 
condition  on  which  the  vote  of  South  Carolina 
for  him  might  be  dependent.  That  condition 
was  to  discontinue  Mr.  Blair  as  the  organ  of 
the  administration  if  he  should  be  elected.  The 


ANNO  1845.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


651 


electoral  vote  of  the  State  being  in  the  hands 
of  the  General  Assembly,  and  not  in  the  people, 
was  disposable  by  the  politicians,  and  had  been 
habitually  disposed  of  by  them — and  even  twice 
thrown  away  in  the  space  of  a  few  years.  Mr. 
Polk  was  certain  of  the  vote  of  the  State  if  he 
agreed  to  the  required  condition:  and  he  did 
so.  Mr.  Blair  was  agreed  to  be  given  up.  That 
was  propitiation  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  to  whom  Mr. 
Blair  was  obnoxious  on  account  of  his  inex- 
orable opposition  to  nullification,  and  its  author. 
Mr.  Blair  was  also  obnoxious  to  Mr.  Tyler  be- 
cause of  his  determined  opposition  both  to  him, 
and  to  his  administration.  The  Globe  news- 
paper was  a  spear  in  his  side,  and  would  con- 
tinue to  be  so  ;  and  to  get  it  out  had  been  one 
of  the  anxieties  and  labors  of  his  presidential 
life.  He  had  exhausted  all  the  schemes  to 
quiet,  or  to  gain  it,  without  success.  A  print- 
ing job  of  twenty  thousand  dollars  had  been  at 
one  time  given  to  his  office,  with  the  evident 
design  to  soften  him :  to  avoid  that  suspicion 
he  struck  the  harder ;  and  the  job  was  taken 
away  when  partly  executed.  It  now  became 
the  interest  of  Mr.  Polk  to  assist  Mr.  Tyler  in 
silencing,  or  punishing  that  paper ;  and  it  was 
done.  Mr.  Tyler  had  accepted  the  nomination 
of  his  convention  for  the  presidency,  and  was 
in  the  field  with  an  array  of  electoral  candidates 
struggling  for  it.  He  stood  no  chance  to  obtain 
a  single  electoral  vote  :  but  Mr.  Polk  was  in  no 
condition  to  be  able  to  lose  any  part  of  the 
popular  vote.  Mr.  Tyler,  now  fully  repudiated 
by  the  whigs,  and  carrying  democratic  colors, 
and  with  the  power  and  patronage  of  the 
federal  government  in  his  hands,  would  take  off 
some  votes — enough  in  a  closely  contested  State 
to  turn  the  scale  in  favor  of  Mr.  Clay.  Hence 
it  became  essential  to  get  Mr.  Tyler  out  of  the 
way  of  Mr.  Polk ;  and  to  do  that,  the  condition 
was,  to  get  Mr.  Blair  out  of  the  way  of  Mr. 
Tyler.  Mr.  Polk  was  anxious  for  this.  A 
friend  of  his,  who  afterwards  became  a  member 
of  his  cabinet,  wrote  to  him  in  July,  that  the 
main  obstacle  to  Mr.  Tyler's  withdrawal  was 
the  course  of  the  Globe  towards  him  and  his 
friends.  Another  of  those  most  interested  in  the 
result  urged  Mr.  Polk  to  devise  some  mode  of 
inducing  Mr.  Tyler  to  withdraw,  and  General 
Jackson  was  requested  "  to  ascertain  the  mo- 
tives which  actuated  the  course  of  the  Globe 
towards  Mr.  Tyler  and  his  friends.    These 


facts  appear  in  a  letter  from  Mr.  Polk  to  Gene- 
ral Jackson,  in  which  he  says  to  him :  "  The 
main  object  in  the  way  of  Mr.  Tyler's  with- 
drawal, is  the  course  of  the  Globe  towards  him- 
self and  his  friends."  These  communications 
took  place  in  the  month  before  the  South  Caro- 
lina gentleman  visited  Tennessee.  Mr.  Polk's 
letter  to  General  Jackson  is  dated  the  23d  of 
July.  In  about  as  short  time  after  that  visit 
as  information  could  come  from  Tennessee  to 
"Washington,  Mr.  Tyler  publicly  withdrew  his 
presidential  pretensions !  and  his  official  paper, 
the  Madisonian,  and  his  supporters,  passed  over 
to  Mr.  Polk.  The  inference  is  irresistible,  that 
the  consideration  of  receiving  the  vote  of  South 
Carolina,  and  of  getting  Mr.  Tyler  out  of  the 
way  of  Mr.  Polk,  was  the  agreement  to  displace 
Mr.  Blair  as  government  editor  if  he  should  be 
elected. 

And  now  we  come  to  another  fact,  in  this 
connection,  as  the  phrase  is,  about  which  also 
there  is  no  dispute ;  and  that  fact  is  this :  on 
the  fourth  day  of  November,  1844,  being  after 
Mr.  Tyler  had  joined  Mr.  Polk,  and  when  the 
near  approach  of  the  presidential  election  au- 
thorized reliable  calculations  to  bo  made  on  its 
result,  the  sum  of  $50,000,  by  an  order  from 
the  Treasury  in  Washington,  was  taken  from  a 
respectable  bank  in  Philadelphia,  where  it  was 
safe  and  convenient  for  public  use.  and  transferred 
to  a  village  bank  in  the  interior  of  Pennsylvania, 
where  there  was  no  public  use  for  it,  and  where 
its  safety  was  questionable.  This  appears  from 
the  records  of  the  Treasury.  Authentic  let- 
ters written  in  December  following  from  the 
person  who  had  control  of  this  village  bank 
(Simon  Cameron,  Esq.,  a  senator  in  Congress), 
went  to  a  gentleman  in  Tennessee,  informing 
him  that  $50,000  was  in  his  hands  for  the  pur- 
pose of  establishing  a  new  government  organ 
in  Washington  City,  proposing  to  him  to  be  its 
editor,  and  urging  him  to  come  on  to  Washing- 
ton for  the  purpose.  These  letters  were  sent  to 
Andrew  Jackson  Donelson,  Esq.,  connection  and 
ex-private  Secretary  of  President  Jackson,  who 
immediately  refused  the  proffered  editorship, 
and  turned  over  the  letters  to  General  Jackson. 
His  (Jackson's)  generous  and  high  blood  boiled 
with  indignation  at  what  seemed  to  be  a  sacrifice 
of  Mr.  Blair  for  some  political  consideration  j  for 
the  letters  were  so  written  as  to  imply  a  cogni- 
zance on  the  part  of  Mr.  Polk,  and  of  two  per- 


652 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


sons  who  were  to  be  members  of  his  cabinet ; 
and  that  cognizance  was  strengthened  by  a  fact 
unknown  to  General  Jackson,  namely,  that  Mr. 
Polk  himself,  in  due  season,  proposed  to  Mr. 
Blair  to  yield  to  Mr.  Donelson  as  actual  editor 
— himself  writing  sub  rosa;  which  Mr.  Blair 
utterly  refused.  It  was  a  contrivance  of  Mr. 
Polk  to  get  rid  of  Mr.  Blair  in  compliance  with 
his  engagement  to  Mr.  Calhoun  and  Mr.  Tyler, 
without  breaking  with  Mr.  Blair  and  his  friends ; 
but  he  had  to  deal  with  a  man,  and  with  men, 
who  would  have  no  such  hugger-mugger  work ; 
and  to  whom  an  open  breach  was  preferable  to 
a  simulated  friendship :  General  Jackson  wrote 
to  Mr.  Blair  to  apprise  him  of  what  was  going 
on,  and  to  assure  him  of  his  steadfast  friendship, 
and  to  let  him  know  that  Mr.  Ritchie,  of  the 
Richmond  Enquirer,  was  the  person  to  take 
place  on  the  refusal  of  Andrew  Jackson  Donel- 
son, and  to  foretell  mischiefs  to  Mr.  Polk  and 
his  party  if  he  fell  into  these  schemes,  of  which 
Mr.  Robert  J.  Walker  was  believed  to  be  the 
chief  contriver,  and  others  of  the  cabinet 
passive  instruments.  On  the  14th  of  Decem- 
ber, 1844,  he  (General  Jackson)  wrote  to  Mr. 
Blair : 

"  But  there  is  another  project  on  foot  as  void 
of  good  sense  and  benefit  to  the  democratic 
cause  as  the  other,  but  not  as  wicked,  proceed- 
ing from  weak  and  inexperienced  minds.  It  is 
this  :  to  bring  about  a  partnership  between  you 
and  Mr.  Ritchie,  you  to  continue  proprietor,  and 
Ritchie  the  editor.  This,  to  me,  is  a  most  ex- 
traordinary conception  coming  from  any  well- 
informed  mind  or  experienced  politician.  It  is 
true,  Mr.  Ritchie  is  an  experienced  editor,  but 
sometimes  goes  off  at  half  cock  before  he  sees 
the  whole  ground,  and  does  the  party  great 
injury  before  he  sees  his  error,  and  then  has 
great  difficulty  to  get  back  into  the  right  track 
again.  Witness  his  course  on  my  removal  of 
the  deposits,  and  how  much  injury  he  did  us 
before  he  got  into  the  right  track  again. 
Another  faux  pas  he  made  when  he  went  off 
with  Rives  and  the  conservatives,  and  advocated 
for  the  safe  keeping  of  the  public  revenue  special 
deposits  in  the  State  banks,  as  if  where  the 
directory  were  corrupt  there  could  be  any  more 
security  in  special  deposits  in  corrupt  banks 
than  in  general  deposits,  and  it  was  some  time 
before  this  great  absurdity  could  be  beat  out  of 
his  mind. 

"  These  are  visionary  measures  of  what  I  call 
weak  politicians  who  suggest  them,  but  who 
wish  to  become  great  by  foolish  changes. 
Polk,  I  believe,  will  stick  by  you  faithfully; 
should  he  not,  he  is  lost  j  but  I  have  no  fears 


but  that  he  will,  and  being  informed  confiden- 
tially of  this  movement,  may  have  it  in  his  power 
to  put  it  all  down.  There  will  be  great  intrigue 
going  on  at  Washington  this  winter." — (Dec. 
14,  1844.) 

"I  fear  there  are  some  of  our  democratic 
friends  who  are  trying  to  bring  about  a  partner- 
ship of  which  I  wrote  you,  which  shows  a  want 
of  confidence,  or  something  worse.  Be  on  your 
guard — no  partnership ;  you  have  the  confidence 
of  the  great  body  of  the  democrats,  and  I  have 
no  confidence  in  shifting  politicians." — (Decem- 
ber, 21.) 

"  Another  plan  is  to  get  Mr.  Ritchie  inter- 
ested as  editor  of  the  Globe — all  of  which  I 
gave  you  an  intimation  of,  and  which  I  thought 
had  been  put  down.  But  that  any  leading 
Democrat  here  had  any  thought  of  becoming 
interested  in  the  Madisonian,  to  make  it  the 
organ  of  the  administration,  was  such  a  thing 
as  I  could  not  believe ;  as  common  sense  at 
once  pointed  out,  as  a  consequence  that  it  would 
divide  the  democracy,  and  destroy  Polk's  ad- 
ministration. Why,  it  would  blow  him  up. 
The  moment  I  heard  it,  I  adopted  such  measures 
as  I  trust  have  put  an  end  to  it,  as  I  know 
nothing  could  be  so  injurious  to  Polk  and  his 
administration.  The  pretext  for  this  movement 
will  be  the  Globe's  support  of  Mr.  Wright. 
Let  me  know  if  there  is  any  truth  in  this 
rumor.  I  guarded  Colonel  Polk  against  any 
abandonment  of  the  Globe.  If  true,  it  would 
place  Colonel  Polk  in  the  shoes  of  Mr.  Tyler." 
—(February  28,  1845.) 

"  I  have  written  a  long,  candid,  and  friendly 
letter  to  Mr.  Polk,  bringing  to  his  view  the 
dilemma  into  which  he  has  got  by  some  bad 
advice,  and  which  his  good  sense  ought  to  have 
prevented.  I  have  assured  him  of  your  uniform 
declarations  to  me  of  your  firm  support,  and  of 
the  destruction  of  the  democratic  party  if  he 
takes  any  one  but  you  as  the  executive  organ, 
until  you  do  something  to  violate  that  con- 
fidence which  the  democracy  reposes  in  you. 
I  ask  in  emphatic  terms,  what  cause  can  he 
assign  for  not  continuing  your  paper,  the  organ 
that  was  mine  and  Mr.  Van  Buren's,  whose  ad- 
ministration he,  Polk,  and  you  hand  to  hand 
supported,  and  those  great  fundamental  prin- 
ciples you  and  he  have  continued  to  support, 
and  have  told  him  frankly  that  you  will  never 
degrade  yourself  or  your  paper  by  submitting 
to  the  terms  proposed.  I  am  very  sick,  ex- 
hausted by  writing  to  Polk,  and  will  write  you 
again  soon.  I  can  only  add,  that,  although  my 
letter  to  Mr.  Polk  is  both  friendly  and  frank,  I 
have  done  justice  to  you,  and  I  hope  he  will  say 
at  once  to  you,  go  on  with  my  organ  as  you 
have  been  the  organ  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren. 
Should  he  not,  I  have  told  him  his  fate — a 
divided  democracy,  and  all  the  political  cliques 
looking  to  the  succession,  will  annoy  and  crush 
him — the  fairest  prospects  of  successful  ad- 
ministration by  folly  and  jealousy  lost.   I  would 


ANNO  1845.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


G53 


wish  you  to  inform  me  which  of  the  heads  of 
the  Departments,  if  any,  are  hostile  to  you.  If 
Polk  does  not  look  well  to  his  course,  the  divi- 
sions in  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  will  de- 
stroy him."— {April  4,  1845.) 

"  I  wrote  you  and  the  President,  on  the  4th 
instant,  and  was  in  hopes  that  my  views  would 
open  his  eyes  to  his  own  interests  and  union  of 
the  democratic  party.  But  from  the  letters  before 
me,  I  suppose  my  letter  to  the  President  will 
not  prevent  that  evil  to  him  and  the  democratic 
party  that  I  have  used  my  voice  to  prevent.  I 
am  too  unwell  to  write  much  to-day.  I  have 
read  your  letter  with  care  and  much  interest. 
I  knew  you  would  never  degrade  yourself  by 
dividing  the  editoral  chair  with  any  one  for  any 
cause.  I  well  know  that  you  never  can  or  will 
abandon  your  democratic  principles.  You 
cannot,  under  existing  circumstances,  do  any 
thing  to  save  your  character  and  democratic 
principles,  and  your  high  standing  with  all 
classes  of  the  democracy,  but  by  selling  out 
your  paper.  When  you  sell,  have  good  security 
for  the  consideration  money.  Ritchie  is  greatly 
involved,  if  not  finally  broke ;  and  you  know 
Cameron,  who  boasts  that  he  has  {$50,000  to 
invest  in  a  newspaper.  Under  all  existing  cir- 
cumstances, I  say  to  you,  sell,  and  when  you 
do,  I  look  to  a  split  in  the  democratic  ranks  ; 
which  I  will  sorely  regret,  and  which  might 
have  been  so  easily  avoided." — {April  7.) 

"  I  have  been  quite  sick  for  several  days.  My 
mind,  since  ever  I  heard  of  the  attitude  the 
President  had  assumed  with  you  as  editor  of 
the  Globe, — which  was  the  most  unexpected 
thing  I  ever  met  with, — my  mind  has  been 
troubled,  and  it  was  not  only  unexpected  by  me, 
but  has  shown  less  good  common  sense,  by  the 
President,  than  any  act  of  his  life,  and  calculated 
to  divide  instead  of  uniting  the  democracy; 
which  appears  to  be  his  reason  for  urging  this 
useless  and  foolish  measure  at  the  very  threshold 
of  his  administration,  and  when  every  thing  ap- 
peared to  augur  well  for,  to  him,  a  prosperous 
administration.  The  President,  here,  before  he 
set  out  for  Washington,  must  have  been  listen- 
ing to  the  secret  counsels  of  some  political 
cliques,  such  as  Calhoun  or  Tyler  cliques  (for 
there  are  such  here) ;  or  after  he  reached  Wash- 
ington, some  of  the  secret  friends  of  some  of 
the  aspirants  must  have  gotten  hold  of  his  ear, 
and  spoiled  his  common  sense,  or  he  never  would 
have  made  such  a  movement,  so  uncalled  for, 
and  well  calculated  to  sever  the  democracy  by 
calling  down  upon  himself  suspicions,  by  the  act 
of  secretly  favoring  some  of  the  political  cliques 
who  are  "looking  to  the  succession  for  some 
favorite.  I  wrote  him  a  long  letter  on  the  4th, 
telling  him  there  was  but  one  safe  course  to 
pursue — review  his  course,  send  for  you,  and 
direct  you  and  the  Globe  to  proceed  as  the  organ 
of  his  administration,  give  you  all  his  confi- 
dence, and  all  would  be  well,  and  end  well. 
This  is  the  substance;   and  I  had  a  hope  the 


receipt  of  this  letter,  and  some  others  written 
by  mutual  friends,  would  have  restored  all 
things  to  harmony  and  confidence  again.  I 
rested  on  this  hope  until  the  7th,  when  1  received 
yours  of  the  30th,  and  two  confidential  letters 
from  the  President,  directed  to  be  laid  before 
me,  from  which  it  would  seem  that  the  purchase 
of  the  Globe,  and  to  get  clear  of  you,  its  editor. 
is  the  great  absorbing  question  before  the  Pres- 
ident. Well,  who  is  to  be  the  purchau  r  ?  Mr. 
Ritchie  and  Major  A.  J.  Donelson  its  editors. 
Query  as  to  the  latter.  The  above  question  I 
have  asked  the  President.  Is  that  renegade 
politician,  Cameron,  who  boasts  of  his  $50,000 
to  set  up  a  new  paper,  to  be  one  of  them  )  <  >r 
is  Knox  Walker  to  be  the  purchaser  ?  Who  is 
to  purchase?  and  where  is  the  money  to  come 
from?  Is  Dr.  M.  Qwinn,  the  satellite  of  Cal- 
houn, the  great  friend  of  Robert  J.  Walker?  a 
perfect  bankrupt  in  property.  I  would  like  to 
know  what  portion  of  the  cabinet  are  support- 
ing and  advising  the  President  to  this  course, 
where  nothing  but  injury  can  result  to  him  in 
the  end,  and  division  in  his  cabinet,  arising  from 
jealousy.  What  political  clique  is  to  be  bene- 
fited? My  dear  friend,  let  me  know  all  about 
the  cabinet,  and  their  movements  on  this  sub- 
ject. How  loathsome  it  is  to  me  to  see  an  old 
friend  laid  aside,  principles  of  justice  and  friend- 
ship forgotten,  and  all  for  the  sake  of  policy — 
and  the  great  democratic  party  divided  or  en- 
dangered for  policy — I  cannot  reflect  upon  it 
with  any  calmness;  every  point  of  it,  uj)on 
scrutiny,  turns  to  harm  and  disunion,  and  not 
one  beneficial  result  can  be  expected  from  it. 
I  will  be  anxious  to  know  the  result.  If  har- 
mony is  restored,  and  the  Globe  the  organ.  I 
will  rejoice ;  if  sold  to  whom,  and  for  what 
Have,  if  you  sell,  the  purchase  money  well 
secured.  This  may  be  the  last  letter  I  may  be 
able  to  write  you ;  but  live  or  die,  I  am  your 
friend  (and  never  deserted  one  from  policy),  and 
leave  my  papers  and  reputation  in  your  keep- 
ing."— (April  9.) 

From  these  letters  it  will  be  seen  that  Gen- 
eral Jackson,  after  going  through  an  agony  of 
indignation  and  amazement  at  the  idea  of  shov- 
ing Mr.  Blair  from  his  editorial  chair  and  placing 
Mr.  Ritchie  in  it  (and  which  would  have  been 
greater  if  he  had  known  the  arrangement  for 
the  South  Carolina  vote  and  the  withdrawal  of 
Mr.  Tyler),  advised  Mr.  Blair  to  sell  his  Globe 
establishment,  cautioning  him  to  get  good 
security ;  for,  knowing  nothing  of  the  money 
taken  from  the  Treasury,  and  well  knowing  the 
insolvency  of  all  who  were  ostensible  payers,  he 
did  not  at  all  confide  in  their  promises  to  make 
payment.  Mr.  Blair  and  his  partner,  Mr.  John 
C.  Rives  were  of  the  same  mind.    Other  friends 


654 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


whom  they  consulted  (Governor  Wright  and 
Colonel  Benton)  were  of  the  same  opinion ;  and 
the  Globe  was  promptly  sold  to  Mr.  Ritchie, 
and  in  a  way  to  imply  rather  an  abandonment 
of  it  than  a  sale — the  materials  of  the  office  be- 
ing offered  at  valuation,  and  the  "  name  and 
good  will "  of  the  paper  left  out  of  the  transac- 
tion. The  materials  were  valued  at  $35,000, 
and  the  metamorphosed  paper  took  the  name  of 
the  "  Daily  Union ; "  and,  in  fact,  some  change 
of  name  was  necessary,  as  the  new  paper  was 
the  reverse  of  the  old  one. — In  all  these  schemes, 
from  first  to  last,  to  get  rid  of  Mr.  Blair,  the  de- 
sign was  to  retain  Mr.  Rives,  not  as  any  part 
editor  (for  which  he  was  far  more  fit  than 
either  himself  or  the  public  knew),  but  for  his 
extraordinary  business  qualities,  and  to  manage 
the  machinery  and  fiscals  of  the  establishment. 
Accustomed  to  trafficking  and  trading  politicians, 
and  fortune  being  sure  to  the  government  editor, 
it  was  not  suspicioned  by  those  who  conducted 
the  intrigue  that  Mr.  Rives  would  refuse  to  be 
saved  at  the  expense  of  his  partner.  He  scorned 
it !  and  the  two  went  out  together. — The  let- 
ters from  General  Jackson  show  his  apprecia- 
tion of  the  services  of  the  Globe  to  the  country 
and  the  democratic  party  during  the  eight  event- 
ful years  of  his  presidency :  Mr.  Van  Buren,  on 
learning  what  was  going  on,  wrote  to  Mr.  Rives 
to  show  his  opinion  of  the  same  services  during 
the  four  years  of  his  arduous  administration; 
and  that  letter  also  belongs  to  the  history 
of  the  extinction  of  the  Globe  newspaper — 
that  paper  which,  for  twelve  years,  had  fought 
the  battle  of  the  country,  and  of  the  democ- 
racy, in  the  spirit  of  Jackson :  that  is  to  say, 
victoriously  and  honorably.  This  letter  was 
written  to  Mr.  Rives,  who,  in  spite  of  his 
modest  estimate  of  himself,  was  classed  by 
General  Jackson,  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  all  their 
friends,  among  the  wisest,  purest,  and  safest  of 
the  party. 

"  The  Globe  has  run  its  career  at  too  critical 
a  period  in  our  political  history — has  borne  the 
democratic  flag  too  steadily  in  the  face  of  as- 
saults upon  popular  sovereignty,  more  violent 
and  powerful  than  any  which  had  ever  preceded 
them  in  this  or  any  other  country,  not  to  have 
made  impressions  upon  our  history  and  our  in- 
stitutions, which  are  destined  to  be  remembered 
when  those  who  witnessed  its  discontinuance  shall 
be  no  more.  The  manner  in  which  it  demeaned 
itself  through  those  perilous  periods,  and  the  re- 


peated triumphs  which  crowned  its  labors,  will, 
when  the  passions  of  the  day  have  spent  their 
force,  be  matters  of  just  exultation  to  you  and 
to  your  children.  None  have  had  better  op- 
portunities to  witness,  nor  more  interest  in 
observing  your  course,  than  General  Jackson 
and  myself;  and  I  am  very  sure  that  I  could 
not,  if  I  were  to  attempt  it,  express  myself 
more  strongly  in  favor  of  the  constancy, fidelity, 
and  ability  with  which  it  was  conducted,  than 
he  would  sanction  with  his  whole  heart.  He 
would,  I  have  no  doubt,  readily  admit  that  it 
would  have  been  exceedingly  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  for  his  administration  to  have  sus- 
tained itself  in  its  contest  with  a  money  power 
(a  term  as  well  understood  as  that  of  democrat, 
and  much  better  than  that  of  whig  at  the  pre- 
sent day),  if  the  corruptions  which  were  in 
those  days  spread  broadcast  through  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  land,  had  been  able  to  sub- 
vert the  integrity  of  the  Globe ;  and  I  am  very 
certain  that  the  one  over  which  I  had  the  honor 
to  preside,  could  never,  in  such  an  event,  have 
succeeded  in  obtaining  the  institution  of  an  in- 
dependent treasury,  without  the  establishment 
of  which,  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  the 
overthrow  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
will  very  soon  prove  to  be  wholly  illusory.  The 
Bank  of  the  United  States  first,  and  afterwards 
those  of  the  States,  succeeded  in  obtaining  ma- 
jorities in  both  branches  of  the  national  legisla- 
ture favorable  to  their  views ;  but  they  could 
never  move  the  Globe  from  the  course  which 
has  since  been  so  extensively  sanctioned  by  the 
democracy  of  the  nation.  You  gave  to  the 
country  (and  when  I  say  you,  I  desire  to  be  un- 
derstood as  alluding  to  Mr.  Blair  and  yourself) 
at  those  momentous  periods,  the  invaluable  ad- 
vantages of  a  press  at  the  seat  of  the  general 
government,  not  only  devoted,  root  and  branch, 
to  the  support  of  democratic  principles,  but  in- 
dependent in  fact  and  in  feeling,  as  well  of  bank 
influences  as  of  corrupting  pecuniary  influences 
of  any  description.  The  vital  importance  of 
such  an  establishment  to  the  success  of  our 
cause  is  incapable  of  exaggeration.  Experience 
will  show,  if  an  opportunity  is  ever  afforded  to 
test  the  opinion,  that,  without  it,  the  principles 
of  our  party  can  never  be  upheld  in  their  purity 
in  the  administration  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment. Administrations  professedly  their  sup- 
porters may  be  formed,  but  they  will  prove  to 
be  but  whited  sepulchres,  appearing  beautiful 
outward,  but  within  full  of  dead  men's  bones, 
and  all  uncleanness — Administrations  which,  in- 
stead of  directing  their  best  efforts  to  advance 
the  welfare  and  promote  the  happiness  of  the 
toiling  millions,  will  be  ever  ready  to  lend  a 
favorable  ear  to  the  advancement  of  the  selfish 
few." 


The  Globe  was  sold,  and  was  paid  for,  and 
how  ?  becomes  a  question  of  public  concern  to 


ANNO  1845.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


answer ;  for  it  was  paid  for  out  of  public  money 
—those  same  $50,000  which  were  removed  to 
the  village  bank  in  the  interior  of  Pennsylvania 
by  a  Treasury  order  on  the  fourth  day  of  Novem- 
ber, 1844.  Three  annual  instalments  made  the 
payment,  and  the  Treasury  did  not  reclaim  the 
money  for  these  three  years ;  and,  though  travel- 
ling through  tortuous  channels,  the  sharpsighted 
Mr.  Rives  traced  the  money  back  to  its  start- 
ing point  from  that  deposit.  Besides,  Mr. 
Cameron  admitted  before  a  committee  of  Con- 
gress, that  he  had  furnished  money  for  the  pay- 
ments— an  admission  which  the  obliging  com- 
mittee, on  request,  left  out  of  their  report.  Mr. 
Robert  J.  Walker  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
during  these  three  years,  and  the  conviction  was 
absolute,  among  the  close  observers  of  the 
course  of  things,  that  he  was  the  prime  con- 
triver and  zealous  manager  of  the  arrangements 
which  displaced  Mr.  Blair  and  installed  Mr. 
Ritchie. 

In  the  opinions  which  he  expressed  of  the 
consequences  of  that  change  of  editors,  General 
Jackson  was  prophetic.  The  new  paper  brought 
division  and  distraction  into  the  party — filled  it 
with  dissensions,  which  eventually  induced  the 
withdrawal  of  Mr.  Ritchie  ;  but  not  until  he 
had  produced  the  mischiefs  which  abler  men 
cannot  repair. 


CHAPTER    CLII. 

TWENTY-NINTH  CONGRESS:  LIST  OF  MEMBERS: 
FIRST  SESSION:  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  HOUSE. 

Senators. 

Maine. — George  Evans,  John  Fairfield. 

New  Hampshire. — Benjamin  "W.  Jenness, 
Charles  G.  Atherton. 

Vermont.  —  "William  Upham,  Samuel  S. 
Phelps. 

Massachusetts.  —  Daniel  "Webster,  John 
Davis. 

Rhode  Island. — James  F.  Simmons,  Albert 
C.  Green. 

Connecticut. — John  M.  Niles,  Jabez  "W. 
Huntington. 

New  York. — John  A.  Dix,  Daniel  S.  Dickin- 
son. " 

New  Jersey. — Jacob  W.  Miller,  John  L. 
Dayton. 

Pennsylvania.  —  Simon  Cameron,  Daniel 
Sturgeon. 


655 

Clayton,    John    M. 


Pearce,     Reverdy 
Archer,  Isaac  S.  Pen- 


Delaware.  —  Thomas 
Clayton. 

Maryland. —  James    A. 
Johnson. 

Virginia.— "William  S 
nybacker. 

North  Carolina.— Willie  P.  Mangum  Wil- 
liam H.  Haywood,  jr. 

South  Carolina.— John  C.  Calhoun,  George 
McDuffie. 

Georgia.— John  McP.  Berrien,  "Walter  T 
Colquitt. 

Alabama.— Dixon  II.  Lewis,  Arthur  P.  Bae- 
by. 

Mississippi.— Joseph  W.  Chalmers,  Jesse 
Speight. 

Louisiana.  —  Alexander     Barrow, 
Johnson. 


Henry 


Tennessee.— Spencer  Jamagin,  Hopkins  L. 
Turney. 

Kentucky.— James  T.  More-head,  John  J. 
Crittenden. 

Ohio.— William  Allen,  Thomas  Corwin. 

Indiana. — Ed.  A.  Hannegan,  Jesse  I).  Bright. 

Illinois. — James  Semple,  Sidney  Breese. 

Missouri.— David  R.  Atchison,  Thomas  H. 
Benton. 

Arkansas.  —  Chester  Ashley,  Ambrose  II. 
Sevier. 

Michigan.  —  "William  Woodbridge,  Lewis 
Cass. 

Florida. — David  Levy,  James  D.  Westcott. 

In  this  list  will  be  seen  the  names  of  several 
new  senators,  not  members  of  the  body  before, 
and  whose  senatorial  exertions  soon  made  them 
eminent; — Dix  and  Dickinson  of  New  York, 
Reverdy  Johnson  of  Maryland,  Jesse  D.  Bright 
of  Indiana,  Lewis  Cass  of  Michigan  ;  and  to 
these  were  soon  to  be  added  two  others  from 
the  newly  incorporated  State  of  Texas,  Messrs. 
General  Sam  Houston  and  Thomas  F.  Rusk, 
Esq.,  and  of  whom,  and  their  State,  it  may  be 
said  they  present  a  remarkable  instance  of  mu- 
tual confidence  and  concord,  neither  having 
been  changed  to  this  day  (1850). 

House  of  Representatives. 

Maine.— John  F.  Scammon,  Robert  P.  Dun- 
lap,  Luther  Severance,  John  D.  McCrate.  Cullen 
Sawtelle,  Hannibal  Hamlin,  Hezekiah  Williams. 

New  Hampshire.— Moses  Norris,  jr.,  Mace 
Moulton,  James  II.  Johnson. 

Vermont.— Solomon  Foot,  Jacob  Collamer, 
George  P.  Marsh,  Paul  Dillingham,  jr. 

Massachusetts.  —  Robert  C.  Winthrop, 
Daniel  P.  King,  Amos  Abbot,  Benjamin  Thomp- 
son, Charles  Hudson,  George  Ashmun,  Julius 
Rockwell,  John  Quincy  Adams,  Joseph  Grin- 
nell. 


656 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Rhode  Island. — Henry  Y.  Cranston,  Lemuel 
H.  Arnold. 

Connecticut. — James  Dixon,  Samuel  D. 
Hubbard,  John  A.  Rockwell,  Truman  Smith. 

New  York. — John  W.  Lawrence,  Henry  I. 
Seaman,  William  S.  Miller,  William  B.  Maclay, 
Thomas  M.  Woodruff,  William  W.  Campbell, 
Joseph  H.  Anderson,  William  W.  Woodworth, 
Archibald  C.  Niven,  Samuel  Gordon,  John  F. 
Collin,  Richard  P.  Herrick,  Bradford  R.  Wood, 
Erastus  D.  Culver,  Joseph  Russell,  Hugh 
White,  Charles  S.  Benton,  Preston  King,  Orville 
Hungerford,  Timothy  Jenkins,  Charles  Good- 
year, Stephen  Strong,  William  J.  Hough,  Horace 
Wheaton,  George  Rathbun,  Samuel  S.  Ells- 
worth, John  De  Mott,  Elias  B.  Holmes,  Charles 
H.  Carcoll,  Martin  Grover,  Abner  Lewis,  Wil- 
liam A.  Mosely,  Albert  Smith,  Washington 
Hunt. 

New  Jersey. — James  G.  Hampton,  George 
Sykes,  John  Runk,  John  Edsall,  William 
Wright. 

Pennsylvania. — Lewis  C.  Levin,  Joseph  R. 
Ingersoll,  John  H.  Campbell,  Charles  J.  Inger- 
soll,  Jacob  S.  Yost,  Jacob  Erdman,  Abraham 
R.  Mcllvaine,  John  Strohm,  John  Ritter,  Rich- 
ard Brodhead,  jr.,  Owen  D.  Leib,  David  Wilmot, 
James  Pollock,  Alexander  Ramsay,  Moses  Mc- 
Lean, James  Black,  James  Blanchard,  Andrew 
Stewart,  Henry  D.  Foster,  John  H.  Ewing, 
Cornelius  Darragh,  William  S.  Garvin,  James 
Thompson,  Joseph  Buffington. 

Delaware. — John  W.  Houston. 

Maryland. — John  G.  Chapman,  Thomas 
Perry,  Thomas  Wr.  Ligon,  William  F.  Giles, 
Albert  Constable,  Edward  Long. 

Virginia. — Archibald  Atkinson,  George  C. 
Dromgoole,  William  M.  Treadway,  Edward  W. 
Hubard,  Shelton  F.  Leake,  James  A.  Seddon, 
Thomas  H.  Bayly,  Robert  M.  T.  Hunter,  John 
S.  Pendleton,  Henry  Redinger,  William  Taylor, 
Augustus  A.  Chapman.  George  W.  Hopkins, 
Joseph  Johnson,  William  G.  Brown. 

North  Carolina. — James  Graham,  Daniel 
M.  Barringer,  David  S.  Reid,  Alfred  Dockery, 
James  C.  Dobbin,  James  J.  McKay,  John  R. 
J.  Daniels,  Henry  S.  Clarke,  Asa  Biggs. 

South  Carolina. — James  A.  Black,  Richard 
F.  Simpson,  Joseph  A.  Woodward,  A.  D.  Sims, 
Armistead  Burt,  Isaac  E.  Holmes,  R.  Barnwell 
Rhett. 

Georgia.  —  Thomas  Butler  King,  Seaborn 
Jones,  Hugh  A.  Haralson,  John  H.  Lumpkin, 
Howell  Cobb,  Alex.  H.  Stephens,  Robt.  Toombs. 

Alabama. — Samuel  D.  Dargin,  Henry  W. 
Billiard,  William  L.  Yancey,  Winter  W.  Payne, 
George  S.  Houston,  Reuben  Chapman,  Felix  G. 
McConnell. 

Mississippi.  —  Jacob  Thompson,  Stephen 
Adams,  Robert  N.  Roberts,  Jefferson  Davis. 

Louisiana. — John  Slidell,  Bannon  G.  Thibo- 
deaux,  J.  H.  Harmonson,  Isaac  E.  Morse. 

Ohio. — James  J.  Faran,  F.  A.  Cunningham, 
Robert    C.  Schenck,  Joseph  Vance,  William 


Sawyer,  Henry  St.  John,  Joseph  J.  McDowell, 
Allen  G,  Thurman,  Augustus  L.  Perrill,  Colum- 
bus Delano,  Jacob  Brinkerhofij  Samuel  F.  Vin- 
ton, Isaac  Parish,  Alexander  Harper,  Joseph 
Morris,  John  D.  Cummins,  George  Fries,  D.  A. 
Starkweather,  Daniel  R.  Tilden,  Joshua  R. 
Giddings,  Joseph  M.  Root. 

Kentucky. — Linn  Boyd,  John  H.  McHenry. 
Henry  Grider,  Joshua  F.  Bell.  Bryan  R.  Young, 
John  P.  Martin,  William  P.  Thomasson,  Gar- 
rett Davis,  Andrew  Trumbo,  John  W.  Tib- 
batts. 

Tennessee. — Andrew  Johnson,  William  M. 
Cocke,  John  Crozier,  Alvan  Cullom,  George  W. 
Jones,  Barclay  Martin,  Meridith,  P.  Gentry, 
Lorenzo  B.  Chase.  Frederick  P.  Stanton,  Mil- 
ton Brown. 

Indiana. — Robert  Dale  Owen,  Thomas  J. 
Henley,  Thomas  Smith,  Caleb  B.  Smith,  Wil- 
liam W.  Wick,  John  W.  Davis,  Edward  W. 
McGaughey,  John  Petit,  Charles  W.  Cathcart, 
Andrew  Kennedy. 

Illinois. — Robert  Smith,  John  A.  McCler- 
nand,  Orlando  B.  Ficklin,  John  Wentworth, 
Stephen  A.  Douglass,  Joseph  P.  Hoge,  Edward 
D.  Baker. 

Missouri.  —  James  B.  Bowlin,  James  H. 
Relf,  Sterling  Price,  John  S.  Phelps,  Leonard 
H.  Simms. 

Arkansas. — Archibald  Yell. 

Michigan. — Robert  McClelland,  John  S. 
Chapman,  James  B.  Hunt. 

The  delegates  from  territories  were  : 

Florida. — Edward  C.  Cabell. 
Iowa. — Augustus  C.  Dodge. 
Wisconsin. — Morgan  L.  Martin. 

The  election  of  Speaker  was  readily  effected, 
there  being  a  large  majority  on  the  democratic 
side.  Mr.  John  W.  Davis,  of  Indiana,  being 
presented  as  the  democratic  candidate,  received 
120  votes  ;  Mr.  Samuel  F.  Vinton,  of  Ohio,  re- 
ceived the  whig  vote,  72.  Mr.  Benjamin  B. 
French,  of  New  Hampshire,  was  appointed  clerk 
(without  the  formality  of  an  election),  by  a  re- 
solve of  the  House,  adopted  by  a  general  vote. 
He  was  of  course  democratic.  The  House  being 
organized,  a  motion  was  made  by  Mr.  Hamlin, 
of  Maine,  to  except  the  hour  rule  (as  it  was 
called)  from  the  rules  to  be  adopted  for  the  go- 
vernment of  the  House — which  was  lost,  62  to 
143. 


ANNO  1845.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDEiNT. 


657 


CHAPTER    CLIII. 

ME.  POLK'S  FIKST  ANNUAL  MESSAGE  TO  CON- 
GRESS. 

The  leading  topic  in  the  message  was,  naturally, 
the  incorporation  of  Texas,  then  accomplished, 
and  the  consequent  dissatisfaction  of  Mexico — a 
dissatisfaction  manifested  every  way  short  of  ac- 
tual hostilities,  and  reason  to  believe  they  were 
intended.  On  our  side,  strong  detachments  of  the 
army  and  navy  had  been  despatched  to  Texas 
and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  to  be  ready  for  what- 
ever might  happen.  The  Mexican  minister, 
General  Almonte,  had  left  the  United  States : 
an  American  minister  sent  to  Mexico  had  been 
refused  to  be  received,  and  had  returned  home. 
All  this  was  the  natural  result  of  the  status 
belli  between  the  United  States  and  Mexico 
which  the  incorporation  of  Texas  had  estab- 
lished ;  and,  that  there  were  not  actual  hostili- 
ties was  only  owing  to  the  weakness  of  one  of 
the  parties.  These  things  were  thus  stated  by 
the  President : 

"  Since  that  time  Mexico  has,  until  recently, 
occupied  an  attitude  of  hostility  towards  the 
United  States — has  been  marshalling  and  or- 
ganizing armies,  issuing  proclamations,  and 
avowing  the  intention  to  make  war  on  the 
United  States,  either  by  an  open  declaration,  or 
by  invading  Texas.  Both  the  Congress  and 
convention  of  the  people  of  Texas  invited  this 
government  to  send  an  army  into  that  territory, 
to  protect  and  defend  them  against  the  menaced 
attack.  The  moment  the  terms  of  annexation, 
offered  by  the  United  States,  were  accepted  by 
Texas,  the  latter  became  so  far  a  part  of  our 
own  country,  as  to  make  it  our  duty  to  afford 
such  protection  and  defence.  I  therefore  deemed 
it  proper,  as  a  precautionary  measure,  to  order 
a  strong  squadron  to  the  coast  of  Mexico,  and  to 
concentrate  an  efficient  military  force  on  the 
western  frontier  of  Texas.  Our  army  was  or- 
dered to  take  position  in  the  country  between 
the  Nueces  and  the  Del  Norte,  and  to  repel  any 
invasion  of  the  Texian  territory  which  might  be 
attempted  by  the  Mexican  forces.  Our  squad- 
ron in  the  Gulf  was  ordered  to  co-operate  with 
the  army.  But  though  our  army  and  navy 
were  placed  in  a  position  to  defend  our  own, 
and  the  rights  of  Texas,  they  were  ordered  to 
commit  no  act  of  hostility  against  Mexico,  un- 
less she  declared  war,  or  was  herself  the  aggres- 
sor by  striking  the  first  blow.  The  result  has 
been,  that  Mexico  has  made  no  aggressive  move- 

Vol.  II.— 42 


ment,  and  our  military  and  and  naval  command- 
ers have  executed  their  orders  with  such  discre- 
tion, that  the  peace  of  the  two  republics  has  not 
been  disturbed." 

Thus  the  armed  forces  of  the  two  countries 
were  brought  into  presence,  and  the  legal  state  of 
war  existing  between  them  was  brought  to  the 
point  of  actual  war.  Of  this  the  President 
complained,  assuming  that  Texas  and  the  United 
States  had  a  right  to  unite,  which  was  true  as 
to  the  right;  but  asserting  that  Mexico  had  no 
right  to  oppose  it,  which  was  a  wrong  assumption. 
For,  in  taking  Texas  into  the  Union,  she  was 
taken  with  her  circumstances,  one  of  which  was 
a  state  of  war  with  Mexico.  Denying  her  right 
to  take  offence  at  what  had  been  done,  the  mes- 
sage went  on  to  enumerate  causes  of  complaint 
against  her,  and  for  many  years  back,  and  to 
make  out  cause  of  war  against  her  on  account 
of  injuries  done  by  her  to  our  citizens.  In  this 
sense  the  message  said : 

"  But  though  Mexico  cannot  complain  of  the 
United  States  on  account  of  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  serious  causes 
of  misunderstanding  between  the  two  coun- 
tries continue  to  exist,  growing  out  of  unre- 
dressed injuries  inflicted  by  the  Mexican  au- 
thorities and  people  on  the  persons  and  pro- 
perty of  citizens  of  the  United  States,  through 
a  long  series  of  years.    Mexico  has  admitted 
these  injuries,  but  has  neglected  and  refused  to 
repair  them.     Such  was  the  character  of  the 
wrongs,  and  such  the  insults  repeatedly  offered 
to  American  citizens  and  the  American  flag  by 
Mexico,  in  palpable  violation  of  the  laws  of  na- 
tions and  the  treaty  between  the  two  countries 
of  the  5th  April,  1831,  that  they  have  been  re- 
peatedly brought  to  the  notice  of  Congress  by 
my  predecessors.   As  early  as  the  8th  February, 
1837,  the  President  of  the  United  States  de- 
clared, in  a  message  to  Congress,   that  'the 
length  of  time  since  some  of  the  injuries  have 
been  committed,  the  repeated  and  unavailing 
application  for  redress,  the  wanton  character  of 
some  of  the  outrages  upon  the  persons  and  pro- 
perty of  our  citizens,  upon  the  officers  and  flag 
of  the  United  States,  independent  of  recent  in- 
sults to  this  government  and  people  by  the  late 
extraordinary  Mexican  minister,  would  justify, 
in  the  eyes  of  all  nations,  immediate  war.'     lie 
did  not,  however,  recommend  an  immediate  re- 
sort to  this  extreme  measure,  which  he  declared 
'  should  not  be  used  by  just  and  generous  na- 
tions, confiding  in  their  strength,  for  injuries 
committed,  if  it  can  be  honorably  avoided ; '  but, 
in  a  spirit  of  forbearance,  proposed  that  another 
demand  be  made  on  Mexico  for  that  redress 
which  had  been  so  long  and  unjustly  withheld. 
In  these  views,  committees  of  the  two  Houses 


658 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  Congress,  in  reports  made  in  their  respective 
bodies,  concurred.  Since  these  proceedings 
more  than  eight  years  have  elapsed,  during 
which,  in  addition  to  the  wrongs  then  com- 
plained of,  others  of  an  aggravated  character 
have  been  committed  on  the  persons  and  pro- 
perty of  our  citizens.  A  special  agent  was  sent 
to  Mexico  in  the  summer  of  1838,  with  full  au- 
thority to  make  another  and  final  demand  for 
redress.  The  demand  was  made ;  the  Mexican 
government  promised  to  repair  the  wrongs  of 
which  we  complained ;  and  after  much  delay,  a 
treaty  of  indemnity  with  that  view  was  con- 
cluded between  the  two  powers  on  the  11th  of 
April,  1839,  and  was  duly  ratified  by  both  gov- 
ernments." 

This  treaty  of  indemnity,  the  message  went 
on  to  show,  had  never  yet  been  complied  with, 
and  its  non-fulfilment,  added  to  the  other  causes 
of  complaint,  the  President  considered  as  just 
cause  for  declaring  war  against  her — saying : 

"  In  the  mean  time,  our  citizens,  who  suffered 
great  losses,  and  some  of  whom  have  been  re- 
duced from  affluence  to  bankruptcy,  are  without 
remedy,  unless  their  rights  be  enforced  by  their 
government.  Such  a  continued  and  unprovoked 
series  of  wrongs  could  never  have  been  tolerated 
by  the  United  States,  had  they  been  committed 
by  one  of  the  principal  nations  of  Europe. 
Mexico  was,  however,  a  neighboring  sister 
republic,  which,  following  our  example,  had 
achieved  her  independence,  and  for  whose  suc- 
cess and  prosperity,  all  our  sympathies  were 
early  enlisted.  The  United  States  were  the 
first  to  recognize  her  independence,  and  to  re- 
ceive her  into  the  family  of  nations,  and  have 
ever  been  desirous  of  cultivating  with  her  a 
good  understanding.  We  have,  therefore,  borne 
the  repeated  wrongs  she  has  committed,  with 
great  patience,  in  the  hope  that  a  returning  sense 
of  justice  would  ultimately  guide  her  councils, 
and  that  we  might,  if  possible,  honorably  avoid 
any  hostile  collision  with  her." 

Torn  by  domestic  dissension,  in  a  state  of 
revolution  at  home,  and  ready  to  be  crushed  by 
the  power  of  the  United  States,  the  Mexican 
government  had  temporized,  and  after  dismissing 
one  United  States  minister,  had  consented  to 
receive  another,  who  was  then  on  his  way  to 
tho  City  of  Mexico.  Of  this  mission,  and  the 
consequences  of  its  failure,  the  President  thus 
expressed  himself: 

"  The  minister  appointed  has  set  out  on  his 
mission,  and  is  probably  by  this  time  near  the 
Mexican  capital.  He  has  been  instructed  to 
bring  the  negotiation  with  which  he  is  charged 
to  a  conclusion  at  the  earliest  practicable  period  ; 
which,  it  is  expected,  will  be  in  time  to  enable 


me  to  communicate  the  result  to  Congress 
during  the  present  session.  Until  that  result  is 
known,  I  forbear  to  recommend  to  Congress 
such  ulterior  measures  of  redress  for  the  wrongs 
and  injuries  we  have  so  long  borne,  as  it  would 
have  been  proper  to  make  had  no  such  negotia- 
tion been  instituted." 

From  this  communication  it  was  clear  that  a 
recommendation  of  a  declaration  of  war  was 
only  deferred  for  the  issue  of  this  mission,  which 
failing  to  be  favorable,  would  immediately  call 
forth  the  deferred  recommendation.  The  Oregon 
question  was  next  in  importance  to  that  of  Texas 
and  Mexico,  and  like  it  seemed  to  be  tending  to 
a  warlike  solution.  The  negotiations  between 
the  two  governments,  which  had  commenced  ^ 
under  Mr.  Tyler's  administration,  and  continued 
for  some  months  under  his  own,  had  come  to  a 
dead  stand.  The  government  of  the  United 
States  had  revoked  its  proposition  to  make  the 
parallel  of  49  degrees  the  dividing  line  between 
the  two  countries,  and  asserted  the  unquestion- 
able title  of  the  United  States  to  the  whole,  up 
to  the  Russian  boundary  in  54  degrees  40  min- 
utes ;  and  the  message  recommended  Congress 
to  authorize  the  notice  which  was  to  terminate 
the  joint  occupancy,  to  extend  our  laws  to  the 
territory,  to  encourage  its  population  and  settle- 
ment ;  and  cast  upon  Great  Britain  the  respon- 
sibility of  any  belligerent  solution  of  the  diffi- 
culty which  might  arise.  Thus,  the  issue  of 
peace  or  war  with  Great  Britain  was  thrown 
into  the  hands  of  Congress. 

The  finances,  and  the  public  debt,  required  a 
notice,  which  was  briefly  and  satisfactorily  given. 
The  receipts  into  the  Treasury  for  the  past  year 
had  been  $29,770,000:  the  payments  from  it 
$29,968,000 ;  and  the  balance  in  the  Treasury 
at  the  end  of  the  year  five  millions — leaving  a 
balance  of  $7,658,000  on  hand.  The  nature  of 
these  balances,  always  equal  to  about  one-fourth 
of  the  revenue  even  where  the  receipts  and  ex- 
penditures are  even,  or  the  latter  even  in  some 
excess,  has  been  explained  in  the  first  volume  of 
this  View,  as  resulting  from  the  nature  of  great 
government  transactions  and  payments,  large 
part  of  which  necessarily  go  into  the  beginning 
of  the  succeeding  year,  when  they  would  be 
met  by  the  accruing  revenue,  even  if  there  was 
nothing  in  the  Treasury  j  so  that,  in  fact,  the 
government  may  be  carried  on  upon  an  income 
about  one-fourth  less  than  the  expenditure. 
This  is  a  paradox — a  seeming  absurdity,  but 


ANNO  1845.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


659 


true,  which  every  annual  statement  of  the  Trea- 
sury will  prove ;  and  which  the  legislative,  as 
well  as  the  executive  government,  should  under- 
stand. The  sentiments  in  relation  to  the  public 
debt  (of  which  there  would  have  been  none  had 
it  not  been  for  the  distribution  of  the  land  reve- 
nue, and  the  surplus  fund,  among  the  States,  and 
the  absurd  plunges  in  the  descent  of  the  duties 
on  imports  in  the  last  two  years  of  the  com- 
promise act  of  1833),  were  just  and  wise,  such 
as  had  been  always  held  by  the  democratic 
school,  and  which  cannot  be  too  often  repeated. 
They  were  these : 

"  The  amount  of  the  public  debt  remaining 
unpaid  on  the  first  of  October  lastv  was  seven- 
teen millions,  seventy-five  thousand,  four  hun- 
dred and  forty-five  dollars  and  fifty-two  cents. 
Further  payments  of  the  public  debt  would 
have  been  made,  in  anticipation  of  the  period  of 
its  reimbursement  under  the  authority  conferred 
upon  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  by  the  acts 
of  July  twenty-first,  1841,  and  of  April  fifteenth, 
and  of  March  third,  1843,  had  not  the  unsettled 
state  of  our  relations  with  Mexico  menaced  hos- 
tile collision  with  that  power.  In  view  of  such 
a  contingency,  it  was  deemed  prudent  to  retain 
in  the  Treasury  an  amount  unusually  large  for 
ordinary  purposes.  A  few  years  ago,  our  whole 
national  debt  growing  out  of  the  revolution  and 
the  war  of  1812  with  Great  Britain,  was  extin- 
guished, and  we  presented  to  the  world  the  rare 
and  noble  spectacle  of  a  great  and  growing  peo- 
ple who  had  fully  discharged  every  obligation. 
Since  that  time  the  existing  debt  has  been  con- 
tracted ;  and  small  as  it  is,  in  comparison  with 
the  similar  burdens  of  most  other  nations,  it 
should  be  extinguished  at  the  earliest  practicable 
period.  Should  the  state  of  the  country  per- 
mit, and  especially  if  our  foreign  relations  inter- 
pose no  obstacle,  it  is  contemplated  to  apply  all 
the  moneys  in  the  Treasury  as  they  accrue  be- 
yond what  is  required  for  the  appropriations  by 
Congress,  to  its  liquidation.  I  cherish  the  hope 
of  soon  being  able  to  congratulate  the  country 
on  its  recovering  once  more  the  lofty  position 
which  it  so  recently  occupied.  Our  country, 
which  exhibits  to  the  world  the  benefits  of  self- 
government,  in  developing  all  the  sources  of 
national  prosperity,  owes  to  mankind  the  per- 
manent example  of  a  nation  free  from  the  blight- 
ing influence  of  a  public  debt." 

The  revision  of  the  tariff  was  recommended, 
with  a  view  to  revenue  as  the  object,  with  pro- 
tection to  home  industry  as  the  incident. 


CHAPTER    CLIV. 

DEATH  OF  JOHN  FORSYTH. 

Like  Mr.  Crawford,  he  was  a  Virginian  by  birth, 
Georgian  by  citizenship,  republican  in  politics, 
and  eminent  in  his  day.  He  ran  the  career  of 
federal  honors — a  member  of  the  House  and  of 
the  Senate,  and  a  front  rank  debater  in  each  : 
minister  in  Spain,  and  Secretary  of  State  under 
Presidents  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  ;  successor 
to  Crawford  in  his  State,  and  the  federal  coun- 
cils ;  and  the  fast  political  and  personal  friend 
of  that  eminent  citizen  in  all  the  trials  and  for- 
tunes of  his  life.  A  member  of  the  House  when 
Mr.  Crawford,  restrained  by  his  office,  and  dis- 
abled by  his  calamity,  was  unable  to  do  any 
thing  for  himself,  and  assailed  by  the  imperso- 
nation of  the  execrable  A.  B.  plot,  it  devolved 
upon  him  to  stand  up  for  his  friend ;  and  nobly 
did  he  do  it.  The  examination  through  which 
he  led  the  accuser  exterminated  him  in  public 
opinion — showed  every  accusation  to  be  false 
and  malicious ;  detected  the  master  spirit  which 
lay  behind  the  ostensible  assailants,  and  greatly 
exalted  the  character  of  Mr.  Crawford. 

Mr.  Forsyth  was  a  fine  specimen  of  that  kind 
of  speaking  which  constitutes  a  debater,  and 
which,  in  fact,  is  the  effective  speaking  in  legis- 
lative assemblies.  He  combined  the  requisites 
for  keen  debate — a  ready,  copious,  and  easy  elo- 
cution ;  ample  knowledge  of  the  subject ;  argu- 
ment and  wit ;  great  power  to  point  a  sarcasm, 
and  to  sting  courteously ;  perfect  self-possession, 
and  a  quickness  and  clearness  of  perception  to 
take  advantage  of  every  misstep  of  his  adver- 
sary. He  served  in  trying  times,  during  the 
great  contests  with  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  with  the  heresy  of  nullification,  and  the 
dawning  commencement  of  the  slavery  agitation. 
In  social  life  he  was  a  high  exemplification  of 
refined  and  courteous  manners,  of  polite  conver- 
sation, and  of  affability,  decorum  and  dignity. 


660 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER    CLV. 

ADMISSION  OF  FLORIDA  AND  IOWA 

At  this  time  were  admitted  into  the  Union,  and 
by  a  single  bill,  two  States,  which  seem  to  have 
but  few  things  in  common  to  put  them  together — 
one  the  oldest,  the  other  the  newest  territory — 
one  in  the  extreme  northwest  of  the  Union,  the 
other  in  the  extreme  southeast — one  the  land 
of  evergreens  and  perpetual  flowers,  the  other 
the  climate  of  long  and  rigorous  winter — one 
maintaining,  the  other  repulsing  slavery.  It 
would  seem  strange  that  two  territories  so  dif- 
ferent in  age,  so  distant  from  each  other,  so 
antagonistic  in  natural  features  and  political  in- 
stitutions, should  ripen  into  States  at  the  same 
time,  and  come  into  the  Union  by  a  single  act ; 
but  these  antagonisms — that  is,  the  antagonistic 
provisions  on  the  subject  of  slavery — made  the 
conjunction,  and  gave  to  the  two  young  States 
an  inseparable  admission.  It  happened  that  the 
slave  and  free  States  had  long  before  become 
equal  in  number,  and  a  feeling  of  jealousy,  or  a 
calculation  of  policy  operated  to  keep  them  so ; 
and  for  that  purpose  to  admit  one  of  each  char- 
acter at  the  same  time.  Thus  balancing  and 
neutralizing  each  other,  the  bill  for  their  admis- 
sion was  passed  without  a  struggle,  and  furnished 
but  little  beyond  the  yeas  and  nays — these  lat- 
ter a  scant  minority  in  either  House — to  show 
the  disposition  of  members.  In  the  Senate  the 
negatives  were  9  to  36  yeas :  in  the  House  48 
to  144.  Numerically  the  free  and  the  slave 
States  were  thus  kept  even :  in  political  power 
a  vast  inequality  was  going  on — the  increase  of 
population  being  so  much  greater  in  the  north- 
ern than  in  the  southern  region. 


CHAPTER   CLVI. 

OEEGON  TREATY:  NEGOTIATIONS  COMMENCED, 
AND  BROKEN  OFF. 

This  was  a  pretermitted  subject  in  the  general 
negotiations  which  led  to  the  Ashburton  treaty : 
it  was  now  taken  up  as  a  question  for  separate 


settlement.  The  British  government  moved  in 
it,  Mr.  Henry  S.  Fox,  the  British  minister  in 
Washington,  being  instructed  to  propose  the 
negotiation.  This  was  done  in  November,  1842, 
and  Mr.  Webster,  then  Secretary  of  State  under 
Mr.  Tyler,  immediately  replied,  accepting  the 
proposal,  and  declaring  it  to  be  the  desire  of  his 
government  to  have  this  territorial  question  im- 
mediately settled.  But  the  movement  stopped 
there.  Nothing  further  took  place  between  Mr. 
Webster  and  Fox,  and  the  question  slumbered 
till  1844,  when  Mr.  (since  Sir)  Richard  Paken- 
ham,  arrived  in  the  United  States  as  British 
minister,  and  renewed  the  proposition  for  open- 
ing the  negotiation  to  Mr.  Upshur,  then  Secre- 
tary of  State.  This  was  February  24th,  1844. 
Mr.  Upshur  replied  promptly,  that  is  to  say,  on 
the  26th  of  the  same  month,  accepting  the  pro- 
posal, and  naming  an  early  day  for  receiving  Mr. 
Pakenham  to  begin  the  negotiation.  Before 
that  day  came  he  had  perished  in  the  disastrous 
explosion  of  the  great  gun  on  board  the  Prince- 
ton man-of-war.  The  subject  again  slumbered 
six  months,  and  at  the  end  of  that  time,  July 
22d,  was  again  brought  to  the  notice  of  the 
American  government  by  a  note  from  the  British 
minister  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  successor  to  Mr.  Up- 
shur in  the  Department  of  State.  Referring  to 
the  note  received  from  Mr.  Upshur  the  day  be- 
fore his  death,  he  said : 

"  The  lamented  death  of  Mr.  Upshur,  which 
occurred  within  a  few  days  after  the  date  of  that 
note,  the  interval  which  took  place  between  that 
event  and  the  appointment  of  a  successor,  and 
the  urgency  and  importance  of  various  matters 
which  offered  themselves  to  your  attention  im- 
mediately after  your  accession  to  office,  suffi- 
ciently explain  why  it  has  not  hitherto  been  in 
the  power  of  your  government,  sir,  to  attend  to 
the  important  matters  to  which  I  refer.  But, 
the  session  of  Congress  having  been  brought  to 
a  close,  and  the  present  being  the  season  of  the 
year  when  the  least  possible  business  is  usually 
transacted,  it  occurs  to  me  that  you  may  now 
feel  at  leisure  to  proceed  to  the  consideration  of 
that  subject.  At  all  events  it  becomes  my  duty 
to  recall  it  to  your  recollection,  and  to  repeat 
the  earnest  desire  of  her  majesty's  government, 
that  a  question,  on  which  so  much  interest  is 
felt  in  both  countries,  should  be  disposed  of  at 
the  earliest  moment  consistent  with  the  conven- 
ience of  the  government  of  the  United  States." 

Mr.  Calhoun  answered  the  22d  of  August, 
declaring  his  readiness  to  begin  the  negotiation, 
and  fixing  the  next  day  for  taking  up  the  sub- 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


661 


ject.  It  was  taken  up  accordingly,  and  con- 
ducted in  the  approved  and  safe  way  of  con- 
ducting such  negotiations,  that  is  to  say,  a  pro- 
tocol of  every  conference  signed  by  the  two 
negotiators  before  they  separated,  and  the  pro- 
positions submitted  by  each  always  reduced  to 
writing.  This  was  the  proper  and  satisfactory 
mode  of  proceeding,  the  neglect  and  total  omis- 
sion of  which  had  constituted  so  just  and  so 
loud  a  complaint  against  the  manner  in  which 
Mr.  Webster  and  Lord  Ashburton  had  conducted 
their  conferences.  Mr.  Calhoun  and  Mr.  Paken- 
ham  met  seven  times,  exchanged  arguments  and 
propositions,  and  came  to  a  balk,  which  sus- 
pended their  labors.  Mr.  Calhoun,  rejecting  the 
usual  arts  of  diplomacy,  which  holds  in  reserve 
the  ultimate  and  true  offer  while  putting  for- 
ward fictitious  ones  for  experiment,  went  at 
once  to  his  ultimatum,  and  proposed  the  contin- 
uation of  the  parallel  of  the  49  th  degree  of 
north  latitude,  which,  after  the  acquisition  of 
Louisiana,  had  been  adopted  by  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States  as  the  dividing  line  be- 
tween their  possessions,  from  the  Lake  of  the 
Woods  (fixed  as  a  land-mark  under  the  treaty 
of  Utrecht),  to  the  summit  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains— the  United  States  insisting  at  the  same 
time  to  continue  that  line  to  the  Pacific  Ocean 
under  the  terms  of  the  same  treaty.  Mr.  Pak- 
enham  declined  this  proposition  in  the  part  that 
carried  the  line  to  the  ocean,  but  offered  to  con- 
tinue it  from  the  summit  of  the  "mountains,  to 
the  Columbia  River,  a  distance  of  some  three 
hundred  miles  ;  and  then  follow  the  river  to  the 
ocean.  This  was  refused  by  Mr.  Calhoun ;  and 
the  ultimatum  having  been  delivered  on  one 
hand,  and  no  instructions  being  possessed  on  the 
other  to  yield  any  thing,  the  negotiations,  after 
continuing  through  the  month  of  September, 
came  to  a  stand.  At  the  end  of  four  months 
(January  1845)  Mr.  Pakenham,  by  the  direc- 
tion of  his  government,  proposed  to  leave  the 
question  to  arbitration,  which  was  declined  by 
the  American  secretary,  and  very  properly ;  for, 
while  arbitrament  is  the  commendable  mode  of 
settling  minor  questions,  and  especially  those 
which  arise  from  the  construction  of  existing 
treaties,  yet  the  boundaries  of  a  country  are  of 
too  much  gravity  to  be  so  submitted. 

Mr.  Calhoun  showed  a  manly  spirit  in  pro- 
posing the  line  of  49,  as  the  dominant  party  in 
the  United  States,  and  the  one  to  which  he  be- 


longed, were  then  in  a  high  state  of  exultation 
for  the  boundary  of  54  degrees  40  minutes,  and 
the  presidential  canvass,  on  the  democratic  side, 
was  raging  upon  that  cry.  The  Baltimore  pres- 
idential convention  had  followed  a  pernicious 
practice,  of  recent  invention,  in  laying  down  a 
platform  of  principles  on  which  the  canvass  was 
to  be  conducted,  and  54-40  for  the  northern 
boundary  of  Oregon,  had  been  made  a  canon  of 
political  faith,  from  which  there  wm  to  be  no 
departure  except  upon  the  penalty  of  political 
damnation.  Mr.  Calhoun  had  braved  this  pen- 
alty, and  in  doing  so  had  acted  up  to  his  public 
and  responsible  duty.  ^_^ 

The  new  President,  Mr.  Polk,  elected  under 
that  cry,  came  into  office  on  the  4th  of  Maroh, 
and  acting  upon  it,  put  into  his  inaugural  ad- 
dress a  declaration  that  our  title  to  the  whole 
of  Oregon  (meaning  up  to  54-40),  was  clear  and 
indisputable ;  and  a  further  declaration  that  he 
meant  to  maintain  that  title.  It  was  certainly 
an  unusual  thing — perhaps  unprecedented  in 
diplomacy — that,  while  negotiations  were  de- 
pending (which  was  still  the  case  in  this  in- 
stance, for  the  last  note  of  Mr.  Calhoun  in  Jan- 
uary, declining  the  arbitration,  gave  as  a  reason 
for  it  that  he  expected  the  question  to  be  settled 
by  negotiation),  one  of  the  parties  should  au- 
thoritatively declare  its  right  to  the  whole  mat- 
ter in  dispute,  and  show  itself  ready  to  main- 
tain it  by  arms.  The  declaration  in  the  inaugu- 
ral had  its  natural  effect  in  Great  Britain.  It 
roused  the  British  spirit  as  high  as  that  of  the 
American.  Their  excited  voice  came  thunder- 
ing back,  to  be  received  with  indignation  by  the 
great  democracy ;  and  war — c;  inevitable  tear  " 
— was  the  cry  through  the  land.  The  new  ad- 
ministration felt  itself  to  be  in  a  dilemma.  To 
stand  upon  54-40  was  to  have  war  in  reality : 
to  recede  from  it,  might  be  to  incur  the  penalty 
laid  down  in  the  Baltimore  platform.  Mr. 
Buchanan,  the  new  Secretary  of  State,  did  me 
the  honor  to  consult  me.  I  answered  him 
promptly  and  frankly,  that  I  held  49  to  be  the 
right  line,  and  that,  if  the  administration  made 
a  treaty  upon  that  line,  I  should  support  it. 
This  was  early  in  April.  The  secretary  seemed 
to  expect  some  further  proposition  from  the 
British  government;  but  none  came.  The  re- 
buff in  the  inaugural  address  had  been  too  pub- 
lic, and  too  violent,  to  admit  that  government  to 
take  the  initiative  again.    It  said  nothing :  the 


662 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


war  cry  continued  to  rage :  and  at  the  end  of 
four  months  our  government  found  itself  under 
the  necessity  to  take  the  initiative,  and  recom- 
mence negotiations  as  the  means  of  avoiding 
war.  Accordingly,  on  the  22d  of  July,  Mr. 
Buchanan  (the  direction  of  the  President  be- 
ing always  understood)  addressed  a  note  to  Mr. 
Pakenham,  resuming  the  negotiation  at  the 
point  at  which  it  had  been  left  by  Mr.  Calhoun ; 
and,  conforming  to  the  offer  that  he  had  made, 
and  because  he  had  made  it,  again  proposed  the 
line  of  49  to  the  ocean.  The  British  minister 
again  refused  that  line,  and  inviting  a  "  fairer  " 
proposition.  In  the  mean  time  the  offer  of  49 
got  wind.  The  democracy  was  in  commotion. 
A  storm  was  got  up  (foremost  in  raising  which 
was  the  new  administration  organ,  Mr.  Eitchie's 
Daily  Union),  before  which  the  administration 
quailed — recoiled — and  withdrew  its  offer  of  49. 
There  was  a  dead  pause  in  the  negotiation  again  ; 
and  so  the  affair  remained  at  the  meeting  of 
Congress,  which  came  together  under  the  loud 
cry  of  war,  in  which  Mr.  Cass  was  the  leader, 
but  followed  by  the  body  of  the  democracy,  and 
backed  and  cheered  on  by  the  democratic  press 
— some  hundreds  of  papers.  Of  course  the 
Oregon  question  occupied  a  place,  and  a  promi- 
nent one,  in  the  President's  message — (which 
has  been  noticed) — and,  on  communicating  the 
failure  of  the  negotiation  to  Congress,  he  recom- 
mended strong  measures  for  the  security  and 
assertion  of  our  title.  The  delivery  of  the 
notice  which  was  to  abrogate  the  joint  occupa- 
tion of  the  country  by  the  citizens  of  the  two 
powers,  was  one  of  these  recommendations,  and 
the  debate  upon  that  question  brought  out  the 
full  expression  of  the  opinions  of  Congress  upon 
the  whole  subject,  and  took  the  management  of 
the  questions  into  the  hands  of  the  Senate  and 
House  of  Representatives. 


CHAPTER    CLVII. 

OREGON  QUESTION:  NOTICE  TO  ABROGATE  THE 
ARTICLE  IN  THE  TREATY  FOR  A  JOINT  OCCU- 
PATION: THE  PRESIDENT  DENOUNCED  IN  THE 
SENATE  FOR  A  SUPPOSED  LEANING  TO  THE 
LINE  OF  FORTY-NINE. 

The  proposition  for  the  line  of  49  having  been 
withdrawn  by  the  American  government  on  its 
non-acceptance  by  the  British,  had  appeased  the 
democratic  storm  which  had  been  got  up  against 
the  President;  and  his  recommendation  for 
strong  measures  to  assert  and  secure  our  title 
was  entirely  satisfactory  to  those  who  now 
came  to  be  called  the  Fifty-Four  Forties.  The 
debate  was  advancing  well  upon  this  question 
of  notice,  when  a  sinister  rumor — only  sinister 
to  the  extreme  party — began  to  spread,  that  the 
British  government  would  propose  49,  and  that 
the  President  was  favorable  to  it.  This  rumor 
was  true,  and  by  way  of  preparing  the  public 
mind  for  it,  Mr.  "William  H.  Haywood,  a  senator 
from  North  Carolina,  both  personally  and  politi- 
cally friendly  to  the  President,  undertook  to 
show,  not  so  much  that  the  line  of  49  was  right 
in  itself,  but  that  the  President  was  not  so  far 
committed  against  it  as  that  he  could  not  yet 
form  a  treaty  upon  it.    In  this  sense  he — 

"  Took  a  view  of  the  course  which  had  been 
pursued  by  the  President,  approving  of  the  offer 
of  the  parallel  of  49°  to  Great  Britain,  and 
maintaining  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  President  to  render  it  improper  in 
him  to  negotiate  hereafter  on  that  basis,  not- 
withstanding this  rejection.  He  regarded  the 
negotiation  as  still  open ;  and  he  would  not  do 
the  President  so  much  wrong  as  to  suppose 
that,  if  we  passed  the  notice,  and  thus  put  into 
his  hand  a  great  moral  weapon,  that  he  could  be 
guilty  of  so  miserable  a  trick  as  to  use  it  to  the 
dishonor  of  his  country  on  the  one  hand,  or 
to  the  reckless  provocation  of  a  war  on  the 
other.  Believing  that  the  administration  stood 
committed  to  accept  an  offer  of  a  division  of  the 
territory  on  the  parallel  of  49° — or  substan- 
tially that — he  should  sustain  the  Executive  in 
that  position.  He  expressed  his  conviction  that, 
whatever  might  be  his  individual  opinions,  the 
President — as  General  Washington  did  in  1796 
— would  fulfil  his  obligations  to  the  country ; 
that,  whenever  the  interests  of  the  country  re- 
quired it,  he  would  sacrifice  his  own  opinions  to 
the  sense  of  his  official  duty.     He  rebuked  the 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


663 


cry  which  had  been  set  up  by  some  of  the 
friends  of  the  President,  which  placed  him  in 
the  position  of  being  the  mere  organ  of  the  Bal- 
timore convention,  and  declared  that,  if  he  could 
believe  that  the  Executive  would  permit  the 
resolution  of  fhat  convention  to  overrule  his 
duty  to  his  country,  he  would  turn  his  back 
upon  him.  Mr.  H.  then  proceeded  to  deduce, 
from  the  language  and  acts  of  the  Executive, 
that  he  had  not  put  himself  in  a  position  which 
imposed  on  him  the  necessity  of  refusing  to  ne- 
gotiate on  the  parallel  of  49°,  should  negotia- 
tion be  resumed  on  that  basis.  In  this  respect, 
the  President  did  not  occupy  that  attitude  in 
which  some  of  his  friends  wished  to  place  him. 
It  ought  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  Great  Britain 
had  held  occupancy  for  above  forty  years ;  and 
it  was  absurd  to  suppose,  that,  if  we  turn  sud- 
denly upon  her  and  tell  her  she  must  quit,  that 
she  will  not  make  resistance.  And  he  asked 
what  our  government  would  be  likely  to  do  if 
placed  in  a  similar  position  and  reduced  to  the 
same  alternative.  No  one  could  contend  for  a 
moment  that  the  rejection  of  the  offer  of  49°  by 
Great  Britain  released  the  President  from  the 
obligation  to  accept  that  offer  whenever  it  should 
again  be  made.  The  question  was  to  be  settled 
by  compromise ;  and,  on  this  principle,  the  ne- 
gotiation was  still  pending.  It  was  not  to  be 
expected  that  a  negotiation  of  this  kind  could 
be  carried  through  hastily.  Time  must  be  given 
for  communication  with  the  British  government, 
for  proper  consideration  and  consultation  ;  and 
true  politeness  requires  that  ample  time  should 
be  given  for  this  purpose.  It  is  obvious  that 
Great  Britain  does  not  consider  the  negotiation 
terminated,  as  she  would  have  recalled  her  min- 
ister ;  and  the  President  cannot  deem  it  closed, 
or  he  would  have  made  a  communication  to  Con- 
gress to  that  effect.  The  acts  of  the  President 
were  not  such  as  to  justify  any  apprehensions 
of  a  rupture ;  and  from  that,  he  did  not  ask  for 
the  notice  in  order  that  he  might  draw  the 
sword  and  throw  away  the  scabbard.  The 
falsehood  of  any  such  charge  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  he  has  asked  for  no  enlargement  of  the 
annual  appropriations  ;  on  the  other  hand,  his 
estimates  are  rather  diminished.  Knowing  him 
to  be  honest,  he  (Mr.  H.)  would  acquit  him  of 
any  such  imputation  of  moral  treason,  which 
would  subject  him  to  the  reprobation  of  man 
and  the  anger  of  his  God.  Mr.  H.  then  referred 
to  the  divisions  which  had  sprung  up  in  the 
democratic  party,  the  tendency  of  which  is,  to 
destroy  the  party,  by  cutting  off  its  heads.  This 
question  of  Oregon  had  been  turned  into  a  party 
question,  for  the  purpose  of  President-making. 
He  repudiated  any  submission  to  the  commands 
of  factious  meetings,  got  up  by  demagogues,  for 
the  purpose  of  dictating  to  the  Senate  how  to 
make  a  treaty,  and  felt  thankful  that  North 
Carolina  had  never  taken  this  course.  He  did 
not  regard  such  proceedings  as  indicative  of  that 
true  democracy  which,  like  a  potato,  grew  at 
the  root,  and  did  not,  like  the  spurious  democ- 


racy, show  itself  from  the  blossom.  The  creed 
of  the  Baltimore  convention  directs  the  party 
to  re-annex  Texas  and  to  re-occupy  Oregon. 
Texas  had  been  re-annexed,  and  now  we  are  to 
go  for  the  re-occupation  of  Oregon.  Now,  Old 
Oregon,  embracing  all  the  territory  on  which 
American  foot  ever  trod,  comprised  merely  the 
valley  of  Willamette,  which  did  not  extend 
above  49° ;  and  consequently  this  portion  was 
all  which  could  be  contemplated  in  the  expres- 
sion "  re-occupation,"  as  it  would  involve  an  ab- 
surdity to  speak  of  re-occupying  what  we  had 
never  occupied.  Referring  to  the  history  of  the 
annexation  of  Texas,  he  cited  the  impossibility 
of  getting  Texas  through,  until  the  two  ques- 
tions had  been  made  twin  sisters  by  the  Balti- 
more convention.  Then  Texas  passed  the  House, 
and  came  into  the  Senate,  followed  so  closely  by 
Oregon,  that  they  seemed  to  be  akin." 

In  all  this  Mr.  Haywood  spoke  the  senti- 
ments of  the  President,  personally  confided  to 
him,  and  to  prepare  the  way  for  his  action  in 
conformity  to  them.  The  extreme  party  sus- 
pected this,  and  had  their  plan  arranged  to  storm 
it  down,  and  to  force  the  President  to  repulse  the 
British  offer  of  49,  if  now  it  should  be  made, 
as  he  had  been  stormed  into  a  withdrawal  of 
his  own  offer  of  that  line  by  his  own  news- 
papers and  party  in  the  recess  of  Congress. 
This  task  fell  upon  Mr.  Hannegan  of  Indiana, 
and  Mr.  William  Allen  of  Ohio,  whose  tempera- 
ments were  better  adapted  to  the  work  than 
that  of  their  chief,  Mr.  Cass.  Mr.  Hannegan 
began : 

"  I  must  apologize  to  the  Senate  for  obtrud- 
ing myself  upon  your  attention  at  this  advanced 
period  of  the  day,  particularly  as  I  have  already 
occupied  your  attention  on  several  occasions  in 
the  course  of  this  debate.  My  remarks  now. 
however,  will  be  very  brief.  Before  I  proceed 
to  make  any  reply  to  the  speech  of  the  senator 
from  North  Carolina — the  most  extraordinary 
speech  which  I  have  ever  listened  to  in  the  whole 
course  of  my  life — I  desire,  through  the  Vice 
President,  to  put  a  question  to  him,  which  I 
have  committed  to  writing.  It  is  this :  I  ask 
him  if  he  has  the  authority  of  the  President, 
directly  or  indirectly,  for  saying  to  the  Senate 
that  it  is  his  (the  President's)  wish  to  terminate 
the  Oregon  question  by  compromising  with  Great 
Britain  on  the  49th  degree  of  north  latitude  ? 

To  this  categorical  demand,  Mr.  Haywood 
replied  that  it  would  be  unwise  and  impolitic 
for  the  President  to  authorize  any  senator  to 
make  such  a  declaration  as  that  implied  in  the 
question  of  Mr.  Hannegan.  Mr.  Allen,  of  Ohio, 
then  took  up  the  demand  for  the  answer,  and 
said* 


664 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"  I  put  the  question,  and  demand  an  answer 
to  it  as  a  public  right.  The  senator  here  has 
assumed  to  speak  for  the  President.  His  speech 
goes  to  the  world ;  and  I  demand,  as  a  public 
right,  that  he  answer  the  question ;  and  if  he 
won't  answer  it,  I  stand  ready  to  deny  that  he 
has  expressed  the  views  of  the  President." 

Mr.  Westcott  of  Florida,  called  Mr.  Allen  to 
order,  for  asking  for  the  opinions  of  the  Presi- 
dent through  a  senator.  The  President  eould 
only  communicate  his  opinions  to  the  Senate 
responsibly,  by  message.  It  would  be  a  breach 
of  privilege  for  any  senator  to  undertake  to  re- 
port such  opinions,  and  consequently  a  breach 
of  order  for  any  senator  to  call  for  them.  In 
this  Mr.  Westcott  was  right,  but  the  call  to 
order  did  not  prevent  Mr.  Allen  from  renewing 
his  demand  : 

"  I  do  not  demand  an  answer  as  any  personal 
right  at  all.  I  demand  it  as  a  public  right. 
When  a  senator  assumes  to  speak  for  the  Presi- 
dent, every  senator  possesses  a  public  right  to 
demand  his  authority  for  so  doing.  An  avowal 
has  been  made  that  he  is  the  exponent  of  the 
views  of  the  President,  upon  a  great  national 
question.  He  has  assumed  to  be  that  expo- 
nent And  I  ask  him  whether  he  has  the  au- 
thority of  the  President  for  the  assumption  ?  " 

Mr.  Westcott  renewed  his  call  to  order,  but 
no  question  was  taken  upon  the  call,  which  must 
have  been  decided  against  Mr.  Allen.  Mr.  Hay- 
wood said,  he  denied  the  right  of  any  senator 
to  put  questions  to  him  in  that  way,  and  said 
he  had  not  assumed  to  speak  by  the  authority  of 
the  President.  Then,  said  Mr.  Allen,  the  senator 
takes  back  his  speech.  Mr.  Haywood:  "Not 
at  all ;  but  I  am  glad  to  see  my  speech  takes." 
Mr.  Allen:  "With  the  British."  Mr.  Hanne- 
gan  then  resumed : 

"I  do  not  deem  it  material  whether  the 
senator  from  North  Carolina  gives  a  direct 
answer  to  my  question  or  not.  It  is  entirely 
immaterial.  He  assumes — no,  he  says  there  is 
no  assumption  about  it — that  there  is  no  mean- 
ing in  language,  no  truth  in  man,  if  the  Presi- 
dent any  where  commits  himself  to  54°  40',  as 
his  flattering  friends  assume  for  him.  Now,  sir, 
there  is  no  truth  in  man,  there  is  no  meaning  in 
language,  if  the  President  is  not  committed  to 
54°  40'  in  as  strong  language  as  that  which 
makes  up  the  Holy  Book.  From  a  period  ante- 
cedent to  that  in  which  he  became  the  nominee 
of  the  Baltimore  convention,  down  to  this  mo- 
ment, to  all  the  world  he  stands  committed  for 
54°  40'.  I  go  back  to  his  declaration  made  in 
1844,  to  a  committee  of  citizens  of  Cincinnati, 
who  addressed  him  in  relation  to  the  annexa- 


tion of  Texas,  and  he  there  uses  this  language, 
being  then  before  the  country  as  the  democratic 
candidate  for  the  chair  which  he  now  fills. 

"  Mr.  Crittenden.    What  is  the  date  ? 

"  Mr.  Hannegan.  It  is  dated  the  23d  of 
April. 

[Mr.  H.  here  read  an  extract  from  Mr.  Polk's 
letter  to  the  committee  of  the  citizens  of  Cin- 
cinnati.] 

Mr.  Hannegan  then  went  on  to  quote  from 
the  President's  message — the  annual  message 
at  the  commencement  of  the  session — to  show 
that,  in  withdrawing  his  proposition  for  a 
boundary  on  the  49th  parallel,  he  had  taken  a 
position  against  ever  resuming  it.  He  read  this 
paragraph : 

"  The  extraordinary  and  wholly  inadmissible 
demands  of  the  British  Government,  and  the 
rejection  of  the  proposition  made  in  deference 
alone  to  what  had  been  done  by  my  predecessors, 
and  the  implied  obligation  which  their  acts 
seemed  to  impose,  afford  satisfactory  evidence 
that  no  compromise  which  the  United  States 
ought  to  accept  can  be  effected.  With  this  con- 
viction, the  proposition  of  compromise  which 
had  been  made  and  rejected  was,  by  my  direc- 
tion, subsequently  withdrawn,  and  our  title  to 
the  whole  Oregon  Territory  asserted,  and,  as  is 
believed,  maintained  by  irrefragable  facts  and 
arguments." 

Having  read  this  paragraph,  Mr.  Hannegan 
proceeded  to  reply  to  it ;  and  exclaimed — 

"  What  does  the  President  here  claim  ?  Up 
to  54°  40' — every  inch  of  it.  He  has  asserted 
that  claim,  and  is,  as  he  says,  sustained  by  '  ir- 
refragable facts  and  arguments.'  But  this  is 
not  all :  I  hold  that  the  language  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  is  the  language  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States ;  and  has  not  Mr.  Bucha- 
nan, in  his  last  communication  to  Mr,  Paken- 
ham,  named  54°  40'  in  so  many  words  ?  He 
has.  The  President  adopts  this  language  as  his 
own.    He  plants  himself  on  54°  40'." 

Mr.  Hannegan  then  proceeded  to  plant  the 
whole  democratic  party  upon  the  line  of  54-40, 
and  to  show  that  Oregon  to  that  extent,  and 
Texas  to  her  whole  extent,  were  the  watchwords 
of  the  party  in  the  presidential  election — that 
both  were  to  be  carried  together;  and  Texas 
having  been  gained,  Oregon,  without  treachery, 
could  not  be  abandoned. 

"  The  democratic  party  is  thus  bound  to  the 
whole  of  Oregon — every  foot  of  it ;  and  let  the 
senator  rise  in  his  place  who  will  tell  me  in 
what  quarter  of  this  Union — in  what  assembly 
of  democrats  in  this  Union,  pending  the  presi- 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


665 


dential  election,  the  names  of  Texas  and  Oregon 
did  not  fly  together,  side  by  side,  on  the  demo- 
cratic banners.  Every  where  they  were  twins — 
every  where  they  were  united.  Does  the  sena- 
tor from  North  Carolina  suppose  that  he,  with 
his  appeals  to  the  democracy,  can  blind  our 
eyes,  as  he  thinks  he  tickled  our  ears  ?  He  is 
mistaken.  '  Texas  and  Oregon  '  cannot  be  di- 
vided; they  dwell  together  in  the  American 
heart.  Even  in  Texas,  I  have  been  told  the  flag 
of  the  lone  star  had  inscribed  on  it  the  name  of 
Oregon.  Then,  it  was  all  Oregon.  Now,  when 
you  have  got  Texas,  it  means  just  so  much  of 
Oregon  as  you  in  your  kindness  and  condescen- 
sion think  proper  to  give  us.  You  little  know  us, 
if  you  think  the  mighty  West  will  be  trodden 
on  in  this  way." 

Mr.  Hannegan  then  undertook  to  disclaim  for 
the  President  the  sentiments  attributed  to  him 
by  Mr.  Haywood,  and  to  pronounce  an  anathe- 
ma upon  him  if  the  attribution  was  right. 

"  The  senator  in  his  defence  of  the  President, 
put  language  into  his  mouth  which  I  undertake 
to  say  the  President  will  repudiate,  and  I  am 
not  the  President's  champion.  I  wish  not  to 
be  his  champion.  I  would  not  be  the  champion 
of  power.  I  defend  the  right,  and  the  right 
only.  But,  for  the  President,  I  deny  the  inten- 
tions which  the  senator  from  North  Carolina 
attributes  to  him — intentions,  which,  if  really 
entertained  by  him,  would  make  him  an  in- 
famous man — ay,  an  infamous  man.  He  [Mr. 
Haywood]  told  the  Senate  yesterday — unless  I 
grossly  misunderstood  him,  along  with  several 
friends  around  me — '  that  the  President  had  oc- 
casionally stickings-in,  parenthetically,  to  gratify 
— what  ? — the  ultraisms  of  the  country  and  of 
party ;  whilst  he  reposed  in  the  White  House 
with  no  intentions  of  carrying  out  these  paren- 
thetical stickings-in.'  In  plain  words,  he  repre- 
sents the  President  as  parenthetically  sticking 
in  a  few  hollow  and  false  words  to  cajole  the 
'ultraisms  of  the  country?'  What  is  this, 
need  I  ask,  but  charging  upon  the  President 
conduct  the  most  vile  and  infamous  ?  If  this 
allegation  be  true,  these  intentions  of  the  Presi- 
dent must  sooner  or  later  come  to  light,  and 
when  brought  to  light,  what  must  follow  but 
irretrievable  disgrace  ?  So  long  as  one  human 
eye  remains  to  linger  on  the  page  of  history, 
the  story  of  his  abasement  will  be  read,  sending 
him  and  his  name  together  to  an  infamy  so  pro- 
found, a  damnation  so  deep,  that  the  hand  of 
resurrection  will  never  be  able  to  drag  him 
forth." 

Mr.  Mangum  called  Mr.  Hannegan  to  order  : 
Mr.  Haywood  desired  that  he  might  be  per- 
mitted to  proceed,  which  he  did,  disclaiming  all 
disrespect  to  Mr.  Haywood,  and  concluded  with 
saying ;  that,  "  so  far  as  the  whole  tone,  spirit, 


and  meaning  of  the  remarks  of  the  senator 
from  North  Carolina  is  concerned,  if  they  speak 
the  language  of  James  K.  Polk,  then  James  K. 
Polk  has  spoken  words  of  falsehood  with  the 
tongue  of  a  serpent." 

Mr.  Reverdy  Johnson  came  to  the  relief  of 
the  President  and  Mr.  Haywood  in  a  temperate 
and  well-considered  speech,  in  which  he  showed 
he  had  had  great  apprehension  of  war — that  this 
apprehension  was  becoming  less,  and  that  he 
deemed  it  probable,  and  right  and  honorable  in 
itself,  that  the  President  should  meet  the 
British  on  the  line  of  49  if  they  should  come 
to  it ;  and  that  line  would  save  the  territorial 
rights  of  the  United  States,  and  the  peace  and 
honor  of  the  country. 

"  It  is  with  unaffected  embarrassment  I  rise 
to  address  the  Senate  on  the  subject  now  under 
consideration  ;  but  its  great  importance  and  the 
momentous  issues  involved  in  its  final  settle- 
ment are  such  as  compel  me,  notwithstanding 
my  distrust  of  my  own  ability  to  be  useful  to 
my  country,  to  make  the  attempt.  We  have 
all  felt  that,  at  one  time  at  least  (I  trust  that 
time  is  now  past),  we  were  in  imminent  danger 
of  war.  From  the  moment  the  President  of  the 
United  States  deemed  it  right  and  becoming,  in 
the  outset  of  his  official  career,  to  announce  to 
the  world  that  our  title  to  Oregon  was  clear 
and  unquestionable,  down  to  the  period  of  his 
message  to  Congress  in  December  last,  when 
he  reiterated  the  declaration,  I  could  not  see 
how  it  was  possible  that  war  should  be  averted. 
That  apprehension  was  rendered  much  more  in- 
tense from  the  character  of  the  debates  else- 
where, as  well  as  from  the  speeches  of  some 
of  the  President's  political  friends  within  this 
chamber.  I  could  not  but  listen  with  alarm 
and  dismay  to  what  fell  from  the  very  distin- 
guished and  experienced  senator  from  Michigan 
(Mr.  Cass)  at  an  early  period  of  this  debate ; 
to  what  I  heard  from  the  senator  from  Indiana 
(Mr.  Hannegan) ;  and,  above  all,  to  what  was 
said  by  the  senator  from  Ohio  (Mr.  Allen),  the 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Rela- 
tions, who,  in  my  simplicity,  I  supposed  must 
necessarily  be  apprised  of  the  views  of  the  gov- 
ernment in  regard  to  the  foreign  concerns  of  the 
country.  Supposing  the  condition  of  the  coun- 
try to  be  what  it  was  represented  to  be  by 
each  and  all  of  the  three  senators,  I  could  not 
imagine  how  it  could  be  possible  that  the  most 
direful  of  all  human  calamities,  war,  was  to  be 
avoided  ;  and  I  was  accordingly  prepared  to  say, 
on  the  hypothesis  of  the  fact  assumed  by  the 
senator  from  Michigan,  that  war  was  inevitable ; 
— to  use  his  own  paraphrase  of  his  own  term, 
which,  it  would  appear,  has  got  out  of  favor 
with  himself—'  war  must  come.' 

"  What  did  they  represent  to  be  the  condition 


666 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  the  nation  ?  I  speak  now  more  particularly 
of  the  last  two  senators,  from  Indiana  and  Ohio. 
They  told  us  that  negotiation  was  at  an  end ; 
that  we  were  now  thrown  back  on  our  original 
rights  j  that,  by  these  original  rights,  as  had 
been  officially  announced,  our  title  to  the  whole 
country  was  beyond  all  question  :  and  that  the 
national  honor  must  be  forfeited,  if  that  title 
should  not  be  maintained  by  force  of  arms.  I 
felt  that  he  must  have  been  a  careless  and  a 
profitless  reader  of  English  history  who  could 
indulge  the  hope  that,  if  such  was  to  be  the 
course  and  conduct  of  this  country,  war  was 
not  inevitable.  Then,  in  addition  to  my  own 
opinion,  when  I  heard  it  admitted  by  the  hon- 
orable senator  from  Michigan,  with  that  perfect 
candor  which  always  distinguishes  him  on  this 
floor,  that,  in  his  opinion,  England  would  never 
recede,  I  felt  that  war  was  inevitable. 

"  I  now  rejoice  in  hoping  and  believing,  from 
what  I  have  subsequently  heard,  that  the  fears 
of  the  Senate,  as  well  as  my  own  apprehensions, 
were,  as  I  think,  unfounded.  Since  then,  the 
statesmanlike  view  taken  by  the  senator  from 
New  York  who  first  addressed  us  (Mr.  Dix\ 
and  by  the  senator  from  Missouri  (Mr.  Benton), 
to  whom  this  whole  question  is  as  familiar  as  a 
household  term — and  the  spirit  of  peace  which 
breathed  in  their  every  word — have  fully  satis- 
fied me  that,  so  far  as  depends  upon  them,  a 
fair  and  liberal  compromise  of  our  difficulties 
would  not  be  in  want  of  willing  and  zealous  ad- 
vocates. 

"  And  this  hope  has  been  yet  more  strength- 
ened by  the  recent  speech  of  the  senator  from 
North  Carolina  (Mr.  Haywood),  not  now  in  his 
place.  Knowing,  as  I  thought  I  did,  the  inti- 
mate relations,  both  personal  and  political, 
which  that  senator  bore  to  the  Chief  Magistrate 
— knowing,  too,  that,  as  chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Commerce,  it  was  his  special  duty  to 
become  informed  in  regard  to  all  matters  hav- 
ing a  bearing  on  the  foreign  relations  of  the 
country ;  I  did  not  doubt,  and  I  do  not  now 
doubt,  that  in  every  thing  he  said  as  to  the  de- 
termination of  the  President  to  accept,  if  offered 
by  the  British  government,  the  same  terms 
which  he  had  himself  proposed  in  July  last, 
the  reasonable  inference  was,  that  such  an  offer, 
if  made,  would  be  accepted.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say,  because  I  did  not  so  understand  the  senator, 
that,  in  addressing  this  body  with  regard  to  the 
opinions  or  purposes  of  the  President,  he  spoke 
by  any  express  or  delegated  authority.  But  I 
do  mean  to  say,  that  I  have  no  doubt,  from  his 
knowledge  of  the  general  views  of  the  President, 
as  expressed  in  his  message,  taken  in  connec- 
tion with  certain  omissions  on  the  part  of  the 
Executive,  that  when  he  announced  to  us  that 
the  President  would  feel  himself  in  honor  bound 
to  accept  his  own  offer,  if  now  reciprocated  by 
Great  Britain,  he  spoke  that  which  he  knew  to 
be  true.  And  this  opinion  was  yet  more 
strengthened  and  confirmed  by  what  I  found 


to  be  the  effect  of  his  speech  on  the  two  sena- 
tors I  have  named — the  leaders,  if  they  will 
permit  me  to  call  them  so,  of  the  ultraists  on 
this  subject — I  mean  the  senator  from  Indiana 
(Mr.  Hannegan),  and  the  senator  from  Ohio 
(Mr.  Allen).  He  was  an  undiscerning  witness 
of  the  scene  which  took  place  in  this  chamber 
immediately  after  the  speech  of  the  senator 
from  North  Carolina  (Mr.  Haywood),  who 
must  not  have  seen  that  those  two  senators 
had  consulted  together  with  the  view  of  ascer- 
taining how  far  the  senator  from  North  Carolina 
spoke  by  authority,  and  that  the  result  of  their 
consultation  was  a  determination  to  catechise 
that  senator ;  and  the  better  to  avoid  all  mis- 
take, that  they  reduced  their  interrogatory  to 
writing,  in  order  that  it  might  be  propounded 
to  him  by  the  senator  from  Indiana  (Mr.  Han- 
negan) ;  and  if  it  was  not  answered,  that  it  was 
then  to  be  held  as  constructively  answered  by 
the  senator  from  Ohio  (Mr.  Allen).  What  the 
result  of  the  manoeuvre  was  I  leave  it  to  the 
Senate  to  decide ;  but  this  I  will  venture  to  say; 
that  in  the  keen  encounter  of  wits,  to  which 
their  colloquy  led,  the  two  senators  who  com- 
menced it  got  rather  the  worst  of  the  con- 
test. My  hope  and  belief  has  been  yet  furthei 
strengthened  by  what  has  not  since  happened ; 
I  mean  my  belief  in  the  pacific  views  of  the 
Chief  Magistrate.  The  speech  of  the  senator 
from  North  Carolina  was  made  on  Thursday, 
and  though  a  week  has  nearly  elapsed  since  that 
time,  notwithstanding  the  anxious  solicitude 
of  both  those  senators,  and  their  evident  desire 
to  set  the  public  right  on  that  subject,  we  have, 
from  that  day  to  this,  heard  from  neither  of  the 
gentlemen  the  slightest  intimation  that  the  con- 
struction given  to  the  message  by  the  senator 
from  North  Carolina  was  not  a.true  one." 


Mr.  Johnson  continued  his  speech  on  the 
merits  of  the  question — the  true  line  which 
should  divide  the  British  and  American  posses- 
sions beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains  ;  and  placed 
it  on  the  parallel  of  49°  according  to  the  treaty 
of  Utrecht,  and  in  conformity  with  the  opinions 
and  diplomatic  instructions  of  Mr.  Jefferson, 
who  had  acquired  Louisiana  and  sent  an  expe-, 
dition  of  discovery  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and 
had  well  studied  the  whole  question  of  our  ter- 
ritorial rights  in  that  quarter.  Mr.  Benton  did 
not  speak  in  this  incidental  debate,  but  he  knew 
that  Mr.  Haywood  spoke  with  a  knowledge  of 
the  President's  sentiments,  and  according  to  his 
wishes,  and  to  prepare  the  country  for  a  treaty 
upon  49°.  He  knew  this,  because  he  was  in 
consultation  with  the  President,  and  was  to 
speak  for  the  same  purpose,  and  was  urged  by 
him  to  speak  immediately  in  consequence  of  the 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


667 


attempt  to  crush  Mr.  Haywood — the  first  of  his 
friends  who  had  given  any  intimation  of  his 
views.  Mr.  Benton,  therefore,  at  an  early  day, 
spoke  at  large  upon  the  question  when  it  took 
another  form — that  of  a  bill  to  establish  a  ter- 
ritorial government  for  Oregon  ;  some  extracts 
from  which  constitute  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER    CLVIII. 

OREGON  TERRITORIAL  GOVERNMENT  :  BOUNDA- 
RIES AND  HISTORY  OF  THE  COUNTRY:  FRA- 
ZER'S  RIVER  :  TREATY  OF  UTRECHT  :  MR.  BEN- 
TON'S SPEECH :  EXTRACTS. 

Mr.  Benton  then  addressed  the  Senate.  Mr. 
President,  the  bill  before  the  Senate  proposes 
to  extend  the  sovereignty  and  jurisdiction  of 
the  United  States  over  all  our  territories  west 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  without  saying  what 
is  the  extent  and  what  are  the  limits  of  this 
territory.  This  is  wrong,  in  my  opinion.  We 
ought  to  define  the  limits  within  which  our 
agents  are  to  do  such  acts  as  this  bill  contem- 
plates, otherwise  we  commit  to  them  the  solu- 
tion of  questions  which  we  find  too  hard  for 
ourselves.  This  indefinite  extension  of  autho- 
rity, in  a  case  which  requires  the  utmost  pre- 
cision, forces  me  to  speak,  and  to  give  my 
opinion  of  the  true  extent  of  our  territories  be- 
yond the  Rocky  Mountains.  I  have  delayed 
doing  this  during  the  whole  session,  not  from 
any  desire  to  conceal  my  opinions  (which,  in 
fact,  were  told  to  all  that  asked  for  them),  but 
because  I  thought  it  the  business  of  negotiation, 
not  of  legislation,  to  settle  these  boundaries  I 
waited  for  negotiation:  but  negotiation  lags, 
while  events  go  forward ;  and  now  we  are  in 
the  process  of  acting  upon  measures,  upon  the 
adoption  of  which  it  may  no  longer  be  in  the 
power  either  of  negotiation  or  of  legislation  to 
control  the  events  to  which  they  may  give  rise. 
The  bill  before  us  is  without  definition  of  the 
territory  to  be  occupied.  And  why  this  vague- 
ness in  a  case  requiring  the  utmost  precision  ? 
Why  not  define  the  boundaries  of  these  territo- 
ries ?  Precisely  because  we  do  not  know  them  ! 
And  this  presents  a  case  which  requires  me  to 
wait  no  longer  for  negotiation,  but  to  come  for- 
ward with  my  own  opinions,  and  to  do  what  I 


can  to  prevent  the  evils  of  vague  and  indefinite 
legislation.  My  object  will  be  to  show,  if  I  can, 
the  true  extent  and  nature  of  our  territorial 
claims  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains,  with  a 
view  to  just  and  wise  decisions ;  and,  in  doing 
so,  I  shall  endeavor  to  act  upon  the  great 
maxim,  "  Ask  nothing  but  what  is  right— sub- 
mit to  nothing  that  is  wrong." 

It  is  my  ungracious  task,  in  attempting  to  act 
upon  this  maxim,  to  commence  by  exposing  er- 
ror at  home,  and  endeavoring  to  clear  up  some 
great,  mistakes  under  which  the  public  mind 
has  labored. 

It  has  been  assumed  for  two  years,  and  the 
assumption  has  been  made  the  cause  of  all  the 
Oregon  excitement  of  the  country,  that  we  have 
a  dividing  line  with  Russia,  made  so  by  the 
convention  of  1824,  along  the  parallel  of  54°  40', 
from  the  sea  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  up  to 
which  our  title  is  good.  This  is  a  great  mis- 
take. No  such  line  was  ever  established  ;  and 
so  far  as  proposed  and  discussed,  it  was  pro- 
posed and  discussed  as  a  northern  British,  and 
not  as  a  northern  American  line.  The  public 
treaties  will  prove  there  is  no  such  line  ;  docu- 
ments will  prove  that,  so  far  as  54°  40',  from 
the  sea  to  the  mountains,  was  ever  proposed  as 
a  northern  boundary  for  any  power,  it  was  pro- 
posed by  us  for  the  British,  and  not  for  our- 
selves. 

To  make  myself  intelligible  in  what  I  shall 
say  on  this  point,  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  to 
the  epoch  of  the  Russian  convention  of  1824, 
and  to  recall  the  recollection  of  the  circum- 
stances out  of  which  that  convention  grew. 
The  circumstances  were  these:  In  the  year 
1821  the  Emperor  Alexander,  acting  upon  a 
leading  idea  of  Russian  policy  (in  relation  to 
the  North  Pacific  Ocean)  from  the  time  of  Pe- 
ter the  Great,  undertook  to  treat  that  ocean  as 
a  close  sea,  and  to  exercise  municipal  authority 
over  a  great  extent  of  its  shores  and  waters. 
In  September  of  that  year,  the  emperor  issued 
a  decree,  bottomed  upon  this  pretension,  assum- 
ing exclusive  sovereignty  and  jurisdiction  over 
both  shores  of  the  North  Pacific  Ocean,  and 
over  the  high  seas,  in  front  of  each  coast,  to  the 
extent  of  one  hundred  Italian  miles,  from  Behr- 
ing's  Straits  down  to  latitude  fifty-one,  on 
the  American  coast,  and  to  forty-five  on  the 
Asiatic ;  and  denouncing  the  penalties  of  con- 
fiscation upon  all  ships,  of  whatsoever  nation, 


668 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


that  should  approach  the  coasts  within  the  in- 
terdicted distances.  This  was  a  very  startling 
decree.  Coming  from  a  feeble  nation,  it  would 
have  been  smiled  at ;  coming  from  Russia,  it 
gave  uneasiness  to  all  nations. 

Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  as  hav- 
ing the  largest  commerce  in  the  North  Pacific 
Ocean,  and  as  having  large  territorial  claims  on 
the  north-west  coast  of  America,  were  the  first 
to  take  the  alarm,  and  to  send  remonstrances  to 
St.  Petersburg  against  the  formidable  ukase. 
They  found  themselves  suddenly  thrown  to- 
gether, and  standing  side  by  side  in  this  new 
and  portentous  contest  with  Russia.  They  re- 
monstrated in  concert,  and  here  the  wise  and 
pacific  conduct  of  the  Emperor  Alexander  dis- 
played itself  in  the  most  prompt  and  honorable 
manner.  He  immediately  suspended  the  ukase 
(which,  in  fact,  had  remained  without  execu- 
tion), and  invited  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain  to  unite  with  Russia  in  a  convention  to 
settle  amicably,  and  in  a  spirit  of  mutual  con- 
venience, all  the  questions  between  them,  and 
especially  their  respective  territorial  claims  on 
the  north-west  coast  of  America.  This  mag- 
nanimous proposition  was  immediately  met  by 
the  two  powers  in  a  corresponding  spirit ;  and, 
the  ukase  being  voluntarily  relinquished  by  the 
emperor,  a  convention  was  quickly  signed  by 
Russia  with  each  power,  settling,  so  far  as  Rus- 
sia was  concerned,  with  each,  all  their  territo- 
rial claims  in  North-west  America.  The  Em- 
peror Alexander  had  proposed  that  it  should  be 
a  joint  convention  of  the  three  powers — a  tri- 
partite convention — settling  the  claims  of  each 
and  of  all  at  the  same  time ;  and  if  this  wise 
suggestion  had  been  followed,  all  the  subse- 
quent and  all  the  present  difficulties  between 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  with  re- 
spect to  this  territory,  would  have  been  entire- 
ly avoided.  But  it  was  not  followed :  an  act 
of  our  own  prevented  it.  After  Great  Britain 
had  consented,  the  non-colonization  principle — 
the  principle  of  non-colonization  in  America  by 
any  European  power — was  promulgated  by  our 
government,  and  for  that  reason  Great  Britain 
chose  to  treat  separately  with  each  power,  and 
so  it  was  done. 

Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  treated 
separately  with  Russia,  and  with  each  other ; 
and  each  came  to  agreements  with  Russia,  but 
to  none  among  themselves.     The  agreements 


with  Russia  were  contained  in  two  conventions, 
signed  nearly  at  the  same  time,  and  nearly  in 
the  same  words,  limiting  the  territorial  claim 
of  Russia  to  54°  40'.  confining  her  to  the  coasts 
and  islands,  and  leaving  the  continent,  out  to 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  to  be  divided  between 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  by  an 
agreement  between  themselves.  The  emperor 
finished  up  his  own  business  and  quit  the  con- 
cern. In  fact,  it  would  seem,  from  the  promp- 
titude, moderation,  and  fairness  with  which  he 
adjusted  all  differences  both  with  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain,  that  his  only  object 
of  issuing  the  alarming  ukase  of  1821  was  to 
bring  those  powers  to  a  settlement;  acting 
upon  the  homely,  but  wise  maxim,  that  short 
settlements  make  long  friends. 

Well,  there  is  no  such  line  as  54°  40' ;  and 
that  would  seem  to  be  enough  to  quiet  the  ex- 
citement which  has  been  got  up  about  it.  But 
there  is  more  to  come.  I  set  out  with  saying, 
that  although  this  fifty-four  forty  was  never  es- 
tablished as  a  northern  boundary  for  the  United 
States,  yet  it  was  proposed  to  be  established  as 
a  northern  boundary,  not  for  us,  but  for  Great 
Britain — and  that  proposal  was  made  to  Great 
Britain  by  ourselves.  This  must  sound  like  a 
strange  statement  in  the  ears  of  the  fifty-four- 
forties  ;  but  it  is  no  more  strange  than  true ; 
and  after  stating  the  facts,  I  mean  to  prove 
them.  The  plan  of  the  United  States  at  that 
time  was  this :  That  each  of  the  three  powers 
(Great  Britain,  Russia,  and  the  United  States) 
having  claims  on  the  north-west  coast  of  Amer- 
ica, should  divide  the  country  between  them, 
each  taking  a  third.  In  this  plan  of  partition, 
each  was  to  receive  a  share  of  the  continent 
from  the  sea  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  Russia 
taking  the  northern  slice,  the  United  States  the 
southern,  and  Great  Britain  the  centre,  with 
fifty-four  forty  for  her  northern  boundary,  and 
forty-nine  for  her  southern.  The  document 
from  which  I  now  read  will  say  fifty-one ;  but 
that  was  the  first  offer — forty-nine  was  the  real 
one,  as  I  will  hereafter  show.  This  was  our 
plan.  The  moderation  of  Russia  defeated  it. 
That  power  had  no  settlements  on  that  part 
of  the  continent,  and  rejected  the  continental 
share  which  we  offered  her.  She  limited  her- 
self to  the  coasts  and  islands  where  she  had  set- 
tlements, and  left  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States  to  share  the  continent  between  them- 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


669 


selves.  But  before  this  was  known,  we  had 
proposed  to  her  fifty-four  forty  for  the  Russian 
southern  boundary,  and  to  Great  Britain  the 
same  for  her  northern  boundary.  I  say  fifty- 
four  forty ;  for,  although  the  word  in  the  prop- 
osition was  fifty-five,  yet  it  was  on  the  princi- 
ple which  gave  fifty-four  forty — namely,  run- 
ning from  the  south  end  of  Prince  of  Wales' 
Island,  supposed  to  be  in  fifty-five,  but  found  to 
have  a  point  to  it  running  down  to  fifty-four 
forty.  Wo  proposed  this  to  Great  Britain. 
She  refused  it,  saying  she  would  establish  her 
northern  boundary  with  Russia,  who  was  on 
her  north,  and  not  with  the  United  States,  who 
was  on  her  south.  This  seemed  reasonable ; 
and  the  United  States  then,  and  not  until  then, 
relinquished  the  business  of  pressing  fifty-four 
forty  upon  Great  Britain  for  her  northern 
boundary.  The  proof  is  in  the  executive  docu- 
ments. Here  it  is — a  despatch  from  Mr.  Rush, 
our  minister  in  London,  to  Mr.  Adams,  Secreta- 
ry of  State,  dated  December  19,  1823. 

(The  despatch  read.) 

Here  is  the  offer,  in  the  most  explicit  terms, 
in  1823,  to  make  fifty-five,  which  was  in  fact 
fifty-four  forty,  the  northern  boundary  of  Great 
Britain ;  and  here  is  her  answer  to  that  propo- 
sition. It  is  the  next  paragraph  in  the  same 
despatch  from  Mr.  Rush  to  Mr.  Adams. 

(The  answer  read.) 

This  was  her  answer,  refusing  to  take,  in 
1823,  as  a  northern  boundary  coming  south  for 
quantity,  what  is  now  prescribed  to  her,  at  the 
peril  of  war,  for  a  southern  boundary,  with 
nothing  north  ! — for,  although  the  fact  happens 
to  be  that  Russia  is  not  there,  bounding  us  on 
the  north,  yet  that  makes  no  difference  in  the 
philosophy  of  our  Fifty-four-Forties,  who  be- 
lieve it  to  be  so  ;  and,  on  that  belief,  are  ready 
to  fight.  Their  notion  is,  that  we  go  jam  up  to 
54°  40',  and  the  Russians  come  jam  down  to 
the  same,  leaving  no  place  for  the  British  lion 
to  put  down  a  paw,  although  that  paw  should 
be  no  bigger  than  the  sole  of  the  dove's  foot 
which  sought  a  resting-place  from  Noah's  ark. 
This  must  seem  a  little  strange  to  British 
statesmen,  who  do  not  grow  so  fast  as  to  leave 
all  knowledge  behind  them.  They  remember 
that  Mr.  Monroe  and  his  cabinet— the  Presi- 
dent and  cabinet  who  acquired  the  Spanish  title 
under  which  we  now  propose  to  squeeze  them 
out  of  the  continent — actually  offered  them  six 


degrees  of  latitude  in  that  very  place  ;  and  they 
will  certainly  want  reasons  for  this  so  much 
compression  now,  where  we  offered  them  so 
much  expansion  then.  These  reasons  cannot 
be  given.  There  is  no  boundary  at  54°  40'; 
and  so  far  as  we  proposed  to  make  it  one,  it  was 
for  the  British  and  not  for  ourselves ;  and  so 
ends  this  redoubtable  line,  up  to  which  all  true 
patriots  were  to  march !  and  marching,  fight ! 
and  fighting,  die !  if  need  be !  singing  all  the 
while,  with  Horace — 

"Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patrtA  morL" 

I  come  to  the  line  of  Utrecht,  the  existence 
of  which  is  denied  upon  this  floor  by  senators 
whose  fate  it  seems  to  be  to  assert  the  existence 
of  a  line  that  is  not,  and  to  deny  the  existence 
of  one  that  is.  A  clerk  in  the  Department  of 
State  has  compiled  a  volume  of  voyages  and  of 
treaties,  and,  undertaking  to  set  the  world  right, 
has  denied  that  commissioners  ever  met  under 
the  treaty  of  Utrecht,  and  fixed  boundaries  be- 
tween the  British  northern  and  French  Canadian 
possessions  in  North  America.  That  denial  has 
been  produced  and  accredited  on  this  floor  by  a 
senator  in  his  place  (Mr.  Cass) ;  and  this  pro- 
duction of  a  blundering  book,  with  this  sena- 
torial endorsement  of  its  blunder,  lays  me  un- 
der the  necessity  of  correcting  a  third  error 
which  the  "  fifty-four-forties "  hug  to  their 
bosom,  and  the  correction  of  which  becomes  ne- 
cessary for  the  vindication  of  history,  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  political  right,  and  the  protection 
of  the  Senate  from  the  suspicion  of  ignorance. 
I  affirm  that  the  line  was  established  ;  that  the 
commissioners  met  and  did  their  work ;  and  that 
what  they  did  has  been  acquiesced  in  by  all  the 
powers  interested  from  the  year  1713  down  to 
the  present  time. 

In  the  year  1805,  being  the  second  year  after 
the  acquisition  of  Louisiana,  President  Jefferson 
sent  ministers  to  Madrid  (Messrs.  Monroe  and 
Charles  Pinckney)  to  adjust  the  southern  and 
southwestern  boundaries  with  her;  and,  in 
doing  so,  the  principles  which  had  governed  the 
settlement  of  the  northern  boundary  of  the 
same  province  became  a  proper  illustration  of 
their  ideas.  They  quoted  these  principles,  and 
gave  the  line  of  Utrecht  as  the  example;  and 
this  to  Don  Pedro  Cevallos,  one  of  the  most  ac- 
complished statesmen  of  Europe.  They  say  to 
him : 


670 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"  It  is  believed  that  this  principle  has  been 
admitted  and  acted  on  invariably  since  the  dis- 
covery of  America,  in  respect  to  their  possessions 
there,  by  all  the  European  powers.  It  is  par- 
ticularly illustrated  by  the  stipulations  of  their 
most  important  treaties  concerning  those  pos- 
sessions and  the  practice  under  them,  viz.,  the 
treaty  of  Utrecht  in  1713,  and  that  of  Paris  in 
1763.  In  conformity  with  the  10th  article  of 
the  first-mentioned  treaty,  the  boundary  be- 
tween Canada  and  Louisiana  on  the  one  side, 
J  and  the  Hudson  Bay  and  Northwestern  Com- 
panies on  the  other,  was  established  by  commis- 
sioners, by  a  line  to  commence  at  a  cape  or  pro- 
montory on  the  ocean,  in  58°  31'  north  latitude  ; 
to  run  thence,  southwest wardly,  to  latitude  49° 
north  from  the  equator  ;  and  along  that  line  in- 
definitely westward.  Since  that  time,  no  at- 
tempt has  been  made  to  extend  the  limits  of 
Louisiana  or  Canada  to  the  north  of  that  line, 
or  of  those  companies  to  the  south  of  it,  by  pur- 
chase, conquest,  or  grants  from  the  Indians." 

This  is  what  Messrs.  Monroe  and  Charles 
Pinckney  said  to  Don  Pedro  Cevallos — a  min- 
ister who  must  be  supposed  to  be  as  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  treaties  which  settled  the 
boundaries  of  the  late  Spanish  province  of 
Louisiana  as  we  are  with  the  treaties  which 
settle  the  boundaries  of  the  United  States.  The 
line  of  Utrecht,  and  in  the  very  words  which 
carry  it  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  to  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  and  which  confine  the  British  to 
the  north,  and  the  French  and  Spanish  to  the 
south  of  that  line,  are  quoted  to  Mr.  Cevallos 
as  a  fact  which  he  and  all  the  world  knew.  He 
received  it  as  such ;  and  thus  Spanish  authority 
comes  in  aid  of  British.  French,  and  American, 
to  vindicate  our  rights  and  the  truth  of  history. 

(The  letter  was  read.) 

Another  contribution,  which  I  have  pleasure 
to  acknowledge,  is  from  a  gentleman  of  Balti- 
more, formerly  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
(Mr.  Kennedy),  who  gives  me  an  extract  from 
the  Journal  of  the  British  House  of  Commons, 
March  5th,  1714,  directing  a  writ  to  be  issued 
for  electing  a  burgess  in  the  place  of  Frederick 
Heme,  Esq.,  who,  since  his  election,  hath  ac- 
cepted, as  the  Journal  says,  the  office  of  one  of 
his  Majesty's  commissioners  for  treating  with 
commissioners  on  the  part  of  France  for  settling 
the  trade  between  Great  Britain  and  France. 
The  same  entry  occurs  at  the  same  time  with 
respect  to  James  Murray,  Esq.,  and  Sir  Joseph 
Martyn.  The  tenth  article  of  the  treaty  of 
Utrecht  applies  to  limits  in  North  America,  the 


eleventh  and  fifteenth  to  commerce ;  and  these 
commissioners  were  appointed  under  some  or  all 
of  these  articles.  Others  might  have  been  ap- 
pointed by  the  king,  and  not  mentioned  in  the 
journals,  as  not  being  members  of  Parliament 
whose  vacated  seats  were  to  be  filled.  All 
three  of  the  articles  of  the  treaty  were  equally 
obligatory  for  the  appointment  of  commission- 
ers ;  and  here  is  proof  that  three  were  appointed 
under  the  commercial  articles. 

One  more  piece  of  testimony,  and  I  have  done. 
And,  first,  a  little  statement  to  introduce  it. 
We  all  know  that  in  one  of  the  debates  which 
took  place  in  the  British  House  of  Commons  on 
the  Ashburton  treaty,  and  after  that  treaty  was 
ratified  and  past  recall,  mention  was  made  of  a 
certain  map  called  the  King's  map,  which  had 
belonged  to  the  late  King  (George  III.),  and 
hung  in  his  library  during  his  lifetime,  and 
afterwards  in  the  Foreign  Office,  from  which 
said  office  the  said  map  silently  disappeared 
about  the  time  of  the  Ashburton  treaty,  and 
which  certainly  was  not  before  our  Senate  at 
the  time  of  the  ratification  of  that  treaty.  Well, 
the  member  who  mentioned  it  in  Parliament 
said  there  was  a  strong  red  line  upon  it,  about 
the  tenth  of  an  inch  wide,  running  all  along 
where  the  Americans  said  the  true  boundary 
was,  with  these  words  written  along  it  in  four 
places  in  King  George's  handwriting :  "  This  is 
Oswald's  line  ; :'  meaning,  it  is  the  line  of  the 
treaty  of  peace  negotiated  by  Mr.  Oswald  on 
the  British  side,  and  therefore  called  Oswald's 
line. 

Now,  what  I  have  to  say  is  this :  That  when- 
ever this  royal  map  shall  emerge  from  its  re- 
treat and  resume  its  place  in  the  Foreign  Office, 
on  it  will  be  found  another  strong  red  line  about 
the  tenth  of  an  inch  wide,  in  another  place,  with 
these  words  written  on  it :  Boundaries  between 
the  British  and  French  possessions  in  America 
"  as  fixed  by  the  treaty  of  Utrecht."  To  com- 
plete this  last  and  crowning  piece  of  testimony, 
I  have  to  add  that  the  evidence  of  it  is  in  the 
Department  of  State,  as  is  nearly  the  whole  of 
the  evidence  which  I  have  used  in  crushing  this 
pie-poudre  insurrection — "  this  puddle-lane  re- 
bellion " — against  the  truth  and  majesty  of  his- 
tory, which,  beginning  with  a  clerk  in  the  De- 
partment of  State,  spread  to  all  the  organs,  big 
and  little  ;  then  reached  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  held  divided  empire  in  this  cham- 


ANNO  1846.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


671 


ber  for  four  months,  and  now  dies  the  death  of 
the  ridiculous.* 

We  must  now  introduce  the  gentlemen  of 
54—40  to  Frazers's  River,  an  acquaintance  which 
they  will  be  obliged  to  make  before  they  arrive  at 
their  inexorable  line ;  for  it  lies  in  their  course, 
and  must  be  crossed — both  itself  and  the 
British  province  of  New  Caledonia,  which  it 
waters.  This,  then,  is  the  introduction  to  that 
inevitable  acquaintance,  hitherto  ignored.  It  is 
a  river  of  about  a  thousand  miles  in  length 
(following  its  windings),  rising  in  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  opposite  the  head  of  the  Unjigah,  or 
Peace  River,  which  flows  into  the  Frozen  Ocean 
in  latitude  about  70.  The  course  of  this  river 
is  nearly  north  and  south,  rising  in  latitude  55, 
flowing  south  to  near  latitude  49,  and  along  that 
parallel,  and  just  north  of  it,  to  the  Gulf  of 
Georgia,  into  which  it  falls  behind  Vancouver's 
Island.  The  upper  part  of  this  river  is  good 
for  navigation ;  the  lower  half,  plunging  through 
volcanic  chasms  in  mountains  of  rock,  is  wholly 
imnavigable  for  any  species  of  craft.  This  river 
was  discovered  by  Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie  in 
1793,  was  settled  by  the  Northwest  Company  in 
1806,  and  soon  covered  by  their  establishments 
from  head  to  mouth.  No  American  or  Spaniard 
had  ever  left  a  track  upon  this  river  or  its  val- 
ley. Our  claim  to  it,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  rested 
wholly  upon  the  treaty  with  Spain  of  1819 ; 
and  her  claim  rested  wholly  upon  those  dis- 
coveries among  the  islands,  the  value  of  which, 
as  conferring  claims  upon  the  continent,  it  has 
been  my  province  to  show  in  our  negotiations 
with  Russia  in  1824.     At  the  time  that  we  ac- 

*  Since  the  delivery  of  this  speech  a  copy  of  a  paragraph  of 
a  despatch  from  Mr.  Edward  Everett,  United  States  minister 
in  London,  dated  31st  March,  1843,  has  been  obtained,  giving  an 
account  of  this  map  as  shown  to  him  by  Lord  Aberdeen,  con- 
taining the  two  red  lines  upon  it,  one  for  our  northeast  bound- 
ary, called  "  Oswald's  line,"  the  other  for  the  northwest,  callod 
the  line  of  the  "  treaty  of  Utrecht.'1  The  paragraph  is  in  these 
words : 

"The  above  was  chiefly  written  before  I  had  seen  Mr.  Os- 
wald's map,  which  I  have  since  by  the  kindness  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel  and  Lord  Aberdeen,  been  permitted  to  do.  It  is  a  copy 
of  Mitchell  in  fine  preservation.  The  boundaries  between  the 
British  and  French  possessions  in  America,  'as  fixed  by  the 
treaty  of  Utrecht,'  are  marked  .upon  it  in  a  very  full  distinct 
line,  at  least  a  tenth  of  an  inch  broad,  and  those  words  written 
in  several  places.  In  like  manner  the  line  giving  our  bound- 
ary as  we  have  always  claimed  it,  that  is,  carrying  the  north- 
eastern angle  of  Nova  Scotia  far  to  the  north  of  the  St  Johns, 
is  drawn  very  carefully  in  a  bold  red  line,  full  a  tenth  of  an 
inch  broad :  and  in  four  different  places  along  the  line  dis- 
tinctly written '  the  boundary  described  by  Mr.  Oswald.'  What 
is  very  noticeable  is,  that  a  line  narrower,  but  drawn  with 
care  with  an  instrument,  from  the  lower  end  of  Lake  Nipis- 
sins  to  the  source  of  the  Mississippi,  as  far  as  the  map  permits 
such  a  line  to  run.  had  once  been  drawn  on  the  map,  and  has 
since  been  partially  erased,  though  still  distinctly  visible."       I 


quired  this  Spanish  claim  to  Frazer's  River,  it 
had  already  been  discovered  twenty-six  years 
by  the  British  ;  had  been  settled  by.  them  for 
twelve  years;  was  known  by  a  British  name; 
and  no  Spaniard  had  ever  made  a  track  on  its 
banks.  New  Caledonia,  or  Western  Caledonia, 
was  the  name  which  it  then  bore;  and  it  so 
happens  that  an  American  citizen,  a  native  of 
Vermont,  respectably  known  to  the  senators 
now  present  from  that  State,  and  who  had  spent 
twenty  years  of  his  life  in  the  hyperborean 
regions  of  Northwest  America,  in  publishing 
an  account  of  his  travels  and  sojournings  in  that 
quarter,  actually  published  a  description  of  this 
New  Caledonia,  as  a  British  province,  at  tho 
very  moment  that  we  were  getting  it  from 
Spain,  and  without  the  least  suspicion  that  it 
belonged  to  Spain !  I  speak  of  Mr.  David  Har- 
mon, whose  Journal  of  Nineteen  Years'  Resi- 
dence between  latitudes  47  and  58  in  North- 
western America,  was  published  at  Andover,  in 
his  native  State,  in  the  year  1820,  the  precise 
year  after  we  had  purchased  this  New  Caledonia 
from  the  Spaniards.  I  read,  not  from  the  vol- 
ume itself,  which  is  not  in  the  library  of  Con- 
gress, but  from  the  London  Quarterly  Review, 
January  No.,  1822,  as  reprinted  in  Boston; 
article,  Western  Caledonia. 

(The  extract.) 

This  is  the  account  given  by  Mr.  Harmon  of 
New  Caledonia,  and  given  of  it  by  him  at  the 
exact  moment  that  we  were  purchasing  the 
Spanish  title  to  it !  Of  this  Spanish  title,  of 
which  the  Spaniards  never  heard,  the  narrator 
seems  to  have  been  as  profoundly  ignorant  as 
the  Spaniards  were  themselves ;  and  made  his 
description  of  New  Caledonia  as  of  a  British 
possession,  without  any  more  reference  to  an 
adverse  title  than  if  he  had  been  speaking  of 
Canada.  So  much  for  the  written  description  : 
now  let  us  look  at  the  map.  and  see  how  it 
stands  there.  Here  is  a  map — a  54°  40'  map — 
which  will  show  us  the  features  of  the  country, 
and  the  names  of  the  settlements  upon  it.  Here 
is  Frazer's  River,  running  from  55°  to  49J  and 
here  is  a  line  of  British  posts  upon  it,  from  Fort 
McLeod,  at  its  head,  to  Fort  Langley,  at  its 
mouth,  and  from  Thompson's  Fork,  on  one  side, 
to  Stuart's  Fork  on  the  other.  And  here  are 
clusters  of  British  names,  imposed  by  the  Bri- 
tish, visible  every  where— Forts  George,  St 
James,  Simpson,  Thompson,  Frazer,  McLeod, 


672 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Langley,  and  others :  rivers  and  lakes  with  the 
same  names,  and  others :  and  here  is  Deserter's 
Creek,  so  named  by  Mackenzie,  because  his 
guide  deserted  him  there  in  July,  1793  j  and 
here  is  an  Indian  village  which  he  named 
Friendly,  because  the  people  were  the  most 
friendly  to  strangers  that  he  had  ever  seen; 
and  here  another  called  Rascals'  village,  so 
named  by  Mackenzie  fifty-three  years  ago,  be- 
cause its  inhabitants  were  the  most  rascally 
Indians  he  had  ever  seen ;  and  here  is  the 
representation  of  that  famous  boundary  line 
54°  40',  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  exact 
boundary  of  American  territorial  rights  in  that 
quarter,  and  which  happens  to  include  the  whole 
of  New  Caledonia,  except  McLeod's  fort,  and  the 
whole  of  Stuart's  lake,  and  a  spring,  which  is 
left  to  the  British,  while  we  take  the  branch 
which  flows  from  it.  This  line  takes  all  in — 
river,  lakes,  forts,  villages.  See  how  it  goes  ! 
Starting  at  the  sea,  it  gives  us,  by  a  quarter  of 
an  inch  on  the  map,  Fort  Simpson,  so  named 
after  the  British  Governor  Simpson,  and  founded 
by  the  Hudson  Bay  Company.  Upon  what 
principle  we  take  this  British  fort  I  know  not 
— except  it  be  on  the  assumption  that  our 
sacred  right  and  title  being  adjusted  to  a 
minute,  by  the  aid  of  these  40  minutes,  so  ap- 
positely determined  by  the  Emperor  Paul's 
charter  to  a  fur  company  in  1799,  to  be  on  this 
straight  line,  the  bad  example  of  even  a  slight 
deviation  from  it  at  the  start  should  not  be 
allowed  even  to  spare  a  British  fort  away  up  at 
Point  Mclntyre,  in  Chatham  Sound.  On  this 
principle  we  can  understand  the  inclusion,  by  a 
quarter  of  an  inch  on  the  map,  of  this  remote 
and  isolated  British  post.  The  cutting  in  two 
of  Stuart's  lake,  which  the  line  does  as  it  runs, 
is  quite  intelligible :  it  must  be  on  the  principle 
stated  in  one  of  the  fifty-four-forty  papers,  that 
Great  Britain  should  not  have  one  drop  of  our 
water ;  therefore  we  divide  the  lake,  each  taking 
their  own  share  of  its  drops.  The  fate  of  the 
two  forts,  McLeod  and  St.  James,  so  near  each 
other  and  so  far  oft"  from  us,  united  all  their 
lives,  and  now  so  unexpectedly  divided  from 
each  other  by  this  line,  is  less  comprehensible ; 
and  I  cannot  account  for  the  difference  of  their 
fates,  unless  it  is  upon  the  law  of  the  day  of 
judgment,  when,  of  two  men  in  the  field,  one 
shall  be  taken  and  the  other  left,  and  no  man 
be  able  to  tell  the  reason  why.    All  the  rest  of 


the  inclusions  of  British  establishments  which 
the  line  makes,  from  head  to  mouth  of  Frazer's 
River,  are  intelligible  enough :  they  turn  upon 
the  principle  of  all  or  none ! — upon  the  principle 
that  every  acre  and  every  inch,  every  grain  of 
sand,  drop  of  water,  and  blade  of  grass  in  all 
Oregon,  up  to  fifty-four  forty,  is  ours !  and  have 
it  we  will. 

This  is  the  country  which  geography  and 
history  five-and-twenty  years  ago  called  New 
Caledonia,  and  treated  as  a  British  possession ; 
and  it  is  the  country  which  an  organized  party 
among  ourselves  of  the  present  day  call  "  the 
whole  of  Oregon  or  nonef  and  every  inch  of 
which  they  say  belongs  to  us.  Well,  let  us  pro- 
ceed a  little  further  with  the  documents  of  1823, 
and  see  what  the  men  of  that  day — President 
Monroe  and  his  cabinet — the  men  who  made  the 
treaty  with  Spain  by  which  we  became  the 
masters  of  this  large  domain :  let  us  proceed  a 
little  further,  and  see  what  they  thought  of  our 
title  up  to  fifty-four  forty.  I  read  from  the 
same  document  of  1823: 

Mr.  Adams  to  Mr.  Middleton,  July,  22,  1823. 
"  The  right  of  the  United  States,  from  the 
forty-second  to  the  forty-ninth  parallel  of  lati- 
tude on  the  Pacific  Ocean  we  consider  as  un- 
questionable, being  founded,  first,  on  the  acqui- 
sition by  the  treaty  of  22d  February,  1819,  of 
all  the  rights  of  Spain ;  second,  by  the  discovery 
of  the  Columbia  River,  first  from  the  sea  at  its 
mouth,  and  then  by  land,  by  Lewis  and  Clarke ; 
and,  third,  by  the  settlement  at  its  mouth  in 
1811.  This  territory  is  to  the  United  States  of 
an  importance  which  no  possession  in  North 
America  can  be  of  to  any  European  nation,  not 
only  as  it  is  but  the  continuity  of  their  posses- 
sions from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  but 
as  it  offers  their  inhabitants  the  means  of  estab- 
lishing hereafter  water  communications  from 
the  one  to  the  other." 

From  42°  to  49°  is  here  laid  down  by  Mr. 
Monroe  and  his  cabinet  as  the  extent  of  our 
unquestionable  title,  and  on  these  boundaries 
they  were  ready  to  settle  the  question.  Five 
other  despatches  the  same  year  from  Mr.  Adams 
to  Mr.  Rush,  our  minister  in  London,  offer  the 
same  thing.  They  all  claim  the  valley  of  the 
Columbia  River,  and  nothing  more.  They  claim 
the  land  drained  by  its  waters,  and  no  more ; 
but  as  the  Columbia  had  a  northern  prong, 
drawing  water  just  under  the  mountains  from 
as  far  north  as  51° — yes  !  51— not  54-40,  they 
offered  to  cut  off  the  head  of  that  prong,  and 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


673 


take  the  line  of  49,  which  included  all  that  was 
worth  having  of  the  waters  of  the  Columbia, 
and  left  out,  but  barely  left  out,  Frazer's  River 
— coming  within  three  miles  of  it  at  its  mouth. 
On  Friday,  Mr.  President,  I  read  one  passage 
from  the  documents  of  1823,  to  let  you  see  that 
fifty-four  forty  (for  that  is  the  true  reading  of 
fifty-five)  had  been  offered  to  Great  Britain  for 
her  northern  boundary :  to-day  I  read  you  six 
passages  from  the  same  documents,  to  show 
the  same  thing.  And  let  me  remark  once  more 
— the  remark  will  bear  eternal  repetition— these 
offers  were  made  by  the  men  who  had  acquired 
the  Spanish  title  to  Oregon  !  and  who  must  be 
presumed  to  know  as  much  about  it  as  those 
whose  acquaintance  with  Oregon  dates  from  the 
epoch  of  the  Baltimore  convention — whose  love 
for  it  dates  from  the  era  of  its  promulgation  as 
a  party  watchword — whose  knowledge  of  it  ex- 
tends to  the  luminous  pages  of  Mr.  Greenhow's 
horn-book ! 

Six  times  Mr.  Monroe  and  his  cabinet  re- 
nounced Frazer's  River  and  its  valley,  and  left  it 
to  the  British  !  They  did  so  on  the  intelligible 
principle  that  the  British  had  discovered  it,  and 
settled  it,  and  were  in  the  actual  possession  of 
it  when  we  got  the  Spanish  claim  ;  which  claim 
Spain  never  made  !  Upon  this  principle,  New 
Caledonia  was  left  to  the  British  in  1823.  Upon 
what  principle  is  it  claimed  now  ? 

This  is  what  Mr.  Monroe  and  his  cabinet 
thought  of  our  title  to  the  whole  of  Oregon  or 
none,  in  the  year  1823.  They  took  neither 
branch  of  this  proposition.  They  did  not  go 
for  all  or  none,  but  for  some  !  They  took  some, 
and  left  some  ;  and  they  divided  by  a  line  right 
in  itself,  and  convenient  in  itself,  and  mutually 
suitable  to  each  party.  That  President  and  his 
cabinet  carry  their  "  unquestionable  right "  to 
Oregon  as  far  as  49°,  and  no  further.  This  is 
exactly  what  was  done  six  years  before.  Mr. 
Gallatin  and  Mr.  Rush  offered  the  same  line,  as 
being  a  continuation  of  the  line  of  Utrecht  (de- 
scribing it  by  that  name  in  their  despatch  of 
October  20th,  1818),  and  as  covering  the  valley 
of  the  Columbia  River,  to  which  they  alleged  our 
title  to  be  indisputable.  Mr.  Jefferson  had  of- 
fered the  same  line  in  1807.  All  these  offers 
leave  Frazer's  River  and  its  valley  to  the  British, 
because  they  discovered  and  settled  it.  All 
these  offers  hold  on  to  the  Columbia  River  and 
its  valley,  because  we  discovered  and  settled  it ; 

Vol.  II.— 43 


and  all  these  offers  let  the  principle  of  contiguity 
or  continuity  work  equally  on  the  British  as  on 
the  American  side  of  the  line  of  Utrecht. 

This  is  what  the  statesmen  did  who  made  the 
acquisition  of  the  Spanish  claim  to  Oregon  in 
1819.  In  four  years  afterwards  they  had  freely 
offered  all  north  of  49  to  Great  Britain ;  and  no 
one  ever  thought  of  arraigning  them  for  it. 
Most  of  these  statesmen  have  gone  through 
fiery  trials  since,  and  been  fiercely  assailed  on 
all  the  deeds  of  their  lives ;  but  I  never  heard 
of  one  of  them  being  called  to  account,  much 
less  lose  an  election,  for  the  part  he  acted  in 
offering  49  to  Great  Britain  in  1823,  or  at  any 
other  time.  For  my  part,  I  thought  they  were 
right  then,  and  I  think  so  now ;  I  was  senator 
then,  as  I  am  now.  I  thought  with  them  that 
New  Caledonia  belonged  to  the  British ;  and 
thinking  so  still,  and  acting  upon  the  first  half 
of  the  great  maxim — Ask  nothing  but  what  is 
right— I  shall  not  ask  them  for  it,  much  less 
fight  them  for  it  now. 


CHAPTER   CLIX. 

OKEGON  JOINT  OCCUPATION:  NOTICE  AUTHOR- 
IZED FOR  TERMINATING  IT:  BRITISH  GOVERN- 
MENT OFFERS  THE  LINE  OF  49:  QUANDARY  OF 
THE  ADMINISTRATION:  DEVICE:  SENATE  CON- 
SULTED :  TREATY  MADE  AND  RATIFIED. 

The  abrogation  of  the  article  in  the  conventions 
of  1818  and  1828,  for  the  joint  occupation  of  the 
Columbia,  was  a  measure  right  in  itselfj  indis- 
pensable in  the  actual  condition  of  the  terri- 
tory— colonies  from  two  nations  planting  them- 
selves upon  it  together — and  necessary  to  stimu- 
late the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  which  was  to 
separate  the  possessions  of  the  two  countries. 
Every  consideration  required  the  notice  to  be 
given,  and  Congress  finally  voted  it ;  but  not 
without  a  struggle  in  each  House,  longer  and 
more  determined  than  the  disparity  of  the  vote 
would  indicate.    In  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, the  vote  in  its  favor  was  154 — headed  by 
Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams:  the  nays  were  54. 
The  resolution  as  adopted  by  the  House,  then 
went  to  the  Senate  for  its  concurrence,  where, 
on  the  motion  of  Mr.  Reverdy  Johnson,  of 
Maryland,  it  underwent  a  very  material  altera- 


674 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


tion  in  form,  without  impairing  its  effect,  adopt- 
ing a  preamble  containing  the  motives  for  the 
notice,  and  of  which  the  leading  were  to  show 
that  amicable  settlement  of  the  title  by  negotia- 
tion was  an  object  in  view,  and  intended  to  be 
promoted  by  a  separation  of  interests  between 
the  parties.  Thus  amended,  the  resolution  was 
passed  by  a  good  majority — 40  to  14.  The 
yeas  and  nays  were  : 

Messrs.  Archer,  Ashley,  Atherton,  Bagby, 
Barrow,  Benton,  Berrien,  Calhoun  Cameron, 
Chalmers,  John  M.  Clayton,  Corwin,  Critten- 
den, Davis,  Dayton,  Dix,  Greene,  Haywood, 
Houston,  Huntington,  Jarnagin,  Johnson  of 
Maryland,  Johnson  of  Louisiana,  Lewis,  Mc- 
Duffie,  Mangum,  Miller,  Morehead,  Niles,  Pearce, 
Pennybacker,  Phelps,  Rusk,  Sevier,  Simmons, 
Speight,  Turney,  Upham,  Webster,  Woodbridge. 

The  nays  were : 

Messrs.  Allen,  Atchison,  Breese,  Bright,  Cass, 
Thomas  Clayton,  Dickinson,  Evans,  Fairfield, 
Hannegan,  Jenness,  Semple,  Sturgeon,  West- 
cott. 

These  nays  were  not  all  opposed  to  the  notice 
itself,  but  to  the  form  it  had  adopted,  and  to  the 
clause  which  left  it  discretional  with  the  Presi- 
dent to  give  it  when  he  should  think  proper. 
They  constituted  the  body  of  the  extreme 
friends  of  Oregon,  standing  on  the  Baltimore 
platform — "the  whole  of  Oregon  or  none" — 
looking  to  war  as  inevitable,  and  who  certainly 
would  have  made  it  if  their  course  had  been  fol- 
lowed. In  the  House  the  Senate's  amendment 
was  substantially  adopted,  and  by  an  increased 
vote;  and  the  authority  for  terminating  the 
joint  occupancy — a  great  political  blunder  in 
itself,  and  fraught  with  dangerous  consequences 
— was  eventually  given,  but  after  the  lapse  of  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  and  after  bringing  the  two 
countries  to  the  brink  of  hostilities.  The  Presi- 
dent acted  at  once  upon  the  discretion  which 
was  given  him — caused  the  notice  for  the  abro- 
gation of  the  joint  occupant  article  to  be  imme- 
diately given»  to  the  British  government — and 
urged  Congress  to  the  adoption  of  the  measures 
which  were  necessary  for  the  protection  of  the 
American  citizens  who  had  gone  to  the  terri- 
tory. 

The  news  of  the  broken  off  negotiations  was 
received  with  regret  in  Great  Britain.  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  with  the  frankness  and  integrity 
which  constitute  the  patriotic  statesman,  openly 


expressed  his  regret  in  Parliament  that  the  offer 
of  49,  when  made  by  the  American  government, 
had  not  been  accepted  by  the  British  govern- 
ment;  and  it  was  evident  that  negotiations 
would  be  renewed.  They  were  so :  and  in  a 
way  to  induce  a  speedy  conclusion  of  the  ques- 
tion— being  no  less  than  a  fair  and  open  offer 
on  the  side  of  the  British  to  accept  the  line  we 
had  offered.  The  administration  was  in  a  quan- 
dary (qu'en  dirai-je  ?  what  shall  I  say  to  it  ?), 
at  this  unexpected  offer.  They  felt  that  it  was 
just,  and  that  it  ought  to  be  accepted :  at  the 
same  time  they  had  stood  upon  the  platform  of 
the  Baltimore  convention — had  helped  to  make 
it — had  had  the  benefit  of  it  in  the  election ; 
and  were  loth  to  show  themselves  inconsistent, 
or  ignorant.  Besides  the  fifty-four  forties  were 
in  commotion  against  it.  A  specimen  of  their 
temper  has  been  shown  in  Mr.  Hannegan's  de- 
nunciation of  the  President.  All  the  govern- 
ment newspapers — the  official  organ  at  Wash- 
ington City,  and  the  five  hundred  democratic 
papers  throughout  the  Union  which  followed 
its  lead,  were  all  vehement  against  it.  Under- 
handedly  they  did  what  they  could  to  allay  the 
storm  which  was  raging — encouraging  Mr.  Hay- 
wood, Mr.  Benton,  and  others  to  speak ;  but 
the  pride  of  consistency,  and  the  fear  of  reproach, 
kept  them  in  the  background,  and  even  osten- 
sibly in  favor  of  54-40,  while  encouraging  the 
events  which  would  enable  them  to  settle  on 
49.  Mr.  Pakenham  made  his  offer :  it  was  not 
a  case  for  delay :  and  acceptance  or  rejection 
became  inevitable.  It  was  accepted  ;  and  noth- 
ing remained  but  to  put  the  treaty  into  form. 
A  device  was  necessary,  and  it  was  found  in  the 
early  practice  of  the  government — that  of  the 
President  asking  the  advice  of  the  Senate  upon 
the  articles  of  a  treaty  before  the  negotiation. 
Mr.  Benton  proposed  this  course  to  Mr.  Polk. 
He  was  pleased  with  it,  but  feared  its  feasibility. 
The  advice  of  the  Senate  would  be  his  sufficient 
shield :  but  could  it  be  obtained  ?  The  chances 
seemed  to  be  against  it.  It  was  an  up-hill  busi- 
ness, requiring  a  vote  of  two-thirds :  it  was 
a  novelty,  not  practised  since  the  time  of  Wash- 
ington :  it  was  a  submission  to  the  whigs,  with 
the  risk  of  defeat ;  for  unless  they  stood  by  the 
President  against  the  dominant  division  of  his 
own  friends,  the  advice  desired  would  not  be 
given  ;  and  the  embarrassment  of  the  adminis- 
tration would  be  greater  than  ever.    In  this 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


uneasy  and  uncertain  state  of  mind,  the  Presi- 
dent had  many  conferences  with  Mr.  Benton, 
the  point  of  which  was  to  know,  beyond  the 
chance  of  mistake,  how  far  he  could  rely  upon 
the  whig  senators.  Mr.  Benton  talked  with 
them  all— with  Webster,  Archer,  Berrien,  John 
M.  Clayton,  Crittenden,  Corwin,  Davis  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, Dayton,  Greene  of  Rhode  Island, 
Huntington  of  Connecticut,  Reverdy  Johnson, 
Henry  Johnson  of  Louisiana,  Miller  of  New 
Jersey,  Phelps,  Simmons,  Upham,  Woodbridgc, 
— and  saw  fully  that  they  intended  to  act  for 
their  country,  and  not  for  their  party  :  and  re- 
ported to  the  President  that  he  would  be  safe  in 
trusting  to  them — that  their  united  voice  would 
be  in  favor  of  the  advice,  which,  added  to  the 
minority  of  the  democracy,  would  make  the  two- 
thirds  which  were  requisite.  The  most  auspi- 
cious mode  of  applying  for  this  advice  was 
deemed  to  be  the  submission  of  a  projet  of  a 
treaty,  presented  by  the  British  minister,  and 
to  be  laid  before  the  Senate  for  their  opinion 
upon  its  acceptance.  The  projet  was  accord- 
ingly received  by  Mr.  Buchanan,  a  message 
drawn  up,  and  the  desired  advice  was  to  be 
asked  the  next  day,  10th  of  June.  A  prey  to 
anxiety  as  to  the  conduct  of  the  whigs,  the  mere 
absence  of  part  of  whom  would  defeat  the  mea- 
sure, the  President  sent  for  Mr.  Benton  the 
night  before,  to  get  himself  re-assured  on  that 
point.  Mr.  Benton  was  clear  and  positive  that 
they  would  be  in  their  places,  and  would  vote 
the  advice,  and  that  the  measure  would  be  car- 
ried. The  next  day  the  projet  of  the  treaty 
was  sent  in,  and  with  it  a  message  from  the 
President,  asking  the  advice  which  he  desired. 
It  stated : — 

"  In  the  early  periods  of  the  government,  the 
opinion  and  advice  of  the  Senate  were  often 
taken  in  advance  upon  important  questions  of 
our  foreign  policy.  General  Washington  re- 
peatedly consulted  the  Senate,  and  asked  their 
previous  advice  upon  pending  negotiations  with 
foreign  powers ;  and  the  Senate  in  every  in- 
stance responded  to  his  call  by  giving  their  ad- 
vice, to  which  he  always  conformed  his  action. 
This  practice,  though  rarely  resorted  to  in  later 
times,  was,  in  my  judgment,  eminently  wise,  and 
may,  on  occasions  of  great  importance,  be  pro- 
perly revived.  The  Senate  are  a  branch  of  the 
treaty-making  power ;  and,  by  consulting  them 
in  advance  of  his  own  action  upon  important 
measures  of  foreign  policy  which  may  ultimately  j 
come  before  them  for  their  consideration,  the 
President  secures  harmony  of  action  between  j 


675 


that  body  and  himself.  The  Senate  are,  more- 
over, a  branch  of  the  war-making  power,  and  it 
may  be  eminently  proper  for  the  Executive  to 
take  the  opinion  and  advice  of  that  body  in  ad- 
vance upon  any  great  question  which  may  in- 
volve in  its  decision  the  issue  of  peace  or  war. 
On  the  present  occasion,  the  magnitude  of  the 
subject  would  induce  me,  under  any  circum- 
stances, to  desire  the  previous  advice  of  the 
Senate ;  and  that  desire  is  increased  by  the  re- 
cent debates  and  proceedings  in  Congress,  which 
render  it,  in  my  judgment,  not  only  respectful 
to  the  Senate,  but  necessary  and  proper,  if  not 
indispensable,  to  insure  harmonious  action  be- 
tween that  body  and  the  Executive.  In  confer- 
ring on  the  Executive  the  authority  to  give  the 
notice  for  the  abrogation  of  the  convention  of 
1827,  the  Senate  acted  publicly  so  large  a  part, 
that  a  decision  on  the  proposal  now  made  by  the 
British  government,  without  a  definite  know- 
ledge of  the  views  of  that  body  in  reference  to 
it,  might  render  the  question  still  more  com- 
plicated and  difficult  of  adjustment.  For  these 
reasons  I  invite  the  consideration  of  the  Senate 
to  the  proposal  of  the  British  government  for 
the  settlement  of  the  Oregon  question,  and  ask 
their  advice  on  the  subject." 

This  statement  and  expression  of  opinion 
were  conformable  to  the  early  practice  of  the 
government  and  the  theory  of  the  constitution, 
which,  in  requiring  the  President  to  take  the 
advice  of  the  Senate  in  the  formation  of  treaties, 
would  certainly  imply  a  consultation  before  they 
were  made ;  and  this  interpretation  had  often 
been  asserted  by  members  of  the  Senate.  As 
an  interpretation  deemed  right  in  itself,  and  be- 
ing deferential  to  the  Senate,  and  being  of  good 
example  for  the  future,  and  of  great  immediate 
practical  good  in  taking  the  question  of  peace 
or  war  with  Great  Britain  out  of  the  hands  of 
an  administration  standing  upon  the  creed  of 
the  Baltimore  convention,  and  putting  it  into 
the  hands  of  the  whigs  to  whom  it  did  not  ap- 
ply, and  that  part  of  the  democracy  which  dis- 
regarded it,  this  application  of  the  President 
was  most  favorably  received.  Still,  however, 
dominated  by  the  idea  of  consistency,  the  Pres- 
ident added  a  salvo  for  that  sensitive  point  in 
the  shape  of  a  reservation  in  behalf  of  his  pre- 
vious opinions,  thus : 

"  My  opinions  and  my  action  on  the  Oregon 
question  were  fully  made  known  to  Congress  in 
my  annual  message  of  the  second  of  December 
last ;  and  the  opinions  therein  expressed  remain 
unchanged." 

With  this  reservation,  and  with  a  complete 


676 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


devolution  of  the  responsibility  of  the  act  upon 
the  Senate,  he  proceeded  to  ask  their  advice  in 
these  terms: 

"Should  the  Senate,  by  the  constitutional 
majority  required  for  the  ratification  of  treaties, 
advise  the  acceptance  of  this  proposition,  or  ad- 
vise it  with  such  modifications  as  they  may, 
upon  full  deliberation,  deem  proper,  I  shall  con- 
form my  action  to  their  advice.  Should  the 
Senate,  however,  decline  by  such  constitutional 
majority  to  give  such  advice,  or  to  express  an 
opinion  on  the  subject,  I  shall  consider  it  my 
duty  to  reject  the  offer." 

It  was  clear,  then,  that  the  fact  of  treaty  or 
no  treaty  depended  upon  the  Senate — that  the 
whole  responsibility  was  placed  upon  it — that 
the  issue  of  peace  or  war  depended  upon  that 
body.  Far  from  shunning  this  responsibility, 
that  body  was  glad  to  take  it,  and  gave  the  Pres- 
ident a  faithful  support  against  himself,  against 
his  cabinet,  and  against  his  peculiar  friends. 
These  friends  struggled  hard,  and  exhausted  par- 
liamentary tactics  to  defeat  the  application,  and 
though  a  small  minority,  were  formidable  in  a 
vote  where  each  one  counted  two  against  the 
opposite  side.  The  first  motion  was  to  refer 
the  message  to  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Rela- 
tions, where  the  fifty-four  forties  were  in  the 
majority,  and  from  whose  action  delay  and  em- 
barrassment might  ensue.  Failing  in  that  mo- 
tion, it  was  moved  to  lay  the  message  on  the 
table.  Failing  again,  it  was  moved  to  postpone 
the  consideration  of  the  subject  to  the  next 
week.  That  motion  being  rejected,  the  consid- 
eration of  the  message  was  commenced,  and 
then  succeeded  a  series  of  motions  to  amend 
and  alter  the  terms  of  the  proposition  as  sub- 
mitted. All  these  failed,  and  at  the  end  of  two 
days  the  vote  was  taken,  and  the  advice  given. 
The  yeas  were : 

"Messrs.  Archer,  Ashley,  Bagby,  Benton,  Ber- 
rien, Calhoun,  Chalmers,  Thomas  Clayton,  John 
M.  Clayton,  Colquitt,  Davis,  Dayton,  Dix, 
Evans,  Greene,  Haywood,  Houston,  Huntington, 
Johnson  of  Maryland,  Johnson  of  Louisiana, 
Lewis,  McDuffie,  Mangum,  Miller,  Morehead, 
Niles,  Pearce,  Pennybacker,  Phelps,  Rusk,  Se- 
vier, Simmons,  Speight,  Turney,  Upham,  Web- 
ster, Woodbridge,  Yulee."— 38. 

The  nays: 

"  Messrs.  Allen,  Atherton,  Breese,  Cameron, 
Cass,  Dickinson,  Fairfield,  Hannegan,  Jarnagin, 
Jenness,  Semple,  Sturgeon." — 12. 


The  advice  was  in  these  words  : 

"  Resolved  ("two-thirds  of  the  Senators  present 
concurring),  lhat  the  President  of  the  United 
States  be,  and  he  is  hereby,  advised  to  accept 
the  proposal  of  the  British  government,  accom- 
panying his  message  to  the  Senate  dated  10th 
June,  1846,  for  a  convention  to  settle  boundaries, 
&c,  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain 
west  of  the  Rocky  or  Stony  mountains. 

"  Ordered,  That  the  Secretary  lay  the  said 
resolution  before  the  President  of  the  United 
States." 

Four  days  afterwards  the  treaty  was  sent  in 
in  due  form,  accompanied  by  a  message  which 
still  left  its  responsibility  on  the  advising  Sen- 
ate, thus : 

"In  accordance  with  the  resolution  of  the 
Senate  of  the  12th  instant,  that  '  the  President 
of  the  United  States  be,  and  he  is  hereby,  ad- 
vised to  accept  the  proposal  of  the  British  gov- 
ernment, accompanying  his  message  to  the  Sen- 
ate dated  10th  June,  1846,  for  a  convention  to 
settle  boundaries,  &c,  between  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain  west  of  the  Rocky  or 
Stony  mountains,'  a  convention  was  concluded 
and  signed  on  the  15th  instant,  by  the  Secretary 
of  State  on  the  part  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  envoy  extraordinary  and  minister  plenipo- 
tentiary of  her  Britannic  Majesty  on  the  part 
of  Great  Britain.  This  convention  I  now  lay 
before  the  Senate  for  their  consideration,  with  a 
view  to  its  ratification." 

Two  days  more  were  consumed  in  efforts  to 
amend  or  alter  the  treaty  in  various  of  its  pro- 
visions, all  of  which  failing,  the  final  vote  on  its 
ratification  was  taken,  and  carried  by  an  in- 
creased vote  on  each  side— 41  to  14. 

Yeas. — "Messrs.  Archer,  Ashley,  Bagby, 
Barrow,  Benton,  Berrien,  Calhoun,  Chalmers, 
Thomas  Clayton,  John  M.  Clayton,  Colquitt, 
Corwin,  Crittenden,  Davis,  Dayton,  Dix,  Evans, 
Greene,  Haywood,  Houston,  Huntington,  John- 
son of  Maryland,  Henry  Johnson  of  Louisiana, 
Lewis,  McDuffie,  Mangum,  Miller,  Morehead, 
Niles,  Pearce,  Pennybacker,  Phelps,  Rusk,  Se- 
vier, Simmons,  Speight,  Turney,  Upham,  Web- 
ster, Woodbridge,  Yulee. 

Nays. — "Messrs.  Allen,  Atchison,  Atherton, 
Breese,  Bright,  Cameron,  Cass,  Dickinson,  Fair- 
field, Hannegan,  Jenness,  Semple,  Sturgeon, 
Westcott." 

An  anomaly  was  presented  in  the  progress  of 
this  question — that  of  the  daily  attack,  by  all 
the  government  papers,  upon  the  senators  who 
were  accomplishing  the  wishes  of  the  President. 
The  organ  at  Washington,  conducted  by  Mr. 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


Putchie,  was  incessant  and  unmeasured  in  these 
attacks,  especially  on  Mr.  Benton,  whose  place 
in  the  party,  and  his  geographical  position  in 
the  West,  gave  him  the  privilege  of  being  con- 
sidered the  leader  of  the  forty-nines,  and  there- 
fore the  most  obnoxious.  It  was  a  new  thing 
under  the  sun  to  see  the  senator  daily  assailed, 
in  the  government  papers,  for  carrying  into  effect 
the  wishes  of  the  government — to  see  him  at- 
tacked in  the  morning  for  what  the  President 
was  hurrying  him  to  do  the  night  before.  His 
course  was  equally  independent  of  the  wishes 
of  the  government,  and  the  abuse  of  its  papers. 
He  had  studied  the  Oregon  question  for  twenty- 
five  years — had  his  mind  made  up  upon  it — and 
should  have  acted  according  to  his  convictions 
without  regard  to  support  or  resistance  from 
any  quarter. — The  issue  was  an  instructive  com- 
mentary upon  the  improvidence  of  these  party 
platforms,  adopted  for  an  electioneering  cam- 
paign, made  into  a  party  watch-word,  often 
fraught  with  great  mischief  to  the  country,  and 
often  founded  in  ignorance  or  disregard  of  the 
public  welfare.  This  Oregon  platform  was 
eminently  of  that  character.  It  was  a  party 
platform  for  the  campaign :  its  architects  knew 
but  little  of  the  geography  of  the  north-west 
coast,  or  of  its  diplomatic  history.  They  had 
never  heard  of  the  line  of  the  treaty  of  Utrecht, 
and  denied  its  existence :  they  had  never  heard 
of  the  multiplied  offers  of  our  government  to 
settle  upon  that  line,  and  treated  the  offer  now 
as  a  novelty  and  an  abandonment  of  our  rights : 
they  had  never  heard  that  their  54-40  was  no 
line  on  the  continent,  but  only  a  point  on  an 
island  on  the  coast,  fixed  by  the  Emperor  Paul 
as  the  southern  limit  of  the  charter  granted  by 
him  to  the  Russian  Fur  Company :  had  never 
heard  of  Frazer's  River  and  New  Caledonia, 
which  lay  between  Oregon  and  their  indisputa- 
ble line,  and  ignored  the  existence  of  that  river 
and  province.  The  pride  of  consistency  made 
them  adhere  to  these  errors ;  and  a  desire  to 
destroy  Mr.  Benton  for  not  joining  in  the  liqLrrahs 
for  the  "  whole  of  Oregon,  or  none,"  and  for  the 
"  immediate  annexation  of  Texas  without  regard 
to  consequences,"  lent  additional  force  to  the 
attacks  upon  him.  The  conduct  of  the  whigs 
was  patriotic  in  preferring  their  country  to  their 
party — in  preventing  a  war  with  Great  Britain 
— and  in  saving  the  administration  from  itself 
and  its  friends.     Great  Britain  acted  magnani- 


677 


mously,  and  was  worthily  represented  by  her 
minister,  Mr.  (now  Sir  Richard)  Pakenham. 
Her  adoption  and  renewal  of  our  own  offer, 
settled  the  last  remaining  controversy  between 
the  countries— left  them  in  a  condition  which 
they  had  not  seen  since  the  peace  of  1783 — 
without  any  thing  to  quarrel  about,  and  with  a 
mutuality  of  interest  in  the  preservation  of 
peace  which  promised  a  long  continuance  of 
peace.  But,  alas,  Great  Britain  is  to  the  United 
States  now  what  Spain  was  for  centuries  to  her 
— the  raw-head  and  bloody-bones  which  inspires 
terror  and  rage.  During  these  centuries  a 
ministry,  or  a  public  man  that  was  losing  ground 
at  home,  had  only  to  raise  a  cry  of  some  insult, 
aggression,  or  evil  design  on  the  part  of  Spain 
to  have  Great  Britain  in  arms  against  her.  And 
so  it  is  in  the  United  States  at  present,  putting 
Great  Britain  in  the  place  of  Spain,  and  our- 
selves in  hers.  We  have  periodical  returns  of 
complaints  against  her,  each  to  perish  when  it 
has  served  its  turn,  and  to  be  succeeded  by  an- 
other, evanescent  as  itself.  Thus  far,  no  war 
has  been  made;  but  politicians  have  gained 
reputations ;  newspapers  have  taken  fire  j  stocks 
have  vacillated,  to  the  profit  of  jobbers ;  great 
expense  incurred  for  national  defence  in  ships 
and  forts,  when  there  is  nothing  to  defend 
against :  and  if  there  was,  the  electric  telegraph 
and  the  steam  car  would  do  the  work  with  lit- 
tle expense  either  of  time  or  money. 


CHAPTER    CLX. 

MEETING  OF  THE  SECOND  SESSION  OF  THE  29TH 
CONGRESS:  PRESIDENTS  MESSAGE:  VIGOROUS 
PROSECUTION  OF  THE  WAR  RECOMMENDED: 
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  PROPOSED  TO  BE  CRE- 
ATED. 

Congress  met  at  the  regular  annual  period,  the 
first  Monday  in  December ;  and  being  the  sec- 
ond session  of  the  same  body,  there  was  nothing 
to  be  done,  after  the  assembling  of  a  quorum, 
before  the  commencement  of  business,  but  to  re- 
ceive the  President's  message.  It  was  immedi- 
ately communicated,  and,  of  course,  was  greatly 
occupied  with  the  Mexican  war.  The  success 
of  our  arms,  under  the  command  of  General 
Taylor,  was  a  theme  of  exultation ;  and  after 


678 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


that,  an  elaborate  argument  to  throw  the  blame 
of  the  war  on  Mexico.  The  war  was  assumed, 
and  argued  to  have  been  made  by  her,  and  its 
existence  only  recognized  by  us  after  "  American 
blood  had  been  spilled  upon  American  soil." 
History  is  bound  to  pronounce  her  judgment 
upon  these  assumptions,  and  to  say  that  they  are 
unfounded.  In  the  first  place,  the  legal  state  of 
war,  the  status  belli,  was  produced  by  the  in- 
corporation of  Texas,  with  which  Mexico  was 
at  war.  In  the  next  place,  the  United  States' 
government  understood  that  act  to  be  the  as- 
sumption of  the  war  in  fact,  as  well  as  in  law, 
by  the  immediate  advance  of  the  army  to  the 
frontier  of  Texas,  and  of  the  navy  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico,  to  take  the  war  off  the  hands  of 
the  Texians.  In  the  third  place,  the  actual  col- 
lision of  arms  was  brought  on  by  the  further 
advance  of  the  American  troops  to  the  left  bank 
of  the  Lower  Rio  Grande,  then  and  always  in 
the  possession  of  Mexico,  and  erecting  field 
works  on  the  bank  of  the  river,  and  pointing 
cannon  at  the  town  of  Matamoras  on  the  oppo- 
site side,  the  seat  of  a  Mexican  population,  and 
the  head-quarters  of  their  army  of  observation. 
It  was  under  these  circumstances  that  the  Mex- 
ican troops  crossed  the  river,  and  commenced 
the  attack.  And  this  is  what  is  called  spilling 
American  blood  on  American  soil.  The  laws 
of  nations  and  the  law  of  self-defence,  justify 
that  spilling  of  blood;  and  such  will  be  the 
judgment  of  history.  The  paragraph  in  the 
original  message  asking  for  a  provisional  terri- 
torial government  to  be  established  by  Congress 
for  the  conquered  provinces  was  superseded,  and 
replaced  by  one  asserting  the  right  of  the  United 
States  to  govern  them  under  the  law  of  nations, 
according  to  the  recommendation  of  Mr.  Ben- 
ton, and  expressed  in  these  words  : 

"  By  the  laws  of  nations  a  conquered  territory 
is  subject  to  be  governed  by  the  conqueror  dur- 
ing his  military  possession,  and  until  there  is 
either  a  treaty  of  peace,  or  he  shall  voluntarily 
withdraw  from  it.  The  old  civil  government 
being  necessarily  superseded,  it  is  the  right  and 
duty  of  the  conqueror  to  secure  his  conquest, 
and  provide  for  the  maintenance  of  civil  order 
and  the  rights  of  the  inhabitants.  This  right 
has  been  exercised  and  this  duty  performed  by 
our  military  and  naval  commanders,  by  the  es- 
tablishment of  temporary  governments  in  some 
of  the  conquered  provinces  in  Mexico,  assimila- 
ting them  as  far  as  practicable  to  the  free  insti- 
tutions of  our  country.    In  the  provinces  of 


New  Mexico  and  of  the  Californias,  little,  if  any 
further  resistance  is  apprehended  from  the  in- 
habitants of  the  temporary  governments  which 
have  thus,  from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  and 
according  to  the  laws  of  war,  been  established. 
It  may  be  proper  to  provide  for  the  security  of 
these  important  conquests,  by  making  an  ade- 
quate appropriation  for  the  purpose  of  erecting 
fortifications,  and  defraying  the  expenses  neces- 
sarily incident  to  the  maintenance  of  our  pos- 
session and  authority  over  them." 

Having  abandoned  the  idea  of  conquering  by 
"  a  masterly  inactivity,"  and  adopted  the  idea 
of  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war,  the  Presi- 
dent also  adopted  Mr.  Benton's  plan  for  prose- 
cuting it,  which  was  to  carry  the  war  straight  to 
the  city  of  Mexico — General  Taylor,  for  that 
purpose,  to  be  supplied  with  25,000  men,  that, 
advancing  along  the  table  land  by  San  Luis  de 
Potosi,  and  overcoming  all  the  obstacles  in  his 
way,  and  leaving  some  garrisons,  he  might 
arrive  at  the  capital  with  some  10,000  men : — 
General  Scott  to  be  supplied  with  15,000,  that, 
landing  at  Vera  Cruz,  and  leaving  some  battal- 
ions to  invest  (with  the  seamen)  that  town,  he 
might  run  up  the  road  to  Mexico,  arriving  there 
(after  all  casualties)  with  10,000  men.  Thus 
20,000  men  were  expected  to  arrive  at  the  capi- 
tal, but  10,000  were  deemed  enough  to  master 
any  Mexican  force  which  could  meet  it — no  mat- 
ter how  numerous.  This  plan  (and  that  with- 
out any  reference  to  dissensions  among  gene- 
rals) required  a  higher  rank  than  that  of  major 
general.  A  lieutenant-general,  representing  the 
constitutional  commander-in-chief,  was  the  pro- 
per commander  in  the  field :  and  as  such,  was  a 
part  of  Colonel  Benton's  plan ;  to  which  nego- 
tiation was  to  be  added,  and  much  relied  on,  as 
it  was  known  that  the  old  republican  party — 
that  which  had  framed  a  constitution  on  the 
model  of  that  of  the  United  States,  and  sought 
its  friendship — were  all  in  favor  of  peace.  All 
this  plan  was  given  to  the  President  in  writing, 
and  having  adopted  all  that  part  of  it  which  de- 
pended on  his  own  authority,  he  applied  to  Con- 
gress to  give  him  authority  to  do  what  he  could 
not  without  it,  namely,  to  make  the  appointment 
of  a  lieutenant-general — the  appointment,  it  be- 
ing well  known,  intended  for  Senator  Benton, 
who  had  been  a  colonel  in  the  army  before 
either  of  the  present  generals  held  that  rank. 
The  bill  for  the  creation  of  this  office  readily 
passed  the  House  of  Representatives,  but  was 


ANNO  1846.    JAMES  K.  POT.K,  'PRESIDENT. 


679 


undermined  and  defeated  in  the  Senate  by  three 
of  the  President's  cabinet  ministers,  Messrs. 
Marcy,  Walker,  and  Buchanan — done  covertly, 
of  course,  for  reasons  unconnected  with  the  pub- 
lic service.  The  plan  went  on,  and  was  con- 
summated, although  the  office  of  lieutenant- 
general  was  not  created.  A  major-general,  in 
right  of  seniority,  had  to  command  other  major- 
generals  ;  while  every  one  accustomed  to  mili- 
tary, or  naval  service,  knows  that  it  is  rank, 
and  not  seniority,  which  is  essential  to  harmo- 
nious and  efficient  command. 


CHAPTER    CLXI. 

WAR  WITH  MEXICO:  TIIE  WAR  DECLARED,  AND 
AN  INTRIGUE  FOR  PEACE  COMMENCED  TIIE 
SAME  DAY. 

The  state  of  war  had  been  produced  between 
the  United  States  and  Mexico  by  the  incorpora- 
tion of  Texas  :  hostilities  between  the  two 
countries  were  brought  on  by  the  advance  of 
the  American  troops  to  the  left  bank  of  the 
Lower  Rio  Grande — the  Mexican  troops  being 
on  the  opposite  side.  The  left  bank  of  the  river 
being  disputed  territory,  and  always  in  her  pos- 
session, the  Mexican  government  had  a  right  to 
consider  this  advance  an  aggression — and  the 
more  so  as  field-works  were  thrown  up,  and 
cannon  pointed  at  the  Mexican  town  of  Mata- 
moros  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river.  The 
armies  being  thus  in  presence,  with  anger  in  their 
bosoms  and  arms  in  their  hands,  that  took  place 
which  every  body  foresaw  must  take  place: 
collisions  and  hostilities.  They  did  so;  and 
early  in  May  the  President  sent  in  a  message  to 
the  two  Houses  of  Congress,  informing  them 
that  American  blood  had  been  spilt  upon 
American  soil ;  and  requesting  Congress  to  re- 
cognize the  existence  of  war,  as  a  fact,  and  to 
provide  for  its  prosecution.  It  was,  however, 
an  event  determined  upon  before  the  spilling  of 
that  blood,  and  the  advance  of  the  troops  was  a 
way  of  bringing  it  on.  The  President  in  his 
message  at  the  commencement  of  the  session, 
after  an  enumeration  of  Mexican  wrongs,  had 
distinctly  intimated  that  he  should  have  recom- 
mended measures  of  redress  if  a  minister  had 
not  been  sent  to  effect  a  peaceable  settlement ; 


but  the  minister  having  gone,  and  not  yet  been 
heard  from,  "  he  should  forbear  recommending 
to  Congress  such  ulterior  measures  of  redress 
for  the  wrongs  and  injuries  we  have  so  long 
borne,  as  it  would  have  been  proper  to  mako 
had  no  such  negotiation  been  instituted."  This 
was  a  declared  postponement  of  war  measures 
for  a  contingency  which  might  quickly  happen  ; 
and  did.  Mr.  Slidcll,  the  minister,  returned 
without  having  been  received,  and  denouncing 
war  in  his  retiring  despatch.  The  contingency 
had  therefore  occurred  on  which  the  forbearanco 
of  the  President  was  to  cease,  and  the  ulterior 
measures  to  be  recommended  which  he  had  in- 
timated. All  this  was  independent  of  the  spilt 
blood ;  but  that  event  producing  a  state  of  hos- 
tilities in  fact,  fired  the  American  blood,  both  in 
and  out  of  Congress,  and  inflamed  the  country 
for  immediate  war.  Without  that  event  it 
would  have  been  difficult — perhaps  impossible 
— to  have  got  Congress  to  vote  it:  with  it,  the 
vote  was  almost  unanimous.  Duresse  was 
plead  by  many  members — duresse  in  the  neces- 
sity of  aiding  our  own  troops.  In  the  Senate 
only  two  senators  voted  against  the  measure, 
Mr.  Thomas  Clayton  of  Delaware,  and  Mr. 
John  Davis  of  Massachusetts.  In  the  House 
there  were  14  negative  votes:  Messrs.  John 
Quincy  Adams,  George  Ashmun,  Henry  Y. 
Cranston,  Erastus  D.  Culver,  Columbus  Delano, 
Joshua  R.  Giddings,  Joseph  Grinnell,  Charles 
Hudson,  Daniel  P.  King,  Joseph  M.  Root,  Lu- 
ther Severance,  John  Strohm,  Daniel  R.  Tilden 
and  Joseph  Vance.  Mr.  Calhoun  spoke  against 
the  bill,  but  did  not  vote  upon  it.  He  was  sin- 
cerely opposed  to  the  war,  although  his  conduct 
had  produced  it — always  deluding  himself,  even 
while  creating  the  status  belli,  with  the  belief 
that  money,  and  her  own  weakness,  would  in- 
duce Mexico  to  submit,  and  yield  to  the  incor- 
poration of  Texas  without  forcible  resistance: 
which  would  certainly  have  been  the  case  if  the 
United  States  had  proceeded  gently  by  negotia- 
tion. He  had  despatched  a  messenger,  to  offer 
a  douceur  of  ten  millions  of  dollars  at  the  time 
of  signing  the  treaty  of  annexation  two  years 
before,  and  he  expected  the  means,  repulsed 
then,  to  be  successful  now  when  the  incorpora- 
tion should  be  effected  under  an  act  of  Con- 
gress. Had  he  remained  in  the  cabinet,  to  do 
which  he  had  not  concealed  his  wish,  his  labors 
would  have  been  earnestly  directed  to  that  end ; 


680 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


but  his  associates  who  had  co-operated  with 
him  in  getting  up  the  Texas  question  for  the 
presidential  election,  and  to  defeat  Mr.  Van 
Buren  and  Mr.  Clay,  had  war  in  view  as  an  ob- 
ject within  itself  from  the  beginning:  and  these 
associates  were  now  in  the  cabinet,  and  he  not 
— their  power  increased:  his  gone.  Claims 
upon  Mexico,  and  speculations  in  Texas  land 
and  scrip,  were  with  them  (the  active  managing 
part  of  the  cabinet)  an  additional  motive,  and 
required  a  war,  or  a  treaty  under  the  menace 
of  war,  or  at  the  end  of  war,  to  make  these 
claims  and  speculations  available.  Mr.  Robert 
J.  Walker  had  the  reputation  of  being  at  the 
head  of  this  class. 

Many  members  of  Congress,  of  the  same  party 
with  the  administration,  were  extremely  averse 
to  this  war,  and  had  interviews  with  the  ad- 
ministration, to  see  if  it  was  inevitable,  before 
it  was  declared.  They  were  found  united  for  it, 
and  also  under  the  confident  belief  that  there 
would  be  no  war — not  another  gun  fired :  and 
that  in  "  ninety  "  or  u  one  hundred  and  twenty 
days,"  peace  would  be  signed,  and  all  the  ob- 
jects gained.  This  was  laid  down  as  a  certain- 
ty, and  the  President  himself  declared  that 
Congress  would  be  "  responsible  if  they  did  not 
vote  the  declaration."  Mr.  Benton  was  struck 
with  this  confident  calculation,  without  know- 
ing its  basis ;  and  with  these  90  and  120  days, 
the  usual  run  of  a  country  bill  of  exchange ;  and 
which  was  now  to  become  the  run  of  the  war. 
It  was  enigmatical,  and  unintelligible,  but 
eventually  became  comprehensible.  Truth  was, 
an  intrigue  was  laid  for  a  peace  before  the  war 
was  declared !  and  this  intrigue  was  even  part 
of  the  scheme  for  making  the  war.  -  It  is  im- 
possible to  conceive  of  an  administration  less 
warlike,  or  more  intriguing,  than  that  of  Mr. 
Polk.  They  were  men  of  peace,  with  objects  to 
be  accomplished  by  means  of  war ;  so  that  war 
was  a  necessity  and  an  indispensability  to  their 
purpose ;  but  they  wanted  no  more  of  it  than 
would  answer  their  purposes.  They  wanted  a 
small  war,  just  large  enough  to  require  a  treaty 
of  peace,  and  not  large  enough  to  make  mili- 
tary reputations,  dangerous  for  the  presidency. 
Never  were  men  at  the  head  of  a  government 
less  imbued  with  military  spirit,  or  more  ad- 
dicted to  intrigue.  How  to  manage  the  war 
was  the  puzzle.  Defeat  would  be  ruin :  to  con- 
quer vicariously,  would  be  dangerous.  ■  Another 


mode  must  be  fallen  upon ;  and  that  seemed  to 
have  been  devised  before  the  declaration  was 
resolved  upon,  and  to  have  been  relied  upon  for 
its  immediate  termination — for  its  conclusion 
within  the  90  and  the  120  days  which  had  been 
so  confidently  fixed  for  its  term.  This  was  no- 
thing less  than  the  restoration  of  the  exiled 
Santa  Anna  to  power,  and  the  purchase  of  a 
peace  from  him.  The  date  of  the  conception  of 
this  plan  is  not  known:  the  execution  of  it 
commenced  on  the  day  of  the  declaration  of 
war.  It  was  intended  to  be  secret,  both  for  the 
honor  of  the  United  States,  the  success  of  the 
movement,  and  the  safety  of  Santa  Anna ;  but 
it  leaked  out :  and  the  ostentation  of  Captain 
Slidell  Mackenzie  in  giving  all  possible  eclat  to 
his  secret  mission,  put  the  report  on  the  winds, 
and  sent  it  flying  over  the  country.  At  first  it 
was  denied,  and  early  in  July  the  Daily  Union 
(the  government  paper)  gave  it  a  formal  and 
authoritative  contradiction.  Referring  to  the 
current  reports  that  paper  said : 

"  We  deem  it  our  duty  to  state  in  the  most 
positive  terms,  that  our  government  has  no  sort 
of  connection  with  any  scheme  of  Santa  Anna 
for  the  revolution  of  Mexico,  or  for  any  sort  of 
purpose.  Some  three  months  ago  some  adven- 
turer was  in  Washington,  who  wished  to  obtain 
their  countenance  and  aid  in  some  scheme  or 
other  connected  with  Santa  Anna.  They  de- 
clined all  sort  of  connection,  co-operation,  or 
participation  in  any  effort  for  the  purpose.  The 
government  of  this  country  declines  all  such  in- 
trigues or  bargains.  They  have  made  war 
openly  in  the  face  of  the  world.  They  mean  to 
prosecute  it  with  all  their  vigor.  They  mean  to 
force  Mexico  to  do  us  justice  at  the  point  of  the 
sword.  This,  then,  is  their  design — this  is  their 
plan  ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  a  bold,  high-minded, 
and  energetic  people." 

The  only  part  of  this  publication  that  retains 
a  surviving  interest,  is  that  which  states  that, 
some  three  months  before  that  time  (which 
would  have  been  a  month  before  the  war  was 
declared),  some  adventurer  was  in  Washington 
who  wished  to  obtain  the  government  counte- 
nance to  some  scheme  connected  with  Santa 
Anna.  As  for  the  rest,  and  all  the  denial,  it  was 
soon  superseded  by  events — by  the  actual  return 
of  Santa  Anna  through  our  fleet,  and  upon  an 
American  passport !  and  open  landing  at  Vera 
Cruz.  Further  denial  became  impossible :  justi- 
fication was  the  only  course :  and  the  President 
essayed  it  in  his  next  annual  message.     Thus  : 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


681 


"  Before  that  time  (the  day  of  the  declaration 
of  the  war)  there  were  symptoms  of  a  revolu- 
tion in  Mexico,  favored,  as  it  was  understood  to 
be,  by  the  more  liberal  party,  and  especially  by 
those  who  were  opposed  to  foreign  interference 
and  to  the  monarchical  government.  Santa  Anna 
was  then  in  exile  in  Havana,  having  been  ex- 
pelled from  power  and  banished  from  his  coun- 
try by  a  revolution  which  occurred  in  Decem- 
ber, 1844 ;  but  it  was  known  that  he  had  still  a 
considerable  party  in  his  favor  in  Mexico.  It 
was  also  equally  well  known,  that  no  vigilance 
which  could  be  exerted  by  our  squadron  would, 
in  all  probability,  have  prevented  him  from 
effecting  a  landing  somewhere  on  the  extensive 
gulf  coast  of  Mexico,  if  he  desired  to  return  to 
his  country.  He  had  openly  professed  an  entire 
change  of  policy ;  had  expressed  his  regret  that 
he  had  subverted  the  federal  constitution  of 
1824,  and  avowed  that  he  was  now  in  favor  of. 
its  restoration.  He  had  publicly  declared  his 
hostility,  in  the  strongest  terms,  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  monarchy,  and  to  European  inter- 
ference in  the  affairs  of  his  country.  Informa- 
tion to  this  effect  had  been  received,  from 
sources  believed  to  be  reliable,  at  the  date  of 
the  recognition  of  the  existence  of  the  war  by 
Congress,  and  was  afterwards  fully  confirmed 
by  the  receipt  of  the  despatch  of  our  consul  in 
the  city  of  Mexico,  with  the  accompanying  doc- 
uments, which  are  herewith  transmitted.  Be- 
sides, it  was  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  must 
see  the  ruinous  consequences  to  Mexico  of  a  war 
with  the  United  States,  and  that  it  would  be  his 
interest  to  favor  peace.  It  was  under  these  cir- 
cumstances and  upon  these  considerations  that 
it  was  deemed  expedient  not  to  obstruct  his  re- 
turn to  Mexico,  should  he  attempt  to  do  so. 
Our  object  was  the  restoration  of  peace ;  and 
with  that  view,  no  reason  was  perceived  why 
we  should  take  part  with  Paredes,  and  aid  him, 
by  means  of  our  blockade,  in  preventing  the  re- 
turn of  his  rival  to  Mexico.  On  the  contrary, 
it  was  believed  that  the  intestine  divisions  which 
ordinary  sagacity  could  not  but  anticipate  as 
the  fruit  of  Santa  Anna's  return  to  Mexico,  and 
his  contest  with  Paredes,  might  strongly  tend 
to  produce  a  disposition  with  both  parties  to  re- 
store and  preserve  peace  with  the  United  States. 
Paredes  was  a  soldier  by  profession,  and  a  mon- 
archist in  principle.  He  had  but  recently  be- 
fore been  successful  in  a  military  revolution,  by 
which  he  had  obtained  power.  He  was  the 
sworn  enemy  of  the  United  States,  with  which 
he  had  involved  his  country  in  the  existing  war. 
Santa  Anna  had  been  expelled  from  power  by 
the  army,  was  known  to  be  in  open  hostility  to 
Paredes,  and  publicly  pledged  against  foreign 
intervention  and  the  restoration  of  monarchy  in 
Mexico.  In  view  of  these  facts  and  circum- 
stances, it  was,  that,  when  orders  were  issued 
to  the  commander  of  our  naval  forces  in  the 
Gulf,  on  the  thirteenth  day  of  May  last,  the  day 
on  which  the  existence  of  the  war  was  recog- 


nized by  Congress,  to  place  the  coasts  of  Mexico 
under  blockade,  he  was  directed  not  to  obstruct 
the  passage  of  Santa  Anna  to  Mexico,  should  ho 
attempt  to  return." 

So  that  the  return  of  Santa  Anna,  and  his 
restoration  to  power,  and  his  expected  friend- 
ship, were  part  of  the  means  relied  upon  for  ob- 
taining peace  from  the  beginning— from  the  day 
of  the  declaration  of  war,  and  consequently  be- 
fore the  declaration,  and  obviously  as  an  induce- 
ment to  it.  This  knowledge,  subsequently  ob- 
tained, enabled  Mr.  Benton  (to  whom  the  words 
had  been  spoken)  to  comprehend  the  reliance 
which  was  placed  on  the  termination  of  the 
war  in  ninety  or  one  hundred  and  twenty  days. 
It  was  the  arrangement  with  Santa  Anna!  wc 
to  put  him  back  in  Mexico,  and  he  to  make 
peace  with  us ;  of  course  an  agreeable  peace. 
But  Santa  Anna  was  not  a  man  to  promise  any 
thing,  whether  intending  to  fulfill  it  or  not, 
without  receiving  a  consideration  ;  and  in  this 
case  some  million  of  dollars  was  the  sum  required 
—not  for  himself,  of  course,  but  to  enable  him 
to  promote  the  peace  at  home.  This  explains 
the  application  made  to  Congress  by  the  Presi- 
dent before  the  end  of  its  session— before  the 
adjournment  of  the  body  which  had  declared  the 
war — for  an  appropriation  of  two  millions  as  a 
means  of  terminating  it.  On  the  4th  of  August 
a  confidential  message  was  communicated  to  the 
Senate,  informing  them  that  he  had  made  fresh 
overtures  to  Mexico  for  negotiation  of  a  treaty 
of  peace,  and  asking  for  an  appropriation  of  two 
millions  to  enable  him  to  treat  with  the  better 
prospect  of  success,  and  even  to  pay  the  money 
when  the  treaty  should  be  ratified  in  Mexico, 
without  waiting  for  its  ratification  by  our  own 
Senate.  After  stating  the  overture,  and  the 
object,  the  message  went  on  to  say : 

"  Under  these  circumstances,  and  considering 
the  exhausted  and  distracted  condition  of  the 
Mexican  republic,  it  might  become  nccessarv,  in 
order  to  restore  peace,  that  I  should  have  it  in 
my  power  to  advance  a  portion  of  the  considera- 
tion money  for  any  cession  of  territory  which  may 
be  made.  The  Mexican  government  might  not 
be  willing  to  wait  for  the  payment  of  the  whole 
until  the  treaty  could  be  ratified  by  the  Senate, 
and  an  appropriation  to  carry  it  into  effect  be 
made  by  Congress ;  and  the  necessity  for  such 
a  delay  might  defeat  the  object  altogether.  I 
would,  therefore,  suggest  whether  it  might  not 
be  wise  for  Congress  to  appropriate  a  sum  such 
as  they  might  consider  adequate  for  this  pur- 


682 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


pose,  to  be  paid,  if  necessary,  immediately  upon 
the  ratification  of  the  treaty  by  Mexico." 

A  similar  communication  was  made  to  the 
House  on  the  8th  day  of  the  month  (August), 
and  the  dates  become  material,  as  connecting  the 
requested  appropriation  with  the  return  of 
Santa  Anna,  and  his  restoration  to  power.  The 
dates  are  all  in  a  cluster — Santa  Anna  landing 
at  Vera  Cruz  on  the  8th  of  August,  and  arriving 
at  the  capital  on  the  15  th — the  President's 
messages  informing  the  Senate  that  he  had  made 
overtures  for  peace,  and  asking  the  appropria- 
tions to  promote  it,  being  dated  on  the  4th  and 
the  8th  of  the  same  month.  The  fact  was,  it 
was  known  at  what  time  Santa  Anna  was  to 
leave  Havana  for  Mexico,  and  the  overture 
was  made,  and  the  appropriations  asked,  just  at 
the  proper  time  to  meet  him.  The  appropria- 
tion was  not  voted  by  Congress,  and  at  the  next 
session  the  application  for  it  was  renewed,  in- 
creased to  three  millions — the  same  to  which 
Mr.  "Wilmot  offered  that  proviso  which  Mr. 
Calhoun  privately  hugged  to  his  bosom  as  a 
fortunate  event  for  the  South,  while  publicly 
holding  it  up  as  the  greatest  of  outrages,  and 
just  cause  for  a  separation  of  the  slave  and  the 
free  States. 

An  intrigue  for  peace,  through  the  restored 
Santa  Anna,  was  then  a  part  of  the  war  with 
Mexico  from  the  beginning.  They  were  simul- 
taneous concoctions.  They  were  twins.  The 
war  was  made  to  get  the  peace.  Ninety  to  one- 
hundred  and  twenty  days  was  to  be  the  limit  of 
the  life  of  the  war,  and  that  pacifically  all  the 
while,  and  to  be  terminated  by  a  good  treaty  of 
indemnities  and  acquisitions.  It  is  probably 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  nations  that  a 
secret  intrigue  for  peace  was  part  and  parcel  of 
an  open  declaration  of  war  !  the  first  time  that 
a  war  was  commenced  upon  an  agreement  to 
finish  it  in  so  many  days  !  and  that  the  terms 
of  its  conclusion  were  settled  before  its  com- 
mencement. It  was  certainly  a  most  unmilitary 
conception :  and  infinitely  silly,  as  the  event 
proved.  Santa  Anna,  restored  by  our  means, 
and  again  in  power,  only  thought  of  himself, 
and  how  to  make  Mexico  his  own,  after  getting 
back.  He  took  the  high  military  road.  He 
roused  the  war  spirit  of  the  country,  raised 
armies,  placed  himself  at  their  head,  issued  ani- 
mating proclamations  ;  and  displayed  the  most 


exaggerated  hatred  to  the  United  States — the 
more  so,  perhaps,  to  cover  up  the  secret  of  his 
return.  He  gave  the  United  States  a  year  of 
bloody  and  costly  work  !  many  thousands  killed 
— many  more  dead  of  disease — many  ten  mil- 
lions of  money  expended.  Buena  Vista,  Cerro 
Gordo,  Contreras,  Churubusco,  Chepultepeo, 
were  the  fruit  of  his  return  !  honorable  to  the 
American  arms,  but  costly  in  blood  and  money. 
To  the  Mexicans  his  return  was  not  less  in- 
auspicious: for,  true  to  his  old  instincts,  he 
became  the  tyrant  of  his  country — ruled  by 
fraud,  force,  and  bribes — crushed  the  liberal 
party — exiled  or  shot  liberal  men — became  in- 
tolerable— and  put  the  nation  to  the  horrors  of 
another  civil  war  to  expel  him  again,  and  again : 
but  not  finally  until  he  had  got  another  milking 
from  the  best  cow  that  ever  was  in  his  pen — 
more  money  from  the  United  States.  It  was  all 
the  natural  consequence  of  trusting  such  a  man : 
the  natural  consequence  of  beginning  war  upon 
an  intrigue  with  him.  But  what  must  history 
say  of  the  policy  and  morality  of  such  doings  ? 
The  butcher  of  the  American  prisoners  at  Go- 
liad, San  Patricio,  the  Old  Mission  and  the 
Alamo;  the  destroyer  of  republican  govern- 
ment at  home;  the  military  dictator  aspiring 
to  permanent  supreme  power :  this  man  to  be 
restored  to  power  by  the  United  States,  for  the 
purpose  of  fulfilling  speculating  and  indemnity 
calculations  on  which  a  war  was  begun. 


CHAPTER    CLXII. 

BLOODLESS  CONQUEST  OF  NEW  MEXICO:  HOW 
IT  WAS  DONE:  SUBSEQUENT  BLOODY  INSUE- 
EECTION,  AND  ITS  CAUSE. 

General  Kearney  was  directed  to  lead  an 
expedition  to  New  Mexico,  setting  out  from  the 
western  frontier  of  Missouri,  and  mainly  com- 
posed of  volunteers  from  that  State ;  and  to 
conquer  the  province.  He  did  so,  without  firing 
a  gun,  and  the  only  inquiry  is,  how  it  was  done  ? 
how  a  province  nine  hundred  miles  distant, 
covered  by  a  long  range  of  mountain  which 
could  not  well  be  turned,  penetrable  only  by  a 
defile  which  could  not  be  forced,  and  defended 
by  a  numerous    militia — could  so    easily  be 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


G83 


taken  ?     This  work  does  not  write  of  military 
events,  open  to  public  history,  but  only  of  things 
less  known,  and  to  show  how  they  were  done  : 
and  in  this  point  of  view  the  easy  and  bloodless 
conquest  of  New  Mexico,  against  such  formidable 
obstacles,  becomes  an  exception,  and  presents  a 
proper  problem  for  intimate  historical  solution. 
That  solution  is  this :   At  the  time  of  the  fitting 
out  that  expedition  there  was  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States,  long  resident  in  New  Mexico,  on 
a  visit  of  business  at  Washington  City — his 
name  James  Magoffin ; — a  man  of  mind,  of  will, 
of  generous  temper,  patriotic,  and   rich.     He 
knew  every  man  in  New  Mexico  and  his  charac- 
ter, and  all  the  localities,  and  could  be  of  infinite 
service  to  the  invading  force.     Mr.  Benton  pro- 
posed to  him  to  go  with  it:    he  agreed.    Mr. 
Benton  took  him  to  the  President  and  Secretary 
at  War,  who  gladly  availed  themselves  of  his 
agreement  to  go  with  General  Kearney.     He 
went :   and  approaching  New  Mexico,  was  sent 
ahead,  with  a  staff  officer — the  officer  charged 
with  a  mission,  himself  charged  with  his  own 
plan :   which  was  to   operate  upon   Governor 
Armijo,  and    prevent    his    resistance    to  the 
entrance  of  the  American  troops.     That  was 
easily  done.     Armijo  promised  not  to  make  a 
stand  at  the  defile,  after  which  the  invaders 
would  have  no  difficulty.     But  his  second  in 
command,  Col.  Archuletti,  was  determined  to 
fight,  and  to  defend  that  pass ;  and  if  he  did, 
Armijo  would  have  to  do  the  same.    It  became 
indispensable  to  quiet  Archuletti.     He  was  of 
different  mould  from  the  governor,  and  only 
accessible  to  a  different  class  of  considerations 
— those  which  addressed  themselves  to  ambi- 
tion.   Magoffin  knew  the  side  on  which  to  ap- 
proach him.    It    so    happened  that    General 
Kearney  had  set  out  to  take  the  left  bank  of  the 
Upper  Del  Norte — the  eastern  half  of  New 
Mexico — as  part  of  Texas,  leaving  the  western 
part  untouched.      Magoffin   explained  this   to 
Archuletti,  pointed  to  the  western  half  of  New 
Mexico  as  a  derelict,  not  seized  by  the  United 
States,  and  too  far  off  to  be  protected  by  the 
central  government :  and  recommended  him  to 
make  a  pronanciamiento,  and  take  that  half  to 
himself.    The  idea  suited  the  temper  of  Archu- 
letti.    He  agreed  not  to  fight,  and    General 
Kearney  was  informed  there  would  be  no  resist- 
ance at  the  defile  :  and  there  was  none.     Some 
thousands  of  militia  collected  there  (and  which 


could  have  stopped  a  large  army),  retired  with- 
out firing  a  gun,  and  without  knowing  why. 
Armijo  fled,  and  General  Kearney  occupied  his 
capital :  and  the  conquest  was  complete  and 
bloodless  :  and  this  was  the  secret  of  that  facile 
success — heralded  in  the  newspapers  as  a  master- 
piece of  generalship,  but  not  60  reported  by  the 
general. 

But  there  was  an  after-clap,  to  make  blood 
flow  for  the  recovery  of  a  province  which  had 
been  yielded  without  resistance.  Mr.  Magoffin 
was  sincere  and  veracious  in  what  he  said  to 
Col.  Archuletti ;  but  General  Kearney  soon  (or 
before)  had  other  orders,  and  took  possession 
of  the  whole  country  !  and  Archuletti,  deeming 
himself  cheated,  determined  on  a  revolt.  Events 
soon  became  favorable  to  him.  General  Kear- 
ney proceeded  to  California,  leaving  General 
Sterling  Price  in  command,  with  some  Missouri 
volunteers.  Archuletti  prepared  his  insurrec- 
tion, and  having  got  the  upper  country  above 
Santa  Fe  ready,  went  below  to  prepare  the 
lower  part.  While  absent,  the  plot  was  detected 
and  broke  out,  and  led  to  bloody  scenes  in  which 
there  was  severe  fighting,  and  many  deaths  on 
both  sides.  It  was  in  this  insurrection  that 
Governor  Charles  Bent,  of  New  Mexico,  and 
Captain  Burgwin  of  the  United  States  army, 
and  many  others  were  killed.  The  insurgents 
fought  with  courage  and  desperation ;  but, 
without  their  leader,  without  combination, 
without  resources,  they  were  soon  suppressed  ; 
many  being  killed  in  action,  and  others  hung 
for  high  treason — being  tried  by  some  sort  of  a 
court  which  had  no  jurisdiction  of  treason.  All 
that  were  condemned  were  hanged  except  one, 
and  he  recommended  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States  for  pardon.  Here  was  a  dilemma 
for  the  administration.  To  pardon  the  man 
would  be  to  admit  the  legality  of  the  condemna- 
tion :  not  to  pardon  was  to  subject  him  to 
murder.  A  middle  course  was  taken:  the 
officers  were  directed  to  turn  loose  the  con- 
demned, and  let  him  run.  And  this  was  the 
cause  of  the  insurrection,  and  its  upshot 

Mr.  Magoffin  having  prepared  the  way  for 
the  entrance  of  General  Kearney  into  Santa  Fe, 
proceeded  to  the  execution  of  the  remaining  part 
of  his  mission,  which  was  to  do  the  same  by 
Chihuahua  for  General  Wool,  then  advancing 
upon  that  ancient  capital  of  the  Western  Inter- 
nal Provinces  on  a  lower  line.    He  arrived  in 


684 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


that  city — became  suspected — was  arrested — 
and  confined.  He  was  a  social,  generous-tem- 
pered man,  a  son  of  Erin:  loved  company, 
spoke  Spanish  fluently,  entertained  freely,  and 
where  it  was  some  cost  to  entertain — claret 
$36  00  a-dozen,  champagne  $50  00.  He  be- 
came a  great  favorite  with  the  Mexican  officers. 
One  day  the  military  judge  advocate  entered 
his  quarters,  and  told  him  that  Dr.  Connolly, 
an  American,  coming  from  Santa  Fe,  had  been 
captured  near  El  Paso  del  Norte,  his  papers 
taken,  and  forwarded  to  Chihuahua,  and  placed 
in  his  hands,  to  see  if  there  were  any  that  needed 
government  attention  :  and  that  he  had  found 
among  the  papers  a  letter  addressed  to  him 
(Mr.  Magoffin).  He  had  the  letter  unopened, 
and  said  he  did  not  know  what  it  might  be ; 
but  being  just  ordered  to  join  Santa  Anna  at 
San  Luis  Potosi,  and  being  unwilling  that  any 
thing  should  happen  after  he  was  gone  to  a 
gentleman  who  had  been  so  agreeable  to  him, 
he  had  brought  it  to  him,  that  he  might  destroy 
it  if  there  was  any  thing  in  it  to  commit  him. 
Magoffin  glanced  his  eyes  over  the  letter.  It 
was  an  attestation  from  General  Kearney  of  his 
services  in  New  Mexico,  recommending  him  to 
the  acknowledgments  of  the  American  govern- 
ment in  that  invasion  ! — that  is  to  say,  it  was  his 
death  warrant,  if  seen  by  the  Mexican  authori- 
ties. A  look  was  exchanged :  the  letter  went 
into  the  fire :  and  Magoffin  escaped  being  shot. 
But  he  did  not  escape  suspicion.  He  re- 
mained confined  until  the  approach  of  Doni- 
phan's expedition,  and  was  then  sent  off  to  Du- 
rango,  where  he  remained  a  prisoner  to  the  end 
of  the  war.  Returning  to  the  United  States 
after  the  peace,  he  came  to  Washington  in  the 
last  days  of  Mr.  Polk's  administration,  and  ex- 
pected remuneration.  He  had  made  no  terms, 
asked  nothing,  and  received  nothing,  and  had 
expended  his  own  money,  and  that  freely,  for 
the  public  service.  The  administration  had  no 
money  applicable  to  the  object.  Mr.  Benton 
stated  his  case  in  secret  session  in  the  Senate, 
and  obtained  an  appropriation,  couched  in  gen- 
eral terms,  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  for  secret 
services  rendered  during  the  war.  The  appro- 
priation, granted  in  the  last  night  of  the  expir- 
ing administration,  remained  to  be  applied  by 
the  new  one — to  which  the  business  was  un- 
known, and  had  to  be  presented  unsupported 
by  a  line  of  writing.     Mr.  Benton  went  with 


Magoffin  to  President  Taylor,  who,  hearing 
what  he  had  done,  and  what  information  he 
had  gained  for  General  Kearney,  instantly  ex- 
pressed the  wish  that  he  had  had  some  person 
to  do  the  same  for  him — observing  that  he  got 
no  information  but  what  he  obtained  at  the 
point  of  the  bayonet.  He  gave  orders  to  the 
Secretary  at  War  to  attend  to  the  case  as  if 
there  had  been  no  change  in  the  administration. 
The  secretary  (Mr.  Crawford,  of  Georgia),  hig- 
gled, required  statements  to  be  filed,  almost  in 
the  nature  of  an  account ;  and,  finally,  proposed 
thirty  thousand  dollars.  It  barely  covered  ex- 
penses and  losses  ;  but,  having  undertaken  the 
service  patriotically,  Magoffin  would  not  lower 
its  character  by  standing  out  for  more.  The 
paper  which  he  filed  in  the  war  office  may  fur- 
nish some  material  for  history — some  insight 
into  the  way  of  making  conquests — if  ever  ex- 
amined. This  is  the  secret  history  of  General 
Kearney's  expedition,  and  of  the  insurrection, 
given  because  it  would  not  be  found  in  the 
documents.  The  history  of  Doniphan's  expe- 
dition will  be  given  for  the  same  reason,  and  to 
show  that  a  regiment  of  citizen  volunteers, 
without  a  regular  officer  among  them,  almost 
without  expense,  and  hardly  with  the  know- 
ledge of  their  government,  performed  actions  as 
brilliant  as  any  that  illustrated  the  American 
arms  in  Mexico ;  and  made  a  march  in  the  ene- 
my's country  longer  than  that  of  the  ten  thou- 
sand under  Xenophon.  This  history  will  con- 
stitute the  next  chapter,  and  will  consist  of  the 
salutatory  address  with  which  the  heroic  volun- 
teers were  saluted,  when,  arriving  at  St.  Louis, 
they  were  greeted  with  a  public  reception,  and 
the  Senator  of  Thirty  Years  required  to  be  the 
organ  of  the  exulting  feelings  of  their  coun- 
trymen. 


CHAPTER    CLXIII. 

MEXICAN  WAR  :  DONIPHAN'S  EXPEDITION  :  MR. 
BENTON'S  SALUTATORY  ADDRESS,  ST.  LOUIS, 
MISSOURI. 

Colonel  Doniphan,  and  Officers  and  Men  : 
— I  have  been  appointed  to  an  honorable  and  a 
pleasant  duty — that  of  making  you  the  con- 
gratulations of  your  fellow-citizens  of  St.  Louis. 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


685 


on  your  happy  return  from  your  long,  and  al- 
most fabulous  expedition.  You  have,  indeed, 
marched  far,  and  done  much,  and  suffered  much, 
and  well  entitled  yourselves  to  the  applauses  of 
your  fellow-citizens,  as  well  as  to  the  rewards 
and  thanks  of  your  government.  A  year  ago 
you  left  home.  Going  out  from  the  western 
border  of  your  State,  you  re-enter  it  on  the 
east,  having  made  a  circuit  equal  to  the  fourth 
of  the  circumference  of  the  globe,  providing  for 
yourselves  as  you  went,  and  returning  with  tro- 
phies taken  from  fields,  the  names  of  which 
were  unknown  to  yourselves  and  your  country, 
until  revealed  by  your  enterprise,  illustrated  by 
your  valor,  and  immortalized  by  your  deeds. 
History  has  but  few  such  expeditions  to  record ; 
and  when  they  occur,  it  is  as  honorable  and 
useful  as  it  is  just  and  wise,  to  celebrate  and 
commemorate  the  events  which  entitle  them  to 
renown. 

Your  march  and  exploits  have  been  among 
the  most  wonderful  of  the  age.  At  the  call  of 
your  country  you  marched  a  thousand  miles  to 
the  conquest  of  New  Mexico,  as  part  of  the 
force  under  General  Kearney,  and  achieved  that 
conquest,  without  the  loss  of  a  man,  or  the  fire 
of  a  gun.  That  work  finished,  and  New  Mexi- 
co, itself  so  distant,  and  so  lately  the  ultima 
thule — the  outside  boundary  of  speculation  and 
enterprise — so  lately  a  distant  point  to  be  at- 
tained, becomes  itself  a  point  of  departure — a 
beginning  point,  for  new  and  far  more  extended 
expeditions.  You  look  across  the  long  and 
lofty  chain — the  Cordilleras  of  North  America 
— which  divide  the  Atlantic  from  the  Pacific 
waters  ;  and  you  see  beyond  that  ridge,  a  sav- 
age tribe  which  had  been  long  in  the  habit  of 
depredations  upon  the  province  which  had  just 
become  an  American  conquest.  You,  a  part 
only  of  the  subsequent  Chihuahua  column,  un- 
der Jackson  and  Gilpin,  march  upon  them — 
bring  them  to  terms — and  they  sign  a  treaty 
with  Colonel  Doniphan,  in  which  they  bind 
themselves  to  cease  their  depredations  on  the 
Mexicans,  and  to  become  the  friends  of  the 
United  States.  A  novel  treaty,  that !  signed 
on  the  western  confines  of  New  Mexico,  be- 
tween parties  who  had  hardly  ever  heard  each 
other's  names  before,  and  to  give  peace  and  pro- 
tection to  Mexicans  who  were  hostile  to  both. 
This  was  the  meeting,  and  this  the  parting  of 
the  Missouri  volunteers,  with   the  numerous 


and  savage  tribe  of  the  Navaho  Indians  living 
on  the  waters  of  the  Gulf  of  California,  and  so 
long  the  terror  and  scourge  of  Sonora,  Sinaloa, 
and  New  Mexico. 

This  object  accomplished,  and  impatient  of 
inactivity,  and  without  orders  (General  Kearney 
having  departed  for  California),  you  cast  about 
to  carve  out  some  new  work  for  yourselves. 
Chihuahua,  a  rich  and  populous  city  of  near 
thirty  thousand  souls,  the  seat  of  government 
of  the  State  of  that  name,  and  formerly  the  resi- 
dence of  the  captains-general  of  the  Internal 
Provinces  under  the  vice-regal  government  of 
New  Spain,  was  the  captivating  object  which 
fixed  your  attention.  It  was  a  far  distant  city 
— about  as  far  from  St.  Louis  as  Moscow  is 
from  Paris ;  and  towns  and  enemies,  and  a  large 
river,  and  defiles  and  mountains,  and  the  desert 
whose  ominous  name,  portending  death  to  tra- 
vellers— el  Jornada  de  los  muertos — the  jour- 
ney of  the  dead — all  lay  between  you.  It  was 
a  perilous  enterprise,  and  a  discouraging  one, 
for  a  thousand  men,  badly  equipped,  to  contem- 
plate. No  matter.  Danger  and  hardship  lent 
it  a  charm,  and  the  adventurous  march  was  re- 
solved on,  and  the  execution  commenced.  First, 
the  ominous  desert  was  passed,  its  character 
vindicating  its  title  to  its  mournful  appellation 
— an  arid  plain  of  ninety  miles,  strewed  with 
the  bones  of  animals  perished  of  hunger  and 
thirst — little  hillocks  of  stone,  and  the  solitary 
cross,  erected  by  pious  hands,  marking  the  spot 
where  some  Christian  had  fallen,  victim  of  the 
savage,  of  the  robber,  or  of  the  desert  itself— no 
water — no  animal  life — no  sign  of  habitation. 
There  the  Texian  prisoners,  driven  by  the  cruel 
Salazar,  had  met  their  direst  sufferings,  unre- 
lieved, as  in  other  parts  of  their  march  in  the 
settled  parts  of  the  country,  by  the  compas- 
sionate ministrations  (for  where  is  it  that  uo- 
man  is  not  compassionate  ?)  of  the  pitying  wo- 
men. The  desert  was  passed,  and  the  place  for 
crossing  the  river  approached.  A  little  arm  of 
the  river,  Bracito  (in  Spanish),  made  out  from 
its  side.  There  the  enemy,  in  superior  num- 
bers, and  confident  in  cavalry  and  artillery,  un- 
dertook to  bar  the  way.  Vain  pretension! 
Their  discovery,  attack,  and  rout,  were  about 
simultaneous  operations.  A  few  minutes  did 
the  work  !  And  in  this  way  our  Missouri  vol* 
unteers  of  the  Chihuahua  column  spent  their 
Christmas  day  of  the  year  1846. 


686 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


The  victory  of  the  Bracito  opened  the  way 
to  the  crossing  of  the  river  Del  Norte,  and  to 
admission  into  the  beautiful  little  town  of  the 
Paso  del  Norte,  where  a  neat  cultivation,  a 
comfortable  people,  fields,  orchards,  and  vine- 
yards, and  a  hospitable  reception,  offered  the 
rest  and  refreshment  which  toils  and  dangers, 
and  victory  had  won.  You  rested  there  till 
artillery  was  brought  down  from  Sante  Fe  ; 
but  the  pretty  town  of  the  Paso  del  Norte, 
with  all  its  enjoyments,  and  they  were  many, 
and  the  greater  for  the  place  in  which  they 
were  found,  was  not  a  Capua  to  the  men  of 
Missouri.  You  moved  forward  in  February, 
and  the  battle  of  the  Sacramento,  one  of  the 
military  marvels  of  the  age,  cleared  the  road  to 
Chihuahua ;  which  was  entered  without  further 
resistance.  It  had  been  entered  once  before  by 
a  detachment  of  American  troops  j  but  under 
circumstances  how  different !  In  the  year  1807, 
Lieutenant  Pike  and  his  thirty  brave  men,  taken 
prisoners  on  the  head  of  the  Rio  del  Norte,  had 
been  marched  captives  into  Chihuahua :  in  the 
year  1847,  Doniphan  and  his  men  enter  it  as 
conquerors.  The  paltry  triumph  of  a  captain- 
general  over  a  lieutenant,  was  effaced  in  the 
triumphal  entrance  of  a  thousand  Missourians 
into  the  grand  and  ancient  capital  of  all  the  In- 
ternal Provinces  !  and  old  men,  still  alive,  could 
remark  the  grandeur  of  the  American  spirit  un- 
der both  events — the  proud  and  lofty  bearing 
of  the  captive  thirty — the  mildness  and  modera- 
tion of  the  conquering  thousand. 

Chihuahua  was  taken,  and  responsible  duties, 
more  delicate  than  those  of  arms,  were  to  be  per- 
formed. Many  American  citizens  were  there, 
engaged  in  trade ;  much  American  property  was 
there.  All  this  was  to  be  protected,  both  life 
and  property,  and  by  peaceful  arrangement ; 
for  the  command  was  too  small  to  admit  of  di- 
vision, and  of  leaving  a  garrison.  Conciliation, 
and  negotiation  were  resorted  to,  and  success- 
fully. Every  American  interest  was  provided 
for,  and  placed  under  the  safeguard,  first,  of 
good  will,  and  next,  of  guarantees  not  to  be  vio- 
lated with  impunity. 

Chihuahua  gained,  it  became,  like  Santa  Fe, 
not  the  terminating  point  of  a  long  expedition, 
but  the  beginning  point  of  a  new  one.  General 
Taylor  was  somewhere — no  one  knew  where — 
but  some  seven  or  eight  hundred  miles  towards 


the  other  side  of  Mexico.  You  had  heard  that 
he  had  been  defeated,  that  Buena  Yista  had 
not  been  a  good  prospect  to  him.  Like  good 
Americans,  you  did  not  believe  a  word  of  it  j 
but,  like  good  soldiers,  you  thought  it  best  to 
go  and  see.  A  volunteer  party  of  fourteen, 
headed  by  Collins,  of  Boonville,  undertake  to 
penetrate  to  Saltillo,  and  to  bring  you  informa- 
tion of  his  condition.  They  set  out.  Amidst 
innumerable  dangers  they  accomplish  their  pur- 
pose, and  return.  Taylor  is  conqueror ;  but 
will  be  glad  to  see  you.  You  march.  A  van- 
guard of  one  hundred  men,  led  by  Lieutenant- 
colonel  Mitchell,  led  the  way.  Then  came  the 
main  body  (if  the  name  is  not  a  burlesque  on 
such  a  handful),  commanded  by  Colonel  Doni- 
phan himself. 

The  whole  table  land  of  Mexico,  in  all  its 
breadth,  from  west  to  east,  was  to  be  traversed. 
A  numerous  and  hostile  population  in  towns — 
treacherous  Camanches  in  the  mountains — were 
to  be  passed.  Every  thing  was  to  be  self-pro- 
vided— provisions,  transportation,  fresh  horses 
for  remounts,  and  even  the  means  of  victory — 
and  all  without  a  military  chest,  or  even  an 
empty  box,  in  which  government  gold  had 
ever  reposed.  All  was  accomplished.  Mexi- 
can towns  were  passed,  in  order  and  quiet : 
plundering  Camanches  were  punished :  means 
were  obtained  from  traders  to  liquidate  indis- 
pensable contributions  :  and  the  wants  that 
could  not  be  supplied,  were  endured  like  sol- 
diers of  veteran  service. 

The  long  march  from  Chihuahua  to  Monte- 
rey, was  made  more  in  the  character  of  protec- 
tion and  deliverance  than  of  conquest  and  inva- 
sion. Armed  enemies  were  not  met,  and  peace- 
ful people  were  not  disturbed.  You  arrived  in 
the  month  of  May  in  General  Taylor's  camp, 
and  about  in  a  condition  to  vindicate,  each  of 
you  for  himself,  your  lawful  title  to  the  double 
sobriquet  of  the  general,  with  the  addition  to 
it  which  the  colonel  commanding  the  expedi- 
tion has  supplied — ragged — as  well  as  rough 
and  ready.  No  doubt  you  all  showed  title,  at 
that  time,  to  that  third  sobriquet ;  but  to  see 
you  now,  so  gayly  attired,  so  sprucely  equipped, 
one  might  suppose  that  you  had  never,  for  a 
day,  been  strangers  to  the  virtues  of  soap  and 
water,  or  the  magic  ministrations  of  the  blanch- 
isseusei  and    the    elegant   transformations    of 


ANNO  1846.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


687 


the  fashionable  tailor.  Thanks  perhaps  to  the 
difference  between  pay  in  the  lump  at  the  end  of 
the  service,  and  driblets  along  in  the  course  of  it. 

You  arrived  in  General  Taylor's  camp  ragged 
and  rough,  as  we  can  well  conceive,  and  ready, 
as  I  can  quickly  show.  You  arrived :  you  re- 
ported for  duty :  you  asked  for  service — such 
as  a  march  upon  San  Luis  de  Potosi,  Zacatecas, 
or  the  "halls  of  the  Montezumas;"  or  any 
thing  in  that  way  that  the  general  should  have 
a  mind  to.  If  he  was  going  upon  any  excur- 
sion of  that  kind,  all  right.  No  matter  about 
fatigues  that  were  passed,  or  expirations  of  ser- 
vice that  might  accrue :  you  came  to  go,  and 
only  asked  the  privilege.  That  is  what  I  call 
ready.  Unhappily  the  conqueror  of  Palo  Alto, 
Resaca  de  la  Palma,  Monterey,  and  Buena  Vis- 
ta, was  not  exactly  in  the  condition  that  the 
lieutenant-general,  that  might  have  been,  in- 
tended him  to  be.  He  was  not  at  the  head  of 
twenty  thousand  men  !  he  was  not  at  the  head 
of  any  thousands  that  would  enable  him  to 
march !  and  had  to  decline  the  proffered  ser- 
vice. Thus  the  long-marched  and  well-fought 
volunteers — the  rough,  the  ready,  and  the  rag- 
ged— had  to  turn  their  faces  towards  home,  still 
more  than  two  thousand  miles  distant.  But 
this  being  mostly  by  water,  you  hardly  count 
it  in  the  recital  of  your  march.  But  this  is  an 
unjust  omission,  and  against  the  precedents  as 
well  as  unjust.  "  The  ten  thousand  "  counted 
the  voyage  on  the  Black  Sea  as  well  as  the 
march  from  Babylon;  and  twenty  centuries 
admit  the  validity  of  the  count.  The  present 
age,  and  posterity,  will  include  in  "  the  going 
out  and  coming  in  "  of  the  Missouri-Chihuahua 
volunteers,  the  water  voyage  as  well  as  the 
land  march ;  and  then  the  expedition  of  the 
one  thousand  will  exceed  that  of  the  ten  by 
some  two  thousand  miles. 

The  last  nine  hundred  miles  of  your  land 
march,  from  Chihuahua  to  Matamoros,  you 
made  in  forty -five  days,  bringing  seventeen 
pieces  of  artillery,  eleven  of  which  were  taken 
from  the  Sacramento  and  Bracito.  Your  horses, 
travelling  the  whole  distance  without  United 
States  provender,  were  astonished  to  find  them- 
selves regaled,  on  their  arrival  on  the  Rio 
Grande  frontier,  with  hay,  corn,  and  oats  from 
the  States.  You  marched  further  than  the  far- 
thest, fought  as  well  as  the  best,  left  order  and 


quiet  in  your  train ;  and  cost  less  money  than 
any. 

You  arrive  here  to-day,  absent  one  year, 
marching  and  fighting  all  the  time,  bringing 
trophies  of  cannon  and  standards  from  fields 
whose  names  were  unknown  to  you  before  you 
set  out,  and  only  grieving  that  you  could  not 
have  gone  further.  Ten  pieces  of  cannon,  rolled 
out  of  Chihuahua  to  arrest  your  march,  now 
roll  through  the  streets  of  St.  Louis,  to  grace 
your  triumphal  return.  Many  standards,  all 
pierced  with  bullets  while  waving  over  the 
heads  of  the  enemy  at  the  Sacramento,  now 
wave  at  the  head  of  your  column.  The  black 
flag,  brought  to  the  Bracito,  to  indicate  the  re- 
fusal of  that  quarter  which  its  bearers  so  soon 
needed  and  received,  now  takes  its  place  among 
your  trophies,  and  hangs  drooping  in  their  no- 
bler presence.  To  crown  the  whole — to  make 
public  and  private  happiness  go  together — to 
spare  the  cypress  where  the  laurel  hangs  in 
clusters — this  long,  perilous  march,  with  all  its 
accidents  of  field  and  camp,  presents  an  incredi- 
bly small  list  of  comrades  lost.  Almost  all  re- 
turn :  and  the  joy  of  families  resounds,  inter- 
mingled with  the  applause  of  the  State. 

I  have  said  that  you  made  your  long  expedi- 
tion without  government  orders :  and  so,  in- 
deed, you  did.  You  received  no  orders  from 
your  government,  but,  without  knowing  it,  you 
were  fulfilling  its  orders — orders  which,  though 
issued  for  you,  never  reached  you.  Happy  the 
soldier  who  executes  the  command  of  his  gov- 
ernment :  happier  still  he  who  anticipates  com- 
mand, and  does  what  is  wanted  before  he  is 
bid.  This  is  your  case.  You  did  the  right 
thing,  at  the  right  time,  and  what  your  govern- 
ment intended  you  to  do,  and  without  knowing 
its  intentions.  The  facts  are  these :  Early  in 
the  month  of  November  last,  the  President 
asked  my  opinion  on  the  manner  of  conducting 
the  war.  I  submitted  a  plan  to  him,  which,  in 
addition  to  other  things,  required  all  the  dis- 
posable troops  in  New  Mexico,  and  all  the 
American  citizens  in  that  quarter  who  could  be 
engaged  for  a  dashing  expedition,  to  move  down 
through  Chihuahua,  and  the  State  of  Durango, 
and,  if  necessary,  to  Zacatecas,  and  get  into 
communication  with  General  Taylor's  right  as 
early  as  possible  in  the  month  of  March.  In 
fact,  the  disposable  forces  in  New  Mexico  were 


688 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


to  form  one  of  three  columns  destined  for  a 
combined  movement  on  the  city  of  Mexico,  all 
to  be  on  the  table-land  and  ready  for  a  com- 
bined movement  in  the  month  of  March.  The 
President  approved  the  plan,  and  the  Missou- 
rians  being  most  distant,  orders  were  despatched 
to  New  Mexico  to  put  them  in  motion.  Mr. 
Solomon  Sublette  carried  the  order,  and  deliv- 
ered it  to  the  commanding  officer  at  Santa  Fe, 
General  Price,  on  the  22d  day  of  February — 
just  five  days  before  you  fought  the  marvellous 
action  of  Sacramento.  I  well  remember  what 
passed  between  the  President  and  myself  at 
the  time  he  resolved  to  give  this  order.  It 
awakened  his  solicitude  for  your  safety.  It 
was  to  send  a  small  body  of  men  a  great  dis- 
tance, into  the  heart  of  a  hostile  country,  and 
upon  the  contingency  of  uniting  in  a  combined 
movement,  the  means  for  which  had  not  yet 
been  obtained  from  Congress.  The  President 
made  it  a  question,  and  very  properly,  whether 
it  was  safe  or  prudent  to  start  the  small  Mis- 
souri column,  before  the  movement  of  the  left 
and  the  centre  was  assured :  I  answered  that 
my  own  rule  in  public  affairs  was  to  do  what  I 
thought  was  right,  and  leave  it  to  others  to  do 
what  they  thought  was  right ;  and  that  I  be- 
lieved it  the  proper  course  for  him  to  follow  on 
the  present  occasion.  On  this  view  he  acted. 
He  gave  the  order  to  go,  without  waiting  to 
see  whether  Congress  would  supply  the  means 
of  executing  the  combined  plan;  and  for  his 
consolation  I  undertook  to  guarantee  your  safe- 
ty. Let  the  worst  come  to  the  worst,  I  prom- 
ised him  that  you  would  take  care  of  your- 
selves. Though  the  other  parts  of  the  plan 
should  fail — though  you  should  become  far  in- 
volved in  the  advance,  and  deeply  compromised 
in  the  enemy's  country,  and  without  support — 
still  I  relied  on  your  courage,  skill,  and  enter- 
prise to  extricate  yourselves  from  every  danger 
— to  make  daylight  through  all  the  Mexicans 
that  should  stand  before  you — cut  your  way 
out — and  make  good  your  retreat  to  Taylor's 
camp.  This  is  what  I  promised  the  President 
in  November  last;  and  what  I  promised  him 
you  have  done.  Nobly  and  manfully  you  have 
made  one  of  the  most  remarkable  expeditions 
in  history,  worthy  to  be  studied  by  statesmen, 
and  showing  what  citizen  volunteers  can  do; 
for  the  crowning  characteristic  is  that  you  were 
all  citizens — all  volunteers — not  a  regular  bred 


officer  among  you  :  and  if  there  had  been,  with 
power  to  control  you,  you  could  never  have 
done  what  you  did. 


CHAPTER   CLXIV 


FREMONT'S   THIRD   EXPEDITION,  AND    ACQUISI- 
TION OF  CALIFORNIA. 


In  the  month  of  May  1845,  Mr.  Fremont,  then 
a  brevet  captain  of  engineers  (appointed  a  lieu- 
tenant colonel  of  Rifles  before  he  returned),  set 
out  on  his  third  expedition  of  geographical  and 
scientific  exploration  in  the  Great  West.  Hos- 
tilities had  not  broken  out  between  the  United 
States  and  Mexico ;  but  Texas  had  been  incor- 
porated ;  the  preservation  of  peace  was  preca- 
rious, and  Mr.  Fremont  was  determined,  by  no 
act  of  his,  to  increase  the  difficulties,  or  to  give 
any  just  cause  of  complaint  to  the  Mexican 
government.  His  line  of  observation  would  lead 
him  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  through  a  Mexican 
province — through  the  desert  parts  first,  and 
the  settled  part  afterwards  of  the  Alta  California. 
Approaching  the  settled  parts  of  the  province 
at  the  commencement  of  winter,  he  left  his 
equipment  of  60  men  and  200  horses  on  the 
frontier,  and  proceeded  alone  to  Monterey,  to 
make  known  to  the  governor  the  object  of  his 
coming,  and  his  desire  to  pass  the  winter  (for 
the  refreshment  of  his  men  and  horses)  in  the 
uninhabited  parts  of  the  valley  of  the  San  Joa- 
quin. The  permission  was  granted ;  but  soon 
revoked,  under  the  pretext  that  Mr.  Fremont 
had  come  into  California,  not  to  pursue  science, 
but  to  excite  the  American  settlers  to  revolt 
against  the  Mexican  government.  Upon  this 
pretext  troops  were  raised,  and  marched  to  at- 
tack him.  Having  notice  of  their  approach,  he 
took  a  position  on  the  mountain,  hoisted  the 
flag  of  the  United  States,  and  determined,  with 
his  sixty  brave  men,  to  defend  himself  to  the 
last  extremity — never  surrendering ;  and  dying, 
if  need  be,  to  the  last  man.  A  messenger  came 
into  his  camp,  bringing  a  letter  from  the  American 
consul  at  Monterey,  to  apprise  him  of  his  danger : 
that  messenger,  returning,  reported  that  2,000 
men  could  not  force  the  American  position : 
and  that  information  had  its  effect  upon  the 


ANNO  1846.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


689 


Mexican  commander.  Waiting  four  days  in  his 
mountain  camp,  and  not  being  attacked,  he  quit 
his  position,  descended  from  the  mountain,  and 
sat  out  for  Oregon,  that  he  might  give  no  further 
pretext  for  complaint,  by  remaining  in  California. 
Turning  his  back  on  the  Mexican  possessions, 
and  looking  to  Oregon  as  the  field  of  his  future 
labors,  Mr.  Fremont  determined  to  explore  a 
new  route  to  the  Wah-lah-math  settlements  and 
the  tide-water  region  of  the  Columbia,  through 
the  wild  and  elevated  region  of  the  Tla-math 
lakes.  A  romantic  interest  attached  to  tins 
region  from  the  grandeur  of  its  features,  its 
lofty  mountains,  and  snow-clad  peaks,  and  from 
the  formidable  character  of  its  warlike  inhabi- 
tants. In  the  first  week  of  May,  he  was  at  the 
north  end  of  the  Great  Tla-math  lake,  and  in 
Oregon — the  lake  being  cut  near  its  south  end 
by  the  parallel  of  42  degrees  north  latitude. 
On  the  8th  day  of  that  month,  a  strange  sight 
presented  itself— almost  a  startling  apparition — 
two  men  riding  up,  and  penetrating  a  region 
which  few  ever  approached  without  paying  toll 
of  life  or  blood.  They  proved  to  be  two  of  Mr. 
Fremont's  old  voyageurs,  and  quickly  told  their 
story.  They  were  part  of  a  guard  of  six  men 
conducting  a  United  States  officer,  who  was  on 
his  trail  with  despatches  from  Washington,  and 
whom  they  had  left  two  days  back,  while  they 
came  on  to  give  notice  of  his  approach,  and  to 
ask  that  assistance  might  be  sent  him.  They 
themselves  had  only  escaped  the  Indians  by  the 
swiftness  of  their  horses.  It  was  a  case  in  which 
no  time  was  to  be  lost,  or  a  mistake  made.  Mr. 
Fremont  determined  to  go  himself ;  and  taking 
ten  picked  men,  four  of  them  Delaware  Indians, 
he  took  down  the  western  shore  of  the  lake  on^ 
the  morning  of  the  9th  (the  direction  the  officer 
was  to  come),  and  made  a  ride  of  sixty  miles 
without  a  halt.  But  to  meet  men,  and  not  to 
miss  them,  was  the  difficult  point  in  this  track- 
less region.  It  was  not  the  case  of  a  high  road, 
where  all  travellers  must  meet  in  passing  each 
other:  at  intervals  there  were  places — defiles, 
or  camping  grounds — where  both  parties  must 
pass  ;  and  watching  for  these,  he  came  to  one  in 
the  afternoon,  and  decided  that,  if  the  party  was 
not  killed,  it  must  be  there  that  night.  He 
halted  and  encamped ;  and,  as  the  sun  was  going 
down,  had  the  inexpressible  satisfaction  to  see 
the  four  men  approaching.  The  officer  proved 
to  be  a  lieutenant  of  the  United  States  marines, 

Yol.  II.— 44 


who  had  been  despatched  from  Washington  the 
November  previous,  to  make  his  way  by  Vera 
Cruz,  the  City  of  Mexico,  and  Mazatlan  to  Mon- 
terey, in  Upper  Calif ornia,  deliver  despatches  to 
the  United  States'  consul  there ;  and  then  find 
Mr.  Fremont,  wherever  lie  should  be.  His 
despatches  for  Mr.  Fremont  were  only  a  letter 
of  introduction  from  the  Secretary  of  State  (Mr. 
Buchanan),  and  some  letters  and  slips  of  news- 
papers from  Senator  Benton  and  his  family,  and 
some  verbal  communications  from  the  Secretary 
of  State.  The  verbal  communications  were  that 
Mr.  Fremont  should  watch  and  counteract  any 
foreign  scheme  on  California,  and  conciliate  the 
good  will  of  the  inhabitants  towards  the  United 
States.  Upon  this  intimation  of  the  govern- 
ment's wishes,  Mr.  Fremont  turned  back  from 
Oregon,  in  the  edge  of  which  he  then  was,  and 
returned  to  California.  The  letter  of  introduc- 
tion was  in  the  common  form,  that  it  might  tell 
nothing  if  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  foes,  and  sig- 
nified nothing  of  itself;  but  it  accredited  the 
bearer,  and  gave  the  stamp  of  authority  to  what 
he  communicated ;  and  upon  this  Mr.  Fremont 
acted  :  for  it  was  not  to  be  supposed  that  Lieu- 
tenant Gillespie  had  been  sent  so  far,  and 
through  so  many  dangers,  merely  to  deliver  a 
common  letter  of  introduction  on  the  shores  of 
the  Tlamath  lake. 

The  events  of  some  days  on  the  shores  of  this 
wild  lake,  sketched  with  the  brevity  which  the 
occasion  requires,  may  give  a  glimpse  of  the 
hardships  and  dangers  through  which  Mr.  Fre- 
mont pursued  science,  and  encountered  and  con- 
quered perils  and  toils.  The  night  he  met  Mr. 
Gillespie  presented  one  of  those  scenes  to  which 
he  was  so  often  exposed,  and  which  nothing  but 
the  highest  degree  of  vigilance  and  courage  could 
prevent  from  being  fatal.  The  camping  ground 
was  on  the  western  side  of  the  lake,  the  horses 
picketed  with  long  halters  on  the  6hore,  to  feed 
on  the  grass  ;  and  the  men  (fourteen  in  number) 
sleeping  by  threes  at  different  fires,  disposed  in 
a  square ;  for  danger  required  them  so  to  sleep 
as  to  be  ready  for  an  attack ;  and,  though  in  the 
month  of  May,  the  elevation  of  the  place,  and 
the  proximity  of  snow-clad  mountains,  made  the 
night  intensely  cold.  His  feelings  joyfully  ex- 
cited by  hearing  from  home  (the  first  word  of 
intelligence  he  had  received  since  leaving  the 
U.  S.  a  year  before),  Mr.  Fremont  sat  up  by  a 
large  fire,  reading  his  letters  and  papers,  and 


690 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


watching  himself  over  the  safety  of  the  camp, 
while  the  men  slept.  Towards  midnight,  he 
heard  a  movement  among  the  horses,  indicative 
of  alarm  and  danger.  Horses,  and  especially 
mules,  become  sensitive  to  danger  under  long 
travelling  and  camping  in  the  wilderness,  and 
manifest  their  alarm  at  the  approach  of  any 
thing  strange.  Taking  a  six-barrelled  pistol  in 
his  hand,  first  making  sure  of  their  ready  fire, 
and,  without  waking  the  camp,  he  went  down 
among  the  disturbed  animals.  The  moon  shone 
brightly :  he  could  see  well,  but  could  discover 
nothing.  Encouraged  by  his  presence,  the  horses 
became  quiet — poor  dumb  creatures  that  could 
see  the  danger,  but  not  tell  what  they  had  seen  ; 
and  he  returned  to  the  camp,  supposing  it  was 
only  some  beast  of  the  forest — a  bear  or  wolf — 
prowling  for  food,  that  had  disturbed  them. 
He  returned  to  the  camp  fire.  Lieutenant  Gil- 
lespie woke  up,  and  talked  with  him  awhile,  and 
then  lay  down  again.  Finally  nature  had  her 
course  with  Mr.  Fremont  himself.  Excited 
spirits  gave  way  to  exhausted  strength.  The 
day's  ride,  and  the  night's  excitement  demanded 
the  reparation  of  repose.  He  lay  down  to  sleep, 
and  without  waking  up  a  man  to  watch — rely- 
ing on  the  loneliness  of  the  place,  and  the  long 
ride  of  the  day,  as  a  security  against  the  prox- 
imity of  danger.  It  was  the  second  time  in  his 
twenty  thousand  miles  of  wilderness  explora- 
tions that  his  camp  had  slept  without  a  guard : 
the  first  was  in  his  second  expedition,  and  on 
an  island  in  the  Great  Salt  Lake,  and  when  the 
surrounding  water  of  the  lake  itself  constituted 
a  guard.  The  whole  camp  was  then  asleep. 
A  cry  from  Carson  roused  it.  In  his  sleep  he 
heard  a  groan :  it  was  the  groan  of  a  man  re- 
ceiving the  tomahawk  in  his  brains.  All  sprung 
to  their  feet.  The  savages  were  in  the  camp : 
the  hatchet  and  the  winged  arrow  were  at  work. 
Basil  Lajeunesse,  a  brave  and  faithful  young 
Frenchman,  the  follower  of  Fremont  in  all  his 
expeditions,  was  dead :  an  Iowa  was  dead :  a 
brave  Delaware  Indian,  one  of  those  who  had 
accompanied  Fremont  from  Missouri,  was  dying : 
it  was  his  groan  that  awoke  Carson.  Another 
of  the  Delawares  was  a  target  for  arrows,  from 
which  no  rifle  could  save  him— only  avenge  him. 
The  savages  had  waited  till  the  moon  was  in 
the  trees,  casting  long  shadows  over  the  sleep- 
ing camp  :  then  approaching  from  the  dark  side, 
with  their  objects  between  themselves  and  the 
fading  light,  they  used  only  the  hatchet  and  the 


formidable  bow,  whose  arrow  went  to  its  mark, 
without  a  flash  or  a  sound  to  show  whence  it 
came.  All  advantages  were  on  the  side  of  the 
savages  :  but  the  camp  was  saved  !  the  wounded 
protected  from  massacre,  and  the  dead  from  mu- 
tilation. The  men,  springing  to  their  feet,  with 
their  arms  in  their  hands,  fought  with  skill  and 
courage.  In  the  morning,  Lieutenant  Gillespie 
recognized,  in  the  person  of  one  of  the  slain  as- 
sailants, the  Tlamath  chief  who  the  morning  be- 
fore had  given  him  a  salmon,  in  token  of  friend- 
ship, and  who  had  followed  him  all  day  to  kill 
and  rob  his  party  at  night — a  design  in  which 
he  would  certainly  have  been  successful  had  it 
not  been  for  the  promptitude  and  precision  of 
Mr.  Fremont's  movement.  Mr.  Fremont  him- 
self would  have  been  killed,  when  he  went  to 
the  horses,  had  it  not  been  that  the  savages 
counted  upon  the  destruction  of  the  whole 
camp,  and  feared  to  alarm  it  by  killing  one, 
before  the  general  massacre. 

It  was  on  the  9th  of  May — a  day  immortal- 
ized by  American  arms  at  Resaca  de  la  Palma 
— that  this  fierce  and  bloody  work  was  done 
in  the  far  distant  region  of  the  Tlamath  lakes. 

The  morning  of  the  10th  of  May  was  one  of 
gloom  in  the  camp.  The  evening  sun  of  the  9  th 
had  set  upon  it  full  of  life  and  joy  at  a  happy 
meeting :  the  same  sun  rose  upon  it  the  next 
morning,  stained  with  blood,  ghastly  with  the 
dead  and  wounded,  and  imposing  mournful  du- 
ties on  the  survivors.  The  wounded  were  to 
be  carried — the  dead  to  be  buried  ;  and  so  buried 
as  to  be  hid  and  secured  from  discovery  and  vio- 
lation. They  were  carried  ten  miles,  and  every 
precaution  taken  to  secure  the  remains  from 
the  wolf  and  the  savage :  for  men,  in  these  re- 
mote and  solitary  dangers,  become  brothers, 
and  defend  each  other  living  and  dead.  The 
return  route  lay  along  the  shore  of  the  lake,  and 
during  the  day  the  distant  canoes  of  the  savages 
could  be  seen  upon  it,  evidently  watching  the 
progress  of  the  party,  and  meditating  a  night 
attack  upon  it.  All  precautions,  at  the  night 
encampment,  were  taken  for  security — horses 
and  men  enclosed  in  a  breastwork  of  great 
trees,  cut  down  for  the  purpose,  and  half  the 
men  constantly  on  the  watch.  At  leaving  in 
the  morning,  an  ambuscade  was  planted — and 
two  of  the  Tlamaths  were  killed  by  the  men  in 
ambush — a  successful  return  of  their  own  mode 
of  warfare.  At  night  the  main  camp,  at  the 
north  end  of  the  lake,  was  reached.    It  was 


ANNO  1846.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


691 


strongly  intrenched,  and  could  not  be  attacked  5 
but  the  whole  neighborhood  was  infested,  and 
scouts  and  patrols  were  necessary  to  protect 
every  movement.  In  one  of  these  excursions 
the  Californian  horse,  so  noted  for  spirit  and 
docility,  showed  what  he  would  do  at  the  bid 
of  his  master.  Carson's  rifle  had  missed  fire,  at 
ten  feet  distance.  The  Tlamath  long  bow,  ar- 
row on  the  string,  was  bending  to  the  pull.  All 
the  rifles  in  the  party  could  not  have  saved  him. 
A  horse  and  his  rider  did  it.  Mr.  Fremont 
touched  his  horse  ;  he  sprang  upon  the  savage  ! 
and  the  hatchet  of  a  Delaware  completed  the 
deliverance  of  Carson.  It  was  a  noble  horse, 
an  iron  gray,  with  a  most  formidable  name — el 
Toro  del  Sacramento  :  and  which  vindicated  his 
title  to  the  name  in  all  the  trials  of  travel,  cour- 
age, and  performance  to  which  he  was  subjected. 
It  was  in  the  midst  of  such  dangers  as  these, 
that  science  was  pursued  by  Mr.  Fremont; 
that  the  telescope  was  carried  to  read  the  hea- 
vens ;  the  barometer  to  measure  the  elevations 
of  the  earth ;  the  thermometer  to  gauge  the 
temperature  of  the  air;  the  pencil  to  sketch 
the  grandeur  of  mountains,  and  to  paint  the 
beauty  of  flowers  ;  the  pen  to  write  down  what- 
ever was  new,  or  strange,  or  useful  in  the  works 
of  nature.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  such  dangers, 
and  such  occupations  as  these,  and  in  the  wildest 
regions  of  the  Farthest  West,  that  Mr.  Fremont 
was  pursuing  science  and  shunning  war,  when 
the  arrival  of  Lieutenant  Gillespie,  and  his  com- 
munications from  Washington,  suddenly  changed 
all  his  plans,  turned  him  back  from  Oregon,  and 
opened  a  new  and  splendid  field  of  operations  in 
California  itself.  He  arrived  in  the  valley  of 
the  Sacramento  in  the  month  of  May,  1846,  and 
found  the  country  alarmingly,  and  critically 
situated.  Three  great  operations,  fatal  to  Ameri- 
can interests,  were  then  going  on,  and  without 
remedy,  if  not  arrested  at  once.  These  were : 
1.  The  massacre  of  the  Americans,  and  the  de- 
struction of  their  settlements,  in  the  valley  of 
the  Sacramento.  2.  The  subjection  of  Califor- 
nia to  British  protection.  3.  The  transfer  of 
the  public  domain  to  British  subjects.  And  all 
this  with  a  view  to  anticipate  the  events  of  a 
Mexican  war,  and  to  shelter  California  from  the 
arms  of  the  United  States. 

The  American  settlers  sent  a  deputation  to 
the  camp  of  Mr.  Fremont,  in  the  valley  of  the 
Sacramento,  laid  all  these  dangers  before  him,  and 
implored  him  to  place  himself  at  their  head  and 


save  them  from  destruction.  General  Castro 
was  then  in  march  upon  them:  the  Indians 
were  incited  to  attack  their  families,  and  burn 
their  wheat  fields,  and  were  only  waiting  for 
the  dry  season  to  apply  the  torch.  Juntas 
were  in  session  to  transfer  the  country  to  Great 
Britain:  the  public  domain  was  passing  away 
in  large  grants  to  British  subjects:  a  British 
fleet  was  expected  on  the  coast:  the  British 
vice-consul,  Forbes,  and  the  emissary  priest, 
Macnamara,  ruling  and  conducting  every  thing : 
and  all  their  plans  so  far  advanced  as  to  render 
the  least  delay  fatal.  It  was  then  the  begin- 
ning of  June.  War  had  broken  out  between 
the  United  States  and  Mexico,  but  that  was  un- 
known in  California.  Mr.  Fremont  had  left  the 
two  countries  at  peace  when  he  set  out  upon 
his  expedition,  and  was  determined  to  do  no- 
thing to  disturb  their  relations:  he  had  even 
left  California  to  avoid  giving  offence ;  and  to 
return  and  take  up  arms  in  so  short  a  time  was 
apparently  to  discredit  his  own  previous  conduct 
as  well  as  to  implicate  his  government.  He  felt 
all  the  responsibilities  of  his  position ;  but  the 
actual  approach  of  Castro,  and  the  immediate 
danger  of  the  settlers,  left  him  no  alternative. 
He  determined  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
people,  and  to  save  the  country.  To  repulse 
Castro  was  not  sufficient  :  to  overturn  the 
Mexican  government  in  California,  and  to  estab- 
lish Californian  Independence,  was  the  bold  re- 
solve, and  the  only  measure  adequate  to  the 
emergency.  That  resolve  was  taken,  and  exe- 
cuted with  a  celerity  that  gave  it  a  romantic 
success.  The  American  settlers  rushed  to  his 
camp — brought  their  arms,  horses  and  ammuni- 
tion— were  formed  into  a  battalion  ;  and  obeyed 
with  zeal  and  alacrity  the  orders  they  received. 
In  thirty  days  all  the  northern  part  of  Califor- 
nia was  freed  from  Mexican  authority — Inde- 
pendence proclaimed — the  flag  of  Independence 
raised — Castro  flying  to  the  south — the  Ameri- 
can settlers  saved  from  destruction ;  and  the 
British  party  in  California  counteracted  and 
broken  up  in  all  their  schemes. 

This  movement  for  Independence  was  the  sal- 
vation of  California,  and  snatched  it  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  British  at  the  moment  they  were 
ready  to  clutch  it.  For  two  hundred  years— 
from  the  time  of  the  navigator  Drake,  who 
almost  claimed  it  as  a  discovery,  and  placed  the 
English  name  of  New  Albion  upon  it— the  eye 
of  England  has  been  upon  California ;  and  the 


692 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


magnificent  bay  of  San  Fancisco,  the  great  sea- 
port of  the  North  Pacific  Ocean,  has  been  sur- 
veyed as  her  own.  The  approaching  war  be- 
tween Mexico  and  the  United  States  was  the 
crisis  in  which  she  expected  to  realize  the  long- 
deferred  wish  for  its  acquisition  ;  and  carefully 
she  took  her  measures  accordingly.  She  sent 
two  squadrons  to  the  Pacific  as  soon  as  Texas 
was  incorporated — well  seeing  the  actual  war 
which  was  to  grow  out  of  that  event — a  small 
one  into  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia,  an  impos- 
ing one  to  Mazatlan,  on  the  Mexican  coast,  to 
watch  the  United  States  squadron  there,  and 
to  anticipate  its  movements  upon  California. 
Commodore  Sloat  commanding  the  squadron  at 
Mazatlan,  saw  that  he  was  watched,  and  pur- 
sued, by  Admiral  Seymour,  who  lay  alongside 
of  him,  and  he  determined  to  deceive  him.  He 
stood  out  to  sea,  and  was  followed  by  the  Brit- 
ish Admiral.  During  the  day  he  bore  west, 
across  the  ocean,  as  if  going  to  the  Sandwich 
Islands:  Admiral  Seymour  followed.  In  the 
night  the  American  commodore  tacked,  and  ran 
up  the  coast  towards  California:  the  British 
admiral,  not  seeing  the  tack,  'continued  on  his 
course,  and  went  entirely  to  the  Sandwich 
Islands  before  he  was  undeceived.  Commodore 
Sloat  arrived  before  Monterey  on  the  second  of 
July,  entering  the  port  amicably,  and  offering 
to  salute  the  town,  which  the  authorities  de- 
clined on  the  pretext  that  they  had  no  powder 
to  return  it — in  reality  because  they  momen- 
tarily expected  the  British  fleet.  Commodore 
Sloat  remained  five  days  before  the  town,  and 
until  he  heard  of  Fremont's  operations :  then 
believing  that  Fremont  had  orders  from  his  go- 
vernment to  take  California,  he  having  none 
himself,  he  determined  to  act  himself.  He  re- 
ceived the  news  of  Fremont's  successes  on  the 
6th  day  of  July :  on  the  7th  he  took  the  town 
of  Monterey,  and  sent  a  despatch  to  Fremont. 
This  latter  came  to  him  in  all  speed,  at  the 
head  of  his  mounted  force.  Going  immediately 
on  board  the  commodore's  vessel,  an  explana- 
tion took  place.  The  commodore  learnt  with 
astonishment  that  Fremont  had  no  orders  from 
his  government  to  commence  hostilities — that 
he  had  acted  entirely  on  his  own  responsibility. 
This  left  the  commodore  without  authority  for 
having  taken  Monterey ;  for  still  at  this  time,  the 
commencement  of  the  war  with  Mexico  was  un- 
known. Uneasiness  came  upon  the  commodore. 
He  remembered  the  fate  of  Captain  Jones  in 


making  the  mistake  of  seizing  the  town  once 
before  in  time  of  peace.  He  resolved  to  return 
to  the  United  States,  which  he  did — turning 
over  the  command  of  the  squadron  to  Commo- 
dore Stockton,  who  had  arrived  on  the  15th. 
The  next  day  (16th)  Admiral  Seymour  arrived; 
his  flagship  the  Collingwood,  of  80  guns,  and  his 
squadron  the  largest  British  fleet  ever  seen  in 
the  Pacific.  To  his  astonishment  he  beheld  the 
American  flag  flying  over  Monterey,  the  Ameri- 
can squadron  in  its  harbor,  and  Fremont's 
mounted  riflemen  encamped  over  the  town. 
His  mission  was  at  an  end.  The  prize  had 
escaped  him.  He  attempted  nothing  further, 
and  Fremont  and  Stockton  rapidly  pressed  the 
conquest  of  California  to  its  conclusion.  The 
subsequent  military  events  can  be  traced  by  any 
history  :  they  were  the  natural  sequence  of  the 
great  measure  conceived  and  executed  by  Fre- 
mont before  any  squadron  had  arrived  upon  the 
coast,  before  he  knew  of  any  war  with  Mexico, 
and  without  any  authority  from  his  govern- 
ment, except  the  equivocal  and  enigmatical  visit 
of  Mr.  Gillespie.  Before  the  junction  of  Mr. 
Fremont  with  Commodore  Sloat  and  Stockton, 
his  operations  had  been  carried  on  under  the 
flag  of  Independence — the  Bear  Flag,  as  it  was 
called — the  device  of  the  bear  being  adopted  on 
account  of  the  courageous  qualities  of  that  ani- 
mal (the  white  bear),  which  never  gives  the 
road  to  men, — which  attacks  any  number, — and 
fights  to  the  last  with  increasing  ferocity,  with 
amazing  strength  of  muscle,  and  with  an  in- 
credible tenacity  of  the  vital  principle — never 
more  formidable  and  dangerous  than  when 
mortally  wounded.  The  Independents  took  the 
device  of  this  bear  for  their  flag,  and  established 
the  independence  of  California  under  it :  and  in 
joining  the  United  States  forces,  hauled  down 
this  flag,  and  hoisted  the  flag  of  the  United  States. 
And  the  fate  of  California  would  have  been  the 
same  whether  the  United  States  squadrons  had 
arrived,  or  not ;  and  whether  the  Mexican  war 
had  happened,  or  not.  California  was  in  a  re- 
volutionary state,  already  divided  from  Mexico 
politically  as  it  had  always  been  geographically. 
The  last  governor-general  from  Mexico,  Don 
Michel  Toreno,  had  been  resisted — fought — cap- 
tured— and  shipped  back  to  Mexico,  with  his 
300  cut-throat  soldiers.  An  insurgent  govern- 
ment was  in  operation,  determined  to  be  free  of 
Mexico,  sensible  of  inability  to  stand  alone,  and 
looking,  part  to  the  United  States,  part  to  Great 


ANNO  1846.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


693 


Britain,  for  the  support  which  they  needed.  All 
the  American  settlers  were  for  the  United  States 
protection,  and  joined  Fremont.  The  leading 
Californians  were  also  joining  him.  His  con- 
ciliatory course  drew  them  rapidly  to  him. 
The  Picos,  who  were  the  leading  men  of  the  re- 
volt (Don  Pico,  Don  Andres,  and  Don  Jesus), 
became  his  friends.  California,  become  inde- 
pendent of  Mexico  by  the  revolt  of  the  Picos, 
and  independent  of  them  by  the  revolt  of  the 
American  settlers,  had  its  destiny  to  fulfil— 
which  was,  to  be  handed  over  to  the  United 
States.  So  that  its  incorporation  with  the 
American  Republic  was  equally  sure  in  any, 
and  every  event. 


CHAPTER    CLXV. 

PAUSE  IN  THE  WAR:  SEDENTARY  TACTICS: 
"MASTERLY  INACTIVITY." 

Arriving  at  Washington  before  the  commence- 
ment of  the  session  of  '46-'47,  Mr.  Benton  was 
requested  by  the  President  to  look  over  the 
draught  of  his  proposed  message  to  Congress 
(then  in  manuscript),  and  to  make  the  remarks 
upon  it  which  he  might  think  it  required ;  and 
in  writing.  Mr.  Benton  did  so,  and  found  a 
part  to  which  he  objected,  and  thought  ought 
to  be  omitted.  It  was  a  recommendation  to 
Congress  to  cease  the  active  prosecution  of  the 
war,  to  occupy  the  conquered  part  of  the  coun- 
try (General  Taylor  had  then  taken  Mon- 
terey) with  troops  in  forts  and  stations,  and  to 
pass  an  act  establishing  a  temporary  govern- 
ment in  the  occupied  part;  and  to  retain  the 
possession  until  the  peace  was  made.  This  re- 
commendation, and  the  argument  in  support  of 
it,  spread  over  four  pages  of  the  message — from 
101  to  105.  Mr.  Benton  objected  to  the  whole 
plan,  and  answered  to  it  in  an  equal,  or  greater 
number  of  pages,  and  to  the  entire  conviction 
and  satisfaction  of  the  President.  1.  The  se- 
dentary occupation  was  objected  to  as  being  en- 
tirely contrary  to  the  temper  of  the  American 
people,  which  was  active,  and  required  continual 
"going  ahead"  until  their  work  was  finished. 
2.  It  was  a  mode  of  warfare  suited  to  the  Span- 
ish temper,  which  loved  procrastination,  and 
could  beat  the  world  at  it,  and  had  sat-out  the 


Moors  seven  hundred  years  in  the  South  of 
Spain  and  the  Visigoths  three  hundred  years 
in  the  north  of  it ;  and  would  certainly  out-sit 
us  in  Mexico.  3.  That  he  could  govern  the 
conquered  country  under  the  laws  of  nations, 
without  applying  to  Congress,  to  be  worried 
upon  the  details  of  the  act,  and  rousing  the 
question  of  annexation  by  conquest,  and  that 
beyond  the  Rio  Grande ;  for  the  proposed  line 
was  to  cover  Monterey,  and  to  run  east  and 
west  entirely  across  the  country.  These  objec- 
tions, pursued  through  their  illustrations,  were 
entirely  convincing  to  the  President,  and  he 
frankly  gave  up  the  sedentary  project. 

But  it  was  a  project  which  had  been  passed 
upon  in  the  cabinet,  and  not  only  adopted  but 
began  to  be  executed.     The  Secretary  at  War. 
Mr.  Marcy,  had  officially  refused  to  accept  prof- 
fered volunteers  from  the  governors  of  several 
States,  saying  to  them— "A  sufficient  a  mount 
of  force  for  the  prosecution  of  tlie  war  had  al- 
ready been  called  into  service:"  and  a  premi- 
um of  two  dollars  a  head  had  been  offered  to  all 
persons  who  could  bring  in  a  recruit  to  the 
regular  army — the  regulars  being  the  reliance 
for  the  sedentary  occupation.      The  cabinet  ad- 
hered to  their  policy.     The  President  convoked 
them  again,  and  had  Mr.  Benton  present  to  en- 
force his  objections ;  but  without  much  effect 
The  abandonment  of  the  sedentary  policy  re- 
quired the  adoption  of  an  active  one,  and  for 
that  purpose  the  immediate  calling  out  of  ten 
regiments  of  volunteers  had  been  recommended 
by  Mr.  Benton;  and  this  call  would  result  at 
once  from  the  abandonment  of  the  sedentary 
scheme.     Here  the  pride  of  consistency  came  in 
to  play  its  part.    The  Secretary  at  War  said  he 
had  just  refused  to  accept  any  more  volunteers, 
and    informed    the    governors    of  two  States 
that  the  government  had  troops  enough  to  pro- 
secute the  war;  and  urged  that  it  would  be 
contradictory  now  to  call  out  ten  regiments. 
The  majority  of  the  cabinet  sided  with  him  ; 
but  the  President  retained  Mr.  Benton  to  a  pri- 
vate interview— talked  the  subject  all  over — 
and  finally  came  to  the  resolution  to  act  for 
himself;  regardless  of  the  opposition  of  the  ma- 
jor part  of  his  cabinet    It  was  then  in  the 
night,  and  the  President  said  he  would  send  the 
order  to  the  Secretary  at  War  in  the  morning 
to  call  out  the  ten  regiments— which  he  did: 
but  the  Secretary,  higgling  to  the  last,  got  one 
regiment  abated :  so  that  nine  instead  of  ten 


694 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


were  called  out :  but  these  nine  were  enough. 
They  enabled  Scott  to  go  to  Mexico,  and  Taylor 
to  conquer  at  Buena  Vista,  and  to  finish  the 
war  victoriously. 

A  comic  mistake  grew  out  of  this  change  in 
the  President's  message,  which  caused  the  ridi- 
cule of  the  sedentary  line  to  be  fastened  on  Mr. 
Calhoun — who  in  fact  had  counselled  it.  When 
the  message  was  read  in  the  Senate,  Mr.  West- 
cott,  of  Florida,  believing  it  remained  as  it  had 
been  drawn  up,  and  induced  by  Mr.  Calhoun, 
with  whose  views  he  was  acquainted,  made 
some  motion  upon  it,  significant  of  approbatory 
action.  Mr.  Benton  asked  for  the  reading  of 
the  part  of  the  message  referred  to.  Mr.  West- 
cott  searched,  but  could  not  find  it :  Mr.  Cal- 
houn did  the  same.  Neither  could  find  the 
passage.  Inquiring  and  despairing  looks  were 
exchanged :  and  the  search  for  the  present  was 
adjourned.  Of  course  it  was  never  found.  Af- 
terwards Mr.  Westcott  said  to  Mr.  Benton  that 
the  President  had  deceived  Mr.  Calhoun — had 
told  him  that  the  sedentary  line  was  recom- 
mended in  the  message,  when  it  was  not.  Mr. 
Benton  told  him  there  was  no  deception — that 
the  recommendation  was  in  the  message  when 
he  said  so,  but  had  been  taken  out  (and  he  ex- 
plained how)  and  replaced  by  an  urgent  recom- 
mendation for  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war. 
But  the  secret  was  kept  for  the  time.  The  ad- 
ministration stood  before  the  country  vehement 
for  war,  and  loaded  with  applause  for  their 
spirit.  Mr.  Calhoun  remained  mystified,  and 
adhered  to  the  line,  and  incurred  the  censure  of 
opposing  the  administration  which  he  professed 
to  support.  He  brought  forward  his  plan  in  all 
its  detail — the  line  marked  out — the  number  of 
forts  and  stations  necessary — and  the  number 
of  troops  necessary  to  garrison  them  :  and 
spoke  often,  and  earnestly  in  its  support :  but 
to  no  purpose.  His  plan  was  entirely  rejected, 
nor  did  I  ever  hear  of  any  one  of  the  cabinet 
offering  to  share  with  him  in  the  ridicule  which 
he  brought  upon  himself  for  advocating  a  plan 
so  preposterous  in  itself,  and  so  utterly  unsuited 
to  the  temper  of  our  people.  It  was  in  this  de- 
bate, and  in  support  of  this  sedentary  occupa- 
tion that  Mr.  Calhoun  characterized  that  pro- 
posed inaction  as  "  a  masterly  inactivity : "  a 
fine  expression  of  the  Earl  of  Chatham — and 
which  Mr.  Calhoun  had  previously  used  in  the 
Oregon  debate  in  recommending  us  to  do  no- 
thing there,  and  leave  it  to  time  to  perfect  our 


title.  Seven  years  afterwards  the  establishment 
of  a  boundary  between  the  United  States  and 
Mexico  was  attempted  by  treaty  in  the  lati- 
tude of  this  proposed  line  of  occupation — a  cir- 
cumstance,— one  of  the  circumstances, — which 
proves  that  Mr.  Calhoun's  plans  and  spirit  sur- 
vive him. 

In  all  that  passed  between  the  President  and 
Mr.  Benton  about  this  line,  there  was  no  sus- 
picion on  the  part  of  either  of  any  design  to 
make  it  permanent ;  nor  did  any  thing  to  that 
effect  appear  in  Mr.  Calhoun's  speeches  in  favor 
of  it ;  but  the  design  was  developed  at  the  time 
of  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  of  peace,  and  has 
since  been  attempted  by  treaty ;  and  is  a  design 
which  evidently  connects  itself  with,  what  is 
called,  preserving  the  equilibrium  of  the  States 
(free  and  slave)  by  adding  on  territory  for  slave 
States — and  to  increase  the  Southern  margin  for 
the  "United  States  South,"  in  the  event  of  a 
separation  of  the  two  classes  of  States. 


CHAPTER    CLXVI. 

THE  WILMOT  PEOVISO ;  OE,  PEOHIBITION  OF 
SLAVEEY  IN  THE  TEEEITOEIES  :  ITS  INUTILITY 
AND  MISCHIEF. 

Scarcely  was  the  war  with  Mexico  commenced 
when  means,  different  from  those  of  arms,  were 
put  in  operation  to  finish  it.  One  of  these  was 
the  return  of  the  exiled  Santa  Anna  (as  has  been 
shown)  to  his  country,  and  his  restoration  to 
power,  under  the  belief  that  he  was  favorable  to 
peace,  and  for  which  purpose  arrangements  began 
to  be  made  from  the  day  of  the  declaration  of  the 
war — or  before.  In  the  same  session  another 
move  was  made  in  the  same  direction,  that  of 
getting  peace  by  peaceable  means,  in  an  applica- 
tion made  to  Congress  by  the  President,  to  place 
three  millions  of  dollars  at  his  disposal,  to  be 
used  in  negotiating  for  a  boundary  which  should 
give  us  additional  territory :  and  that  recom- 
mendation not  having  been  acted  upon  at  the 
war  session,  was  renewed  at  the  commencement 
of  the  next  one.  It  was  recommended  as  an 
"important  measure  for  securing  a  speedy 
peace ; "  and  as  an  argument  in  favor  of  granting 
it,  a  sum  of  two  millions  similarly  placed  at  the 
disposition  of  Mr.  Jefferson  when  about  to  nego- 


ANNO  1847.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


695 


tiate  for  Florida  (which  ended  in  the  acquisition 
of  Louisiana),  was  plead  as  a  precedent ;  and 
justly.  Congress,  at  this  second  application, 
granted  the  appropriation ;  but  while  it  was  de- 
pending, Mr.  Wilmot,  a  member  of  Congress, 
from  Pennsylvania,  moved  a  proviso,  that  no 
part  of  the  territory  to  be  acquired  should  be 
open  to  the  introduction  of  slavery.    It  was  a 


proposition  not  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  ex-  while  this  contention  was  thus  raging,  that  Mr. 
eluding  slavery,  as  the  only  territory  to  be  ac-'  Calhoun  wrote  a  confidential  letter  to  a  member 
quired  was  that  of  New  Mexico  and  California,  of  the  Alabama  legislature,  hugging  this  proviso 
where  slavery  was  already  prohibited  by  the    to  his  bosom  as  a  fortunate  event as  a  means 


the  other,  to  accomplish  their  own  purpose*. 
Many  courageous  men  denounced  it  as  such— as 
a  game  to  be  kept  up  for  the  political  benefit  of 
the  players ;  and  deplored  the  blindness  which 
could  not  see  their  determination  to  keep  it 
agoing  to  the  last  possible  moment,  and  to  the 
production  of  the  greatest  possible  degree  of 
national    and   sectional   exasperation.      It  was 


Mexican  laws  and  constitution ;  and  where  it 
could  not  be  carried  until  those  laws  should  be 
repealed,  and  a  law  for  slavery  passed.  The 
proviso  was  nugatory,  and  could  answer  no  pur- 
pose but  that  of  bringing  on  a  slavery  agitation 
in  the  United  States ;  for  which  purpose  it  was 
immediately  seized  upon  by  Mr.  Calhoun  and 
his  friends,  and  treated  as  the  greatest  possible 
outrage  and  injury  to  the  slave  States.  Con- 
gress was  occupied  with  this  proviso  for  two 
sessions,  became  excessively  heated  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  communicated  its  heat  to  the  legisla- 
tures of  the  slave  States — by  several  of  which 
conditional  disunion  resolutions  were  passed. 
Every  where,  in  the  slave  States,  the  Wilmot 
Proviso  became  a  Gorgon's  head — a  chimera 
dire — a  watchword  of  party,  and  the  synonyme 
of  civil  war  and  the  dissolution  of  the  Union. 
Many  patriotic  members  were  employed  in  re- 
sisting the  proviso  as  a  bona  fide  cause  of  break- 
ing up  the  Union,  if  adopted ;  many  amiable 
and  gentle-tempered  members  were  employed  in 
devising  modes  of  adjusting  and  compromising 
it ;  a  few,  of  whom  Mr.  Benton  was  one,  pro- 
duced the  laws  and  the  constitution  of  Mexico  to 
show  that  New  Mexico  and  California  were  free 
from  slavery ;  and  argued  that  neither  party 
had  any  thing  to  fear,  or  to  hope — the  free  soil 
party  nothing  to  fear,  because  the  soil  was  now 
free ;  the  slave  soil  party  nothing  to  hope,  be- 
cause they  could  not  take  a  step  to  make  it 
slave  soil,  having  just  invented  the  dogma  of 
"  No  power  in  Congress  to  legislate  upon  slave- 
ry in  territories."  Never  were  two  parties  so 
completely  at  loggerheads  about  nothing :  never 
did  two  parties  contend  more  furiously  against 
the  greatest  possible  evil.  Close  observers,  who 
had  been  watching  the  progress  of  the  slavery 
agitation  since  its  inauguration  in  Congress  ^ 
1835,  knew  it  to  be  a  game  played  by  the  abo- 
litionists on  one  side  and  the  disunionists  on 


of  "forcing  the  issue  "  between  the  North  and 
the  South;  and  deprecating  any  adjustment, 
compromise,  or  defeat  of  it,  as  a  misfortune  to 
the  South  :  and  which  letter  has  since  come  to 
light.  Gentle  and  credulous  people,  who  be- 
lieved him  to  be  in  earnest  when  he  was  sounding 
the  tocsin  to  rouse  the  States,  instigating  them 
to  pass  disunion  resolutions,  and  stirring  up  both 
national  and  village  orators  to  attack  the  proviso 
unto  death:  such  persons  must  be  amazed  to 
read  in  that  exhumed  letter,  written  during  the 
fiercest  of  the  strife,  these  ominous  words: 

"  With  this  impression  I  would  regard  any 
compromise  or  adjustment  of  the  proviso,  or 
even  its  defeat,  without  meeting  the  danger  in 
its  whole  length  and  breadth,  as  very  w  for- 
tunate for  us.  It  would  lull  us  to  sleep  again, 
without  removing  the  danger,  or  materially 
diminishing  it." 

This  issue  to  be  forced  was  a  separation  of 
the  slave  and  the  free  States ;  the  means,  a  com- 
mercial non-intercourse^  in  shutting  the  slave 
State  seaports  against  the  vessels  of  the  free 
States ;  the  danger  to  be  met,  was  in  the  trial 
of  this  issue,  by  the  means  indicated ;  which 
were  simply  high  treason  when  pursued  to  the 
pvert  act.  Mr.  Calhoun  had  flinched  from  that 
act  in  the  time  of  Jackson,  but  he  being  dead, 
and  no  more  Jacksons  at  the  head  of  the  gov- 
ernment, he  rejoiced  in  another  chance  of  meet- 
ing the  danger — meeting  it  in  all  its  length  and 
breadth  ;  and  deprecated  the  loss  of  the  proviso 
as  the  loss  of  this  chance. 

Truly  the  abolitionists  and  the  nullifiere  were 
necessary  to  each  other — the  two  halves  of  a 
pair  of  shears,  neither  of  which  could  cut  until 
joined  together.  Then  the  map  of  the  Union 
was  in  danger ;  for  in  their  conjunction,  that  map 
was  cloth  between  the  edges  of  the  shears.  And 
this  was  that  Wilmot  Proviso,  which  for  two 
years  convulsed  the  Union,  aM^rostrated  men 


696 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  firmness  and  patriotism — a  thing  of  nothing 
in  itself,  but  magnified  into  a  hideous  reality,  and 
seized  upon  to  conflagrate  the  States  and  dis- 
solve the  Union.  The  Wilmot  Proviso  was  not 
passed:  that  chance  of  forcing  the  issue  was 
lost :  another  had  to  be  found,  or  made. 


CHAPTER    CLXVII. 

MR.  CALHOUN'S  SLAVERY  RESOLUTIONS,  AND 
DENIAL  OF  THE  RIGHT  OF  CONGRESS  TO  PRO- 
HIBIT SLAVERY  IN  A  TERRITORY. 

On  Friday,  the  19th  of  February,  Mr.  Calhoun 
introduced  into  the  Senate  his  new  slavery  reso- 
lutions, prefaced  by  an  elaborate  speech,  and 
requiring  an  immediate  vote  upon  them.  They 
were  in  these  words  : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  territories  of  the  United 
States  belong  to  the  several  States  composing 
this  Union,  and  are  held  by  them  as  their  joint 
and  common  property. 

"  Resolved,  That  Congress,  as  the  joint  agent 
and  representative  of  the  States  of  this  Union, 
has  no  right  to  make  any  law,  or  do  any  act 
whatever,  that  shall  directly,  or  by  its  effects, 
make  any  discrimination  between  the  States  of 
this  Union,  by  which  any  of  them  shall  be  de- 
prived of  its  full  and  equal  right  in  any  territory 
of  the  United  States  acquired  or  to  be  acquired. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  enactment  of  any  law 
which  should  directly,  or  by  its  effects,  deprive 
the  citizens  of  any  of  the  States  of  this  Union 
from  emigrating,  with  their  property,  into  any 
of  the  territories  of  the  United  States,  will 
make  such  discrimination,  and  would,  therefore, 
be  a  violation  of  the  constitution,  and  the  rights 
of  the  States  from  which  such  citizens  emigrated, 
and  in  derogation  of  that  perfect  equality  which 
belongs  to  them  as  members  of  this  Union,  and 
would  tend  directly  to  subvert  the  Union  itself 

u  Resolved,  That  it  is  a  fundamental  principle 
in  our  political  creed,  that  a  people,  in  forming 
a  constitution,  have  the  unconditional  right  to 
form  and  adopt  the  government  which  they  may 
think  best  calculated  to  secure  their  liberty, 
prosperity,  and  happiness;  and  that,  in  con- 
formity thereto,  no  other  condition  is  imposed 
by  the  federal  constitution  on  a  State,  in  order 
to  be  admitted  into  this  Union,  except  that  its 
constitution  shall  be  republican ;  and  that  the 
imposition  of  any  other  by  Congress  would  not 
only  be  in  violation  of  the  constitution,  but  in 
direct  conflict  with  the  principle  on  which  our 
political  system  rests." 

These  resolutions,  although  the  sense  is  in- 


volved in  circumlocutory  phrases,  are  intelligible 
to  the  point,  that  Congress  has  no  power  to 
prohibit  slavery  in  a  territory,  and  that  the  ex- 
ercise of  such  a  power  would  be  a  breach  of  the 
constitution,  and  leading  to  the  subversion  of 
the  Union.  Ostensibly  the  complaint  was,  that 
the  emigrant  from  the  slave  State  was  not  al- 
lowed to  carry  his  slave  with  him :  in  reality  it 
was  that  he  was  not  allowed  to  carry  the  State 
law  along  with  him  to  protect  his  slave.  Placed 
in  that  light,  which  is  the  true  one,  the  com- 
plaint is  absurd :  presented  as  applying  to  a 
piece  of  property  instead  of  the  law  of  the 
State,  it  becomes  specious — has  deluded  whole 
communities ;  and  has  led  to  rage  and  resent-" 
ment,  and  hatred  of  the  Union.  In  support  of 
these  resolutions  the  mover  made  a  speech  in 
which  he  showed  a  readiness  to  carry  out  in  auc- 
tion, to  their  extreme  results,  the  doctrines  they 
contained,  and  to  appeal  to  the  slave-holding 
States  for  their  action,  in  the  event  that  the 
Senate  should  not  sustain  them.  This  was  the 
concluding  part  of  his  speech : 

"  Well,  sir,  what  if  the  decision  of  this  body 
shall  deny  to  us  this  high  constitutional  right, 
not  the  less  clear  because  deduced  from  the 
whole  body  of  the  instrument  and  the  nature 
of  the  subject  to  which  it  relates  ?  What,  then, 
is  the  question  ?  I  will  not  undertake  to  de- 
cide. It  is  a  question  for  our  constituents — the 
slave-holding  States.  A  solemn  and  a  great 
question.  If  the  decision  should  be  adverse,  I 
trust  and  do  believe  that  they  will  take  under 
solemn  consideration  what  they  ought  to  do.  I 
give  no  advice.  It  would  be  hazardous  and 
dangerous  for  me  to  do  so.  But  I  may  speak 
as  an  individual  member  of  that  section  of  the 
Union.  There  I  drew  my  first  breath.  There 
are  all  my  hopes.  There  is  my  family  and  con- 
nections. I  am  a  planter — a  cotton  planter.  I 
am  a  Southern  man,  and  a  slave-holder ;  a  kind 
and  a  merciful  one,  I  trust — and  none  the  worse 
for  being  a  slave-holder.  I  say,  for  one,  I  would 
rather  meet  any  extremity  upon  earth  than  give 
up  one  inch  of  our  equality — one  inch  of  what 
belongs  to  us  as  members  of  this  great  repub- 
lic. What,  acknowledge  inferiority  !  The  sur- 
render of  life  is  nothing  to  sinking  down  into 
acknowledged  inferiority. 

"  I  have  examined  this  subject  largely — wide- 
ly. I  think  I  see  the  future  if  we  do  not  stand 
up  as  we  ought.  In  my  humble  opinion,  in  that 
case,  the  condition  of  Ireland  is  prosperous  and 
happy — the  condition  of  Hindostan  is  prosper- 
ous and  happy — the  condition  of  Jamaica  is 
prosperous  and  happy,  to  what  the  Southern 
States  will  be  if  they  should  not  now  stand  up 
manfully  in  defence  of  their  rights." 


ANNO  1847.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


697 


When  these  resolutions  were  read,  Mr.  Ben- 
ton rose  in  his  place,  and  called  them  "fire- 
brand." Mr.  Calhoun  said  he  had  expected  the 
support  of  Mr.  Benton  "  as  the  representative 
of  a  slave-holding  State."  Mr.  Benton  answered 
that  it  was  impossible  that  he  could  have  ex- 
pected such  a  thing.  Then,  said  Mr.  Calhoun, 
I  shall  know  where  to  find  the  gentleman.  To 
which  Mr.  Benton:  "I  shall  be  found  in  the 
right  place — on  the  side  of  my  country  and  the 
Union."  This  answer,  given  on  that  day,  and 
on  the  spot,  is  one  of  the  incidents  of  his  life 
which  Mr.  Benton  will  wish  posterity  to  remem- 
ber. 

Mr.  Calhoun  demanded  the  prompt  considera- 
tion of  his  resolutions,  giving  notice  that  he 
would  call  them  up  the  next  day,  and  press 
them  to  a  speedy  and  final  vote.  He  did  call 
them  up,  but  never  called  for  the  vote,  nor  was 
any  ever  had :  nor  would  a  vote  have  any  prac- 
tical consequence,  one  way  or  the  other.  The 
resolutions  were  abstractions,  without  applica- 
tion. They  asserted  a  constitutional  principle, 
which  could  not  be  decided,  one  way  or  the 
other,  by  the  separate  action  of  the  Senate  ;  not 
even  in  a  bill,  much  less  in  a  single  and  barren 
set  of  resolves.  No  vote  was  had  upon  them. 
The  condition  had  not  happened  on  which  they 
were  to  be  taken  up  by  the  slave  States  ;  but 
they  were  sent  out  to  all  such  States,  and  adopted 
by  some  of  them;  and  there  commenced  the 
great  slavery  agitation,  founded  upon  the  dogma 
of  "  no  power  in  Congress  to  legislate  upon 
slavery  in  the  territories"  which  has  led  to  the 
abrogation  of  the  Missouri  compromise  line — 
which*  has  filled  the  Union  with  distraction— 
and  which  is  threatening  to  bring  all  federal 
legislation,  and  all  federal  elections,  to  a  mere 
sectional  struggle,  in  which  one-half  of  the 
States  is  to  be  arrayed  against  the  other.  The 
resolves  were  evidently  introduced  for  the  mere 
purpose  of  carrying  a  question  to  the  slave 
States  on  which  they  could  be  formed  into  a 
unit  against  the  free  States  ;  and  they  answered 
that  purpose  as  well  on  rejection  by  the  Senate 
as  with  it ;  and  were  accordingly  used  in  con- 
formity to  their  design  without  any  such  rejec- 
tion, which — it  cannot  be  repeated  too  often— 
could  in  no  way  have  decided  the  constitutional 
question  which  they  presented. 

These  were  new  resolutions — the  first  of  their 
kind  in  the  (almost)  sixty  years'  existence  of 


the  federal  government — contrary  to  its  prac- 
tice during  that  time— contrary  to  Mr.  Cal- 
houn's slavery  resolutions  of  18.'5S — contrary 
to  his  early  and  long  support  of  the  Missouri 
compromise— and  contrary  to  the  re-enactment 
of  that  line  by  the  authors  of  the  Texas  an- 
nexation law.  That  re-enactment  had  taken 
place  only  two  years  before,  and  was  in  the 
very  words  of  the  anti-slavery  ordinance  of  '87, 
and  of  the  Missouri  compromise  prohibition  of 
1820  ;  and  was  voted  for  by  the  whole  body  of 
the  annexationists,  and  was  not  only  conceived 
and  supported  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  then  Secretary 
of  State,  but  carried  into  effect  by  him  in  the 
despatch  of  that  messenger  to  Texas  in  the  ex- 
piring moments  of  his  power.  The  words  of 
the  re-enactment  were:  "And  in  such  State, 
or  States  as  shall  be  formed  out  of  said  terri- 
tory north  of  the  said  Missouri  compromise 
line,  slavery  or  involuntary  servitude  (except 
for  crime)  shall  be  prohibited."  This  clause 
re-established  that  compromise  line  in  all  that 
long  extent  of  it  which  was  ceded  to  Spain  by 
the  treaty  of  1819,  which  became  Texian  by  her 
separation  from  Mexico,  and  which  became  slave 
soil  under  her  laws  and  constitution.  So  that, 
up  to  the  third  day  of  March,  in  the  year  1845 
— not  quite  two  years  before  the  date  of  these 
resolutions — Mr.  Calhoun  by  authentic  acts,  and 
the  two  Houses  of  Congress  by  recorded  votes, 
and  President  Tyler  by  his  approving  signature, 
acknowledged  the  power  of  Congress  to  pro- 
hibit slavery  in  a  territory !  and  not  only  ac- 
knowledged the  power,  but  exerted  it !  and  ac- 
tually prohibited  slavery  in  a  long  slip  of  coun- 
try, enough  to  make  a  "  State  or  States,"  where 
it  then  legally  existed.  This  fact  was  formally 
brought  out  in  the  chapter  of  this  volume  which 
treats  of  the  legislative  annexation  of  Texas; 
and  those  who  wish  to  see  the  proceeding  in  de- 
tail may  find  it  in  the  journals  of  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress,  and  in  the  congressional 
history  of  the  time. 

These  resolutions  of  1847,  called  fire-brand  at 
the  time,  were  further  characterized  as  nullifi- 
cation a  few  days  afterwards,  when  Mr.  Benton 
said  of  them,  that,  "  as  Sylla  saw  in  the  young 
Ccesar  many  Mariuses.  so  did  he  see  in  them 
many  nullifications" 


698 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


.     CHAPTER    CLXYIII. 

THE  SLAVERY  AGITATION:  DISUNION:  KEY  TO 
ME.  CALHOUN'S  POLICY :  FORCING  THE  ISSUE : 
MODE  OF  FORCING  IT. 

In  the  course  of  this  year,  and  some  months 
after  the  submission  of  his  resolutions  in  the 
Senate  denying  the  right  of  Congress  to  abolish 
slavery  in  a  territory,  Mr.  Calhoun  wrote  a 
letter  to  a  member  of  the  Alabama  Legislature, 
which  furnishes  the  key  to  unlock  his  whole 
system  of  policy  in  relation  to  the  slavery  agita- 
tion, and  its  designs,  from  his  first  taking  up 
the  business  in  Congress  in  the  year  1835,  down 
to  the  date  of  the  letter ;  and  thereafter.  The 
letter  was  in  reply  to  one  asking  his  opinion 
"  as  to  the  steps  which  should  be  taken "  to 
guard  the  rights  of  the  South  ;  and  was  written 
in  a  feeling  of  personal  confidence  to  a  person 
in  a  condition  to  take  steps ;  and  which  he  has 
since  published  to  counteract  the  belief  that 
Mr.  Calhoun  was  seeking  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union.  The  letter  disavows  such  a  design,  and 
at  the  same  time  proves  it — recommends  for- 
cing the  issue  between  the  North  and  the  South, 
and  lays  down  the  manner  in  which  it  should 
be  done.     It  opens  with  this  paragraph : 

"  I  am  much  gratified  with  the  tone  and  views  . 
of  your  letter,  and  concur  entirely  in  the  opin- 
ion you  express,  that  instead  of  shunning,  we 
ought  to  court  the  issue  with  the  North  on  the 
slavery  question.  I  would  even  go  one  step 
further,  and  add  that  it  is  our  duty — due  to  our- 
selves, to  the  Union,  and  our  political  institu- 
tions, to  force  the  issue  on  the  North.  We  are 
now  stronger  relatively  than  we  shall  be  here- 
after, politically  and  morally.  Unless  we  bring 
on  the  issue,  delay  to  us  will  be  dangerous 
indeed.  It  is  the  true  policy  of  those  enemies 
who  seek  our  destruction.  Its  effects  are,  and 
have  been,  and  will  be  to  weaken  us  politically 
and  morally,  and  to  strengthen  them.  Such  has 
been  my  opinion  from  the  first.  Had  the  South, 
or  even  my  own  State  backed  me,  I  would  have 
forced  the  issue  on  the  North  in  1835,  when  the 
spirit  of  abolitionism  first  developed  itself  to 
any  considerable  extent.  It  is  a  true  maxim, 
to  meet  danger  on  the  frontier,  in  politics  as 
well  as  war.  Thus  thinking,  I  am  of  the  im- 
pression, that  if  the  South  act  as  it  ought,  the 
Wilmot  Proviso,  instead  of  proving  to  be  the 
means  of  successfully  assailing  us  and  our  pecu- 
liar institution,  may  be  made  the  occasion  of 
successfully  asserting  our  equality  and  rights, 


by  enabling  us  to  force  the  issue  on  the  North. 
Something  of  the  kind  was  indispensable  to 
rouse  and  unite  the  South.  On  the  contrary,  if 
we  should  not  meet  it  as  we  ought,  I  fear, 
greatly  fear,  our  doom  will  be  fixed.  It  would 
prove  that  we  either  have  not  the  sense  or 
spirit  to  defend  ourselves  and  our  institutions." 

The  phrase  "  forcing  the  issue  "  is  here  used 
too  often,  and  for  a  purpose  too  obvious,  to  need 
remark.  The  reference  to  his  movement  in  1835 
confirms  all  that  was  said  of  that  movement  at 
the  time  by  senators  from  both  sections  of  the 
Union,  and  which  has  been  related  in  chapter  131 
of  the  first  volume  of  this  View.  At  that  time 
Mr.  Calhoun  characterized  his  movement  as  de- 
fensive— as  done  in  a  spirit  of  self-defence :  it 
was  then  characterized  by  senators  as  aggres- 
sive and  offensive  :  and  it  is  now  declared  in  this 
letter  to  have  been  so.  He  was  then  openly 
told  that  he  was  playing  into  the  hands  of  the 
abolitionists,  and  giving  them  a  champion  to 
contend  with,  and  the  elevated  theatre  of  the 
American  Senate  for  the  dissemination  of  their 
doctrines,  and  the  production  of  agitation  and 
sectional  division.  All  that  is  now  admitted,  with 
a  lamentation  that  the  South,  and  not  even  his 
own  State,  would  stand  by  him  then  in  forcing 
the  issue.  So  that  chance  was  lost.  Another 
was  now  presented.  The  Wilmot  Proviso,  so 
much  deprecated  in  public,  is  privately  saluted 
as  a  fortunate  event,  giving  another  chance  for 
forcing  the  issue.     The  letter  proceeds  : 

"  But  in  making  up  the  issue,  we  must  look 
far  beyond  the  proviso.  It  is  but  one  of  many 
acts  of  aggression,  and,  in  my  opinion,  by  no 
means  the  most  dangerous  or  degrading,  though 
more  striking  and  palpable." 

In  looking  beyond  the  proviso  (the  nature  of 
which  has  been  explained  in  a  preceding  chapter), 
Mr.  Calhoun  took  up  the  recent  act  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  Pennsylvania,  repealing  the 
slave  sojournment  law  within  her  limits,  and  ob- 
structing the  recovery  of  fugitive  slaves — saying: 

"  I  regard  the  recent  act  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
laws  of  that  description,  passed  by  other  States, 
intended  to  prevent  or  embarrass  the  reclama- 
tion of  fugitive  slaves,  or  to  liberate  our  domes- 
tics when  travelling  with  them  in  non-slavehold- 
ing  States,  as  unconstitutional.  Insulting  as  it 
is,  it  is  even  more  dangerous.  I  go  further,  and 
hold  that  if  we  have  a  right  to  hold  our  slaves, 
we  have  a  right  to  hold  them  in  peace  and  quiet, 
and  that  the  toleration,  in  the  non-slaveholding 
States,  of  the  establishment  of  societies  and 


ANNO  1847.    JAMES  K  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


699 


presses,  and  the  delivery  of  lectures,  with  the 
express  intention  of  calling  in  question  our  right 
to  our  slaves,  and  of  seducing  and  abducting 
them  from  the  service  of  their  masters,  and 
finally  overthrowing  the  institution  itself,  as 
not  only  a  violation  of  international  laws,  but 
also  of  the  Federal  compact.  I  hold,  also,  that 
we  cannot  acquiesce  in  such  wrongs,  without 
the  certain  destruction  of  the  relation  of  master 
and  slave,  and  without  the  ruin  of  the  South." 

The  acts  of  Pennsylvania  here  referred  to  are 
justly  complained  of,  but  with  the  omission  to 
tell  that  these  injurious  acts  were  the  fruit  of 
his  own  agitation  policy,  and  in  his  own  line  of 
forcing  issues ;  and  that  the  repeal  of  the  so- 
journment law,  which  had  subsisted  since  the 
year  1780,  and  the  obstruction  of  the  fugitive 
slave  act,  which  had  been  enforced  since  179.3, 
only  took  place  twelve  years  after  he  had  com- 
menced slavery  agitation  in  the  Soujth,  and  were 
legitimate  consequences  of  that  agitation,  and  of 
the  design  to  force  the  issue  with  the  North. 
The  next  sentence  of  the  letter  reverts  to  the 
Wilmot  Proviso,  and  is  of  momentous  conse- 
quence as  showing  that  Mr.  Calhoun,  Avith  all 
his  public  professions  in  favor  of  compromise 
and  conciliation,  was  secretly  opposed  to  any 
compromise  or  adjustment,  and  actually  con- 
sidered the  defeat  of  the  proviso  as  a  misfortune 
to  the  South.     Thus: 

"  With  this  impression,  I  would  regard  any 
compromise  or  adjustment  of  the  proviso,  or 
even  its  defeat,  without  meeting  the  danger  in 
its  whole  length  and  breadth,  as  very  unfortu- 
nate for  us.  It  would  lull  us  to  sleep  again, 
without  removing  the  danger,  or  materially 
diminishing  it." 

So  that,  while  this  proviso  was,  publicly,  the 
Pandora's  Wx  which  filled  the  Union  with  evil, 
and  while  it  was  to  Mr.  Calhoun  and  his  friends 
the  theme  of  endless  deprecation,  it  was  secretly 
cherished  as  a  means  of  keeping  up  discord,  and 
forcing  the  issue  between  the  North  and  the 
South.  Mr.  Calhoun  then  proceeds  to  the 
serious  question  of  disunion,  and  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  issue  could  be  forced. 

'•  This  brings  up  the  question,  how  can  it  be 
so  met,  without  resorting  to  the  dissolution  of 
the  Union  ?  I  say  without  its  dissolution,  for, 
in  my  opinion,  a  high  and  sacred  regard  for  the 
constitution,  as  well  as  the  dictates  of  wisdom 
make  it  our  duty  in  this  case,  as  well  as  all 
others,  not  to  resort  to,  or  even  to  look  to  that 
extreme  remedy,  until  all  others  have  failed, 


and  then  only  in  defence  of  our  liberty  and 
safety.  There  is,  in  my  opinion,  but  one  way 
in  which  it  can  be  met ;  and  that  is  the  one  indi- 
cated in  my  letter  to  Mr. and  to  which 

you  allude  in  youre  to  me,  viz.,  by  retaliation. 
Why  I  think  so,  I  shall  now  proceed  to  ex- 
plain." 

Then  follows  an  argument  to  justify  retalia- 
tion, by  representing  the  constitution  as  contain- 
ing provisions,  he  calls  them  stipulations,  s<.hh- 
in  favor  of  the  slaveholding,  and  some  in  favor 
of  the  non-slaveholding  States,  and  the  breach 
of  any  of  which,  on  one  side,  authorizes  a  re- 
taliation on  the  other;  and  then  declaring  that 
Pennsylvania,  and  other  States,  have  violated 
the  provision  in  favor  of  the  slave  States  in  ob- 
structing the  recovery  of  fugitive  slaves,  he  pro- 
ceeds to  explain  his  remedy — saying : 

"  There  is  and  can  be  but  one  remedy  short 
of  disunion,  and  that  is  to  retaliate  on  our  part, 
by  refusing  to  fulfil  the  stipulations  in  their 
favor,  or  such  as  we  may  select,  as  the  most 
efficient.  Among  these,  the  right  of  their  ships 
and  commerce  to  enter  and  depart  from  our 
ports  is  the  most  effectual,  and  can  be  enforced 
That  the  refusal  on  their  part  would  justify  ua 
to  refuse  to  fulfil  on  our  part  those  in  their 
favor,  is  too  clear  to  admit  of  argument.  That 
it  would  be  effectual  in  compelling  them  to  fulfil 
those  in  our  favor  can  hardly  be  doubted,  when 
the  immense  profit  they  make  by  trade  and 
navigation  out  of  us  is  regarded  ;  and  also  the 
advantages  we  would  derive  from  the  direct 
trade  it  would  establish  between  the  rest  of  the 
world  and  our  ports." 

Retaliation  by  closing  the  ports  of  the  State 
against  the  commerce  of  the  offending  State  : 
and  this  called  a  constitutional  remedy,  and  a 
remedy  short  of  disunion.  It  is.  on  the  con- 
trary, a  flagrant  breach  of  the  constitution,  and 
disunion  itself,  and  that  at  the  very  point  which 
caused  the  Union  to  be  formed.  Every  one 
acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  formation  of 
the  federal  constitution,  knows  that  it  grew  out 
of  the  single  question  of  commerce— the  neces- 
sity of  its  regulation  between  the  States  to  pre- 
vent them  from  harassing  each  other,  and  with 
foreign  nations  to  prevent  State  rivalries  for 
foreign  trade.  To  stop  the  trade  with  any 
State  is,  therefore,  to  break  the  Union  with  that 
State  ;  and  to  give  any  advantage  to  a  foreign 
nation  over  a  State,  would  be  to  break  the  con- 
stitution again  in  the  fundamental  article  of  ita 
formation;  and  this  is  what  the  retaliatory 
remedy  of  commercial  non-intercourse  arrives  at 


700 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


— a  double  breach  of  the  constitution — one  to  the 
prejudice  of  sister  States,  the  other  in  favor  of 
foreign  nations.  For  immediately  upon  this  re- 
taliation upon  a  State,  and  as  a  consequence  of 
it,  a  great  foreign  trade  is  to  grow  up  with  all 
the  world.  The  letter  proceeds  with  further 
instructions  upon  the  manner  of  executing  the 
retaliation : 

"  My  impression  is,  that  it  should  be  restricted 
to  sea-going  vessels,  which  would  leave  open 
the  trade  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  to 
New  Orleans  by  river,  and  to  the  other  South- 
ern cities  by  railroad  ;  and  tend  thereby  to  de- 
tach the  North-western  from  the  North-eastern 
States." 

This  discloses  a  further  feature  in  the  plan  of 
forcing  the  issue.  The  North-eastern  States 
were  to  be  excluded  from  Southern  maritime 
commerce  :  the  North-western  States  were  to 
be  admitted  to  it  by  railroad,  and  also  allowed 
to  reach  New  Orleans  by  the  Mississippi  River. 
And  this  discrimination  in  favor  of  the  North- 
western States  was  for  the  purpose  of  detaching 
them  from  the  North-east.  Detach  is  the  word. 
And  that  word  signifies  to  separate,  disengage, 
disunite,  part  from  :  so  that  the  scheme  of  dis- 
union contemplated  the  inclusion  of  the  North- 
western States  in  the  Southern  division.  The 
State  of  Missouri  was  one  of  the  principal  of 
these  States,  and  great  efforts  were  made  to 
gain  her  over,  and  to  beat  down  Senator  Ben- 
ton who  was  an  obstacle  to  that  design.  The 
letter  concludes  by  pointing  out  the  only  diffi- 
culty in  the  execution  of  this  plan,  and  showing 
how  to  surmount  it. 

"  There  is  but  one  practical  difficulty  in  the 
way  ;  and  that  is,  to  give  it  force,  it  will  require 
the  co-operation  of  all  the  slave-holding  States 
lying  on  the  Atlantic  Gulf.  Without  that,  it 
would  be  ineffective.  To  get  that  is  the  great 
point,  and  for  that  purpose  a  convention  of  the 
Southern  States  is  indispensable.  Let  that  be 
called,  and  let  it  adopt  measures  to  bring  about 
the  co-operation,  and  I  would  underwrite  for  the 
rest.  The  non-slaveholding  States  would  be 
compelled  to  observe  the  stipulations  of  the 
constitution  in  our  favor,  or  abandon  their  trade 
with  us,  or  to  take  measures  to  coerce  us,  which 
would  throw  on  them  the  responsibility  of  dis- 
solving the  Union.  Which  they  would  choose, 
I  do  not  think  doubtful.  Their  unbounded  ava- 
rice would,  in  the .  end,  control  them.  Let  a 
convention  be  called — let  it  recommend  to  the 
slaveholding  States  to  take  the  course  advised, 
giving,  say  one  year's  notice,  before  the  acts  of 
the  several  States  should  go  into  effect,  and  the 


issue  would  fairly  be  made  up,  and  our  safety 
and  triumph  certain." 

This  the  only  difficulty — the  want  of  a  co- 
operation of  all  the  Southern  Atlantic  States  : 
and  to  surmount  that,  the  indispensability  of  a 
convention  of  the  Southern  States  is  fully  de- 
clared. This  was  going  back  to  the  starting 
point — to  the  year  1835 — when  Mr.  Calhoun 
first  took  up  the  slavery  agitation  in  the  Senate, 
and  when  a  convention  of  the  slaveholding  States 
was  as  much  demanded  then  as  now,  and  that 
twelve  years  before  the  Wilmot  Proviso — twelve 
years  before  the  Pennsylvania  unfriendly  legis- 
lation— twelve  years  before  the  insult  and  out- 
rage to  the  South,  in  not  permitting  them  to 
carry  their  local  laws  with  them  to  the  territo- 
ries, for  the  protection  of  their  slave  property. 
A  call  of  a  Southern  convention  was  as  much 
demanded  then  as  now ;  and  such  conventions 
often  actually  attained  :  but  without  accom- 
plishing the  object  of  the  prime  mover.  No 
step  could  be  got  to  be  taken  in  those  conven- 
tions towards  dividing  and  sectionalizing  the 
States,  and  after  a  vain  reliance  upon  them  for 
seventeen  years,  a  new  method  has  been  fallen 
upon  :  and  this  confidential  letter  from  Mr.  Cal- 
houn to  a  member  of  the  Alabama  legislature 
of  1847,  has  come  to  light,  to  furnish  the  key 
which  unlocks  his  whole  system  of  slavery  agi- 
tation which  he  commenced  in  the  year  1835. 
That  system  was  to  force  issues  upon  the  North 
under  the  pretext  of  self-defence,  and  to  sec- 
tionalize  the  South,  preparatory  to  disunion, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  sectional  con- 
ventions, composed  wholly  of  delegates  from 
the  slaveholding  States.  Failing  in  that  scheme 
of  accomplishing  the  purpose,  a  new  one  was 
fallen  upon,  which  will  disclose  itself  in  its  proper 
place. 


CHAPTER    CLXIX. 

DEATH    OF    SILAS  WEIGHT,  EX-SENATOR  AND 
EX-GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK 

He  died  suddenly,  at  the  early  age  of  fifty-two, 
and  without  the  sufferings  and  premonitions 
which  usually  accompany  the  mortal  transit 
from  time  to  eternity.     A  letter  that  he  was 


ANNO  1847.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


701 


reading,   was  seen  to  fall  from  his  hand:  a 
physician  was  called:   in  two  hours  he  was 
dead— apoplexy  the  cause.     Though  dying  at 
the  age  deemed  young  in  a  statesman,  he  had 
attained  all  that  long  life  could  give— high  office, 
national  fame,  fixed   character,  and   universal 
esteem.    He  had  run  the  career  of  honors  in  the 
State  of  New  York— been  representative  and 
senator   in   Congress— and  had  refused  more 
offices,  and  higher,  than  he  ever  accepted.     He 
refused  cabinet  appointments  under   his  fast 
friend,  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  under  Mr.  Polk, 
whom  he  may  be  said  to  have  elected :  he  re- 
fused a  seat  on  the  bench  of  the  federal  Supreme 
Court ;  he  rejected  instantly  the  nomination  of 
1844  for  Vice-President  of  the  United  States, 
when  that  nomination  was   the  election.    He 
refused  to  be  put  in  nomination  for  the  presi- 
dency.    He  refused  to  accept  foreign  missions. 
He  spent  that  time  in  declining  office  which 
others  did  in  winning  it ;  and  of  those  he  did 
accept,  it  might  well  be  said  they  were  "  thrust " 
upon  him.     Office,  not  greatness,  was  thrust 
upon  him.    He  was  born  great,  and  above  office, 
and  unwillingly  descended  to  it ;  and  only  took 
it  for  its  burthens,  and  to  satisfy  an  importunate 
public  demand.    Mind,  manners,  morals,  temper, 
habits,  united  in  him  to  form  the  character  that 
was  perfect,  both  in  public  and  private  life,  and 
to  give  the  example  of  a  patriot  citizen — of  a 
farmer  statesman — of  which  we  have  read  in 
Cincinnatus  and  Cato,  and  seen  in  Mr.  Macon, 
and  some  others  of  their  stamp — created  by  na- 
ture— formed  in  no  school :  and  of  which  the 
instances  are  so  rare  and  long  between. 

His  mind  was  clear  and  strong,  his  judgment 
solid,  his  elocution  smooth  and  equable,  his 
speaking  always  addressed  to  the  understand- 
ing, and  always  enchaining  the  attention  of  those 
who  had  minds  to  understand.  Grave  reason- 
ing was  his  forte.  Argumentation  was  always 
the  line  of  his  speech.  He  spoke  to  the  head, 
not  to  the  passions ;  and  would  have  been  dis- 
concerted to  have  seen  any  body  laugh,  or  cry, 
at  any  thing  he  said.  His  thoughts  evolved 
spontaneously,  in  natural  and  proper  order, 
clothed  in  language  of  force  and  clearness ;  all 
so  naturally  and  easily  conceived  that  an  extem- 
poraneous speech,  or  the  first  draught  of  an  in- 
tricate report,  had  all  the  correctness  of  a 
finished  composition.  His  manuscript  had  no 
blots — a  proof  that  his  mind  had  none  ;  and  he 
wrote  a  neat,  compact  hand,  suitable  to  a  clear 


and  solid  mind.  He  came  into  the  Senate,  in 
the  beginning  of  General  Jackson's  administra- 
tion, and  remained  during  that  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren  ;  and  took  a  ready  and  active  part  in  all 
the  great  debates  of  those  eventful  times.  The 
ablest  speakers  of  the  opposition  always  had  to 
answer  him  ;  and  when  he  answered  them,  they 
showed  by  their  anxious  concern,  that  the  ad- 
versary was  upon  them  whose  force  they  dreaded 
most.  Though  taking  his  full  part  upon  all  sub- 
jects, yet  finance  was  his  particular  department, 
always  chairman  of  that  committee,  when  his 
party  was  in  power,  and  by  the  lucidity  of  lus 
statements  making  plain  the  most  intricate  mo- 
neyed details.  He  had  a  just  conception  of  the 
difference  between  the  functions  of  the  finance 
committee  of  the  Senate,  and  the  committee  of 
ways  and  means  of  the  House— so  little  under- 
stood in  these  latter  times  :  those  of  the  latter 
founded  in  the  prerogative  of  the  House  to 
originate  all  revenue  bills  ;  those  of  the  fonner 
to  act  upon  the  propositions  from  the  House, 
without  originating  measures  which  might  affect 
the  revenue,  so  as  to  coerce  either  its  increase 
or  prevent  its  reduction.  In  1844  he  left  the 
Senate,  to  stand  for  the  governorship  of  New 
York ;  and  never  did  his  self-sacrificing  temper 
undergo  a  stronger  trial,  or  submit  to  a  greater 
sacrifice.  He  liked  the  Senate  :  he  disliked  the 
governorship,  even  to  absolute  repugnance.  But 
it  was  said  to  him  (and  truly,  as  then  believed, 
and  afterwards  proved)  that  the  State  would  be 
lost  to  Mr.  Polk,  unless  Mr.  Wright  was  asso- 
ciated with  him  in  the  canvass  :  and  to  this  ar- 
gument he  yielded.  He  stood  the  canvass  for 
the  governorship — carried  it — and  Mr.  Polk 
with  him ;  and  saved  the  presidential  election 
of  that  year. 

Judgment  was  the  character  of  Mr.  Wright's 
mind :  purity  the  quality  of  the  heart.  Though 
valuable  in  the  field  of  debate,  he  was  still  more 
valued  at  the  council  table,  where  sense  and 
honesty  are  most  demanded.  General  Jackson 
and  Mr.  Van  Buren  relied  upon  him  as  one  of 
their  safest  counsellors.  A  candor  which  knew 
no  guile — an  integrity  which  knew  no  devia- 
tion— which  worked  right  on,  like  a  machine 
governed  by  a  law  of  which  it  was  unconscious 
— were  the  inexorable  conditions  of  his  nature, 
ruling  his  conduct  in  every  act,  public  and  pri- 
vate. No  foul  legislation  ever  emanated  from 
him.  The  jobber,  the  speculator,  the  dealer  in 
false  claims,  the  plunderer,  whose  scheme  re- 


702 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


quired  an  act  of  Congress ;  all  these  found  in 
his  vigilance  and  perspicacity  a  detective  police, 
which  discovered  their  designs,  and  in  his  integ- 
rity a  scorn  of  corruption  which  kept  them  at 
a  distance  from  the  purity  of  his  atmospjhere. 

His  temper  was  gentle — his  manners  simple — 
his  intercourse  kindly — his  habits  laborious — 
and  rich  upon  a  freehold  of  thirty  acres,  in  much 
part  cultivated  by  his  own  hand.  In  the  inter- 
vals of  senatorial  duties  this  man,  who  refused 
cabinet  appointments  and  presidential  honors, 
and  a  seat  upon  the  Supreme  Bench — who  mea- 
sured strength  with  Clay,  Webster,  and  Calhoun, 
and  on  whose  accents  admiring  Senates  hung : 
this  man,  his  neat  suit  of  broadcloth  and  fine 
linen  exchanged  for  the  laborer's  dress,  might 
be  seen  in  the  harvest  field,  or  meadow,  carrying 
the  foremost  row,  and  doing  the  cleanest  work : 
and  this  not  as  recreation  or  pastime,  or  encour- 
agement to  others,  but  as  work,  which  was  to 
count  in  the  annual  cultivation,  and  labor  to  be 
felt  in  the  production  of  the  needed  crop.  His 
principles  were  democratic,  and  innate,  founded 
in  a  feeling,  still  more  than  a  conviction,  that 
the  masses  were  generally  right  in  their  senti- 
ments, though  sometimes  wrong  in  their  action ; 
and  that  there  was  less  injury  to  the  country 
from  the  honest  mistakes  of  the  people,  than 
from  the  interested  schemes  of  corrupt  and  in- 
triguing politicians.  He  was  born  in  Massa- 
chusetts, came  to  man's  estate  in  New  York, 
received  from  that  State  the  only  honors  he 
would  accept ;  and  in  choosing  his  place  of  resi- 
dence in  it  gave  proof  of  his  modest,  retiring, 
unpretending  nature.  Instead  of  following  his 
profession  in  the  commercial  or  political  capital 
of  his  State,  where  there  would  be  demand  and 
reward  for  his  talent,  he  constituted  himself  a 
village  lawyer  where  there  was  neither,  and 
pertinaciously  refused  to  change  his  locality. 
In  an  outside  county,  on  the  extreme  border 
of  the  State,  taking  its  name  of  St.  Lawrence 
from  the  river  which  washed  its  northern  side, 
and  divided  the  United  States  from  British 
America — and  in  one  of  the  smallest  towns  of 
that  county,  and  in  one  of  the  least  ambitious 
houses  of  that  modest  town,  lived  and  died  this 
patriot  statesman — a  good  husband  (he  had  no 
children) — a  good  neighbor — a  kind  relative — 
a  fast  friend — exact  and  punctual  in  every  duty, 
and  the  exemplification  of  every  social  and  civic 
virtue. 


CHAPTER  CLXX. 

THIRTIETH  CONGRESS :  FIRST  SESSION :  LIST  OF 
MEMBERS:   PRESIDENT'S  MESSAGE. 


Senate. 

Maine. — Hannibal  Hamlin,  J.  W.  Bradbury. 

New  Hampshire.  —  Charles  G.  Atherton, 
John  P.  Hale. 

Vermont.  —  William  Upham,  Samuel  S. 
Phelps. 

Massachusetts.  —  Daniel  Webster,  John 
Davis. 

Rhode  Island. — Albert  C.  Greene,  John  H. 
Clarke. 

Connecticut. — John  M.  Niles,  Roger  S. 
Baldwin. 

New  York. — John  A.  Dix,  Daniel  S.  Dick- 
inson. 

New  Jersey. — William  L.  Dayton,  Jacob 
W.  Miller. 

Pennsylvania.  —  Simon  Cameron,  Daniel 
Sturgeon. 

Delaware.  —  John  M.  Clayton,  Presley 
Spruance. 

Maryland. — James  A.  Pearce,  Reverdy 
Johnson. 

Virginia. — James  M.  Mason,  R.  M.  T. 
Hunter. 

North  Carolina. — George.  E.  Badger,  Wil- 
lie P.  Mangum. 

South  Carolina. — A.  P.  Butler,  John  C. 
Calhoun. 

Georgia. — Herschell  V.  Johnson,  John  M. 
Berrien. 

Alabama. — William  R.  King,  Arthur  P.  Bag- 
ley. 

Mississippi. — Jefferson  Davis,  Henry  Stuart 
Foote. 

Louisiana. — Henry  Johnson,  S.  U.  Downs. 

Tennessee. — Hopkins  L.  Turney,  John  Bell. 

Kentucky. — Thomas  Metcalfe,  Joseph  R. 
Underwood. 

Ohio. — William  Allen,  Thomas  Corwin. 

Indiana. — Edward  A.  Hannegan,  Jesse  D. 
Bright. 

Illinois. —  Sidney  Breese,  Stephen  A.  Doug- 
lass. 

Missouri. — David  R.  Atchison,  Thomas  H. 
Benton. 

Arkansas. — Solon  Borland,  William  K.  Se- 
bastian. 

Michigan.  —  Thomas  Fitzgerald,  Alpheus 
Felch. 

Florida. — J.  D.  Westcott,  Jr.,  David  Yulee. 

Texas. — Thomas  J.  Rusk,  Samuel  Houston. 

Iowa. — Augustus  C.  Dodge,  George  W.  Jones. 

Wisconsin. — Henry  Dodge,  I.  P.  Walker. 


Aft  NO  1847.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


703 


House  of  Representatives. 

Maine. — David  Hammonds,  Asa  W.  H.  Clapp, 
Hiram  Belcher,  Franklin  Clark,  E.  K.  Smart, 
James  S.  Wiley,  Hezekiah  Williams. 

New  Hampshire. — Amos  Tuck,  Charles  II. 
Peaslee,  James  Wilson,  James  H.  Johnson. 

Massachusetts. — Rob't  C.  Winthrop,  Daniel 
P.  King,  Amos  Abbott,  John  G.  Palfrey,  Chas. 
Hudson,  George  Ashmun,  Julius  Rockwell, 
Horace  Mann,  Artemas  Hale,  Joseph  Grinnell. 

Rhode  Island. — R.  B.  Cranston,  B.  B. 
Thurston. 

Connecticut. — James  Dixon,  S.  D.  Hilliard, 
J.  A.  Rockwell,  Truman  Smith. 

Vermont. — William  Henry,  Jacob  Collamer, 
George  P.  Marsh,  Lucius  B.  Peck. 

New  York.  — Frederick  W.  Lloyd,  H.  C. 
Murphy,  Henry  Nicoll,  W.  B.  Maclay,  Horace 
Greeley,  William  Nelson,  Cornelius  Warren, 
Daniel  B.  St.  John,  Eliakim  Sherrill,  P.  H. 
Sylvester,  Gideon  Reynolds,  J.  I.  Slingerland, 
Orlando  Kellogg,  S.  Lawrence,  Hugh  White, 
George  Petrie,  Joseph  Mullin,  William  Collins, 
Timothy  Jenkins,  G.  A.  Starkweather.  Ausburn 
Birdsall,  William  Duer,  Daniel  Gott,  Harmon 
S.  Conger,  William  T.  Lawrence,  Ebon  Black- 
man,  Elias  B.  Holmes,  Robert  L.  Rose,  David 
Ramsay,  Dudly  Marvin,  Nathan  K.  Hall,  Harvey 
Putnam,  Washington  Hunt. 

New  Jersey. — James  G.  Hampton,  William 
A.  Newell,  Joseph  Edsall,  J.  Van  Dyke,  D.  S. 
Gregory. 

Pennsylvania. — Lewis  C.  Levin,  J.  R.  In- 
gersoll,  Charles  Brown,  C.  J.  Ingersoll,  John 
Freedly,  Samuel  A.  Bridges,  A.  R.  Mcllvaine, 
John  Strohm,  William  Strong,  R.  Brodhead, 
Chester  Butler,  David  Wilmot,  James  Pollock, 
George  N.  Eckert,  Henry  Nes,  Jasper  E.  Brady, 
John  Blanchard,  Andrew  Stewart,  Job  Mann, 
John  Dickey,  Moses  Hampton,  J.  W.  Farrelly, 
James  Thompson,  Alexander  Irvine. 
Delaware. — John  W.  Houston. 
Maryland. — J.  G.  Chapman.  J.  Dixon 
Roman,  T.  Watkins  Ligon,  R.  M.  McLane,  Alex- 
ander Evans,  John  W.  Crisfield. 

Virginia. — Archibald  Atkinson,  Richard  K. 
Meade,  Thomas  S.  Flournoy,  Thomas  S.  Bocock, 
WTilliam  L.  Goggin,  John  M.  Botts,  Thomas  H. 
Bayly,  R.  T.  L.  Beale,  J.  S.  Pendleton,  Henry 
Bedinger,  James  McDowell,  William  B.  Preston, 
Andrew  S.  Fulton,  R.  A.  Thompson,  William 
G.  Brown. 

North  Carolina.  —  Thomas  S.  Clingman, 
Nathaniel  Boyden,  D.  M.  Berringer,  Aug.  II. 
Shepherd,  Abm.  W.  Venable,  James  J.  McKay, 
J.  R.  J.  Daniel,  Richard  S.  Donnell,  David 
Outlaw. 

South  Carolina.— Daniel  Wallace,  Richard 
F.  Simpson,  J.  A.  Woodward,  Artemas  Burt, 
Isaac  E.  Holmes,  R.  Barnwell  Rhett. 

Georgia.— T.  Butler  King,  Alfred  Iverson, 
John  W.  Jones,  H.  A.  Harralson,  J.  A.  Lump- 


kin,  Howell   Cobb,   A.   H.   Stephens,    Rot>ert 
Toombs. 

Alabama.— John  Gayle.  H.  W.  Hilliard,  S. 
W.  Harris,  William  M.  Inge,  G.  S.  Houston, 
W.  R.  W.  Cobb,  F.  W.  Bowdon. 

Mississippi.— Jacob  Thompson,  W.  S.  Feath- 
erston,  Patrick  W.  Tompkins.  Albert  G.  Brown. 

Louisiana.— Emile  La  Sen-.  B.  G.  Thibodcaux, 
J.  M.  Harmansan,  Isaac  E.  Morse. 

Florida. — Edward  C.  Cabell. 

Ohio.— James  J.  Faran,  David  Fisher.  Robert 
C.  Schenck,  Richard  S.  Canby,  William  Sawyer, 
R.  Dickinson,  Jonathan  1).  Morris.  .1.  L.  Taylor, 
T.  0.  Edwards,  Daniel  Duncan,  John  K.  Miller. 
Samuel  F.  Vinton.  Thomas  Richey,  Nathan 
Evans,  William  Kennon,  Jr.,  J.  D.  Cummins, 
George  Fries,  Samuel  Lahin,  John  Crowell,  J. 
R.  Giddings,  Joseph  M.  Root. 

Indiana. — Elisha  Embree,  Thomas  J.  Henley, 
J.  L.  Robinson,  Caleb  B.  Smith,  William  W. 
Wick,  George  G.  Dunn.  R.  W.  Thompson,  John 
Pettit,  C.  W.  Cathcart.'  William  Rockhill. 

Michigan. — R.  McClelland,  Cha's  E.  Stewart, 
Kinsley  S.  Bingham. 

Illinois. — Robert  Smith,  J.  A.  McClernand, 
0.  B.  Ficklin,  John  Wentworth.  W.  A.  Rich- 
ardson, Thomas  J.  Turner,  A.  Lincoln. 

Iowa. — William  Thompson,  Shepherd  loftier. 

Kentucky. — Linn  Boyd,  Samuel  ().  Peyton, 
B.  L.  Clark,  Aylett  Buckner,  J.  B.  Thompson, 
Green  Adams,  Garnett  Duncan.  Charles  8. 
Morehead,  Richard  French.  John  P.  Gaines. 

Tennessee. — Andrew  Johnson.  William  M. 
Cocke,  John  H.  Crozier,  11.  L.  W.  Hill,  George 
WV  Jones,  James  II.  Thomas,  Meredith  P. 
Gentry,  Washington  Barrow,  Lucien  I>.  Chase, 
Frederick  P.  Stanton,  William  T.  Haskell. 

Missouri. — James  B.  Bowlin.  John  Jamie- 
son,  James  S.  Green,  Willard  P.  Hall,  John  S. 
Phelps. 

Arkansas. — Robert  W.  Johnson. 

Texas.— David  S.  Kaufman.  Timothy  Pills- 
bury. 

Wisconsin.— Mason  C.  Darling,  William  Pitt 
Lynde. 

Robert  C.  Winthrop,  Esq.,  of  Massachusetts, 
was  elected  Speaker  of  the  House,  and  Benja- 
min B.  French,  Esq.,  clerk,  and  soon  after  the 
President's  message  was  delivered,  a  quorum  of 
the  Senate  having  appeared  the  first  day.  The 
election  of  Speaker  had  decided  the  question  of 
the  political  character  of  the  House,  and  showed 
the  administration  to  be  in  a  minority :— a  bad 
omen  for  the  popularity  of  the  Mexican  war. 
The  President  had  gratifying  events  to  com- 
municate to  Congress— the  victories  of  Cerro 
Gordo,  Contreras  and  Churubusco,  the  storming 
of  Chepultepec,  and  the  capture  of  the  City  of 
Mexico :  and  exulted  over  these  exploits  with 


704 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  pride  of  an  American,  although  all  these 
advantages  had  to  be  gained  over  the  man 
whom  he  handed  back  into  Mexico  under  the 
belief  that  he  was  to  make  peace.  He  also  in- 
formed Congress  that  a  commissioner  had  been 
sent  to  the  head-quarters  of  the  American  army 
to  take  advantage  of  events  to  treat  for  peace ; 
and  that  he  had  carried  out  with  him  the 
draught  of  the  treaty,  already  prepared,  which 
contained  the  terms  on  which  alone  the  war 
was  to  be  terminated.  This  commissioner  was 
Nicholas  P.  Trist,  Esq.,  principal  clerk  in  the 
Department  of  State,  a  man  of  mind  and  integ- 
rity, well  acquainted  with  the  state  of  parties 
in  Mexico,  subject  to  none  at  home,  and  anxious 
to  establish  peace  between  the  countries.  Upon 
the  capture  of  the  city,  and  the  downfall  of 
Santa  Anna,  commissioners  were  appointed  to 
meet  Mr.  Trist ;  but  the  Mexican  government, 
far  from  accepting  the  treaty  as  drawn  up  and 
sent  to  them,  submitted  other  terms  still  more 
objectionable  to  us  than  ours  to  them ;  and  the 
two  parties  remained  without  prospect  of  agree- 
ment. The  American  commissioner  was  re- 
called, "under  the  belief,"  said  the  message, 
"that  his  continued  presence  with  the  army 
could  do  no  good."  This  recall  was  despatched 
from  the  United  States  the  6th  of  October,  im- 
mediately after  information  had  been  received 
of  the  failure  of  the  attempted  negotiations; 
but,  as  will  be  seen  hereafter,  the  notice  of  the 
recall  arriving  when  negotiations  had  been  re- 
sumed with  good  prospect  of  success,  Mr.  Trist 
remained  at  his  post  to  finish  his  work. 

In  the  course  of  the  summer  a  "female." 
fresh  from  Mexico,  and  with  a  masculine 
stomach  for  war  and  politics,  arrived  at  "Wash- 
ington, had  interviews  with  members  of  the  ad- 
ministration, and  infected  some  of  them  with  the 
contagion  of  a  large  project — nothing  less  than 
the  absorption  into  our  Union  of  all  Mexico, 
and  the  assumption  of  all  her  debts  (many  tens 
of  millions  in  esse,  and  more  in  posse),  and  all 
to  be  assumed  at  par,  though  the  best  were  at 
25  cents  in  the  dollar,  and  the  mass  ranging 
down  to  five  cents.  This  project  was  given  out, 
and  greatly  applauded  in  some  of  the  adminis- 
tration papers — condemned  by  the  public  feel- 
ing, and  greatly  denounced  in  a  large  opposition 
meeting  in  Lexington,  Kentucky,  at  which  Mr. 
Clay  came  forth  from  his  retirement  to  speak 
wisely  and  patriotically  against  it.    The  "fe- 


male "  had  gone  back  to  Mexico,  with  high  let- 
ters from  some  members  of  the  cabinet  to  the 
commanding  general,  and  to  the  plenipotentiary 
negotiator ;  both  of  whom,  however,  eschewed 
the  proffered  aid.  A  party  in  Mexico  developed 
itself  for  this  total  absorption,  and  total  assump- 
tion of  debts,  and  the  scheme  acquired  so  much 
notoriety,  and  gained  such  consistency  of  detail, 
and  stuck  so  close  to  some  members  of  the  ad- 
ministration, that  the  President  deemed  it  ne- 
cessary to  clear  himself  from  the  suspicion; 
which  he  did  in  a  decisive  paragraph  of  his  mes- 
sage : 

"  It  has  never  been  contemplated  by  me,  as  an 
object  of  the  war,  to  make  a  permanent  con- 
quest of  the  republic  of  Mexico,  or  to  annihilate 
her  separate  existence  as  an  independent  nation. 
On  the  contrary,  it  has  ever  been  my  desire  that 
she  should  maintain  her  nationality,  and,  under 
a  good  government  adapted  to  her  condition,  be 
a  free,  independent,  and  prosperous  republic. 
The  United  States  were  the  first  among  the  na- 
tions to  recognize  her  independence,  and  have 
always  desired  to  be  on  terms  of  amity  and 
good  neighborhood  with  her.  This  she  would 
not  suffer.  By  her  own  conduct  we  have  been 
compelled  to  engage  in  the  present  war.  In  its 
prosecution,  we  seek  not  her  overthrow  as  a 
nation,  but,  in  vindicating  our  national  honor, 
we  seek  to  obtain  redress  for  the'  wrongs  she 
has  done  us,  and  indemnity  for  our  just  de- 
mands against  her.  We  demand  an  honorable 
peace ;  and  that  peace  must  bring  with  it  in- 
demnity for  the  past,  and  security  for  the 
future." 

While  some  were  for  total  absorption,  others 
were  for  half;  and  for  taking  a  line  (provision- 
ally during  the  war),  preparatory  to  its  becom- 
ing permanent  at  its  close,  and  giving  to  the 
United  States  the  northern  States  of  Mexico 
from  gulf  to  gulf.  This  project  the  President 
also  repulsed  in  a  paragraph  of  his  message : 

"  To  retire  to  a  line,  and  simply  hold  and  de- 
fend it,  would  not  terminate  the  war.  On  the 
contrary,  it  would  encourage  Mexico  to  perse- 
vere, and  tend  to  protract  it  indefinitely.  It  is 
not  to  be  expected  that  Mexico,  after  refusing 
to  establish  such  a  line  as  a  permanent  bound- 
ary when  our  victorious  army  are  in  possession 
of  her  capital,  and  in  the  heart  of  her  country, 
would  permit  us  to  hold  it  without  resistance. 
That  she  would  continue  the  war,  and  in  the 
most  harassing  and  annoying  forms,  there  can 
be  no  doubt.  A  border  warfare  of  the  most 
savage  character,  extending  over  a  long  line, 
would  be  unceasingly  waged.  It  would  require 
a  large  army  to  be  kept  constantly  in  the  field. 


ANNO  1847.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


705 


stationed  at  posts  and  garrisons  along  such  a 
line,  to  protect  and  defend  it.  The  enemy,  re- 
lieved from  the  pressure  of  our  arms  on  his 
coasts  and  in  the  populous  parts  of  the  interior, 
would  direct  his  attention  to  this  line,  and  se- 
lecting an  isolated  post  for  attack,  would  con- 
centrate his  forces  upon  it.  This  would  be  a 
condition  of  affairs  which  the  Mexicans,  pursu- 
ing their  favorite  system  of  guerilla  warfare, 
would  probably  prefer  to  any  other.  Were  we 
to  assume  a  defensive  attitude  on  such  a  line,  all 
the  advantages  of  such  a  state  of  war  would  be 
on  the  side  of  the  enemy.  We  could  levy  no 
contributions  upon  him,  or  in  any  other  way 
make  him  feel  the  pressure  of  the  war ;  but 
must  remain  inactive,  and  wait  his  approach, 
being  in  constant  uncertainty  at  what  point  on 
the  line,  or  at  what  time,  he  might  make  an  as- 
sault. He  may  assemble  and  organize  an  over- 
whelming force  in  the  interior,  on  his  own  side 
of  the  line,  and,  concealing  his  purpose,  make  a 
sudden  assault  on  some  one  of  our  posts  so  dis- 
tant from  any  other  as  to  prevent  the  possibility 
of  timely  succor  or  reinforcements  ;  and  in  this 
way  our  gallant  army  would  be  exposed  to  the 
danger  of  being  cut  off  in  detail ;  or  if  by  their 
unequalled  bravery  and  prowess  every  where 
exhibited  during  this  war,  they  should  repulse 
the  enemy,  their  number  stationed  at  any  one 
post  may  be  too  small  to  pursue  him.  If  the 
enemy  be  repulsed  in  one  attack,  he  would  have 
nothing  to  do  but  to  retreat  to  his  own  side  of 
the  line,  and  being  in  no  fear  of  a  pursuing 
army,  may  reinforce  himself  at  leisure,  for  an- 
other attack  on  the  same  or  some  other  post. 
He  may,  too,  cross  the  line  between  our  posts, 
make  rapid  incursions  into  the  country  which 
we  hold,  murder  the  inhabitants,  commit  depre- 
dations on  them,  and  then  retreat  to  the  inte- 
rior before  a  sufficient  force  can  be  concentrated 
to  pursue  him.  Such  would  probably  be  the 
harassing  character  of  a  mere  defensive  war  on 
our  part.  If  our  forces,  when  attacked,  or 
threatened  with  attack,  be  permitted  to  cross 
the  line,  drive  back  the  enemy,  and  conquer 
him,  this  would  be  again  to  invade  the  enemy's 
country,  after  having  lost  all  the  advantages  of 
the  conquests  we  have  already  made  by  having 
voluntarily  abandoned  them.  To  hold  such  a 
line  successfully  and  in  security,  it  is  far  from 
being  certain  that  it  would  not  require  as  large 
an  army  as  would  be  necessary  to  hold  all  the 
conquests  we  have  already  made,  and  to  con- 
tinue the  prosecution  of  the  war  in  the  heart  of 
the  enemy's  country.  It  is  also  far  from  being 
certain  that  the  expense  of  the  war  would  be 
diminished  by  such  a  policy." 

These  were  the  same  arguments  which  Sena- 
tor Benton  had  addressed  to  the  President  the 
year  before,  when  the  recommendation  of  this 
line  of  occupation  had  gone  into  the  draught  of 
his  message,  as  a  cabinet  measure,  and  was  with 
YOL   II.— 45 


such  difficulty  got  out  of  it ;  but  without  get- 
ting it  out  of  the  head  of  Mr.  Calhoun  and  his 
political  friends.  To  return  to  the  argument 
against  such  a  line,  in  this  subsequent  message, 
bespoke  an  adherence  to  it  on  the  part  of  some 
formidable  interest,  which  required  to  be  author- 
itatively combated  :  and  such  was  the  fact.  The 
formidable  interest  which  wished  a  separation 
of  the  slave  from  the  free  States,  wished  also  as 
an  extension  of  their  Southern  territory,  to  ob- 
tain a  broad  slice  from  Mexico,  embracing 
Tampico  as  a  port  on  the  east,  Guaymas  as  a 
port  on  the  Gulf  of  California,  and  Monterey 
and  Saltillo  in  the  middle.  Mr.  Polk  did  not 
sympathize  with  that  interest,  and  publicly  re- 
pulsed their  plan  —  without,  however,  extin- 
guishing their  scheme  —  which  survives,  and 
still  labors  at  its  consummation  in  a  different 
form,  and  with  more  success. 

The  expenses  of  the  government  during  that 
season  of  war,  were  the  next  interesting  head  of 
the  message,  and  were  presented,  all  heads  of 
expenditure  included,  at  some  fifty-eight  mil- 
lions of  dollars ;  or  a  quarter  less  than  those 
same  expenses  now  are  in  a  state  of  peace. 
The  message  says : 

"It  is  estimated  that  the  receipts  into  the 
Treasury  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  on  the  30th 
of  June,  1848,  including  the  balance  in  the 
Treasury  on  the  1st  of  July  last,  will  amount 
to  forty-two  millions  eight  hundred  and  eighty- 
six  thousand  five  hundred  and  forty-live  dollars 
and  eighty  cents ;  of  which  thirty-one  millions, 
it  is  estimated,  will  be  derived  from  customs ; 
three  millions  five  hundred  thousand  from  the 
sale  of  the  public  lands  ;  four  hundred  thousand 
from  incidental  sources  ;  including  sales  made 
by  the  solicitor  of  the  Treasury  ;  and  six  mil- 
lions two  hundred  and  eighty-five  thousand 
two  hundred  and  ninety-four  dollars  and  fifty- 
five  cents  from  loans  already  authorized  by  law, 
which,  together  with  the  balance  in  the  Trea- 
sury on  the  1st  of  July  last,  make  the  sum  es- 
timated. The  expenditures  for  the  same  pe- 
riod, if  peace  with  Mexico  shall  not  be  con- 
cluded, and  the  army  shall  be  increased  as  is 
proposed,  will  amount,  including  the  necessary 
payments  on  account  of  principal  and  interest 
of  the  public  debt  and  Treasury  notes,  to  fifty- 
eight  millions  six  hundred  and  fifteen  thousand 
and  sixty  dollars  and  seven  cents." 

An  encomium  upon  the  good  working  of  the 
independent  treasury  system,  and  the  perpetual 
repulse  of  paper  money  from  the  federal  Trea- 
sury, concluded  the  heads  of  this  message  which 
retain  a  surviving  interest : 


706 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"  The  financial  system  established  by  the  con- 
stitutional Treasury  has  been,  thus  far,  eminent- 
ly successful  in  its  operations;  and  I  recom- 
mend an  adherence  to  all  its  essential  provi- 
sions;  and  especially  to  that  vital  provision, 
which  wholly  separates  the  government  from 
all  connection  with  banks,  and  excludes  bank 
paper  from  all  revenue  receipts." 

An  earnest  exhortation  to  a  vigorous  prose- 
cution of  the  war  concluded  the  message. 


CHAPTER    CLXXI. 

DEATH  OF  SENATOR  BAEROW :  MR.  BENTON'S 
EULOGIUM. 

Mr.  Benton.  In  rising  to  second  the  motion 
for  paying  to  the  memory  of  our  deceased 
brother  senator  the  last  honors  of  this  body,  I 
feel  myself  to  be  obeying  the  impulsions  of  an 
hereditary  friendship,  as  well  as  conforming  to 
the  practice  of  the  Senate.  Forty  years  ago, 
when  coming  to  the  bar  at  Nashville,  it  was 
my  good  fortune  to  enjoy  the  friendship  of  the 
father  of  the  deceased,  then  an  inhabitant  of 
Nashville,  and  one  of  its  most  respected  citi- 
zens. The  deceased  was  then  too  young  to  be 
noted  amongst  the  rest  of  the  family.  The 
pursuits  of  life  soon  carried  us  far  apart,  and 
long  after,  and  for  the  first  time  to  know  each 
other,  we  met  on  this  floor.  We  met  not  as 
strangers,  but  as  friends — friends  of  early  and 
hereditary  recollections  ;  and  all  our  intercourse 
since — every  incident  and  every  word  of  our 
lives,  public  and  private — has  gone  to  strengthen 
and  confirm  the  feelings  under  which  we  met, 
and  to  perpetuate  with  the  son  the  friendship 
which  had  existed  with  the  father.  Up  to  the 
last  moments  of  his  presence  in  this  chamber — 
up  to  the  last  moment  that  I  saw  him — our 
meetings  and  partings  were  the  cordial  greet- 
ings of  hereditary  friendship ;  and  now,  not 
only  as  one  of  the  elder  senators,  but  as  the 
early  and  family  friend  of  the  deceased,  I  come 
forward  to  second  the  motion  for  the  honors  to 
his  memory. 

The  senator  from  Louisiana  (Mr.  IT.  Johnson) 
has  performed  the  office  of  duty  and  of  friend- 
ship to  his  deceased  friend  and  colleague. 
Justly,  truly,  and  feelingly  has  he  performed 


it.  With  deep  and  heartfelt  emotion  he  has 
portrayed  the  virtues,  and  sketched  the  quali- 
ties, which  constituted  the  manly  and  lofty 
character  of  Alexander  Barrow.  He  has  given 
us  a  picture  as  faithful  as  it  is  honorable,  and  it 
does  not  become  me  to  dilate  upon  what  he  has 
so  well  presented ;  but,  in  contemplating  the 
rich  and  full  portrait  of  the  high  qualities  of  the 
head  and  heart  which  he  has  presented,  suffer 
me  to  look  for  an  instant  to  the  source,  the 
fountain,  from  which  flowed  the  full  stream  of 
generous  and  noble  actions  which  distinguished 
the  entire  life  of  our  deceased  brother  senator. 
I  speak  of  the  heart — the  noble  heart— of  Alex- 
ander Barrow.  Honor,  courage,  patriotism, 
friendship,  generosity — fidelity  to  his  friend 
and  his  country — the  social  affections — devo- 
tion to  the  wife  of  his  bosom,  and  the  children 
of  their  love  :  all — all,  were  there  !  and  never, 
not  once,  did  any  cold,  or  selfish,  or  timid  cal- 
culation ever  come  from  his  manly  head  to 
check  or  balk  the  noble  impulsions  of  his  gen- 
erous heart.  A  quick,  clear,  and  strong  judg- 
ment found  nothing  to  restrain  in  these  impul- 
sions ;  and  in  all  the  wide  circle  of  his  public 
and  private  relations — in  all  the  words  and  acts 
of  his  life — it  was  the  heart  that  moved  first ; 
and  always  so  true  to  honor  that  judgment  had 
nothing  to  do  but  to  approve  the  impulsion. 
From  that  fountain  flowed  the  stream  of  the 
actions  of  his  life ;  and  now  what  we  all  de- 
plore— what  so  many  will  join  in  deploring — is, 
that  such  a  fountain,  so  unexpectedly,  in  the 
full  tide  of  its  flow,  should  have  been  so  sud- 
denly dried  up.  He  was  one  of  the  younger 
members  of  this  body,  and  in  all  the  hope  and 
vigor  of  meridian  manhood.  Time  was  ripen- 
ing and  maturing  his  faculties.  He  seemed  to 
have  a  right  to  look  forward  to  many  years  of 
usefulness  to  his  country  and  to  his  family. 
With  qualities  evidently  fitted  for  the  field  as 
well  as  for  the  Senate,  a  brilliant  future  was 
before  him ;  ready,  as  I  know  he  was,  to  serve 
his  country  in  any  way  that  honor  and  duty 
should  require. 


ANNO  1848.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT 


707 


CHAPTER    CLXXII. 

DEATH  OF  MR.  ADAMS. 

"  Just  after  the  yeas  and  nays  were  taken  on 
a  question,  and  the  Speaker  had  risen  to  put 
another  question  to  the  House,  a  sudden  cry 
was  heard  on  the  left  of  the  chair,  ;  Mr.  Adams 
is  dying ! '  Turning  our  eyes  to  the  spot,  we 
beheld  the  venerable  man  in  the  act  of  falling 
over  the  left  arm  of  his  chair,  while  his  right 
arm  was  extended,  grasping  his  desk  for  sup- 
port. He  would  have  dropped  upon  the  floor 
had  he  not  been  caught  in  the  arms  of  the  mem- 
ber sitting  next  him.  A  great  sensation  was 
created  in  the  House  :  members  from  all  quar- 
ters rushing  from  their  seats,  and  gathering 
round  the  fallen  statesman,  who  was  imme- 
diately lifted  into  the  area  in  front  of  the  clerk's 
table.  The  Speaker  instantly  suggested  that 
some  gentleman  move  an  adjournment,  which 
being  promptly  done,  the  House  adjourned." 

So  wrote  the  editors  of  the  National  Intelli- 
gencer, friends  and  associates  of  Mr.  Adams  for 
forty  years,  and  now  witnesses  of  the  last  scene 
— the  sudden  sinking  in  his  chair,  which  was  to 
end  in  his  death.  The  news  flew  to  the  Senate 
chamber,  the  Senate  then  in  session,  and  en- 
gaged in  business,  which  Mr.  Benton  interrupt- 
ed, standing  up,  and  saying  to  the  President  of 
the  body  and  the  senators : 

"  I  am  called  on  to  make  a  painful  announce- 
ment to  the  Senate.  I  have  just  been  informed 
that  the  House  of  Representatives  has  this  in- 
stant adjourned  under  the  most  afflictive  cir- 
cumstances. A  calamitous  visitation  has  fallen 
on  one  of  its  oldest  and  most  valuable  members 
— one  who  has  been  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  whose  character  has  inspired  the 
highest  respect  and  esteem.  Mr.  Adams  has 
just  sunk  down  in  his  chair,  and  has  been  car- 
ried into  an  adjoining  room,  and  may  be  at  this 
moment  passing  from  the  earth,  under  the  roof 
that  covers  us,  and  almost  in  our  presence. 
In  these  circumstances  the  whole  Senate  will 
feel  alike,  and  feel  wholly  unable  to  attend  to 
any  business.  I  therefore  move  the  immediate 
adjournment  of  the  Senate." 

The  Senate  immediately  adjourned,  and  all 
inquiries  were  directed  to  the  condition  of  the 
stricken  statesman.  He  had  been  removed  to 
the  Speaker's  room,  where  he  slightly  recov- 
ered the  use  of  his  speech,  and  uttered  in  fal- 
tering accents,  the  intelligible  words,  "  This  is 


the  last  of  earth  ;  "  and  soon  after,  "  /  am  com- 
posed:' These  were  the  last  words  he  ever 
spoke.  He  lingered  two  days,  and  died  on  the 
evening  of  the  23d- struck  the  day  before,  and 
dying  the  day  after  the  anniversary  of  Wash- 
ington's birth— and  attended  by  every  circum- 
stance which  he  could  have  chosen  to  give 
felicity  in  death.  It  was  on  the  field  of  his 
labors— in  the  presence  of  the  national  represen- 
tation, presided  by  a  son  of  Massachusetts 
(Robert  C.  Winthrop,  Esq.),  in  the  full  posses- 
sion of  his  faculties,  and  of  their  faithful  use — 
at  octogenarian  age— without  a  pang— hung 
over  in  his  last  unconscious  moments  by  her 
who  had  been  for  more  than  fifty  years  the 
worthy  partner  of  his  bosom.  Such  a  death 
was  the  "crowning  mercy"  of  a  long  life  of 
eminent  and  patriotic  service,  filled  with  every 
incident  that  gives  dignity  and  lustre  to  human 
existence. 

I  was  sitting  in  my  library -room  in  the  twi- 
light of  a  raw  and  blustering  day,  the  lamp  not 
yet  lit,  when  a  note  was  delivered  to  me  from 
Mr.  Webster — I  had  saved  it  seven  years,  just 
seven — when  it  was  destroyed  in  that  confla- 
gration of  my  house  which  consumed,  in  a  mo- 
ment, so  much  which  I  had  long  cherished. 
The  note  was  to  inform  me  that  Mr.  Adams 
had  breathed  his  last;  and  to  say  that  the 
Massachusetts  delegation  had  fixed  upon  me  to 
second  the  motion,  which  would  be  made  in  the 
Senate  the  next  day,  for  the  customary  funeral 
honors  to  his  memory.  Seconding  the  motion 
on  such  an  occasion  always  requires  a  brief  dis- 
course on  the  life  and  character  of  the  deceased. 
I  was  taken  by  surprise,  for  I  had  not  expected 
such  an  honor :  I  was  oppressed  ;  for  a  feeling 
of  inability  and  unworthiness  fell  upon  me.  I 
went  immediately  to  Mr.  Winthrop,  who  was 
nearest,  to  inquire  if  some  other  senator  had 
been  named  to  take  my  place  if  I  should  find  it 
impossible  to  comply  with  the  request  He 
said  there  was  none — that  Mr.  Davis,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, would  make  the  motion,  and  that  I 
was  the  only  one  named  to  second  him.  My 
part  was  then  fixed.  I  went  to  the  other  end 
of  the  city  to  see  Mr.  Davis,  and  so  to  arrange 
with  him  as  to  avoid  repetitions— which  was 
done,  that  he  should  speak  of  events,  and  I  of 
characteristics.  It  was  late  in  the  night  when 
I  got  back  to  my  house,  and  took  pen  and  paper 
to  note  the  heads  of  what  I  should  say.    Never 


708 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW 


did  I  feel  so  much  the  weight  of  Cicero's  admoni- 
tion— "  Choose  with  discretion  out  of  the  plenty 
that  lies  before  you?''  The  plenty  was  too 
much.  It  was  a  field  crowded  with  fruits  and 
flowers,  of  which  you  could  only  cull  a  few — a 
mine  filled  with  gems,  of  which  you  could  only 
snatch  a  handful.  By  midnight  I  had  finished 
the  task,  and  was  ready  for  the  ceremony. 

Mr.  Adams  died  a  member  of  the  House,  and 
the  honors  to  his  memory  commenced  there,  to 
be  finished  in  the  Senate.  Mr.  Webster  was 
suffering  from  domestic  affliction — the  death  of 
a  son  and  a  daughter — and  could  not  appear 
among  the  speakers.  Several  members  of  the 
House  spoke  justly  and  beautifully ;  and  of 
these,  the  pre-eminent  beauty  and  justice  of  the 
discourse  delivered  by  Mr.  James  McDowell, 
of  Virginia  (even  if  he  had  not  been  a  near  con- 
nection, the  brother  of  Mrs.  Benton),  would 
lead  me  to  give  it  the  preference  in  selecting 
some  passages  from  the  tributes  of  the  House. 
With  a  feeling  and  melodious  delivery,  he  said  : 

"  It  is  not  for  Massachusetts  to  mourn  alone 
over  a  solitary  and  exclusive  bereavement.  It 
is  not  for  her  to  feel  alone  a  solitary  and  exclu- 
sive sorrow.  No,  sir ;  no  !  Her  sister  com- 
monwealths gather  to  her  side  in  this  hour  of 
her  affliction,  and,  intertwining  their  arms  with 
hers,  they  bend  together  over  the  bier  of  her 
illustrious  son — feeling  as  she  feels,  and  weep- 
ing as  she  weeps,  over  a  sage,  a  patriot,  and  a 
statesman  gone  !  It  was  in  these  great  charac- 
teristics of  individual  and  of  public  man  that 
his  country  reverenced  that  son  when  living, 
and  such,  with  a  painful  sense  of  her  common 
loss,  will  she  deplore  him  now  that  he  is  dead. 

"  Born  in  our  revolutionary  day,  and  brought 
up  in  early  and  cherished  intimacy  with  the  fa- 
thers and  founders  of  the  republic,  he  was  a  liv- 
ing bond  of  connection  between  the  present  and 
the  past — the  venerable  representative  of  the 
memories  of  another  age,  and  the  zealous,  watch- 
ful, and  powerful  one  of  the  expectations,  in- 
terests, and  progressive  knowledge  of  his  own. 

"  There  he  sat,  with  his  intense  eye  upon 
every  thing  that  passed,  the  picturesque  and 
rare  one  man,  unapproachable  by  all  others  in 
the  unity  of  his  character  and  in  the  thousand- 
fold anxieties  which  centred  upon  him.  No 
human  being  ever  entered  this  hall  without 
turning  habitually  and  with  heart-felt  deference 
first  to  him,  and  few  ever  left  it  without  paus- 
ing, as  they  went,  to  pour  out  their  blessings 
upon  that  spirit  of  consecration  to  the  country 
which  brought  and  which  kept  him  here. 

M  Standing  upon  the  extreme  boundary  of  hu- 
man life,  and  disdaining  all  the  relaxations  and 
exemptions  of  age,  his  outer  framework  only 


was  crumbling  away.  The  glorious  engine 
within  still  worked  on  unhurt,  uninjured,  amid 
all  the  dilapidations  around  it,  and  worked  on 
with  its  wonted  and  its  iron  power,  until  the 
blow  was  sent  from  above  which  crushed  it 
into  fragments  before  us.  And,  however  ap- 
palling that  blow,  and  however  profoundly  it 
smote  upon  our  own  feelings  as  we  beheld  its 
extinguishing  effect  upon  his,  where  else  could 
it  have  fallen  so  fitly  upon  him  ?  Where  else 
could  he  have  been  relieved  from  the  yoke  of 
his  labors  so  well  as  in  the  field  where  he  bore 
them?  Where  else  would  he  himself  have 
been  so  willing  to  have  yielded  up  his  life,  as 
upon  the  post  of  duty,  and  by  the  side  of  that 
very  altar  to  which  he  had  devoted  it  ?  Where 
but  in  the  capitol  of  his  country,  to  which  all 
the  throbbings  and  hopes  of  his  heart  had  been 
given,  would  the  dying  patriot  be  so  willing 
that  those  hopes  and  throbbings  should  cease  ? 
And  where  but  from  this  mansion-house  of  lib- 
erty on  earth,  could  this  dying  Christian  more 
fitly  go  to  his  mansion-house  of  eternal  liberty 
on  high?" 

Mr.  Benton  concluded  in  the  Senate  the  cere- 
monies which  had  commenced  in  the  House, 
pronouncing  the  brief  discourse  which  was  in- 
tended to  group  into  one  cluster  the  varied 
characteristics  of  the  public  and  private  life  of 
this  most  remarkable  man  : 

"  The  voice  of  his  native  State  has  been  heard, 
through  one  of  the  senators  of  Massachusetts, 
announcing  the  death  of  her  aged  and  most  dis- 
tinguished son.  The  voice  of  the  other  senator 
from  Massachusetts  is  not  heard,  nor  is  his 
presence  seen.  A  domestic  calamity,  known  to 
us  all,  and  felt  by  us  all,  confines  him  to  the 
chamber  of  grief  while  the  Senate  is  occupied 
with  the  public  manifestations  of  a  respect  and 
sorrow  which  a  national  loss  inspires.  In  the 
absence  of  that  senator,  and  as  the  member  of 
this  body  longest  here,  it  is  not  unfitting  or  un- 
becoming in  me  to  second  the  motion  which  has 
been  made  for  extending  the  last  honors  of  the 
Senate  to  him  who,  forty-five  years  ago,  was  a 
member  of  this  body,  who,  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  was  among  the  oldest  members  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  and  who,  putting  the 
years  of  his  service  together,  was  the  oldest  of 
all  the  members  of  the  American  government. 

"  The  eulogium  of  Mr.  Adams  is  made  in  the 
facts  of  his  life,  which  the  senator  from  Massa- 
chusetts (Mr.  Davis)  has  so  strikingly  stated, 
that  from  early  manhood  to  octogenarian  age, 
he  has  been  constantly  and  most  honorably 
employed  in  the  public  service.  For  a  period 
of  more  than  fifty  years,  from  the  time  of  his 
I  first  appointment  as  minister  abroad  under 
J  Washington,  to  his  last  election  to  the  House 
of  Representatives  by  the  people  of  his  native 
i  district,  he  has  been  constantly  retained  in  the 


ANNO  1848.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


709 


public  service,  and  that,  not  by  the  favor  of  a 
sovereign,  or  by  hereditary  title,  but  by  the 
elections  and  appointments  of  republican  gov- 
ernment. This  fact  makes  the  eulogy  of  the 
illustrious  deceased.  For  what,  except  a  union 
of  all  the  qualities  which  command  the  esteem 
and  confidence  of  man,  could  have  insured  a 
public  service  so  long,  by  appointments  free 
and  popular,  and  from  sources  so  various  and 
exalted  ?  Minister  many  times  abroad  ;  mem- 
ber of  this  body  ;  member  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives;  cabinet  minister ;  President  of  the 
United  States  ;  such  has  been  the  galaxy  of  his 
splendid  appointments.  And  what  but  moral 
excellence  the  most  perfect ;  intellectual  ability 
the  most  eminent ;  fidelity  the  most  unwaver- 
ing ;  service  the  most  useful ;  would  have  com- 
manded such  a  succession  of  appointments  so 
exalted,  and  from  sources  so  various  and  so 
eminent  ?  Nothing  less  could  have  commanded 
such  a  series  of  appointments  ;  and  accordingly 
we  see  the  union  of  all  these  great  qualities  in 
him  who  has  received  them. 

"In  this  long  career  of  public  service,  Mr. 
Adams  was  distinguished  not  only  by  faithful 
attention  to  all  the  great  duties  of  his  stations, 
but  to  all  their  less  and  minor  duties.  He  was 
not  the  Salaminian  galley,  to  be  launched  only 
on  extraordinary  occasions ;  but  he  was  the 
ready  vessel,  always  under  sail  when  the  duties 
of  his  station  required  it,  be  the  occasion  great 
or  small.  As  President,  as  cabinet  minister,  as 
minister  abroad,  he  examined  all  questions  that 
came  before  him,  and  examined  all,  in  all  their 
parts — in  all  the  minutiae  of  their  detail,  as  well 
as  in  all  the  vastness  of  their  comprehension. 
As  senator,  and  as  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  the  obscure  committee-room 
was  as  much  the  witness  of  his  laborious  appli- 
cation to  the  drudgery  of  legislation,  as  the 
halls  of  the  two  Houses  were  to  the  ever-ready 
speech,  replete  with  knowledge,  which  instruct- 
ed all  hearers,  enlightened  all  subjects,  and  gave 
dignity  and  ornament  to  all  debate. 

"  In  the  observance  of  all  the  proprieties  of 
life,  Mr.  Adams  was  a  most  noble  and  impres- 
sive example.  He  cultivated  the  minor  as  well 
as  the  greater  virtues.  Wherever  his  presence 
could  give  aid  and  countenance  to  what  was 
useful  and  honorable  to  man,  there  he  was.  In 
the  exercises  of  the  school  and  of  the  college — 
in  the  meritorious  meetings  of  the  agricultural, 
mechanical,  and  commercial  societies — in  at- 
tendance upon  Divine  worship — he  gave  the 
punctual  attendance  rarely  seen  but  in  those 
who  are  free  from  the  weight  of  public  cares. 

"  Punctual  to  every  duty,  death  found  him  at 
the  post  of  duty  ;  and  where  else  could  it  have 
found  him,  at  any  stage  of  his  career,  for  the 
fifty  years  of  his  illustrious  public  life  ?  From 
the  time  of  his  first  appointment  by  Washing- 
ton to  his  last  election  by  the  people  of  his  na- 
tive town,  where  could  death  have  found  him 
but  at  the  post  of  duty  ?     At  that  post,  in  the 


fulness  of  age,  in  the  ripeness  of  renown, 
crowned  with  honors,  surrounded  by  his  fami- 
ly, his  friends,  and  admirers,  and  in  the  very 
presence  of  the  national  representation,  he  ha* 
been  gathered  to  his  fathers,  leaving  behind 
him  the  memory  of  public  services  which  are 
the  history  of  his  country  for  half  a  century, 
and  the  example  of  a  life,  public  and  private, 
which  should  be  the  study  and  the  model  of  the 
generations  of  his  countrymen." 

The  whole  ceremony  was  inconceivably  im- 
pressive. The  two  Houses  of  Congress  wire 
filled  to  their  utmost  capacity,  and  of  all  that 
Washington  contained,  and  neighboring  cities 
could  send — the  President,  his  cabinet,  foreign 
ministers,  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  sena- 
tors and  representatives,  citizens  and  visitors. 


CHAPTER    CLXXIII. 

DOWNFALL  OF  SANTA  ANNA:  NEW  GOVERN- 
MENT IN  MEXICO:  PEACE  NEGOTIATIONS: 
TREATY  OF   PEACE 

The  war  was  declared  May  13th,  1846,  upon  a 
belief  grounded  on  the  projected  restoration  of 
Santa  Anna  (then  in  exile  in  Havana),  that  it 
would  be  finished  in  ninety  to  one  hundred  and 
twenty  days,  and  that,  in  the  mean  time,  no 
fighting  would  take  place.  Santa  Anna  did  not 
get  back  until  the  month  of  August;  and, 
simultaneously  with  his  return,  was  the  Presi- 
dent's overture  for  peace,  and  application  to 
Congress  for  two  millions  of  dollars — with 
leave  to  pay  the  money  in  the  city  of  Mexico 
on  the  conclusion  of  peace  there,  without  wait- 
ing for  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  by  the 
United  States.  Such  an  overture,  and  such  an 
application,  and  the  novelty  of  paying  money 
upon  a  treaty  before  it  was  ratified  by  our  own 
authorities,  bespoke  a  great  desire  to  obtain 
peace,  even  by  extraordinary  means.  And  such 
was  the  fact.  The  desire  was  great— the  mean* 
unusual ;  but  the  event  baffled  all  the  calcula- 
tions. Santa  Anna  repulsed  the  peace  overture, 
put  himself  at  the  head  of  armies,  inflamed  the 
war  spirit  of  the  country,  and  fought  desperate- 
ly. It  was  found  that  a  misUkc  had  been 
made— that  the  sword,  and  not  the  olive  branch 
had  been  returned  to  Mexico;  and  that,  before 
peace  could  be  made,  it  became  the  part  of  brave 


710 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


soldiers  to  conquer  by  arms  the  man  whom  in- 
trigue had -brought  back  to  grant  it.  Brought 
back  by  politicians,  he  had  to  be  driven  out  by 
victorious  generals  before  the  peace  he  was  to 
give  could  be  obtained.  The  victories  before 
the  city  of  Mexico,  and  the  capture  of  the  city, 
put  an  end  to  his  career.  The  republican  par- 
ty, which  abhorred  him,  seized  upon  those  de- 
feats to  depose  him.  He  fled  the  country,  and 
a  new  administration  being  organized,  peaceful 
negotiations  were  resumed,  and  soon  terminated 
in  the  desired  pacification.  Mr.  Trist  had  re- 
mained at  his  post,  though  recalled,  and  went 
on  with  his  negotiations.  In  three  months 
after  his  downfall,  and  without  further  opera- 
tion of  arms,  the  treaty  was  signed,  and  all  the 
desired  stipulations  obtained.  New  Mexico  and 
Tipper  California  were  ceded  to  the  United 
States,  and  the  lower  Rio  Grande,  from  its 
mouth  to  El  Paso,  taken  for  the  boundary  of 
Texas.  These  were  the  acquisitions.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  United  States  agreed  to  pay  to 
Mexico  fifteen  millions  of  dollars  in  five  instal- 
ments, annual  after  the  first;  which  first  in- 
stalment, true  to  the  original  idea  of  the  effica- 
cy of  money  in  terminating  the  war,  was  to  be 
paid  down  in  the  city  of  Mexico  as  soon  as  the 
articles  of  pacification  were  signed,  and  ratified 
there.  The  claims  of  American  citizens  against 
Mexico  were  all  assumed,  limited  to  three  and 
a  quarter  millions  of  dollars,  which,  consider- 
ing that  the  war  ostensibly  originated  in  these 
claims,  was  a  very  small  sum.  But  the  largest 
gratified  interest  was  one  which  did  not  appear 
on  the  face  of  the  treaty,  but  had  the  full  bene- 
fit of  being  included  in  it.  They  were  the 
speculators  in  Texas  lands  and  scrip,  now  al- 
lowed to  calculate  largely  upon  their  increased 
value  as  coming  under  the  flag  of  the  American 
Union.  They  were  among  the  original  pro- 
moters of  the  T^fxas  annexation,  among  the 
most  clamorous  for  war,  and  among  the  grati- 
fied at  the  pesiqe.  General  provisions  only 
were  admitted  into  the  treaty  in  favor  of  claims 
and  land  titles.  Upright  and  disinterested  him- 
self, the  negotiator  sternly  repulsed  all  attempts 
to  get  special,  or  personal  provisions  to  be  in- 
serted in  behalf  of  any  individuals  or  compa- 
nies. The  treaty  was  a  singular  conclusion  of 
the  war.  Undertaken  to  get  indemnity  for 
claims,  the  United  States  paid  those  claims 
herself.    Fifteen  millions  of  dollars  were  the 


full  price  of  New  Mexico  and  California — the 
same  that  was  paid  for  all  Louisiana ;  so  that, 
with  the  claims  assumed,  the  amount  paid  for 
the  territories,  and  the  expenses  of  the  war,  the 
acquisitions  were  made  at  a  dear  rate.  The 
same  amount  paid  to  Mexico  without  the  war. 
and  by  treating  her  respectfully  in  treating 
with  her  for  a  boundary  which  would  include 
Texas,  might  have  obtained  the  same  cessions  ; 
for  every  Mexican  knew  that  Texas  was  gone, 
and  that  New  Mexico  and  Upper  California 
were  going  the  same  way,  both  inhabited  and 
dominated  by  American  citizens,  and  the  latter 
actually  severed  from  Mexico  by  a  successful 
revolution  before  the  war  was  known  of,  and 
for  the  purpose  of  being  transferred  to  the 
United  States. 

The  treaty  was  a  fortunate  event  for  the 
United  States,  and  for  the  administration  which 
had  made  it.  The  war  had  disappointed  the 
calculation  on  which  it  began.  Instead  of  brief, 
cheap,  and  bloodless,  it  had  become  long,  costly, 
and  sanguinary :  instead  of  getting  a  peace 
through  the  restoration  of  Santa  Anna,  that 
formidable  chieftain  had  to  be  vanquished  and 
expelled,  before  negotiations  could  be  com- 
menced with  those  who  would  always  have 
treated  fairly,  if  their  national  feelings  had  not 
been  outraged  by  the  aggressive  and  defiant 
manner  in  which  Texas  had  been  incorporated. 
Great  discontent  was  breaking  out  at  home. 
The  Congress  elections  were  going  against  the 
administration,  and  the  aspirants  for  the  presi- 
dency in  the  cabinet  were  struck  with  terror  at 
the  view  of  the  great  military  reputations  which 
were  growing  up.  Peace  was  the  only  escape 
from  so  many  dangers,  and  it  was  gladly  seized 
upon  to  terminate  a  war  which  had  disappointed 
all  calculations,  and  the  very  successes  of  which 
were  becoming  alarming  to  them. 

Mr.  Trist  signed  his  treaty  in  the  beginning 
of  February,  and  it  stands  on  the  statute-book, 
as  it  was  in  fact,  the  sole  work  on  the  Ameri- 
can side,  of  that  negotiator.  Two  ministers 
plenipotentiary  and  envoys  extraordinary  were 
sent  out  to  treat  after  he  had  been  recalled. 
They  arrived  after  the  work  was  dpne,  and  only 
brought  home  what  he  had  finished.  His  name 
alone  is  signed  to  the  treaty  on  the  American 
side,  against  three  on  the  Mexican  side :  his 
name  alone  appears  on  the  American  side  in 
the  enumeration  of  the  ministers  in  the  pream- 


ANNO  1848.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


711 


ble  to  the  treaty.  In  that  preamble  he  is  char- 
acterized as  the  "plenipotentiary"  of  the  United 
States,  and  by  that  title  he  was  described  in  the 
commission  given  him  by  the  President.  His 
work  was  accepted,  communicated  to  the  Sen- 
ate, ratified  ;  and  became  a  supreme  law  of  the 
land :  yet  he  himself  was  rejected !  recalled 
and  dismissed,  without  the  emoluments  of  ple- 
nipotentiary ;  while  two  others  received  those 
emoluments  in  full  for  bringing  home  a  treaty 
in  which  their  names  do  not  appear.  Cer- 
tainly those  who  served  the  government  well 
in  that  war  with  Mexico,  fared  badly  with  the 
administration.  Taylor,  who  had  vanquished 
at  Palo  Alto,  Resaca  de  la  Palma,  Monterey, 
and  Buena  Vista,  was  quarrelled  with :  Scott, 
who  removed  the  obstacles  to  peace,  and  sub- 
dued the  Mexican  mind  to  peace,  was  super- 
seded in  the  command  of  the  army  :  Fremont, 
who  had  snatched  California  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  British,  and  handed  it  over  to  the  United 
States,  was  court-martialled :  and  Trist,  who 
made  the  treaty  which  secured  the  objects  of 
the  war,  and  released  the  administration  from 
its  dangers,  was  recalled  and  dismissed. 


CHAPTER    CLXXIV. 

OREGON  TERRITORIAL  GOVERNMENT:  ANTI- 
SLAVERY  ORDINANCE  OF  17S7  APPLIED  TO 
OREGON  TERRITORY:  MISSOURI  COMPROMISE 
LINE  OF  1820,  AND  THE  TEXAS  ANNEXATION 
RENEWAL  OF  IT  IN  1848,  AFFIRMED. 

It  was  on  the  bill  for  the  establishment  of  the 
Oregon  territorial  government  that  Mr.  Cal- 
houn first  made  trial  of  his  new  doctrine  of, 
u  No  power  in  Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in 
territories  ;"  which,  so  far  from  maintaining,  led 
to  the  affirmation  of  the  contrary  doctrine,  and 
to  the  discovery  of  his  own,  early  as  well  as  late 
support,  of  what  he  now  condemned  as  a  breach 
of  the  constitution,  and  justifiable  cause  for  a 
separation  of  the  slave  from  the  free  States. 
For  it  was  on  this  occasion  that  Senator  Dix, 
of  New  York,  produced  the  ample  proofs  that 
Mr.  Calhoun,  as  a  member  of  Mr.  Monroe's 
cabinet,  supported  the  constitutionality  of  the 
Missouri  compromise  at  the  time  it  was  made ; 


proved  the  same  thing— all  to  be  confirmed  by 
subsequent  authentic  acts.  On  the  motion  of 
Mr.  Hale,  in  the  Senate,  the  bill  (which  had 
come  up  from  the  House  without  any  provision 
on  the  subject  of  slavery)  was  amended  60  as  to 
extend  the  principle  of  the  anti-slavery  clause 
of  the  ordinance  of  '87  to  the  bill.  Mr.  Doug- 
lass moved  to  amend  by  inserting  a  provision 
for  the  extension  of  the  Missouri  compromise 
line  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  His  proposed  amend- 
ment was  specific,  and  intended  to  be  perma- 
nent, and  to  apply  to  the  organization  of  all  fu- 
ture territories  established  in  the  West.  It 
was  in  these  words  : 

"  That  the  line  of  thirty-six  degrees  and  thir- 
ty minutes  of  north  latitude,  known  as  the  Mis- 
souri compromise  line,  as  defined  by  the  eighth 
section  of  an  act  entitled  '  An  act  to  authorize 
the  people  of  the  Missouri  territory  to  form  a 
constitution  and  State  government,  and  for  the 
admission  of  such  State  into  the  Union  on  an 
equal  footing  with  the  original  States,  and  to 
prohibit  slavery  in  certain  territories,  approved 
March  6,  1820,'  be,  and  the  same  is  hereby,  de- 
clared to  extend  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  ;  and  the 
said  eighth  section,  together  with  the  compro- 
mise therein  effected,  is  hereby  revived,  and  de- 
clared to  be  in  full  force  and  binding,  for  the 
future  organization  of  the  territories  of  the 
United  States,  in  the  same  sense,  and  with  the 
same  understanding,  with  which  it  was  origi- 
nally adopted." 

The  yeas  and  nays  were  demanded  on  the 
adoption  of  this  amendment,  and  resulted,  33 
for  it,  22  against  it.     They  were  : 

"Yeas — Messrs.  Atchison,  Badger,  Bell,  Ben- 
ton, Berrien,  Borland,  Bright,  Butler,  Calhoun, 
Cameron,  Davis  of  Mississippi,  Dickinson, 
Douglass,  Downs,  Fitzgerald,  Foote,  Hannegan, 
Houston,  Hunter,  Johnson  of  Maryland,  John- 
son of  Louisiana,  Johnson  of  Georgia,  King, 
Lewis,  Mangum,  Mason,  Metcalfe,  Pearce,  Sebas- 
tian, Spruance,  Sturgeon,  Turney,  Underwood. 

"  Nays— Messrs.  Allen,  Atherton,  Baldwin, 
Bradburv,  Breese.  Clark,  Corwin,  Davis  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, Davton,  Dix,  Dodge,  Fejch,  Greene, 
Hale,  Hamlin,"  Miller,  Niles,  Phelps,  Upham, 
Walker,  Webster." 

The  vote  here  given  by  Mr.  Calhoun  was  in 
contradiction  to  his  new  doctrine,  and  excused 
upon  some  subtle  distinction  between  a  vote  for 
an  amendment,  and  a  bill,  and  upon  a  reserved 
intent  to  vote  against  the  bill  itself  if  adopted. 
Considering  that  his  objections  to  the  matter 


and  his  own  avowals  eighteen  years  afterwards    of  the  amendment  were  constitutional  and  not 


712 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


expedient,  and  that  the  votes  of  others  might    Oregon  bill,  were  denounced  by  name  by  Mr, 


pass  the  bill  with  the  clause  in  it  without  his 
help,  it  is  impossible  to  see  the  validity  of  the 
distinction  with  which  he  satisfied  himself.  His 
language  was  that,  "  though  he  had  voted  for 
the  introduction  of  the  Missouri  compromise, 
he  could  not  vote  for  the  bill  which  he  regard- 
ed as  artificial."  Eventually  the  bill  passed 
through  both  Houses  with  the  anti-slavery 
principle  of  the  ordinance  embraced  in  it; 
whereat  Mr.  Calhoun  became  greatly  excited, 
and  assuming  to  act  upon  the  new  doctrine  that 
he  had  laid  down,  that  the  exclusion  of  slavery 
from  any  territory  was  a  subversion  of  the 
Union,  openly  proclaimed  the  strife  between 
the  North  and  the  South  to  be  ended,  and  the 
separation  of  the  States  accomplished;  called 
upon  the  South  to  do  her  duty  to  herself,  and 
denounced  every  Southern  representative  who 
would  not  follow  the  same  course  that  he  did. 
He  exclaimed : 

"  The  great  strife  between  the  North  and  the 
South  is  ended.  The  North  is  determined  to 
exclude  the  property  of  the  slaveholder,  and  of 
course  the  slaveholder  himself,  from  its  territo- 
ry. On  this  point  there  seems  to  be  no  divi- 
sion in  the  North.  In  the  South,  he  regretted 
to  say,  there  was  some  division  of  sentiment. 
The  effect  of  this  determination  of  the  North 
was  to  convert  all  the  Southern  population  into 
slaves ;  and  he  would  never  consent  to  entail 
that  disgrace  on  his  posterity.  He  denounced 
any  Southern  man  who  would  not  take  the 
same  course.  Gentlemen  were  greatly  mis- 
taken if  they  supposed  the  presidential  ques- 
tion in  the  South  would  override  this  more  im- 
portant one.  The  separation  of  the  North  and 
the  South  is  completed.  The  South  has  now  a 
most  solemn  obligation  to  perform — to  herself 
— to  the  constitution — to  the  Union.  She  is 
bound  to  come  to  a  decision  not  to  permit  this 
to  go  on  any  further,  but  to  show  that,  dearly 
as  she  prizes  the  Union,  there  are  questions 
which  she  regards  as  of  greater  importance 
than  the  Union.  She  is  bound  to  fulfil  her 
obligations  as  she  may  best  understand  them. 
This  is  not  a  question  of  territorial  government, 
but  a  question  involving  the  continuance  of  the 
Union.  Perhaps  it  was  better  that  this  ques- 
tion should  come  to  an  end,  in  order  that  some 
new  point  should  be  taken." 

This  was  an  open  invocation  to  disunion,  and 
from  that  time  forth  the  efforts  were  regular  to 
obtain  a  meeting  of  the  members  from  the  slave 
States,  to  unite  in  a  call  for  a  convention  of  the 
slave  States  to  redress  themselves.  Mr.  Benton 
and  General  Houston,  who  had  supported  the 


Calhoun  after  his  return  to  South  Carolina, 
"as  traitors  to  the  South:"  a  denunciation 
which  they  took  for  a  distinction ;  as,  what  he 
called  treason  to  the  South,  they  knew  to  be 
allegiance  to  the  Union.  The  President,  in  ap- 
proving the  Oregon  bill,  embraced  the  opportu- 
nity to  send  in  a  special  message  on  the  slavery 
agitation,  in  which  he  showed  the  danger  to  the 
Union  from  the  progress  of  that  agitation,  and 
the  necessity  of  adhering  to  the  principles  of 
the  ordinance  of  1787 — the  terms  of  the  Mis- 
souri compromise  of  1820 — and  the  Texas  com- 
promise (as  he  well  termed  it)  of  1845,  as  the 
means  of  averting  the  danger.  These  are  his 
warnings : 

"The  fathers  of  the  constitution — the  wise 
and  patriotic  men  who  laid  the  foundation  of  our 
institutions — foreseeing  the  danger  from  this 
quarter,  acted  in  a  spirit  of  compromise   and 
mutual  concession  on  this  dangerous  and  deli- 
cate subject ;  and  their  wisdom  ought  to  be  the 
guide  of  their  successors.     Whilst  they  left  to 
the  States  exclusively  the  question  of  domestic 
slavery  within  their  respective  limits,  they  pro- 
vided that  slaves,  who  might  escape  into  other 
States  not  recognizing  the  institution  of  slavery, 
shall  '  be  delivered  up  on  the  claim  of  the  party 
to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due.' 
Upon  this  foundation  the  matter  rested  until 
the   Missouri   question   arose.      In   December. 
1819,  application  was  made  to  Congress  by  the 
people  of  the  Missouri  territory  for  admission 
into  the  Union  as  a  State.    The  discussion  upon 
the  subject  in  Congress  involved  the  question 
of  slavery,  and  was  prosecuted  with  such  vio- 
lence as  to  produce  excitements  alarming  to 
every   patriot   in   the   Union.     But  the  good 
genius    of  conciliation   which   presided  at  the 
birth  of  our  institutions  finally  prevailed,  and 
the  Missouri  compromise  was  adopted.     This 
compromise   had    the    effect    of   calming  the 
troubled  waves,  and  restoring  peace  and  good- 
will throughout  the  States  of  the  Union.     I  do 
not  doubt  that  a  similar  adjustment  of  the  ques- 
tions which  now  agitate  the  public  mind  would 
produce  the  same  happy  results.    If  the  legis- 
lation of  Congress  on  the  subject  of  the  other 
territories  shall  not  be  adopted  in  a  spirit  of 
conciliation  and  compromise,  it   is  impossible 
that  the  country  can  be  satisfied,  or  that  the 
most  disastrous  consequences  shall  fail  to  ensue. 
When  Texas  was  admitted  into  our  Union,  the 
same  spirit  of  compromise  which  guided  our 
predecessors   in  the   admission  of  Missouri,  a 
quarter  of  a  century  before,  prevailed  without 
any  serious  opposition.    The  'joint-resolution 
for  annexing  Texas  to  the  United  States,'  ap- 
proved March  the  first,  one  thousand  eight  hun- 
dred and  forty-five,  provides  that  '  such  States 


ANNO  1848.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


713 


as  may  be  formed  out  of  that  portion  of  said 
territory  lying  south  of  thirty-six  degrees  thirty 
minutes  north  latitude,  commonly  known  as  the 
Missouri  compromise  line,  shall  be  admitted 
into  the  Union  with  or  without  slavery,  as  the 
people  of  each  State  asking  admission  may  de- 
sire. And  in  such  State  or  States  as  shall  be 
formed  out  of  said  territory  north  of  the  Mis- 
souri compromise  line,  slavery  or  involuntary 
servitude  (except  for  crime)  shall  be  prohibited. 
The  territory  of  Oregon  lies  far  north  of  thirty- 
six  degrees  thirty  minutes,  the  Missouri  and  Texas 
compromise  line.  Its  southern  boundary  is  the 
parallel  of  forty-two,  leaving  the  intermediate 
distance  to  be  three  hundred  and  thirty  geo- 
graphical miles.  And  it  is  because  the  pro- 
visions of  this  bill  are  not  inconsistent  with  the 
terms  of  the  Missouri  compromise,  if  extended 
from  the  Rio  Grande  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  that 
I  have  not  felt  at  liberty  to  withhold  my  sanc- 
tion. Had  it  embraced  territories  south  of  that 
compromise,  the  question  presented  for  my  con- 
sideration would  have  been  of  a  far  different 
character,  and  my  action  upon  it  must  have  cor- 
responded with  my  convictions. 

"  Ought  we  now  to  disturb  the  Missouri  and 
Texas  compromises?  Ought  we  at  this  late 
day,  in  attempting  to  annul  what  has  been  so 
long  established  and  acquiesced  in,  to  excite 
sectional  divisions  and  jealousies ;  to  alienate 
the  people  of  different  portions  of  the  Union 
from  each  other ;  and  to  endanger  the  existence 
of  the  Union  itself?" 


To  the  momentous  appeals  with  which  this 

extract  concludes,  a  terrible  answer  has  just 

been  given.     To  the  question— Will  you  annul 

these  compromises,  and  excite  jealousies  and  . 

v    ,.       ,     ,.       A.              j        ,             those  attempts,  the  difficulty  was  leaped  over 
divisions,  sectional  alienations,  and  endanger  [,  \  "OS5e  i  ^L  __»_.__    t  _    u  / .*:*..*£»-—• 

the  existence  of  this  Union  ?  the  dreadful  an- 


while  Congress  alone   was   the   power   to  be 
guarded  against:  but  it  became  insufficient, and 
even  a  stumbling-block,  when  New  Mexico  and 
California  were  acquired,  and  where  no  Con- 
gress prohibition  was  necessary  because  their 
soil  was  already  free.     Here  the  dogma  of  '47 
became  an  impediment  to  the  territorial  exten- 
sion of  slavery  ;  for,  in  denying  power  to  legis- 
late upon  the  subject,  the  denial  worked  both 
ways — both  against  the  admission  and  exclusion. 
It  was  on  seeing  this  consequence  as  resulting 
from  the  dogmas  of  1847,  that  Mr.  Ronton  con- 
gratulated the  country  upon  the  approaching 
cessation  of  the   slavery  agitation  —  that   the 
Wilmot  Proviso  being  rejected  as  unnecessary, 
the  question  was  at  an  end.  as  the  friends  of 
slavery  extension  could   not  ask  Congress  to 
pass  a  law  to  carry  it  into  a  territory.     The 
agitation  seemed  to  be  at  an  end,  and  peace 
about  to  dawn  upon  the  land.     Delusive  calcu- 
lation !     A  new  dogma  was  invented  to  fit  the 
case — that  of  the  transmigration  of  the  constitu- 
tion— (the  slavery  part  of  it) — into  the  terri- 
tories, overriding  and  overruling  all  the  anti- 
slavery  laws  which  it  found  there,  and  planting 
the  institution  there  under  its  own  wing,  and 
maintaining  it  beyond  the  power  of  eradication 
either  by  Congress  or  the  people  of  the  terri- 
tory.   Refore  this  dogma  was  proclaimed  efforts 
were  made  to  get  the  constitution  extended  to 
these  territories  by  act  of  Congress:  failing  in 


swer  has  been  given — we  will  !  And  in  record 
ing  that  answer,  History  performs  her  sacred 
duty  in  pointing  to  its  authors  as  the  authors  of 
the  state  of  things  which  now  alarms  and  afflicts 
the  country,  and  threatens  the  calamity  which 
President  Polk  foresaw  and  deprecated. 


CHAPTER    CLXXV. 

MR  CALHOUN'S  NEW  DOGMA  ON  TERRITORIAL 
SLAVERY :  SELF-EXTENSION  OF  THE  SLAVERY 
PART  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION  TO  THE  TERRI- 
TORIES. 

The  resolutions  of  1847  went  no  further  than 
to  deny  the  power  of  Congress  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  a  territory,  and  that  was  enough 


by  boldly  assuming  that  the  constitution  went 
of  itself— that  is  to  say,  the  slavery  part  of  it. 


In  this  exigency  Mr.  Calhoun  came  out  with 
his  new  and  supreme  dogma  of  the  transmigra- 
tory  function  of  the  constitution  in  the  ipso 
facto,  and  the  instantaneous  transportation  of 
itself  in  its  slavery  attributes,  into  all  acquired 
territories.  This  dogma  was  thus  broached  by 
its  author  in  his  speech  upon  the  Oregon  terri- 
torial bill : 

"  But  I  deny  that  the  laics  of  Mexico  can 
have  the  effect  attributed  to  them  (that  ofkeep- 
incr  slavery  out  of  New  Mexico  and  Califor- 
nia). As  soon  as  the  treaty  between  the  two 
countries  is  ratified,  the  tovercigvly  and  au- 
thority of  Mexico  in  the  territory  acquired 
by  it  become  extinct,  and  that  of  the  bmted 
States  is  substituted  in  its  place,  carrying  with 
it  the  constitution,  with  Us  overriding  control 
over  all  the  laws  and  institutions  of  Mexico 
inconsistent  with  it " 


714 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


History  cannot  class  higher  than  as  a  vagary 
of  a  diseased  imagination  this  imputed  self-act- 
ing and  self-extension  of  the  constitution.  The 
constitution  does  nothing  of  itself — not  even  in 
the  States,  for  which  it  was  made.  Every  part 
of  it  requires  a  law  to  put  it  into  operation. 
No  part  of  it  can  reach  a  territory  unless  im- 
parted to  it  by  act  of  Congress.  Slavery,  as  a 
local  institution,  can  only  be  established  by  a 
local  legislative  authority.  It  cannot  transmi- 
grate— cannot  carry  along  with  it  the  law  which 
protects  it :  and  if  it  could,  what  law  would  it 
carry  ?  The  code  of  the  State  from  which  the 
emigrant  went  ?  Then  there  would  be  as  many 
slavery  codes  in  the  territory  as  States  furnish- 
ing emigrants,  and  these  codes  all  varying  more 
or  less ;  and  some  of  them  in  the  essential  na- 
ture of  the  property — the  slave,  in  many  States, 
being  only  a  chattel  interest,  governed  by  the 
laws  applicable  to  chattels — in  others,  as  in 
Louisiana  and  Kentucky,  a  real-estate  interest, 
governed  by  the  laws  which  apply  to  landed  pro- 
perty. In  a  word,  this  dogma  of  the  self-exten- 
sion of  the  slavery  part  of  the  constitution  to  a 
territory  is  impracticable  and  preposterous,  and 
as  novel  as  unfounded. 

It  was  in  this  same  debate,  on  the  Oregon 
territorial  bill,  that  Mr.  Calhoun  showed  that 
he  had  forgotten  the  part  which  he  had  acted 
on  the  Missouri  compromise  question,  and  also 
forgotten  its  history,  and  first  declared  that  he 
held  that  compromise  to  be  unconstitutional 
and  void.     Thus : 

"  After  an  arduous  struggle  of  more  than  a 
year,  on  the  question  whether  Missouri  should 
come  into  the  Union,  with  or  without  restric- 
tions prohibiting  slavery,  a  compromise  line  was 
adopted  between  the  North  and  the  South  ;  but 
it  was  done  under  circumstances  which  made  it 
nowise  obligatory  on  the  latter.  It  is  true,  it 
was  moved  by  one  of  her  distinguished  citizens 
(Mr.  Clay),  but  it  is  equally  so,  that  it  was  car- 
ried by  the  almost  united  vote  of  the  North 
against  the  almost  united  vote  of  the  South ; 
and  was  thus  imposed  on  the  latter  by  superior 
numbers,  in  opposition  to  her  strenuous  efforts. 
The  South  has  never  given  her  sanction  to  it,  or 
assented  to  the  power  it  asserted.  She  was 
voted  down,  and  has  simply  acquiesced  in  an 
arrangement  which  she  has  not  had  the  power 
to  reverse,  and  which  she  could  not  attempt  to 
do  without  disturbing  the  peace  and  harmony 
of  the  Union — to  which  she  has  ever  been  ad- 


All  this  is  error,  and  was  immediately  shown 


to  be  so  by  Senator  Dix  of  New  York,  who 
produced  the  evidence  that  Mr.  Monroe's 
cabinet,  of  which  Mr.  Calhoun  was  a  member, 
had  passed  upon  the  question  of  the  constitu- 
tionality of  that  compromise,  and  given  their 
opinions  in  its  favor.  It  has  also  been  seen 
since  that,  as  late  as  1838,  Mr.  Calhoun  was  in 
favor  of  that  compromise,  and  censured  Mr. 
Randolph  for  being  against  it ;  and,  still  later, 
in  1845,  he  acted  his  part  in  re-enacting  that 
compromise,  and  re-establishing  its  line,  in  that 
part  of  it  which  had  been  abrogated  by  the  laws 
and  constitution  of  Texas,  and  which,  if  not  re- 
established, would  permit  slavery  in  Texas,  to 
spread  south  of  36°  30'.  Forgetting  his  own 
part  in  that  compromise,  Mr.  Calhoun  equally 
forgot  that  of  others.  He  says  Mr.  Clay  moved 
the  compromise — a  clear  mistake,  as  it  came 
down  to  the  House  from  the  Senate,  as  an 
amendment  to  the  House  restrictive  bill.  He 
says  it  was  carried  by  the  almost  united  voice 
of  the  North  against  the  almost  united  voice  of 
the  South — a  clear  mistake  again,  for  it  was 
carried  in  the  Senate  by  the  united  voice  of  the 
South,  with  the  aid  of  a  few  votes  from  the 
North;  and  in  the  House,  by  a  majority  of 
votes  from  each  section,  making  134  to  42.  He 
says  it  was  imposed  on  the  South :  on  the  con- 
trary, it  was  not  only  voted  for,  but  invoked 
and  implored  by  its  leading  men — by  all  in  the 
Senate,  headed  by  Mr.  Pinkney  of  Maryland; 
by  all  in  the  House,  headed  by  Mr.  Lowndes, 
with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Randolph,  whom  Mr. 
Calhoun  has  since  authentically  declared  he 
blamed  at  the  time  for  his  opposition.  So  far 
from  being  imposed  on  the  South,  she  re-estab- 
lished it  when  she  found  it  down  at  the  re- 
covery of  Texas.  Every  member  of  Congress 
that  voted  for  the  legislative  admission  of  Texas 
in  1845,  voted  for  the  re- establishment  of  the 
prostrate  Missouri  compromise  line:  and  that 
vote  comprehended  the  South,  with  Mr.  Cal- 
houn at  its  head — not  as  a  member  of  Congress, 
but  as  Secretary  of  State,  promoting  that  legis- 
lative admission  of  Texas,  and  seizing  upon  it  in 
preference  to  negotiation,  to  effect  the  admis- 
sion. This  was  on  the  third  day  of  March, 
1845 ;  so  that  up  to  that  day,  which  was  only 
two  years  before  the  invention  of  the  "no 
power  "  dogma,  Mr.  Calhoun  is  estopped  by  his 
own  act  from  denying  the  constitutionality  of 
the  Missouri  compromise :  and  in  that  estoppel 


ANNO  1848.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


715 


is  equally  included  every  member  of  Congress 
that  then  voted  for  that  admission.  He  says 
the  South  never  gave  her  sanction  to  it :  on  the 
contrary,  she  did  it  twice — at  its  enactment  in 
1820,  and  at  its  re-establishment  in  1845  He 
says  she  was  voted  down :  on  the  contrary,  she 
was  voted  up,  and  that  twice,  and  by  good  help 
added  to  her  own  exertions — and  for  which  she 
was  duly  grateful  both  times.  All  this  the  jour- 
nals and  legislative  history  of  the  times  will 
prove,  and  which  any  person  may  see  that  will 
take  the  trouble  to  look.  But  admit  all  these 
errors  of  fact,  Mr.  Calhoun  delivered  a  sound  and 
patriotic  sentiment  which  his  disciples  have  dis- 
regarded and  violated :  He  would  not  attempt 
to  reverse  the  Missouri  compromise,  because  it 
would  disturb  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the 
Union.  What  he  would  not  attempt,  they  have 
done :  and  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Union 
are  not  only  disturbed,  but  destroyed. 

In  the  same  speech  the  dogma  of  squatter 
sovereignty  was  properly  repudiated  and 
scouted,  though  condemnation  was  erroneously 
derived  from  a  denial,  instead  of  an  assertion, 
of  the  power  of  Congress  over  it.  "  Of  all  the 
positions  ever  taken  on  the  subject,  he  declared 
this  of  squatter  sovereignty  to  be  the  most 
absurd : "  and,  going  on  to  trace  the  absurdity 
to  its  consequences,  he  said : 

"  The  first  half-dozen  of  squatters  would  be- 
come the  sovereigns,  with  full  dominion  and 
sovereignty  over  the  territories ;  and  the  con- 
quered people  of  New  Mexico  and  California 
would  become  the  sovereigns  of  the  country  as 
soon  as  they  become  territories  of  the  United 
States,  vested  with  the  full  right  of  excluding 
even  their  conquerors." 

Mr.  Calhoun  concluded  this  speech  on  the 
Oregon  bill,  in  which  he  promulgated  his  latest 
dogmas  on  slavery,  with  referring  the  future' 
hypothetical  dissolution  of  the  Union,  to  three 
phases  of  the  slavery  question:  1.  The  ordi- 
nance of  '87.  2.  The  compromise  of  1820.  3. 
The  Oregon  agitation  of  that  day,  1848.  These 
were  his  words : 

"  Now,  let  me  say,  Senators,  if  our  Union  and 
system  of  government  are  doomed  to  perish, 
and  we  to  share  the  fate  of  so  many  great  peo- 
ple who  have  gone  before  us,  the  historian,  who, 
in  some  future  day,  may  record  the  events  tend- 
ing to  so  calamitous  a  result,  will  devote  his 
first  chapter  to  the  ordinance  of  1787,  as  lauded 
as  it  and  its  authors  have  been,  as  the  first  in 


that  series  which  led  to  it.  His  next  chapter 
will  be  devoted  to  the  Missouri  compromise,  and 
the  next  to  the  present  agitation.  Whether 
there  will  be  another  beyond,  I  know  not.  It 
will  depend  on  what  we  may  do." 

These  the  three  causes :  The  ordinance  of 
1787,  which  was  voted  for  by  every  slave  State 
then  in  existence :  The  compromise  of  1820,  sup- 
ported by  himself,  and  the  power  of  the  South : 
The  Oregon  agitation  of  1848,  of  which  he  was 
the  sole  architect — for  he  was  the  founder  of 
the  opposition  to  free  soil  in  Oregon.  But  the 
historian  will  have  to  say  that  neither  of  these 
causes  dissolved  the  Union :  and  that  historian 
may  have  to  relate  that  a  fourth  cause  did  it — 
and  one  from  which  Mr.  Calhoun  recoiled,  "  be- 
cause it  could  not  be  attempted  without  dis- 
turbing the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Union,!' 


CHAPTER   CLXXVI. 

COURT-MAKTIAL    ON    LIEUTENANT-COLONEL 
FREMONT. 

Columbus,  the  discoverer  of  the  New  World, 
was  carried  home  in  chains,  from  the  theatre  of 
his  discoveries,  to  expiate  the  crime  of  his  glory : 
Fremont,  the  explorer  of  California  and  its  pre- 
server to  the  United  States,  was  brought  home 
a  prisoner  to  be  tried  for  an  offence,  of  which 
the  penalty  was  death,  to  expiate  the  offence  of 
having  entered  the  army  without  passing  through 
the  gate  of  the  Military  Academy. 

The  governor  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  Aus- 
tin A.  King,  Esq.,  sitting  at  the  end  of  a  long 
gallery  at  Fort  Leavenworth,  in  the  summer  of 
1846,  where  he  had  gone  to  see  a  son  depart  as 
a  volunteer  in  General  Kearney's  expedition  to 
New  Mexico,  heard  a  person  at  the  other  end 
of  the  gallery  speaking  of  Fremont  in  a  way 
that  attracted  his  attention.  The  speaker  was 
in  the  uniform  of  a  United  States  officer,  and 
his  remarks  were  highly  injurious  to  Fremont. 
He  inquired  the  name  of  the  speaker,  and  was 
told  it  was  Lieutenant  Emory,  of  the  Topo- 
graphical corps ;  and  he  afterwards  wrote  to  a 
friend  in  Washington  that  Fremont  was  to  have 
trouble  when  he  got  among  the  officers  of  the 
regular  army  :  and  trouble  he  did  have :  for  he 
had  committed  the  offence  for  which,  in  the  eyes 


716 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  many  of  these  officers,  there  was  no  expia- 
tion except  in  ignominious  expulsion  from  the 
army.  He  had  not  only  entered  the  army  in- 
trusively, according  to  their  ideas,  that  is  to 
say,  without  passing  through  West  Point,  but  he 
had  done  worse :  he  had  become  distinguished. 
Instead  of  seeking  easy  service  about  towns  and 
villages,  he  had  gone  off  into  the  depths  of  the 
wilderness,  to  extend  the  boundaries  of  science 
in  the  midst  of  perils  and  sufferings,  and  to  gain 
for  himself  a  name  which  became  known 
throughout  the  world.  He  was  brought  home 
to  be  tried  for  the  crime  of  mutiny,  expanded 
into  many  specifications,  of  which  one  is  enough 
to  show  the  monstrosity  of  the  whole.  At 
page  11  of  the  printed  record  of  the  trial,  under 
the  head  of  "  Mutiny  "  stands  this  specification, 
numbered  6 : 

"  In  this,  that  he,  Lieutenant-colonel  John  C. 
Fremont,  of  the  regiment  of  mounted  riflemen, 
United  States  army,  did,  at  Ciudad  de  los  An- 
geles, on  the  second  of  March,  1847,  in  contempt 
of  the  lawful  authority  of  his  superior  officer, 
Brigadier-general  Kearney,  assume  to  be  and 
act  as  governor  of  California,  in  executing  a 
deed  or  instrument  of  writing  in  the  following 
words,  to  wit :  '  In  consideration  of  Francis 
Temple  having  conveyed  to  the  United  States  a 
certain  island,  commonly  called.  While,  or  Bird 
Island,  situated  near  the  mouth  of  San  Fran- 
cisco Bay,  I,  John  C.  Frimont,  Governor  of 
California,  and  in  virtue  of  my  office  as  afore- 
said, hereby  oblige  myself  as  the  legal  represen- 
tative of  the  United  States,  and  my  successors 
in  office,  to  pay  the  said  Francis  Temple,  his 
heirs  or  assigns,  the  sum  of  $5,000,  to  be  paid 
at  as  early  a  day  as  possible  after  the  receipt 
of  funds  from  the  United  States.  In  witness 
whereof  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand,  and 
caused  the  seal  of  the  Territory  of  California 
to  be  affixed,  at  Ciudad  de  los  Angeles,  the 
capital  of  California,  this  2d  day  of  March. 
A.  D.  \WI.—John  C.  Fremont.' " 

And  of  this  specification,  as  well  as  of  all  the 
rest,  two  dozen  in  number,  Fremont  was  duly 
found  guilty  by  a  majority  of  the  court.  Now 
this  case  of  mutiny  consisted  in  this :  That 
there  being  an  island  of  solid  rock,  of  some 
hundred  acres  extent,  in  the  mouth  of  the  San 
Francisco  bay,  formed  by  nature  to  command 
the  bay,  and  on  which  the  United  States  are 
now  constructing  forts  and  &  light-house  to  cost 
millions,  which  island  had  been  granted  to  a 
British  subject  and  was  about  to  be  sold  to  a 
French  subject,  Colonel  Fremont  bought  it  for 
the  United  States,  subject  to  their  ratifica- 
tion in  paying  the  purchase  money :  all  which 


appears  upon  the  face  of  the  papers.  Upon  this 
transaction  (as  upon  all  the  other  specifications) 
the  majority  of  the  court  found  the  accused 
guilty  of  "mutiny,"  the  appropriate  punishment 
for  which  is  death ;  but  the  sentence  was  mod- 
erated down  to  dismission  from  the  service. 
The  President  disapproved  the  absurd  findings 
(seven  of  them)  under  the  mutiny  charge,  but 
approved  the  finding  and  sentence  on  inferior 
charges  ;  and  offered  a  pardon  to  Fremont : 
which  he  scornfully  refused.  Since  then  the  gov- 
ernment has  taken  possession  of  that  island  by 
military  force,  without  paying  any  thing  for  it ; 
Fremont  having  taken  the  purchase  on  his  own 
account  since  his  conviction  for  "  mutiny  "  in 
having  purchased  it  for  the  government — a  con- 
viction about  equal  to  what  it  would  have  been 
on  a  specification  for  witchcraft,  heresy,  or 
u  flat  burglary."  And  now  annual  appropria- 
tions are  made  for  forts  and  the  light-house  upon 
it,  under  the  name  of  Alcatraz,  or  Los  Alca- 
trazes — that  is  to  say,  Pelican  Island  ;  so  called 
from  being  the  resort  of  those  sea  birds. 

Justice  to  the  dead  requires  it  to  be  told  that 
these  charges,  so  preposterously  wicked,  were 
not  the  work  of  General  Kearney,  but  had  been 
altered  from  his.  At  page  64  of  the  printed 
record,  and  not  in  answer  to  any  question  on 
that  point,  but  simply  to  place  himself  right  be- 
fore the  court,  and  the  country,  General  Kear- 
ney swore  in  these  words,  and  signed  them: 
"  The  charges  upon  which  Colonel  Fremont  is 
now  arraigned,  are  not  my  charges.  I  prefer- 
red a  single  charge  against  Lieutenant-colonel 
Fremont.  These  charges,  upon  which  he  is 
now  arraigned,  have  been  changed  from 
mine.'1  The  change  was  from  one  charge  to  three, 
and  from  one  or  a  few  specifications  to  two  dozen 
— whereof  this  island  purchase  is  a  characteristic 
specimen.  No  person  has  ever  acknowledged  the 
authorship  of  the  change,  but  the  caption  to  the 
charges  (page  4  of  the  record)  declares  them  to 
have  been  preferred  by  order  of  the  War  De- 
partment. The  caption  runs  thus :  "  Charges 
against  Lieutenant-colonel  Fremont,  of  the 
regiment  of  mounted  riflemen,  Unite  d  States 
army,  preferred  against  him  by  order  of  the 
War  Department,  on  information  of  Brigadier- 
general  Kearney."  The  War  Department,  at 
that  time,  was  W  illiam  L.  Marcy,  Esq.;  in  con- 
sequence of  which  Senator  Benton,  chairman 
for  twenty  years  of  the  Senate's  committee  on 
Military  Affairs,  refused  to  remain  any  longer  at 


ANNO  1848.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


717 


the  head  of  that  committee,  because  he  would 
not  hold  a  place  which  would  put  him  in  com- 
munication with  that  department. 

The  gravamen  of  the  charge  was,  that  Fre- 
mont had  mutinied  because  Kearney  would  not 
appoint  him  governor  of  California;  and  the 
answer  to  that  was,  that  Commodore  Stockton, 
acting  under  full  authority  from  the  President, 
had  already  appointed  him  to  that  place  before 
Kearney  left  Santa  Fe  for  New  Mexico :  and 
the  proof  was  ample,  clear,  and  pointed  to  that 
effect :  but  more  has  since  been  found,  and  of  a 
kind  to  be  noticed  by  a  court  of  West  Point 
officers,  as  it  comes  from  graduates  of  the  insti- 
tution. It  so  happens  that  two  of  General 
Kearney's  officers  (Captain  Johnston,  of  the 
First  Dragoons,  and  Lieutenant  Emory,  of  the 
Topographical  corps),  both  kept  journals  of  the 
expedition,  which  have  since  been  published, 
and  that  both  these  journals  contain  the  same 
proof — one  by  a  plain  and  natural  statement — 
the  other  by  an  unnatural  suppression  which 
betrays  the  same  knowledge.  The  journal  of 
Captain  Johnston,  of  the  first  dragoons,  under 
the  date  of  October  6th,  1846,  contains  this 
entry : 

"  Marched  at  9,  after  having  great  trouble  in 
getting  some  ox  carts  from  the  Mexicans  :  after 
marching  about  three  miles  we  met  Kit  Carson, 
direct  on  express  from  California,  with  a  mail 
of  public  letters  for  Washington.  He  informs 
us  that  Colonel  Fremont  is  probably  civil  and 
military  governor  of  California,  and  that  about 
forty  days  since,  Commodore  Stockton  with  the 
naval  forces,  and  Colonel  Fremont,  acting  in 
concert,  commenced  to  revolutionize  that  coun- 
try, and  place  it  under  the  American  flag :  that 
in  about  ten  days  this  was  done,  and  Carson 
having  received  the  rank  of  lieutenant,  was 
despatched  across  the  country  by  the  Gila,  with 
a  party  to  carry  the  mail.  The  general  told 
him  that  he  had  just  passed  over  the  country 
which  we  were  to  traverse,  and  he  wanted  him 
to  go  back  with  him  as  a  guide :  he  replied  that 
he  had  pledged  himself  to  go  to  Washington, 
and  he  could  not  think  of  not  fulfilling  his 
promise.  The  general  told  him  he  would  re- 
lieve him  of  all  responsibility,  and  place  the 
mail  in  the  hands  of  a  safe  person  to  carry  it 
on.  He  finally  consented,  and  turned  his  face 
towards  the  West  again,  just  as  he  was  on  the 
eve  of  entering  the  settlements,  after  his  arduous 
trip,  and  when  he  had  set  his  hopes  on  seeing 
his  family.  It  requires  a  brave  man  to  give  up 
his  private  feelings  thus  for  the  public  good ;  but 
Carson  is  one  :  such  honor  to  his  name  for  it." 

This  is  a  natural  and  straightforward  account 


of  this  meeting  with  Carson,  and  of  the  informa- 
tion he  gave,  that  California  was  conquered  by 
Stockton  and  Fremont,  and  the  latter  governor 
of  it ;  and  the  journal  goes  on  to  show  that,  in 
consequence  of  this  information,  General  Kear- 
ney turned  back  the  body  of  his  command,  and 
went  on  with  an  escort  only  of  one  hundred 
dragoons.  Lieutenant  Emory's  journal  of  the 
same  date  opens  in  the  same  way,  with  the 
same  account  of  the  difficulty  of  getting  some 
teams  from  the  Mexicans,  and  then  branches 
off  into  a  dissertation  upon  peonage,  and  winds 
up  the  day  with  saying :  "  Came  into  camp 
late,  and  found  Carson  with  an  express  from 
California,  bearing  intelligence  that  the  coun- 
try had  surrendered  without  a  blow,  and  that 
the  American  flag  floated  in  every  part." 
This  is  a  lame  account,  not  telling  to  whom  the 
country  had  surrendered,  eschewing  all  mention 
of  Stockton  and  Fremont,  and  that  governorship 
which  afterwards  became  the  point  in  the  court- 
martial  trial.  The  next  day's  journal  opens 
with  Carson's  news,  equally  lame  at  the  same 
point,  and  redundant  in  telling  something  in 
New  Mexico,  under  date  of  Oct.  7th,  1846, 
which  took  place  the  next  year  in  old  Mexico, 
thus :  "  Yesterday's  news  caused  some  changes 
in  our  camp :  one  hundred  dragoons,  officered, 
tf-c,  formed  the  party  for  California.  Major 
Sumner,  with  the  dragoons,  was  ordered  to 
retrace  his  steps."  Here  the  news  brought  by 
Carson  is  again  referred  to,  and  the  consequence 
of  receiving  it  is  stated ;  but  still  no  mention 
of  Fremont  and  Stockton,  and  that  governor- 
ship, the  question  of  which  became  the  whole 
point  in  the  next  year's  trial  for  mutiny.  But 
the  lack  of  knowledge  of  what  took  place  in  his 
presence  is  more  than  balanced  by  a  foresight 
into  what  took  place  afterwards  and  far  from 
him — exhibited  thus  in  the  journal :  "  Many 
friends  here  parted  that  were  never  to  meet 
again:  some  fell  in  California,  some  in  New 
Mexico,  and  some  at  Cerro  Gordo."  Now,  no 
United  States  troops  fell  in  New  Mexico  until 
after  Lieutenant  Emory  left  there,  nor  in  Cali- 
fornia until  he  got  there,  nor  at  Cerro  Gordo 
until  April  of  the  next  year,  when  he  was  in 
California,  and  could  not  know  it  until  after  Fre- 
mont was  fixed  upon  to  be  arrested  for  that 
mutiny  of  which  the  governorship  was  the 
point.  It  stands  to  reason,  then,  that  this  part 
of  the  journal  was  altered  nearly  a  year  after  it 


718 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


purports  to  have  been  written,  and  after  the 
arrest  of  Fremont  had  been  resolved  upon ;  and 
so,  while  absolutely  proving  an  alteration  of 
the  journal,  explains  the  omission  of  all  mention 
of  all  reference  to  the  governorship,  the  ignor- 
ing of  which  was  absolutely  essential  to  the  in- 
stitution of  the  charge  of  mutiny. — Long  after- 
wards, and  without  knowing  a  word  of  what 
Captain  Johnston  had  written,  or  Lieutenant 
Emory  had  suppressed,  Carson  gave  his  own 
statement  of  that  meeting  with  General  Kear- 
ney, the  identity  of  which  with  the  statement 
of  Captain  Johnston,  is  the  identity  of  truth 
with  itself.     Thus : 

"  I  met  General  Kearney,  with  his  troops,  on 

the   6th  of  October,   about  miles  below 

Santa  Fe.  I  had  heard  of  their  coming,  and 
when  I  met  them,  the  first  thing  I  told  them 
was  that  they  were  '  too  late  ' — that  California 
was  conquered,  and  the  United  States  flag  raised 
in  all  parts  of  the  country.  But  General  Kear- 
ney said  he  would  go  on,  and  said  something 
about  going  to  establish  a  civil  government.  I 
told  him  a  civil  government  was  already  estab- 
lished, and  Colonel  Fremont  appointed  governor, 
to  commence  as  soon  as  he  returned  from  the 
north,  some  time  in  that  very  month  (October). 
General  Kearney  said  that  made  no  difference — 
that  he  was  a  friend  of  Colonel  Fremont,  and 
he  would  make  him  governor  himself.  He  be- 
gan from  the  first  to  insist  on  my  turning  back 
to  guide  him  into  California.  I  told  him  I  could 
not  turn  back — that  I  had  pledged  myself  to 
Commodore  Stockton  and  Colonel  Fremont  to 
take  their  despatches  through  to  Washington 
City,  and  to  return  with  despatches  as  far  as 
New  Mexico,  where  my  family  lived,  and  to 
carry  them  all  the  way  back  if  I  did  not  find 
some  one  at  Santa  Fe  that  I  could  trust  as  well 
as  I  could  myself— that  I  had  promised  them  I 
would  reach  Washington  in  sixty  days,  and  that 
they  should  have  return  despatches  from  the 
government  in  120  days.  I  had  performed  so 
much  of  the  journey  in  the  appointed  time,  and 
in  doing  so  had  already  worn  out  and  killed 
thirty-four  mules — that  Stockton  and  Fremont 
had  given  me  letters  of  credit  to  persons  on  the 
way  to  furnish  me  with  all  the  animals  I  needed, 
and  all  the  supplies  to  make  the  trip  to  Wash- 
ington and  back  in  120  days ;  and  that  I  was 
pledged  to  them,  and  could  not  disappoint  them  ; 
and  besides,  that  I  was  under  more  obligations 
to  Colonel  Fremont  than  to  any  other  man 
alive.  General  Kearney  would  not  hear  of  any 
such  thing  as  my  going  on.  He  told  me  he 
was  a  friend  to  Colonel  Fremont  and  Colonel 
Benton,  and  all  the  family,  and  would  send  on 
the  despatches  by  Mr.  Fitzpatrick,  who  had 
been  with  Colonel  Fremont  in  his  exploring 
party,  and  was  a  good  friend  to  him,  and  would 


take  the  despatches  through,  and  bring  back 
despatches  as  quick  as  I  could.  When  he  could 
not  persuade  me  to  turn  back,  he  then  told  me 
that  he  had  a  right  to  make  me  go  with  him, 
and  insisted  on  his  right ;  and  I  did  not  con- 
sent to  turn  back  till  he  had  made  me  believe 
that  he  had  a  right  to  order  me ;  and  then,  as 
Mr.  Fitzpatrick  was  going  on  with  the  despatches 
and  General  Kearney  seemed  to  be  such  a  good 
friend  of  the  colonel's,  I  let  him  take  me  back ; 
and  I  guided  him  through,  but  went  with  great 
hesitation,  and  had  prepared  every  thing  to  es- 
cape the  night  before  they  started,  and  made 
known  my  intention  to  Maxwell,  who  urged  me 
not  to  do  so.  More  than  twenty  times  on  the 
road,  General  Kearney  told  me  about  his  being 
a  friend  of  Colonel  Benton  and  Colonel  Fre- 
mont, and  all  their  family,  and  that  he  intended 
to  make  Colonel  Fremont  the  governor  of  Cali- 
fornia ;  and  all  this  of  his  own  accord,  as  we 
were  travelling  along,  or  in  camp,  and  without 
my  saying  a  word  to  him  about  it.  I  say,  more 
than  twenty  times,  for  I  cannot  remember  how 
many  times,  it  was  such  a  common  thing  for 
him  to  talk  about  it." 

Such  was  the  statement  of  Mr.  Carson,  made 
to  Senator  Benton ;  and  who,  although  rejected 
for  a  lieutenancy  in  the  United  States  army  be- 
cause he  did  not  enter  it  through  the  gate  of  the 
military  academy,  is  a  man  whose  word  will 
stand  wherever  he  is  known,  and  who  is  at  the 
head,  as  a  guide,  of  the  principal  military  suc- 
cesses in  New  Mexico.  But  why  back  his 
word  ?  The  very  despatches  he  was  carrying 
conveyed  to  the  government  the  same  informa- 
tion that  he  gave  to  General  Kearney,  to  wit, 
that  California  was  conquered  and  Fremont  to 
be  governor.  That  information  was  communi- 
cated to  Congress  by  the  President,  and  also 
sworn  to  by  Commodore  Stockton  before  the 
court-martial :  but  without  any  effect  upon  the 
majority  of  the  members. 

Colonel  Fremont  was  found  guilty  of  all  the 
charges,  and  all  the  specifications ;  and  in  the 
secrecy  which  hides  the  proceedings  of  courts- 
martial,  it  cannot  be  told  how,  or  whether  the 
members  divided  in  their  opinions ;  but  circum- 
stances always  leak  out  to  authorize  the  forma- 
tion of  an  opinion,  and  according  to  these  leak- 
ings,  on  this  occasion  four  members  of  the  court 
were  against  the  conviction  :  to  wit,  Brigadier- 
general  Brooke,  President ;  Lieutenant-colonel 
Hunt;  Lieutenant-colonel  Taylor,  brother  of 
the  afterwards  President ;  and  Major  Baker,  of 
the  Ordnance.  The  proceedings  required  to  be 
approved,  or  disapproved,  by  the  President  j 


ANNO  1848.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


719 


and  he,  although  no  military  man,  was  a  rational 
man,  and  common  reason  told  him  there  was  no 
mutiny  in  the  case.  He  therefore  disapproved 
that  finding,  and  approved  the  rest,  saying : 

"  Upon  an  inspection  of  the  record,  I  am  not 
satisfied  that  the  facts  proved  in  this  case  con- 
stitute the  military  crime  of  '  mutiny.'  I  am 
of  opinion  that  the  second  and  third  charges  are 
sustained  by  the  proof,  and  that  the  conviction 
upon  these  charges  warrants  the  sentence  of 
the  court.  The  sentence  of  the  court  is  there- 
fore approved ;  but  in  consideration  of  the  pe- 
culiar circumstances  of  the  case — of  the  previous 
meritorious  and  valuable  services  of  Lieutenant- 
colonel  Fremont,  and  of  the  foregoing  recom- 
mendation of  a  majority  of  the  court,  to  the 
clemency  of  the  President,  the  sentence  of  dis- 
missal from  the  service  is  remitted.  Lieutenant- 
col.  Fremont  will  accordingly  be  released  from 
arrest,  will  resume  his  sword,  and  report  for 
duty."     (Dated,  February  17,  1848.) 

Upon  the  instant  of  receiving  this  order, 
Fremont  addressed  to  the  adjutant-general  this 
note: 

"I  have  this  moment  received  the  general 
order,  No.  7  (dated  the  17th  instant),  making 
known  to  me  the  final  proceedings  of  the  gen- 
eral court-martial  before  which  I  have  been 
tried;  and  hereby  send  in  my  resignation  of 
lieutenant-colonel  in  the  army  of  the  United 
States.  In  doing  this  I  take  the  occasion  to 
say,  that  my  reason  for  resigning  is,  that  I  do 
not  feel  conscious  of  having  done  any  thing  to 
deserve  the  finding  of  the  court ;  and,  this 
being  the  case,  I  cannot,  by  accepting  the 
clemency  of  the  President,  admit  the  justice  of 
the  decision  against  me." 

General  Kearney  had  two  misfortunes  in  this 
court-martial  affair :  he  had  to  appear  as  prose- 
cutor of  charges  which  he  swore  before  the 
court  were  not  his :  and  he  had  been  attended 
by  West  Point  officers,  envious  and  jealous  of 
Fremont,  and  the  clandestine  sources  of  poison- 
ous publications  against  him,  which  inflamed 
animosities,  and  left  the  heats  which  they  en- 
gendered to  settle  upon  the  head  of  General 
Kearney.  Major  Cooke  and  Lieutenant  Emory 
were  the  chief  springs  of  these  publications,  and 
as  such  were  questioned  before  the  court,  but 
shielded  from  open  detection  by  the  secret  de- 
cisions of  the  majority  of  the  members. 

The  secret  proceedings  of  courts-martial  are 
out  of  harmony  with  the  progress  of  the  age. 
Such  proceedings  should  be  as  open  and  public 
as  any  other,  and  all  parties  left  to  the  respon- 
sibility which  publicity  involves. 


CHAPTER    CLXXVII. 

FREMONTS  FOURTH  EXPEDITION,  AND  GREAT 
DISASTER  IN  THE  SNOWS  AT  THE  HEAD  OF 
THE  RIO  GRANDE  DEL  NORTE:  SUBSEQUENT 
DISCOVERY  OF  THE  PASS  HE  SOUGHT. 

No  sooner  freed  from  the  army,  than  Fremont 
set  out  upon  a  fourth  expedition  to  the  western 
slope  of  our  continent,  now  entirely  at  his  own 
expense,  and  to  be  conducted  during  the  winter, 
and  upon  a  new  line  of  exploration.  His  views 
were  practical  as  well  as  scientific,  and  tending 
to  the  establishment  of  a  railroad  to  the  Pacific, 
as  well  as  the  enlargement  of  geographical 
knowledge.  He  took  the  winter  for  his  time,  as 
that  was  the  season  in  which  to  see  all  the  dis- 
advantages of  his  route ;  and  the  head  of  the  Rio 
Grande  del  Norte  for  his  line,  as  it  was  the  line 
of  the  centre,  and  one  not  yet  explored,  and  al- 
ways embraced  in  his  plan  of  discovery.  The 
mountain  men  had  informed  him  that  there  was 
a  good  pass  at  the  head  of  the  Del  Norte.  Be- 
sides other  dangers  and  hardships,  he  had  the 
war  ground  of  the  Utahs,  Apaches,  Navahoes, 
and  other  formidable  tribes  to  pass  through, 
then  all  engaged  in  hostilities  with  the  United 
States,  and  ready  to  prey  upon  any  party  of 
whites ;  but  33  of  his  old  companions,  120 
picked  mules,  fine  rifles — experience,  vigilance 
and  courage — were  his  reliance ;  and  a  trusted 
security  against  all  evil.  Arrived  at  the  Pueblos 
on  the  Upper  Arkansas,  the  last  of  November, 
at  the  base  of  the  first  sierra  to  be  crossed, 
luminous  with  snow  and>^ern  in  their  dominat- 
ing look,  he  dismounted  his  whole  company, 
took  to  their  feet,  and  wading  waist-deep  in  the 
vast  unbroken  snow  field,  arrived  on  the  other 
side  in  the  beautiful  valley  of  San  Luis  ;  but  still 
on  the  eastern  side  of  the  great  mountain  chain 
which  divided  the  waters  which  ran  east  and 
west  to  the  rising  and  the  setting  sun.  At  the 
head  of  that  valley  was  the  pass,  described  to 
him  by  the  old  hunters.  With  his  glasses  he 
could  see  the  depression  in  the  mountain  which 
marked  its  place.  He  had  taken  a  local  guide 
from  the  Pueblo  San  Carlos  to  lead  him  to  that 
pass.  But  this  precaution  for  safety  was  the 
passport  to  disaster.  He  was  behind,  with  his 
faithful  draughtsman,  Preuss,  when  he  saw  his 


720 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


guide  leading  off  the  company  towards  a 
mass  of  mountains  to  the  left :  he  rode  up  and 
stopped  them,  remonstrated  with  the  guide  for 
two  hours  ;  and  then  yielded  to  his  positive  as- 
sertion that  the  pass  was  there.  The  company 
entered  a  tortuous  gorge,  following  a  valley 
through  which  ran  a  head  stream  of  the  great 
river  Del  Norte.  Finally  they  came  to  where 
the  ascent  was  to  begin,  and  the  summit  range 
crossed.  The  snow  was  deep,  the  cold  intense, 
the  acclivity  steep,  and  the  huge  rocks  project- 
ing. The  ascent  was  commenced  in  the  morn- 
ing, struggled  with  during  the  day,  an  elevation 
reached  at  which  vegetation  (wood)  ceased,  and 
the  summit  in  view,  when,  buried  in  snow,  ex- 
hausted with  fatigue,  freezing  with  cold,  and  in- 
capable of  further  exertion,  the  order  was  given 
to  fall  back  to  the  line  of  vegetation  where 
wood  would  afford  fire  and  shelter  for  the 
night.  With  great  care  the  animals  were  saved 
from  freezing,  and  at  the  first  dawn  of  day  the 
camp,  after  a  daybreak  breakfast,  were  in  mo- 
tion for  the  ascent.  Precautions  had  been  taken 
to  make  it  more  practicable.  Mauls,  prepared 
during  the  night,  were  carried  by  the  foremost 
division  to  beat  down  a  road  in  the  snow.  Men 
went  forward  by  relieves.  Mules  and  baggage 
followed  in  long  single  file  in  the  track  made  in 
the  snow.  The  mountain  was  scaled:  the 
region  of  perpetual  congelation  was  entered.  It 
was  the  winter  solstice,  and  at  a  place  where 
the  summer  solstice  brought  no  life  to  vegeta- 
tion— no  thaw  to  congelation.  The  summit  of 
the  sierra  was  bare  of  every  thing  but  snow,  ice 
and  rocks.  It  was  no  place  to  halt.  Pushing 
down  the  side  of  the  mountain  to  reach  the 
wood  three  miles  distant,  a  new  and  awful  dan- 
ger presented  itself:  a  snow  storm  raging,  the 
freezing  winds  beating  upon  the  exposed  cara- 
van, the  snow  become  too  deep  for  the  mules  to 
move  in,  and  the  cold  beyond  the  endurance  of 
animal  life.  The  one  hundred  and  twenty 
mules,  huddling  together  from  an  instinct  of 
self-preservation  from  each  other's  heat  and 
shelter,  froze  stiff  as  they  stood,  and  fell  over 
like  blocks,  to  become  hillocks  of  snow.  Leav- 
ing all  behind,  and  the  men's  lives  only  to  be 
saved,  the  discomfited  and  freezing  party 
scrambled  back,  recrossing  the  summit,  and 
finding  under  the  lee  of  the  mountain  some 
shelter  from  the  driving  storm,  and  in  the 


wood  that  was  reached  the  means  of  making 
fires. 

The  men's  lives  were  now  saved,  but  desti- 
tute of  every  thing,  only  a  remnant  of  provi- 
sions, and  not  even  the  resource  of  the  dead 
mules  which  were  on  the  other  side  of  the 
summit ;  and  the  distance  computed  at  ten  days 
of  their  travel  to  the  nearest  New  Mexican  set- 
tlement. The  guide,  and  three  picked  men, 
were  despatched  thither  for  some  supplies,  and 
twenty  days  fixed  for  their  return.  When  they 
had  been  gone  sixteen  days,  Fremont,  preyed 
upon  by  anxiety  and  misgiving,  set  off  after 
them,  on  foot,  snow  to  the  waist,  blankets  and 
some  morsels  of  food  on  the  back:  the  brave 
Godey,  his  draughtsman  Preuss,  and  a  faithful 
servant,  his  only  company.  When  out  six  days 
he  came  upon  the  camp  of  his  guide,  stationary 
and  apparently  without  plan  or  object,  and  the 
men  haggard,  wild  and  emaciated.  Not  seeing 
King,  the  principal  one  of  the  company,  and  on 
whom  he  relied,  he  asked  for  him.  They  pointed 
to  an  older  camp,  a  little  way  off.  Going  there  he 
found  the  man  dead,  and  partly  devoured.  He 
had  died  of  exhaustion,  of  fatigue,  and  his  com- 
rades fed  upon  him.  Gathering  up  these  three 
survivors,  Fremont  resumed  his  journey,  and 
had  not  gone  far  before  he  fell  on  signs  of  In- 
dians— two  lodges,  implying  15  or  20  men,  and 
some  40  or  50  horses — all  recently  passed  along. 
At  another  time  this  would  have  been  an  alarm, 
one  of  his  fears  being  that  of  falling  in  with  a 
war  party.  He  knew  not  what  Indians  they 
were,  but  all  were  hostile  in  that  quarter,  and 
evasion  the  only  security  against  them.  To 
avoid  their  course  was  his  obvious  resource :  on 
the  contrary,  he  followed  it !  for  such  was  the 
desperation  of  his  situation  that  even  a  change 
of  danger  had  an  attraction.  Pursuing  the  trail 
down  the  Del  Norte,  then  frozen  solid  over,  and 
near  the  place  where  Pike  encamped  in  the  win- 
ter of  1807-8,  they  saw  an  Indian  behind  his 
party,  stopped  to  get  water  from  an  air  hole.  He 
was  cautiously  approached,  circumvented,  and 
taken.  Fremont  told  his  name :  the  young  man, 
for  he  was  quite  young,  started,  and  asked  him  if 
he  was  the  Fremont  that  had  exchanged  presents 
with  the  chief  of  the  Utahs  at  Las  Vegas  de 
Santa  Clara  three  years  before  ?  He  was  an- 
swered, yes.  Then,  said  the  young  man,  we  are 
friends  :  that  chief  was  my  father,  and  I  remein- 


ANNO  1848.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


721 


ber  you.  The  incident  wa3  romantic,  but  it 
did  not  stop  there.  Though  on  a  war  inroad 
upon  the  frontiers  of  New  Mexico,  the  young 
chief  became  his  guide,  let  him  have  four  horses, 
conducted  him  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  set- 
tlements, and  then  took  his  leave,  to  resume  his 
scheme  of  depredation  upon  the  frontier. 

Fremont's  party  reached  Taos,  was  sheltered 
in  the  house  of  his  old  friend  Carson — obtained 
the  supplies  needed — sent  them  back  by  the 
brave  Godey,  who  was  in  time  to  save  two- 
thirds  of  the  party,  finding  the  other  third  dead 
along  the  road,  scattered  at  intervals  as  each  had 
sunk  exhausted  and  frozen,  or  half  burnt  in  the 
fire  which  had  been  kindled  for  them  to  die  by. 
The  survivors  were  brought  in  by  Godey,  some 
crippled  with  frozen  feet.  Fremont  found  him- 
self in  a  situation  which  tries  the  soul — which 
makes  the  issue  between  despair  and  heroism — 
and  leaves  no  alternative  but  to  sink  under  fate, 
or  to  rise  above  it.  His  whole  outfit  was  gone  : 
his  valiant  mountain  men  were  one-third  dead, 
many  crippled :  he  was  penniless,  and  in  a 
strange  place.  He  resolved  to  go  forward — 
nulla  vestigia  retrorsum  :  to  raise  another  out- 
fit, and  turn  the  mountains  by  the  Gila.  In  a 
few  days  it  was  all  done — men,  horses,  arms, 
provisions — all  acquired ;  and  the  expedition  re- 
sumed. But  it  was  no  longer  the  tried  band  of 
mountain  men  on  whose  vigilance,  skill  and 
courage  he  could  rely  to  make  their  way 
through  hostile  tribes.  They  were  new  men, 
and  to  avoid  danger,  not  to  overcome  it,  was 
his  resource.  The  Navahoes  and  Apaches  had 
to  be  passed,  and  eluded — a  thing  difficult  to  be 
done,  as  his  party  of  thirty  men  and  double  as 
many  horses  would  make  a  trail,  easy  to  be  fol- 
lowed in  the  snow,  though  not  deep.  He  took 
an  unfrequented  course,  and  relied  upon  the 
secrecy  and  celerity  of  his  movements.  The 
fourth  night  on  the  dangerous  ground  the 
horses,  picketed  without  the  camp,  gave  signs 
of  alarm  :  they  were  brought  within  the  square 
of  fires,  and  the  men  put  on  the  alert.  Day- 
break came  without  visible  danger.  The  camp 
moved  off:  a  man  lagged  a  little  behind,  con- 
trary to  injunctions :  the  crack  of  some  rifles 
sent  him  running  up.  It  was  then  clear  that 
they  were  discovered,  and  a  party  hovering 
round  them.  Two  Indians  were  seen  ahead: 
they  might  be  a  decoy,  or  a  watch,  to  keep  the 
party  in  view  until  the  neighboring  warriors 

Vol.  II.— 46 


could  come  in.  Evasion  was  no  longer  possi- 
ble :  fighting  was  out  of  the  question,  for  the 
whole  hostile  country  was  ahead,  and  narrow 
defiles  to  be  passed  in  the  mountains.  All  de- 
pended upon  the  address  of  the  commander. 
Relying  upon  his  ascendant  over  the  savage 
mind,  Fremont  took  his  interpreter,  and  went 
to  the  two  Indians.  Godey  said  he  should  not 
go  alone,  and  followed.  Approaching  them,  a 
deep  ravine  was  seen  between.  The  Indians 
beckoned  him  to  go  round  by  the  head  of  the 
ravine,  evidently  to  place  that  obstacle  between 
him  and  his  men.  Symptoms  of  fear  or  distrust 
would  mar  his  scheme:  so  he  went  boldly 
round,  accosted  them  confidently,  and  told  his 
name.  They  had  never  heard  it.  He  told  them 
they  ought  to  be  ashamed,  not  to  know  their 
best  friend ;  inquired  for  their  tribe,  which  he 
wished  to  see :  and  took  the  whole  air  of  con- 
fidence and  friendship.  He  saw  they  were  stag- 
gered. He  then  invited  them  to  go  to  his  camp 
where  the  men  had  halted,  and  take  breakfast 
with  him.  They  said  that  might  be  dangerous 
— that  they  had  shot  at  one  of  his  men  that 
morning,  and  might  have  killed  him,  and  now 
be  punished  for  it.  He  ridiculed  the  idea  of 
their  hurting  his  men,  charmed  them  into  the 
camp,  where  they  ate,  and  smoked,  and  told 
their  secret,  and  became  messengers  to  lead 
their  tribe  in  one  direction,  while  Fremont  and 
his  men  escaped  by  another ;  and  the  whole  ex- 
pedition went  through  without  loss,  and  with- 
out molestation.  A  subsequent  winter  expedi- 
tion completed  the  design  of  this  one,  so  dis- 
astrously frustrated  by  the  mistake  of  a  guide. 
Fremont  went  out  again  upon  his  own  expense 
— went  to  the  spot  where  the  guide  had  gone 
astray — followed  the  course  described  by  the 
mountain  men — and  found  safe  and  easy  passes 
all  the  way  to  California,  through  a  good  coun- 
try, and  upon  the  straight  line  of  38  and  39  de- 
grees. It  is  the  route  for  the  Central  Pacific 
Railroad,  which  the  structure  of  the  country 
invites,  and  every  national  consideration  de- 
mands. 


722 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER    CLXXVIII. 

PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION. 

Party  conventions  for  the  nomination  of  presi- 
dential candidates,  had  now  become  an  institu- 
tion, and  a  power  in  the  government ;  and,  so 
far  as  the  party  was  concerned,  the  nomination 
was  the  election.  No  experience  of  the  evils  of 
this  new  power  had  yet  checked  its  sway,  and 
all  parties  (for  three  of  them  now  appeared  in 
the  political  field)  went  into  that  mode  of  de- 
termining the  election  for  themselves.  The 
democratic  convention  met,  as  heretofore,  at 
Baltimore,  in  the  month  of  May,  and  was  nu- 
merously attended  by  members  of  Congress, 
and  persons  holding  office  under  the  federal 
government,  who  would  be  excluded  by  the 
constitution  from  the  place  of  electors,  but  who 
became  more  than  electors,  having  virtually  su- 
preme power  over  the  selection  of  the  President, 
as  well  as  his  election,  so  far  as  the  party  was 
concerned.  The  two-thirds  rule  was  adopted, 
and  that  put  the  nomination  in  the  hands  of 
the  minority,  and  of  the  trained  intriguers. 
Every  State  was  to  be  allowed  to  give  the  whole 
number  of  its  electoral  votes,  although  it  was 
well  known,  now  as  heretofore,  that  there  were 
many  of  them  which  could  not  give  a  democratic 
electoral  vote  at  the  election.  The  State  of  New 
York  was  excluded  from  voting.  Two  sets  of 
delegates  appeared  from  that  State,  each  claim- 
ing to  represent  the  true  democracy :  the  con- 
vention settled  the  question  by  excluding  both 
sets  :  and  in  that  exclusion  all  the  States  which 
were  confessedly  unable  to  give  a  democratic 
vote,  were  allowed  to  vote ;  and  most  of  them 
voted  for  the  exclusion.  Massachusetts,  which 
had  never  given  a  democratic  vote,  now  gave 
twelve  votes  ;  and  they  were  for  the  exclusion 
of  New  York,  which  had  voted  democratically 
since  the  time  of  Mr.  Jefferson  ;  and  whose  vote 
often  decided  the  fate  of  the  election.  The  vote 
for  the  exclusion  was  157  to  95  :  and  in  this 
collateral  vote,  as  well  as  in  the  main  one,  the 
delegates  generally  voted  according  to  their  own 
will,  without  any  regard  to  the  people ;  and  that 
will,  with  the  most  active  and  managing,  was 
simply  to  produce  a  nomination  which  would 


be  most  favorable  to  themselves  in  the  presi- 
dential distribution  of  offices.  After  four  days' 
work  a  nomination  was  produced.  Mr.  Lewis 
Cass,  of  Michigan,  for  President :  General  Wm. 
0.  Butler,  of  Kentucky,  for  Vice-President.  The 
construction  of  the  platform,  or  party  political 
creed  for  the  campaign,  was  next  entered  upon, 
and  one  was  produced,  interminably  long,  and 
long  since  forgotten.  The  value  of  all  such 
constructions  may  be  seen  in  comparing  what 
was  then  adopted,  or  rejected  as  political  test, 
with  what  has  since  been  equally  rejected  or 
adopted  for  the  same  purpose.  For  example : 
the  principle  of  squatter  sovereignty,  that  is  to 
say,  the  right  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  territories 
to  decide  the  question  of  slavery  for  themselves, 
was  then  repudiated,  and  by  a  vote  virtually 
unanimous :  it  is  since  adopted  by  a  vote  equally 
unanimous.  Mr.  Yancy,  of  Alabama,  submitted 
this  resolution,  as  an  article  of  democratic  faith 
to  be  inserted  in  the  creed  ;  to  wit :  "  That  the 
doctrine  of  non-interference  with  the  rights  of 
property  of  any  portion  of  this  confederation,  be 
it  in  the  States  or  in  the  Territories,  by  any  other 
than  the  parties  interested,  in  them,  is  the  true 
republican  doctrine  recognized  by  this  body." 
This  article  of  faith  was  rejected ;  246  against 
36  :  so  that,  up  to  the  month  of  May,  in  the  year 
1848,  sq'uatter  sovereignty,  or  the  right  of  the 
inhabitants  of  a  territory  to  determine  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery  for  themselves,  was  rejected  and 
ignored  by  the  democratic  party. 

The  whig  nominating  convention  met  in 
Philadelphia,  in  the  month  of  June,  and  selected 
General  Zachary  Taylor,  and  Millard  Fillmore, 
Esq.,  for  their  candidates.  On  their  first  bal- 
loting, the  finally  successful  candidates  lacked 
much  of  having  the  requisite  number  of  votes, 
there  being  22  for  Mr.  Webster,  43  for  General 
Scott,  97  for  Mr.  Clay,  and  111  for  General  Tay- 
lor. Eventually  General  Taylor  received  the 
requisite  majority,  171 — making  his  gains  from 
the  friends  of  Mr.  Clay,  whose  vote  was  reduced 
to  32.  The  nomination  of  General  Taylor  was 
avowedly  made  on  the  calculation  of  availa- 
bility— setting  aside  both  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr. 
Webster,  in  favor  of  the  military  popularity  of 
Buena  Vista,  Monterey,  Palo  Alto,  and  Resaca 
de  la  Palma.  In  one  respect  the  whig  conven- 
tion was  more  democratic  than  that  of  the  de- 
mocracy :  it  acted  on  the  principle  of  the  ma- 
jority to  govern. 


ANNO  1848.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


723 


But  there  was  a  third  convention,  growing  out 
of  the  rejection  of  the  Van  Buren  democratic 
delegates  at  the  Baltimore  democratic  con- 
vention— for  the  exclusion,  though  ostensibly 
against  both,  was  in  reality  to  get  rid  of  them — 
which  met  first  at  Utica,  and  afterwards  at 
Buffalo,  in  the  State  of  New  York,  and  nomi- 
nated Mr.  Van  Buren  for  President,  and  Mr. 
Charles  Francis  Adams  (son  of  the  late  John 
Quincy  Adams),  for  Vice-President.  This  con- 
vention also  erected  its  platform,  its  distinctive 
feature  being  an  opposition  to  slave  institutions, 
and  a  desire  to  abolish,  or  restrain  slavery  wher- 
ever it  constitutionally  could  be  done.  Three 
principles  were  laid  down :  First,  That  it  was  the 
duty  of  the  federal  government  to  abolish  sla- 
very wherever  it  could  constitutionally  be  done. 
Second,  That  the  States  within  which  slavery- 
existed  had  the  sole  right  to  interfere  with  it. 
Thirdly,  That  Congress  alone  can  prevent  the 
existence  of  slavery  in  the  territories.  By  the 
first  of  these  principles  it  would  be  the  duty  of 
Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia ;  by  the  second,  to  let  it  alone  in  the 
States  ;  by  the  third,  to  restrain  and  prevent  it 
in  the  territories  then  free ;  the  dogma  of 
squatter  sovereignty  being  abjured  by  this  lat- 
ter principle.  The  watchwords  of  the  party,  to 
be  inscribed  on  their  banner,  were :  ;'  Free 
soil " — "  Free  speech  " — "  Free  labor  " — "  Free 
men  " — from  which  they  incurred  the  appella- 
tion of  Free-soilers.  It  was  an  organization 
entirely  to  be  regretted.  Its  aspect  was  sec- 
tional— its  foundation  a  single  idea — and  its 
tendency,  to  merge  political  principles  in  a 
slavery  contention.  The  Baltimore  democratic 
convention  had  been  dominated  by  the  slavery 
question,  but  on  the  other  side  of  that  question, 
and  not  openly  and  professedly :  but  here  was 
an  organization  resting  prominently  on  the  sla- 
very basis.  And  deeming  all  such  organization, 
no  matter  on  which  side  of  the  question,  as 
fraught  with  evil  to  the  Union,  this  writer,  on 
the  urgent  request  of  some  of  his  political  asso- 
ciates, went  to  New  York,  to  interpose  his 
friendly  offices  to  get  the  Free-soil  organization 
abandoned.  The  visit  was  between  the  two 
conventions,  and  before  the  nominations  and 
proceedings  had  become  final :  but  in  vain. 
Mr.  Van  Buren  accepted  the  nomination,  and  in 
so  doing,  placed  himself  in  opposition  to  the 
general  tenor  of  his  political  conduct  in  relation 


to  slavery,  and  especially  in  what  relates  to  its 
existence  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  I  deemed 
this  acceptance  unfortunate  to  a  degree  far  be- 
yond its  influence  upon  persons  or  parties.  It 
went  to  impair  confidence  between  the  North 
and  the  South,  and  to  narrow  down  the  basis 
of  party  organization  to  a  single  idea ;  and  that 
idea  not  known  to  our  ancestors  as  an  element 
in  political  organizations.  The  Free-soil  plea 
was,  that  the  Baltimore  democratic  convention 
had  done  the  same  ;  but  the  answer  to  that  was, 
that  it  was  a  general  convention  from  all  the 
States,  and  did  not  make  its  slavery  principles 
the  open  test  of  the  election,  while  this  was  a 
segment  of  the  party,  and  openly  rested  on  that 
ground.  Mr.  Van  Buren  himself  was  much 
opposed  to  his  own  nomination.  In  his  letter 
to  the  Buffalo  convention  he  said :  "  You  all 
know,  from  my  letter  to  the  Utica,  convention, 
and  the  confidence  you  repose  in  my  sincerity, 
how  greatly  the  proceedings  of  that  body,  in 
relation  to  myself,  were  opposed  to  my  earnest 
wishes."  Yet  he  accepted  a  nomination  made 
against  his  earnest  wishes  ;  and  although  an- 
other would  have  been  nominated  if  he  had  re- 
fused, yet  no  other  nomination  could  have  given 
such  emphasis  to  the  character  of  the  conven- 
tion, and  done  as  much  harm.  Senator  Henry 
Dodge,  of  Wisconsin,  had  first  been  proposed 
for  Vice-President ;  but,  although  opposed  to 
the  extension  of  slavery,  he  could  not  concur  in 
the  Buffalo  platform  ;  and  declined  the  nomina- 
tion. Of  the  three  parties,  the  whig  party,  so  far 
as  slavery  was  concerned,  acted  most  nationally ; 
they  ignored  the  subject,  and  made  their  nomi- 
nation on  the  platform  of  the  constitution,  the 
country,  and  the  character  of  their  candidate. 

The  issue  of  the  election  did  not  disappoint 
public  expectation.  The  State  of  New  York 
could  not  be  spared  by  the  democratic  candidate, 
and  it  was  quite  sure  that  the  division  of  the 
party  there  would  deprive  Mr.  Cass  of  the  vote 
of  that  State.  It  did  so :  and  these  36  votes, 
making  a  difference  of  72,  decided  the  election. 
The  vote  was  163  against  127,  being  the  same 
for  the  vice-presidential  candidates  as  for  their 
principals.  The  States  voting  for  General  Tay- 
lor, were :  Massachusetts,  12 ;  Rhode  Island, 
4 ;  Connecticut,  6  ;  Vermont,  7  ;  New  York,  36 ; 
New  Jersey,  7 ;  Pennsylvania,  26 ;  Delaware, 
3  ;  Maryland,  8 ;  North  Carolina,  11 ;  Georgia, 
10 ;  Kentucky,  12 ;  Tennessee,  13 ;  Louisiana^ 


724 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


6  ;  Florida,  3.  Those  voting  for  Mr.  Cass,  were : 
Maine,  9 ;  New  Hampshire,  6 ;  Virginia,  17  ; 
South  Carolina,  9  ;  Ohio,  23 ;  Mississippi,  6 ; 
Indiana,  12 ;  Illinois,  9  ;  Alabama,  9  ;  Missouri, 

7  ;  Arkansas,  3  ;  Michigan.  5  ;  Texas,  4  ;  Iowa, 
4 ;  Wisconsin,  4.  The  Free-soil  candidates  re- 
ceived not  a  single  electoral  vote. 

The  result  of  the  election  was  not  without  its 
moral,  and  its  instruction.  All  the  long  in- 
trigues to  govern  it,  had  miscarried.  None  of 
the  architects  of  annexation,  or  of  war,  were 
elected.  A  victorious  general  overshadowed 
them  all ;  and  those  who  had  considered  Texas 
their  own  game,  and  made  it  the  staple  of  inces- 
sant plots  for  five  years,  saw  themselves  shut 
out  from  that  presidency  which  it  had  been  the 
object  of  so  many  intrigues  to  gain.  Even  the 
slavery  agitation  failed  to  govern  the  election ; 
and  a  soldier  was  elected,  unknown  to  political 
machinations,  and  who  had  never  even  voted  at 
an  election. 


CHAPTER    CLXXIX. 

LAST  MESSAGE  OF  ME.  POLK. 

The  message  opened  with  an  encomium  on  the 
conquest  of  Mexico,  and  of  the  citizen  soldiers 
who  volunteered  in  such  numbers  for  the  ser- 
vice, and  fought  with  such  skill  and  courage — 
saying  justly : 

"Unlike  what  would  have  occurred  in  any 
other  country,  we  were  under  no  necessity  of 
resorting  to  draughts  or  conscriptions.  On  the 
contrary,  such  was  the  number  of  volunteers 
who  patriotically  tendered  their  services,  that 
the  chief  difficulty  was  in  making  selections,  and 
determining  who  should  be  disappointed  and 
compelled  to  remain  at  home.  Our  citizen  sol- 
diers are  unlike  those  drawn  from  the  popula- 
tion of  any  other  country.  They  are  composed 
indiscriminately  of  all  professions  and  pursuits  : 
of  farmers,  lawyers,  physicians,  merchants,  man- 
ufacturers, mechanics,  and  laborers ;  and  this, 
not  only  among  the  officers,  but  the  private 
soldiers  in  the  ranks.  Our  citizen  soldiers  are 
unlike  those  of  any  other  country  in  other  re- 
spects. They  are  armed,  and  have  been  accus- 
tomed from  their  youth  up  to  handle  and  use 
fire-arms  ;  and  a  large  proportion  of  them,  es- 
pecially in  the  western  and  more  newly  settled 
States,  are  expert  marksmen.  They  are  men 
who  have  a  reputation  to  maintain  at  home  by 
their  good  conduct  in  the  field.    They  are  intel- 


ligent, and  there  is  an  individuality  of  character 
which  is  found  in  the  ranks  of  no  other  army. 
In  battle,  each  private  man,  as  well  as  every 
officer,  fights  not  only  for  his  country,  but  for 
glory  and  distinction  among  his  fellow-citizens 
when  he  shall  return  to  civil  life." 

And  this  was  the  case  in  a  foreign  war,  in 
which  a  march  of  two  thousand  miles  had  to  be 
accomplished  before  the  foe  could  be  reached : 
how  much  more  so  will  it  be  in  defensive  war — 
war  to  defend  our  own  borders — the  only  kind 
in  which  the  United  States  should  ever  be  en- 
gaged. That  is  the  kind  of  war  to  bring  out  all 
the  strength  and  energy  of  volunteer  forces ;  and 
the  United  States  have  arrived  at  the  point  to 
have  the  use  of  that  force  with  a  promptitude, 
a  cheapness,  and  an  efficiency,  never  known  be- 
fore, nor  even  conceived  of  by  the  greatest  mas- 
ters of  the  art  of  war.  The  electric  telegraph 
to  summon  the  patriotic  host :  the  steam  car  to 
precipitate  them  on  the  point  of  defence.  The 
whole  art  of  defensive  war,  in  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  United  States,  and  still  more,  what 
it  is  hereafter  to  be,  is  simplified  into  two  prin- 
ciples— accumulation  of  masses,  and  the  system 
of  incessant  attacks.  Upon  these  two  prin- 
ciples the  largest  invading  force  would  be  de- 
stroyed— shot  like  pigeons  on  thpir  roost — by 
the  volunteers  and  their  rifles,  before  the  lum- 
bering machinery  of  a  scientific  army  could  be 
got  into  motion. 

The  large  acquisition  of  new  territory  was 
fiercely  lighting  up  the  fires  of  a  slavery  con- 
troversy, and  Mr.  Polk  recommended  the  ex- 
tension of  the  Missouri  compromise  line  to  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  as  the  most  effectual  and  easy 
method  of  averting  the  dangers  to  the  Union, 
which  he  saw  in  that  question.     He  said : 

"  Upon  a  great  emergency,  however,  and  under 
menacing  dangers  to  the  Union,  the  Missouri 
compromise  line  in  respect  to  slavery  was 
adopted.  The  same  line  was  extended  further 
west  on  the  acquisition  of  Texas.  After  an  ac- 
quiescence of  nearly  thirty  years  in  the  prin- 
ciple of  compromise  recognized  and  established 
by  these  acts,  and  to  avoid  the  danger  to  the 
Union  which  might  follow  if  it  were  now  disre- 
garded, I  have  heretofore  expressed  the  opinion 
that  that  line  of  compromise  should  be  extended 
on  the  parallel  of  thirty-six  degrees  thirty  min- 
utes from  the  western  boundary  of  Texas,  where 
it  now  terminates,  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  This 
is  the  middle  line  of  compromise,  upon  which 
the  different  sections  of  the  Union  may  meet,  as 
they  have  hitherto  met." 


ANNO  1848.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


725 


This  was  the  compromise  proposition  of  the 
President,  but  there  were  arrayed  against  it 
parties  and  principles  which  repelled  its  adop- 
tion. First,  the  large  party  which  denied  the 
power  of  Congress  to  legislate  upon  the  subject 
of  slavery  in  territories.  Some  of  that  class  of 
politicians,  and  they  were  numerous  and  ardent, 
though  of  recent  conception,  were,  from  the  ne- 
cessity of  their  position,  compelled  to  oppose  a 
proposition  which  involved,  to  the  greatest  ex- 
tent, the  exercise  of  that  denied  power.  Next, 
the  class  who  believed  in  the  still  newer  doc- 
trine of  the  self-extension  of  slavery  into  all  the 
territories,  by  the  self-expansion  of  the  constitu- 
tion over  them.  This  class  would  have  nothing 
to  do  with  any  law  upon  the  subject — equally 
repulsing  congressional  legislation,  squatter  sov- 
ereignty, or  territorial  law.  A  third  class  ob- 
jected to  the  extension  of  the  Missouri  com- 
promise line,  because  in  its  extension  that  line, 
astronomically  the  same,  became  politically 
different.  In  all  its  original  extent  it  passed 
through  territory  all  slave,  and  therefore  made 
one  side  free :  in  its  extension  it  would  pass 
through  territory  all  free,  and  therefore  make 
one  side  slave.  This  was  the  reverse  of  the 
principle  of  the  previous  compromises,  and  al- 
though equal  on  its  face,  and  to  shallow  obser- 
vers the  same  law,  yet  the  transfer  and  planting 
of  slavery  in  regions  where  it  did  not  exist,  in- 
volved a  breach  of  principle,  and  a  shock  of  feel- 
ing, in  those  conscientiously  opposed  to  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery,  which  it  was  impossible  for 
them  to  incur.  Finally,  those  who  wanted  no 
compromise — no  peace — no  rest  on  the  slavery 
question :  These  were  of  two  classes ;  first,  mere 
political  demagogues  on  each  side  of  the  agita- 
tion, who  wished  to  keep  the  question  alive  for 
their  own  political  elevation ;  next,  the  aboli- 
tionists, who  denied  the  right  of  property  in 
slaves,  and  were  ready  to  dissolve  the  Union  to 
get  rid  of  association  with  slave  States  ;  and  the 
milliners,  who  wished  to  dissolve  the  Union,  and 
who  considered  the  slavery  question  the  efficient 
means  of  doing  it.  Among  all  these  parties,  the 
extension  of  the  Missouri  compromise  line  be- 
came an  impossibility. 

The  state  of  the  finances,  and  of  the  expendi- 
tures of  the  government  for  the  last  year  of  the 
war,  and  the  first  year  of  peace,  was  concisely 
stated  by  the  President,  and  deserves  to  be  known 
and  considered  by  all  who  would  study  that  part 


of  the  working  of  our  government.     Of  the  first 
period  it  says : 

"The  expenditures  for  the  same  period,  in- 
cluding the  necessary  payment  on  account  of 
the  principal  and  interest  of  the  public  debt,  and 
the  principal  and  interest  of  the  first  instalment 
due  to  Mexico  on  the  thirtieth  of  May  next,  and 
other  expenditures  growing  out  of  the  war,  to 
be  paid  during  the  present  year,  will  amount, 
including  the  reimbursement  of  treasury  notes, 
to  the  sum  of  fifty-four  millions  one  hundred  and 
ninety-five  thousand  two  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  dollars  and  six  cents  ;  leaving  an  estimated 
balance  in  the  Treasury  on  the  first  of  July, 
1849,  of  two  millions  eight  hundred  and  fifty- 
three  thousand  six  hundred  and  ninety-four 
dollars  and  eighty-four  cents." 

Deducting  the  three  heads  of  expense  here 
mentioned,  and  the  expenses  for  the  year  ending 
the  30th  of  June,  1848,  were  about  twenty-five 
millions  of  dollars,  and  about  the  same  sum  was 
estimated  to  be  sufficient  for  the  first  fiscal  year 
of  entire  peace,  ending  the  30th  of  June,  1849. 
Thus: 

"  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  will  present, 
as  required  by  law,  the  estimate  of  the  receipts 
and  expenditures  for  the  next  fiscal  year.  The 
expenditures,  as  estimated  for  that  year,  are 
thirty-three  millions  two  hundred  and  thirteen 
thousand  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  dollars  and 
seventy-three  cents,  including  three  millions 
seven  hundred  and  ninety-nine  thousand  one 
hundred  and  two  dollars  and  eighteen  cents,  for 
the  interest  on  the  public  debt,  and  three  millions 
five  hundred  and  forty  thousand  dollars  for  the 
principal  and  interest  due  to  Mexico  on  the 
thirtieth  of  May,  1850;  leaving  the  sum  of 
twenty-five  millions  eight  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  thousand  and  fifty  dollars  and  thirty-five 
cents ;  which,  it  is  believed,  will  be  ample  for 
the  ordinary  peace  expenditures." 

About  25  millions  of  dollars  for  the  future 
expenditures  of  the  government :  and  this  the 
estimate  and  expenditure  only  seven  years  ago. 
Now,  three  times  that  amount,  and  increasing 
with  frightful  rapidity. 


726 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


CHAPTER    CLXXX. 

FINANCIAL  WORKING  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT 
UNDER  THE  HARD  MONET  SYSTEM. 

The  war  of  words  was  over :  the  test  of  ex- 
periment had  come :  and  the  long  contest  be- 
tween the  hard  money  and  the  paper  money 
advocates  ceased  to  rage.  The  issue  of  the  war 
with  Mexico  was  as  disastrous  to  the  paper 
money  party,  as  it  was  to  the  Mexicans  them- 
selves. The  capital  was  taken  in  each  case, 
and  the  vanquished  submitted  in  quiet  in  each 
case.  The  virtue  of  a  gold  and  silver  currency 
had  shown  itself  in  its  good  effects  upon  every 
branch  of  business — upon  the  entire  pursuits 
of  human  industry,  and  above  all,  in  assuring 
to  the  working  man  a  solid  compensation,  in- 
stead of  a  delusive  cheat  for  his  day's  labor. 
Its  triumph  was  complete :  but  that  triumph 
was  limited  to  a  home  experiment  in  time  of 
peace.  War,  and  especially  war  to  be  carried 
on  abroad,  is  the  great  test  of  currency ;  and 
the  Mexican  war  was  to  subject  the  restored 
golden  currency  of  the  United  States  to  that 
supreme  test :  and  here  the  paper  money  party 
— the  national  bank  sound-currency  party — felt 
sure  of  the  victory.  The  first  national  bank 
had  been  established  upon  the  war  argument 
presented  by  General  Hamilton  to  President 
"Washington :  the  second  national  bank  was 
born  of  the  war  of  1812:  and  the  war  with 
Mexico  was  confidently  looked  to  as  the  trial 
which  was  to  show  inadequacy  of  the  hard 
money  currency  to  its  exigencies,  and  the  ne- 
cessity of  establishing  a  national  paper  curren- 
cy. Those  who  had  asserted  the  inadequacy 
of  all  the  gold  and  silver  in  the  world  to  do  the 
business  of  the  United  States,  were  quite  sure 
of  the  insufficiency  of  the  precious  metals  to 
carry  on  a  foreign  war  in  addition  to  all  domes- 
tic transactions.  The  war  came :  its  demands 
upon  the  solid  currency  were  not  felt  in  its  dimi- 
nution at  home.  Government  bills  were  above 
par  !  and  every  loan  taken  at  a  premium  !  and 
only  obtained  upon  a  hard  competition  !  How 
different  from  any  thing  which  had  ever  been 
seen  in  our  country,  or  in  almost  any  country 
before.     The  last  loan  authorized  (winter  of 


'47-'48)  of  sixteen  millions,  brought  a  premium 
of  about  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  ;  and 
one-half  of  the  bidders  were  disappointed  and 
chagrined  because  they  could  get  no  part  of  it. 
Compare  this  financial  result  to  that  of  the  war 
of  1812,  during  which  the  federal  government  was 
a  mendicant  for  loans,  and  paid  or  suffered  a  loss 
of  forty-six  millions  of  dollars  to  obtain  them, 
and  the  virtue  of  the  gold  currency  will  stand 
vindicated  upon  the  test  of  war,  and  foreign  war, 
as  well  as  upon  the  test  of  home  transactions. 
The  war  was  conducted  upon  the  hard  money 
basis,  and  found  the  basis  to  be  as  ample  as 
solid.  Payments  were  regular  and  real :  and, 
at  the  return  of  peace,  every  public  security 
was  above  par,  the  national  coffers  full  of  gold ; 
and  the  government  having  the  money  on  hand, 
and  anxious  to  pay  its  loans  before  they  were 
due,  cculd  only  obtain  that  privilege  by  paying 
a  premium  upon  it,  sometimes  as  high  as  twen- 
ty per  centum — thus  actually  giving  one  dollar 
upon  every  five  for  the  five  before  it  was  due. 
And  this,  more  or  less,  on  all  the  loans,  accord- 
ing to  the  length  of  time  they  had  yet  to  run. 
And  this  is  the  crown  and  seal  upon  the  tri- 
umph of  the  gold  currency. 


CHAPTER    CLXXXI. 

COAST  SURVEY :  BELONGS  TO  THE  NAVY :  CON- 
VERTED INTO  A  SEPARATE  DEPARTMENT: 
EXPENSE  AND  INTERMINABILITY :  SHOULD 
BE  DONE  BY  THE  NAVY,  AS  IN  GREAT  BRIT- 
AIN :  MR.  BENTON'S  SPEECH  :  EXTRACT. 

Mr.  Benton.  My  object,  Mr.  President,  is  to 
return  the  coast  survey  to  what  the  law  direct- 
ed it  to  be,  and  to  confine  its  execution,  after 
the  30th  of  June  next,  to  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment. We  have  now,  both  by  law  and  in  fact, 
a  bureau  for  the  purpose — that  of  Ordnance 
and  Hydrography — and  to  the  hydrographical 
section  of  this  bureau  properly  belongs  the  exe- 
cution of  the  coast  survey.  It  is  the  very  busi- 
ness of  hydrography ;  and  in  Great  Britain^ 
from  whom  we  borrow  the  idea  of  this  bureau, 
the  hydrographer,  always  a  naval  officer,  and 
operating  wholly  with  naval  forces,  is  charged 
with  the  whole  business  of  the  coast  survey  of 
that  great  empire.      One  hydrographer,   and 


ANNO  1848.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


727 


with  only  ten  vessels  until  lately,  conducts  the 
whole  survey  of  coasts  under  the  laws  of  that 
empire — surveys  not  confined  to  the  British 
Isles,  but  to  the  British  possessions  in  the  four 
quarters  of  the  globe — and  not  merely  to  their 
own  possessions,  but  to  the  coasts  of  all  coun- 
tries with  which  they  have  commerce,  or  expect 
war,  and  of  which  they  have  not  reliable  charts 
— even  to  China  and  the  Island  of  Borneo. 
Rear  Admiral  Beaufort  is  now  the  hydrogra- 
pher,  and  has  been  for  twenty  years ;  and  he 
has  no  civil  astronomer  to  do  the  work  for  him, 
or  any  civil  superintendent  to  overlook  and 
direct  him.  But  he  has  somebody  to  overlook 
him,  and  those  who  know  what  they  are  about 
— namely,  the  Lords  of  the  Admiralty — and 
something  more  besides — namely,  the  House 
of  Commons,  through  its  select  committees — 
and  by  which  the  whole  work  of  this  hydro- 
grapher  is  most  carefully  overlooked,  and  every 
survey  brought  to  the  test  of  law  and  expedien- 
cy in  its  inception,  and  of  economy  and  speed 
in  its  execution.  I  have  now  before  me  one  of 
the  examinations  of  this  hydrographer  before  a 
select  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
made  only  last  year,  and  which  shows  that  the 
British  House  of  Commons  holds  its  hydro- 
grapher to  the  track  of  the  law — confines  him 
to  his  proper  business — and  that  proper  busi- 
ness is  precisely  the  work  which  is  required  by 
our  acts  of  1807  and  1832.  Here  is  the  volume 
which  contains,  among  other  things,  the  exami- 
nation of  Rear  Admiral  Beaufort  [showing  a 
huge  folio  of  more  than  a  thousand  pages].  I 
do  not  mean  to  read  it.  I  merely  produce  it  to 
show  that,  in  Great  Britain,  the  hydrographer, 
a  naval  officer,  is  charged  with  the  whole  busi- 
ness of  the  coast  survey,  and  executes  it  exclu- 
sively with  the  men  and  ships  of  the  navy ; 
and  having  produced  it  for  this  purpose,  I  read 
a  single  question  from  it,  not  for  the  sake  of  the 
answer,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  facts  in  the  ques- 
tion. It  relates  to  the  number  of  assistants 
retained  by  the  rear  admiral,  and  the  late  in- 
crease in  their  number.  The  question  is  in 
these  words : 

"  In  1834  and  1835  you  had  three  assistants 
— one  at  three  pounds  a  week,  and  two  at  two 
guineas  a  week ;  now  you  have  five  assistants 
— one  at  four  pounds  a  week,  three  at  three 
pounds,  and  one  at  three  guineas  :  why  has  this 
increase  been  made  ?  " 

• 

The  answer  was,  that  these  assistants  had  to 


live  in  London,  where  living  was  dear,  and  that 
they  had  to  do  much  work — for  example,  had 
printed  01,631  charts  the  year  before.  I  pass 
over  the  answer  for  the  sake  of  the  question, 
and  the  facts  of  the  question,  and  to  contrast 
them  with  something  in  our  own  coast  survey. 
The  question  was,  why  he  had  increased  the 
number  of  the  assistants  from  three  to  five,  and 
the  compensation  of  the  principal  one  from 
about  $800  to  about  $1,000,  and  of  the  others 
from  about  $600  to  about  $800  a  year  ?  And 
turning  to  our  Blue  Book,  under  the  head  of 
coast  survey,  I  find  the  number  of  the  assist- 
ants of  our  superintendent  rather  more  than 
three,  or  five,  and  their  salaries  rather  more 
than  six,  or  eight,  or  even  ten  and  twelve  hun- 
dred dollars.  They  appear  thus  in  the  official 
list :  One  assistant  at  $3,500  per  annum  ;  one 
at  $2,500;  three  at  $2,000  each;  three  at 
$1,500  each;  four  at  $1,300  each;  two  at 
$1,000  each  ;  two  at  $600  each ;  one  draughts- 
man at  $1,500 ;  another  at  $600  ;  one  com- 
puter at  $1,500 ;  two  ditto  at  $1,000  each ;  one 
disbursing  officer  at  $2,000.  All  this  in  addi- 
tion to  the  superintendent  himself  at  $4,500  as 
superintendent  of  coast  survey,  and  $1,500  as 
superintendent  of  weights  and  measures,  with 
an  assistant  at  $2,000  to  aid  him  in  that  busi- 
ness ;  with  all  the  paraphernalia  of  an  office  be- 
sides. I  do  not  know  what  law  fixes  either 
the  number  or  compensation  of  these  assistants, 
nor  do  I  know  that  Congress  has  ever  troubled 
itself  to  inquire  into  their  existence  :  but  if  our 
superintendent  was  in  England,  with  his  long 
catalogue  of  assistants,  the  question  which  I 
have  read  shows  that  there  would  be  an  in- 
quiry there. 

Mr.  President,  the  cost  of  this  coast  survey 
has  been  very  great,  and  is  becoming  greater 
every  year,  and,  expanding  as  it  does,  must  an- 
nually get  further  from  its  completion.  The 
direct  appropriations  out  of  the  Treasury  ex- 
ceed a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars  (1,509,725), 
besides  the  $186,000  now  in  the  bill  which  I 
propose  to  reduce  to  $30,000. 

These  are  the  direct  appropriations ;  but  they 
are  only  half,  or  less  than  half  the  actual  ex- 
pense of  this  survey.  The  indirect  expenses 
are  much  greater  than  the  direct  appropria- 
tions; and  without  pretending  to  know  the 
whole  extent  of  them,  I  think  I  can  show  a  ta- 
ble which  will  go  as  high  as  $210,000  for  the 
last  year.    It  has  been  seen,  that  the  superin- 


728 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


tendent  (for  I  suppose  that  astronomer  is  no 
longer  the  recognized  title,  although  the  legal 
one)  is  authorized  to  get  from  the  Treasury- 
Department  quantum  sufficit  of  men  and  ships. 
Accordingly,  for  the  last  year  the  number  of 
vessels  was  thirteen — the  number  of  men  and 
officers  five  hundred  and  seventy-six — and  the 
cost  of  supporting  the  whole  about  $210,000  a 
year ;  and  this  coming  from  the  naval  appro- 
priations proper. 

Thus,  sir,  the  navy  does  a  good  deal,  and 
pays  a  good  deal,  towards  this  coast  survey ; 
and  my  only  objection  is,  that  it  does  not  do 
the  whole,  and  pay  the  whole,  and  get  the 
credit  due  to  their  work,  instead  of  being,  as 
they  now  are,  unseen  and  unnoticed — eclipsed 
and  cast  into  the  shade  by  the  civil  superin- 
tendent and  his  civil  assistants. 

I  have  shown  you  that,  in  Great  Britain, 
the  Bureau  of  Ordnance  and  Hydrography  is 
charged  with  the  coast  survey ;  we  have  the 
same  bureau,  both  by  law  and  in  fact ;  but  that 
bureau  has  only  a  divided,  and,  I  believe,  subor- 
dinate part  of  the  coast  survey.  "We  have  the 
expense  of  it,  and  that  expense  should  be  added 
to  the  expense  of  the  coast  survey.  Great 
Britain  has  no  civil  superintendent  for  this 
business.  We  have  her  law,  but  not  her  prac- 
tice, and  my  motion  is,  to  come  to  her  practice. 
We  should  save  by  it  the  whole  amount  of  the 
direct  appropriations,  saving  and  excepting  the 
small  appropriations  for  the  extra  expense 
which  it  would  bring  upon  the  navy.  The 
men  and  officers  are  under  pay,  and  would  be 
glad  to  have  the  work  to  do.  Our  naval  estab- 
lishment is  now  very  large,  and  but  little  to  do. 
The  ships,  I  suppose,  are  about  seventy ;  the 
men  and  officers  some  ten  thousand :  the  ex- 
pense of  the  whole  establishment  between  eight 
and  nine  millions  of  dollars  a  year.  We  are  in 
a  state  of  profound  peace,  and  no  way  to  em- 
ploy this  large  naval  force.  Why  not  put  it 
upon  the  coast  survey  ?  I  know  that  officers 
wish  it — that  they  feel  humiliated  at  being  sup- 
posed incompetent  to  it — and  if  found  to  be  so, 
are  willing  to  pay  the  penalty,  by  being  dis- 
missed the  service.  Incompetency  is  the  only 
ground  upon  which  a  civil  superintendent  and 
a  list  of  civil  assistants  can  be  placed  over 
them.  And  is  that  objection  well  founded  ? 
Look  to  Maury,  whose  name  is  the  synonym 
of  nautical  and  astronomical  science.    Look  to 


that  Dr.  Locke,  once  on  the  medical  staff  of 
the  navy,  and  now  pursuing  a  career  of  science 
in  the  West,  from  which  has  resulted  that  dis- 
covery of  the  magnetic  clock  and  telegraph  reg- 
ister which  the  coast  survey  now  uses,  and 
which  an  officer  of  the  navy  (Captain  Wilkes) 
was  the  first  to  apply  to  the  purposes  for  which 
it  is  now  used. 

And  are  we  to  presume  our  naval  officers  in- 
competent to  the  conduct  of  this  coast  survey, 
when  it  has  produced  such  men  as  these — when 
it  may  contain  in  its  bosom  we  know  not  how 
many  more  such  ?  In  1807  we  had  no  navy: — 
we  may  say  none,  for  it  was  small,  and  going 
down  to  nothing.  Then,  it  might  be  justifiable 
to  employ  an  astronomer.  In  1832,  the  navy 
had  fought  itself  into  favor;  but  Mr.  Hassler, 
the  father  of  the  coast  survey,  was  still  alive, 
and  it  was  justifiable  to  employ  him  as  an  as- 
tronomer. But  now  there  is  no  need  for  a 
civil  astronomer,  much  less  for  a  civil  superin- 
tendent ;  and  the  whole  work  should  go  to  the 
navy.  We  have  naval  schools  now  for  the  in- 
struction of  officers  ;  we  have  officers  with  the 
laudable  ambition  to  instruct  themselves.  The 
American  character,  ardent  in  every  thing,  is 
pre-eminently  ardent  in  the  pursuit  of  know- 
ledge. In  every  walk  of  life,  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest,  from  the  most  humble  mechani- 
cal to  the  highest  professional  employment, 
knowledge  is  a  pursuit,  and  a  laudable  object  of 
ambition  with  a  great  number.  We  are  ardent 
in  the  pursuit  of  wealth — equally  so  in  the  pur- 
suit of  science.  The  navy  partakes  of  this  lau- 
dable ambition.  You  will  see  an  immense 
number  of  the  naval  officers,  of  all  ages  and  of 
all  ranks,  devoting  themselves,  with  all  the  ar- 
dor of  young  students,  for  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge  :  and  are  all  these — the  whole  naval 
profession — to  be  told  that  none  of  them  are 
able  to  conduct  the  coast  survey,  none  of  them 
able  to  execute  the  act  of  1807,  none  of  them 
able  to  find  shoals  and  islands  within  twenty 
leagues  of  the  coast,  to  sound  a  harbor,  to  take 
the  distance  and  bearings  of  headlands  and 
capes — and  all  this  within  sixty  miles  of  the 
shore  ?  Are  they  to  be  told  this  ?  If  they 
are,  and  it  could  be  told  with  truth,  it  would 
be  time  to  go  to  reducing.  But  it  cannot  be 
said  with  truth.  The  naval  officers  can  not 
only  execute  the  act  of  1807,  but  they  can  do 
any  thing,  if  it  was  proper  to  do  it,  which  the 


ANNO  1849.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


729 


present  coast  survey  is  engaged  in  over  and  be- 
yond that  act.  They  can  do  any  thing  that  the 
British  officers  can  do ;  and  the  British  naval 
officers  conduct  the  coast  survey  of  that  great 
empire.  We  have  many  that  can  do  any  thing 
that  Rear  Admiral  Beaufort  can  do,  and  he  has 
conducted  the  British  coast  survey  for  twenty 
years,  and  has  stood  examinations  before  select 
committees  of  the  British  House  of  Commons, 
which  have  showed  that  no  civil  superintendent 
was  necessary  to  guide  him. 

Mr.  President,  we  have  a  large,  and  almost 
an  idle  navy  at  present.  We  have  a  home 
squadron,  like  the  British,  though  we  do  not 
live  on  an  island,  nor  in  times  subject  to  a  de- 
scent, like  England  from  Spain  in  the  time  of 
the  Invincible  Armada,  or  from  the  Baltic  in 
the  times  of  Canute  and  Hardicanute.  Our 
home  squadron  has  nothing  to  do,  unless  it  can 
be  put  on  the  coast  survey.  We  have  a  Medi- 
terranean squadron ;  but  there  are  no  longer 
pirates  in  the  Mediterranean  to  be  kept  in 
check.  We  have  a  Pacific  squadron,  and  it 
has  no  enemy  to  watch  in  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
Give  these  squadrons  employment — a  part  of 
them  at  least.  Put  them  on  the  coast  survey, 
as  many  as  possible,  and  have  the  work  finished 
— finished  for  the  present  age  as  well  as  for 
posterity.  We  have  been  forty  years  about  it ; 
and,  the  way  we  go  on,  may  be  forty  more. 
The  present  age  wants  the  benefit  of  these  sur- 
veys, and  let  us  accelerate  them  by  turning  the 
na^  y  upon  them — as  much  of  it  as  can  be  pro- 
perly employed.  Let  us  put  the  whole  work 
in  the  hands  of  the  navy,  and  try  the  question 
whether  or  not  they  are  incompetent  to  it. 


CHAPTER    CLXXXII. 

PROPOSED  EXTENSION  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION 
OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  TO  THE  TERRITORIES, 
WITH  A  VIEW  .TO  MAKE  IT  CARRY  SLAVERY 
INTO  CALIFORNIA,  UTAH  AND  NEW  MEXICO. 

The  treaty  of  peace  with  Mexico  had  been 
ratified  in  the  session  of  1847-'48,  and  all  the 
ceded  territory  became  subject  to  our  govern- 
ment, and  needing  the  immediate  establishment 
of  territorial  governments  :  but  such  were  the 
distractions  of  the  slavery  question,  that  no 


such  governments  could  be  formed,  nor  any  law 
of  the  United  States  extended  to  these  newly 
acquired  and  orphan  dominions.  Congress  sat 
for  six  months  after  the  treaty  had  been  rati- 
fied, making  vain  efforts  to  provide  government 
for  the  new  territories,  and  adjourning  without 
accomplishing  the  work.  Another  session  had 
commenced,  and  was  coming  to  a  close  with  the 
same  fruitless  result.  Bills  had  been  introduced, 
but  they  only  gave  rise  to  heated  discussion. 
In  the  last  days  of  the  session,  the  civil  and 
diplomatic  appropriation  bill,  commonly  called 
the  general  appropriation  bill — the  one  which 
provides  annually  for  the  support  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  without  the  passage  of  which  the 
government  would  stop,  came  up  from  the  House 
to  the  Senate.  It  had  received  its  consideration 
in  the  Senate,  and  was  ready  to  be  returned  to 
the  House,  when  Mr.  Walker,  of  Wisconsin, 
moved  to  attach  to  it,  under  the  name  of  amend- 
ment, a  section  providing  a  temporary  govern- 
ment for  the  ceded  territories,  and  extending  an 
enumerated  list  of  acts  of  Congress  to  them. 
It  was  an  unparliamentary  and  disorderly  pro- 
position, the  proposed  amendment  being  incon- 
gruous to  the  matter  of  the  appropriation  bill, 
and  in  plain  violation  of  the  obvious  principle 
which  forbade  extraneous  matter,  and  especially 
that  which  was  vehemently  contested,  from  go- 
ing into  a  bill  upon  the  passage  of  which  the 
existence  of  the  government  depended.  The 
proposition  met  no  favor:  it  would  have  died 
out  if  the  mover  had  not  yielded  to  a  Southern 
solicitation  to  insert  the  extension  of  the  consti- 
tution into  his  amendment,  so  as  to  extend  that 
fundamental  law  to  those  for  whom  it  was  never 
made,  and  where  it  was  inapplicable,  and  im- 
practicable. The  novelty  and  strangeness  of 
the  proposition  called*  up  Mr.  Webster,  who 
said: 

"  It  is  of  importance  that  we  should  seek  to* 
have  clear  ideas  and  correct  notions  of  the  quesr 
tion  which  this  amendment  of  the  member  from 
Wisconsin  has  presented  to  us ;  and  especially 
that  we  should  seek  to  get  some  conception  of 
what  is  meant  by  the  proposition,  in  a  law,  to 
'  extend  the  constitution  of  the  United  States 
to  the  territories.'  Why,  sir,  the  thing  is  utterly 
impossible.  All  the  legislation  in  the  world,  in 
this  general  form,  could  not  accomplish  it. 
There  is  no  cause  for  the  operation  of  the  legis- 
lative power  in  such  a  manner  as  that.  The 
constitution — what  is  it  ?  We  extend  the  con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  by  law  to  terri- 


730 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


tory !  What  is  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States  ?  Is  not  its  very  first  principle,  that  all 
within  its  influence  and  comprehension  shall  be 
represented  in  the  legislature  which  it  estab- 
lishes, with  not  only  a  right  of  debate  and  a 
right  to  vote  in  both  Houses  of  Congress,  but  a 
right  to  partake  in  the  choice  of  the  President 
and  Vice-President  ?  And  can  we  by  law  ex- 
tend these  rights,  or  any  of  them,  to  a  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States  ?  Every  body  will 
see  that  it  is  altogether  impracticable.  It 
comes  to  this,  then,  that  the  constitution  is  to 
be  extended  as  far  as  practicable ;  but  how  far 
that  is,  is  to  be  decided  by  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  therefore  he  is  to  have  abso- 
lute and  despotic  power.  He  is  the  judge  of 
what  is  suitable,  and  what  is  unsuitable ;  and 
what  he  thinks  suitable  is  suitable,  and  what  he 
thinks  unsuitable  is  unsuitable.  He  is  '  omnis 
in  hoc  ; '  and  what  is  this  but  to  say,  in  general 
terms,  that  the  President  of  the  United  States 
shall  govern  this  territory  as  he  sees  fit  till  Con- 
gress makes  further  provision.  Now,  if  the  gen- 
tleman will  be  kind  enough  to  tell  me  what 
principle  of  the  constitution  he  supposes  suita- 
ble, what  discrimination  he  can  draw  between 
suitable  and  unsuitable  which  he  proposes  to 
follow,  I  shall  be  instructed.  Let  me  say,  that 
in  this  general  sense  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
extending  the  constitution.  The  constitution  is 
extended  over  the  United  States,  and  over  noth- 
ing else.  It  cannot  be  extended  over  any  thing 
excep*t  over  the  old  States  and  the  new  States 
that  shall  come  in  hereafter,  when  they  do  come 
in.  There  is  a  want  of  accuracy  of  ideas  in  this 
respect  that  is  quite  remarkable  among  eminent 
gentlemen,  and  especially  professional  and  judi- 
cial gentlemen.  It  seems  to  be  taken  for  granted 
that  the  right  of  trial  by  jury,  the  habeas  cor- 
pus, and  every  principle  designed  to  protect  per- 
sonal liberty,  is  extended  by  force  of  the  consti- 
tution itself  over  every  new  territory.  That 
proposition  cannot  be  maintained  at  all.  How 
do  you  arrive  at  it  by  any  reasoning  or  deduc- 
tion ?  It  can  be  only  arrived  at  by  the  loosest 
of  all  possible  constructions.  It  is  said  that 
this  must  be  so,  else  the  right  of  the  habeas 
corpus  would  be  lost*  Undoubtedly  these 
rights  must  be  conferred  by  law  before  they  can 
be  enjoyed  in  a  territory." 

It  was  not  Mr.  Walker,  of  Wisconsin,  the 
mover  of  the  proposition,  that  replied  to  Mr. 
Webster :  it  was  the  prompter  of  the  measure 
that  did  it,  and  in  a  way  to  show  immediately 
that  this  extension  of  the  constitution  to  terri- 
tories was  nothing  but  a  new  scheme  for  the 
extension  of  slavery.  Denying  the  power  of 
Congress  to  legislate  upon  slavery  in  territories 
— finding  slavery  actually  excluded  from  the 
ceded  territories,  and  desirous  to  get  it  there — 
Mr.  Calhoun,  the  real  author  of  Mr.  Walker's 


amendment,  took  the  new  conception  of  carry- 
ing the  constitution  into  them ;  which  arriving 
there,  and  recognizing  slavery,  and  being  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land,  it  would  over-ride  the 
anti-slavery  laws  of  the  territory,  and  plant  the 
institution  of  slavery  under  its  iEgis,  and  above 
the  reach  of  any  territorial  law,  or  law  of  Con- 
gress to  abolish  it.  He,  therefore,  came  to  the 
defence  of  his  own  proposition,  and  thus  replied 
to  Mr.  Webster : 

"  I  rise,  not  to  detain  the  Senate  to  any  con- 
siderable extent,  but  to  make  a  few  remarks 
upon  the  proposition  first  advanced  by  the 
senator  from  New  Jersey,  fully  endorsed  by 
the  senator  from  New  Hampshire,  and  partly 
endorsed  by  the  senator  from  Massachusetts, 
that  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  does 
not  extend  to  the  territories.  That  is  the  point. 
I  am  very  happy,  sir,  to  hear  this  proposition 
thus  asserted,  for  it  will  have  the  effect  of  nar- 
rowing very  greatly  the  controversy  between 
the  North  and  the  South  as  it  regards  the  sla- 
very question  in  connection  with  the  territories. 
It  is  an  implied  admission  on  the  part  of  those 
gentlemen,  that,  if  the  constitution  does  extend 
to  the  territories,  the  South  will  be  protected  in 
the  enjoyment  of  its  property — that  it  will  be 
under  the  shield  of  the  constitution.  You  can 
put  no  other  interpretation  upon  the  proposition 
which  the  gentlemen  have  made,  than  that  the 
constitution  does  not  extend  to  the  territories. 
Then  the  simple  question  is,  does  the  constitu- 
tion extend  to  the  territories,  or  does  it  not  ex- 
tend to  them  ?  Why,  the  constitution  inter- 
prets itself.  It  pronounces  itself  to  be  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land." 

When  Mr.  Webster  heard  this  syllogistic  as- 
sertion, that  the  constitution  being  the  supreme 
law  of  the  land,  and  the  territories  being  a  part 
of  the  land,  ergo  the  constitution  being  extended 
to  them  would  be  their, supreme  law :  when  he 
heard  this,  he  called  out  from  his  seat — "  What 
land  ?  "     Mr.  Calhoun  replied,  saying : 

"The  land,*  the  territories  of  the  United 
States  are  a  part  of  the  land.  It  is  the  supreme 
law,  not  within  the  limits  of  the  States  of  this 
Union  merely,  but  wherever  aur  flag  waves — 
wherever  our  authority  goes,  the  constitution  in 
part  goes,  not  all  its  provisions  certainly,  but 
all  its  suitable  provisions.  Why,  can  we  have 
any  authority  beyond  the  constitution  ?  I  put 
the  question  solemnly  to  gentlemen  j  if  the  con- 
stitution does  not  go  there,  how  are  we  to  have 
any  authority  or  jurisdiction  whatever  ?  Is  not 
Congress  the  creature  of  the  constitution ;  does 
it  not  hold  its  existence  upon  the  tenure  of  the 
continuance  of  the  constitution ;  and  would  it 
not  be  annihilated  upon  the  destruction  of  that 


ANNO  1849.    JAMES  K.  POLK  PRESIDENT. 


731 


instrument,  and  the  consequent  dissolution  of 
this  confederacy  ?  And  shall  we,  the  creature 
of  the  constitution,  pretend  that  we  have  any 
authority  beyond  the  reach  of  the  constitution  ? 
Sir,  we  were  told,  a  few  days  since,  that  the 
courts  of  the  United  States  had  made  a  decision 
that  the  constitution  did  not  extend  to  the  ter- 
ritories without  an  act  of  Congress.  I  confess 
that  I  was  incredulous,  and  am  still  incredulous 
that  any  tribunal,  pretending  to  have  a  know- 
ledge of  our  system  of  government,  as  the  courts 
of  the  United  States  ought  to  have,  could  have 
pronounced  such  a  monstrous  judgment.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  it  is  an  error  which  has 
been  unjustly  attributed  to  them ;  but  if  they 
have  made  such  a  decision  as  that,  I  for  one  say, 
that  it  ought  not  and  never  can  be  respected. 
The  territories  belong  to  us ;  they  are  ours  ; 
that  is  to  say,  they  are  the  property  of  the 
thirty  States  of  the  Union  ;  and  we,  as  the  re- 
presentatives of  those  thirty  States,  have  the 
right  to  exercise  all  that  authority  and  jurisdic- 
tion which  ownership  carries  with  it." 

Mr.  Webster  replied,  with  showing  that  the 
constitution  was  made  for.St^tes,  not  territories 
— that  no  part  of  it  went  to  a  territory  unless 
specifically  extended  to  it  by  act  of  Congress — 
that  the  territories  from  first  to  last  were*  gov- 
erned as  Congress  chose  to  govern  them,  inde- 
pendently of  the  constitution  and  often  contrary 
to  it,  as  in  denying  them  representatives  in  Con- 
gress, a  vote  for  President  and  Vice-President, 
the  protection  of  the  Supreme  Court — that  Con- 
gress was  constantly  doing  things  in  the  terri- 
tories without  constitutional  objection  (as  mak- 
ing mere  local  roads  and  bridges)  which  could 
not  be  attempted  in  a  State.     He  argued : 

iC  The  constitution  as  the  gentleman  contends, 
extends  over  the  territories,  How  does  it  get 
there  ?  I  am  surprised  to  hear  a  gentleman  so 
distinguished  as  a  strict  constructionist  affirm- 
ing that  the  constitution  of  fne  United  States 
extends  to  the  territories,  without,  showjng  us 
any  clause  in  the  constitution  in  any  way  lead- 
ing to  that  result ;  and  to  hear  the  gentleman 
maintaining  that  position  without  showing  us 
any  way  in  which  such  a  result  could  be  inferred, 
increases  my  surprise. 

"  One  idea  further  upon  this  branch  of  the 
subject.  The  constitution  of  the  United  States 
extending  over  the  territories,  and  no  other  law 
existing  there  !  Why,  I  beg  to  know  how  any 
government  could  proceed,  without  any  other 
authority  existing  there  than  such  as  is  created 
by  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  ? 
Does  the  constitution  of  the  United  States 
settle  titles  to  land?  Does  it  regulate  the 
rights  of  property  ?  Does  it  fix  the  relations 
of  parent  and  child,  guardian  and  ward  ?  The 
constitution  of  the  United  States  establishes 


what  the  gentleman  calls  a  confederation  for 
certain  great  purposes,  leaving  all  the  great 
mass  of  laws  which  is  to  govern  society  to  de- 
rive their  existence  from  State  enactments. 
That  is  the  just  view  of  the  state  of  things 
under  the  constitution.  And  a  State  or  terri- 
tory that  has  no  law  but  such  as  it  derives  from 
the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  must  be 
entirely  without  any  State  or  territorial  gov- 
ernment. The  honorable  senator  from  South 
Carolina,  conversant  with  the  subject  as  he 
must  be,  from  his  long  experience  in  different 
branches  of  the  government,  must  know  that 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States  have  estab- 
lished principles  in  regard  to  the  territories  that 
are  utterly  repugnant  to  the  constitution.  The 
constitution  of  the  United  States  has  provided  for 
them  an  independent  judiciary  ;  for  the  judge  of 
every  court  of  the  United  States  holds  his  office 
upon  the  tenure  of  good  behavior.  Will  the 
gentleman  say  that  in  any  court  established  in 
the  territories  the  judge  holds  his  office  in  that 
way  1  He  holds  it  for  a  term  of  years,  and  is 
removable  at  Executive  discretion.  How  did 
we  govern  Louisiana  before  it  was  a  State  ? 
Did  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  exist  in  Louisi- 
ana during  its  territorial  existence  ?  Or  the 
right  to  trial  by  jury  7*  Who « ever  heard  of 
trial  by  jury  there  before  the  'law  creating  the 
territorial  government  gave  the  right  to  trial  by 
jury  ?  No  one.  And  I  do  not  believe  that  there 
is  any  new  light  now  to  be  thrown  upon  the 
history  of  the  proceedings  of  this  government 
in  rela'tion  t@that  matter.  When  new  territor}' 
has  been  acquired  it  has  always  been  subject  to 
the  laws  of  Congress,  to  such  laws  as  Congress 
thought  proper  to  pass  for  its  immediate  gov- 
ernment, for  its  government  during  its  territorial 
existence,  during  the  preparatory  state  in  which 
it  was  to  remain  until  it  was  ready  to  come  into 
the  Union  as  one  of  the  family  of  States." 

All  this  was  sound  constitutional  law,  or, 
rather,  was- veracious  history,  showing  that  Con- 
gress governed  as  it  pleased  in  the  territories 
independently  of  the  constitution,  and  often  con- 
trary to  it ;  and  consequently  that  the  constitu- 
tion did  not  extend  to  it.  Mr.  Webster  then 
showed  the  puerility  of  the  idea  that  the  constitu- 
tion went  over  the  territories  because  they  were 
"  land,"  and  exposed  the  fallacy  of  the  supposi- 
tion that  the  constitution,  even  if  extended  to  a 
territory,  could  operate  there  of  itself,  and  with- 
out a  law  of  Congress  made  under  it.  This  fal- 
lacy was  exposed  by  showing  that  Mr.  Calhoun, 
in  quoting  the  constitution  as  the  supreme  law  oi 
the  land,  had  omitted  the  essential  words  which 
were  part  of  the  same  clause,  and  which  couples 
with  that  supremacy  the  laws  of  Congress  made 
in  pursuance  of  the  constitution.     Thus : 


732 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


"  The  honorable  senator  from  South  Carolina 
argues  that  the  constitution  declares  itself  to  be 
the  law  of  the  land,  and  that,  therefore,  it  must 
extend  over  the  territories.  '  The  land,'  I  take 
it,  means  the  land  over  which  the  constitution 
is  established,  or,  in  other  words,  it  means  the 
States  united  under  the  constitution.  But  does 
not  the  gentleman  see  at  once  that  the  argument 
would  prove  a  great  deal  too  much  ?  The  con- 
stitution no  more  says  that  the  constitution 
itself  shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  than 
it  says  that  the  laws  of  Congress  shall  be  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land.  It  declares  that  the 
constitution  and  the  law  of  Congress  passed 
under  it  shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land." 

The  question  took  a  regular  slavery  turn,  Mr. 
Calhoun  avowing  his  intent  to  be  to  carry 
slavery  into  the  territories  under  the  wing  of 
the  constitution,  and  openly  treated  as  enemies 
to  the  South  all  that  opposed  it.  Having  taken 
the  turn  of  a  slavery  question,  it  gave  rise  to 
all  the  dissension  of  which  that  subject  had  be- 
come the  parent  since  the  year  1835.  By  a 
close  vote,  and  before  the  object  had  been  under- 
stood by  all  the  senators,  the  amendment  was 
agreed  to  in  the  Senate,  but  immediately  dis- 
agreed to  in  the  House,  and  a  contest  brought 
on  between  the  two  Houses  by  which  the  great 
appropriation  bill,  on  which  the  existence  of  the 
government  depended,  was  not  passecf  until 
after  the  constitutional  expiration  of  the  Con- 
gress at  midnight  of  the  third  of  March,  and 
was  signed  by  Mr.  Polk  (after  he  had  ceased  to 
be  President)  on  the  4th  of  March — the  law 
and  his  approval  being  antedated  of  the  3d,  to 
prevent  its  invalidity  from  appearing  on  the 
face  of  the  act.  Great  was  the  heat  which 
manifested  itself,  and  imminent  the  danger  that 
Congress  would  break  up  without  passing  the 
general  appropriation  bill ;  and  that  the  govern- 
ment would  stop  until  a  new  Congress  could  be 
assembled — many  of  the  members  of  which 
remained  still  to  be  elected.  Many  members 
refused  to  vote  after  midnight — which  it  then 
was.    Mr.  Cass  said : 

"  As  I  am  among  those  who  believe  that  the 
term  of  this  session  has  expired,  and  that  it  is 
incompetent  for  us  now  to  do  business,  I  can- 
not vote  upon  any  motion.  I  have  sat  here  as 
a  mere  looker  on.  I  merely  desire  to  explain 
why  I  took  no  part  in  the  proceedings."  ^ 

Mr.  Yulee,  of  Florida,  moving  an  adjourn- 
ment, said : 

"  I  should  be  very  sorry,  indeed,  to  make  any 


proposition  which  may  in  any  degree  run  counter 
to  the  general  sentiment  of  the  Senate ;  but  I 
feel  bound,  laboring  under  the  strong  convic- 
tion that  I  do,  to  arrest  at  every  step,  and  by 
every  means,  any  recorded  judgment  of  the 
Senate  at  a  time  when  we  are  not  legally  en- 
gaged in  the  discharge  of  our  senatorial  duties. 
I  agree  entirely  in  the  view  taken  by  the  senator 
from  Michigan." 

Mr.  Turney,  of  Tennessee,  said : 

"  I  am  one  of  those  who  believe  that  we  have 
no  right  to  sit  here.  The  time  has  expired ; 
one-third  of  this  body  are  not  present  at  all, 
and  the  others  have  no  right  to  sit  here  as  a 
part  of  Congress.  But  a  motion  has  been  made 
for  adjournment,  and  the  presiding  officer  has 
refused  to  entertain  that  motion.  This  being 
the  case,  I  must  regard  all  that  is  done  as  done 
in  violation  of  the  constitution,  or,  rather,  not 
in  pursuance  of  it.  It  appears  to  me  that  we 
sit  here  more  in  the  character  of  a  town  meeting 
than  as  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
and  that  what  we  do  is  no  more  binding  on  the 
American  people  than  if  we  did  it  at  a  town 
meeting.  I  shall  Express  no  opinion  by  saying 
yea  or  nay  on  the  question  before  the  Senate. 
At  the  same  time,  I  protest  against  it,  as  being 
no  part  of  the  constitutional  proceedings  of  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States." 

Mr.  Benton,  and  many  others,  declined  to 
vote.  The  House  of  Representatives  had  ceased- 
to  act,  and  sent  to  the  Senate  the  customary 
message  of  adjournment.  The  President  who, 
according  to  the  usage,  had  remained  in  the 
capitol  till  midnight  to  sign  bills,  had  gone 
home.  It  was  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  of 
the  fourth,  and  the  greatest  confusion  and  dis- 
order prevailed.  Finally,  Mr.  Webster  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  a  vote,  by  which  the  Senate 
receded  from  the  amendment  it  had  adopted,  ex- 
tending the  constitution  to  the  territories  ;  and 
that  recession  leaving  the  appropriation  bill  free 
from  the  encumbrance  of  the  slavery  question, 
it  was  immediately  passed. 

This  attempt,  pushed  to  the  verge  of  break- 
ing up  the  government  in  pursuit  of  a  newly  in- 
vented slavery  dogma,  was  founded  in  errors  too 
gross  for  misapprehension.  In  the  first  place, 
as  fully  shown  by  Mr.  Webster,  the  constitu- 
tion was  not  made  for  territories,  but  for  States. 
In  the  second  place,  it  cannot  operate  any  where, 
not  even  in  the  States  for  which  it  was  made, 
without  acts  of  Congress  to  enforce  it.  This  is 
true  of  the  constitution  in  every  particular. 
Every  part  of  it  is  inoperative  until  put  into 
action  by  a  statute  of  Congress.     The  constitu- 


ANNO  1849.     JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


733 


tion  allows  the  President  a  salary :  he  cannot 
touch  a  dollar  of  it  without  an  act  of  Congress. 
It  allows  the  recovery  of  fugitive  slaves :  you 
cannot  recover  one  without  an  act  of  Congress. 
And  so  of  every  clause  it  contains.     The  pro-  i 
posed  extension  of  the  constitution  to  territories,  , 
with  a  view  to   its  transportation  of  slavery  J 
along  with  it,  was  then  futile  and  nugatory,  \ 
until  an  act  of  Congress  should  be  passed  to  j 
vitalize  slavery  under  it.     So  that,  if  the  ex- 
tension had  been  declared  by  law,  it  would  have 
answered  no  purpose  except  to  widen  the  field  of 
the  slavery  agitation — to  establish  a  new  point  i 
of  contention — to  give  a  new  phase  to  the  em-  j 
bittered  contest — and  to  alienate  more  and  more  , 
from  each  other  the  two  halves  of  the  Union.  : 
But  the  extension  was  not  declared.      Congress  | 
did  not  extend  the  constitution  to  the  Terri-  j 
tories.     The    proposal  was   rejected  in    both  j 
Houses  ;  and  immediately  the  crowning  dogma 
is  invented,  that  the  constitution  goes  of  itself  j 
to  the  territories  without  an  act  of  Congress,  | 
and  executes  itself,  so  far  as  slavery  is  concerned,  | 
not  only  without  legislative  aid,  but  in  defiance 
of  Congress  and  the  people  of  the    territory. 
This  is  the  last  slavery  creed  of  the  Calhoun 
school,  and  the  one  on  which  his  disciples  now 
stand — and  not  with  any  barren  foot.     They 
apply  the  doctrine  to  existing  territories,  and 
make  acquisitions  from  Mexico  for  new  applica- 
tions.   It  is  impossible  to  consider  such  con- 
duct as  any  thing  else  than  as  one  of   the 
devices  for  "forcing  the  issue  with  the  North," 
which  Mr.  Calhoun  in  his  confidential  letter  to 
the  member  of  the  Alabama  legislature  avows 
to  have  been  his  policy  since  1835,  and  which  he 
avers  he  would  then  have  effected  if  the  mem- 
bers from  the  slave  States  had  stood  by  him. 


CHAPTER    CLXXXIII. 

PROGRESS  OF  THE  SLAVERY  AGITATION:  MEET- 
ING OF  MEMBERS  FROM  THE  SLAVE  STATES : 
INFLAMMATORY  ADDRESS  TO  THE  SOUTHERN 
STATES. 

The  last  days  of  Mr.  Polk's  administration 
were  witness  to  an  ominous  movement — no- 
thing less  than  nightly  meetings  of  large  num- 
bers of  members  from  the  slave  States  to  con- 


sider the  state  of  things  between  the  North  and 
the  South — to  show  the  aggressions  and  en- 
croachments (as  they  were  called),  of  the  for- 
mer upon  the  latter — to  show  the  incompati- 
bility of  their  union — and  to  devise  measures 
for  the  defence  and  protection  of  the  South. 
Mr.  Calhoun  was  at  the  bottom  of  this  move- 
ment, which  was  conducted  with  extraordinary 
precautions  to  avoid  publicity.  None  but  slave 
State  members  were  admitted.;  No  reporters 
were  permitted  to  be  present ;  nor  any  specta- 
tors, or  auditors.  As  many  as  seventy  or  eighty 
were  assembled;  but  about  one  half  of  this 
number  were  inimical  to  the  meeting,  and  only 
attended  to  prevent  mischief  to  the  Union,  and 
mostly  fell  off  from  their  attendance  before  the 
work  was  concluded.  At  the  first  meeting  a 
grand  committee  of  15  (Mr.  Calhoun  one)  were 
appointed  to  consider  of  resolutions  :  when 
they  met,  a  sub-committee  of  five  (Mr.  Calhoun 
at  their  head)  was  carved  out  of  the  15  to 
report  an  address  tc>  the  slave  States :  and 
when  they  met,  Mr.  Calhoun  produced  the  ad- 
dress ready  written.  So  that  the  whole  con- 
trivance of  the  grand  and  petty  committees  was 
a  piece  of  machinery  to  get  Mr.  Calhoun's  own 
manifesto  before  the  public  with  the  sanction  of 
a  meeting.  Mr.  Calhoun's  manifesto,  sanctioned* 
by  the  sub-committee,  was  only  saved  from  con- 
demnation in  the  committee  of  15  by  one  vote, 
and  that  vote  his  own.  Saved  by  one  vote,  and 
got  before  the  meeting  itself,  it  there  underwent 
condemnation,  and  was  recommitted  for  amend- 
ment. Four  of  tHfe  grand  committee,  consisting 
of  those  who  were  averse  to  the  whole  proceed- 
ing, were  excused  upon  their  own  request  from 
serving  longer  upon  it.  Got  back  into  the 
grand  committee,  it  was  superseded  in  toto  by 
an  entire  new  address,  not  to  the  slave  States, 
but  to  the  people  of  the  whole  Union,  and  ad- 
dressed not  to  their  angry,  but  to  their  good 
feelings.  That  address  was  reported  to  an  ad- 
journed meeting  of  the  members;  and  those 
opposed  to  the  whole  proceeding  having  nearly 
ceased  to  attend,  the  original  manifesto  of  Mr. 
Calhoun  was  adopted  in  place  of  it :  and  thus, 
after  a  tedious  and  painful  process,  and  defeated 
half  the  time,  and  only  succeeding  when  the 
meeting  had  become  thin  and  nearly  reduced  to 
his  own  partisans,  that  gentleman  succeeded  in 
getting  his  inflammatory  composition  before  the 
public  as  the  voice  of  the  Southern  members. 


734 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


But  even  then  not  as  he  first  drew  it  up.  In 
the  primitive  draft  the  introductory  clause  as- 
serted that  the  present  wrongs  of  the  North 
upon  the  South  were  equal  to  those  which  pro- 
duced the  separation  of  these  States,  when 
colonies,  from  the  British  empire :  that  clause 
was  softened  down,  and  generalized  in  the 
amended  and  adopted  manifesto  into  the  asser- 
tion of  a  dangerous  conflict  between  the  two 
sections  of  the  Union,  and  the  perpetration  of 
encroachments  and  aggressions  upon  the  slave 
States  which  their  safety  would  no  longer  allow 
them  to  stand,  and  for  which  a  cure  must  be 
found.  In  the  original  it  stood  thus :  "  Not 
excepting  the  declaration  which  separated  you 
and  the  United  Colonies  from  the  parent  coun- 
try. That  involved,  your  independence;  but 
this  your  all,  not  excepting  your  safety."  As 
softened  it  ran  thus  : 

"We,  whose  names  are  hereunto  annexed, 
address  you  in  the  discharge  of  what  we  believe 
to  be  a  solemn  duty  on  the  most  important  sub- 
ject ever  presented  for  your  consideration.  We 
allude  to  the  conflict  between  the  two  great 
sections  of  the  Union,  growing  out  of  a  difference 
of  feeling  and  opinion  in  reference  to  the  rela- 
tion existing  between  the  two  races,  the  Euro- 
pean and  African,  which  inhabit  the  Southern 
section,  and  the  acts  of  aggression  and  en- 
croachment to  which  it  has  led.  The  conflict 
commenced  not  long  after  the  acknowledgment 
of  our  Independence,  and  has  gradually  in- 
creased until  it  has  arrayed  the  great  body  of 
the  North  against  the  South  on  this  most  vital 
subject.  In  the  progress  of  this  conflict,  ag- 
gression has  followed  aggression,  and  encroach- 
ment encroachment,  until  they  have  reached  a 
point  when  a  regard  for  peace  and  safety  will 
not  permit  us  to  remain  longer  silent.  The  ob- 
ject of  this  address  is  to  give  you  a  clear,  cor- 
rect, but  brief  account  of  the  whole  series  of  ag- 
gression and  encroachments  on  your  rights,  with 
a  statement  of  the  dangers  to  which  they  ex- 
pose you.  Our  object  in  making  it,  is  not  to 
cause  excitement,  but  to  put  you  in  full  posses- 
sion of  all  the  facts  and  circumstances  necessary 
to  a  full  and  just  conception  of  a  deep-seated 
disease,  which  threatens  great  danger  to  you 
and  the  whole  body  politic.  We  act  on  the  im- 
pression, that  in  a  popular  government  like  ours, 
a  true  conception  of  the  actual  character  and 
state  of  a  disease  is  indispensable  to  effecting  a 
cure." 

The  manifesto  was  modelled  upon  that  of  the 
Declaration  of  the  Independence  of  the  United 
States ;  and,  by  its  authors,  was  soon  saluted  as 
the  second  Declaration  of  Independence.  After 
the  motive  clause,  showing  the  inducements  to  the 


act,  followed  a  long  list  of  grievances,  as  formida- 
ble in  number  as  those  which  had  impelled  the 
separation  from  Great  Britain,  but  so  frivolous 
and  imaginary  in  substance,  that  no  one  could 
repeat  them  now  without  recourse  to  the  paper. 
Strange  to  see,  they  have  become  more  remark- 
able for  what  they  omitted  than  contained.  That 
Missouri  compromise,  since  become  an  outrage 
which  the  constitution  and  the  slave  States  could 
no  longer  endure,  was  then  a  good  thing,  of  which 
the  slave  States  wished  more,  and  claimed  its  ex- 
tension to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  Wilmot  pro- 
viso, which  had  been  the  exasperation  of  the 
slave  States  for  three  years,  was  skipped  over,  the 
great  misfortune  having  happened  to  the  South 
which  had  been  deprecated  in  the  letter  to  the 
Alabama  member  of  the  General  Assembly :  it 
had  been  defeated  !  and  for  the  express  purpose 
of  taking  a  handle  of  agitation  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  enemies  of  the  Union :  but  without  benefit, 
as  others  were  seized  upon  immediately,  and  the 
slavery  contention  raged  more  furiously  than 
ever.  But  past,  or  present,  "encroachments 
and  aggressions  "  were  too  light  and  apocryphal 
to  rouse  a  nation.  Something  more  stirring 
was  wanted  ;  and  for  that  purpose,  Time, 
and  Imagination — the  Future,  and  Invention-— 
were  to  be  placed  in  requisition.  The  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  States — the  emancipation  of 
slaves,  all  over  the  South — the  conflict  between 
the  white  and  the  black  races — the  prostration 
of  the  white  race,  as  in  San  Domingo :  the 
whites  the  slaves  of  the  blacks :  such  were  the 
future  terrors  and  horrors  to  be  visited  upon 
the  slave  States  if  not  arrested  by  an  instant 
and  adequate  remedy.  Some  passages  from 
this  conglomeration  of  invented  horrors  will 
show  the  furious  zeal  of  the  author,  and  the 
large  calculation  which  he  made  upon  the  gul- 
libility of  the  South  when  a  slavery  alarm  was 
to  be  propagated : 

"  Such,  then,  being  the  case,  it  would  be  to 
insult  you  to  suppose  you  could  hesitate.  To 
destroy  the  existing  relation  between  the  free 
and  servile  races  at  the  South  would  lead  to 
consequences  unparalleled  in  history.  They 
cannot  be  separated,  and  cannot  live  together  in 
peace  or  harmony,  or  to  their  mutual  advantage, 
except  in  their  present  relation.  Under  any 
other,  wretchedness,  and  misery,  and  desolation 
would  overspread  the  whole  South.  The  ex- 
ample of  the  British  West  Indies,  as  blighting 
as  emancipation  has  proved  to  them,  furnishes  a 
very  faint  picture  of  the  calamities  it  would 


ANNO  1849.    JAMES  K.  POLK,  PRESIDENT. 


735 


bring  on  the  South.  The  circumstances  under 
which  it  would  take  place  with  us  would  be  en- 
tirely different  from  those  which  took  place 
with  them,  and  calculated  to  lead  to  far  more 
disastrous  results.  There,  the  government  of 
the  parent  country  emancipated  slaves  in  her 
colonial  possessions — a  government  rich  and 
powerful,  and  actuated  by  views  of  policy  (mis- 
taken as  they  turned  out  to  be)  rather  than 
fanaticism.  It  was,  besides,  disposed  to  act 
justly  towards  the  owners,  even  in  the  act  of 
emancipating  their  slaves,  and  to  protect  and 
foster  them  afterwards.  It  accordingly  appro- 
priated nearly  $5100,000,000  as  a  compensation 
to  them  for  their  losses  under  the  act,  which 
sum,  although  it  turned  out  to  be  far  short  of 
the  amount,  was  thought  at  that  time  to  be 
liberal.  Since  the  emancipation  it  has  kept  up 
a  sufficient  military  and  naval  force  to  keep  the 
blacks  in  awe,  and  a  number  of  magistrates,  and 
constables,  and  other  civil  officers,  to  keep  order 
in  the  towns  and  plantations,  and  enforce  re- 
spect to  their  former  owners.  It  can  only  be 
effected  by  the  prostration  of  the  white  race ; 
and  that  would  necessarily  engender  the  bitter- 
est feelings  of  hostility  between  them  and  the 
North.  But  the  reverse  would  be  the  case  be- 
tween the  blacks  of  the  South  and  the  people 
of  the  North.  Owing  their  emancipation  to 
them,  they  would  regard  them  as  friends, 
guardians,  and  patrons,  and  centre,  accordingly, 
all  their  sympathy  in  them.  The  people  of  the 
North  would  not  fail  to  reciprocate  and  to  fa- 
vor them,  instead  of  the  whites.  Under  the  in- 
fluence of  such  feelings,  and  impelled  by  fanati- 
cism and  love  of  power,  they  would  not  stop  at 
emancipation.  Another  step  would  be  taken — 
to  raise  them  to  a  political  and  social  equality 
with  their  former  owners,  by  giving  them  the 
right  of  voting  and  holding  public  offices  under 
the  federal  government.  But  when  once  raised 
to  an  equality,  they  would  become  the  fast  po- 
litical associates  of  the  North,  acting  and  voting 
with  them  on  all  questions,  and  by  this  political 
union  between  them,  holding  the  white  race  at 
the  South  in  complete  subjection.  The  blacks, 
and  the  profligate  whites  that  might  unite  with 
them,  would  become  the  principal  recipients  of 
federal  offices  and  patronage,  and  would,  in  con- 
sequence, be  raised  above  the  whites  of  the 
South  in  the  political  and  social  scale.  We 
would,  in  a  word,  change  conditions  with  them 
— a  degradation  greater  than  has  ever  yet  fallen 
to  the  lot  of  a  free  and  enlightened  people,  and 
one  from  which  we  could  not  escape,  should 
emancipation  take  place  (which  it  certainly  will 
if  not  prevented),  but  by  fleeing  the  homes  of 
ourselves  and  ancestors,  and  by  abandoning  our 
country  to  our  former  slaves,  to  become  the 
permanent  abode  of  disorder,  anarchy,  poverty, 
misery  and  wretchedness." 

Emancipation,   with  all  these    accumulated 
horrors,  is  here  held  to  be  certain.  "  if  not  pre- 


vented :  "  certain,  so  far  as  it  depended  upon  the 
free  States,  which  were  rapidly  becoming  the 
majority ;  and  only  to  be  prevented  by  the  slave 
States  themselves.  Now,  this  certain  emanci- 
pation of  slaves  in  the  States,  was  a  pure  and 
simple  invention  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  not  only  with- 
out evidence,  but  against  evidence — contradict- 
ed by  every  species  of  human  action,  negative 
and  positive,  before  and  since.  Far  from  at- 
tacking slavery  in  the  States,  the  free  States 
have  co-operated  to  extend  the  area  of  slavery 
within  such  States :  witness  the  continued  ex- 
tinctions of  Indian  title  which  have  so  largely 
increased  the  available  capacity  of  the  slave 
States.  So  far  from  making  war  upon  slave 
States,  several  such  States  have  been  added  to 
the  Union,  as  Texas  and  Florida,  by  the  co-opera- 
tion of  free  States.  Far  from  passing  any  law 
to  emancipate  slaves  in  the  States,  no  Congress 
has  ever  existed  that  has  seen  a  man  that  would 
make  such  a  motion  in  the  House  ;  or,  if  made, 
would  not  be  as  unanimously  rejected  by  one 
side  of  the  House  as  the  other — as  if  the  unani- 
mity would  not  be  the  same  whether  the  whole 
North  went  out,  and  let  the  South  vote  alone  ! 
or  the  whole  South  went  out,  and  let  the  North 
alone  vote.  Yet,  this  incendiary  cry  of  abolish- 
ing slavery  in  the  States  has  become  the  staple 
of  all  subsequent  agitators.  Every  little  agita- 
tor now  jumps  upon  it — jumps  into  a  State  the 
moment  a  free  territory  is  mentioned — and  re- 
peats all  the  alarming  stuff  invented  by  Mr. 
Calhoun ;  and  as  much  more  as  his  own  inven- 
tion can  add  to  it.  In  the  mean  time  events 
daily  affix  the  brand  of  falsehood  on  these  in- 
cendiary inventions.  Slave  State  Presidents  are 
continually  elected  by  free  State  votes :  the 
price  of  slaves  themselves,  instead  of  sinking,  as 
it  would  if  there  was  any  real  danger,  is  con- 
tinually augmenting,  and,  in  fact,  has  reached  a 
height  the  double  of  what  it  was  before  the 
alarming  story  of  emancipation  had  begun. 

Assuming  this  emancipation  of  the  slaves  in 
the  States  to  be  certain  and  inevitable,  with  all 
its  dreadful  consequences,  unless  prevented  by 
the  slave  States,  the  manifesto  goes  on  seriously 
to  bring  the  means  of  prevention  most  closely 
to  the  consideration  of  the  slave  States — to  urge 
their  unity  and  concert  of  action  on  the  slavery 
question — to  make  it  the  supreme  object  of  their 
labors,  before  which  all  other  subjects  are  to 
give  way — to  take  the  attitude  of  self-defence ; 


736 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


and,  braving  all  consequences,  throw  the  respon- 
sibility on  the  other  side.     Thus  : 

"  With  such  a  prospect  before  us,  the  gravest 
and  most  solemn  question  that  ever  claimed  the 
attention  of  a  people  is  presented  for  your  con- 
sideration: What  is  to  be  done  to  prevent  it? 
It  is  a  question  belonging  to  you  to  decide.  All 
we  propose  is  to  give  you  our  opinion.  We, 
then,  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  first  and  indis- 
pensable step,  without  which  nothing  can  be 
done,  and  with  which  every  thing  may  be,  is  to 
be  united  among  yourselves  on  this  great  and 
most  vital  question.  The  want  of  union  and 
concert  in  reference  to  it  has  brought  the  South, 
the  Union,  and  our  system  of  government  to 
their  present  perilous  condition.  Instead  of 
placing  it  above  all  others,  it  has  been  made 
subordinate  not  only  to  mere  questions  of  policy, 
but  to  the  preservation  of  party  ties  and  insur- 
ing of  party  success.  As  high  as  we  hold  a  due 
respect  for  these,  we  hold  them  subordinate  to 
that  and  other  questions  involving  our  safety 
and  happiness.  Until  they  are  so  held  by  the 
South,  the  North  will  not  believe  that  you  are 
in  earnest  in  opposition  to  their  encroachments, 
and  they  will  continue  to  follow,  one  after  an- 
other, until  the  work  of  abolition  is  finished. 
To  convince  them  that  you  are,  you  must  prove 
by  your  acts  that  you  hold  all  other  questions 
subordinate  to  it.  If  you  become  united,  and 
prove  yourselves  in  earnest,  the  North  will  be 
brought  to  a  pause,  and  to  a  calculation  of  con- 
sequences ;  and  that  may  lead  to  a  change  of 
measures,  and  to  the  adoption  of  a  course  of 
policy  that  may  quietly  and  peaceably  terminate 
this  long  conflict  between  the  two  sections.  If 
it  should  not,  nothing  would  remain  for  you  but 
to  stand  up  immovably  in  defence  of  rights  in- 
volving your  all — your  property,  prosperity, 
equality,  liberty,  and  safety.  As  the  assailed, 
you  would  stand  justified  by  all  laws  human 
and  divine,  in  repelling  a  blow  so  dangerous, 
without  looking  to  consequences,  and  to  resort 
to  all  means  necessary  for  that  purpose.    Your 


assailants,  and  not  you,  would  be  responsible  for 
consequences.  Entertaining  these  opinions,  we 
earnesjtly  entreat  you  to  be  united,  and  for  that 
purpose  &aopt  all  necessary  measures.  Beyond 
this,  we  think  it  would  not  be  proper  to  go  at 
present." 

The  primitive  draft  of  the  manifesto  went 
further,  and  told  what  was  to  be  done  :  opinions 
and  counsels  are  as  far  as  the  signers  thought 
it  proper  to  go  then.  But  something  further 
was  intimated ;  and  that  soon  came  in  the  shape 
of  a  Southern  convention  to  dissolve  the  Union, 
and  a  call  from  the  legislatures  of  two  of  the 
most  heated  States  (South  Carolina  and  Mis- 
sissippi), for  the  assembling  of  a  "Southern 
Congress,"  to  put  the  machinery  of  the  "United 
States  South  "  into  operation :  but  of  this  here- 
after. Following  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence in  its  mode  of  adoption,  as  well  in  its  ex- 
position of  motives  as  in  its  enumeration  of 
grievances,  the  manifesto  was  left  with  the  sec- 
retary of  the  meeting  for  the  signature  of  the 
slave-holding  members  who  concurred  in  it. 
The  signers  were  the  following : 

"  Messrs.  Atchison  of  Missouri ;  Hunter  and 
Mason  of  Virginia ;  Calhoun  and  Butler  of  South 
Carolina  ;  Downs  of  Louisiana  ;  Foote  and  Jef- 
ferson Davis  of  Mississippi ;  Fitzpatrick  of  Ala- 
bama ;  Borland  and  Sebastian  of  Arkansas ; 
Westcott  and  Yulee  of  Florida ;  Atkinson,  Bay- 
ley,  Bedinger,  Bocock,  Beale,  W.  G.  Brown, 
Meade,  R.  A.  Thompson  of  Virginia ;  Daniel, 
Venable  of  North  Carolina ;  Burt,  Holmes, 
Rhett,  Simpson,  Woodward  of  South  Carolina  ; 
Wallace,  Iverson,  Lumpkin  of  Georgia;  Bow- 
don,  Gayle,  Harris  of  Alabama ;  Featherston,  I. 
Thompson  of  Mississippi ;  La  Sere,  Morse  of 
Louisiana ;  R.  W.  Johnson  of  Arkansas ;  San- 
ton  of  Kentucky." 


ANNO  1849.     ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


737 


ADMINISTRATION  OF  ZACHARY  TAYLOR. 


CHAPTER    CLXXXIV. 

INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  TAYLOR : 
CABINET. 


HIS 


On  the  4th  of  March  the  new  President  was  in- 
augurated with  the  customary  formalities,  Chief 
Justice  Taney  administering  the  oath  of  office. 
He  delivered  an  address,  as  use  and  propriety 
required,  commendably  brief,  and  confined  to  a 
declaration  of  general  principles.  Mr.  Millard 
Fillmore,  the  Vice-President  elect,  was  duly  in- 
stalled as  President  of  the  Senate,  and  delivered 
a  neat  and  suitable  address  on  taking  the  chair. 
Assembled  in  extraordinary  session,  the  Senate 
received  and  confirmed  the  several  nominations 
for  the  cabinet.  They  were  :  John  M.  Clayton, 
of  Delaware,  to  be  Secretary  of  State  ;  William 
M.  Meredith,  of  Pennsylvania,  to  be  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury ;  George  "VV.  Crawford,  of 
Georgia,  to  be  Secretary  at  War ;  William  Bal- 
lard Preston,  of  Virginia,  to  be  Secretary  of  the 
Navy ;  Thomas  Ewing,  of  Ohio,  to  be  Secretary 
of  the  Home  Department — a  new  department 
created  at  the  preceding  session  of  Congress ; 
Jocob  Collamer,  of  Vermont,  to  be  Postmaster 
General ;  Reverdy  Johnson,  of  Maryland,  to  be 
Attorney  General.  The  whole  cabinet  were,  of 
course,  of  the  whig  party. 


Vol.  II.— 47 


CHAPTER    CLXXXV. 

DEATH  OF  EX-PRESIDENT  POLK. 

He  died  at  Nashville,  Tennessee,  soon  after  he 
returned  home,  and  within  three  months  after 
his  retirement  from  the  presidency.  He  was 
an  exemplary  man  in  private  life,  moral  in  all 
his  deportment,  and  patriotic  in  his  public  life., 
aiming  at  the  good  of  his  country  always.  It 
was  his  misfortune  to  have  been  brought  into 
the  presidency  by  an  intrigue,  not  of  his  own, 
but  of  others,  and  the  evils  of  which  became  an 
inheritance  of  his  position,  and  the  sole  cause 
of  all  that  was  objectionable  in  his  administra- 
tion. He  was  the  first  President  put  upon  the 
people  without  their  previous  indication — the 
first  instance  in  which  a  convention  assumed 
the  right  of  disposing  of  the  presidency  accord- 
ing to  their  own  will,  and  of  course  with  a  view 
to  their  own  advantage.  The  scheme  of  these 
intriguers  required  the  exclusion  of  all  inde- 
pendent and  disinterested  men  from  his  councils 
and  confidence — a  thing  easily  effected  by  repre- 
senting all  such  men  as  his  enemies,  and  them- 
selves as  his  exclusive  friends.  Hence  the  ejec- 
tion of  the  Globe  newspaper  from  the  organship 
of  the  administration,  and  the  formation  of  a 
cabinet  too  much  dominated  by  intrigue  and 
selfishness.  All  the  faults  of  his  administra- 
tion were  the  faults  of  his  cabinet :  all  its 
merits  were  his  own,  in  defiance  of  them.  Even 
the  arrangement  with  the  Calhoun  and  Tyler 
interest  by  which  the  Globe  was  set  aside  be- 
fore the  cabinet  was  formed,  was  the  work  of 


738 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


men  who  were  to  be  of  the  cabinet.  His  own 
will  was  not  strong  enough  for  his  position,  yet 
he  became  firm  and  absolute  where  his  judg- 
ment was  convinced  and  patriotism  required 
decision.  Of  this  he  gave  signal  proof  in  over- 
ruling his  whole  cabinet  in  their  resolve  for  the 
sedentary  line  in  Mexico,  and  forcing  the  adop- 
tion of  the  vigorous  policy  which  carried  the 
American  arms  to  the  city  of  Mexico,  and  con- 
quered a  peace  in  the  capital  of  the  country. 
He  also  gave  a  proof  of  it  in  falling  back  upon 
the  line  of  49°  for  the  settlement  of  the  Oregon 
boundary  with  Great  Britain,  while  his  cabinet, 
intimidated  by  their  own  newspapers,  and 
alarmed  at  the  storm  which  themselves  had  got 
up,  were  publicly  adhering  to  the  line  of  54°  40', 
with  the  secret  hope  that  others  would  extricate 
them  from  the  perils  of  that  forlorn  position. 
The  Mexican  war,  under  the  impulse  of  specu- 
lators, and  upon  an  intrigue  with  Santa  Anna, 
was  the  great  blot  upon  his  administration; 
and  that  was  wholly  the  work  of  the  intriguing 
part  of  his  cabinet,  into  which  he  entered  with 
a  full  belief  that  the  intrigue  was  to  be  success- 
ful, and  the  war  finished  in  "  ninety  or  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  days  ; "  and  without  firing  an- 
other gun  after  it  should  be  declared.  He  was 
sincerely  a  friend  to  the  Union,  and  against 
whatever  would  endanger  it,  especially  that  ab- 
sorption of  the  whole  of  Mexico  which  had  ad- 
vocates in  those  who  stood  near  him;  and  also 
against  the  provisional  line  which  was  to  cover 
Monterey  and  Guaymas,  when  he  began  to  sus- 
pect the  ultimate  object  of  that  line.  The  ac- 
quisition of  New  Mexico  and  California  were 
the  distinguishing  events  of  his  administration 
— fruits  of  the  war  with  Mexico ;  but  which 
would  have  come  to  the  United  States  without 
that  war  if  the  President  had  been  surrounded 
by  a  cabinet  free  from  intrigue  and  selfishness, 
and  wholly  intent  upon  the  honor  and  interest 
of  the  country. 


CHAPTER    CLXXXVI. 

THIRTY-FIRST  CONGRESS  :    FIRST  SESSION  :   LIST 
OF  MEMBERS :  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  HOUSE. 

Th«g  Senate,  now  consisting  of  sixty  members 
was  composed  as  follows  : 

Maine. — Hannibal  Hamlin,  James  W.  Brad- 
bury. 

New  Hampshire. — John  P.  Hale,  Moses 
Norris,  jr. 

Massachusetts. — Daniel  Webster,  John  Da- 
vis. 

Rhode  Island. — Albert  C.  Greene,  John  H. 
Clarke. 

Connecticut. — Roger  S.  Baldwin,  Truman 
Smith. 

Vermont. — Samuel  S.  Phelps,  William  Up- 
ham. 

New  York. — Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  William 
H.  Seward. 

New  Jersey. — William  L.  Dayton,  Jacob  W. 
Miller. 

Pennsylvania. — Daniel  Sturgeon,  James 
Cooper. 

Delaware. — John  Wales,  Presley  Spruance. 

Maryland. — David  Stuart,  James  A.  Pearce. 

Virginia. — James  M.  Mason,  Robert  M.  T. 
Hunter. 

North  Carolina. — Willie  P.  Mangum, 
George  E.  Badger. 

South  Carolina. — John  C.  Calhoun,  Ar- 
thur P.  Butler. 

Georgia. — John  M.  Berrien,  William  C. 
Dawson. 

Kentucky. — Joseph  R.  Underwood,  Henry 
Clay. 

Tennessee. — Hopkins  L.  Turney,  John  Bell. 

Ohio. — Thomas  Corwin,  Salmon  P.  Chase. 

Louisiana. — Solomon  W.  Downs,  Pierre 
Soule. 

Indiana. — Jesse  D.  Bright,  James  Whit- 
comb. 

Mississippi. — Jefferson  Davis,  Henry  S. 
Foote. 

Illinois. — Stephen  A.  Douglass,  James 
Shields. 

Alabama. — Jeremiah  Clemens,  William  R. 
King. 

Missouri. — Thomas  H.  Benton,  David  R. 
Atchison. 

Arkansas. — William  R.  Sebastian,  Solon 
Borland. 

Florida. — David  L.  Yulee,  Jackson  Morton. 

Michigan. — Lewis  Cass,  Alpheus  Felch. 

Texas. — Thomas  J.  Rusk,  Sam  Houston. 

Wisconsin. — Henry  Dodge,  Isaac  P.  Walker. 

Iowa. — George  W.  Jones,  Augustus  C.  Dodge. 


ANNO  1849.     ZACIIARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


730 


In  this  list  the  reader  will  not  fail  to  remark 
the  names  of  Mr.  Clay,  Mr.  Webster,  and  Mr. 
Calhoun,  all  of  whom,  commencing  their  con- 
gressional career  nearly  a  generation  before, 
and  after  several  retirings,  had  met  again,  and 
towards  the  close  of  their  eventful  lives,  upon 
this  elevated  theatre  of  their  long  and  brilliant 
labors.  The  House,  consisting  of  two  hundred 
and  thirty  members,  was  thus  composed  : 

Maine.— Thomas  J.  D.  Fuller,  Elbridge  Ger- 
ry, Rufus  K.  Goodenow,  Nathaniel  S.  Littlefield, 
John  Otis,  Cullen  Sawtelle,  Charles  Stetson. 

New  Hampshire. — Harry  Hibbard,  Charles 
II.  Peaslee,  Amos  Tuck,  James  Wilson. 

Vermont. — William  Hebard,  William  Hen- 
ry, James  Meacham,  Lucius  B.  Peck. 

Massachusetts. — Charles  Allen,  George  Ash- 
mun,  James  II.  Duncan,  Orin  Fowler,  Joseph 
Grinnell,  Daniel  P.  King,  Horace  Mann,  Julius 
Rockwell,  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  Daniel  Webster. 

Rhode  Island. — Nathan  F.  Dixon,  George 
G.  King. 

Connecticut. — Walter  Booth,  Thomas  B. 
Butler,  Chauncey  F.  Cleveland.  Loren  P.  Wal- 
do. 

New  York. — Henry  P.  Alexander,  George 
R.  Andrews,  Henry  Bennett,  David  A.  Bokee, 
George  Briggs,  James  Brooks,  Lorenzo  Bur- 
rows. Charles  E.  Clarke,  Harmon  S.  Conger, 
William  Duer,  Daniel  Gott,  Herman  D.  Gould, 
Ransom  Halloway,  William  T.  Jackson,  John 
A.  King,  Preston  King,  Orsamus  B.  Matteson, 
Thomas  McKissock,  William  Nelson,  J.  Phil- 
lips Phoenix,  Harvey  Putnam,  Gideon  Rey- 
nolds, Elijah  Risley,  Robert  L.  Rose,  David 
Rumsey,  jr.,  William  A.  Sackett,  Abraham  M. 
Scherraerhorn,  John  L.  Schoolcraft,  Peter  H. 
Silvester,  Elbridge  G.  Spaulding,  John  R.  Thur- 
man,  Walter  Underhill,  Hiram  Walden,  Hugh 
White. 

New  Jersey. — Andrew  K.  Hay,  James  G. 
King,  William  A.  Newell,  John  Van  Dyke, 
Isaac  Wildrick. 

Pennsylvania. — Chester  Butler,  Samuel  Cal- 
vin, Joseph  Casey,  Joseph  R.  Chandler,  Jesse 
C.  Dickey,  Milo  M.  Dimmick,  John  Freedley, 
Alfred  Gilmore,  Moses  Hampton,  John  W. 
Howe,  Lewis  C.  Levin,  Job  Mann,  James  X. 
McLanahan,  Henry  D.  Moore,  Henry  Nes,  An- 
drew J.  Ogle,  Charles  W.  Pitman,  Robert  It. 
Reed,  John  Robbins,  jr.,  Thomas  Ross,  Thad- 
deus  Stevens,  William  Strong,  James  Thomp- 
son, David  Wilmot. 

Delaware. — John  W.  Houston. 

Maryland. — Richard  I.  Bowie,  Alexander 
Evans.  William  T.  Hamilton,  Edward  Ham- 
mond, Jo1in  B.  Kerr,  Robert  M.  McLane. 

Virginia. — Thomas  II.  Averett,  Thomas  II. 
Bayly,  James  M.  II.  Beale,  Thomas  S.  Bocock, 
Henry  A.  Edmundson,  Thomas  S.  Haymond, 
Alexander  R.  Holladay,  James  McDowell, 
Fayette  McMullen,  Richard  K.  Meade,  John  S. 


Millson,  Jeremiah  Morton,  Richard  Parker, 
Paulus  Powell,  James  A.  Seddon. 

North  Carolina. — William  S.  Ashe,  Jo- 
seph P.  Caldwell,  Thomas  L.  Clingman,  John 
R.  J.  Daniel,  Edmund  Deberry,  David  Outlaw, 
Augustine  II.  Shepperd,  Edward  Stanly,  Abra- 
ham VV.  Venable. 

South  Carolina. — Armistead  Burt,  William 
F.  Colcock,  Isaac  E.  Holmes,  John  McQueen, 
James  L.  Orr,  Daniel  Wallace,  Joseph  A. 
Woodward. 

Georgia. — Howell  Cobb,  Thomas  C.  Hackett, 
Hugh  A.  Haralson,  Thomas  Butler  King,  Allen 
F.  Owen,  Alexander  II.  Stephens,  Robert 
Toombs,  Marshall  J.  Wellborn. 

Alabama. — Albert  J.  Alston,  Franklin  W 
Bowdon,  Williamson  R.  W.  Cobb,  Sampson  W 
Harris,  Henry  W.  Hilliard,  David  Hubbard, 
Samuel  W.  Inge. 

Mississippi. — Albert  G.  Brown,  Winfield  S. 
Featherston,  William  McWillie,  Jacob  Thomp- 
son. 

Louisiana. — Charles  M.  Conrad,  John  II 
Harmanson,  Emile  La  Sere,  Isaac  E.  Morse. 

Ohio. — Joseph  Cable,  Lewis  D.  Campbell, 
David  K.  Carter,  Moses  B.  Corwin,  John  Cro- 
well,  David  T.  Disney,  Nathan  Evans,  Joshua 
It.  Giddings,  Moses  Hoagland,  William  F.  Hun- 
ter, John  K.  Miller,  Jonathan  D.  Morris,  Edson 
B.  Olds,  Emery  D.  Potter,  Soseph  M.  Root, 
Robert  C.  Schenck,  Charles  Sweetser,  John  L. 
Taylor,  Samuel  F.  Vinton,  William  A.  Whit- 
tlesey, Amos  E.  Wood. 

Kentucky. — Linn  Boyd,  Daniel  Breck,  Geo. 

A.  Caldwell,  James  L.  Johnson,  Humphrey 
Marshall,  John  C.  Mason,  Finis  E.  McLean, 
Charles  S.  Morehead,  Richard  II.  Stanton,  John 

B.  Thompson. 

Tennessee. — Josiah  M.  Anderson,  Andrew 
Ewing,  Meredith  P.  Gentry,  Isham  G.  Harris, 
Andrew  Johnson,  George  W.  Jones,  John  II. 
Savage,  Frederick  P.  Stanton,  Jas.  H.  Thomas, 
Albert  G.  Watkins,  Christopher  II.  Williams. 

Indiana. — Nathaniel  Albertson,  William  J. 
Brown,  Cyrus  L.  Dunham,  Graham  N.  Fitch, 
Willis  A.  Gorman,  Andrew  J.  Harlan,  George 
W.  Julian,  Joseph  E.  McDonald,  Edward  W. 
McGaughey,  John  L.  Robinson. 

Illinois. — Edward  D.  Baker,  William  H. 
Bissell,  Thomas  L.  Harris,  John  A.  McCler- 
nand,  William  A.  Richardson,  John  Wentworth, 
Timothy  It.  Young. 

Missouri. — William  V.  N.  Bay,  James  B. 
Bowlin,  James  S.  Green,  Willard  P.  Hall,  John 
S.  Phelps. 

Arkansas. — Robert  W.  Johnson. 

Michigan. — Kinsley  S.  Bingham,  Alexander 
W.  Buel,  William  Sprague. 

Florida. — E.  Carrington  Cabell. 

Texas. — Volney  E.  Howard,  David  S.  Kauf- 
man. 

Iowa. — Shepherd  Leffler,  William  Thompson. 

Wisconsin. — Orsamus  Cole,  James  D.  Doty, 
Charles  Durkee. 


740 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


Delegates  from  Territories. 

Oregon. — S.  R.  Thurston. 
Minnesota. — Henry  S.  Sibley. 

The  election  of  a  Speaker  is  the  first  business 
of  a  new  Congress,  and  the  election  which  de- 
cided the  political  character  of  the  House  while 
parties  divided  on  political  principles.  Candi- 
dates from  opposite  parties  were  still  put  in 
nomination  at  this  commencement  of  the  Thirty- 
first  Congress,  but  it  was  soon  seen  that  the  sla- 
very question  mingled  with  the  election,  and 
gave  it  its  controlling  character.  Mr.  Robert 
Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts  (whig),  and  Mr. 
C.  Howell  Cobb,  of  Georgia  (democratic),  were 
the  respective  candidates ;  and  in  the  vain 
struggle  to  give  either  a  majority  of  the  House 
near  three  weeks  of  time  was  wasted,  and  above 
sixty  ballotings  exhausted.  Deeming  the  strug- 
gle useless,  resort  was  had  to  the  plurality  rule, 
and  Mr..  Cobb  receiving  102  votes  to  the  99 
for  Mr.  Winthrop — about  twenty  votes  being 
thrown  away — he  was  declared  elected,  and  led 
to  the  chair  most  courteously  by  his  competi- 
tor, Mr.  Winthrop,  and  Mr.  James  McDowell, 
of  Virginia.  Mr.  Thomas  I.  Campbell  was 
elected  clerk,  and  upon  his  death  during  the 
session,  Richard  M.  Young,  Esq.,  of  Illinois, 
was  elected  in  his  place. 


CHAPTER    CLXXXVII. 

FIEST  AND  ONLY  ANNUAL  MESSAGE  OF   PEESI- 
DENT  TAYLOE. 

This  only  message  of  one  of  the  American 
Presidents,  shows  that  he  comprehended  the 
difficulties  of  his  position,  and  was  determined 
to  grapple  with  them — that  he  saw  where  lay 
the  dangers  to  the  harmony  and  stability  of  the 
Union,  and  was  determined  to  lay  these  dangers 
bare  to  the  public  view — and,  as  far  as  depended 
on  him,  to  apply  the  remedies  which  their  cure 
demanded.  The  first  and  the  last  paragraphs  of 
his  message  looked  to  this  danger,  and  while 
the  first  showed  his  confidence  in  the  strength 
of  the  Union,  the  latter  admitted  the  dangers 
to  it,  and  averred  his  own  determination  to 
stand  by  it  to  the  full  extent  of  his  obligations 
and  powers.    It  was  in  these  words  : 


"  But  attachment  to  the  Union  of  the  States 
should  be  habitually  fostered  in  every  Ameri- 
can heart.  For  more  than  half  a  century, 
during  which  kingdoms  and  empires  have  fallen, 
this  Union  has  stood  unshaken.  The  patriots 
who  formed  it  have  long  since  descended  to  the 
grave ;  yet  still  it  remains  the  proudest  monu- 
ment to  their  memory,  and  the  object  of  affec- 
tion and  admiration  with  every  one  worthy  to 
bear  the  American  name.  In  my  judgment  its 
dissolution  would  be  the  greatest  of  calamities, 
and  to  avert  that  should  be  the  study  of  every 
American.  Upon  its  preservation  must  depend 
our  own  happiness,  and  that  of  countless  gen- 
erations to  come.  Whatever  dangers  may 
threaten  it,  I  shall  stand  by  it,  and  maintain  it 
in  its  integrity,  to  the  full  extent  of  the  obliga- 
tions imposed  and  the  power  conferred  upon  me 
by  the  constitution." 

This  paragraph  has  the  appearance  where  it 
occurs  of  being  an  addition  to  the  message  after 
it  had  been  written  :  and  such  it  was.  It  was 
added  in  consequence  of  a  visit  from  Mr.  Calhoun 
to  the  Department  of  State,  and  expressing  a 
desire  that  nothing  should  be  said  in  the  mes- 
sage about  the  point  to  which  it  relates.  The 
two  paragraphs  were  then  added — the  one  near 
the  beginning,  the  other  at  the  end  of  the  mes- 
sage ;  and  it  was  in  allusion  to  these  passages 
that  Mr.  Calhoun's  last  speech,  read  in  the  Sen- 
ate by  Mr.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  contained  those 
memorable  words,  so  much  noted  at  the  time  : 

"  It  (the  Union')  cannot,  then,  be  saved  by 
eulogies  on  it,  however  splendid  or  numerous. 
The  cry  of  '  Union,  Union,  the  glorious 
Union ! '  can  7io  more  prevent  disunion  than 
the  cry  of  '  Health,  Health,  glorious  Health  !  ' 
on  the  part  of  the  physician  can  save  a  patient 
from  dying  that  is  lying  dangerously  ill.'" 

President  Taylor  surveyed  the  difficulties 
before  him,  and  expressed  his  opinion  of  the 
remedies  they  required.  California,  New  Mexico, 
and  Utah  had  been  left  without  governments  : 
Texas  was  asserting  a  claim  to  one  half  of  New 
Mexico — a  province  settled  two  hundred  years 
before  Texian  independence,  and  to  which  no 
Texian  invader  ever  went  except  to  be  killed  or 
taken,  to  the  last  man.  Each  of  these  presented 
a  question  to  be  settled,  in  which  the  predomi- 
nance of  the  slavery  agitation  rendered  settle- 
ment difficult  and  embarrassing.  President 
Taylor  frankly  and  firmly  presented  his  remedy 
for  each  one.  California,  having  the  requisite 
population  for  a  State,  and  having  formed  her 
constitution,  and  prepared  herself  for  admission 


ANNO  1849.     ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


741 


into  the  Union,  was  favorably  recommended  for 
that  purpose  to  Congress  : 

"  No  civil  government  having  been  provided 
by  Congress  for  California,  the  people  of  that 
territory,  impelled  by  the  necessities  of  their 
political  condition,  recently  met  in  convention, 
for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  constitution  and 
State  government,  which  the  latest  advices  give 
me  reason  to  suppose  has  been  accomplished ; 
and  it  is  believed  they  will  shortly  apply  for  the 
admission  of  California  into  the  Union  as  a 
sovereign  State.  Should  such  be  the  case,  and 
should  their  constitution  be  con  formable  to  the 
requisitions  of  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,  I  recommend  their  application  to  the 
favorable  consideration  of  Congress." 

New  Mexico  and  Utah,  without  mixing  the 
slavery  question  with  their  territorial  govern- 
ments, were  recommended  to  be  left  to  ripen 
into  States,  and  then  to  settle  that  question  for 
themselves  in  their  State  constitutions — saying : 

"  By  awaiting  their  action,  all  causes  of  un- 
easiness may  be  avoided,  and  confidence  and 
kind  feeling  preserved.  With  the  view  of  main- 
taining the  harmony  and  tranquillity  so  dear  to 
all,  we  should  abstain  from  the  introduction  of 
those  exciting  topics  of  a  sectional  character 
which  have  hitherto  produced  painful  appre- 
hensions in  the  public  mind ;  and  I  repeat  the 
solemn  warning  of  the  first  and  most  illustrious 
of  my  predecessors,  against  furnishing  'any 
ground  for  characterizing  parties  by  geographi- 
cal discriminations ! '  " 

This  reference  to  Washington  was  answered 
by  Calhoun  in  the  same  speech  read  by  Mr. 
Mason,  denying  that  the  Union  could  be  saved 
by  invoking  his  name,  and  averring  that  there  i 
was  "  nothing  in  his  history  to  deter  us  from 
seceding  from  the  Union  should  it  fail  to  fulfil 
the  objects  for  which  it  was  instituted : "  which 
failure  the  speech  averred — as  others  had  averred 
for  twenty  years  before :  for  secession  was  the 
off-shoot  of  nullification,  and  a  favorite  mode  of 
dissolving  the  Union.  With  respect  to  Texas 
and  New  Mexico,  it  was  the  determination  of 
the  President  that  their  boundaries  should  be 
settled  by  the  political,  or  judicial  authority  of 
the  United  States,  and  not  by  arms. 

In  all  these  recommendations  the  message 
was  wise,  patriotic,  temperate  and  firm ;  but  it 
encountered  great  opposition,  and  from  different 
quarters,  and  upon  different  grounds — from  Mr. 
Clay,  who  wished  a  general  compromise ;  from 
Mr.  Calhoun,  intent  upon  extending  slavery; 
and  holding  the  Union  to  be  lost  except  by  a 


remedy  of  his  own  which  he  ambiguously 
shadowed  forth — a  dual  executive— two  Presi- 
dents :  one  for  the  North,  one  for  the  South : 
which  was  itself  disunion  if  accomplished.  In 
his  reference  to  Washington's  warnings  against 
geographical  and  sectional  parties,  there  was  a 
pointed  rebuke  to  the  daily  attempts  to  segre- 
gate the  South  from  the  North,  and  to  form 
political  parties  exclusively  on  the  basis  of  an 
opposition  of  interest  between  the  Southern  and 
the  Northern  States.  As  a  patriot,  he  con- 
demned such  sectionalism :  as  a  President,  he 
would  have  counteracted  it. 

After  our  duty  to  ourselves  the  President  spoke 
of  our  duty  to  others — to  our  neighbors — and 
especially  the  Spanish  possession  of  Cuba.  An 
invasion  of  that  island  by  adventurers  from  the 
United  States  had  been  attempted,  and  had 
been  suppressed  by  an  energetic  proclamation, 
backed  by  a  determination  to  carry  it  into 
effect  upon  the  guilty.     The  message  said  : 

"  Having  been  apprised  that  a  considerable 
number  of  adventurers  were  engaged  in  fitting 
out  a  military  expedition,  within  the  United 
States,  against  a  foreign  country,  and  believing, 
from  the  best  information  I  could  obtain,  that 
it  was  destined  to  invade  the  island  of  Cuba,  I 
deemed  it  due  to  the  friendly  relations  existing 
between  the  United  States  and  Spain ;  to  the 
treaty  between  the  two  nations ;  to  the  laws 
of  the  United  States ;  and,  above  all,  to  the 
American  honor,  to  exert  the  lawful  authority 
of  this  government  in  suppressing  the  expedi- 
tion and  preventing  the  invasion.  To  this  end 
I  issued  a  proclamation,  enjoining  it  upon  the 
officers  of  the  United  States,  civil  and  military, 
to  use  all  lawful  means  within  their  power.  A 
copy  of  that  proclamation  is  herewith  submitted. 
The  expedition  has  been  suppressed.  So  long 
as  the  act  of  Congress  of  the  20th  of  April, 
1818,  which  owes  its  existence  to  the  law  of 
nations  and  to  the  policy  of  Washington  him- 
self, shall  remain  on  our  statute  book,  I  hold  it 
to  be  the  duty  of  the  Executive  faithfully  to 
obey  its  injunctions." 

This  was  just  conduct,  and  just  language, 
worthy  of  an  upright  magistrate  of  a  Republic, 
which  should  set  an  example  of  justice  and 
fairness  towards  its  neighbors.  The  Spanish 
government  had  been  greatly  harassed  by  ex- 
peditions got  up  against  Cuba  in  the  United 
States, 'and  put  to  enormous  expense  in  ships 
and  troops  to  hold  herself  in  a  condition  to  re- 
pulse them.  Thirty  thousand  troops,  and  a 
strong  squadron,  were  constantly  kept  on  foot 
to  meet  this  danger.    A  war  establishment  was 


742 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


kept  up  in  time  of  peace  in  the  island  of  Cuba 
to  protect  the  island  from  threatened  invasions. 
Besides  the  injury  done  to  Spain  by  these  ag- 
gravations, and  the  enormous  expense  of  a  war 
establishment  to  be  kept  in  Cuba,  there  was 
danger  of  injury  to  ourselves  from  the  number 
and  constant  recurrence  of  these  expeditions, 
which  would  seem  to  speak  the  connivance  of 
the  people,  or  the  negligence  of  the  government. 
Fortunately  for  the  peace  of  the  countries 
during  the  several  years  that  these  expeditions 
were  most  undertaken,  the  Spanish  government 
was  long  represented  at  Washington  by  a 
minister  of  approved  fitness  for  his  situation — 
Don  Luis  Calderon  de  la  Barca  :  a  fine  specimen 
of  the  old  Castilian  character — frank,  courteous, 
honorable,  patriotic — whose  amiable  manners 
enabled  him  to  mix  intimately  with  American 
society,  and  to  see  that  these  expeditions  were 
criminally  viewed  by  the  government  and  the 
immense  majority  of  the  citizens  ;  and  whose 
high  character  enabled  him  to  satisfy  his  own 
government  of  that  important  fact,  and  to  pre- 
vent from  being  viewed  as  the  act  of  the  nation, 
what  was  only  that  of  lawless  adventurers,  pur- 
sued and  repressed  by  our  own  laws. 


CHAPTER  CLXXXVIII. 

MR.  CLAY'S  PLAN  OF  COMPROMISE. 

Early  in  the  session  Mr.  Clay  brought  into 
the  Senate  a  set  of  resolutions,  eight  in  number, 
to  settle  and  close  up  once  and  for  ever,  all  the 
points  of  contestation  in  the  slavery  question, 
and  to  consolidate  the  settlement  of  the  whole 
into  one  general  and  lasting  compromise.  He 
was  placed  at  the  head  of  a  grand  committee  of 
thirteen  members  to  whom  his  resolutions  were 
to  be  referred,  with  a  view  to  combine  them  all 
into  one  bill,  and  make  that  bill  the  final  settle- 
ment of  all  the  questions  connected  with  slavery. 
Mr.  Benton  opposed  this  whole  plan  of  pacifica- 
tion, as  mixing  up  incongruous  measures — mak- 
ing one  measure  dependent  upon  another — tack- 
ing together  things  which  had  no  connection — 
as  derogatory  and  perilous  to  the  State  of  Cali- 
fornia to  have  the  question  of  her  admission 
confounded  with  the  general  slavery  agitation  in 
the  United  States — as  being  futile  and  impotent, 


as  no  such  conglomeration  of  incongruities 
(though  christened  a  compromise)  could  have 
any  force : — as  being  a  concession  to  the  spirit  of 
disunion — a  capitulation  to  those  who  threatened 
secession — a  repetition  of  the  error  of  1833  :— 
and  itself  to  become  the  fruitful  source  of  more 
contentions  than  it  proposed  to  quiet.  His 
plan  was  to  settle  each  measure  by  itself,  begin- 
ning with  the  admission  of  California,  settling 
every  thing  justly  and  fairly,  in  the  spirit  of 
conciliation  as  well  as  of  justice — leaving  the 
consequences  to  God  and  the  country — and 
having  no  compromise  with  the  threat  of  dis- 
union. The  majority  of  the  Senate  were  of 
Mr.  Benton's  opinion,  which  was  understood 
also  to  be  the  plan  of  the  President :  but  there 
are  always  men  of  easy  or  timid  temperaments 
in  every  public  body  that  delight  in  temporiza- 
tions,  and  dread  the  effects  of  any  firm  and 
straightforward  course ;  and  so  it  was  now,  but 
with  great  difficulty — Mr.  Clay  himself  only 
being  elected  by  the  aid  of  one  vote,  given  to 
him  by  Mr.  Webster  after  it  was  found  that  he 
lacked  it.  The  committee  were:  Mr.  Clay, 
chairman:  Messrs.  Cass,  Dickinson,  Bright. 
Webster,  Phelps,  Cooper,  King,  Mason,  Downs, 
Mangum,  Bell,  and  Berrien,  members.  Mr. 
Clay's  list  of  measures  was  referred  to  them ; 
and  as  the  committee  was  selected  with  a  view 
to  promote  the  mover's  object,  a  bill  was  soon 
returned  embracing  the  comprehensive  plan  of 
compromise  which  he  proposed.  The  admission 
of  California,  territorial  governments  for  Utah 
and  New  Mexico,  the  settlement  of  the  Texas 
boundary,  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
a  fugitive  slave  law — all — all  were  put  together 
in  one  bill,  to  be  passed  or  rejected  by  the  same 
vote !  and  to  be  called  a  system.  United  they 
could  not  be.  Their  natures  were  too  incon- 
gruous to  admit  of  union  or  mixture.  They 
were  simply  tied  together — called  one  measure ; 
and  required  to  be  voted  on  as  such.  They 
were  not  even  bills  drawn  up  by  the  committee, 
but  existing  bills  in  the  Senate — drawn  up  by 
different  members — occupying  different  places 
on  the  calendar — and  each  waiting  its  turn  to  be 
acted  on  separately.  Mr.  Clay  had  made  an 
ample  report  in  favor  of  his  measure,  and  fur- 
ther enforced  it  by  an  elaborate  speech:  the 
whole  of  which  Mr.  Benton  contested,  and  an- 
swered in  an  ample  speech,  some  extracts  from 
which  constitute  a  future  chapter. 


ANNO  1850.    ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


743 


CHAPTER    CLXXXIX. 

EXTENSION  OF  THE  MISSOURI  COMPROMISE  LINE 
TO  THE  PACIFIC  OCEAN:  MR.  DAVIS,  OF  MIS- 
SISSIPPI, AND  MR.  CLAY:  THE  WILMOT  PRO- 
VISO. 

In  the  resolutions  of  compromise  submitted  by 
Mr.  Clay  there  was  one  declaring  the  non-exist- 
ence of  slavery  in  the  territory  recently  acquired 
from  Mexico,  and  affirming  the  "  inexpediency  " 
of  any  legislation  from  Congress  on  that  subject 
within  the  said  territories.  His  resolution  was 
in  these  words : 

"  Resolved,  That  as  slavery  does  not  exist  by 
law,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  introduced  into  any 
of  the  territory  acquired  by  the  United  States 
from  the  Republic  of  Mexico,  it  is  inexpedient 
for  Congress  to  provide  by  law  either  for  its  in- 
troduction into  or  exclusion  from  any  part  of 
the  said  territory  ;  and  that  appropriate  terri- 
torial governments  ought  to  be  established  by 
Congress  in  all  of  the  said  territory,  not  as- 
signed as  the  boundaries  of  the  proposed  State 
of  California,  without  the  adoption  of  any  re- 
striction or  condition  on  the  subject  of  slavery." 

This  proposition,  with  some  half-dozen  others, 
formed  the  system  of  compromise  with  which 
Mr.  Clay  expected  to  pacify  the  slavery  agitation 
in  the  United  States.  Mr.  Davis,  of  Mississippi, 
did  not  perceive  any  thing  of  a  compromise  in  a 
measure  which  gave  nothing  to  the  South  in  the 
settlement  of  the  question,  and  required  the  ex- 
tension of  the  Missouri  compromise  line  to  the 
Pacific  ocean  as  the  least  that  he  would  be  will- 
ing to  take.     Thus : 

"  But,  sir,  we  are  called  on  to  receive  this  as 
a  measure  of  compromise !  Is  a  measure  in 
which  we  of  the  minority  are  to  receive  noth- 
ing, a  measure  of  compromise  ?  I  look  upon  it 
as  but  a  modest  mode  of  taking  that,  the  claim 
to  which  has  been  more  boldly  asserted  by 
others;  and  that  I  may  be  understood  upon 
this  question,  and  that  my  position  may  go  forth 
to  the  country  in  the  same  columns  that  convey 
the  sentiments  of  the  senator  from  Kentucky,  I 
here  assert  that  never  will  I  take  less  than  the 
Missouri  compromise  line  extended  to  the  Pacific 
ocean,  with  the  specific  recognition  of  the  right 
to  hold  slaves  in  the  territory  below  that  line ; 
and  that,  before  such  territories  are  admitted 
into  the  Union  as  States,  slaves  may  be  taken 
there  from  any  of  the  United  States  at  the  op- 
tion of  their  owners." 


This  was  a  manly  declaration  in  favor  of  ex- 
tending slavery  into  the  new  territories,  and  in 
the  only  way  in  which  it  could  be  done — that  is 
to  say,  by  act  of  Congress.  Mr.  Clay  met  it  by 
a  declaration  equally  manly,  and  in  conformity 
to  the  principles  of  his  whole  life,  utterly  re- 
fusing to  plant  slavery  in  any  place  where  it  did 
not  previously  exist.     He  answered : 

"  I  am  extremely  sorry  to  hear  the  senator 
from  Mississippi  say  that  he  requires,  first,  the 
extension  of  the  Missouri  compromise  line  to 
the  Pacific,  and  also  that  he  is  not  satisfied  with 
that,  but  requires,  if  I  understood  him  correctly, 
a  positive  provision  for  the  admission  of  slavery 
south  of  that  line.  And  now,  sir,  coming  from 
a  slave  State,  as  I  do,  I  owe  it  to  myself,  I  owe 
it  to  truth,  I  owe  it  to  the  subject,  to  say  that 
no  earthly  power  could  induce  me  to  vote  for  a 
specific  measure  for  the  introduction  of  slavery 
where  it  had  not  before  existed,  either  south  or 
north  of  that  line.  Coming  as  t  do  from  a  slave 
State,  it  is  my  solemn,  deliberate  and  well 
matured  determination  that  no  power,  no  earthly 
power,  shall  compel  me  to  vote  for  the  positive 
introduction  of  slavery  either  south  or  north 
of  that  line.  Sir,  while  you  reproach,  and 
justly  too,  our  British  ancestors  for  the  intro- 
duction of  this  institution  upon  the  continent 
of  America-,  I  am,  for  one,  unwilling  that  the 
posterity  of  the  present  inhabitants  of  California 
and  of  New  Mexico  shall  reproach  us  for  doing 
just  what  we  reproach  Great  Britain  for  doing 
to  us.  If  the  citizens  of  those  territories  choose 
to  establish  slavery,  and  if  they  come  here  with 
constitutions  establishing  slavery,  I  am  for  ad- 
mitting them  with  such  provisions  in  their  con- 
stitutions ;  but  then  it  will  be  their  own  work, 
and  not  ours,  and  their  posterity  will  have  to 
reproach  them,  and  not  us,  for  forming  constitu- 
tions allowing  the  institution  of  slavery  to  exist 
among  them.  These  are  my  views,  sir,  and  I 
choose  to  express  them  ;  and  I  care  not  how  ex- 
tensively or  universally  they  are  known." 

These  were  manly  sentiments,  courageously 
expressed,  and  taking  the  right  ground  so  much 
overlooked,  or  perverted  by  others.  The  Mis- 
souri compromise  line,  extending  to  New  Mex- 
ico and  California,  though  astronomically  the 
same  with  that  in  Louisiana,  was  politically 
directly  the  opposite.  One  went  through  a  ter- 
ritory all  slave,  and  made  one-half  free ;  the 
other  would  go  through  territory  all  free,  and 
make  one-half  slave.  Mr.  Clay  saw  this  differ- 
ence, and  acted  upon  it,  and  declared  his  senti- 
ments honestly  and  boldly ;  and  none  but  the 
ignorant  or  unjust  could  reproach  him  with  in- 
consistency in  maintaining  the  line  in  the  ancient 
Louisiana,  where  the  whole  province  came  to  us 


744 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


with  slavery,  and  refusing  it  in  the  new  terri- 
tories where  all  came  to  us  free. 

Mr.  Seward,  of  New  York,  proposed  the  re- 
newal of  the  Wilmot  proviso : 

"  Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude, 
otherwise  than  by  conviction  for  crime,  shall 
ever  be  allowed  in  either  of  said  territories  of 
Utah  and  New  Mexico." 

Upon  the  adoption  of  which  the  yeas  and 
nays  were : 

"  Yeas. — Messrs.  Baldwin,  Bradbury,  Bright, 
Chase,  Clarke,  Cooper,  Corwin,  Davis  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Dayton,  Dodge  of  Wisconsin,  Doug- 
las, Felch,  Greene,  Hale,  Hamlin,  Miller,  Nor- 
ris,  Seward,  Shields,  Smith,  Upham,  Whitcomb, 
and  Walker— 23. 

"  Nays. — Messrs.  Atchison,  Badger,  Bell,  Ben- 
ton, Berrien,  Butler,  Cass,  Clay,  Clemens,  Davis 
of  Mississippi,  Dawson,  Dickinson,  Dodge  of 
Iowa,  Downs,  Foote,  Houston,  Hunter,  Jones, 
King,  Mangum,  Mason,  Morton,  Pearce,  Pratt, 
Rusk,  Sebastian,  Soule,  Spruance,  Sturgeon, 
Turney,  Underwood,  Webster,  and  Yulee — 33." 


CHAPTER    CXC. 

ME.  CALHOUN'S  LAST  SPEECH :  DISSOLUTION  OF 
THE  UNION  PROCLAIMED  UNLESS  THE  CON- 
STITUTION WAS  AMENDED,  AND  A  DUAL 
EXECUTIVE  APPOINTED  —  ONE  PRESIDENT 
FROM  THE  SLAVE  AND  ONE  FROM  THE  FREE 
STATES. 

On  the  4th  of  March  Mr.  Calhoun  brought  into 
the  Senate  a  written  speech,  elaborately  and 
studiously  prepared,  and  which  he  was  too 
weak  to  deliver,  or  even  to  read.  Upon  his  re- 
quest it  was  allowed  to  be  read  by  his  friend, 
Mr.  James  M.  Mason  of  Virginia,  and  was  found 
to  be  an  amplification  and  continuation  of  the 
Southern  manifesto  of  the  preceding  year ;  and, 
like  it,  occupied  entirely  with  the  subject  of  the 
dissolution  of  the  Union,  and  making  out  a  case 
to  justify  it.  The  opening  went  directly  to  the 
point,  and  presented  the  question  of  Union,  or 
disunion  with  the  formality  and  solemnity  of 
an  actual  proposition,  as  if  its  decision  was  the 
business  on  which  the  Senate  was  convened. 
It  opened  thus : 

"  I  have,  senators,  believed  from  the  first  that 
the  agitation  of  the  subject  of  slavery  would,  if 
not  prevented  by  some  timely  and  effective 


measure,  end  in  disunion.  Entertaining  this 
opinion,  I  have,  on  all  proper  occasions,  endeav- 
ored to  call  the  attention  of  each  of  the  two 
great  parties  which  divide  the  country  to  adopt 
some  measure  to  prevent  so  great  a  disaster, 
but  without  success.  The  agitation  has  been 
permitted  to  proceed,  with  almost  no  attempt 
to  resist  it,  until  it  has  reached  a  period  when 
it  can  no  longer  be  disguised  or  denied  that  the 
Union  is  in  danger.  You  have  thus  had  forced 
upon  you  the  greatest  and  the  gravest  question 
that  can  ever  come  under  your  consideration : 
How  can  the  Union  be  preserved  ?  " 

Professing  to  proceed  like  a  physician  who 
must  find  out  the  cause  of  a  disease  before  he 
can  apply  a  remedy,  the  speech  went  on  to  dis- 
cover the  reasons  which  now  rendered  disunion 
inevitable,  unless  an  adequate  remedy  to  prevent 
it  should  be  administered.  The  first  of  these 
causes  was  the  anti-slavery  ordinance  of  1787, 
which  was  adopted  before  the  constitution  was 
formed,  and  had  its  origin  from  the  South,  and 
the  unanimous  support  of  that  section.  The 
second  was  the  Missouri  compromise  line,  which 
also  had  its  origin  in  the  South,  the  unanimous 
support  of  the  Southern  senators,  the  majority 
of  the  Southern  representatives,  the  unanimous 
support  of  Mr.  Monroe's  cabinet,  of  which  Mr. 
Calhoun  was  a  member ;  and  his  own  approba- 
tion of  it  for  about  twenty-five  years.  The  long 
continued  agitation  of  the  slave  question  was 
another  cause  of  disunion,  dating  the  agitation 
from  the  year  1835 — which  was  correct ;  for  in 
that  year  he  took  it  up  in  the  Senate,  and  gave 
the  abolitionists  what  they  wanted,  and  could 
not  otherwise  acquire — an  antagonist  to  cope 
with,  an  elevated  theatre  for  the  strife,  and  a 
national  auditory  to  applaud  or  censure.  Before 
that  time  he  said,  and  truly,  the  agitation  was 
insignificant ;  since  then  it  had  become  great ; 
and  (he  might  have  added),  that  senators  North 
and  South  told  him  that  would  be  the  case 
when  he  entered  upon  the  business  in  1835. 
Repeal  of  the  slave  sojournment  laws  by  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania,  was  referred  to,  and 
with  reason,  except  that  these  repeals  did  not 
take  place  until  after  his  own  conduct  in  the 
Senate  had  made  the  slavery  agitation  national, 
and  given  distinction  and  importance  to  the 
abolitionists.  The  progressive  increase  of  the 
two  classes  of  States,  rapid  in  one,  slow  in  the 
other,  was  adverted  to  as  leading  to  disunion  by 
destroying,  what  he  called,  the  equilibrium  of 
the  States — as  if  that  difference  of  progress  was 


ANNO  1850.    ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


745 


not  mainly  in  the  nature  of  things,  resulting 
from  climate  and  soil ;  and  in  some  degree  po- 
litical, resulting  from  the  slavery  itself  which  he 
was  so  anxious  to  extend.  The  preservation  of 
this  equilibrium  was  to  be  effected  by  acquiring 
Southern  territory  and  opening  it  to  slavery. 
The  equality  of  the  States  was  held  to  be  indis- 
pensable to  the  continuance  of  the  Union ;  and 
that  equality  was  to  be  maintained  by  admit- 
ting slavery  to  be  carried  into  all  the  territories 
— even  Oregon — equivocally  predicated  on  the 
right  of  all  persons  to  carry  their  "  property  " 
with  them  to  these  territories.  The  phrase 
was  an  equivocation,  and  has  been  a  remarkable 
instance  of  delusion  from  a  phrase.  Every  citi- 
zen can  carry  his  property  now  wherever  he 
goes,  only  he  cannot  carry  the  State  law  with 
him  which  makes  it  property,  and  for  want  of 
which  it  ceases  to  be  so  when  he  gets  to  his 
new  residence.  The  New  Englander  can  carry 
his  bank  along  with  him,  and  all  the  money  it 
contains,  to  one  of  the  new  territories ;  but  he 
cannot  carry  the  law  of  incorporation  with  him; 
and  it  ceases  to  be  the  property  he  had  in  New 
England.  All  this  complaint  about  inequality 
in  a  slave-holder  in  not  being  allowed  to  carry 
his  "  property  "  with  him  to  a  territory,  stript 
of  the  ambiguity  of  phraseology,  is  nothing  but 
a  complaint  that  he  cannot  carry  the  law  with 
him  which  makes  it  property ;  and  in  that  there 
is  no  inequality  between  the  States.  They  are 
all  equal  in  the  total  inability  of  their  citizens 
to  carry  the  State  laws  with  them.  The  result 
of  the  whole,  the  speech  went  on  to  say,  was 
that  the  process  of  disruption  was  then  going 
on  between  the  two  classes  of  States,  and  could 
not  be  arrested  by  any  remedy  proposed — not 
by  Mr.  Clay's  compromise  plan,  nor  by  Presi- 
dent's plan,  nor  by  the  cry  of "  Union,  Union, 
Glorious  Union  ! "     The  speech  continues : 

"  Instead  of  being  weaker,  all  the  elements  in 
favor  of  agitation  are  stronger  now  than  they 
were  in  1835,  when  it  first  commenced,  while 
all  the  elements  of  influence  on  the  part  of  the 
South  are  weaker.  Unless  something  (Jecisive 
is  done,  I  again  ask  what  is  to  stop  this  agita- 
tion, before  the  great  and  final  object  at  which 
it  aims — the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  States — 
is  consummated  ?  Is  it,  then,  not  certain  that 
if  something  decisive  is  not  now  done  to  arrest 
it,  the  South  will  be  forced  to  choose  between 
abolition  and  secession  ?  Indeed,  as  events  are 
now  moving,  it  will  not  require  the  South  to 
secede  to  dissolve  the  Union." 


The  speech  goes  on  to  say  that  the  Union 
could  not  be  dissolved  at  a  single  blow:  it 
would  require  many,  and  successive  blows,  to 
snap  its  cords  asunder : 

"  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  dis- 
union can  be  effected  by  a  single  blow.  The 
cords  which  bind  these  States  together  in  one 
common  Union  are  far  too  numerous  and  power- 
ful for  that.  Disunion  must  be  the  work  of 
time.  It  is  only  through  a  long  process,  and 
successively,  that  the  cords  can  be  snapped,  un- 
til the  whole  fabric  falls  asunder.  Already  the 
agitation  of  the  slavery  question  has  snapped 
some  of  the  most  important,  and  has  greatly 
weakened  all  the  others,  as  I  shall  proceed  to 
show." 

The  speech  goes  on  to  show  that  cords  have 
already  been  snapt,  and  others  weakened : 

"  The  cords  that  bind  the  States  together  are 
not  only  many,  but  various  in  character.  Some 
are  spiritual  or  ecclesiastical  ;  some  political ; 
others  social.  Some  appertain  to  the  benefit 
conferred  by  the  Union,  and  others  to  the  feel- 
ing of  duty  and  obligation. 

"  The  strongest  of  those  of  a  spiritual  and 
ecclesiastical  nature  consisted  in  the  unity  of 
the  great  religious  denominations,  all  of  which 
originally  embraced  the  whole  Union.  All  these 
denominations,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of 
the  Catholics,  were  organized  very  much  upon 
the  principle  of  our  political  institutions ;  be- 
ginning with  smaller  meetings  correspondent 
with  the  political  divisions  of  the  country,  their 
organization  terminated  in  one  great  central  as- 
semblage, corresponding  very  much  with  the 
character  of  Congress.  At  these  meetings  the 
principal  clergymen  and  lay  members  of  the  re- 
spective denominations  from  all  parts  of  the 
Union  met  to  transact  business  relating  to  their 
common  concerns.  It  was  not  confined  to  what 
appertained  to  the  doctrines  and  discipline  of 
the  respective  denominations,  but  extended  to 
plans  for  disseminating  the  Bible,  establishing 
missionaries,  distributing  tracts,  and  of  estab- 
lishing presses  for  the  publication  of  tracts, 
newspapers,  and  periodicals,  with  a  view  of 
diffusing  religious  information,  and  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  doctrines  and  creeds  of  the  denomi- 
nation. All  this  combined,  contributed  greatly 
to  strengthen  the  bonds  of  the  Union.  The 
strong  ties  which  held  each  denomination  to- 
gether formed  a  strong  cord  to  hold  the  whole 
Union  together ;  but,  as  powerful  as  they  were, 
they  have  not  been  able  to  resist  the  explosive 
effect  of  slavery  agitation. 

"  The  first  of  these  cords  which  snapped,  un- 
der its  explosive  force,  was  that  of  the  powerful 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  The  numerous 
and  strong  ties  which  held  it  together  are  all 
broke,  and  its  unity  gone.   They  now  form  sep- 


746 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


arate  churches,  and,  instead  of  the  feeling  of 
attachment  and  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the 
whole  church  which  was  formerly  felt,  they  are 
now  arrayed  into  two  hostile  bodies,  engaged  in 
litigation  about  what  was  formerly  their  com- 
mon property. 

"  The  next  cord  that  snapped  was  that  of  the 
Baptists,  one  of  the  largest  and  most  respecta- 
ble of  the  denominations.  That  of  the  Presby- 
terian is  not  entirely  snapped,  but  some  of  its 
strands  have  given  way.  That  of  the  Episco- 
pal Church  is  the  only  one  of  the  four  great 
Protestant  denominations  which  remains  un- 
broken and  entire. 

"  The  strongest  cord  of  a  political  character 
consists  of  the  many  and  strong  ties  that  have 
held  together  the  two  great  parties,  which  have, 
with  some  modifications,  existed  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  government.  They  both  ex- 
tended to  every  portion  of  the  Union,  and 
strongly  contributed  to  hold  all  its  parts  to- 
gether. But  this  powerful  cord  has  fared  no 
better  than  the  spiritual.  It  resisted  for  a  long 
time  the  explosive  tendency  of  the  agitation, 
but  has  finally  snapped  under  its  force — if  not 
entirely,  in  a  great  measure.  Nor  is  there  one 
of  the  remaining  cords  which  have  not  been 
greatly  weakened.  To  this  extent  the  Union 
has  already  been  destroyed  by  agitation,  in  the 
only  way  it  can  be,  by  snapping  asunder  and 
weakening  the  cords  which  bind  it  together." 

The  last  cord  here  mentioned,  that  of  politi- 
cal parties,  founded  upon  principles  not  subject 
to  sectional,  or  geographical  lines,  has  since  been 
entirely  destroyed,  snapped  clean  off  by  the  ab- 
rogation of  the  Missouri  compromise  line,  and 
making  the  extension,  or  non-extension  of  sla- 
very, the  foundation  of  political  parties.  After 
that  cord  should  be  snapped,  the  speech  goes 
on  to  consider  "force  "  the  only  bond  of  Union, 
and  justly  considers  that  as  no  Union  where 
power  and  violence  constitute  the  only  bond. 

"If  the  agitation  goes  on,  the  same  force, 
acting  with  increased  intensity,  as  has  been 
shown,  will  finally  snap  every  cord,  when 
nothing  will  be  left  to  hold  the  States  together 
except  force.  But  surely  that  can,  with  no  pro- 
priety of  language,  be  called  a  Union,  when  the 
only  means  by  which  the  weaker  is  held  con- 
nected with  the  stronger  portion  is  force.  It 
may,  indeed,  keep  them  connected ;  but  the  con- 
nection will  partake  much  more  of  the  character 
of  subjugation,  on  the  part  of  the  weaker  to  the 
stronger,  than  the  union  of  free,  independent,  and 
sovereign  States,  in  one  confederation,  as  they 
stood  in  the  early  stages  of  the  government,  and 
which  only  is  worthy  of  the  sacred  name  of 
Union." 

The  admission  of  the  State  of  California,  with 


her  free  constitution,  was  the  exciting  cause  of 
this  speech  from  Mr.  Calhoun.  The  Wilmot 
proviso  was  disposed  of.  That  cause  of  disunion 
no  longer  existed ;  but  the  admission  of  Cali- 
fornia excited  the  same  opposition,  and  was 
declared  to  be  the  "  test "  question  upon  which 
all  depended.  The  President  had  communicated 
the  constitution  of  that  State  to  Congress,  which 
Mr.  Calhoun  strongly  repulsed. 

"  The  Executive  has  laid  the  paper  purporting 
to  be  the  Constitution  of  California  before  you, 
and  asks  you  to  admit  her  into  the  Union  as  a 
State  ;  and  the  question  is,  will  you  or  will  you 
not  admit  her  ?  It  is  a  grave  question,  and  there 
rests  upon  you  a  heavy  responsibility.  Much, 
very  much,  will  depend  upon  your  decision.  If 
you  admit  her,  you  endorse  and  give  your  sanc- 
tion to  all  that  has  been  done.  Are  you  pre- 
pared to  do  so  ?  Are  you  prepared  to  surrender 
your  power  of  legislation  for  the  territories — a 
power  expressly  vested  in  Congress  by  the 
constitution,  as  has  been  fully  established  ?  Can 
you,  consistently  with  your  oath  to  support  the 
constitution,  surrender  the  power?  Are  you 
prepared  to  admit  that  the  inhabitants  of  the 
territories  possess  the  sovereignty  over  them, 
and  that  any  number,  more  or  less,  may  claim 
any  extent  of  territory  they  please,  may  form  a 
constitution  and  government,  and  erect  it  into  a 
State,  without  asking  your  permission  ?  Are 
you  prepared  to  surrender  the  sovereignty  of 
the  United  States  over  whatever  territory  may 
be  hereafter  acquired  to  the  first  adventurers 
who  may  rush  into  it  1  Are  you  prepared  to 
surrender  virtually  to  the  Executive  Department 
all  the  powers  which  you  have  heretofore  exer- 
cised over  the  territories  ?  If  not,  how  can  you, 
consistently  with  your  duty  and  your  oaths  to 
support  the  constitution,  give  your  assent  to  the 
admission  of  California  as  a  State,  under  a  pre- 
tended constitution  and  government  1 " 

Having  shown  that  all  the  cords  that  held  the 
Union  together  had  snapped  except  one  (politi- 
cal party  principle),  and  that  one  weakened  and 
giving  way,  the  speech  came  to  the  solemn  ques- 
tion: "How  can  the  Union  be  saved?"  and 
answered  it  (after  some  generalities)  by  coming 
to  the  specific  point — 

"  To  provide  for  the  insertion  of  a  provision 
in  the  Constitution,  by  an  amendment,  which 
will  restore  to  the  South  in  substance  the  power 
she  possessed  of  protecting  herself  before  the 
equilibrium  between  the  sections  was  destroyed 
by  the  action  of  this  government" 

The  speech  did  not  tell  of  what  this  amend- 
ment was  to  consist,  which  was  to  have  the 
effect  of  saving  the  Union,  by  protecting  the 


ANNO  1850.     ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


747 


slave  States,  and  restoring  the  equilibrium  be- 
tween the  two  classes  of  States ;  but  an  au- 
thentic publication  soon  after  disclosed  it,  and 
showed  it  to  be  the  election  of  two  Presidents, 
one  from  the  free  and  the  other  from  the  slave 
States,  and  each  to  approve  of  all  the  acts  of 
Congress  before  they  became  laws.  Upon  this 
condition  alone,  the  speech  declared  the  Union 
could  be  saved  !  which  was  equivalent  to  pro- 
nouncing its  dissolution.  For,  in  the  first  place, 
no  such  amendment  to  the  constitution  could  be 
made ;  in  the  second  place,  no  such  double- 
headed  government  could  work  through  even 
one  session  of  Congress,  any  more  than  two 
animals  could  work  together  in  the  plough  with 
their  heads  yoked  in  opposite  directions. 

This  last  speech  of  Mr.  Calhoun  becomes 
important,  as  furnishing  a  key  to  his  conduct, 
and  that  of  his  political  friends,  and  as  con- 
necting itself  with  subsequent  measures. 


CHAPTER    CXCI. 

DEATH    OF    ME.   CALHOUN:    HIS    EULOGIUM   BY 
SENATOR    BUTLER. 

"  Mr.  President  :  Mr.  Calhoun  has  lived  in  an 
eventful  period  of  our  Republic  and  has  acted  a 
distinguished  part.  I  surely  do  not  venture  too 
much  wThen  I  say,  that  his  reputation  forms  a 
striking  part  of  a  glorious  history.  Since  1811 
until  this  time,  he  has  been  responsibly  con- 
nected with  the  federal  government.  As  re- 
presentative, senator,  cabinet  minister,  and  Vice 
President,  he  has  been  identified  with  the  great- 
est events  in  the  political  history  of  our  coun- 
try. And  I  hope  I  may  be  permitted  to  say  that 
he  has  been  equal  to  all  the  duties  which  were 
devolved  upon  him  in  the  many  critical  junc- 
tures in  which  he  was  placed.  Having  to  act  a 
responsible  part,  he  always  acted  a  decided  part. 
It  would  not  become  me  to  venture  upon  the 
judgment  which  awaits  his  memory.  That  will 
be  formed  by  posterity  before  the  impartial  tri- 
bunal of  history.  It  may  be  that  he  will  have 
had  the  fate,  and  will  have  given  to  him  the 
judgment  that  has  been  awarded  to  Chatham. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  was  a  native  of  South  Carolina, 
and  was  born  in  Abbeville  district,  on  the  18th 
March,  1782.  He  was  of  an  Irish  family.  His 
father,  Patrick  Calhoun,  was  born  in  Ireland, 
and  at  an  early  age  came  to  Pennsylvania,  thence 
moved  to  the  western  part  of  Virginia,  and  after 
Braddock's  defeat  moved  to  South  Carolina,  in 


1756.  He  and  his  family  gave  a  name  to  what 
is  known  as  the  Calhoun  settlement  in  xVbbeville 
district.  The  mother  of  my  colleague  was  a 
Miss  Caldwell,  born  in  Charlotte  County,  Vir- 
ginia. The  character  of  his  parents  had  no 
doubt  a  sensible  influence  on  the  destiny  of  their 
distinguished  son.  His  father  had  energy  and 
enterprise,  combined  with  perseverance  and  great 
mental  determination.  His  mother  belonged  to 
a  family  of  revolutionary  heroes.  Two  of  her 
brothers  were  distinguished  in  the  Revolution. 
Their  names  and  achievements  are  not  left  to 
tradition,  but  constitute  a  part  of  the  history 
of  the  times. 

"  He  became  a  student  in  Yale  College,  in 
1802,  and  graduated  two  3rears  afterwards  with 
distinction — as  a  young  man  of  great  ability,  and 
with  the  respect  and  confidence  of  his  precep- 
tors and  fellows.  What  they  have  said  and 
thought  of  him,  would  have  given  any  man  a 
high  reputation.  It  is  the  pure  fountain  of  a 
clear  reputation.  If  the  stream  has  met  with 
obstructions,  they  were  such  as  have  only  shown 
its  beauty  and  majesty. 

"  Mr.  Calhoun  came  into  Congress  at  a  time 
of  deep  and  exciting  interest — at  a  crisis  of  great 
magnitude.  It  was  a  crisis  of  peril  to  those 
who  had  to  act  in  it,  but  of  subsequent  glory  to 
the  actors,  and  the  common  history  of  the  coun- 
try. The  invincibility  of  Great  Britain  had  be- 
come a  proverbial  expression,  and  a  war  with 
her  was  full  of  terrific  issues.  Mr.  Calhoun 
found  himself  at  once  in  a  situation  of  high  re- 
sponsibility— one  that  required  more  than  speak- 
ing qualities  and  eloquence  to  fulfil  it.  The 
spirit  of  the  people  required  direction  ;  the 
energy  and  ardor  of  youth  were  to  be  employed 
in  affairs  requiring  the  maturer  qualities  of  a 
statesman.  The  part  which  Mr.  Calhoun  acted 
at  this  time,  has  been  approved  and  applauded 
by  contemporaries,  and  now  f</rms  a  part  of  the 
glorious  history  of  those  tiir.eM  '•'- 

"The  names  of  Clay,  Calhoun.  Cheves,  and 
Lowndes,  Grundy,  Porter,  and  others,  carried 
associations  with  them  that  reached  the  heart, 
of  the  nation.  Their  clarion  notes  penetrated 
the  army ;  they  animated  the  people,  and  sus- 
tained the  administration  of  the  government. 
With  such  actors,  and  in  such  scenes — the  most 
eventful  of  our  history — to  say  that  Mr.  Cal- 
houn did  not  play  a  second  part,  is  no  common 
praise.  In  debate  he  was  equal  with  Randolph, 
and  in  council  he  commanded  the  respect  and 
confidence  of  Madison.  At  this  period  of  his 
life  he  had  the  quality  of  Themistocles — to  in- 
spire Confidence — which,  after  all,  is  the  highest 
of  earthly  qualities  :  it  is  a  mystical  something 
which  is  felt,  but  cannot  be  described.  The 
events  of  the  war  were  brilliant  and  honorable 
to  both  statesmen  and  soldiers,  and  their  his- 
tory may  be  read  with  enthusiasm  and  delight. 
The  war  terminated  with  honor  ;  but  the  mea- 
sures wrhich  had  to  be  taken,  in  a  transition  to 
a  peace  establishment,  were  full  of  difficulty  and 


748 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


embarrassment.  Mr.  Calhoun,  with  his  usual 
intrepidity,  did  not  hesitate  to  take  a  responsible 
part.  Under  the  influence  of  a  broad  patriotism, 
he  acted  with  an  uncalculating  liberality  to  all 
the  interests  that  were  involved,  and  which  were 
brought  under  review  of  Congress.  His  per- 
sonal adversary  at  this  time,  in  his  admiration 
for  his  genius,  paid  Mr.  Calhoun  a  beautiful 
compliment  for  his  noble  and  national  senti- 
ments. 

"  At  the  termination  of  Mr.  Madison's  adminis- 
tration, Mr.  Calhoun  had  acquired  a  commanding 
reputation  ;  he  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  sages 
of  the  Republic.  In  1817  Mr.  Monroe  invited 
him  to  a  place  in  his  cabinet ;  Mr.  Calhoun's 
friends  doubted  the  propriety  of  his  accepting  it, 
and  some  of  them  thought  he  would  put  a  high 
reputation  at  hazard  in  this  new  sphere  of  action. 
Perhaps  these  suggestions  fired  his  high  and 
gifted  intellect ;  he  accepted  the  place,  and  went 
into  the  War  Department,  under  circumstances 
that  might  have  appalled  other  men.  His  suc- 
cess has  been  acknowledged  ;  what  was  com- 
plex and  confused,  he  reduced  to  simplicity  and 
order.  His  organization  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment, and  his  administration  of  its  undefined 
duties,  have  made  the  impression  of  an  author, 
having  the  interest  of  originality  and  the  sanc- 
tion of  trial. 

K  While  he  was  Vice-President  he  was  placed 
in  some  of  the  most  trying  scenes  of  any  man's 
life.  I  do  not  now  choose  to  refer  to  any  thing 
that  can  have  the  elements  of  controversy  ;  but 
I  hope  I  may  be  permitted  to  speak  of  my  friend 
and  colleague  in  a  character  in  which  all  will 
join  in  paying  him  sincere  respect.  As  a  pre- 
siding officer  of  this  body,  he  had  the  undivided 
respect  of  its  members.  He  was  punctual,  me- 
thodical, and  accurate,  and  had  a  high  regard 
for  the  dignity  of  the  Senate,  which,  as  a  pre- 
siding officer,  Ja$  endeavored  to  preserve  and 
maintain.  He  looked  upon  debate  as  an  honor- 
able contest  of  intellect  for  truth.  Such  a  strife 
has  its  incidents  and  its  trials  ;  but  Mr.  Calhoun 
had,  in  an  eminent  degree,  a  regard  for  parlia- 
mentary dignity  and  propriety. 

"  Upon  General  Hayne's  leaving  the  Senate  to 
become  Governor  of  South  Carolina,  Mr.  Cal- 
houn resigned  the  Vice-Presidency,  and  was 
elected  in  his  place.  All  will  now  agree  that 
such  a  position  was  environed  with  difficulties 
and  dangers.  His  own  State  was  under  the  ban, 
and  he  was  in  the  national  Senate  to  do  her 
justice  under  his  constitutional  obligations. 
That  part  of  his  life  posterity  will  review,  and 
will  do  justice  to  it. 

"After  his  senatorial  term  had  expired,  he 
went  into  retirement  by  his  own  consent.  The 
death  of  Mr.  Upshur — so  full  of  melancholy  as- 
sociation— made  a  vacancy  in  the  State  Depart- 
ment ;  and  it  was  by  the  common  consent  of  all 
parties,  that  Mr.  Calhoun  was  called  to  fill  it. 
This  was  a  tribute  of  which  any  public  man 
might  well  be  proud.   It  was  a  tribute  to  truth, 


ability,  and  experience.  Under  Mr.  Calhoun's 
counsels,  Texas  was  brought  into  the  Union. 
His  name  is  associated  with  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable events  of  history — that  of  one  Repub- 
lic being  annexed  to  another  by  the  voluntary 
consent  of  both.  Mr.  Calhoun  was  but  the 
agent  to  bring  about  this  fraternal  association. 
It  is  a  conjunction  under  the  sanction  of  his 
name,  and  by  an  influence  exerted  through  his 
great  and  intrepid  mind.  Mr.  Calhoun's  con- 
nection with  the  Executive  Department  of  the 
government  terminated  with  Mr.  Tyler's  ad- 
ministration. As  Secretary  of  State,  he  won 
the  confidence  and  respect  of  foreign  ambassa- 
dors, and  his  despatches  were  characterized  by 
clearness,  sagacity,  and  boldness. 

"  He  was  not  allowed  to  remain  in  retirement 
long.  For  the  last  five  years  he  has  been  a 
member  of  this  body,  and  has  been  engaged  in 
discussions  that  have  deeply  excited  and  agitated 
the  country.  He  has  died  amidst  them.  I  had 
never  had  any  particular  association  with  Mr. 
Calhoun,  until  I  became  his  colleague  in  this 
body.  I  had  looked  on  his  fame  as  others  had 
done,  and  had  admired  his  character.  There  are 
those  here  who  know  more  of  him  than  I  do. 
I  shall  not  pronounce  any  such  judgment  as 
may  be  subject  to  a  controversial  criticism. 
But  I  will  say,  as  a  matter  of  justice,  from  my 
own  personal  knowledge,  that  I  never  knew  a 
fairer  man  in  argument  or  a  justcr  man  in  pur- 
pose. His  intensity  allowed  of  little  compro- 
mise. While  he  did  not  qualify  his  own  posi- 
tions to  suit  the  temper  of  the  times,  he  appre- 
ciated the  unmasked  propositions  of  others.  As 
a  senator,  he  commanded  the  respect  of  the 
ablest  men  of  the  body  of  which  he  was  a  mem- 
ber ;  and  I  believe  I  may  say,  that  where  there 
was  no  political  bias  to  influence  the  judgment, 
he  had  the  confidence  of  his  brethren.  As  a 
statesman,  Mr.  Calhoun's  reputation  belongs  to 
the  history  of  the  country,  and  I  commit  it  to 
his  countrymen  and  posterity. 

"  In  my  opinion,  Mr.  Calhoun  deserves  to  oc- 
cupy the  first  rank  as  a  parliamentary  speaker. 
He  had  always  before  him  the  dignity  of  pur  • 
pose,  and  he  spoke  to  an  end.  From  a  full  mind 
he  expressed  his  ideas  with  clearness,  simplicity, 
and  force,  and  in  language  that  seemed  to  be 
the  vehicle  of  his  thoughts  and  emotions.  His 
thoughts  leaped  from  his  mind,  like  arrows  from 
a  well-drawn  bow.  They  had  both  the  aim  and 
force  of  a  skilful  archer.  He  seemed  to  have 
had  little  regard  for  ornament ;  and  when  he 
used  figures  of  speech,  they  were  only  for  illus- 
tration. His  manner  and  countenance  were  his 
best  language  ;  and  in  these  there  was  an  exem- 
plification of  what  is  meant  by  action,  in  that 
term  of  the  great  Athenian  orator  and  states- 
man. They  served  to  exhibit  the  moral  eleva- 
tion of  the  man. 

"  In  speaking  of  Mr.  Calhoun  as  a  man  and  a 
neighbor,  I  hope  I  may  speak  of  him  in  a  sphere 
in  which  all  will    like  to  contemplate  him. 


ANNO  1850.     ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


749 


Whilst  he  was  a  gentleman  of  striking  deport- 
ment, he  was  a  man  of  primitive  tastes  and 
simple  manners.  He  had  the  hardy  virtues  and 
simple  tastes  of  a  republican  citizen.  No  one 
disliked  ostentation  and  exhibition  more  than 
he  did.  When  I  say  he  was  a  good  neighbor, 
I  imply  more  than  I  have  expressed.  It  is 
summed  up  under  the  word  justice.  I  will  ven- 
ture to  say,  that  no  one  in  his  private  relations 
could  ever  say  that  Mr.  Calhoun  treated  him 
with  injustice,  or  that  he  deceived  him  by  pro- 
fessions. His  private  character  was  charac- 
terized by  a  beautiful  propriety,  and  was  the 
exemplification  of  truth,  justice,  temperance,  and 
fidelity  to  his  engagements." 


CHAPTER    CXCII. 

ME.  CLAY'S  PLAN  OF  SLAVERY  COMPEOM1SE : 
MR.  BENTON'S  SPEECH  AGAINST  IT:  EX- 
TRACTS. 

Mr.  Benton.  It  is  a  bill  of  thirty-nine  sections 
— forty,  save  one — an  ominous  number ;  and 
which,  with  the  two  little  bills  which  attend  it, 
is  called  a  compromise,  and  is  pressed  upon  us 
as  a  remedy  for  the  national  calamities.  Now, 
all  this  labor  of  the  committee,  and  all  this 
remedy,  proceed  upon  the  assumption  that  the 
people  of  the  United  States  are  in  a  miserable, 
distracted  condition  ;  that  it  is  their  mission  to 
relieve  this  national  distress,  and  that  these 
bills  are  the  sovereign  remedy  for  that  purpose. 
Now,  in  my  opinion,  all  this  is  a  mistake,  both 
as  to  the  condition  of  the  country,  the  mission 
of  the  committee,  and  the  efficacy  of  their  reme- 
dy. I  do  not  believe  in  this  misery,  and  dis- 
traction, and  distress,  and  strife,  of  the  people. 
On  the  contrary,  I  believe  them  to  be  very  quiet 
at  home,  attending  to  their  crops,  such  of  them 
as  do  not  mean  to  feed  out  of  the  public  crib  ; 
and  that  they  would  be  perfectly  happy  if  the 
politicians  would  only  permit  them  to  think  so. 
I  know  of  no  distress  in  the  country,  no  misery, 
no  strife,  no  distraction,  none  of  those  five  gap- 
ing wounds  of  which  the  senator  from  Kentucky 
made  enumeration  on  the  five  fingers  of  his  left 
hand,  and  for  the  healing  of  which,  all  together, 
and  all  at  once,  and  not  one  at  a  time,  like  the 
little  Doctor  Taylor,  he  has  provided  this  capa- 
cious plaster  in  the  shape  of  five  old  bills  tacked 
together.    I  believe  the  senator  and  myself  are 


alike,  in  this,  that  each  of  us  has  but  five  fin- 
gers on  the  left  hand ;  and  that  may  account 
for  the  limitation  of  the  wounds.  When  the 
fingers  gave  out,  they  gave  out;  and  if  there 
had  been  five  more  fingers,  there  might  have 
been  more  wounds — as  many  as  fingers — and, 
toes  also.  I  know  nothing  of  all  these  "  gaping 
wounds,"  nor  of  any  distress  in  the  country 
since  we  got  rid  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  and  since  we  got  possession  of  the  gold 
currency.  Since  that  time  I  have  heard  of  no 
pecuniary  or  business  distress,  no  rotten  cur- 
rency, no  expansions  and  contractions,  no  de- 
ranged exchanges,  no  decline  of  public  stocks, 
no  laborers  begging  employment,  no  produce 
rotting  upon  the  hands  of  the  farmer,  no  pro- 
perty sacrificed  at  forced  sales,  no  loss  of  confi- 
dence, no  three  per  centum  a  month  interest, 
no  call  for  a  bankrupt  act.  Never  were  the 
people — the  business-doing  and  the  working 
people — as  well  off  as  they  are  to-day.  As  for 
political  distress.  "  it  is  all  in  my  eijc"  It  is 
all  among  the  politicians.  Never  were  the  po- 
litical blessings  of  the  country  greater  than  at 
present :  civil  and  religious  liberty  eminently 
enjoyed  ;  life,  liberty,  and  property  protected  ; 
the  North  and  the  South  returning  to  the  old 
belief  that  they  were  made  for  each  other ;  and 
peace  and  plenty  reigning  throughout  the  land. 
This  is  the  condition  of  the  country — happy  in 
the  extreme ;  and  I  listen  with  amazement  to 
the  recitals  which  I  have  heard  on  this  floor 
of  strife  and  contention,  gaping  wounds  and 
streaming  blood,  distress  and  misery.  I  feel 
mystified.  The  senator  from  Kentucky  (Mr. 
Clay),  chairman  of  the  committee,  and  reporter 
of  the  bill,  and  its  pathetic  advocate,  formerly 
delivered  us  many  such  recitals,  about  the  times 
that  the  tariff  was  to  be  increased,  the  national 
bank  charter  to  be  renewed,  the  deposits  to  be 
restored,  or  a  bankrupt  act  to  be  passed.  Ho 
has  been  absent  for  some  years ;  and,  on  re- 
turning among  us,  seems  to  begin  where  he  left 
off.  He  treats  us  to  the  old  dish  of  distress ! 
Sir,  it  is  a  mistake.  There  is  none  of  it ;  and 
if  there  was,  the  remedy  would  be  in  the  hands 
of  the  people — in  the  hearts  of  the  people — who 
love  their  country,  and  mean  to  take  care  of  it 
— and  not  in  the  contrivances  of  politicians,  who 
mistake  their  own  for  their  country's  distresses. 
It  is  all  a  mistake.  It  looks  to  me  like  a  joke. 
But  when  I  recollect  the  imposing  number  of 


750 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


the  committee,  and  how  "  distinguished  "  they 
all  were,  and  how  they  voted  themselves  free 
from  instructions,  and  allowed  the  Senate  to 
talk,  but  not  to  vote,  while  they  were  out,  and 
how  long  they  were  deliberating :  when  I  re- 
collect all  these  things,  I  am  constrained  to  be- 
lieve the  committee  are  in  earnest.  And  as 
for  the  senator  himself,  the  chairman  of  the 
committee,  the  perfect  gravity  with  which  he 
brought  forward  his  remedy — these  bills  and 
the  report — the  pathos  with  which  he  enforced 
them,  and  the  hearty  congratulations  which  he 
addressed  to  the  Senate,  to  the  United  States, 
and  all  mankind  on  the  appointment  of  his  com- 
mittee, preclude  the  idea  of  an  intentional  joke 
on  his  part.  In  view  of  all  this,  I  find  myself 
compelled  to  consider  this  proceeding  as  se- 
rious, and  bound  to  treat  it  parliamentarily ; 
which  I  now  proceed  to  do.  And,  in  the  first 
place,  let  us  see  what  it  is  the  committee  has 
done,  and  what  it  is  that  it  has  presented  to  us 
as  the  sovereign  remedy  for  the  national  dis- 
tempers, and  which  we  are  to  swallow  whole — 
in  the  lump — all  or  none — under  the  penalty 
of  being  treated  by  the  organs  as  enemies  to  the 
country. 

Here  are  a  parcel  of  old  bills,  which  have 
been  lying  upon  our  tables  for  some  months, 
and  which  might  have  been  passed,  each  by  it- 
self, in  some  good  form,  long  ago ;  and  which 
have  been  carried  out  by  the  committee,  and 
brought  back  again,  bundled  into  one,  and  al- 
tered just  enough  to  make  each  one  worse  ; 
and  then  called  a  compromise — where  there  is 
nothing  to  compromise — and  supported  by  a 
report  which  cannot  support  itself.  Here  are 
the  California  State  admission  bill,  reported  by 
the  committee  on  territories  three  months  ago 
— the  two  territorial  government  bills,  reported 
by  the  same  committee  at  the  same  time — the 
Texas  compact  bill,  originated  by  me  six  years 
ago,  and  reproduced  at  the  present  session — the 
fugitive  slave  recovery  bill,  reported  from  the 
judiciary  committee  at  the  commencement  of 
the  session — and  the  slave  trade  suppression 
bill  for  this  District  of  Columbia,  which  is 
nothing  but  a  revival  of  an  old  Maryland  law, 
in  force  before  the  District  was  created,  and 
repealed  by  an  old  act  of  Congress.  These  are 
the  batch — five  bills  taken  from  our  files,  al- 
tered just  enough  to  spoil  each,  then  tacked 
together,   and    christened  a  compromise,  and 


pressed  upon  the  Senate  as  a  sovereign  remedy 
for  calamities  which  have  no  existence.  This  is 
the  presentation  of  the  case  :  and  now  for  the 
case  itself. 

The  committee  has  brought  in  five  old  bills, 
bundled  into  one,  and  requires  us  to  pass  them. 
Now,  how  did  this  committee  get  possession  of 
these  bills  ?  I  do  not  ask  for  the  manual  ope- 
ration. I  know  that  each  senator  had  a  copy 
on  his  table,  and  might  carry  his  copy  where 
he  pleased  ;  but  these  bills  were  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Senate,  on  its  calendar — for  discus- 
sion, but  not  for  decision,  while  the  committee 
was  out.  Two  sets  of  resolutions  were  refer- 
red to  the  committee — but  not  these  bills. 
And  I  now  ask  for  the  law — the  parliamentary 
law — which  enables  a  committee  to  consider 
bills  not  referred  to  it?  to  alter  bills  not  in 
their  legal  power  or  possession '?  to  tack  bills 
together  which  the  Senate  held  separate  on 
its  calendar  ?  to  reverse  the  order  of  bills  on 
the  calendar  1  to  put  the  hindmost  before,  and 
the  foremost  behind  ?  to  conjoin  incongruities, 
and  to  conglomerate  individualities  ?  This  is 
what  I  ask — for  this  is  what  the  committee  has 
done  ;  and  which,  if  a  point  of  order  was  raised, 
might  subject  their  bundle  of  bills  to  be  ruled 
off  the  docket.  Sir,  there  is  a  custom — a  good- 
natured  one — in  some  of  our  State  legislatures, 
to  convert  the  last  day  of  the  session  into  a  sort 
of  legislative  saturnalia — a  frolic — something 
like  barring  out  the  master — in  which  all  offi- 
cers are  displaced,  all  authorities  disregarded, 
all  rules  overturned,  all  license  tolerated,  and 
all  business  turned  topsy-turvy.  But  then  this 
is  only  done  on  the  last  day  of  the  session,  as  a 
prelude  to  a  general  break-up.  And  the  sport 
is  harmless,  for  nothing  is  done ;  and  it  is  re- 
lieved by  adjournment,  which  immediately  fol- 
lows. Such  license  as  this  may  be  tolerated ; 
for  it  is,  at  least,  innocent  sport — the  mere  play 
of  those  "  children  of  a  larger  growth "  which 
some  poet,  or  philosopher,  has  supposed  men  to 
be.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  our  committee 
has  imitated  this  play  without  its  reason — 
taken  the  license  of  the  saturnalia  without  its 
innocence — made  grave  work  of  their  gay  sport 
— produced  a  monster  instead  of  a  merry-an- 
drew — and  required  us  to  worship  what  it  is 
our  duty  to  kill. 

I  proceed  to  the  destruction  of  this  monster. 
The  California  bill  is  made  the  scape-goat  of  all 


ANNO  1850.     ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


751 


the  sins  of  slavery  in  the  United  States — that 
California  which  is  innocent  of  all  these  sins. 
It  is  made  the  scape-goat ;  and  as  this  is  the 
first  instance  of  an  American  attempt  to  imi- 
tate that  ancient  Jewish  mode  of  expiating  na- 
tional sins,  I  will  read  how  it  was  done  in  Je- 
rusalem,  to  show  how  exactly  our  committee 
have  imitated  that  ancient  expiatory  custom. 
I  read  from  an  approved  volume  of  Jewish  an- 
tiquities : 

u  The  goat  being  tied  in  the  north-east  corner 
of  the  court  of  the  temple,  and  his  head  bound 
with  scarlet  cloth  to  signify  sin  ;  the  high-priest 
went  to  him,  and  laid  his  hands  on  his  head, 
and  confessed  over  it  all  the  iniquities  of  the 
children  of  Israel,  and  all  their  transgressions 
in  all  their  sins,  putting  them  all  on  the  head 
of  the  goat.  After  which,  he  was  given  to  the 
person  appointed  to  lead  him  away,  who,  in  the 
early  ages  of  the  custom,  led  him  into  the 
desert,  and  turned  him  loose  to  die ;  but  as  the 
goat  sometimes  escaped  from  the  desert,  the 
expiation,  in  such  cases,  was  not  considered 
complete  ;  and,  to  make  sure  of  his  death,  the 
after-custom  was  to  lead  him  to  a  high  rock, 
about  twelve  miles  from  Jerusalem,  and  push 
him  off  of  it  backwards,  to  prevent  his  jumping, 
the  scarlet  cloth  being  first  torn  from  his  head, 
in  token  that  the  sins  of  the  people  were  taken 
away." 

This  was  the  expiation  of  the  scape-goat  in 
ancient  Jerusalem:  an  innocent  and  helpless 
animal,  loaded  with  sins  which  were  not  his 
own,  and  made  to  die  for  offences  which  he  had 
never  committed.  So  of  California.  She  is  in- 
nocent of  all  the  evils  of  slavery  in  the  United 
States,  yet  they  are  all  to  be  packed  upon  her 
back,  and  herself  sacrificed  under  the  heavy 
load.  First,  Utah  and  New  Mexico  are  piled 
upon  her,  each  pregnant  with  all  the  transgres- 
sions of  the  Wilmot  Proviso — a  double  load  in 
itself — and  enough,  without  further  weight,  to 
bear  down  California.  Utah  and  New  Mexico 
are  first  piled  on ;  and  the  reason  given  for  it 
by  the  committee  is  thus  stated  in  their  au- 
thentic report : 

"  The  committee  recommend  to  the  Senate 
the  establishment  of  those  territorial  govern- 
ments ;  and,  in  order  more  effectually  to  secure 
that  desirable  object,  they  also  recommend  that 
the  bill  for  their  establishment  be  incorporated 
in  the  bill  for  the  admission  of  California,  and 
that,  united  together,  they  both  be  passed." 

This  is  the  reason  given  in  the  report :  and 
the  first  thing  that  strikes  me,  on  reading  it,  is 


its  entire  incompatibility  with  the  reasons  pre- 
viously given  for  the  same  act.  In  his  speech 
in  favor  of  raising  the  committee,  the  senator 
from  Kentucky  [Mr.  Clay]  was  in  favor  of  put- 
ting the  territories  upon  California  for  her  own 
good,  for  the  good  of  California  herself — as 
the  speedy  way  to  get  her  into  the  Union,  and 
the  safe  way  to  do  it,  by  preventing  an  opposi- 
tion to  her  admission  which  might  otherwise 
defeat  it  altogether.  This  was  his  reason  then, 
and  he  thus  delivered  it  to  the  Senate : 

"  He  would  say  now  to  those  who  desired  the 
speedy  admission  of  California,  the  shortest  and 
most  expeditious  way  of  attaining  the  desired 
object  was  to  include  her  admission  in  a  bill 
giving  governments  to  the  territories.  He  made 
this  statement  because  he  was  impelled  to  do  so 
from  what  had  come  to  his  knowledge.  If  her 
admission  as  a  separate  measure  be  urged,  an 
opposition  is  created  which  may  result  in  the 
defeat  of  any  bill  for  her  admission." 

These  are  the  reasons  which  the  senator  then 
gave  for  urging  the  conjunction  of  the  State  and 
the  territories — quickest  and  safest  for  Califor- 
nia :  her  admission  the  supreme  object,  and  the 
conjunction  of  the  territories  only  a  means  of 
helping  her  along  and  saving  her.  And,  un- 
founded as  I  deemed  these  reasons  at  the  time, 
and  now  know  them  to  be,  they  still  had  the 
merit  of  giving  preference  where  it  was  due — to 
the  superior  object — to  California  herself,  a 
State,  without  being  a  State  of  the  Union,  and 
suffering  all  the  ills  of  that  anomalous  condi- 
tion. California  was  then  the  superior  object: 
the  territories  were  incidental  figures  and  sub- 
ordinate considerations,  to  be  made  subservient 
to  her  salvation.  Now  all  this  is  reversed.  The 
territories  take  the  superior  place.  They  be- 
come the  object :  the  State  the  incident.  They 
take  the  first — she  the  second  place  !  And  to 
make  sure  of  their  welfare — make  more  certain 
of  giving  governments  to  them — innuendo,  such 
governments  as  the  committee  prescribe — the 
conjunction  is  now  proposed  and  enforced.  This 
is  a  change  of  position,  with  a  corresponding- 
change  of  reasons.  Doubtless  the  senator  from 
Kentucky  has  a  right  to  change  his  own  posi 
tion,  and  to  change  his  reasons  at  the  same 
time ;  but  he  has  no  right  to  ask  other  senators 
to  change  with  him,  or  to  require  them  to  be- 
lieve in  two  sets  of  reasons,  each  contradictory 
to  the  other.    It  is  my  fortune  to  believe  in 


752 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


neither.  I  did  not  believe  in  the  first  set  when 
they  were  delivered ;  and  time  has  shown  that 
I  was  right.  Time  has  disposed  of  the  argu- 
ment of  speed.  That  reason  has  expired  under 
the  lapse  of  time.  Instead  of  more  speedy,  we 
all  now  know  that  California  has  been  delayed 
three  months,  waiting  for  this  conjunction :  in- 
stead of  defeat  if  she  remained  single,  we  all 
know  now  that  she  might  have  been  passed 
singly  before  the  committee  was  raised,  if  the 
senator  from  Kentucky  had  remained  on  his 
original  ground,  on  my  side ;  and  every  one 
knows  that  the  only  danger  to  California  now 
comes  from  the  companionship  into  which  she 
has  been  forced.  I  do  not  believe  in  either  set 
of  reasons.  I  do  not  admit  the  territorial  gov- 
ernments to  be  objects  of  superior  interest  to 
the  admission  of  California.  I  admit  them  to 
be  objects  of  interest,  demanding  our  attention, 
and  that  at  this  session ;  but  not  at  the  expense 
of  California,  nor  in  precedence  of  her,  nor  in 
conjunction  with  her,  nor  as  a  condition  for  her 
admission.  She  has  been  delayed  long,  and  is 
now  endangered  by  this  attempt  to  couple  with 
her  the  territories,  with  which  she  has  no  con- 
nection, and  to  involve  her  in  the  "Wilmot  Pro- 
viso question,  from  which  she  is  free.  The  sen- 
ator from  Kentucky  has  done  me  the  favor  to 
blame  me  for  this  delay.  He  may  blame  me 
again  when  he  beholds  the  catastrophe  of  his 
attempted  conjunctions;  but  all  mankind  will 
see  that  the  delay  is  the  result  of  his  own 
abandonment  of  the  position  which  he  originally 
took  with  me.  The  other  reason  which  the  sen- 
ator gave  in  his  speech  for  the  conjunction  is 
not  repeated  in  the  report — the  one  which  ad- 
dressed itself  to  our  nervous  system,  and  men- 
aced total  defeat  to  California  if  urged  in  a  bill 
by  herself.  He  has  not  renewed  that  argument 
to  our  fears,  so  portentously  exhibited  three 
months  ago ;  and  it  may  be  supposed  that  that 
danger  has  passed  by,  and  that  Congress  is  now 
free.  But  California  is  not  bettered  by  it,  but 
worsted.  Then  it  was  only  necessary  to  her 
salvation  that  she  should  be  joined  to  the  terri- 
tories ;  so  said  the  speech.  Now  she  is  joined 
to  Texas  also;  and  must  be  damned  if  not 
strong  enough  to  save  Texas,  and  Utah,  and 
New  Mexico,  and  herself  into  the  bargain ! 

United  together,  the  report  says,  the  bills  will 
be  passed  together.  That  is  very  well  for  the 
report.    It  was  natural  for  it  to  say  so.    But, 


suppose  they  are  rejected  together,  and  in  con- 
sequence of  being  together :  what  is,  then,  the 
condition  of  California?  First,  she  has  been 
delayed  three  months,  at  great  damage  to  her- 
self, waiting  the  intrusive  companionship  of  this 
incongruous  company.  Then  she  is  sunk  under 
its  weight.  Who,  then,  is  to  blame — the  sena- 
tor from  Kentucky  or  the  senator  from  Mis- 
souri? And  if  opposition  to  this  indefinite 
postponement  shall  make  still  further  delay  to 
California,  and  involve  her  defeat  in  the  end, 
who  then  is  to  be  blamed  again  ?  I  do  not  ask 
these  questions  of  the  senator  from  Kentucky. 
It  might  be  unlawful  to  do  so :  for,  by  the  law  of 
the  land,  no  man  is  bound  to  criminate  himself. 

Mr.  Clay  (from  his  seat).  I  do  not  claim 
the  benefit  of  the  law. 

Mr.  Benton.  No;  a  high-spirited  man  will  not 
claim  it.  But  the  law  gives  him  the  privilege ; 
and,  as  a  law-abiding  and  generous  man,  I  give 
him  the  benefit  of  the  law  whether  he  claims  it 
or  not.  But  I  think  it  is  time  for  him  to  begin 
to  consider  the  responsibility  he  has  incurred  in 
quitting  his  position  at  my  side  for  California 
single,  and  first,  to  jumble  her  up  in  this  crowd, 
where  she  is  sure  to  meet  death,  come  the  vote 
when  it  will.  I  think  it  is  time  for  him  to  be- 
gin to  think  about  submitting  to  a  mis-trial  I 
withdraw  a  juror,  and  let  a  venire  facias  de 
novo  be  issued. 

But  I  have  another  objection  to  this  new 
argument.  The  territorial  government  bills  are 
now  the  object ;  and  to  make  more  certain  of 
these  bills  they  are  put  into  the  California  bill, 
to  be  carried  safe  through  by  it.  This  is  the 
argument  of  the  report ;  and  it  is  a  plain  de- 
claration that  one  measure  is  to  be  forced  to 
carry  the  other.  This  is  a  breach  of  parliamen- 
tary law — that  law  upon  the  existence  of  which 
the  senator  from  Kentucky  took  an  issue  with 
me,  and  failed  to  maintain  his  side  of  it.  True, 
he  made  a  show  of  maintaining  it — ostenta- 
tiously borrowing  a  couple  of  my  books  from 
me,  in  open  Senate,  to  prove  his  side  of  the 
case ;  and  taking  good  care  not  to  open  them, 
because  he  knew  they  would  prove  my  side  of 
it.  Then  he  quoted  that  bill  for  the  "  relief  of 
John  Thompson,  and  for  other  purposes,"  the 
reading  of  which  had  such  an  effect  upon  the 
risible  susceptibilities  of  that  part  of  our  specta- 
tors which  Shakspeare  measures  by  the  quanti- 
ty, and  qualifies  as  barren !    Sir,  if  the  senator 


ANNO  1850.     ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


753 


from  Kentucky  had  only  read  us  Dr.  Franklin's 
story  of  John  Thompson  and  his  hat-sign,  it 
would  have  been  something — a  thing  equally 
pertinent  as  argument,  and  still  more  amusing 
as  anecdote.  The  senator,  by  doing  that  much, 
admitted  his  obligation  to  maintain  his  side  of 
the  issue :  by  doing  no  more,  he  confessed  he 
could  not.  And  now  the  illegality  of  this  con- 
junction stands  confessed,  with  the  superaddi- 
tion  of  an  avowed  condemnable  motive  for  it. 
The  motive  is — so  declared  in  the  report — to 
force  one  measure  to  carry  the  other  —  the 
identical  thing  mentioned  in  all  the  books  as 
the  very  reason  why  subjects  of  different  na- 
tures should  not  be  tacked  together.  I  do  not 
repeat  what  I  have  heretofore  said  on  this 
point :  it  will  be  remembered  by  the  Senate : 
and  its  validity  is  now  admitted  by  the  attempt, 
and  the  failure,  to  contest  it.  It  is  compulsory 
legislation,  and  a  flagrant  breach  of  parliamen- 
tary law,  and  of  safe  legislation.  It  is  also  a 
compliment  of  no  equivocal  character  to  a  por- 
tion of  the  members  of  this  Chamber.  To  put 
two  measures  together  for  the  avowed  purpose 
of  forcing  one  to  carry  the  other,  is  to  propose 
to  force  the  friends  of  the  stronger  measure  to 
take  the  weak  one,  under  the  penalty  of  losing 
the  stronger.  It  implies  both  that  these  mem- 
bers cannot  be  trusted  to  vote  fairly  upon  one 
of  the  measures,  or  that  an  unfair  vote  is  wanted 
from  them;  and  that  they  are  coercible,  and 
ought  to  be  coerced.  This  is  the  compliment 
which  the  compulsory  process  implies,  and 
which  is  as  good  as  declared  in  this  case.  It  is 
a  rough  compliment,  but  such  a  one  as  "  dis- 
tinguished senators  " — such  as  composed  this 
committee — may  have  the  prerogative  to  offer 
to  the  undistinguished  ones :  but  then  these  un- 
distinguished may  have  the  privilege  to  refuse 
to  receive  it — may  refuse  to  sanction  the  impli- 
cation, by  refusing  to  vote  as  required — may 
take  the  high  ground  that  they  are  not  coercible, 
that  they  owe  allegiance,  not  to  the  committee, 
but  to  honor  and  duty ;  and  that  they  can  trust 
themselves  for  an  honest  vote,  in  a  bill  by  itself, 
although  the  committee  cannot  trust  them ! 
But,  stop  !  Is  it  a  government  or  the  govern- 
ment which  the  committee  propose  to  secure  by 
coercion  ?  Is  it  a  government,  such  as  a  ma- 
jority of  the  Senate  may  agree  upon  ?  or  is  it 
the  government,  such  as  a  majority  of  the  com- 
mittee have  prescribed?    If  the  former,  whv 

Vol.  II.— 48 


not  leave  the  Senate  to  free  voting  in  a  separate 
bill  ?  if  the  latter,  will  the  Senate  be  coerced  ? 
will  it  allow  a  majority  of  the  committee  to 
govern  the  Senate? — seven  to  govern  sixty? 
Sir !  it  is  the  latter — so  avowed ;  and  being  the 
first  instance  of  such  an  avowal,  it  should  meet 
a  reception  which  would  make  it  the  last. 

Mr.  President :  all  the  evils  of  incongruous 
conjunctions  are  exemplified  in  this  conjunction 
of  the  territorial  government  bills  with  the 
California  State  admission  bill.  They  are  sub- 
jects not  only  foreign  to  each  other,  but  involving 
different  questions,  and  resting  upon  principles 
of  different  natures.  One  involves  the  slavery 
and  anti-slavery  questions :  the  other  is  free 
from  them.  One  involves  constitutional  ques- 
tions :  the  other  does  not.  One  is  a  question  of 
right,  resting  upon  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States  and  the  treaty  with  Mexico :  the 
other  is  a  question  of  expediency,  resting  in  the 
discretion  of  Congress.  One  is  the  case  of  a 
State,  asking  for  an  equality  of  rights  with  the 
other  States  :  the  other  is  a  question  of  terri- 
tories, asking  protection  from  States.  One  is  a 
sovereignty — the  other  a  property.  So  that,  at 
all  points,  and  under  every  aspect,  the  subjects 
differ  ;  and  it  is  well  known  that  there  are  sen- 
ators here  who  can  unite  in  a  vote  for  the  ad- 
mission of  California,  who  cannot  unite  in  any 
vote  for  the  territorial  governments ;  and  that, 
because  these  governments  involve  the  slavery 
questions,  from  all  which  the  California  bill  is 
free.  That  is  the  rock  on  which  men  and  par- 
ties split  here.  Some  deny  the  power  of  Con- 
gress in  toto  over  the  subject  of  slavery  in  ter- 
ritories :  such  as  these  can  support  no  bill  which 
touches  that  question  one  way  or  the  other. 
Others  admit  the  power,  but  deny  the  expedi 
ency  of  its  exercise.  Others  again  claim  both 
the  power  and  the  exercise.  Others  again  are 
under  legislative  instructions — some  to  vote  one 
way,  some  the  other.  Finally,  there  are  some 
opposed  to  giving  any  governments  at  all  to 
these  territories,  and  in  favor  of  leaving  them 
to  grow  up  of  themselves  into  future  States. 
Now,  what  are  the  senators,  so  circumstanced, 
to  do  with  these  bills  conjoined  ?  Vote  for  all 
— and  call  it  a  compromise !  as  if  oaths,  duty, 
consitutional  obligation,  and  legislative  instruc- 
tions, were  subjects  of  compromise.  No  !  rejec- 
tion of  the  whole  is  the  only  course ;  and  to  be- 
gin anew,  each  bill  by  itself)  the  only  remedy. 


754 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


The  conjunction  of  these  bills  illustrates  all 
the  evils  of  joining  incoherent  subjects  together. 
It  presents  a  revolting  enormity,  of  which  all 
the  evils  go  to  an  innocent  party,  which  has 
done  all  in  its  power  to  avoid  them.  But,  not 
to  do  the  Committee  of  Thirteen  injustice, 
I  must  tell  that  they  have  looked  somewhat  to 
the  interest  of  California  in  this  conjunction, 
and  proposed  a  compensating  advantage  to  her ; 
of  which  kind  consideration  they  are  entitled  to 
the  credit  in  their  own  words.  This,  then,  is 
what  they  propose  for  her : 

"  As  for  California  —  far  from  feeling  her 
sensibility  affected  by  her  being  associated  with 
other  kindred  measures — she  ought  to  rejoice 
and  be  highly  gratified  that,  in  entering  into  the 
Union,  she  may  have  contributed  to  the  tran- 
quillity and  happiness  of  the  great  family  of 
States,  of  which  it  is  to  be  hoped  she  may  one 
day  be  a  distinguished  member." 

This  is  the  compensation  proposed  to  Califor- 
nia. She  is  to  rejoice,  and  be  highly  gratified. 
She  is  to  contribute  to  the  tranquillity  and  hap- 
piness of  the  great  family  of  States,  and  thereby 
become  tranquil  and  happy  herself.  And  she 
is  one  day,  it  is  hoped,  to  become  a  distin- 
guished member  of  this  confederacy.  This  is  to 
be  her  compensation — felicity  and  glory !  Pro- 
spective felicity,  and  contingent  glory.  The 
felicity  rural — rural  felicity — from  the  geographi- 
cal position  of  California — the  most  innocent 
and  invigorating  kind  of  felicity.  The  glory 
and  distinction  yet  to  be  achieved.  "Whether 
California  will  consider  these  anticipations  am- 
ple compensation  for  all  the  injuries  of  this  con- 
junction— the  long  delay,  and  eventual  danger, 
and  all  her  sufferings  at  home  in  the  mean  time 
— will  remain  for  herself  to  say.  For  my  part, 
I  would  not  give  one  hour's  duration  of  actual 
existence  in  this  Union  for  a  whole  eternity  of 
such  compensation ;  and  such,  I  think,  will  be 
the  opinion  of  California  herself.  Life,  and  pre- 
sent relief  from  actual  ills,  is  what  she  wants. 
Existence  and  relief,  is  her  cry !  And  for  these 
she  can  find  no  compensation  in  the  illusions  of 
contributing  to  the  tranquillity  of  States  which 
are  already  tranquil,  the  happiness  of  people 
who  are  already  happy,  the  settlement  of  ques- 
tions in  which  she  has  no  concern,  and  the  for- 
mation of  compromises  which  breed  new  quar- 
rels in  assuming  to  settle  old  ones. 
With  these  fine  reasons  for  tacking  Utah  and 


New  Mexico  to  California,  the  committee  pro- 
ceed to  pile  a  new  load  upon  her  back.  Texas 
next  appears  in  the  committee's  plan,  crammed 
into  the  California  bill,  with  all  her  questions  of 
debt  and  boundary,  dispute  with  New  Mexico, 
division  into  future  States,  cession  of  territory 
to  the  United  States,  amount  of  compensation 
to  be  given  her,  thrust  in  along  with  her !  A 
compact  with  one  State  put  into  a  law  for  the 
life  of  another  !  And  a  veto  upon  the  admis- 
sion of  California  given  to  Texas  !  This  is  a 
monstrosity  of  which  there  is  no  example  in  the 
history  of  our  legislation,  and  for  the  produc- 
tion of  which  it  is  fair  to  permit  the  committee 
to  speak  for  themselves. 

These  are  the  reasons  of  the  committee,  and 
they  present  grave  errors  in  law,  both  constitu- 
tional and  municipal,  and  of  geography  and 
history.  They  assume  a  controversy  between 
New  Mexico  and  Texas.  No  such  thing.  New 
Mexico  belongs  to  the  United  States,  and  the 
controversy  is  with  the  United  States.  They 
assume  there  is  no  way  to  settle  this  controversy 
but  by  a  compact  with  Texas.  This  is  another 
great  mistake.  There  are  three  ways  to  settle 
it :  first,  and  best,  by  a  compact ;  secondly,  by 
a  suit  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  ;  thirdly,  by  giving  a  government  to  New 
Mexico  according  to  her  actual  extent  when  the 
United  States  acquired  her,  and  holding  on  to 
that  until  the  question  of  title  is  decided,  either 
amicably  by  compact,  or  legally  by  the  Supreme 
C ourt.  The  fundamental  error  of  the  committee 
is  in  supposing  that  New  Mexico  is  party  to 
this  controversy  with  Texas.  No  such  thing. 
New  Mexico  is  only  the  John  Doe  of  the  con- 
cern. That  error  corrected,  and  all  the  reason- 
ing of  the  committee  falls  to  the  ground.  For 
the  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  extends 
to  all  controversies  to  which  the  United  States 
are  party  ;  and  the  original  jurisdiction  of  the 
Supreme  Court  extends  to  all  cases  to  which 
a  State  is  a  party.  This  brings  the  case  bang 
up  at  once  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Su- 
preme Court,  without  waiting  for  the  consent  01 
Texas,  or  waiting  for  New  Mexico  to  grow  up 
into  a  State,  so  as  to  have  a  suit  between  two 
States ;  and  so  there  is  no  danger  of  collision, 
as  the  committee  suppose,  and  make  an  argu- 
ment for  their  bill,  in  the  danger  there  is  to 
New  Mexico  from  this  apprehended  collision. 
If  any  takes  place  it  will  be  a  collision  with  the 


ANNO  1850.     ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


755 


United  States,  to  whom  the  territory  of  New 
Mexico  belongs ;  and  she  will  know  how  to 
prevent  this  collision,  first,  by  offering  what  is 
not  only  just,  but  generous  to  Texas ;  and  next, 
in  defending  her  territory  from  invasion,  and 
her  people  from  violence. 

These  are  the  reasons  for  thrusting  Texas, 
with  all  her  multifarious  questions,  into  the  Ca- 
lifornia bill ;  and,  reduced  to  their  essence,  they 
argue  thus  :  Utah  must  go  in,  because  she  binds 
upon  Calfornia ;  New  Mexico  must  go  in,  be- 
cause she  binds  upon  Utah ;  and  Texas  must 
go  in,  because  she  binds  upon  New  Mexico. 
And  thus  poor  California  is  crammed  and  gorged 
until  she  is  about  in  the  condition  that  Jonah 
would  have  been  in,  if  he  had  swallowed  the 
whale,  instead  of  the  whale  swallowing  him. 
This  opens  a  new  chapter  in  legislative  ratio- 
cination. It  substitutes  contiguity  of  territory 
for  congruity  of  matter,  and  makes  geographical 
affinities  the  rule  of  legislative  conjunctions. 
Upon  that  principle  the  committee  might  have 
gone  on,  cramming  other  bills  into  the  California 
bill,  all  over  the  United  States  ;  for  all  our  ter- 
ritory is  binding  in  some  one  part  upon  another. 
Upon  that  principle,  the  District  of  Columbia 
slave  trade  suppression  bill  might  have  been 
interjected ;  for,  though  not  actually  binding 
upon  Texas,  yet  it  binds  upon  land  that  binds 
upon  land  that  does  bind  upon  her.  So  of  the 
fugitive  slave  bill.  For,  let  the  fugacious  slave 
run  as  far  as  he  may,  he  must  still  be  on  land  ; 
and  that  being  the  case,  the  territorial  contiguity 
may  be  established  which  justifies  the  legisla- 
tive conjunction. 

Mr.  President,  the  moralist  informs  us  that 
there  are  some  subjects  too  light  for  reason — 
too  grave  for  ridicule;  and  in  such  cases  the 
mere  moralist  may  laugh  or  cry,  as  he  deems 
best.  But  not  so  with  the  legislator — his 
business  is  not  laughing  or  crying.  "Whimper- 
ing, or  simpering,  is  not  his  mission.  Work  is 
his  vocation,  and  gravity  his  vein  ;  and  in  that 
vein  I  proceed  to  consider  this  interjection  of 
Texas,  with  all  her  multifarious  questions,  into 
the  bowels  of  the  California  bill. 

In  the  first  place,  this  Texas  bill  is  a  com- 
pact, depending  for  its  validity  on  the  consent 
of  Texas,  and  is  put  into  the  California  bill  as 
part  of  a  compromise  and  general  settlement  of 
all  the  slavery  questions ;  and,  of  course,  the 
whole  must  stand  together,  or  fall  together. 


This  gives  Texas  a  veto  upon  the  admission  of 
California.  This  is  unconstitutional,  as  well  as 
unjust ;  for  by  the  constitution,  new  States  are 
to  be  admitted  by  Congress,  and  not  by  another 
State  ;  and,  therefore,  Texas  should  not  have  a 
veto  upon  the  admission  of  California.  In  the 
next  place,  Texas  presents  a  great  many  serious 
questions  of  her  own — some  of  them  depending 
upon  a  compact  already  existing  with  the  United 
States,  many  of  them  concerning  the  United 
States,  one  concerning  New  Mexico,  but  no  one 
reaching  to  California.  She  has  a  question  of 
boundary  nominally  with  New  Mexico,  in  reality 
with  the  United  States,  as  the  owner  of  New 
Mexico  ;  and  that  might  be  a  reason  for  joining 
her  in  a  bill,  so  far  as  that  boundary  is  con- 
cerned, with  New  Mexico ;  but  it  can  be  no 
reason  for  joining  her  to  California.  The 
western  boundary  of  Texas  is  the  point  of  col- 
lision with  New  Mexico ;  and  this  plan  of  the 
committee,  instead  of  proposing  a  suitable 
boundary  between  them  adapted  to  localities, 
or  leaving  to  each  its  actual  possessions,  disturb- 
ing no  interest,  until  the  decision  of  title  upon 
the  universal  principle  of  uli  possidetis  ;  instead 
of  these  obvious  and  natural  remedies,  the  plan 
of  the  committee  cuts  deep  into  the  actual  pos- 
sessions of  the  United  States  in  New  Mexico — 
rousing  the  question  which  the  committee  pro- 
fesses to  avoid,  the  question  of  extending  slavery, 
and  so  disturbing  the  whole  United  States. 

And  here  I  must  insist  on  the  error  of  the 
committee  in  constitutional  and  municipal  law, 
before  I  point  out  their  mistakes  in  geography 
and  history.  They  treat  New  Mexico  as  having 
a  controversy  with  Texas — as  being  in  danger 
of  a  collision  with  her — and  that  a  compact 
with  Texas  to  settle  the  boundary  between 
them  is  the  only  way  to  settle  that  controversy 
and  prevent  that  collision.  Now,  all  this  is  a 
mistake.  The  controversy  is  not  with  New 
Mexico,  but  with  the  United  States,  and  the 
judicial  power  of  the  United  States  has  jurisdic- 
tion of  it.  Again,  possession  is  title  until  the 
right  is  tried  j  and  the  United  States  having  the 
possession,  may  give  a  government  at  once  ac- 
cording to  the  possession ;  and  then  wait  the 
decision  of  title. 

I  avoid  all  argument  about  right — the  even- 
tual right  of  Texas  to  any  part  of  what  was 
New  Mexico  before  the  existence  of  Texas.  I 
avoid  that  question.    Amicable  settlement  of 


756 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


contested  claim,  and  not  adjudication  of  title,  is 
now  my  object.  I  need  no  argument  from  any 
quarter  to  satisfy  me  that  the  Texas  questions 
ought  to  be  settled.  I  happened  to  know  that 
before  Texas  was  annexed,  and  brought  in  bills 
and  made  speeches  for  that  purpose  at  that 
time.  I  brought  in  such  bills  six  years  ago, 
and  again  at  the  present  session ;  and  whenever 
presented  single,  either  by  myself  or  any  other 
person,  I  shall  be  ready  to  give  it  a  generous 
consideration  ;  but,  as  part  of  the  California  bill, 
I  wash  my  hands  of  it. 

I  am  against  disturbing  actual  possession, 
either  that  of  New  Mexico  or  of  Texas ;  and, 
therefore,  am  in  favor  of  leaving  to  each  all  its 
population,  and  an  ample  amount  of  compact 
and  homogeneous  territory.  With  this  view, 
all  my  bills  and  plans  for  a  divisional  line  be- 
tween New  Mexico  and  Texas — whether  of  1844 
or  1850 — left  to  each  all  its  settlements,  all  its 
actual  possessions,  all  its  uncontested  claim ;  and 
divided  the  remainder  by  a  line  adapted  to  the 
geography  and  natural  divisions  of  the  country, 
as  well  as  suitable  to  the  political  and  social 
condition  of  the  people  themselves.  This  gave  a 
longitudinal  line  between  them  ;  and  the  longi- 
tude of  100  degrees  in  my  bill  of  1844,  and  102 
degrees  in  my  bill  of  1850 — and  both  upon  the 
same  principle  of  leaving  possessions  intact, 
Texas  having  extended  her  settlements  in  the 
mean  time.  The  proposed  line  of  the  committee 
violates  all  these  conditions.  It  cuts  deep  and 
arbitrarily  into  the  actual  possessions  of  New 
Mexico,  such  as  she  held  them  before  Texas  had 
existence ;  and  so  conforms  to  no  principle  of 
public  policy,  private  right,  territorial  affinity, 
or  local  propriety.  It  begins  on  the  Rio  del 
Norte,  twenty  miles  in  a  straight  line  above  El 
Paso,  and  thence,  diagonally  and  northeast- 
wardly, to  the  point  where  the  Red  River 
crosses  the  longitude  of  100°.  Now  this  be- 
ginning, twenty  miles  above  El  Paso,  is  about 
three  hundred  miles  in  a  straight  line  (near  six 
hundred  by  the  windings  of  the  river)  above 
the  ancient  line  of  New  Mexico;  and  this 
diagonal  line  to  the  Red  River  cuts  about  four 
hundred  miles  in  a  straight  line  through  the 
ancient  New  Mexican  possessions,  cutting  off 
About  seventy  thousand  square  miles  of  terri- 
tory from  New  Mexico,  where  there  is  no 
j  slavery,  and  giving  it  to  Texas  where  there  is. 
This  constitutes  a  more  serious  case  of  tacking 


than  even  that  of  sticking  incongruous  bills 
together,  and  calls  for  a  most  considerate  exami- 
nation of  all  the  circumstances  it  involves.  I 
will  examine  these  circumstances,  first  making 
a  statement,  and  then  sustaining  it  by  proof. 

El  Paso,  above  which  the  Texas  boundary  is 
now  proposed  to  be  placed  by  the  committee,  is 
one  of  the  most  ancient  of  the  New  Mexican 
towns,  and  to  which  the  Spaniards  of  New 
Mexico  retreated  in  the  great  Indian  revolt  in 
1680,  and  made  their  stand,  and  thence  recovered 
the  whole  province.  It  was  the  residence  of  the 
lieutenant-governor  of  New  Mexico,  and  the  most 
southern  town  of  the  province,  as  Taos  was  the 
most  northern.  Being  on  the  right  bank  of 
the  river,  the  dividing  line  between  the  United 
States  and  the  Republic  of  Mexico  leaves  it  out 
of  our  limits,  and  consequently  out  of  the  present 
limits  of  New  Mexico ;  but  New  Mexico  still  ex- 
tends to  the  Rio  del  Norte  at  the  Paso ;  and 
therefore  this  beginning  line  proposed  by  the 
committee  cuts  into  the  ancient  possession  of  New 
Mexico — a  possession  dating  from  the  year  1595. 
That  line  in  its  course  to  the  Red  River,  cuts 
the  river  and  valley  of  the  Puerco  (called  Pecos 
in  the  upper  part)  into  two  parts,  leaving  the 
lower  and  larger  part  to  Texas ;  the  said  Rio 
Puerco  and  its  valley,  from  head  to  mouth, 
having  always  been  a  part  of  New  Mexico,  and 
now  in  its  actual  possession.  Putting  together 
what  is  cut  from  the  Puerco,  and  from  the  Del 
Norte  above  and  below  El  Paso,  and  it  would 
amount  to  about  seventy  thousand  square  miles, 
to  be  taken  by  the  committee's  line  from  its  pre- 
sent and  ancient  possessor,  and  transferred  to  a 
new  claimant.  This  is  what  the  new  line  would 
do,  and  in  doing  it  would  raise  the  question  of  the 
extension  of  slavery,  and  of  its  existence  at  this 
time,  by  law,  in  New  Mexico  as  a  part  of  Texas. 

To  avoid  all  misconception,  I  repeat  what  I 
have  already  declared,  that  I  am  not  occupying 
myself  with  the  question  of  title  as  it  may  exist 
and  be  eventually  determined  between  New 
Mexico  and  Texas ;  nor  am  I  questioning  the 
power  of  Congress  to  establish  any  line  it 
pleases  in  that  quarter  for  the  State  of  Texas, 
with  the  consent  of  the  State,  and  any  one  it 
pleases  for  the  territory  of  New  Mexico  without 
her  consent.  I  am  not  occupying  myself  with 
the  questions  of  title  or  power,  but  with  the 
question  of  possession  only — and  how  far  the 
possession  of  New  Mexico  is  to  be  disturbed,  if 


ANNO  1850.     ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


757 


disturbed  at  all,  by  the  committee's  line ;  and 
the  effect  of  that  disturbance  in  rousing  the 
slavery  question  in  that  quarter.  In  that  point 
of  view  the  fact  of  possession  is  every  thing  :  for 
the  possessor  has  a  right  to  what  he  holds  until 
the  question  of  title  is  decided — by  law,  in  a 
question  between  individuals  or  communities  in 
a  land  of  law  and  order — or  by  negotiation  or 
arms  between  independent  Powers.  I  use  the 
phrase,  possession  by  New  Mexico ;  but  it  is 
only  for  brevity,  and  to  give  locality  to  the 
term  possession.  New  Mexico  possesses  no 
territory;  she  is  a  territory,  and  belongs  to 
the  United  States ;  and  the  United  States  own 
her  as  she  stood  on  the  day  of  the  treaty  of 
peace  and  cession  between  the  United  States 
and  the  Republic  of  Mexico ;  and  it  is  into  that 
possession  that  I  inquire,  and  all  which  I  assert 
that  the  United  States  have  a  right  to  hold  until 
the  question  of  title  is  decided.  And  to  save 
inquiry  or  doubt,  and  to  show  that  the  commit- 
tee are  totally  mistaken  in  law  in  assuming  the 
consent  of  Texas  to  be  indispensable  to  the 
settlement  of  the  title,  I  say  there  are  three 
ways  to  settle  it ;  the  first  and  best  by  compact, 
as  I  proposed  before  Texas  was  annexed,  and 
again  by  a  bill  of  this  year :  next,  by  a  suit  in 
the  Supreme  Court,  under  that  clause  in  the 
constitution  which  extends  the  judicial  power 
of  the  United  States  to  all  controversies  to 
which  the  United  States  is  a  party,  and  that 
other  clause  which  gives  the  Supreme  Court 
original  jurisdiction  of  all  cases  to  which  a  State 
is  a  party :  the  third  way  is  for  the  United 
States  to  give  a  government  to  New  Mexico  ac- 
cording to  the  territory  she  possessed  when  she 
was  ceded  to  the  United  States.  These  are  the 
three  ways  to  settle  the  question — one  of  them 
totally  dependent  on  the  will  of  Texas — one 
totally  independent  of  her  will — and  one  inde- 
pendent of  her  will  until  she  chooses  to  go  into 
court.  As  to  any  thing  that  Texas  or  New 
Mexico  may  do  in  taking  or  relinquishing  pos- 
session, it  is  all  moonshine.  New  Mexico  is  a 
territory  of  the  United  States.  She  is  the  pro- 
perty of  the  United  States;  and  she  cannot 
dispose  of  herself,  or  any  part  of  herself;  nor 
can  Texas  take  her  or  any  part  of  her.  She 
is  to  stand  as  she  did  the  day  the  United  States 
acquired  her  ;  and  to  that  point  all  my  exami- 
nations are  directed. 

And  in  that  point  of  view  it  is  immaterial 


what  are  the  boundaries  of  New  Mexico.  The 
whole  of  the  territory  obtained  from  Mexico, 
and  not  rightfully  belonging  to  a  State,  belongs 
to  the  United  States ;  and,  as  such,  is  the  pro- 
perty of  the  United  States,  and  to  be  attended 
to  accordingly.  But  I  proceed  with  the  posses- 
sion of  New  Mexico,  and  show  that  it  has  been 
actual  and  continuous  from  the  conquest  of  the 
country  by  Don  Juan  de  Onate,  in  1595  to  the 
present  time.  That  ancient  actual  possession 
has  already  been  shown  at  the  starting  point  of 
the  line — at  El  Paso  del  Norte.  I  will  now 
show  it  to  be  the  same  throughout  the  con- 
tinuation of  the  line  across  the  Puerco  and  its 
valley,  and  at  some  points  on  the  left  bank  of 
the  Del  Norte  below  El  Paso.  And  first,  of 
the  Puerco  River.  It  rises  in  the  latitude  of 
Santa  Fe,  and  in  its  immediate  neighborhood, 
only  ten  miles  from  it,  and  running  south,  falls 
into  the  Rio  del  Norte,  about  three  hundred 
miles  on  a  straight  line  below  El  Paso,  and  has 
a  valley  of  its  own  between  the  mountain  range 
on  the  west,  which  divides  it  from  the  valley  of 
the  Del  Norte,  to  which  it  is  parallel,  and  the 
high  arid  table  land  on  the  east  called  El  Llano 
Estacado — the  Staked  Plain — which  divides  it 
from  the  head  waters  of  the  Red  River,  the 
Colorado,  the  Brasos,  and  other  Texian  streams. 
It  is  a  long  river,  its  head  being  in  the  latitude 
of  Nashville — its  mouth  a  degree  and  a  half 
south  of  New  Orleans.  It  washes  the  base  of 
the  high  table  land,  and  receives  no  affluents, 
and  has  no  valley  on  that  side ;  on  the  west  it 
has  a  valley,  and  many  bold  affluents,  coming 
down  from  the  mountain  range  (the  Sierra  Ob- 
scura,  the  Sierra  Blanca,  and  the  Sierra  de  los 
Organos),  which  divides  it  from  the  valley  of 
the  upper  Del  Norte.  It  is  valuable  for  its 
length,  being  a  thousand  miles,  following  its 
windings — from  its  course,  which  is  north  and 
south — from  the  quality  of  its  water,  derived 
from  high  mountains — from  its  valley,  timbered 
and  grassy,  part  prairie,  good  for  cultivation,  for 
pasturage,  and  salt.  It  has  two  climates,  cold 
in  the  north  from  its  altitude  (seven  thousand 
feet) — mild  in  the  south  from  its  great  descent, 
not  less  than  five  thousand  feet,  and  with  a 
general  amelioration  of  climate  over  the  valley 
of  the  Del  Norte  from  its  openness  on  the  east, 
and  mountain  shelter  on  the  west.  It  is  a  river 
of  New  Mexico,  and  is  so  classified  in  geogra- 
phy.   It  is  an  old  possession  of  New  Mexico, 


758 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


and  the  most  valuable  part  of  it,  and  has  many 
of  her  towns  and  villages  upon  it.  Las  Vegas, 
Gallinas,  Tecolote  Abajo,  Cuesta,  Pecos,  San 
Miguel,  Anton  Chico,  Salinas,  Gran  Quivira,  are 
all  upon  it.  Some  of  these  towns  date  their 
origin  as  far  back  as  the  first  conquest  of  the 
Taos  Indians,  about  the  year  1600 ;  and  some 
have  an  historical  interest,  and  a  special  relation 
to  the  question  of  title  between  New  Mexico  and 
Texas.  Pecos  is  the  old  village  of  the  Indians 
of  that  name,  famous  for  the  sacred  fire  so  long 
kept  burning  there  for  the  return  of  Montezuma. 
Gran  Quivira  was  a  considerable  mining  town 
under  the  Spaniards  before  the  year  1680,  when 
it  was  broken  up  in  the  great  Indian  revolt  of 
that  year. 

San  Miguel,  twenty  miles  from  Santa  Fe,  is 
the  place  where  the  Texian  expedition,  under 
Colonel  Cooke,  were  taken  prisoners  in  1841. 

To  all  these  evidences  of  New  Mexican  pos- 
session of  the  Rio  Puerco  and  its  valley,  is  to 
be  added  the  further  evidence  resulting  from 
acts  of  ownership  in  grants  of  land  made  upon 
its  upper  part,  as  in  New  Mexico,  by  the  superior 
Spanish  authorities  before  the  revolution,  and 
by  the  Mexican  local  authorities  since.  The 
lower  half  was  ungranted,  and  leaves  much 
vacant  land,  and  the  best  in  the  country,  to  the 
United  States. 

The  great  pastoral  lands  of  New  Mexico  are 
in  the  valley  of  the  Puerco,  where  millions  of 
sheep  were  formerly  pastured,  now  reduced  to 
about  two  hundred  thousand  by  the  depreda- 
tion of  the  Indians.  The  New  Mexican  inhab- 
itants of  the  Del  Norte  send  their  flocks  there 
to  be  herded  by  shepherds,  on  shares ;  and  in 
this  way,  and  by  taking  their  salt  there,  and  in 
addition  to  their  towns  and  settlements,  and 
grants  of  lands,  the  New  Mexicans  have  had 
possession  of  the  Puerco  and  its  valley  since  the 
year  1600 — that  is  to  say,  for  about  one  hun- 
dred years  before  the  shipwreck  of  La  Salle,  in 
the  bay  of  San  Bernardo,  revealed  the  name  of 
Texas  to  Europe  and  America. 

These  are  the  actual  possessions  of  New 
Mexico  on  the  Rio  Puerco.  On  the  Rio  del 
Norte,  as  cut  off  by  the  committee's  bill,  there 
are,  the  little  town  of  Frontera,  ten  miles  above 
El  Paso,  a  town  begun  opposite  El  Paso,  San 
Eleazario,  twenty  miles  below,  and  some  houses 
lower  down  opposite  El  Presidio  del  Norte.  Of 
all  these,  San  Eleazario  is  the  most  considerable. 


having  a  population  of  some  four  thousand 
souls,  once  a  town  of  New  Biscay,  now  of  New 
Mexico,  and  now  the  property  of  the  United 
States  by  avulsion.  It  is  an  island;  and  the 
main  river,  formerly  on  the  north  and  now  on 
the  south  of  the  island,  leaves  it  in  New  Mexico. 
When  Pike  went  through  it,  it  was  the  most 
northern  town,  and  the  frontier  garrison  of 
New  Biscay ;  and  there  the  then  lieutenant-gov- 
ernor of  New  Mexico,  who  had  escorted  him 
from  El  Paso,  turned  him  over  to  the  authorities 
of  a  new  province.  It  is  now  the  most  southern 
town  of  New  Mexico,  without  having  changed 
its  place,  but  the  river  which  disappeared  from 
its  channel  in  that  place,  in  1752,  has  now 
changed  it  to  the  south  of  the  island. 

I  reiterate :  I  am  not  arguing  title ;  I  am 
only  showing  possession,  which  is  a  right  to  re- 
main in  possession  until  title  is  decided. .  The 
argument  of  title  has  often  been  introduced  into 
this  question ;  and  a  letter  from  President  Polk, 
through  Secretary  Buchanan,  has  often  been 
read  on  the  Texian  side.  Now,  what  I  have  to 
say  of  that  letter,  so  frequently  referred  to,  and 
considered  so  conclusive,  is  this :  that,  however 
potent  it  may  have  been  in  inducing  annexation, 
or  how  much  soever  it  may  be  entitled  to  con- 
sideration in  fixing  the  amount  to  be  paid  to 
Texas  for  her  Mexican  claim,  yet  as  an  evidence 
of  title,  I  should  pay  no  more  regard  to  it  than 
to  a  chapter  from  the  life  and  adventures  of 
Robinson  Crusoe.  Congress  and  the  judiciary 
are  the  authorities  to  decide  such  claims  to 
titles,  and  not  Presidents  and  secretaries. 

I  rest  upon  the  position,  then,  that  the  Rio 
Puerco,  and  its  valley,  is  and  was  a  New  Mexi- 
can possession,  as  well  as  the  left  bank  of  the 
Del  Norte,  from  above  El  Paso  to  below  the 
mouth  of  the  Puerco ;  and  that  this  possession 
cannot  be  disturbed  without  raising  the  double 
question,  first,  of  actual  extension  of  slavery ; 
and,  secondly,  of  the  present  legal  existence  of 
slavery  in  all  New  Mexico  east  of  the  Rio 
Grande,  as  a  part  of  Texas.  These  are  the 
questions  which  the  proposed  line  of  the  com- 
mittee raise,  and  force  us  to  face.  They  are  not 
questions  of  my  seeking,  but  I  shall  not  avoid 
them.  It  is  not  a  new  question  with  me,  this 
extension  of  slavery  in  that  quarter.  I  met  it 
in  1844,  before  the  annexation  of  Texas.  On 
th  10th  day  of  June,  of  that  year,  and  as  part 
of  a  bill  for  a  compact  with  Texas,  and  to  settle 


ANNO  1850.     ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


759 


all  questions  with  her — the  very  ones  which 
now  perplex  us — before  she  was  annexed,  I  pro- 
posed, as  article  V.  in  the  projected  compact : 

"  Art.  V.  "  The  existence  of  slavery  to  be 
for  ever  prohibited  in  that  part  of  the  annexed 
territory  which  lies  west  of  the  hundredth  de- 
gree of  longitude  west  from  the  meridian  of 
Greenwich." 

This  is  what  I  proposed  six  years  ago,  and  as 
one  in  a  series  of  propositions  to  be  offered  to 
Texas  and  Mexico  for  settling  all  questions 
growing  out  of  the  projected  annexation  before- 
hand. They  were  not  adopted.  Immediate  an- 
nexation, without  regard  to  consequences,  was 
the  cry ;  and  all  temperate  counsels  were  set 
down  to  British  traitors,  abolitionists,  and  whigs. 
"Well !  we  have  to  regard  consequences  now — 
several  consequences :  one  of  which  is  this  large 
extension  of  slavery,  which  the  report  and  con- 
glomerate bills  of  the  Committee  of  Thirteen 
force  us  to  face.  I  did  so  six  years  ago,  and 
heard  no  outbreak  against  my  opinions  then. 
But  my  opposition  to  the  extension  of  slavery 
dates  further  back  than  1844 — forty  years  fur- 
ther back ;  and  as  this  is  a  suitable  time  for  a 
general  declaration,  and  a  sort  of  general  con- 
science delivery,  I  will  say  that  my  opposition 
to  it  dates  from  1804,  when  I  was  a  student  at 
law  in  the  State  of  Tennessee,  and  studied  the 
subject  of  African  slavery  in  an  American  book 
— a  Virginia  book — Tucker's  edition  of  Black- 
stone's  Commentaries.  And  here  it  is  (holding 
up  a  volume  and  reading  from  the  title-page)  : 
"  Blackstone's  Commentaries,  with  notes  of 
reference  to  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the 
Federal  Government  of  the  United  Slates,  and 
of  the  Commonwealth  of  Virginia,  in  five  vol- 
umes, with  an  appendix  to  each  volume  con- 
taining short  tracts,  as  appeared  necessary  to 
form  a  connected  view  of  the  laws  of  Virginia 
as  a  member  of  the  Federal  Union.  By  St. 
George  Tucker,  Professor  of  Law  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  William  and  Mary,  and  one  of  the 
Judges  of  the  General  Cou,rt  in  Virginia." 
In  this  American  book — this  Virginia  edition 
of  an  English  work — I  found  my  principles  on 
the  subject  of  slavery.  Among  the  short  tracts 
in  the  appendices,  is  one  of  fifty  pages  in  the 
appendix  to  the  first  volume,  second  part,  which 
treats  of  the  subject  of  African  slavery  in  the 
United  States,  with  a  total  condemnation  of  the 
institution,  and  a  plan  for  its  extinction  in  Vir- 


ginia. In  that  work — in  that  school — that  old 
Virginia  school  which  I  was  taught  to  reverence 
— I  found  my  principles  on  slavery :  and  adhere 
to  them.  I  concur  in  the  whole  essay,  except 
the  remedy — gradual  emancipation — and  find  in 
that  remedy  the  danger  which  the  wise  men  of 
Virginia  then  saw  and  dreaded,  but  resolved  to 
encounter,  because  it  was  to  become  worse  with 
time :  the  danger  to  both  races  from  so  large  an 
emancipation.  The  men  of  that  day  were  not 
enthusiasts  or  fanatics:  they  were  statesmen 
and  philosophers.  They  knew  that  the  eman- 
cipation of  the  black  slave  was  not  a  mere  ques- 
tion between  master  and  slave — not  a  question 
of  property  merely — but  a  question  of  white 
and  black — between  races ;  and  what  was  to  be 
the  consequence  to  each  race  from  a  large  eman- 
cipation.* And  there  the  wisdom,  not  the 
philanthropy,  of  Virginia  balked  fifty  years  ago ; 
there  the  wisdom  of  America  balks  now.  And 
here  I  find  the  largest  objection  to  the  extension 
of  slavery — to  planting  it  in  new  regions  where 
it  does  not  now  exist — bestowing  it  on  those 
who  have  it  not.  The  incurability  of  the  evil 
is  the  greatest  objection  to  the  extension  of 
slavery.  It  is  wrong  for  the  legislator  to  inflict 
an  evil  which  can  be  cured :  how  much  more  to 
inflict  one  that  is  incurable,  and  against  the  will 
of  the  people  who  are  to  endure  it  for  ever !  I 
quarrel  with  no  one  for  supposing  slavery  a 
blessing :  I  deem  it  an  evil :  and  would  neither 
adopt  it  nor  impose  it  on  others.  Yet  I  am  a 
slaveholder,  and  among  the  few  members  of 
Congress  who  hold  slaves  in  this  District.  The 
French  proverb  tells  us  that  nothing  is  new  but 
what  has  been  forgotten.  So  of  this  objection 
to  a  large  emancipation.  Every  one  sees  now 
that  it  is  a  question  of  races,  involving  conse- 
quences which  go  to  the  destruction  of  one  or 
the  other :  it  was  seen  fifty  years  ago,  and  the 
wisdom  of  Virginia  balked  at  it  then.  It  seems 
to  be  above  human  wisdom.  But  there  is  a 
wisdom  above  human  !  and  to  that  we  must 
look.  In  the  mean  time,  not  extend  the  evil. 
In  refusing  to    extend    slavery  into  these 

*  "  It  may  be  asked  why  not  retain  the  blacks  among  ns, 
and  incorporate  them  into  the  State.  Deep-rooted  prejudices 
entertained  by  the  whites ;  ten  thousand  recollections  of  the 
blacks  of  the  injuries  they  have  sustained;  new  provocations; 
the  real  distinctions  which  nature  has  made ;  and  many  other 
circumstances,  will  divide  us  into  parties,  and  produce  con- 
vulsions, which  will  probably  never  end  but  in  the  extermi- 
nation of  one  or  the  other  race.1'— Jefferson. 


760 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


seventy  thousand  square  miles,  I  act  in  con- 
formity not  only  to  my  own  long-established  prin- 
ciples, but  also  in  conformity  to  the  long-estab- 
lished practice  of  Congress.  Five  times  in  four 
years  did  Congress  refuse  the  prayer  of  Indiana 
for  a  temporary  suspension  of  the  anti-slavery 
clause  of  the  ordinance  of  '87.  On  the  2d  of 
March,  1803,  Mr.  Randolph,  of  Roanoke,  as 
chairman  of  the  committee  to  which  the  memo- 
rial praying  the  suspension  was  referred,  made 
a  report  against  it,  which  was  concurred  in  by 
the  House.     This  is  the  report : 

"  That  the  rapid  population  of  the  State  of 
Ohio,  sufficiently  evinces,  in  the  opinion  of  your 
committee,  that  the  labor  of  slaves  is  not  neces- 
sary to  promote  the  growth  and  settlement  of 
colonies  in  that  region.  That  this  labor,  demon- 
strably the  dearest  of  any,  can  only  be  employed 
to  advantage  in  the  cultivation  of  products  more 
valuable  than  any  known  to  that  quarter  of  the 
United  States:  that  the  committee  deem  it 
highly  dangerous  and  inexpedient  to  impair  a 
provision  wisely  calculated  to  promote  the  hap- 
piness and  prosperity  of  the  north-western  coun- 
try, and  to  give  strength  and  security  to  that  ex- 
tensive frontier.  In  the  salutary  operation  of 
this  sagacious  and  benevolent  restraint,  it  is  be- 
lieved that  the  inhabitants  of  Indiana  will,  at  no 
very  distant  day,  find  ample  remuneration  for  a 
temporary  privation  of  labor  and  of  emigra- 
tion." 

This  report  of  Mr.  Randolph  was  in  1803  : 
the  next  year,  March,  1804,  a  different  report, 
on  the  same  prayer,  was  made  by  a  committee 
of  which  Mr.  Rodney,  of  Delaware,  was  chair- 
man. It  recommended  a  suspension  of  the  anti- 
slavery  clause  for  ten  years  :  it  was  not  concur- 
red in  by  the  House.  Two  years  afterwards, 
February,  1806,  a  similar  report,  recommending 
suspension  for  ten  years,  was  made  by  a  com- 
mittee of  which  Mr.  Garnett,  of  Virginia,  was 
chairman:  it  met  the  same  fate — non-concur- 
rence. The  next  year,  1807,  both  Houses  were 
tried.  In  February  of  that  year,  a  committee 
of  the  House,  of  which  Mr.  Parke  was  chair- 
man, reported  in  favor  of  the  indefinite  suspen- 
sion of  the  clause :  the  report  was  not  concur- 
red in.  And  in  November  of  that  year,  Mr. 
Franklin,  of  North  Carolina,  as  chairman  of  a 
committee  of  the  Senate,  made  a  report  against 
the  suspension,  which  was  concurred  in  by  the 
Senate,  and  unanimously,  as  it  would  seem  from 
the  journal,  there  being  no  division  called  for. 
Thus,  five  times  in  four  years,  the  respective 


Houses  of  Congress  refused  to  admit  even  a 
temporary  extension,  or  rather  re-extension  of 
slavery  into  Indiana  territory,  which  had  been 
before  the  ordinance  of  '87  a  slave  territory, 
holding  many  slaves  at  Vincennes.  These  five 
refusals  to  suspend  the  ordinance  of  '87,  were  so 
many  confirmations  of  it.  All  the  rest  of  the 
action  of  Congress  on  the  subject,  was  to  the 
same  effect  or  stronger.  The  Missouri  com- 
promise line  was  a  curtailment  of  slave  terri- 
tory;  the  Texas  annexation  resolutions  were 
the  same ;  the  ordinance  of  '87  itself,  so  often 
confirmed  by  Congress,  was  a  curtailment  of 
slave  territory — in  fact,  its  actual  abolition ;  for 
it  is  certain  that  slavery  existed  in  fact  in  the 
French  settlements  of  the  Illinois  at  that  time  j 
and  that  the  ordinance  terminated  it.  I  acted  then 
in  conformity  to  the  long,  uniformly  established 
policy  of  Congress,  as  well  as  in  conformity  to 
my  own  principles,  in  refusing  to  vote  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery,  which  the  committee's  line 
would  involve. 

And  here,  it  does  seem  to  me  that  we,  of  the 
present  day,  mistake  the  point  of  the  true  objec- 
tion to  the  extension  of  slavery.  We  look  at 
it  as  it  concerns  the  rights,  or  interests,  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  States  !  and  not  as  it  may 
concern  the  people  to  whom  it  is  to  be  given ! 
and  to  whom  it  is  to  be  an  irrevocable  gift — to 
them,  and  posterity  !  Mr.  Randolph's  report, 
in  the  case  of  Indiana,  took  the  true  ground.  It 
looked  to  the  interests  of  the  people  to  whom 
the  slavery  was  to  go,  and  refused  them  an  evil, 
although  they  begged  for  it. 

This  is  a  consequence  which  the  committee's 
bill  involves,  and  from  which  there  is  no  escape 
but  in  the  total  rejection  of  their  plan,  and  the 
adoption  of  the  line  which  I  propose — the  longi- 
tudinal line  of  102 — which,  corresponding  with 
ancient  title  and  actual  possession,  avoids  the 
question  of  slavery  in  either  country :  which, 
leaving  the  population  of  each  untouched,  dis- 
turbs no  interest,  and  which,  in  splitting  the 
high  sterile  table  land  of  the  Staked  Plain,  con- 
forms to  the  natural  division  of  the  country,  and 
leaves  to  each  a  natural  frontier,  and  an  ample 
extent  of  compact  and  homogeneous  territory. 
To  Texas  is  left  all  the  territory  drained  by  all 
the  rivers  which  have  their  mouths  within  her 
limits,  whether  those  mouths  are  in  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico,  the  Mississippi,  or  the  Rio  Grande  : 
to  New  Mexico  is  left  the  whole  course  of  the 


ANNO  1850.     ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


761 


Rio  Puerco  and  all  its  valley :  and  which,  added 
to  the  valley  of  the  Del  Norte,  will  make  a 
State  of  the  first  class  in  point  of  territory,  sus- 
ceptible of  large  population  and  wealth,  and  in 
a  compact  form,  capable  of  defence  against  In- 
dians. The  Staked  Plain  is  the  natural  frontier 
of  both  countries.  It  is  a  dividing  wall  between 
systems  of  waters  and  systems  of  countries.  It 
is  a  high,  sterile  plain,  some  sixty  miles  wide 
upon  some  five  hundred  long,  running  north 
and  south,  its  western  declivity  abrupt,  and 
washed  by  the  Puerco  at  its  base :  its  eastern 
broken  into  chasms — caflones — from  which  issue 
the  myriad  of  little  streams  which,  flowing  to- 
wards the  rising  sun,  form  the  great  rivers — 
Red  River,  Brasos,  Colorado,  Nueces,  which  find 
their  outlet  in  the  Mississippi  or  in  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  It  is  a  salient  feature  in  North  Amer- 
ican geography — a  table  of  land  sixty  miles 
wide,  five  hundred  long,  and  some  thousands  of 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea — and  sterile,  level, 
without  a  shrub,  a  plant,  or  grass,  and  present- 
ing to  the  traveller  a  horizon  of  its  own  like 
the  ocean.  Without  a  landmark  to  guide  the 
steps  of  the  traveller  across  it,  the  early  hunters 
and  herdsmen  of  New  Mexico  staked  their 
course  across  it,  and  hence  its  name,  El  Llano 
Estacado — the  Staked  Plain.  It  is  a  natural 
frontier  between  New  Mexico  and  Texas  ;  and 
for  such  a  line,  quieting  all  questions  between 
them,  all  with  the  United  States,  yielding  near 
two  hundred  thousand  square  miles  of  territory 
to  the  United  States,  and  putting  into  her  hands 
the  means  of  populating  and  defending  New 
Mexico  by  giving  lands  to  settlers  and  defend- 
ers— I  am  ready  to  vote  the  fifteen  millions 
which  my  bill  fairly  and  openly  proposes.  Eor 
the  line  in  this  bill  I  would  not  give  a  copper. 
But  it  would  be  a  great  error  to  suppose  I  would 
give  fifteen  millions  for  the  territory  in  dispute 
between  New  Mexico  and  Texas.  That  disputed 
territory  is  only  a  small  part  of  what  the  Texian 
cession  would  be.  It  would  embrace  four  de- 
grees of  latitude  on  the  north  of  Texas,  and  a 
front  of  a  thousand  miles  on  the  Arkansas,  and 
would  give  to  the  United  States  territory  indis- 
pensable to  her — to  the  population  and  defence 
both  of  New  Mexico  and  Utah,  in  front  of  both 
which  this  part  of  Texas  lies. 

The  committee,  in  their  report,  and  the  sena- 
tor from  Kentucky  [Mr.  Clay],  in  his  speech, 
are  impressive  in  their  representations  in  favor 


of  giving  governments  to  New  Mexico  and  the 
remaining  part  of  California.  I  join  them  in  all 
they  say  in  favor  of  the  necessity  of  these  gov- 
ernments, and  the  duty  of  Congress  to  give 
them.  But  this  bill  is  not  the  way  to  give  it. 
These  governments  are  balked  by  being  put  into 
this  bill.  They  not  only  impede  California,  but 
themselves.  The  conjunction  is  an  injury  to 
both.  They  mutually  delay  and  endanger  each 
other.  And  it  is  no  argument  in  favor  of  the 
conjunction  to  say  that  the  establishment  of  a 
government  for  New  Mexico  requires  the  pre- 
vious settlement  of  her  eastern  boundary  with 
Texas.  That  is  no  argument  for  tacking  Texas, 
with  all  her  multifarious  questions,  even  to  New 
Mexico,  much  less  to  California.  It  is  indeed 
very  desirable  to  settle  that  boundary,  and  to 
settle  it  at  once,  and  for  ever ;  but  it  is  not  an 
indispensability  to  the  creation  of  a  government 
for  New  Mexico.  We  have  a  right  to  a  gov- 
ernment according  to  her  possession  ;  and  that 
we  can  give  her,  to  continue  till  the  question  of 
title  is  decided.  The  uti  possidetis — as  you 
possess — is  the  principle  to  govern  our  legisla- 
tion— the  principle  which  gives  the  possessor  a 
right  to  the  possession  until  the  question  of 
title  is  decided.  This  principle  is  the  same  both 
in  national  and  municipal  law — both  in  the  case 
of  citizens  or  communities  of  the  same  govern- 
ment and  between  independent  nations.  The 
mode  of  decision  only  is  different.  Between  inde- 
pendent nations  it  is  done  by  negotiation  or  by 
arms :  between  citizens  or  communities  of  the 
same  government,  it  is  done  by  law.  Independ- 
ent nations  may  invade  and  fight  each  other  for 
a  boundary:  citizens  or  communities  of  the 
same  government  cannot.  And  the  party  that 
shall  attempt  it  commits  a  violation  of  law  and 
order  ;  and  the  government  which  permits  such 
violation  is  derelict  of  its  duty. 

I  have  now  examined,  so  far  as  I  propose  to 
do  it  on  a  motion  for  indefinite  postponement, 
the  three  bills  which  the  committee  have  tacked 
together — the  California,  Utah,  New  Mexico  and 
Texas  bills.  There  are  two  other  bills  which  I 
have  not  mentioned,  because  they  are  not  tacked, 
but  only  hung  on ;  but  which  belong  to  the  sys- 
tem, as  it  is  called,  and  without  some  mention 
of  which,  injustice  would  be  done  to  the  com- 
mittee in  the  presentation  of  their  scheme.  The 
fugitive  slave  recovery  bill,  and  the  District  of 
Columbia  slave  trade  suppression  bill,  are  parts 


762 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  the  system  of  measures  which  the  committee 
propose,  and  which,  taken  together,  are  to  con- 
stitute a  compromise,  and  to  terminate  for  ever 
and  most  fraternally  all  the  dissensions  of  the 
slavery  agitation  in  the  United  States.  They 
apply  to  two  out  of  the  five  gaping  wounds 
which  the  senator  from  Kentucky  enumerated 
on  the  five  fingers  of  his  left  hand,  and  for  heal- 
ing up  all  which  at  once  he  had  provided  one 
large  plaster,  big  enough  to  cover  all,  and  effica- 
cious enough  to  cure  all ;  while  the  President 
only  proposed  to  cure  one,  and  that  with  a  little 
plaster,  and  it  of  no  efficacy.  I  do  not  propose 
to  examine  these  two  attendant  or  sequacious 
bills,  which  dangle  at  the  tail  of  the  other  three. 
This  is  the  end  of  the  committee's  labor — five 
old  bills  gathered  up  from  our  table,  tacked  to- 
gether, and  christened  a  compromise  !  Now 
compromise  is  a  pretty  phrase  at  all  times,  and 
is  a  good  thing  in  itself,  when  there  happens  to 
be  any  parties  to  make  it,  any  authority  to  en- 
force it,  any  penalties  for  breaking  it,  or  any 
thing  to  be  compromised.  The  compromises 
of  the  constitution  are  of  that  kind  ;  and  they 
stand.  Compromises  made  in  court,  and  en- 
tered of  record,  are  of  that  kind  j  and  they 
stand.  Compromises  made  by  individuals  on 
claims  to  property  are  likewise  of  that  charac- 
ter ;  and  they  stand.  I  respect  all  such  com- 
promises. But  where  there  happens  to  be 
nothing  to  be  compromised,  no  parties  to  make 
a  compromise,  no  power  to  enforce  it,  no  penal- 
ty for  its  breach,  no  obligation  on  any  one — not 
even  its  makers — to  observe  it,  and  when  no 
two  human  beings  can  agree  about  its  meaning, 
then  a  compromise  becomes  ridiculous  and  pes- 
tiferous. I  have  no  respect  for  it,  and  eschew 
it.  It  cannot  stand,  and  will  fall ;  and  in  its 
fall  will  raise  up  more  ills  than  it  was  intended 
to  cure.  And  of  this  character  I  deem  this  far- 
rago of  incongruous  matter  to  be,  which  has 
been  gathered  up  and  stuck  together,  and  of- 
fered to  us  "all  or  none,"  like  "fifty-four  forty." 
It  has  none  of  the  requisites  of  a  compromise, 
and  the  name  cannot  make  it  so. 


make  a  compromise.  We  are  not  in  conven- 
tion, but  in  Congress ;  and  I  do  not  admit  a 
geographical  division  of  parties  in  this  chamber, 
although  the  Committee  of  Thirteen  was  formed 
upon  that  principle — six  from  the  South,  half 
a  dozen  from  the  North,  and  one  from  the  bor- 


ders of  both — sitting  on  a  ridge-pole,  to  keep 
the  balance  even.  The  senator  from  Kentucky, 
chairman  of  this  committee  of  a  baker's  dozen, 
and  the  illustrious  progenitor  of  that  commit- 
tee, sits  on  that  ridge-pole.  It  is  a  most  criti- 
cal position,  and  requires  a  most  nice  adjust- 
ment of  balance  to  preserve  the  equilibrium — 
to  keep  the  weight  from  falling  on  one  side  or 
the  other — something  like  that  of  the  Roman 
emperor,  in  his  apotheosis,  who  was  required 
to  fix  himself  exactly  in  the  middle  of  the 
heavens  when  he  went  up  among  the  gods,  lest, 
by  leaning  on  one  side  or  the  other,  he  might 
overset  the  universe : 

"  Press  not  too  much  on  any  part  the  sphere, 
Hard  were  the  task  thy  weight  divine  to  bear ! 
O'er  the  mid  orb  more  equal  shalt  thou  rise, 
And  with  a  juster  balance  fix  the  skies."— Lucan. 

I  recognize  no  such  parties — no  two  halves 
in  this  Union,  separated  by  a  ridge-pole,  with  a 
man,  or  a  god,  sitting  upon  it,  to  keep  the  bal- 
ance even.  I  know  no  North,  and  I  know  no 
South ;  and  I  repulse  and  repudiate,  as  a  thing 
to  be  for  ever  condemned,  this  first  attempt  to 
establish  geographical  parties  in  this  chamber, 
by  creating  a  committee  formed  upon  that  prin- 
ciple. In  the  next  place,  there  is  no  sanction 
for  any  such  compromise — no  authority  to  en- 
force it — none  to  punish  its  violation.  In  the 
third  place,  there  is  nothing  to  be  compromised. 
A  compromise  is  a  concession,  a  mutual  conces- 
sion of  contested  claims  between  two  parties. 
I  know  of  nothing  to  be  conceded  on  the  part 
of  the  slaveholding  States  in  regard  to  their 
slave  property.  Their  rights  are  independent 
of  the  federal  government,  and  admitted  in  the 
constitution — a  right  to  hold  their  slaves  as 
property,  a  right  to  pursue  and  recover  them 
as  property,  a  right  to  it  as  a  political  element 
in  the  weight  of  these  States,  by  making  five 
count  three  in  the  national  representation. 
These  are  our  rights  by  an  instrument  which 
we  are  bound  to  respect,  and  I  will  concede 
none  of  them,  nor  purchase  any  of  them.  I 
never  purchase  as  a  concession  what  I  hold  as  a 


In  the  first  place,  there  are  no   parties  to/  right,  nor  accept  an  inferior  title  when  I  al- 


ready hold  the  highest.  Even  if  this  congeries 
of  bills  was  a  compromise,  in  fact,  I  should  be 
opposed  to  it  for  the  reasons  stated.  But  the 
fact  itself  is  to  me  apocryphal.  What  is  it  but 
the  case  of  five  old  bills  introduced  by  different 
members   as   common    legislative    measures — 


ANNO  1850.     ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


763 


caught  up  by  the  senator  from  Kentucky,  and 
his  committee,  bundled  together,  and  then 
called  a  compromise  !  Now,  this  mystifies  me. 
The  same  bills  were  ordinary  legislation  in  the 
hands  of  their  authors ;  they  become  a  sacred 
compromise  in  the  hands  of  their  new  posses- 
sors. They  seemed  to  be  of  no  account  as  laws : 
they  become  a  national  panacea  as  a  compro- 
mise. The  difference  seems  to  be  in  the  change 
of  name.  The  poet  tells  us  that  a  rose  will 
smell  as  sweet  by  any  other  name.  That  may 
be  true  of  roses,  but  not  of  compromises.  In 
the  case  of  the  compromise,  the  whole  smell 
is  in  the  name ;  and  here  is  the  proof.  The 
senator  from  Illinois  (Mr.  Douglass)  brought  in 
three  of  these  bills :  they  emitted  no  smell. 
The  senator  from  Virginia  (Mr.  Mason)  brought 
in  another  of  them — no  smell  in  that.  The 
senator  from  Missouri,  who  now  speaks  to  the 
Senate,  brought  in  the  fifth — ditto,  no  smell 
about  it.  The  olfactory  nerve  of  the  nation 
never  scented  their  existence.  But  no  sooner 
are  they  jumbled  together,  and  called  a  com- 
promise, than  the  nation  is  filled  with  their  per- 
fume. People  smell  it  all  over  the  land,  and, 
like  the  inhalers  of  certain  drugs,  become  fran- 
tic for  the  thing.  This  mystifies  me ;  and  the 
nearest  that  I  can  come  to  a  solution  of  the 
mystery  is  in  the  case  of  the  two  Dr.  Town- 
sends  and  their  sarsaparilla  root.  They  both 
extract  from  the  same  root,  but  the  extract  is  a 
totally  different  article  in  the  hands  of  the  two 
doctors.  Produced  by  one  it  is  the  universal 
panacea :  by  the  other,  it  is  of  no  account,  and 
little  less  than  poison.  Here  is  what  the  old 
doctor  says  of  this  strange  difference  : 

"We  wish  it  understood,  because  it  is  the 
absolute  truth,  that  S.  P.  Townsend's  article 
and  Old  Dr.  Jacob  Townsend's  sarsaparilla  are 
heaven-wide  apart,  and  infinitely  dissimilar ; 
that  they  are  unlike  in  every  particular,  having 
not  one  single  thing  in  common." 

And  accounts  for  the  difference  thus  : 

"  The  sarsaparilla  root,  it  is  well  known  to 
medical  men,  contains  many  medicinal  proper- 
ties, and  some  properties  which  are  inert  or 
useless,  and  others  which,  if  retained  in  prepar- 
ing it  for  use,  produce  fermentation  and  acid, 
which  is  injurious  to  the  system.  Some  of  the 
properties  of  sarsaparilla  are  so  volatile  that 
they  entirely  evaporate,  and  are  lost  in  the  pre- 
paration, if  they  are  not  preserved  by  a  scien- 
tific process,  known  only  to  the  experienced 


in  its  manufacture.  Moreover,  those  volatile 
principles,  which  fly  off  in  vapor,  or  as  an  ex- 
halation, under  heat,  are  the  very  essential  med- 
ical properties  of  the  root,  which  give  to  it  all 
its  value." 

Now,  all  this  is  perfectly  intelligible  to  me. 
I  understand  it  exactly.  It  shows  me  precise- 
ly how  the  same  root  is  either  to  be  a  poison  or 
a  medicine,  as  it  happens  to  be  in  the  hands  of 
the  old  or  the  young  doctor.  This  may  be  the 
case  with  these  bills.  To  me  it  looks  like  a 
clue  to  the  mystery  ;  but  I  decide  nothing,  and 
wait  patiently  for  the  solution  which  the  sena- 
tor from  Kentucky  may  give  when  he  comes  to 
answer  this  part  of  my  speech.  The  old  doc- 
tor winds  up  in  requiring  particular  attention 
to  his  name  labelled  on  the  bottle,  to  wit,  "  Old 
Doctor  Jacob  Townsend,"  and  not  Young  Doc- 
tor Samuel  Townsend.  This  shows  that  there 
is  virtue  in  a  name  when  applied  to  the  extract? 
of  sarsaparilla  root ;  and  there  may  be  equal 
virtue  in  it  when  applied  to  a  compromise  bill. 
If  so,  it  may  show  how  these  self-same  bills  are 
of  no  force  or  virtue  in  the  hands  of  the  young 
senator  from  Illinois  (Mr.  Douglass),  and  be- 
come omnipotently  efficacious  in  the  hands  of 
the  old  senator  from  Kentucky. 

This  is  the  end  of  the  grand  committee's 
work — five  old  bills  tacked  together,  and  pre- 
sented as  a  remedy  for  evils  which  have  no  ex- 
istence, and  required  to  be  accepted  under  a 
penalty — the  penalty  of  being  gazetted  as  ene- 
mies of  compromise,  and  played  at  by  the  or- 
gans !  The  old  one,  to  be  sure,  is  dreadfully 
out  of  tune — the  strings  all  broken,  and  the 
screws  all  loose,  and  discoursing  most  woful 
music,  and  still  requiring  us  to  dance  to  it ! 
And  such  dancing  it  would  be  ! — nothing  but 
turn  round,  cross  over,  set-to,  and  back  out ! 
Sir,  there  was  once  a  musician — we  have  all 
read  of  him — who  had  power  with  his  lyre  (but 
his  instrument  was  .  spelt  I  y  r  e) — not  only 
over  men,  but  over  wild  beasts  also,  and  even 
over  stones,  which  he  could  make  dance  into 
their  places  when  the  walls  of  Ilion  were  built. 
But  our  old  organist  was  none  of  that  sort,  even 
in  his  best  day  ;  and  since  the  injury  to  his  in- 
strument in  playing  the  grand  national  sym- 
phony of  the  four  F's — the  fifty-four  forty  or 
fight — it  is  so  out  of  tune  that  its  music  will  be 
much  more  apt  to  scare  off  tame  men  than  to 
charm  wild  beasts  or  stones. 


764 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


No,  sir !  no  more  slavery  compromises. 
Stick  to  those  we  have  in  the  constitution,  and 
they  will  be  stuck  to  !  Look  at  the  four  votes 
— those  four  on  the  propositions  which  I  sub- 
mitted. No  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  States  : 
none  in  the  forts,  arsenals,  navy-yards,  and 
dock-yards  :  none  in  the  District  of  Columbia : 
no  interference  with  the  slave  trade  between, 
the  States.  These  are  the  votes  given  on  this 
floor,  and  which  are  above  all  Congress  com- 
promises, because  they  abide  the  compromises 
of  the  constitution. 

The  committee,  besides  the  ordinary  purpose 
of  legislation,  that  of  making  laws  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  people,  propose  another  object 
of  a  different  kind,  that  of  acting  the  part  of  na- 
tional benefactors,  and  giving  peace  and  happi- 
ness to  a  miserable  and  distracted  people — in- 
nuendo, the  people  of  the  United  States.  They 
propose  this  object  as  the  grand  result  and 
crowning  mercy  of  their  multifarious  labors. 
The  gravity  with  which  the  chairman  of  the 
committee  has  brought  forward  this  object  in 
his  report,  and  the  pathetic  manner  in  which  he 
has  enforced  it  in  his  speech,  and  the  exact  enu- 
meration he  has  made  of  the  public  calamities 
upon  his  fingers'  ends,  preclude  the  idea,  as  I 
have  heretofore  intimated,  of  any  intentional 
joke  to  be  practised  upon  us  by  that  distin- 
guished senator ;  otherwise  I  might  have  been 
tempted  to  believe  that  the  eminent  senator, 
unbending  from  his  serious  occupations,  had 
condescended  to  amuse  himself  at  our  expense. 
Certain  it  is  that  the  conception  of  this  restora- 
tion of  peace  and  happiness  is  most  jocose.  In 
the  first  place,  there  is  no  contention  to  be  re- 
conciled, no  distraction  to  be  composed,  no 
misery  to  be  assuaged,  no  lost  harmony  to  be 
restored,  no  lost  happiness  to  be  recovered ! 
-And,  if  there  was,  the  committee  is  not  the  par- 
ty to  give  us  these  blessings.  Their  example 
and  precept  do  not  agree.  They  preach  con- 
cord, and  practise  discord.  They  recommend 
harmony  to  others,  and  disagree  among  them- 
selves. They  propose  the  fraternal  kiss  to  us, 
and  give  themselves  rude  rebuffs.  They  set  us 
a  sad  example.  Scarcely  is  the  healing  report 
read,  and  the  anodyne  bills,  or  pills,  laid  on  our 
tables,  than  fierce  contention  breaks  out  in  the 
ranks  of  the  committee  itself.  They  attack 
each  other.  They  give  and  take  fierce  licks. 
The  great  peacemaker  himself  fares  badly — 


stuck  all  over  with  arrows,  like  the  man  on  the 
first  leaf  of  the  almanac.  Here,  in  our  presence, 
in  the  very  act  of  consummating  the  marriage 
of  California  with  Utah,  New  Mexico,  Texas, 
the  fugacious  slaves  of  the  States,  and  the  mar- 
ketable slaves  of  this  District — in  this  very  act 
of  consummation,  as  in  a  certain  wedding  feast 
of  old,  the  feast  becomes  a  fight — the  festival  a 
combat — and  the  amiable  guests  pummel  each 
other. 

When  his  committee  was  formed,  and  him- 
self safely  installed  at  the  head  of  it,  conqueror 
and  pacificator,  the  senator  from  Kentucky  ap- 
peared to  be  the  happiest  of  mankind.  We  all 
remember  that  night.  He  seemed  to  ache  with 
pleasure.  It  was  too  great  for  continence.  It 
burst  forth.  In  the  fulness  of  his  joy,  and  the 
overflowing  of  his  heart,  he  entered  upon  that 
series  of  congratulations  which  we  all  remem- 
ber so  well,  and  which  seemed  to  me  to  be 
rather  premature,  and  in  disregard  of  the  sage 
maxim  which  admonishes  the  traveller  never  to 
halloo  till  he  is  out  of  the  woods.  I  thought  so 
then.  I  was  forcibly  reminded  of  it  on  Satur- 
day last,  when  I  saw  that  senator,  after  vain 
efforts  to  compose  his  friends,  and  even  remind- 
ing them  of  what  they  were  "  threatened  "  with 
this  day — innuendo,  this  poor  speech  of  mine — 
gather  up  his  beaver  and  quit  the  chamber,  in  a 
way  that  seemed  to  say,  the  Lord  have  mercy 
upon  you  all,  for  I  am  done  with  you !  But 
the  senator  was  happy  that  night — supremely 
so.  All  his  plans  had  succeeded — Committee 
of  Thirteen  appointed — he  himself  its  chairman 
— all  power  put  into  their  hands — their  own 
hands  untied,  and  the  hands  of  the  Senate  tied 
— and  the  parties  just  ready  to  be  bound  to- 
gether for  ever.  It  was  an  ecstatic  moment  for 
the  senator,  something  like  that  of  the  heroic 
Pirithous  when  he  survej^ed  the  preparations 
for  the  nuptial  feast — saw  the  company  all 
present,  the  lapithas  on  couches,  the  centaurs 
on  their  haunches — heard  the  Io  hymen  begin- 
ning to  resound,  and  saw  the  beauteous  Hip- 
podamia,  about  as  beauteous  I  suppose  as  Cali- 
fornia, come  "  glittering  like  a  star,"  and  take 
her  stand  on  his  left  hand.  It  was  a  happy 
moment  for  Pirithous  !  and  in  the  fulness  of  his 
feelings  he  might  have  given  vent  to  his  joy  in 
congratulations  to  all  the  company  present,  to 
all  the  lapithae  and  to  all  the  centaurs,  to  all 
mankind,  and  to  all  horsekind,  on  the  auspi- 


ANNO  1850.    ZACHARY  TAYLOR,  PRESIDENT. 


765 


cious  event.  But,  oh  !  the  deceitfulness  of  hu- 
man felictyy.  In  an  instant  the  scene  was 
changed  !  the  feast  a  fight — the  wedding  festi- 
val a  mortal  combat — the  table  itself  supplying 
the  implements  of  war  ! 

"  At  first  a  medley  flight, 
Of  bowls  and  jars  supply  the  fight ; 
Once  implements  of  feasts,  but  now  of  fate." 

You  know  how  it  ended.  The  fight  broke  up 
the  feast.  The  wedding  was  postponed.  And 
so  may  it  be  with  this  attempted  conjunction 
of  California  with  the  many  ill-suited  spouses 
which  the  Committee  of  Thirteen  have  provid- 
ed for  her. 

Mr.  President,  it  is  time  to  be  done  with  this 
comedy  of  errors.  California  is  suffering  for 
want  of  admission.  New  Mexico  is  suffering 
for  want  of  protection.  The  public  business  is 
suffering  for  want  of  attention.  The  character 
of  Congress  is  suffering  for  want  of  progress  in 
business. '  It  is  time  to  put  an  end  to  so  many 
evils  ;  and  I  have  made  the  motion  intended  to 
terminate  them,  by  moving  the  indefinite  post- 
ponement of  this  unmanageable  mass  of  incon- 
gruous bills,  each  an  impediment  to  the  other, 
that  they  may  be  taken  up  one  by  one,  in  their 
proper  order,  to  receive  the  decision  which  their 
respective  merits  require. 


CHAPTER    CXCIII. 

DEATH  OF  PEESIDENT  TAYLOE. 

He  died  in  the  second  year  of  his  presidency, 
suddenly,  and  unexpectedly,  of  violent  fever, 
brought  on  by  long  exposure  to  the  burning 
heat  of  a  fourth  of  July  sun — noted  as  the 
warmest  of  the  season.  He  attended  the  cere- 
monies of  the  day,  sitting  out  the  speeches, 
and  omitting  no  attention  which  he  believed 
the  decorum  of  his  station  required.  It  cost 
him  his  life.  The  ceremony  took  place  on  Fri- 
day :  on  the  Tuesday  following,  he  was  dead — 
the  violent  attack  commencing  soon  after  his 
return  to  the  presidential  mansion.  He  was 
the  first  President  elected  upon  a  reputation 
purely  military.  He  had  been  in  the  regular 
army  from  early  youth.  Far  from  having  ever 
exercised  civil  office,  he  had  never  even  voted 


at  an  election,  and  was  a  major-general  in  the 
service,  at  the  time  of  his  election.     Palo  Alto, 
Resaca  de  la  Palma,  Monterey,  and  Buena  Vista, 
were  his  titles  to  popular  favor — backed  by  ir- 
reproachable private  character,  undoubted  pa- 
triotism, and  established  reputation  for  judg- 
ment and  firmness.     His  brief  career  showed 
no  deficiency  of  political  wisdom  for  want  of 
previous  political  training.     He  came  into  the 
administration  at  a  time  of  great  difficulty,  and 
acted  up  to  the  emergency  of  his  position.     The 
slavery  agitation  was  raging  ;   the    Southern 
manifesto  had  been  issued  :    California,   New 
Mexico,  Utah,  were  without  governments  :  a 
Southern   Congress   was  in  process   of  being 
called,  the  very  name  of  which  implied  dis- 
union :   a  Southern   convention   was    actually 
called,  and  met,  to  consult  upon  disunion.     He 
met  the  whole  crisis  firmly,  determined  to  do 
what  was  right  among  all  the  States,  and  to 
maintain  the  Federal   Union  at   all   hazards. 
His  first,  and  only  annual  message,  marked  out 
his  course.     The  admission  of  California  as  a 
State  was  recommended  by  him,  and  would 
avoid   all    questions   about   slavery.     Leaving 
Utah  and    New  Mexico  to  ripen  into    State 
governments,  and  then  decide  the  question  for 
themselves,  also  avoided  the  question  in  those 
territories  where  slavery  was  then  extinct  under 
the  laws  of  the  country  from  which  they  came 
to  the  United  States.     Texas  had  an  unsettled 
boundary  on  the  side  of  New  Mexico.     Presi- 
dent Taylor  considered  that  question  to  be  one 
between  the  United  States  and  New  Mexico, 
and  not  between  New  Mexico  and  Texas  ;  and 
to  be  settled  by  the  United  States  in  some  legal 
and  amicable  way — as,  by  compact,  by  mutual 
legislation,  or  judicial  decision.     Some  ardent 
spirits  in  Texas  proposed  to  take  possession  of 
one  half  of  New  Mexico,  in  virtue  of  a  naked 
pretension  to  it,  founded  in  their  own  laws  and 
constitution.    President  Taylor  would  have  re- 
sisted that  pretension,  and  protected  New  Mexi- 
co in  its  ancient  actual  possession  until  the  ques- 
tion of  boundary  should  have  been  settled  in  a 
legal  way.    His  death  was  a  public  calamity. 
No  man  could  have  been  more  devoted  to  the 
Union,  or  more  opposed  to  the  slavery  agitation ; 
and  his  position  as  a  Southern  man,  and  a  slave- 
holder— his  military  reputation,  and  his  election 
by  a  majority  of  the  people  and  of  the  States — 
would  have  given  him  a  power  in  the  settlement 


766 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


of  these  questions  which  no  President  without 
these  qualifications  could  have  possessed.  In 
the  political  division  he  classed  with  the  whig 
party,  but  his  administration,  as  far  as  it  went, 
was  applauded  by  the  democracy,  and  promised 


to  be  so  to  the  end  of  his  official  term.  Dying 
at  the  head  of  the  government,  a  national  la- 
mentation bewailed  his  departure  from  life  and 
power,  and  embalmed  his  memory  in  the  affec- 
tions of  his  country. 


ANNO  1850.    MILLARD  FILLMORE,  PRESIDENT. 


767 


ADMINISTRATION   OF  MILLARD  FILLMORE. 


CHAPTER   CXCIV. 

INAUGURATION  AND  CABINET  OF  MR.  FILLMORE. 

Wednesday,  July  the  tenth,  witnessed  the  in- 
auguration of  Mr.  Fillmore,  Vice-President  of 
the  United  States,  become  President  by  the 
death  of  President  Taylor.  It  took  place  in  the 
Hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  in  the 
presence  of  both  Houses  of  Congress,  in  con- 
formity to  the  wish  of  the  new  President, 
communicated  in  a  message.  The  constitution 
requires  nothing  of  the  President  elect,  before 
entering  on  the  duties  of  his  station,  except  to 
take  the  oath  of  office,  faithfully  to  execute  his 
duties,  and  do  his  best  to  preserve,  protect,  and 
defend  the  constitution ;  and  that  oath  might 
be  taken  any  where,  and  before  any  magistrate 
having  power  to  administer  oaths,  and  then 
filed  in  the  department  of  State  ;  but  propriety 
and  custom  have  made  it  a  ceremony  to  be  pub- 
licly performed,  and  impressively  conducted. 
A  place  on  the  great  eastern  portico  of  the 
Capitol,  where  tens  of  thousands  could  witness 
it,  and  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  to  administer  the  oath, 
have  always  been  the  place  and  the  magistrate 
for  this  ceremony,  in  the  case  of  Presidents 
elected  to  the  office — giving  the  utmost  display 
to  it — and  very  suitably,  as  in  such  cases  there 
is  always  a  feeling  of  general  gratification  and 
exultation.  Mr.  Fillmore,  with  great  propriety, 
reduced  the  ceremony  of  his  inauguration  to  an 
official  act,  impressively  done  in  Congress,  and 


to  be  marked  by  solemnity  without  joy.  A  com- 
mittee of  the  two  Houses  attended  him — Messrs. 
Soule,  of  Louisiana,  Davis,  of  Massachusetts,  and 
Underwood,  of  Kentucky,  on  the  part  of  the 
Senate ;  Messrs.  Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts, 
Morse,  of  Louisiana,  and  Morehead,  of  Ken- 
tucky, on  the  part  of  the  House ;  and  he  was 
accompanied  by  all  the  members  of  the  late 
President's  cabinet.  The  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Circuit  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  the 
venerable  William  Cranch,  appointed  fifty  years 
before,  by  President  John  Adams,  administered 
the  oath  ;  which  being  done,  the  President, 
without  any  inaugural  address,  bowed,  and  re- 
tired ;  and  the  ceremony  was  at  an  end. 

The  first  official  act  of  the  new  President  was 
an  immediate  message  to  the  two  Houses,  re- 
commending suitable  measures  to  be  taken  by 
them  for  the  funeral  of  the  deceased  President — 
saying : 

"A  great  man  has  fallen  among  us,  and  a 
whole  country  is  called  to  an  occasion  of  unex- 
pected, deep,  and  general  mourning. 

"  I  recommend  to  the  two  Houses  of  Congress 
to  adopt  such  measures  as  in  their  discretion 
they  may  deem  proper,  to  perform  with  due 
solemnities  the  funeral  obsequies  of  Zachary 
Taylor,  late  President  of  the  United  States ; 
and  thereby  to  signify  the  great  and  affectionate 
regard  of  the  American  people  for  the  memory 
of  one  whose  life  has  been  devoted  to  the  public 
service ;  whose  career  in  arms  has  not  been 
surpassed  in  usefulness  or  brilliancy  ;  who  has 
been  so  recently  raised  by  the  unsolicited  voice 
of  the  people  to  the  highest  civil  authority  in 
the  government — which  he  administered  with 
so  much  honor  and  advantage  to  his  country ; 


768 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


and  by  whose  sudden  death,  so  many  hopes  of 
future  usefulness  have  been  blighted  for  ever. 

"To  you,  senators  and  representatives  of  a 
nation  in  tears,  I  can  say  nothing  which  can  al- 
leviate the  sorrow  with  which  you  are  oppressed. 
I  appeal  to  you  to  aid  me,  under  the  trying  cir- 
cumstances which  surround  me,  in  the  discharge 
of  the  duties,  from  which,  however  much  I  may 
be  oppressed  by  them,  I  dare  not  shrink ;  and 
I  rely  upon  Him,  who  holds  in  his  hands  the 
destinies  of  nations,  to  endow  me  with  the  re- 
quisite strength  for  the  task,  and  to  avert  from 
our  country  the  evils  apprehended  from  the 
heavy  calamity  which  has  befallen  us. 

"  I  shall  most  readily  concur  in  whatever 
measures  the  wisdom  of  the  two  Houses  may 
suggest,  as  befitting  this  deeply  melancholy 
occasion." 

The  two  Houses  readily  complied  with  this 
recommendation,  and  a  solemn  public  funeral 
was  unanimously  voted,  and  in  due  time,  im- 
pressively performed.  All  the  members  of  the 
late  President's  cabinet  gave  in  their  resigna- 
tions immediately,  but  were  requested  by  Presi- 
dent Fillmore  to  retain  their  places  until  succes- 
sors could  be  appointed ;  which  they  did.  In 
due  time,  the  new  cabinet  was  constituted: 
Daniel  Webster,  of  Massachusetts,  Secretary  of 
State ;  Thomas  Corwin,  of  Ohio,  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury ;  Alexander  H.  H.  Stuart,  of  Vir- 
ginia, Secretary  of  the  Interior;  Charles  M. 
Conrad,  of  Louisiana,  Secretary  at  War ;  Wil- 
liam A.  Graham,  of  North  Carolina,  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  (succeeded  by  John  P.  Kennedy, 
of  Maryland)  ;  John  J.  Crittenden,  of  Ken- 
tucky, Attorney-General ;  Nathan  K.  Hall,  of 
New  York  (succeeded  by  Samuel  D.  Hubbard, 
of  Connecticut). 


CHAPTER    CXCV. 

REJECTION  OF  MR.  CLAY'S  PLAN  OF  COMPROMISE. 

The  Committee  of  Thirteen  had  reported  in 
favor  of  Mr.  Clay's  plan.  It  was  a  committee 
so  numerous,  almost  a  quarter  of  the  Senate, 
that  its  recommendation  would  seem  to  insure 
the  senatorial  concurrence.  Not  so  the  fact. 
The  incongruities  were  too  obvious  and  glaring 
to  admit  of  conjunction.  The  subjects  were  too 
different  to  admit  of  one  vote — yea  or  nay — upon 
all  of  them  together.    The  injustice  of  mixing  up 


the  admission  of  California,  a  State  which  had 
rejected  slavery  for  itself,  with  all  the  vexations 
of  the  slave  question  in  the  territories,  was  too 
apparent  to  subject  her  to  the  degradation  of 
such  an  association.  It  was  evident  that  no 
compromise,  of  any  kind  whatever,  on  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery,  under  any  one  of  its  aspects 
separately,  much  less  under  all  put  together, 
could  possibly  be  made.  There  was  no  spirit 
of  concession — no  spirit  in  which  there  could  be 
giving  and  taking — in  which  a  compromise  could 
be  made.  Whatever  was  to  be  done,  it  was 
evident  would  be  done  in  the  ordinary  spirit  of 
legislation,  in  which  the  majority  gives  law  to 
the  minority.  The  only  case  in  which  there 
was  even  forbearance,  was  in  that  of  rejecting 
the  Wilmot  proviso.  That  measure  was  rejected 
again  as  heretofore,  and  by  the  votes  of  those 
who  were  opposed  to  extending  slavery  into 
the  territories,  because  it  was  unnecessary  and 
inoperative— irritating  to  the  slave  States  with- 
out benefit  to  the  free  States — a  mere  work  of 
supererogation,  of  which  the  only  fruit  was  to  be 
discontent.  It  was  rejected,  not  on  the  principle 
of  non-intervention — not  on  the  principle  of 
leaving  to  the  territories  to  do  as  they  pleased 
on  the  question ;  but  because  there  had  been 
intervention  !  because  Mexican  law  and  consti- 
tution had  intervened !  had  abolished  slavery 
by  law  in  those  dominions !  which  law  would 
remain  in  force,  until  repealed  by  Congress. 
All  that  the  opponents  to  the  extension  of  sla- 
very had  to  do  then,  was  to  do  nothing.  And 
they  did  nothing. 

The  numerous  measures  put  together  in  Mr. 
Clay's  bill  were  disconnected  and  separated. 
Each  measure  received  a  separate  and  inde- 
pendent consideration,  and  with  a  result  which 
showed  the  injustice  of  the  attempted  conjunc- 
tion. Uaited,  they  had  received  the  support  of 
the  majority  of  the  committee :  separated,  and 
no  two  were  passed  by  the  same  vote  :  and  only 
four  members  of  the  whole  grand  committee  that 
voted  alike  on  each  of  the  measures. 


ANNO  1850.     MILLARD  FILLMORE,  PRESIDENT. 


769 


CHAPTER    CXCVI. 

THE  ADMISSION  OF  THE  STATE  OF  CALIFORNIA: 
PROTEST  OF  SOUTHERN  SENATORS  :  REMARKS 
UPON  IT  BY  MR.  BENTON. 

This  became  the  "  test "  question  in  the  great 
slavery  agitation  which  disturbed  Congress  and 
the  Union,  and  as  such  was  impressively  pre- 
sented by  Mr.  Calhoun  in  the  last  and  most 
intensely  considered  speech  of  his  life — read  for 
him  in  the  Senate  by  Mr.  Mason  of  Virginia. 
In  that  speech,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  it,  and 
as  the  resulting  consequence  of  the  whole  of  it, 
he  said : 

"  It  is  time,  senators,  that  there  should  be  an 
open  and  manly  avowal  on  all  sides,  as  to  what 
is  intended  to  be  done.  If  the  question  is  not 
now  settled,  it  is  uncertain  whether  it  ever  can 
hereafter  be  ;  and  we,  as  the  representatives  of 
the  States  of  this  Union,  regarded  as  govern- 
ments, should  come  to  a  distinct  understanding 
as  to  our  respective  views,  in  order  to  ascertain 
whether  the  great  questions  at  issue  can  be 
settled  or  not.  If  you,  who  represent  the 
stronger  portion,  cannot  agree  to  settle  them  on 
the  broad  principle  of  justice  and  duty,  say  so ; 
and  let  the  States  we  both  represent  agree  to 
separate  and  part  in  peace.  If  you  are  unwill- 
ing that  we  should  part  in  peace,  tell  us  so,  and 
we  shall  know  what  to  do,  when  you  reduce 
the  question  to  submission  or  resistance.  If 
you  remain  silent,  you  will  compell  us  to  infer 
by  your  acts  what  you  intend.  In  that  case, 
California  will  become  the  test  question.  If 
you  admit  her,  under  all  the  difficulties  that  op- 
pose her  admission,  you  compel  us  to  infer  that 
you  intend  to  exclude  us  from  the  whole  of  the 
acquired  territories,  with  the  intention  of  de- 
stroying irretrievably  the  equilibrium  between 
the  two  sections.  We  would  be  blind  not  to 
perceive,  in  that  case,  that  your  real  objects  are 
power  and  aggrandizement,  and  infatuated  not  to 
act  accordingly." 

Mr.  Calhoun  died  before  the  bill  for  the  ad- 
mission of  California  was  taken  up:  but  his 
principles  did  not  die  with  him :  and  the  test 
question  which  he  had  proclaimed  remained  a 
legacy  to  his  friends.  As  such  they  took  it  up, 
and  cherished  it.  The  bill  was  taken  up  in  the 
Senate,  and  many  motions  made  to  amend,  of 
which  the  most  material  was  by  Mr.  Turney  of 
Tennessee,  to  limit  the  southern  boundary  of 
the  State  to  the  latitude  of  36°  30',  and  to  ex- 

Vol.  II.— 49 


tend  the  Missouri  line  through  to  the  Pacific,  so 
as  to  authorize  the  existence  of  slavery  in  all 
the  territory  south  of  that  latitude.  On  this 
motion  the  yeas  and  nays  were  : 

"  Yeas— Messrs.  Atchison,  Badger,  Barn- 
well, Bell,  Berrien,  Butler,  Clemens,  Davis  of 
Mississippi,  Dawson,  Downs,  Foote,  Houston, 
Hunter,  King,  Mangum,  Mason,  Morton,  Pearce, 
Pratt,  Rusk,  Sebastian,  Soule,  Turney,  and 
Yulee — 24. 

"  Nays— Messrs.  Baldwin,  Benton,  Bradbury, 
Bright,  Cass,  Clarke,  Cooper,  Davis  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Dayton,  Dickinson,  Dodge  of  Wiscon- 
sin, Dodge  of  Iowa,  Douglass,  Ewing,  Felch, 
Greene,  Hale,  Hamlin,  Jones,  Norris,  Phelps, 
Seward,  Shields,  Smith,  Spruance.  Sturgeon, 
Underwood,  Upham,  Wales,  Walker,  Whitcomb, 
and  Winthrop— 32." 

The  amendments  having  all  been  disposed  of, 
the  question  was  taken  upon  the  passage  of  the 
bill,  and  resulted  in  its  favor,  34  yeas  to  18 
nays.     The  vote  was : 

"  Yeas— Messrs.  Baldwin,  Bell,  Benton,  Brad- 
bury, Bright,  Cass,  Chase,  Cooper,  Davis  of 
Massachusetts,  Dickinson,  Dodge  of  Wisconsin, 
Dodge  of  Iowa,  Douglass,  Ewing,  Felch,  Greene, 
Hale,  Hamlin,  Houston,  Jones,  Miller,  Norris, 
Phelps,  Seward,  Shields,  Smith,  Spruance,  Stur- 
geon, Underwood,  Upham,  Wales,  Walker, 
Whitcomb,  and  Winthrop — 34. 

"Nays — Messrs.  Atchison,  Barnwell,  Ber- 
rien, Butler,  Clemens,  Davis  of  Mississippi, 
Dawson,  Foote,  Hunter,  King,  Mason,  Morton, 
Pratt,  Rusk,  Sebastian,  Soule,  Turney,  and 
Yulee-18  » 

Immediately  upon  the  passage  of  the  bill 
through  the  Senate,  ten  of  the  senators  op- 
posed to  it  offered  a  protest  against  it,  which 
was  read  at  the  secretary's  table,  of  which  the 
leading  points  were  these : 

"  We,  the  undersigned  senators,  deeply  im- 
pressed with  the  importance  of  the  occasion, 
and  with  a  solemn  sense  of  the  responsibility 
under  which  we  are  acting,  respectfully  submit 
the  following  protest  against  the  bill  admitting 
California  as  a  State  into  this  Union,  and  re- 
quest that  it  may  be  entered  upon  the  Journal 
of  the  Senate.  We  feel  that  it  is  not  enough 
to  have  resisted  in  debate  alone  a  bill  so  fraught 
with  mischief  to  the  Union  and  the  States 
which  we  represent,  with  all  the  resources  of 
argument  which  we  possessed ;  but  that  it  is 
also  due  to  ourselves,  the  people  whose  interest 
have  been  intrusted  to  our  care,  and  to  pos- 
terity, which  even  in  its  most  distant  genera- 
tions may  feel  its  consequences,  to  leave  in 
whatever  form  may  be  most  solemn  and  endur- 
ing, a  memorial  of  the  opposition  which  we 
have  made  to  this  measure,  and  of  the  reasons 


770 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


by  which  we  have  been  governed,  upon  the 
pages  of  a  journal  which  the  constitution  re- 
quires to  be  kept  so  long  as  the  Senate  may- 
have  an  existence.  We  desire  to  place  the 
reasons  upon  which  we  are  willing  to  be  judged 
by  generations  living  and  yet  to  come,  for  our 
opposition  to  a  bill  whose  consequences  may  be 
so  durable  and  portentous  as  to  make  it  an  ob- 
ject of  deep  interest  to  all  who  may  come  after 
us. 

£  We  have  dissented  from  this  bill  because  it 
gives  the  sanction  of  law,  and  thus  imparts 
validity  to  the  unauthorized  action  of  a  portion 
of  the  inhabitants  of  California,  by  which  an 
odious  discrimination  is  made  against  the  pro- 
perty of  the  fifteen  slaveholding  States  of  the 
Union,  who  are  thus  deprived  of  that  position 
of  equality  which  the  constitution  so  manifestly 
designs,  and  which  constitutes  the  only  sure 
and  stable  foundation  on  which  this  Union  can 
repose. 

"  Because  the  right  of  the  slaveholding  States 
to  a  common  and  equal  enjoyment  of  the  terri- 
tory of  the  Union  has  been  defeated  by  a  sys- 
tem of  measures  which,  without  the  authority 
of  precedent,  of  law,  or  of  the  constitution, 
were  manifestly  contrived  for  that  purpose,  and 
which  Congress  must  sanction  and  adopt,  should 
this  bill  become  a  law. 

"  Because  to  vote  for  a  bill  passed  under  such 
circumstances  would  be  to  agree  to  a  principle, 
which  may  exclude  for  ever  hereafter,  as  it 
does  now,  the  States  which  we  represent  from 
,all  enjoyment  of  the  common  territory  of  the 
Union  j  a  principle  which  destroys  the  equal 
rights  of  their  constituents,  the  equality  of  their 
States  in  the  Confederacy,  the  equal  dignity  of 
those  whom  they  represent  as  men  and  as  citi- 
zens in  the  eye  of  the  law,  and  their  equal  title 
to  the  protection  of  the  government  and  the 
constitution. 

"  Because  all  the  propositions  have  been  re- 
jected which  have  been  made  to  obtain  either 
a  recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  slaveholding 
States  to  a  common  enjoyment  of  all  the  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States,  or  to  a  fair  division 
of  that  territory  between  the  slaveholding  and 
non-slaveholding  States  of  the  Union — every 
-effort  having  failed  which  has  been  made  to  ob- 
tain a  fair  division  of  the  territory  proposed,  to 
be  brought  in  as  the  State  of  California. 

"  But,  lastly,  we  dissent  from  this  bill,  and 
solemnly  protest  against  its  passage,  because,  in 
sanctioning  measures  so  contrary  to  former 
precedent,  to  obvious  policy,  to  the  spirit  and 
intent  of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States, 
for  the  purpose  of  excluding  the  slaveholding 
States  from  the  territory  thus  to  be  erected  into 
a  State,  this  government  in  effect  declares,  that 
the  exclusion  of  slavery  from  the  territory  of 
the  United  States  is  an  object  so  high  and  im- 
portant as  to  justify  a  disregard  not  only  of  all 
the  principles  of  sound  policy,  but  also  of  the 
constitution  itself.  Against  this  conclusion  we 
must  now  and  for  ever  protest,  as  it  is  destruc- 


tive of  the  safety  and  liberties  of  those  whose 
rights  have  been  committed  to  our  care,  fatal  to 
the  peace  and  equality  of  the  States  which  we 
represent,  and  must  lead,  if  persisted  in,  to  the 
dissolution  of  that  confederacy,  in  which  the 
slaveholding  States  have  never  sought  more 
than  equality,  and  in  which  they  will  not  be 
content  to  remain  with  less." 

This  protest  was  signed  by  Messrs.  Mason 
and  Hunter,  senators  from  Virginia;  Messrs. 
Butler  and  Barnwell,  senators  from  South  Caro- 
lina; Mr.  Turney,  senator  from  Tennessee; 
Mr.  Pierre  Soule,  senator  from  Louisiana ;  Mr. 
Jefferson  Davis,  senator  from  Mississippi ;  Mr. 
Atchison,  senator  from  Missouri ;  and  Messrs. 
Morton  and  Yulee,  senators  from  Florida.  It  is 
remarkable  that  this  protest  is  not  on  account 
of  any  power  exercised  by  Congress  over  the 
subject  of  slavery  in  a  territory,  but  for  the 
non-exercise  of  such  power,  and  especially  for 
not  extending  the  Missouri  compromise  line  to 
the  Pacific  Ocean;  and  which  non-extension 
of  that  line  was  then  cause  for  the  dissolution 
of  the  Union. 

Mr.  Winthrop,  newly  appointed  senator  from 
Massachusetts,  in  place  of  Mr.  Webster,  ap- 
pointed Secretary  of  State,  immediately  raised 
the  question  of  reception  upon  this  protest,  for 
the  purpose  of  preventing  it  from  going  upon 
the  Journal,  where,  he  alleged,  the  only  protest 
that  could  be  entered  by  a  senator  (and  that 
was  a  sufficient  one)  was  his  peremptory  "  no :  " 
and  then  said  : 

"  Sir,  does  my  honorable  friend  from  Virginia 
(Mr.  Hunter),  know  that  there  is  but  one  par- 
liamentary body  in  the  world — so  far  as  my 
own  knowledge,  certainly,  goes — which  acknow- 
ledges an  inherent  right  in  its  members  to  enter 
their  protests  upon  the  Journals  ?  That  body 
is  the  British  House  of  Lords.  It  is  the  privi- 
lege of  every  peer,  as  I  understand  it,  to  enter 
upon  the  Journals  his  protest  against  any 
measure  which  may  have  been  passed  contrary 
to  his  own  individual  views  or  wishes.  But 
what  has  been  the  practice  in  our  own  country  ? 
You,  yourself,  Mr.  President,  have  read  to  us  an 
authority  upon  this  subject.  It  seems  that  in 
the  earliest  days  of  our  history,  when  there 
may  have  been  something  more  of  a  disposition 
than  I  hope  prevails  among  us  now,  to  copy  the 
precedents  of  the  British  government,  a  rule 
was  introduced  into  this  body  for  the  purpose 
of  securing  to  the  senators  of  the  several  States 
this  privilege  which  belongs  to  the  peers  of  the 
British  Parliament.  That  proposition  was 
negatived.  I  know  not  by  what  majority,  for 
you  did  not  read  the  record ;  I  know  not  by 
whose  votes;  but  that  rule  was  rejected.    It 


ANNO  1850.     MILLARD  FILLMORE,  PRESIDENT. 


771 


was  thus  declared  in  the  early  days  of  our 
history  that  this  body  should  not  be  assimilated 
to  the  British  House  of  Lords  in  this  respect, 
however  it  may  be  in  any  other ;  and  that  in- 
dividual senators  should  not  be  allowed  this 
privilege  which  belongs  to  British  peers,  of 
spreading  upon  the  Journals  the  reasons  which 
may  have  influenced  their  votes." 

Mr.  Benton  spoke  against  the  reception  of  the 
protest,  denying  the  right  of  senators  to  file  any 
reasons  upon  the  Journal  for  their  vote ;  and 
said: 

"  In  the  British  House  of  Lords,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, this  right  prevails,  but  not  in  the  House 
of  Commons ;  and  I  will  show  you  before  I  have 
done  that  the  attempt  to  introduce  it  into  the 
House  of  Commons  gave  rise  to  altercation, 
well-nigh  led  to  bloodshed  on  the  floor  of  the 
House,  and  caused  the  member  who  attempted 
to  introduce  it,  though  he  asked  leave  to  do  so, 
to  be  committed  to  the  Tower  for  his  presump- 
tion. And  I  will  show  that  we  begin  the  prac- 
tice here  at  a  point  at  which  the  British  Parlia- 
ment had  arrived,  long  after  they  commenced 
the  business  of  entering  the  disents.  It  will  be 
my  business  to  show  that,  notwithstanding  the 
British  House  of  Lords  in  the  beginning  entered 
the  protestor's  name  under  the  word  '  dissent,' 
precisely  as  our  names  are  entered  here  under 
the  word  '  nay,'  it  went  on  until  something  very 
different  took  place,  and  which  ended  in  author- 
izing any  member  who  pleased  to  arraign  the 
sense  of  the  House,  and  to  reproach  the  House 
whenever  he  pleased.  Now,  how  came  the 
lords  to  possess  this  right?  It  is  because 
every  lord  is  a  power  within  himself.  He  is 
his  own  constituent  body.  He  represents  him- 
self; and  in  virtue  of  that  representation  of 
himself,  he  can  constitute  a  representative,  and 
can  give  a  proxy  to  any  lord  to  vote  for  him  on 
any  measure  not  judicial.  Members  of  the 
House  of  Commons  cannot  do  it,  because  they 
are  themselves  nothing  but  proxies  and  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people.  The  House  of  Lords, 
then,  who  have  this  privilege  and  right  of  enter- 
ing their  dissent,  have  it  by  virtue  of  being 
themselves,  each  one,  a  power  within  himself,  a 
constituent  body  to  himself,  having  inherent 
rights  which  he  derives  from  nobody,  but  which 
belong  to  him  by  virtue  of  being  a  peer  of 
the  realm  ;  and  by  virtue  of  that  he  enters  his 
protest  on  the  Journal,  if  he  pleases.  It  is  a 
privilege  belonging  to  every  lord,  each  for  him- 
self, and  is  an  absolute  privilege ;  and  although 
the  form  is  to  ask  leave  of  the  House,  yet  the 
House  is  bound  to  grant  the  leave." 

Mr.  Benton  showed  that  there  was  no  right 
of  protest  in  the  members  of  the  British  House 
of  Commons — that  the  only  time  it  was  at- 
tempted there  was  during  the  strifes  of  Charles 
the   First  with  the  Parliament,  and  by  Mr. 


Hyde  (afterwards  Lord  Clarendon),  who  was 
committed  prisoner  to  the  Tower  for  presuming 
to  insult  the  House,  by  proposing  to  set  up  his 
judgment  against  the  act  of  the  House  after  the 
House  had  acted.  Having  spoken  against  the 
right  of  the  senators  to  enter  a  protest  on  the 
Journal  against  an  act  of  the  Senate,  Mr.  Ben- 
ton proceeded  to  speak  against  the  protest  itself, 
and  especially  the  concluding  part  of  it,  in  which 
a  dissolution  of  the  Union  was  hypothetically 
predicated  upon  the  admission  of  California. 

"  I  now  pass  over  what  relates  to  the  body  or 
matter  of  the  protest,  and  come  to  the  conclud- 
ing sentence,  where,  sir,  I  see  a  word  which  I 
am  sorry  to  see,  or  hear  used  even  in  the  heat 
of  debate  in  this  chamber.  It  is  one  which  I 
believe  I  have  not  pronounced  this  session,  not 
even  hypothetically  or  historically,  in  speaking 
of  every  thing  which  has  taken  place.  But  I 
find  it  here,  and  I  am  sorry  to  see  it.  It  is 
qualified,  it  is  true ;  yet  I  am  sorry  to  see  it 
any  where,  and  especially  in  a  paper  of  such 
-solemn  import.  It  is  in  the  concluding  sen- 
tence : 

'  Against  this  conclusion  we  must  now  and  for  ever  protest, 
as  it  is  destructive  of  the  safety  and  liberties  of  those  whose 
rights  have  been  committed  to  our  care,  fatal  to  the  peace  and 
equality  of  the  States  which  we  represent,  and  must  lead, 
if  persisted  in,  to  the  dissolution  of  that  confederacy  in  which 
(he  slaveholding  States  have  never  sought  more  than  an 
equality,  and  in  which  they  will  not  be  content  to  remain 
with  less.1 

"  I  grieve  to  see  these  words  used  with  this 
deliberation ;  still  more  do  I  grieve  to  see  an 
application  made  to  enter  them  on  the  Journal 
of  the  Senate.  Hypothetically  they  use  the 
words ;  but  we  all  know  what  this  word  "  if" 
is — a  great  peacemaker,  the  poet  tells  us,  be- 
tween individuals,  but,  as  we  all  know,  a  most 
convenient  introduction  to  a  positive  conclusion. 
The  language  here  is  used  solemnly,  and  the 
word  protest  is  one  of  serious  import.  Protest 
is  a  word  known  to  the  law,  and  always  implies 
authority,  and  one  which  is  rarely  used  by  in- 
dividuals at  all.  It  is  a  word  of  grave  and  au- 
thoritative import  in  the  English  language, 
which  implies  the  testification  of  the  truth  ! 
and  a  right  to  testify  to  it !  and  which  is  far 
above  any  other  mode  of  asseveration.  It 
comes  from  the  Latin — testari,  to  be  a  witness 
— protestari,  to  be  a  public  witness,  to  publish, 
avouch,  and  testify  the  truth ;  and  can  be  only 
used  on  legal  or  on  the  most  solemn  occasions. 
It  has  given  a  name  to  a  great  division  of  the 
Christian  family,  who  took  the  title  from  the 
fact  of  their  ' protesting'  against  the  imperial 
edicts  of  Charles  V.,  which  put  on  a  level  with 
the  Holy  Scriptures  the  traditions  of  the  church 
and  the  opinions  of  the  commentators.  It  was 
a  great  act  of  protesting,  and  an  act  of  con- 
science and  duty.  It  was  a  proper  occasion  to 
use  the  word  protest ;  and  it  was  used  in  the 
face  of  power,  and  maintained  through  oceans 


772 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


and  seas  of  blood,  until  it  has  found  an  immor- 
tality in  the  name  of  one  division  of  the  Chris- 
tian family. 

"  I  have  read  to  you  from  British  history — 
history  of  1640 — the  most  eventful  in  the  Brit- 
ish annals — to  show  the  first  attempt  to  intro- 
duce a  protest  in  the  House  of  Commons — to 
show  you  how  the  men  of  that  day — men  in 
whose  bosoms  the  love  of  liberty  rose  higher 
than  love  of  self — the  Puritans  whose  sacrifices 
for  liberty  were  only  equalled  by  their  sacrifices 
to  their  religion — these  men,  from  whom  we 
learned  so  much,  refused  to  suffer  themselves  to 
be  arraigned  by  a  minority — refused  to  suffer 
an  indictment  to  be  placed  on  their  own  Jour- 
nals against  themselves.  I  have  shown  you 
that  a  body  in  which  were  such  men  as  Hamp- 
den, and  Cromwell,  and  Pym,  and  Sir  Harry 
Yane,  would  not  allow  themselves  to  be  ar- 
raigned by  a  minority,  or  to  be  impeached  be- 
fore the  people,  and  that  they  sent  the  man  to 
the  Tower  who  even  asked  leave  to  do  it.  This 
period  of  British  history  is  that  of  the  civil 
wars  which  deluged  Great  Britain  with  blood  ; 
and,  sir,  may  there  be  no  analogy  to  it  in  our 
history ! — may  there  be  no  omen  in  this  pro- 
ceeding— nothing  ominous  in  this  attempted 
imitation  of  one  of  the  scenes  which  preceded 
the  outbreak  of  civil  war  in  Great  Britain.  Sir* 
this  protest  is  treated  by  some  senators  as  a 
harmless  and  innocent  matter  ;  but  I  cannot  so 
consider  it.  It  is  a  novelty,  but  a  portentous 
one,  and  connects  itself  with  other  novelties, 
equally  portentous.  The  Senate  must  bear 
with  me  for  a  moment.  I  have  refrained  hith- 
erto from  alluding  to  the  painful  subject,  and 
would  not  now  do  it  if  it  was  not  brought  for- 
ward in  such  a  manner  as  to  compel  me.  This 
is  a  novelty,  and  it  connects  itself  with  other 
novelties  of  a  most  important  character.  We 
have  seen  lately  what  we  have  never  before 
seen  in  the  history  of  the  country — sectional 
meetings  of  members  of  Congress,  sectional  de- 
^  clarations  by  legislative  bodies,  sectional  meet- 
ings of  conventions,  sectional  establishment  of  a 
press  here !  and  now  the  introduction  of  this 
protest,  also  sectional,  and  not  only  connecting 
itself  in  time  and  circumstances,  but  connecting 
itself  by  its  arguments,  by  its  facts,  and  by  its 
conclusions,  with  all  these  sectional  movements 
to  which  I  have  referred.  It  is  a  sectional  pro- 
test. 

"  All  of  these  sectional  movements  are  based 
upon  the  hypothesis,  that,  if  a  certain  state  of 
things  is  continued,  there  is  to  be  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union.  The  Wilmot  proviso,  to  be  sure, 
is  now  dropped,  or  is  not  referred  to  in  the  pro- 
test. That  cause  of  dissolution  is  dead ;  but 
the  California  bill  comes  in  its  place,  and  the 
system  of  measures  of  which  it  is  said  to  be  a 
part.  Of  these,  the  admission  of  California  is 
now  made  the  prominent,  the  salient  point  in 
that  whole  system,  which  hypothetically  it  is 
assumed  may  lead  to  a  dissolution  of  the  Union. 
Sir,  I  cannot  help  looking  upon  this  protest  as 


belonging  to  the  series  of  novelties  to  which  I 
have  referred.  I  cannot  help  considering  it  as 
part  of  a  system — as  a  link  in  a  chain  of  mea- 
sures all  looking  to  one  result,  hypothetically, 
to  be  sure,  but  all  still  looking  to  the  same  re- 
sult— that  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union.  It  is 
afflicting  enough  to  witness  such  things  out  of 
doors ;  but  to  enter  a  solemn  protest  on  our 
Journals,  looking  to  the  contingent  dissolution 
of  the  Union,  and  that  for  our  own  acts — for  the 
acts  of  a  majority — to  call  upon  us  of  the  ma- 
jority to  receive  our  own  indictment,  and  enter  / 
it,  without  answer,  upon  our  cwn  Journals — is 
certainly  going  beyond  all  the  other  signs  of  the 
times,  and  taking  a  most  alarming  step  in  the 
progress  which  seems  to  be  making  in  leading 
to  a  dreadful  catastrophe.  '  Dissolution '  to  be 
entered  on  our  Journal !  What  would  our  an- 
cestors have  thought  of  it?  The  paper  con- 
tains an  enumeration  of  what  it  characterizes  as 
unconstitutional,  unjust,  and  oppressive  conduct 
on  the  part  of  Congress  against  the  South, 
which,  if  persisted  in,  must  lead  to  a  dissolu- 
tion of  the  Union,  and  names  the  admission  of 
California  as  one  of  the  worst  of  these  measures. 
I  cannot  consent  to  place  that  paper  on  our 
Journals.  I  protest  against  it — protest  in  the 
name  of  my  constituents.  I  have  made  a  stand 
against  it.  It  took  me  by  surprise ;  but  my 
spirit  rose  and  fought.  I  deem  it  my  sacred 
duty  to  resist  it — to  resist  the  entrance  upon 
our  Journal  of  a  paper  hypothetically  justifying 
disunion.  If  defeated,  and  the  paper  goes  on  the 
Journal,  I  still  wish  the  present  age  and  poster- 
ity to  see  that  it  was  not  without  a  struggle — 
not  without  a  stand  against  the  portentous 
measure — a  stand  which  should  mark  one  of 
those  eras  in  the  history  of  nations  from  which 
calamitous  events  flow." 

The  reception  of  the  protest  was  refused,  and 
the  bill  sent  to  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  readily  passed ;  and  immediately  receiving 
the  approval  of  the  President,  the  senators  elect 
from  California,  who  had  been  long  waiting 
(Messrs.  William  M.  Gwinn  and  John  Charles 
Fremont),  were  admitted  to  their  seats;  but 
not  without  further  and  strenuous  resistance. 
Their  credentials  being  presented,  Mr.  Davis,  of 
Mississippi,  moved  to  refer  them  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  the  Judiciary,  to  report  on  the  law 
and  the  facts  of  the  case  ;  which  motion  led  to 
a  discussion,  terminated  by  a  call  for  the  yeas 
and  nays.  The  yeas  were  12  in  number;  to 
wit :  Messrs.  Atchison,  Barnwell,  Berrien,  But- 
ler, Davis  of  Mississippi,  Hunter,  Mason,  Mor- 
ton, Pratt,  Sebastian,  Soule,  Turney.  Only  12 
voting  for  the  reference,  and  36  against  it ;  the 
two  senators  elect  were  then  sworn  in,  and 
took  their  seats. 


ANNO  1850.     MILLARD  FILLMORE,  PRESIDENT. 


773 


CHAPTER    CXCVII. 

FUGITIVE    SLAVES— ORDINANCE   OF   1787:     THE 
CONSTITUTION:  ACT  OF  1793:  ACT  OF  1850. 

It  is  of  record  proof  that  the  anti-slavery  clause 
in  the  ordinance  of  1787,  could  not  be  passed 
until  the  fugitive  slave  recovery  clause  was 
added  to  it.  That  anti-slavery  clause,  first  pre- 
pared in  the  Congress  of  the  confederation  by 
Mr.  Jefferson  in  1784,  and  rejected,  remained 
rejected  for  three  years — until  1787  ;  when  re- 
ceiving the  additional  clause  for  the  recovery 
of  fugitives,  it  was  unanimously  passed.  This 
is  clear  proof  that  the  first  clause,  prohibiting 
slavery  in  the  Northwest  territory,  could  not  be 
obtained  without  the  second,  authorizing  the  re- 
covery of  slaves  which  should  take  refuge  in  that 
territory.  It  was  a  compromise  between  the 
slave  States  and  the  free  States,  unanimously 
agreed  to  by  both  parties,  and  founded  on  a  valu- 
able consideration — one  preventing  the  spread 
of  slavery  over  a  vast  extent  of  territory,  the 
other  retaining  the  right  of  property  in  the 
slaves  which  might  flee  to  it.  Simultaneously 
with  the  adoption  of  this  article  in  the  ordi- 
nance of  1787  was  the  formation  of  the  consti- 
tution of  the  United  States — both  formed  at 
the  same  time,  in  neighboring  cities,  and  (it 
may  be  said)  by  the  same  men.  The  Congress 
sat  in  New  York — the  Federal  Convention  in 
Philadelphia — and,  while  the  most  active  mem- 
bers of  both  were  members  of  each,  as  Madison 
and  Hamilton,  yet,  from  constant  interchange 
of  opinion,  the  members  of  both  bodies  may  be 
assumed  to  have  worked  together  for  a  com- 
mon object.  The  right  to  recover  fugitive 
slaves  went  into  the  constitution,  as  it  went 
into  the  ordinance,  simultaneously  and  unani- 
mously ;  and  it  may  be  assumed  upon  the  facts 
of  the  case,  and  all  the  evidence  of  the  day,  that 
the  constitution,  no  more  than  the  ordinance, 
could  have  been  formed  without  the  fugitive 
slave  recovery  clause  contained  in  it.  A  right 
to  recover  slaves  is  not  only  authorized  by  the 
constitution,  but  it  is  a  right  without  which 
there  would  have  been  no  constitution,  and 
also  no  anti-slavery  ordinance. 

One  of  the  early  acts  of  Congress,  as  early  as 


February,  '93,  was  a  statute  to  carry  into  effect 
the  clause  in  the  constitution  for  the  reclama- 
tion of  fugitives  from  justice,  and  fugitives  from 
labor  ;  and  that  statute,  made  by  the  men  who 
made  the  constitution,  may  be  assumed  to  be 
the  meaning  of  the  constitution,  as  interpreted 
by  men  who  had  a  right  to  know  its  meaning. 
That  act  consisted  of  four  sections,  all  brief  and 
clear,  and  the  first  two  of  which  exclusively 
applied  to  fugitives  from  justice.  The  third 
and  fourth  applied  to  fugitives  from  labor,  em- 
bracing apprentices  as  well  as  slaves,  and  apply- 
ing the  same  rights  and  remedies  in  each  case  : 
and  of  these  two,  the  third  alone  contains  the 
whole  provision  for  reclaiming  the  fugitive — 
the  fourth  merely  containing  penalties  for  the 
obstruction  of  that  right.  The  third  section, 
then,  is  the  only  one  essential  to  the  object  of 
this  chapter,  and  is  in  these  words  : 

"  That  when  a  person  held  to  labor  in  any  of 
the  United  States,  or  in  either  of  the  territories 
on  the  north-west,  or  south  of  Ohio,  under  the 
laws  thereof,  shall  escape  into  any  other  of 
said  States  or  territories,  the  person  to  whom 
such  labor  is  due,  his  agent  or  attorney,  is  here- 
by empowered  to  seize  or  arrest  such  fugitive 
from  labor,  and  to  take  him  or  her  before  any 
judge  of  the  circuit  or  district  courts  of  the 
United  States,  residing  or  being  within  the 
State,  or  before  any  magistrate  of  a  county, 
city,  or  town  corporate,  wherein  such  seizure 
or  arrest  shall  be  made,  and  upon  proof  to  the 
satisfaction  of  such  judge  or  magistrate,  either 
by  oral  testimony,  or  affidavit  taken  before  and 
certified  by  a  magistrate  of  any  such  State  or 
territory,  that  the  person  so  seized  and  arrested, 
doth  under  the  laws  of  the  State  or  territory 
from  which  he  or  she  fled,  owe  service  to  the 
person  claiming  him  or  her,  it  shall  be  the  duty 
of  such  judge  or  magistrate  to  give  a  certificate 
thereof  to  such  claimant,  his  agent  or  attorney, 
which  shall  be  sufficient  warrant  for  removing 
the  said  fugitive  from  labor,  to  the  State  or  ter- 
ritory from  which  he  or  she  fled." 

This  act  was  passed  on  the  recommendation 
of  President  Washington,  in  consequence  of  a 
case  having  arisen  between  Pennsylvania  and 
Virginia,  which  showed  the  want  of  an  act  of 
Congress  to  carry  the  clause  in  the  constitution 
into  effect.  It  may  be  held  to  be  a  fair  inter- 
pretation of  the  constitution,  and  by  it  the  par- 
ty claiming  the  service  of  the  fugitive  in  any 
State  or  territory,  had  the  right  to  seize  his 
slave  wherever  he  saw  him,  and  to  carry  him 
before  a  judicial  authority  in  the  State ;  and 
upon  affidavit,  or  oral  testimony,  showing  his 


774 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


right,  he  was  to  receive  a  certificate  to  that 
effect,  by  virtue  of  which  he  might  carry  him 
back  to  the  State  from  which  he  had  fled.  This 
act,  thus  fully  recognizing  the  right  of  the 
claimant  to  seize  his  slave  by  mere  virtue  of 
ownership,  and  then  to  carry  him  out  of  the 
State  upon  a  certificate,  and  without  a  trial, 
was  passed  as  good  as  unanimously  by  the 
second  Congress  which  sat  under  the  constitu- 
tion— the  proceedings  of  the  Senate  showing 
no  division,  and  in  the  House  only  seven  voting 
against  the  bill,  there  being  no  separate  vote  on 
the  two  parts  of  it,  and  two  of  these  seven  from 
slave  States  (Virginia  and  Maryland).  It  does 
not  appear  to  what  part  these  seven  objected — 
whether  to  the  fugitive  slave  sections,  or  those 
which  applied  to  fugitives  from  justice.  Such 
unanimity  in  its  passage,  by  those  who  helped 
to  make  the  constitution,  was  high  evidence  in 
its  favor :  the  conduct  of  the  States,  and  both 
judiciaries,  State  and  federal,  were  to  the  same 
effect.  The  act  was  continually  enforced,  and 
the  courts  decided  that  this  right  of  the  owner 
to  seize  his  slave,  was  just  as  large  in  the  free 
State  to  which  he  had  fled  as  in  the  slave  State 
from  which  he  had  run  away — that  he  might 
seize,  by  night  as  well  as  by  day,  of  Sundays  as 
well  as  other  days ;  and,  also,  in  a  house,  pro- 
vided no  breach  of  the  peace  was  committed. 
The  penal  section  in  the  bill  was  clear  and 
heavy,  and  went  upon  the  ground  of  the  abso- 
lute right  of  the  master  to  seize  his  slave  by 
his  own  authority  wherever  he  saw  him,  and 
the  criminality  of  any  obstruction  or  resistance 
in  the  exercise  of  that  right.  It  was  in  these 
words : 

"  That  any  person  who  shall  knowingly  and 
wilfully  obstruct  or  hinder  such  claimant,  his 
agent  or  attorney,  in  so  seizing  or  arresting 
such  fugitive  from  labor,  or  shall  rescue  such 
fugitive  from  such  claimant,  his  agent  or  attor- 
ney, when  so  arrested  pursuant  to  the  authori- 
ty herein  given  or  declared  ;  or  shall  harbor  or 
conceal  such  person  after  notice  that  he  or  she 
was  a  fugitive  from  labor  as  aforesaid,  shall,  for 
either  of  the  said  offences,  forfeit  and  pay  the 
sum  of  five  hundred  dollars.  Which  penalty 
may  be  recovered  by  and  for  the  benefit  of  such 
claimant,  by  action  of  debt  in  any  court  proper 
to  try  the  same,  saving  moreover  to  the  person 
claiming  such  labor  or  service  his  right  of  ac- 
tion for  or  on  account  of  the  said  injuries,  or 
either  of  them." 

State  officers,  the  magistrates  and  judges, 


though  not  bound  to  act  under  the  law  of  Con- 
gress, yet  did  so  ;  and  State  jails,  though  not 
obligatory  under  a  federal  law,  were  freely  used 
for  the  custody  of  the  re-captured  fugitive. 
,This  continued  till  a  late  day  in  most  of  the 
free  States — in  all  of  them  until  after  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  engaged  in  the 
slavery  agitation — and  in  the  great  State  of 
Pennsylvania  until  the  20th  of  March,  1847: 
that  is  to  say,  until  a  month  after  the  time 
that  Mr.  Calhoun  brought  into  the  Senate  the 
slavery  resolutions,  stigmatized  by  Mr.  Benton 
as  "  fire-brand,"  at  the  moment  of  their  intro- 
duction, and  which  are  since  involving  the 
Union  in  conflagration.  Then  Pennsylvania 
passed  the  act  forbidding  her  judicial  authori- 
ties to  take  cognizance  of  any  fugitive  slave 
case — granted  a  habeas  corpus  remedy  to  any 
fugitive  arrested — denying  the  use  of  her  jails 
to  confine  any  one — and  repealing  the  six 
months'  slave  sojourning  law  of  1780. 

Some  years  before  the  passage  of  this  harsh 
act,  and  before  the  slavery  agitation  had  com- 
menced in  Congress,  to  wit,  1826  (which  was 
nine  years  before  the  commencement  of  the  agi- 
tation), Pennsylvania  had  passed  a  most  liberal 
law  of  her  own,  done  upon  the  request  of  Mary- 
land, to  aid  the  recovery  of  fugitive  slaves.  It 
was  entitled,  "  An  act  to  give  effect  to  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  in  reclaiming 
fugitives  from  justice."  Such  had  been  the 
just  and  generous  conduct  of  Pennsylvania  to- 
wards the  slave  States  until  up  to  the  time  of 
passing  the  harsh  act  of  1847.  Her  legal  right 
to  pass  that  act  is  admitted ;  her  magistrates 
were  not  bound  to  act  under  the  federal  law — 
her  jails  were  not  liable  to  be  used  for  federal 
purposes.  The  sojourning  law  of  1780  was  her 
own,  and  she  had  a  right  to  repeal  it.  But  the 
whole  act  of  '47  was  the  exercise  of  a  mere 
right,  against  the  comity  which  is  due  to  States 
united  under  a  common  head,  against  moral  and 
social  duty,  against  high  national  policy,  against 
the  spirit  in  which  the  constitution  was  made, 
against  her  own  previous  conduct  for  sixty 
years ;  and  injurious  and  irritating  to  the  peo- 
ple of  the  slave  States,  and  parts  of  it  unconsti- 
tutional. The  denial  of  the  intervention  of  her 
judicial  officers,  and  the  use  of  her  prisons, 
though  an  inconvenience,  was  not  insurmount- 
able, and  might  be  remedied  by  Congress  ;  the 
repeal  of  the  act  of  1780  was  the  radical  injury, 


ANNO  1850.    MILLARD  FILLMORE,  PRESIDENT. 


775 


and  for  which  there  was  no  remedy  in  federal 
legislation. 

That  act  was  passed  before  the  adoption  of 
the  constitution,  and  while  the  feelings  of  con- 
ciliation, good  will,  and  entire  justice,  prevailed 
among  the  States ;  it  was  allowed  to  continue 
in  force  near  sixty  years  after  the  constitution 
was  made;  and  was  a  proof  of  good  feeling 
towards  all  during  that  time.  By  the  terms  of 
this  act,  a  discrimination  was  established  be- 
tween sojourners  and  permanent  residents,  and 
the  element  of  time — the  most  obvious  and 
easy  of  all  arbiters — was  taken  for  the  rule  of 
discrimination.  Six  months  was  the  time  al- 
lowed to  discriminate  a  sojourner  from  a  resi- 
dent ;  and  during  that  time  the  rights  of  the 
owner  remained  complete  in  his  slave;  after 
the  lapse  of  that  time,  his  ownership  ceased. 
This  six  months  was  equally  in  favor  of  all  per- 
sons ;  but  there  was  a  further  and  indefinite 
provision  in  favor  of  members  of  Congress,  and 
of  the  federal  government,  all  of  whom,  coming 
from  slave  States,  were  allowed  to  retain  their 
ownership  as  long  as  their  federal  duties  re- 
quired them  to  remain  in  the  State.  Such  an 
act  was  just  and  wise,  and  in  accordance  with 
the  spirit  of  comity  which  should  prevail  among 
States  formed  into  a  Union,  having  a  common 
general  government,  and  reciprocating  the  rights 
of  citizenship.  It  is  to  be  deplored  that  any 
event  ever  arose  to  occasion  the  repeal  of  that 
act.  It  is  to  be  wished  that  a  spirit  would  arise 
to  re-enact  it ;  and  that  others  of  the  free  States 
should  follow  the  example.  For  there  were 
others,  and  several  which  had  similar  acts,  and 
which  have  repealed  them  in  like  manner,  as 
Pennsylvania — under  the  same  unhappy  influ- 
ences, and  with  the  same  baleful  consequences. 
New  York,  for  example — her  law  of  discrimi- 
nation between  the  sojourner  and  the  resident, 
being  the  same  in  principle,  and  still  more  liberal 
in  detail,  than  that  of  Pennsylvania — allowing 
nine  months  instead  of  six,  to  determine  that 
character. 

This  act  of  New  York,  like  that  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, continued  undisturbed  in  the  State,  until 
the  slavery  agitation  took  root  in  Congress ;  and 
was  even  so  well  established  in  the  good  opinion 
of  the  people  of  that  State,  as  late  as  thirteen 
years  after  the  commencement  of  that  agitation, 
as  to  be  boldly  sustained  by  the  candidates  for 
the  highest  offices.    Of  this  an  eminent  instance 


will  be  given  in  the  canvass  for  the  governorship 
of  the  State,  in  the  year  1838.  In  that  year 
Mr.  Marcy  and  Mr.  Seward  were  the  opposing 
candidates,  and  an  anti-slavery  meeting,  held  at 
Utica,  passed  a  resolve  to  have  them  interro- 
gated (among  other  things)  on  the  point  of  re- 
pealing the  slave  sojournment  act.  Messrs. 
Gerritt  Smith,  and  William  Jay,  were  nomi- 
nated a  committee  for  that  purpose,  and  fulfilled 
their  mission  so  zealously  as  rather  to  overstate 
the  terms  of  the  act,  using  the  word  "  importa- 
tion "  as  applied  to  the  coming  of  these  slaves 
with  their  owners,  thus  :  "  Are  you  in  favor  of 
the  repeal  of  the  law  which  now  authorizes  the 
importation  of  slaves  into  this  State,  and  their 
detention  here  as  such  for  the  time  of  nine 
months  ? "  Objecting  to  the  substitution  of 
the  term  importation,  and  stating  the  act  cor- 
rectly, both  the  candidates  answered  fully  in 
the  negative,  and  with  reasons  for  their  opinion. 
The  act  was  first  quoted  in  its  own  terms,  as 
follows : 

"  Any  person,  not  being  an  inhabitant  of  this 
State,  who  shall  be  travelling  to  or  from,  or 
passing  through  this  State,  may  bring  with  him 
any  person  lawfully  held  by  him  in  slavery,  and 
may  take  such  person  with  him  from  this  $tate ; 
but  the  person  so  held  in  slavery  shall  not  re- 
side or  continue  in  this  State  more  than  nine 
months ;  and  if  such  residence  be  continued 
beyond  that  time,  such  person  shall  be  free." 

Replying  to  the  interrogatory,  Mr.  Marcy 
then  proceeds  to  give  his  opinion  and  reasons 
in  favor  of  sustaining  the  act,  which  he  docs 
unreservedly : 

"  By  comparing  this  law  with  your  interroga- 
tory, you  will  perceive  at  once  that  the  latter 
implies  much  more  than  the  former  expreswfc 
The  discrepancy  between  them  is  so  great,  that 
I  suspected,  at  first,  that  you  had  reference  to 
some  other  enactment  which  had  escaped  gene- 
ral notice.  As  none,  however,  can  be  found  but 
the  foregoing,  to  which  the  question  is  in  any 
respect  applicable,  there  will  be  no  mistake,  I 
presume,  in  assuming  it  to  be  the  one  you  had 
in  view.  The  deviation,  in  putting  the  question, 
from  what  would  seem  to  be  the  plain  and  ob- 
vious course  of  directing  the  attention  to  the 
particular  law  under  consideration,  by  referring 
to  it  in  the  very  terms  in  which  it  is  expressed, 
or  at  least  in  language  showing  its  objects  and 
limitations,  I  do  not  impute  to  an  intention  to 
create  an  erroneous  impression  as  to  the  law, 
or  to  ascribe  to  it  a  character  of  odiousness 
which  it  does  not  deserve  ;  yet  I  think  that  it 
must  be  conceded  that  your  question  will  in- 


776 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


duce  those  who  are  not  particularly  acquainted 
with  the  section  of  the  statute  to  which  it  re- 
fers, to  believe  that  there  is  a  law  of  this  State 
which  allows  a  free  importation  of  slaves  into 
it,  without  restrictions  as  to  object,  and  without 
limitation  as  to  the  persons  who  may  do  so ; 
yet  this  is  very  far  from  being  true.  This  law 
does  not  permit  any  inhabitant  of  this  State  to 
bring  into  it  any  person  held  in  slavery,  under 
any  pretence  or  for  any  object  whatsoever ;  nor 
does  it  allow  any  person  of  any  other  State  or 
country  to  do  so,  except  such  person  is  actually 
travelling  to  or  from,  or  passing  through  this 
State.  This  law,  in  its  operation  and  effect,  only 
allows  persons  belonging  to  States  or  nations 
where  domestic  slavery  exists,  who  happen  to 
be  travelling  in  this  State,  to  be  attended  by 
their  servants  whom  they  lawfully  hold  in 
slavery  when  at  home,  provided  they  do  not  re- 
main within  our  territories  longer  than  nine 
months.  The  difference  between  it  and  the  one 
implied  by  your  interrogatory  is  so  manifest, 
that  it  is  perhaps  fair  to  presume,  that  if  those 
by  whose  appointment  you  act  in  this  matter 
had  not  misapprehended  its  character,  they 
would  not  have  instructed  you  to  make  it  the 
subject  of  one  of  your  questions.  It  is  so  re- 
stricted in  its  object,  and  that  is  so  unexception- 
able, that  it  can  scarcely  be  regarded  as  obnox- 
ious to  well-founded  objections  when  viewed 
in  its  true  light.  Its  repeal  would,  I  apprehend, 
have  an  injurious  effect  upon  our  intercourse 
with  some  of  the  other  States,  and  particularly 
upon  their  business  connection  with  our  com- 
mercial emporium.  In  addition  to  this,  the  re- 
peal would  have  a  tendency  to  disturb  the  polit- 
ical harmony  among  the  members  of  our  con- 
federacy, without  producing  any  beneficial  re- 
sults to  compensate  for  these  evils.  I  am  not 
therefore  in  favor  of  it." 

This  is  an  explicit  answer,  meeting  the  inter- 
rogatory with  a  full  negative,  and  impliedly  re- 
buking the  phrase  "importation,"  by  supposing 
it  would  not  have  been  used  if  the  Utica  conven- 
tion had  understood  the  act.  Mr.  Seward  an- 
swered in  the  same  spirit,  and  to  the  same  effect, 
only  giving  a  little  more  amplitude  to  his  excel- 
lent reasons.    He  says : 

"Does  not  your  inquiry  give  too  broad  a 
meaning  to  the  section  ?  It  certainly  does  not 
confer  upon  any  citizen  of  a  State,  or  of  any 
other  country,  or  any  citizen  of  any  other  State, 
except  the  owner  of  slaves  in  another  State  by 
virtue  of  the  laws  thereof,  the  right  to  bring 
slaves  into  this  State  or  detain  them  here  under 
any  circumstances  as  such.  I  understand  your 
inquiry,  therefore  to  mean,  whether  I  am  in 
favor  of  a  repeal  of  the  law  which  declares,  in 
substance,  that  any  person  from  the  southern  or 
south-western  States,  who  may  be  travelling  to 


or  from  or  passing  through  the  State,  may  bring 
with  him  and  take  with  him  any  person  lawfully 
held  by  him  in  slavery  in  the  State  from  whence 
he  came,  provided  such  slaves  do  not  remain  here 
more  than  nine  months.  The  article  of  the  con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  which  bears  upon 
the  present  question,  declares  that  no  person  held 
to  service  or  labor  in  one  State,  under  the  laws 
thereof,  escaping  to  another  State,  shall,  in  con- 
sequence of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be 
discharged  from  such  service  or  labor,  but  such 
persons  shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  par- 
ty to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due. 
I  understand  that,  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts, 
this  provision  of  the  constitution  has  been  de- 
cided by  the  courts  not  to  include  the  case  of  a 
slave  brought  by  his  master  into  the  State,  and 
escaping  thence.  But  the  courts  of  law  in  this 
State  have  uniformly  given  a  different  construc- 
tion to  the  same  article  of  the  constitution,  and 
have  always  decided  that  it  does  embrace  the 
case  of  a  slave  brought  by  his  master  into  this 
State,  and  escaping  from  him  here.  Conse- 
quently, under  this  judicial  construction  of  the 
constitution,  and  without,  and  in  defiance  of  any 
law  or  regulation  of  this  State,  if  the  slave  es- 
cape from  his  master  in  this  State,  he  must  be 
restored  to  him,  when  claimed  at  any  time  dur- 
ing his  master's  temporary  sojournment  within 
the  State,  whether  that  sojournment  be  six 
months,  nine  months,  or  longer.  It  is  not  for 
me  to  say  that  this  decision  is  erroneous,  nor  is 
it  for  our  legislature.  Acting  under  its  au- 
thority, they  passed  the  law  to  which  you  ob- 
ject, for  the  purpose,  not  of  conferring  new 
powers  or  privileges  on  the  slave-owner,  but  to 
prevent  his  abuse  of  that  which  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States,  thus  expounded,  secures  to 
him.  The  law,  as  I  understand  it,  was  intended 
to  fix  a  period  of  time  as  a  test  of  transient  pas- 
sage through,  or  temporary  residence  in  the 
State,  within  the  provisions  of  the  constitution. 
The  duration  of  nine  months  is  not  material  in 
the  question,  and  if  it  be  unnecessarily  long, 
may  and  ought  to  be  abridged.  But,  if  no  such 
law  existed,  the  right  of  the  master  (under  the 
construction  of  the  constitution  before  men- 
tioned) would  be  indefinite,  and  the  slave  must 
be  surrendered  to  him  in  all  cases  of  travelling 
through,  or  passage  to  or  from  the  State.  If  I 
have  correctly  apprehended  the  subject,  this  law 
is  not  one  conferring  a  right  upon  any  person  to 
import  slaves  into  the  State,  and  hold  them  here 
as  such ;  but  is  an  attempt  at  restriction  upon 
the  constitutional  right  of  the  master ;  a  quali- 
fication, or  at  least  a  definition  of  it.  and  is  in 
favor  of  the  slave.  Its  repeal,  therefore,  would 
have  the  effect  to  put  in  greater  jeopardy  the 
class  of  persons  you  propose  to  benefit  by  it. 
While  the  construction  of  the  constitution 
adopted  here  is  maintained,  the  law,  it  would 
seem,  ought  to  remain  upon  our  statute  book, 
not  as  an  encroachment  upon  the  rights  of  man, 
but  a  protection  for  them. 


ANNO  1850.     MILLARD  FILLMORE,  PRESIDENT. 


777 


"  But,  gentlemen,  being  desirous  to  be  entirely- 
candid  in  this  communication,  it  is  proper  I 
should  add,  that  I  am  not  convinced  it  would  be 
either  wise,  expedient  or  humane,  to  declare  to 
our  fellow-citizens  of  the  southern  and  south- 
western States,  that  if  they  travel  to  or  from,  or 
pass  through  the  State  of  New  York,  they  shall 
not  bring  with  them  the  attendants  whom  cus- 
tom, or  education,  or  habit,  may  have  rendered 
necessary  to  them.  I  have  not  been  able  to  dis- 
cover any  good  object  to  be  attained  by  such  an 
act  of  inhospitality.  It  certainly  can  work  no 
injury  to  us,  nor  can  it  be  injurious  to  the  un- 
fortunate beings  held  in  bondage,  to  permit 
them,  once  perhaps  in  their  lives,  and  at  most, 
on  occasions  few  and  far  between,  to  visit  a  coun- 
try where  slavery  is  unknown.  I  can  even  con- 
ceive of  benefits  to  the  great  cause  of  human 
liberty,  from  the  cultivation  of  this  intercourse 
with  the  South.  I  can  imagine  but  one  ground 
of  objection,  which  is,  that  it  may  be  regarded 
as  an  implication  that  this  State  sanctions  sla- 
very. If  this  objection  were  well  grounded,  I 
should  at  once  condemn  the  law.  But,  in  truth, 
the  law  does  not  imply  any  such  sanction.  The 
same  statute  which,  in  necessary  obedience  to 
the  constitution  of  the  United  States  as  ex- 
pounded, declares  the  exception,  condemns,  in 
the  most  clear  and  definite  terms,  all  human 
bondage.  I  will  not  press  the  considerations 
flowing  from  the  nature  of  our  Union,  and  the 
mutual  concessions  on  which  it  was  founded, 
against  the  propriety  of  such  an  exclusion  as 
your  question  contemplates,  apparently  for  the 
purpose  only  of  avoiding  an  implication  not 
founded  in  fact,  and  which  the  history  of  our 
State  so  nobly  contradicts.  It  is  sufficient  to 
say  that  such  an  exclusion  could  have  no  good 
effect  practically,  and  would  accomplish  nothing 
in  the  great  cause  of  human  liberty." 

These  answers  do  not  seem  to  have  affected 
the  election  in  any  way.  Mr.  Seward  was 
elected,  each  candidate  receiving  the  full  vote 
of  his  party.  Since  that  time  the  act  has  been 
repealed,  and  no  voice  has  yet  been  raised  to  re- 
store it.  Just  and  meritorious  as  were  the  an- 
swers of  Messrs.  Marcy  and  Seward  in  favor  of 
sustaining  the  sojourning  act,  their  voice  in  fa- 
vor of  its  restoration  would  be  still  more  so 
now.  It  was  a  measure  in  the  very  spirit  of 
the  constitution,  and  in  the  very  nature  of  a 
union,  and  in  full  harmony  with  the  spirit  of 
concession,  deference  and  good-will  in  which 
the  constitution  was  founded.  Several  other 
States  had  acts  to  the  same  effect,  and  the 
temper  of  the  people  in  all  the  free  States 
was  accordant.  It  was  not  until  after  the 
slavery  question  became  a  subject  of  political 
agitation,  in  the  national  legislature,  that  these 


acts  were  repealed,  and  this  spirit  destroyed. 
Political  agitation  has  done  all  the  mischief. 

The  act  of  Pennsylvania,  of  March  3d,  1847, 
besides  repealing  the  slave  sojournment  act  of 
1780 — (an  act  made  in  the  time  of  Dr.  Franklin, 
and  which  had  been  on  her  statute-book  near 
seventy  years),  besides  repealing  her  recent  act 
of  182G,  and  besides  forbidding  the  use  of  her 
prisons,  and  the  intervention  of  her  officers  in 
the  recovery  of  fugitive  slaves — besides  all  this, 
went  on  to  make  positive  enactments  to  pre- 
vent the  exercise  of  the  rights  of  forcible  re- 
caption of  fugitive  slaves,  as  regulated  by  the 
act  of  Congress,  under  the  clause  in  t\ie  consti- 
tution ;  and  for  that  purpose  contained  this 
section : 

"  That  if  any  person  or  persons  claiming  any 
negro  or  mulatto,  as  fugitive  from  servitude  or 
labor,  shall,  under  any  pretence  of  authority 
whatever,  violently  and  tumultuously  seize  upon 
and  carry  away  in  a  riotous,  violent,  and  tumul- 
tuous manner,  and  so  as  to  disturb  and  endan- 
ger the  public  peace,  any  negro  or  mulatto  with- 
in this  commonwealth,  either  with  or  without 
the  intention  of  taking  such  negro  or  mulatto 
before  any  district  or  circuit  judge,  the  person 
or  persons  so  offending  against  the  peace  of  this 
commonwealth,  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  a  mis- 
demeanor ;  and  on  conviction  thereof,  shall  be 
sentenced  to  pay  a  fine  of  not  less  than  one 
hundred  nor  more  than  two  thousand  dollars ; 
and,  further,  be  confined  in  the  county  jail  for 
any  period  not  exceeding  three  months,  at  the 
discretion  of  the  court." 

The  granting  of  the  habeas  corpus  writ  to 
any  fugitive  slave  completed  the  enactments  of 
this  statute,  which  thus  carried  out,  to  the  full, 
the  ample  intimations  contained  in  its  title, 
to  wit :  "  An  act  to  prevent  kidnapping,  pre- 
serve the  public  peace,  prohibit  the  exercise  of 
certain  powers  heretofore  exercised  by  judges, 
justices  of  the  peace,  aldermen,  and  jailers  in 
this  commonwealth;  and,  to  repeal  certain 
slave  laws."  This  act  made  a  new  starting- 
point  in  the  anti-slavery  movements  North,  as 
the  resolutions  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  of  the  previous 
month,  made  a  new  starting-point  in  the  pro- 
slavery  movements  in  the  South.  The  first  led 
to  the  new  fugitive  slave  recovery  act  of  1850 — 
the  other  has  led  to  the  abrogation  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  line  ;  and,  between  the  two, 
the  state  of  things  has  been  produced  which 
now  afflicts  and  distracts  the  country,  and  is 
working  a  sectional  divorce  of  the  States. 


778 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


A  citizen  of  Maryland,  acting  under  the  fede- 
ral law  of  '93,  in  recapturing  his  slave  in  Penn- 
sylvania, was  prosecuted  under  the  State  act  of 
1826 — convicted — and  sentenced  to  its  penalties. 
The  constitutionality  of  this  enactment  was  in 
vain  plead  in  the  Pennsylvania  court ;  but  her 
authorities  acted  in  the  spirit  of  deference  and 
respect  to  the  authorities  of  the  Union,  and  con- 
curred in  an  "  agreed  case"  to  be  carried  before 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  to  test 
the  constitutionality  of  the  Pennsylvania  law. 
That  court  decided  fully  and  promptly  all  the 
points  in  the  case,  and  to  the  full  vindication  of 
all  the  rights  of  a  slaveholder,  under  the  recap- 
tion clause  in  the  constitution.  The  points  de- 
cided cover  the  whole  ground,  and,  besides, 
show  precisely  in  what  particular  the  act  of 
1793  required  to  be  amended,  to  make  it  work 
out  its  complete  effect  under  the  constitution, 
independent  of  all  extrinsic  aid.  The  points 
were  these : 

"  The  provisions  of  the  act  of  12th  of  February, 
1793,  relative  to  fugitive  slaves,  is  clearly  consti- 
tutional in  all  its  leading  provisions,  and,  indeed, 
with  the  exception  of  that  part  which  confers 
authority  on  State  magistrates,  is  free  from 
reasonable  doubt  or  difficulty.  As  to  the  au- 
thority so  conferred  on  State  magistrates,  while 
a  difference  of  opinion  exists,  and  may  exist  on 
this  point,  in  different  States,  whether  State 
magistrates  are  bound  to  act  under  it,  none  is 
entertained  by  the  court,  that  State  magistrates 
may,  if  they  choose,  exercise  that  authority,  un- 
less forbid  by  State  legislation."  "  The  power 
of  legislation  in  relation  to  fugitives  from 
labor  is  exclusive  in  the  national  legislature." 
"  The  right  to  seize  and  retake  fugitive  slaves, 
and  the  duty  to  deliver  them  up,  in  whatever 
State  of  the  Union  they  may  be  found,  is  under 
the  constitution  recognized  as  an  absolute,  posi- 
tive right  and  duty,  pervading  the  whole  Union 
with  an  equal  and  supreme  force,  uncontrolled 
and  uncontrollable  by  State  sovereignty  or 
State  legislation.  The  right  and  duty  are  co- 
extensive and  uniform  in  remedy  and  operation 
throughout  the  whole  Union.  The  owner  has 
the  same  exemption  from  State  regulations  and 
control,  through  however  many  States  he  may 
pass  with  the  fugitive  slaves  in  his  possession  in 
transitu  to  his  domicil."  "  The  act  of  the  legis- 
lature of  Pennsylvania,  on  which  the  indictment 
against  Edward  Prigg  was  founded,  for  carrying 
away  a  fugitive  slave,  is  unconstitutional  and 
void.  It  purports  to  punish,  as  a  public  offence 
against  the  State,  the  very  act  of  seizing  and  re- 
moving a  slave  by  his  master,  which  the  consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  was  designed  to  jus- 
tify and  uphold."  "The  constitutionality  of 
the  act  of  Congress  (1793),  relating  to  fugitives 


from  labor,  has  been  affirmed  by  the  adjudica- 
tions of  the  State  tribunals,  and  by  those  of  the 
courts  of  the  United  States." 

This  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court — so  clear 
and  full — was  further  valuable  in  making  visi- 
ble to  the  legislative  authority  what  was  want- 
ing to  give  efficacy  to  the  act  of  1793 ;  it  was 
nothing  but  to  substitute  federal  commissioners 
for  the  State  officers  forbidden  to  act  under  it ; 
and  that  substitution  might  have  been  accom- 
plished in  an  amendatory  bill  of  three  or  four 
lines — leaving  all  the  rest  of  the  act  as  it  was. 
Unfortunately  Congress  did  not  limit  itself  to 
an  amendment  of  the  act  of  1793 ;  it  made  a 
new  law — long  and  complex — and  striking  the 
public  mind  as  a  novelty.    It  was  early  in  the 
session  of  1849-'50  that  the  Judiciary  Commit- 
tee of  the  Senate  reported  a  bill  on  the  subject ; 
it  was  a  bill  long  and  complex,  and  distasteful  to 
all  sides  of  the  chamber,  and  lay  upon  the  table 
six  months  untouched.    It  was  taken  up  in  the 
last  weeks  of  a  nine  months'  session,  and  substi- 
tuted by  another  bill,  still  longer  and  more  com- 
plex.    This  bill  also  was  very  distasteful  to 
the  Senate  (the  majority),  and  had  the  singular 
fate  of  being  supported  in  its  details,  and  passed 
into  law,  with  less  than  a  quorum  of  the  body 
in  its  favor,  and  without  ever  receiving  the  full 
senatorial  vote  of  the  slave  States.     The  mate- 
rial votes  upon  it,  before  it  was  passed,  were  on 
propositions  to  give  the  fugitive  a  jury  trial,  if 
he  desired  it,  upon  the  question  of  his  condition 
— free  or  slave ;  and  upon  the  question  of  giving 
him  the  benefit  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus. 
The  first  of  these  propositions  originated  with 
Mr.  Webster,  but  was  offered  in  his  absence  by 
Mr.  Dayton,  of  New  Jersey.     He  (Mr.  "Web- 
ster) drew  up  a  brief  bill  early  in  the  session, 
to  supply  the  defect  found  in  the  working  of  the 
act  of  '93 ;  it  was  short  and  simple ;  but  it  con- 
tained a  proviso  in  favor  of  a  jury  trial  when 
the  fugitive  denied  his  servitude.     That  would 
have  been  about  always ;  and  this  jury  trial, 
besides  being  incompatible  with  the  constitu- 
tion, and  contradictory  to  all  cases  of  proceed- 
ing against  fugitives,  would  have  been  pretty 
sure  to  have  been  fatal  to  the  pursuer's  claim ; 
and  certainly  both  expensive  and  troublesome 
to  him.    It  was  contrary  to  the  act  of  1793,  and 
contrary  to  the  whole  established  course  of  re- 
claiming fugitives,  which  is  always  to  carry 
them  back  to  the  place  from  which  they  fled, 


ANNO  1850.    MILLARD  FILLMORE,  PRESIDENT. 


779 


to  be  tried.  Thus,  if  a  man  commits  an  offence 
in  one  country,  and  flies  to  another,  he  is  car- 
ried back  ;  so,  if  he  flies  from  one  State  to  an- 
other; and  so  in  all  the  extradition  treaties 
between  foreign  nations.  All  are  carried  pack 
to  the  place  from  which  they  fled,  the  only  con- 
dition being  to  establish  the  flight  and  the 
probable  cause  ;  and  that  in  the  case  of  fugitives 
from  labor,  as  well  as  from  justice,  both  of 
which  classes  are  put  together  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  and  in  the  fugitive  act 
of  1793.  The  proposition  was  rejected  by  a 
vote  of  eleven  to  twenty-seven.  The  yeas  were : 
Messrs.  Davis  of  Massachusetts,  Dayton,  Dodge 
of  Wisconsin,  Greene,  Hamlin,  Phelps,  Smith, 
Upham,  Walker  of  Wisconsin,  and  Winthrop. 
The  nays  were :  Messrs.  Atchison,  Badger, 
Barnwell,  Bell,  Benton,  Berrien,  Butler,  Cass, 
Davis  of  Mississippi,  Dawson,  Dodge  of  Iowa, 
Downs,  Houston,  Jones  of  Iowa,  King,  Man- 
gum,  Mason,  Morton,  Pratt  of  Maryland,  Rusk, 
Sebastian,  Soule,  Sturgeon,  Turney,  Underwood, 
Wales,  Yulee.  The  motion  in  favor  of  granting 
the  benefit  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  to  the 
fugitive  was  made  by  Mr.  Winthrop,  and  reject- 
ed by  the  same  vote  of  eleven  yeas  and  twenty- 
seven  nays.  Other  amendments  were  offered 
and  disposed  of,  and  the  question  coming  on  the 
passing  of  the  bill.  Mr.  Cass,  in  speaking  his 
own  sentiments  in  favor  of  merely  amending  the 
act  of  1793,  also  spoke  the  sentiments  of  many 
others,  saying : 

"  When  this  subject  was  before  the  compro- 
mise committee,  there  was  a  general  wish,  and 
in  that  I  fully  concurred,  that  the  main  features 
of  the  act  of  1793  upon  this  subject,  so  far  as 
they  were  applicable,  should  be  preserved,  and 
that  such  changes  as  experience  has  shown  to  be 
necessary  to  a  fair  and  just  enforcement  of  the 
provisions  of  the  constitution  for  the  surrender 
of  fugitive  slaves,  should  be  introduced  by  way 
of  amendment.  That  law  was  approved  by 
Washington,  and  has  now  been  in  force  for  sixty 
years,  and  lays  down,  among  others,  four  gene- 
ral principles,  to  which  I  am  prepared  to  ad- 
here :  1.  The  right  of  the  master  to  arrest  his 
fugitive  slave  wherever  he  may  find  him.  2. 
His  duty  to  carry  him  before  a  magistrate  in 
the  State  where  he  is  arrested,  and  that  claim 
may  be  adjudged  by  him.  3.  The  duty  of  the 
magistrate  to  examine  the  claim,  and  to  decide 
it,  like  other  examining  magistrates,  without  a 
iury,  and  then  to  commit  him  to  the  custody  of 
the  master.  4.  The  right  of  the  master  then  to 
remove  the  slave  to  his  residence.  At  the  time 
this  law  was  passed,  every  justice  of  the  peace 


throughout  the  Union  was  required  to  execute 
the  duties  under  it.  Since  then,  as  we  all  know, 
the  Supreme  Court  has  decided  that  justices  of 
the  peace  cannot  be  called  upon  to  execute  this 
law,  and  the  consequence  is,  that  they  have  al- 
most every  where  refused  to  do  so.  The  mas- 
ter seeking  his  slave  found  his  remedy  a  good 
one  at  the  time,  but  now  very  ineffectual ;  and 
this  defect  is  one  that  imperiously  requires  a 
remedy.  And  this  remedy  I  am  willing  to  pro- 
vide, fairly  and  honestly,  and  to  make  such 
other  provisions  as  may  be  proper  and  neces- 
sary. But  I  desire  for  myself  that  the  original 
act  should  remain  upon  the  statute  book,  and 
that  the  changes  shown  to  be  necessary  should 
be  made  by  way  of  amendment." 

The  vote  on  the  passing  of  the  bill  was  27  to 
12,  the  yeas  being :  Messrs.  Atchison,  Badger, 
Barnwell,  Bell,  Berrien,  Butler,  Davis  of  Miss., 
Dawson,  Dodge  of  Iowa,  Downs,  Foote,  Hous- 
ton, Hunter,  Jones  of  Iowa,  King,  Mangum, 
Mason,  Pearce,  Rusk,  Sebastian,  Soule,  Spru- 
ance,  Sturgeon,  Turney,  Underwood,  Wales,  and 
Yulee.  The  nays  were:  Messrs.  Baldwin,  Brad- 
bury, Cooper,  Davis  of  Mass.,  Dayton,  Dodge 
of  Wisconsin,  Greene  of  Rhode  Island,  Smith, 
Upham,  Walker,  and  Winthrop.  Above  twenty 
senators  did  not  vote  at  all  upon  the  bill,  of 
whom  Mr.  Benton  was  one.  Nearly  the  whole 
of  these  twenty  would  have  voted  for  an  amend- 
ment to  the  act  of  1793,  supplying  federal  offi- 
cers in  place  of  the  State  officers  who  were  to 
assist  in  its  execution.  Some  three  or  four  lines 
would  have  done  that ;  but  instead  of  this  brief 
enactment  to  give  effect  to  an  ancient  and  well- 
known  law,  there  was  a  long  bill  of  ten  sec- 
tions, giving  the  aspect  of  a  new  law  ;  and  with 
such  multiplied  and  complex  provisions  as  to 
render  the  act  inexecutable,  except  at  a  cost  and 
trouble  which  would  render  the  recovery  of  lit- 
tle or  no  value ;  and  to  be  attended  with  an  ar- 
ray and  machinery  which  would  excite  dis- 
turbance, and  scenes  of  force  and  violence,  and 
render  the  law  odious.  It  passed  the  House, 
and  became  a  law,  and  has  verified  all  the  ob- 
jections taken  to  it. 

Mr.  Benton  did  not  speak  upon  this  bill  at  the 
time  of  its  passage ;  he  had  done  that  before,  in 
a  previous  stage  of  the  question,  and  when  Mr 
Clay  proposed  to  make  it  a  part  of  his  com 
promise  measures.  He  (Mr.  Benton)  was  op 
posed  to  confounding  an  old  subject  of  constitu 
tional  obligation  with  new  and  questionable  sub 
jects,  and  was  ready  to  give  the  subject  an  inde 


780 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


pendent  consideration,  and  to  vote  for  any  bill 
that  should  be  efficient  and  satisfactory.  He 
said: 

"  We  have  a  bill  now — an  independent  one — 
for  the  recovery  of  these  slaves.  It  is  one  of 
the  oldest  on  the  calendar,  and  warmly  pressed 
at  the  commencement  of  the  session.  It  must 
be  about  ripe  for  decision  by  this  time.  I  am 
ready  to  vote  upon  it,  and  to  vote  any  thing  un- 
der the  constitution  which  will  be  efficient  and 
satisfactory.  It  is  the  only  point,  in  my  opin- 
ion, at  which  any  of  the  non-slavehola'ing  States, 
as  States,  have  given  just  cause  of  complaint  to 
the  slaveholding  States.  I  leave  out  individuals 
and  societies,  and  speak  of  States  in  their  corpo- 
rate capacity ;  and  say,  this  affair  of  the  run- 
away slaves  is  the  only  case  in  which  any  of 
the  non-slaveholding  States,  in  my  opinion,  have 
given  just  cause  of  complaint  to  the  slaveholding 
States.  But,  how  is  it  here  ?  Any  refusal  on 
the  part  of  the  northern  members  to  legislate 
the  remedy  ?  We  have  heard  many  of  them 
declare  their  opinions/  and  I  see  no  line  of 
east  and  west  dividing  the  north  from  the  south 
in  these  opinions.  I  see  no  geographical  boun- 
dary dividing  northern  and  southern  opinions. 
I  see  no  diversity  of  opinion  but  such  as  occurs 
in  ordinary  measures  before  Congress.  For  one, 
I  am  ready  to  vote  at  once  for  the  passage  of  a 
fugitive  slavery  recovery  bill ;  but  it  must  be 
as  a  separate  and  independent  measure." 

Mr.  Benton  voted  upon  the  amendments,  and 
to  make  the  bill  efficient  and  satisfactory ;  but 
failed  to  make  it  either,  and  would  neither  vote 
for  it  nor  against  it.  It  has  been  worth  but  lit- 
tle to  the  slave  States  in  recovering  their  pro- 
perty, and  has  been  annoying  to  the  free  States 
from  the  manner  of  its  execution,  and  is  con- 
sidered a  new  act,  though  founded  upon  that 
of  '93,  which  is  lost  and  hid  under  it.  The  won- 
der is  how  such  an  act  came  to  pass,  even  by  so 
lean  a  vote  as  it  received — for  it  was  voted  for 
by  less  than  the  number  of  senators  from  the 
slave  States  alone.  It  is  a  wonder  how  it  passed 
at  all,  and  the  wonder  increases  on  knowing  that, 
of  the  small  number  that  voted  for  it,  many 
were  against  it,  and  merely  went  along  with 
those  who  had  constituted  themselves  the  partic- 
ular guardians  of  the  rights  of  the  slave  States, 
and  claimed  a  lead  in  all  that  concerned  them. 

Those  self-constituted  guardians  were  permit- 
ted to  have  their  own  way ;  some  voting  with 
them  unwillingly,  others  not  voting  at  all.  It 
"was  a  part  of  the  plan  of  "  compromise  and  pa 
cification,"  which  was  then  deemed  essential  to 
save  the  Union :  and  under  the  fear  of  danger 


to  the  Union  on  one  hand,  and  the  charms  of 
pacification  and  compromise  on  the  other,  a  few 
heated  spirits  got  the  control,  and  had  things 
their  own  way.  Under  other  circumstances — 
in  any  season  of  quiet  and  tranquillity  —  the 
vote  of  Congress  would  have  been  almost  gen- 
eral against  the  complex,  cumbersome,  expen- 
sive, annoying,  and  ineffective  bill  that  was 
passed,  and  in  favor  of  the  act  (with  the  neces- 
sary amendment)  which  Washington  recom- 
mended and  signed — which  State  and  Federal 
judiciaries  had  sanctioned — which  the  people 
had  lived  under  for  nearly  sixty  years,  and 
against  which  there  was  no  complaint  until 
slavery  agitation  had  become  a  political  game  to 
be  played  at  by  parties  from  both  sides  of  the 
Union.  All  public  men  disavow  that  game. 
All  profess  patriotism.  All  applaud  the  patriotic 
spirit  of  our  ancestors.  Then  imitate  that  spirit. 
Do  as  these  patriotic  fathers  did — the  free  States 
by  reviving  the  sojournment  laws  which  gave 
safety  to  the  slave  property  of  their  fellow-citi- 
zens of  other  States  passing  through  them — the 
slave  States  by  acting  in  the  spirit  of  those  who 
enacted  the  anti-slavery  ordinance  of  1787,  and 
the  Missouri  Compromise  line  of  1820.  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania  are  the  States  to  begin, 
and  to  revive  the  sojournment  laws  which  were 
in  force  within  them  for  half  a  century.  The 
man  who  would  stand  up  in  each  of  these  States 
and  propose  the  revival  of  these  acts,  for  the 
same  reasons  that  Messrs.  Marcy  and  Seward 
opposed  their  repeal,  would  give  a  proof  of  pa- 
triotism which  would  entitle  him  to  be  classed 
with  our  patriotic  ancestors. 


CHAPTER   CXCVIII. 

DISUNION  MOVEMENTS:  SOTJTHEEN  PRESS  AT 
WASHINGTON:  SOUTHERN  CONVENTION  AT 
NASHVILLE:  SOUTHERN  CONGRESS  CALLED 
FOR  BY  SOUTH  CAROLINA  AND  MISSISSIPPL 

"When  the  future  historian  shall  address 
himself  to  the  task  of  portraying  the  rise,  pro- 
gress, and  decline  of  the  American  Union,  the 
year  1850  will  arrest  his  attention,  as  denoting 
and  'presenting  the  first  marshalling  and  ar- 
raying of  those  hostile  forces  and  opposing 
elements  which  resulted  in  dissolution ;  and 
the  world  will  have  another  illustration  of  the 
great  truth,  that  forms  and  modes  of  govern- 


ANNO  1850.     MILLARD  FILLMORE,  PRESIDENT. 


781 


merit,  however  correct  in  theory,  are  only  val- 
uable as  they  conduce  to  the  great  ends  of  all 
government — the  peace,  quiet,  and  conscious 
security  of  the  governed." 

So  wrote  a  leading  South  Carolina  paper  on 
the  first  day  of  January,  1850 — and  not  without 
a  knowledge  of  what  it  was  saying.  All  that 
was  said  was  attempted,  and  the  catastrophe 
alone  was  wanting  to  complete  the  task  assigned 
to  the  future  historian. 

The  manifesto  of  the  forty-two  members 
from  the  slave  States,  issued  in  1849,  was  not 
a  brutum  fulmen,  nor  intended  to  be  so.  It 
was  intended  for  action,  and  was  the  commence- 
ment of  action ;  and  regular  steps  for  the  separa- 
tion of  the  slave  from  the  free  States  immediately 
began  under  it.  An  organ  of  disunion,  entitled 
"  The  Southern  Press,"  was  set  up  at  Washing- 
ton, established  upon  a  contribution  of  $30,000 
from  the  signers  to  the  Southern  manifesto,  and 
their  ardent  adherents — its  daily  occupation  to 
inculcate  the  advantages  of  disunion,  to  promote 
it  by  inflaming  the  South  against  the  North,  and 
to  prepare  it  by  organizing  a  Southern  concert 
of  action.  Southern  cities  were  to  recover  their 
colonial  superiority  in  a  state  of  sectional  inde- 
pendence ;  the  ships  of  all  nations  were  to 
crowd  their  ports  to  carry  off  their  rich  staples, 
and  bring  back  ample  returns ;  Great  Britain 
was  to  be  the  ally  of  the  new  "United  States 
South ; "  all  the  slave  States  were  expected  to 
join,  but  the  new  confederacy  to  begin  with  the 
South  Atlantic  States,  or  even  a  part  of  them  ; 
and  military  preparation  was  to  be  made  to 
maintain  by  force  what  a  Southern  convention 
should  decree.  That  convention  was  called — 
the  same  which  had  been  designated  in  the  first 
manifesto,  entitled  The  Crisis,  published  in 
the  Charleston  Mercury  in  1835 ;  and  the  same 
which  had  been  repulsed  from  Nashville  in  1844. 
Fifteen  years  of  assiduous  labor  produced  what 
could  not  be  started  in  1835,  and  what  had  been 
repulsed  in  1844.  A  disunion  convention  met 
at  Nashville  !  met  at  the  home  of  Jackson,  but 
after  the  grave  had  become  his  home. 

This  convention  (assuming  to  represent  seven 
States)  took  the  decisive  step,  so  far  as  it  de- 
pended upon  itself,  towards  a  separation  of  the 
States.  It  invited  the  assembling  of  a  "  South- 
ern Congress."  Two  States  alone  responded  to 
that  appeal — South  Carolina  and  Mississippi; 
and  the  legislatures  of  these  two  passed  solemn 


acts  to  carry  it  into  effect — South  Carolina  ab- 
solutely, by  electing  her  quota  of  representa- 
tives to  the  proposed  congress ;  Mississippi  pro- 
visionally, by  subjecting  her  law  to  the  appro- 
val of  the  people.  Of  course,  each  State  gave  a 
reason,  or  motive  jbr  its  action.  South  Carolina 
simply  asserted  the  "  aggressions  "  of  the  slave- 
holding  States  to  be  the  cause,  without  stating 
what  these  aggressions  were ;  and,  in  fact,  there 
were  none  to  be  stated.  For  even  the  repeal 
of  the  slave  sojournment  law  in  some  of  them, 
and  the  refusal  to  permit  the  State  prisons  to  be 
used  for  the  detention  of  fugitives  from  service, 
or  State  officers  to  assist  in  their  arrest,  though 
acts  of  unfriendly  import,  and  a  breach  of  the 
comity  due  to  sister  States,  and  inconsistent 
with  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  were  still 
acts  which  the  States,  as  sovereign  within  their 
limits  upon  the  subjects  to  which  they  refer, 
had  a  right  to  pass.  Besides,  Congress  had 
readily  passed  the  fugitive  slave  recovery  bill, 
just  as  these  Southern  members  wished  it; 
and  left  them  without  complaint  against  the 
national  legislature  on  that  score.  All  other 
matters  of  complaint  which  had  successively 
appeared  against  the  free  States  were  gone — 
Wilmot  Proviso,  and  all.  The  act  of  Missis- 
sippi gave  two  reasons  for  its  action : 

"  First.  That  the  legislation  of  Congress,  at 
the  last  session,  was  controlled  by  a  dominant 
majority  regardless  of  the  constitutional  rights 
of  the  slaveholding  States  :  and, 

"  Secondly.  That  the  legislation  of  Congress, 
such  as  it  was,  affords  alarming  evidence  of  a 
settled  purpose  on  the  part  of  said  majority  to 
destroy  the  institution  of  slavery,  not  only  in 
the  State  of  Mississippi,  but  in  her  sister  States, 
and  to  subvert  the  sovereign  power  of  that  and 
other  slaveholding  States." 

Waiving  the  question  whether  these  reasons, 
if  true,  would  be  sufficient  to  justify  this  abrupt 
attempt  to  break  up  the  Union,  an  issue  of  fact 
can  well  be  taken  on  their  truth :  and  first,  of 
the  dominant  majority  of  the  last  session,  end- 
ing September  1850 :  that  majority,  in  every  in- 
stance, was  helped  out  by  votes  from  the  slave 
States,  and  generally  by  a  majority  of  them. 
The  admission  of  California,  which  was  the  act  of 
the  session  most  complained  of,  most  resisted,  and 
declared  to  be  a  "  test "  question,  was  supported 
by  a  majority  of  the  members  from  the  slave 
States:  so  that  reason  falls  upon  the  trial  of 
an  issue  of  fact.   The  second  set  of  reasons  have 


782 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


for  their  point,  an  assertion  that  the  majority  in 
Congress  have  a  settled  purpose  to  destroy  the 
institution  of  slavery  in  the  State  of  Mississippi, 
and  in  the  other  slave  States,  and  to  subvert  the 
sovereignty  of  all  the  slave  States.  It  is  the 
duty  of  history  to  deal  with  this  assertion,  thus 
solemnly  put  in  a  legislative  act  as  a  cause  for 
the  secession  of  a  State  from  the  Union — and  to 
say,  that  it  was  an  assertion  without  evidence, 
and  contrary  to  the  evidence,  and  contrary  to 
the  fact.  There  was  no  such  settled  purpose  in 
the  majority  of  Congress,  nor  in  a  minority  of 
Congress,  nor  in  any  half-dozen  members  of 
Congress — if  in  any  one  at  all.  It  was  a  most 
deplorable  assertion  of  a  most  alarming  design, 
calculated  to  mislead  and  inflame  the  ignorant, 
and  make  them  fly  to  disunion  as  the  refuge 
against  such  an  appalling  catastrophe.  But  it 
was  not  a  new  declaration.  It  was  part  and 
parcel  of  the  original  agitation  of  slavery  com- 
menced in  1835,  and  continued  ever  since.  To 
destroy  slavery  in  the  States  has  been  the  de- 
sign attributed  to  the  Northern  States  from 
that  day  to  this,  and  is  necessary  to  be  kept  up 
in  order  to  keep  alive  the  slavery  agitation  in 
the  slave  States.  It  has  received  its  constant 
and  authoritative  contradiction  in  the  conduct 
of  those  States  at  home,  and  in  the  acts  of  their 
representatives  in  Congress,  year  in  and  year 
out ;  and  continues  to  receive  that  contradiction, 
continually ;  but  without  having  the  least  effect 
upon  its  repetition  and  incessant  reiteration. 
In  the  mean  time  there  is  a  fact  visible  in  all  the 
slave  States,  which  shows  that,  notwithstanding 
these  twenty  years'  repetition  of  the  same  as- 
sertion, there  is  no  danger  to  slavery  in  any 
slave  State.  Property  is  timid!  and  slave  pro- 
perty above  all :  and  the  market  is  the  test  of 
safety  and  danger  to  all  property.  Nobody 
gives  full  price  for  anything  that  is  insecure, 
either  in  title  or  possession.  All  property,  in 
danger  from  either  cause,  sinks  in  price  when 
brought  to  that  infallible  test.  Now,  how  is  it 
with  slave  property,  tried  by  this  unerring 
standard  ?  Has  it  been  sinking  in  price  since 
the  year  1835?  since  the  year  of  the  first 
alarm  manifesto  in  South  Carolina,  and  the  first 
of  Mr.  Calhoun's  twenty  years'  alarm  speeches 
in  the  Senate  ?  On  the  contrary,  the  price  has 
been  constantly  rising  the  whole  time — and  is 
still  rising,  although  it  has  attained  a  height 


incredible -to  have  been  predicted  twenty  years 
ago. 

But,  although  the  slavery  alarm  does  not  act 
on  property,  yet  it  acts  on  the  feelings  and  pas- 
sions of  the  people,  and  excites  sectional  ani- 
mosity, hatred  for  the  Union,  and  desire  for 
separation.  The  Nashville  convention,  and  the 
call  for  the  Southern  Congress,  were  natural 
occasions  to  call  out  these  feelings ;  and  most 
copiously  did  they  flow.  Some  specimens,  taken 
from  the  considered  language  of  men  in  high 
authority,  and  speaking  advisedly,  and  for  ac- 
tion, will  show  the  temper  of  the  whole — the 
names  withheld,  because  the  design  is  to  show 
a  danger,  and  not  to  expose  individuals. 

In  the  South  Carolina  Legislature,  a  speaker 
declared : 

"We  must  secede  from  a  Union  perverted 
from  its  original  purpose,  and  which  has  now 
become  an  engine  of  oppression  to  the  South. 
He  thought  our  proper  course  was  for  this  legis- 
lature to  proceed  directly  to  the  election  of  dele- 
gates to  a  Southern  Congress.  He  thought  we 
should  not  await  the  action  of  all  the  Southern 
States  ;  but  it  is  prudent  for  us  to  await  the 
action  of  such  States  as  Alabama,  Georgia,  Mis- 
sissippi, and  Florida  ;  because  these  States  have 
requested  us  to  wait.  If  we  can  get  but  one 
State  to  unite  with  us,  then  we  must  act.  Once 
being  independent,  we  would  have  a  strong  ally 
in  England.  But  we  must  prepare  for  seces- 
sion." 

Another : 

"  The  friends  of  the  Southern  movement  in 
the  other  States  look  to  the  action  of  South 
Carolina ;  and  he  would  make  the  issue  in  a 
reasonable  time,  and  the  only  way  to  do  so  is 
by  secession.  There  would  be  no  concert  among 
the  Southern  States  until  a  blow  is  struck. 
And  if  we  are  sincere  in  our  determination  to 
resist,  we  must  give  the  South  some  guarantee 
that  we  are  in  earnest.  He  could  not  concur 
with  the  gentleman  from  Greenville  in  his  ex- 
pressions of  attachment  to  the  Union.  He  hated 
and  detested  the  Union,  and  was  in  favor  of 
cutting  the  connection.  He  avowed  himself  a 
disunionist — a  disunionist  per  se.  If  he  had 
the  power,  he  would  crush  this  Union  to-mor- 
row." 

Another : 

"  Denied  the  right  or  the  power  of  the  general 
government  to  coerce  the  State  in  case  of  seces- 
sion. This  State  is  sovereign  and  independent, 
so  soon  as  she  sees  proper  to  assert  that  sove- 
reignty. And  when  can  we  be  stronger  than 
we  are  now  ?    If  we  intend  to  wait  until  we  be- 


ANNO  1850.    MILLARD  FILLMORE,  PRESIDENT. 


783 


come  superior  to  the  federal  government  in  nu- 
merical strength,  we  will  wait  for  ever.  In  the 
event  of  an  attempt  to  coerce  her,  sacrifices 
might  be  made,  but  we  are  willing  and  ready  to 
make  those  sacrifices.  But  he  did  not  believe 
one  gun  would  be  fired  in  this  contest.  South 
Carolina  would  achieve  a  bloodless  victory. 
But,  should  there  be  a  war,  all  the  nations  of 
Europe  would  be  desirous  of  preserving  their 
commercial  intercourse  with  the  Southern  States 
and  would  make  the  effort  to  do  so.  He  thought 
there  never  would  be  a  union  of  the  South  until 
this  State  strikes  the  blow,  and  makes  the 
issue." 

Another : 

"  Would  not  recapitulate  the  evils  which  had 
been  perpetrated  upon  the  South.  Great  as 
they  have  been,  they  are  comparatively  unim- 
portant, when  compared  with  the  evils  to  which 
they  would  inevitably  lead.  We  must  not  con- 
sider what  we  have  borne,  but  what  we  must 
bear  hereafter.  There  is  no  remedy  for  these 
evils  in  the  government ;  we  have  no  alternative 
left  us,  then,  but  to  come  out  of  the  govern- 
ment." 

Another : 

"  He  was  opposed  to  calling  a  convention,  be- 
cause he  thought  it  would  impede  the  action  of 
this  State  on  the  questions  now  before  the 
country.  He  thought  it  would  impede  our 
progress  towards  disunion.  All  his  objections 
to  a  convention  of  the  people  applied  only  to  the 
proposition  to  call  it  now.  He  thought  con- 
ventions dangerous  things,  except  when  the  ne- 
cessities of  the  country  absolutely  demand  them. 
He  said  that  he  had  adopted  the  course  he  had 
taken  on  these  weighty  matters  simply  and  en- 
tirely with  the  view  of  hastening  the  dissolution 
of  this  Union." 

Another : 

"  Would  sustain  the  bill  for  electing  delegates 
to  a  Southern  Congress,  because  he  thought  it 
would  bring  about  a  more  speedy  dissolution  of 
the  Union." 

In  the  Nashville  convention  a  delegate  said  : 

"I  shall  enumerate  no  more  of  the  wrongs 
that  we  have  suffered,  or  the  dangers  with  which 
we  are  threatened.  If  these,  so  enormous  and 
so  atrocious,  are  not  sufficient  to  arouse  the 
Southern  mind,  our  case  is  desperate.  But 
supposing  that  we  shall  be  roused,  and  that  we 
shall,  act  like  freemen,  and,  knowing  our  rights 
and  our  wrongs,  shall  be  prepared  to  sustain 
the  one  and  redress  the  other,  what  is  the 
remedy?  I  answer  secession — united  seces- 
sion of  the  slaveholding  States,  or  a  large  num- 
ber of  them.  Nothing  else  will  be  wise — nothing 
else  will  be  practicable.  The  Rubicon  is  passed. 
The  Union  is  already  dissolved.     Instead  of 


wishing  the  perpetuity  of  any  government  over 
such  vast  boundaries,  the  rational  lover  of  liber- 
ty should  wish  for  its  speedy  dissolution,  as 
dangerous  to  all  just  and  free  rule.  Is  not  all 
this  exemplified  in  our  own  case  ?  In  nine 
months,  in  one  session  of  Congress,  by  a  great 
coup  (Petat,  our  constitution  has  been  com- 
pletely and  for  ever  subverted.  Instead  of  a 
well  balanced  government,  all  power  is  vested  in 
one  section  of  the  country,  which  is  in  bitter 
hostility  with  the  other.  And  this  is  the  glo- 
rious Union  which  we  are  to  support,  for  whose 
eternal  duration  we  are  to  pray,  and  before 
which  the  once  proud  Southron  is  to  bow  down. 
He  ought  to  perish  rather." 

"  They  have  not,  however,  been  satisfied  with 
taking  all  (the  territory).  They  have  made 
that  all  a  wicked  instrument  for  the  abolition 
of  the  constitution,  and  of  every  safeguard  of 
our  property  and  our  lives.  I  have  said  they 
have  made  the  appropriation  of  this  territory 
an  instrument  to  abolish  the  constitution.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  they  have  abolished  the  con- 
stitution. The  carcass  may  remain,  but  the 
spirit  has  left  it.  It  is  now  a  fetid  mass,  gene- 
rating disease  and  death.  It  stinks  in  our  nos- 
trils." 

"  A  constitution  means  ex  vi  termini,  a  guar- 
antee of  the  rights,  liberty,  and  security  of  a  free 
people,  and  can  never  survive  in  the  shape  of 
dead  formalities.  It  is  a  thing  of  life,  and  just 
and  fair  proportions ;  not  the  caput  mortuum 
which  the  so-called  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  has  now  become.  Is  there  a  Southern 
man  who  bears  a  soul  within  his  ribs,  who  will 
consent  to  be  governed  by  this  vulgar  tyran- 
ny," &c. 

From  public  addresses : 

"  Under  the  operation  of  causes  beyond  the 
scan  of  man,  we  are  rapidly  approaching  a  great 
and  important  crisis  in  our  history.  The  shadow 
of  the  sun  has  gone  back  upon  the  dial  of  Ameri- 
can liberty,  and  we  are  rapidly  hastening  to- 
wards the  troubled  sea  of  revolution.  A  disso- 
lution of  the  Union  is  our  inevitable  destiny, 
and  it  is  idle  for  man  to  raise  his  puny  arm  to 
stem  the  tide  of  events,"  &c. 

Another : 

"  We  must  form  a  separate  government.  The 
slaveholding  States  must  all  yet  see  that  their 
only  salvation  consists  in  uniting,  and  that 
promptly  too,  in  organizing  a  Southern  con- 
federacy. Should  we  be  wise  enough  thus  to 
unite,  all  California,  with  her  exhaustless  trea- 
sures, would  be  ours  ;  all  New  Mexico  also,  and 
the  sun  would  never  shine  upon  a  country  so 
rich,  so  great  and  so  powerful,  as  would  be  our 
Southern  republic." 

Another : 

"  By  our  physical  power,"  said  one  of  the  fore- 


784 


THIRTY  YEARS'  YIEW. 


most  of  those  leaders,  in  a  late  speech  to  his 
constituents,  "  we  can  protect  ourselves  against 
foreign  nations,  whilst  by  our  productions  we 
can  command  their  peace  or  support.  The  keys 
of  their  wealth  and  commerce  are  in  our  hands, 
which  we  will  freely  offer  to  them  by  a  system 
of  free  trade,  making  our  prosperity  their  inter- 
est— our  security  their  care.  The  lingering  or 
decaying  cities  of  the  South,  which  before  our 
Revolution  carried  on  all  their  foreign  com- 
merce, buoyant  with  prosperity  and  wealth,  but 
which  now  are  only  provincial  towns,  sluggish 
suburbs  of  Boston  and  New  York,  will  rise  up 
to  their  natural  destiny,  and  again  enfold  in 
their  embraces  the  richest  commerce  of  the 
world.  Wealth,  honor,  and  power,  and  one  of 
the  most  glorious  destinies  which  ever  crowned 
a  great  and  happy  people,  awaits  the  South,  if 
she  but  control  her  own  fate ;  but,  controlled 
by  another  people,  what  pen  shall  paint  the  in- 
famous and  bloody  catastrophe  which  must  mark 
her  fall  ?" 

From  fourth  of  July  toasts : 

'  The  Union :  A  splendid  failure  of  the  first 
modern  attempt,  by  people  of  different  institu- 
tions, to  live  under  the  same  government. 

"  The  Union :  For  it  we  have  endured  much ; 
for  it  we  have  sacrificed  much.  Let  us  beware 
lest  we  endure  too  much ;  lest  we  sacrifice  too 
much. 

"  Disunion  rather  than  degradation. 

"  South  Carolina :  She  struck  for  the  Union 
when  it  was  a  blessing;  when  it  becomes  a 
curse,  she  will  strike  for  herself. 

u  The  Compromise  :  '  The  best  the  South  can 
get.'  A  cowardly  banner  held  out  by  the  spoils- 
man that  would  sell  his  country  for  a  mess  of 
pottage. 

"  The  American  Eagle  :  In  the  event  of  a  dis- 
solution of  the  Union,  the  South  claims  as  her 
portion,  the  heart  of  the  noble  bird;  to  the 
Yankees  we  leave  the  feathers  and  carcass. 

"  The  South :  Fortified  by  right,  she  considers 
neither  threats  nor  consequences. 

"  The  Union :  Once  a  holy  alliance,  now  an 
accursed  bond." 

Among  the  multitude  of  publications  most 
numerous  in  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi, 
but  also  appearing  in  other  slave  States,  all  ad- 
vocating disunion,  there  were  some  (like  Mr. 
Calhoun's  letter  to  the  Alabama  member  which 
feared  the  chance  might  be  lost  which  the  Wil- 
mot  Proviso  furnished)  also  that  feared  agitation 
would  stop  in  Congress,  and  deprive  the  Southern 
politicians  of  the  means  of  uniting  the  slave 
States  in  a  separate  confederacy.  Of  this  class 
of  publications  here  is  one  from  a  leading  paper : 

"  The  object  of  South  Carolina  is  undoubtedly 
to  dissolve  this  Union,  and  form  a  confederacy 


of  slaveholding  States.  Should  it  be  impossible 
to  form  this  confederacy,  then  her  purpose  is, 
we  believe  conscientiously,  to  disconnect  herself 
from  the  Union,  and  set  up  for  an  independent 
Power.  Will  delay  bring  to  our  assistance  the 
slaveholding  States  ?  If  the  slavery  agitation, 
its  tendencies  and  objects,  were  of  recent  origin, 
and  not  fully  disclosed  to  the  people  of  the 
South,  delay  might  unite  us  in  concerted  action. 
We  have  no  indication  that  Congress  will  soon 
pass  obnoxious  measures,  restricting  or  crippling 
directly  the  institution  of  slavery.  Every  indi- 
cation makes  us  fear  that  a  pause  in  fanaticism 
is  about  to  follow,  to  allow  the  government  time 
to  consolidate  her  late  acquisitions  and  usurpa- 
tions of  power.  Then  the  storm  will  be  again 
let  loose  to  gather  its  fury,  and  burst  upon  our 
heads.  We  have  no  hopes  that  the  agitation  in 
Congress,  this  or  next  year,  will  bring  about 
the  union  of  the  South." 

Enough  to  show  the  spirit  that  prevailed,  and  \ 
the  extraordinary  and  unjustifiable  means  used 
by  the  leaders  to  mislead  and  exasperate  the 
people.  The  great  effort  was  to  get  a  "  South- 
ern Congress  "  to  assemble,  according  to  the  call 
of  the  Nashville  convention.  The  assembling  of 
that  "Congress"  was  a  turning  point  in  the 
progress  of  disunion.  It  failed.  At  the  head 
of  the  States  which  had  the  merit  of  stopping 
it,  was  Georgia — the  greatest  of  the  South- 
eastern Atlantic  States.  At  the  head  of  the 
presses  which  did  most  for  the  Union,  was  the 
National  Intelligencer  at  Washington  City,  long 
edited  by  Messrs.  Gales  &  Seaton,  and  now  as 
earnest  against  Southern  disunion  in  1850  as 
they  were  against  the  Hartford  convention  dis- 
union of  1814.  The  Nashville  convention,  the 
Southern  Congress,  and  the  Southern  Press 
established  at  Washington,  were  the  sequence 
and  interpretation  (so  far  as  its  disunion-design 
needed  interpretation),  of  the  Southern  address 
drawn  by  Mr.  Calhoun.  His  last  speech,  so  far 
as  it  might  need  interpretation,  received  it  soon 
after  his  death  in  a  posthumous  publication  of 
his  political  writings,  abounding  with  passages 
to  show  that  the  Union  was  a  mistake — the 
Southern  States  ought  not  to  have  entered  into 
it,  and  should  not  now  re-enter  it,  if  out  of  it, 
and  that  its  continuance  was  impossible  as  things 
stood:  Thus: 

"  All  this  has  brought  about  a  state  of  things 
hostile  to  the  continuance  of  this  Union,  and 
the  duration  of  the  government.  Alienation  is 
succeeding  to  attachment,  and  hostile  feelings  to 
alienation ;  and  these,  in  turn,  will  be  followed 
by  revolution,  or  a   disruption  of  the  Union, 


ANNO  1850.     MILLARD  FILLMORE,  PRESIDENT. 


785 


unless  timely  prevented.  But  this  cannot  be 
done  by  restoring  the  government  to  its  federal 
character — however  necessary  that  may  be  as  a 
first  step.  What  has  been  done  cannot  be  un- 
done. The  equilibrium  between  the  two  sec- 
tions has  been  permanently  destroyed  by  the 
measures  above  stated.  The  Northern  section, 
in  consequence,  will  ever  concentrate  within 
itself  the  two  majorities  of  which  the  govern- 
ment is  composed ;  and  should  the  Southern  be 
excluded  from  all  the  territories,  now  acquired, 
or  to  be  hereafter  acquired,  it  will  soon  have 
so  decided  a  preponderance  in  the  government 
and  the  Union,  as  to  be  able  to  mould  the  con- 
stitution to  its  pleasure.  Against  this  the  res- 
toration of  the  federal  character  of  the  govern- 
ment can  furnish  no  remedy.  So  long  as  it  con- 
tinues there  can  be  no  safety  for  the  weaker  sec- 
tion. It  places  in  the  hands  of  the  stronger 
and  the  hostile  section,  the  power  to  crush  her 
and  her  institutions  ;  and  leaves  no  alternative 
but  to  resist,  or  sink  down  into  a  colonial  con- 
dition. This  must  be  the  consequence,  if  some 
effectual  and  appropriate  remedy  is  not  applied. 
"The  nature  of  the  disease  is  such,  that 
nothing  can  reach  it,  short  of  some  organic 
change — a  change  which  will  so  modify  the  con- 
stitution as  to  give  to  the  weaker  section,  in 
some  one  form  or  another,  a  negative  on  the 
action  of  the  government.  Nothing  short  of 
this  can  protect  the  weaker,  and  restore  har- 
mony and  tranquillity  to  the  Union  by  arresting 
effectually  the  tendency  of  the  dominant  section 
to  oppress  the  weaker.  When  the  constitution 
was  formed,  the  impression  was  strong  that  the 
tendency  to  conflict  would  be  between  the 
larger  and  smaller  States;  and  effectual  pro- 
visions were  accordingly  made  to  guard  against, 
it.  But  experience  has  proved  this  to  be  a 
mistake;  and  that  instead  of  being  as  was 
then  supposed,  the  conflict  is  between  the  two 
great  sections  which  are  so  strongly  distin- 
guished by  their  institutions,  geographical 
character,  productions  and  pursuits.  Had  this 
been  then  as  clearly  perceived  as  it  now  is,  the 
same  jealousy  which  so  vigilantly  watched  and 
guarded  against  the  danger  of  the  larger  States 
oppressing  the  smaller,  would  have  taken  equal 
precaution  to  guard  against  the  same  danger 
between  the  two  sections.  It  is  for  us,  who  see 
and  feel  it,  to  do,  what  the  framers  of  the  con- 
stitution would  have  done,  had  they  possessed 
the  knowledge,  in  this  respect,  which  experience 
has  given  to  us ;  that  is,  to  provide  against  the 
dangers  which  the  system  has  practically  de- 
veloped ;  and  which,  had  they  been  foreseen  at 
the  time,  and  left  without  guard,  would  un- 
doubtedly have  prevented  the  States  forming 
the  Southern  section  of  the  confederacy,  from 
ever  agreeing  to  the  constitution  ;  and  which, 
under  like  circumstances,  were  they  now  out  of, 
would  for  ever  prevent  them  entering  into  the 
Union.  How  the  constitution  could  best  be 
modified,  so  as  to  effect  the  object,  can  only  be 

Vol  II.—50 


authoritatively  determined  by  the  amending 
power.  It  may  be  done  in  various  ways. 
Among  others,  it  might  be  effected  through  a 
re-organization  of  the  Executive  Department ; 
so  that  its  powers,  instead  of  being  vested,  as 
they  now  are,  in  a  single  officer,  should  be 
vested  in  two,  to  be  so  elected,  as  that  the  two 
should  be  constituted  the  special  organs  and 
representatives  of  the  respective  sections  in  the 
Executive  Department  of  the  government ;  and 
requiring  each  to  approve  of  all  the  acts  of 
Congress  before  they  become  laws.  One  might 
be  charged  with  the  administration  of  matters 
connected  with  the  foreign  relations  of  the 
country ;  and  the  other,  of  such  as  were  con- 
nected with  its  domestic  institutions:  the 
selection  to  be  decided  by  lot.  Indeed  it  may 
be  doubted,  whether  the  framers  of  the  consti- 
tution did  not  commit  a  great  mistake,  in  con- 
stituting a  single,  instead  of  a  plural  executive. 
Nay,  it  may  even  be  doubted  whether  a  single 
magistrate,  invested  with  all  the  powers  pro- 
perly appertaining  to  the  Executive  Department 
of  the  government,  as  is  the  President,  is  com- 
patible with  the  permanence  of  a  popular  gov- 
ernment ;  especially  in  a  wealthy  and  populous 
community,  with  a  large  revenue,  and  a  nume- 
rous body  of  officers  and  employees.  Certain 
it  is,  that  there  is  no  instance  of  a  popular  gov- 
ernment so  constituted  which  has  long  endured. 
Even  ours,  thus  far,  furnishes  no  evidence  in  its 
favor,  and  not  a  little  against  it :  for,  to  it  the 
present  disturbed  and  dangerous  state  of  things, 
which  threaten  the  country  with  monarchy  or 
disunion,  may  be  justly  attributed." 

The  observing  reader,  who  may  have  looked 
over  the  two  volumes  of  this  View,  in  noting 
the  progress  of  the  slavery  agitation,  and  its 
successive  alleged  causes  for  disunion,  must 
have  been  struck  with  the  celerity  with  which 
these  causes,  each  in  its  turn,  as  soon  as  re- 
moved, has  been  succeeded  by  another,  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind ;  until,  at  last,  they  terminate  in  a 
cause  which  ignores  them  all,  and  find  a  new 
reason  for  disunion  in  the  constitution  itself! 
in  that  constitution,  the  protection  of  which 
had  been  invoked  as  sufficient,  during  the  whole 
period  of  the  alleged  "  aggressions  and  encroach- 
ments." In  1835,  when  the  first  agitation  mani- 
festo, and  call  for  a  Southern  convention,  and 
invocation  to  unity  and  concert  of  action,  came 
forth  in  the  Charleston  Mercury,  entitled  "  The 
Crisis,"  the  cause  of  disunion  was  then  in  the 
abolition  societies  established  in  some  of  the 
free  States,  and  which  these  States  were  required 
to  suppress.  Then  came  the  abolition  petitions 
presented  in  Congress;  then  the  mail  trans- 
mission of  incendiary  publications  j  then  the 


786 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia ; 
then  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  between 
the  States  ;  then  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from 
Oregon  j  then  the  Wilmot  Proviso;  then  the 
admission  of  California  with  a  free  constitu- 
tion. Each  of  these,  in  its  day,  was  a  cause  of 
disunion,  to  be  effected  through  the  instrumen- 
tality of  a  Southern  convention,  forming  a  sub- 
confederacy,  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  constitu- 
tion, and  effecting  the  disunion  by  establishing  a 
commercial  non-intercourse  with  the  free  States. 
After  twenty  years'  agitation  upon  these  points, 
they  are  all  given  up.  The  constitution,  and 
the  Union,  were  found  to  be  a  "mistake"  from 
the  beginning — an  error  in  their  origin,  and  an 
impossibility  in  their  future  existence,  and  to 
be  amended  into  another  impossibility,  or  broken 
up  at  once. 

The  regular  inauguration  of  this  slavery  agi- 
tation dates  from  the  year  1835 ;  but  it  had 
commenced  two  years  before,  and  in  this  way : 
nullification  and  disunion  had  commenced  in 
1830  upon  complaint  against  protective  tariff. 
That  being  put  down  in  1833  under  President 
Jackson's  proclamation  and  energetic  measures, 
was  immediately  substituted  by  the  slavery  agi- 
tation. Mr.  Calhoun,  when  he  went  home  from 
Congress  in  the  spring  of  that  year,  told  his 
friends,  That  the  South  could  never  be  united 
against  the  North  on  the  tariff  question — that 
the  sugar  interest  of  Louisiana  would  keep 
her  out — and  that  the  basis  of  Southern  union 
must  be  shifted  to  the  slave  question.  Then 
all  the  papers  in  his  interest,  and  especially  the 
one  at  Washington,  published  by  Mr.  Duff 
Green,  dropped  tariff  agitation,  and  commenced 
upon  slavery;  and,  in  two  years,  had  the  agi- 
tation ripe  for  inauguration  on  the  slavery 
question.  And,  in  tracing  this  agitation  to  its 
present  stage,  and  to  comprehend  its  rationale, 
it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  it  is  a  mere  con- 
tinuation of  old  tariff  disunion ;  and  preferred 
because  more  available. 

In  June,  1833,  at  the  first  transfer  of  South- 
ern agitation  from  tariff  to  slavery.  Mr.  Madi- 
son wrote  to  Mr.  Clay : 

"  It  is  painful  to  see  the  unceasing  efforts  to 
alarm  the  Souths  by  imputations  against  the 
North  of  unconstitutional  designs  on  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery.  You  are  right,  I  have  no 
doubt,  in  believing  that  no  such  intermeddling 
disposition  exists  in  the  body  of  our  Northern 
brethren.      Their    good  faith  is  sufficiently 


guaranteed  by  the  interest  they  have  as  mer- 
chants, as  ship-owners,  and  as  manufacturers, 
in  preserving  a  union  with  the  slaveholding 
States.  On  the  other  hand,  what  madness  in 
the  South  to  look  for  greater  safety  in  dis- 
union. It  would  be  worse  than  jumping  into 
the  fire  for  fear  of  the  frying-pan.  The  dan- 
ger from  the  alarms  is,  that  pride  and  resent- 
ment excited  by  them  may  be  an  overmatch  ■ 
for  the  dictates  of  prudence  ;  and  favor  the 
project  of  a  Southern  convention,  insidiously 
revived,  as  promising  by  its  counsels  the  best 
security  against  grievances  of  every  kind 
from  the  North." 

Nullification,  secession,  and  disunion  were 
considered  by  Mr.  Madison  as  synonymous 
terms,  dangerous  to  the  Union  as  fire  to  pow- 
der, and  the  danger  increasing  in  all  the  South- 
ern States,  even  Virginia.  "  Look  at  Virginia 
herself,  and  read  in  the  Gazettes,  and  in  the 
proceedings  of  popular  meetings,  the  figure 
which  the  anarchical  principle  now  makes,  in 
contrast  with  the  scouting  reception  given  to 
it  but  a  short  time  ago."  Mr.  Madison  solaced 
himself  with  the  belief  that  this  heresy  would 
not  reach  a  majority  of  the  States ;  but  he  had 
his  misgivings,  and  wrote  them  down  in  the 
same  paper,  entitled,  "  Memorandum  on  nullifi- 
cation," written  in  his  last  days  and  published 
after  his  death.  "  But  a  susceptibility  of  the 
contagion  in  the  Southern  Stales  is  visible, 
and  the  danger  not  to  be  concealed,  that  the 
sympathy  arising  from  known  causes,  and 
the  inculcated  impression  of  a  permanent  in- 
compatibility of  interests  between  the  North 
and  the  South,  may  put  it  in  the  power  of  pop- 
ular leaders,  aspiring  to  the  highest  stations, 
to  unite  the  South  on  some  critical  occasion, 
in  a  course  that  will  end  in  creating  a  theatre 
of  great  though  inferior  extent.  In  pursuing 
this  course,  the  first  and  most  obvious  step  is 
nullification — the  next,  secession — and  the  last, 
a  farewell  separation.  How  near  has  this 
course  been  lately  exemplified  I  and  the  danger 
of  its  recurrence,  in  the  same  or  some  other 
quarter,  may  be  increased  by  an  increase  of 
restless  aspirants,  and  by  the  increasing  im- 
practicability of  retaining  in  the  Union  a 
large  and  cemented  section  against  its  will" 
— So  wrote  Mr.  Madison  in  the  year  183G,  in 
the  86th  year  of  his  age,  and  the  last  of  his 
life.  He  wrote  with  the  pen  of  inspiration,  and 
the  heart  of  a  patriot,  and  with  a  soul  which 
filled  the  Union,  and  could  not  be  imprisoned  in 


ANNO  1850.    MILLARD  FILLMORE,  PRESIDENT. 


787 


one  half  of  it.  He  was  a  Southern  man !  but 
his  Southern  home  could  not  blind  his  mental 
vision  to  the  origin,  design,  and  consequences 
of  the  slavery  agitation.  He  gives  to  that  agi- 
tation, a  Southern  origin — to  that  design,  a  dis- 
union end — to  that  end,  disastrous  consequences 
both  to  the  South  and  the  North. 

Mr.  Calhoun  is  dead.  Peace  to  his  manes. 
But  he  has  left  his  disciples  who  do  not  admit 
of  peace  !  who  "  rush  in  "  where  their  master 
"feared  to  tread."  He  recoiled  from  the  dis- 
turbance of  the  Missouri  compromise :  they  ex- 
punge it.  He  shuddered  at  the  thought  of 
bloodshed  in  civil  strife :  they  demand  three 
millions  of  dollars  to  prepare  arms  for  civil  war. 


CHAPTER    CXCIX. 

THE  SUPREME  COURT:  ITS  JUDGES,  CLERK,  AT- 
TORNEY-GENERALS, REPORTERS  AND  MAR- 
SHALS DURING  THE  PERIOD  TREATED  OF  IN 
THIS  VOLUME. 

Chief  Justice:  —  Roger  Brooke  Taney,  of 
Maryland,  appointed  in  1836 :  continues,  1850. 

Justices  : — Joseph  Story,  of  Massachusetts, 
appointed,  1811 :  died  1845. — John  McLean,  of 
Ohio,  appointed,  1829  :  continues,  1850. — James 
M.  Wayne,  of  Georgia,  appointed,  1835 :  con- 
tinues, 1850. — John  Catron,  of  Tennessee,  ap- 
pointed, 1837:  continues,  1850. — Levi  Wood- 
bury, of  New  Hampshire,  appointed,  1845 :  con- 
tinues, 1850. — Robert  C.  Grier,  of  Pennsylvania, 
appointed,  1846  :  continues,  1850. 

Attorney-Generals: — Henry  D.  Gilpin,  of 
Pennsylvania,  appointed,  1840. — John  J.  Crit- 
tenden, of  Kentucky,  appointed,  1841. — Hugh 
S.  Legare,  of  South  Carolina,  appointed,  1841. 
— John  Nelson,  of  Maryland,  appointed,  1843. — 
John  Y.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  appointed,  1846. 
— Nathan  Clifford,  of  Maine,  appointed,  1846. — 
Isaac  Toucey,  of  Connecticut,  appointed,  1848. 
— Reverdy  Johnson,  of  Maryland,  appointed, 
1849. — John  J.  Crittenden,  of  Kentucky,  ap- 
pointed, 1850. 

Clerk: — William  Thomas  Carroll,  of  the 
District  of  Columbia,  appointed,  1827:  con- 
tinues, 1850. 

Reporters  of  Decisions  : — Richard  Peters, 
jr.,  of  Pennsylvania,  appointed,  1828. — Benja- 


min C.  Howard,  appointed,  1843 :  continues, 
1850. 

Marshals: — Alexander  Hunter,  appointed, 
1834.  — Robert  Wallace,  appointed,  1848.— 
Richard  Wallach,  appointed,  1849. 


CHAPTER    CC. 

CONCLUSION. 

I  have  finished  the  View  which  I  proposed  to 
take  of  the  Thirty  Years'  working  of  the  federal 
government  during  the  time  that  I  was  a  part 
of  it — a  task  undertaken  for  a  useful  purpose, 
and  faithfully  executed,  whether  the  object  of 
the  undertaking  has  been  attained  or  not.  The 
preservation  of  what  good  and  wise  men  gave 
us,  has  been  the  object ;  and  for  that  purpose  it 
has  been  a  duty  of  necessity  to  show  the  evil,  as 
well  as  the  good,  that  I  have  seen,  both  of  men 
and  measures.  The  good,  I  have  exultingly  ex- 
hibited !  happy  to  show  it,  for  the  admiration 
and  imitation  of  posterity  :  the  evil,  I  have 
stintedly  exposed,  only  for  correction,  and  for 
the  warning  example. 

I  have  seen  the  capacity  of  the  people  for 
self-government  tried  at  many  points,  and  al- 
ways found  equal  to  the  demands  of  the  occa- 
sion. Two  other  trials,  now  going  on,  remain 
to  be  decided  to  settle  the  question  of  that  capa- 
city. 1.  The  election  of  President !  and  whether 
that  election  is  to  be  governed  by  the  virtue 
and  intelligence  of  the  people,  or  to  become  the 
spoil  of  intrigue  and  corruption  ?  2.  The  sen- 
timent of  political  nationality  !  and  whether  it 
is  to  remain  co-extensive  with  the  Union,  lead- 
ing to  harmony  and  fraternity ;  or,  divide  into 
sectionalism,  ending  in  hate,  alienation,  separa- 
tion and  civil  war  ? 

An  irresponsible  body  (chiefly  self-consti- 
tuted, and  mainly  dominated  by  professional 
office-seekers  and  office-holders)  have  usurped 
the  election  of  President  (for  the  nomina- 
tion is  the  election,  so  far  as  the  party  is  con- 
cerned) ;  and  always  making  it  with  a  view  to 
their  own  profit  in  the  monopoly  of  office  and 
plunder. 

A  sectional  question  now  divides  the  Union, 
arraying  one-half  against  the  other,  becoming 


788 


THIRTY  YEARS'  VIEW. 


more  exasperated  daily — which  has  already 
destroyed  the  benefits  of  the  Union,  and 
which,  unless  checked,  will  also  destroy  its 
form. 

Confederate  republics  are  short-lived — the 
shortest  in  the  whole  family  of  governments. 
Two  diseases  beset  them — corrupt  election  of 
the  chief  magistrate,  when  elective ;  sectional 
contention,  when  interest  or  ambition  are  at 
issue.  Our  confederacy  is  now  laboring  under 
both  diseases :  and  the  body  of  the  people,  now 
as  always,  honest  in  sentiment  and  patriotic  in 
design,  remain  unconscious  of  the  danger — and 


even  become  instruments  in  the  hands  of  their 
destroyers. 

If  what  is  written  in  these  chapters  shall  con- 
tribute to  open  their  eyes  to  these  dangers,  and 
rouse  them  to  the  resumption  of  their  electoral 
privileges  and  the  suppression  of  sectional  con- 
tention, then  this  View  will  not  have  been 
written  in  vain.  If  not,  the  writer  will  still 
have  one  consolation — the  knowledge  of  the 
fact  that  he  has  labored  in  his  day  and  genera- 
tion, to  preserve  and  perpetuate  the  blessings  of 
that  Union  and  self-government  which  wise  and 
good  men  gave  us. 


THE    END. 


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